A few hours in Omega Ruby and I need to voice some criticisms. To me, ORAS has been playing up flashy visuals and aesthetic appeals over real genuine adventure creating. This has been the trend for all of gen 6, but I didnt notice it as much with X/Y since I didnt have a direct comparison to the older games. I see this from some small things early in the journey. 1. No more walking shoes. Remember back in the day when you didnt start with running shoes but you had to get them from your mom before starting your adventure? In X/Y I was thrilled with not having to wait for running shoes, but now Im starting to regret it. Suffering builds character. Even though it made the beginning of the game slow and tedious and didnt directly add to game value, theres a sense of liberation and a real my adventure is now beginning feeling with receiving your running shoes before you start your journey. 2. Starting with 10 pokeballs and with potions. This is a minor thing to pick at, but I also feel it was such a minor thing to change. It was such a small detail and it has been part of pokemon history for so long, why bother changing it? Just a minor irk. 3. EXP share. I hate the new EXP share mechanics in gen 6. Makes the game way too easy and overlevels all pokemon in the party. Theres something disingenuous with leveling up pokemon without actually training them. Sure its more /convenient/ but it subtracts from the experience (no pun intended). 4. Pacing, and this is a big one. The new games are a lot quicker paced. *Maybe* its because Im not a little kid who is new to pokemon, but I find the game to go by so much faster. Drawing a specific example, the pacing in Dewford is ORAS is completely messed up. *Spoiler alert* When you get to Dewford, you have to beat Brawly and go to the cave to find Steven. Finding Steven consists of literally walking in a linear room progression into the first room. Who remembers the original R/S/E where you actually had to FIND him? Exploring those caves was a real event in the original games, but it has been reduced to a fluffy its the thought that counts in these remakes. I left Dewford after completing the story, talking to the locals and catching all the pokemon with a feeling of complete dissatisfaction. I found this is X/Y as well where it was so easy to just blow through the game. I sincerely hope that is just because Im older than I was as a kid, but I do genuinely feel that the new games are a lot emptier than the originals. 5. Brineys ship travelling. This one really gets me. In the original R/S/E, when you get onto Mr Brineys ship, you watched it as it the ship traveled the water route from Petalburg to Dewford. In these remakes, theres a brief flash before you just end up in your destination. For me, this takes away from the continuity of the world. Watching Brineys ship travels was part of the experience that opened my mind to the world and helped create that immersive experience. From the new game, if feels like Im just playing the developers story, going from point A to point B. 6. Related to that is how the towns and routes are separated. Not sure the exact mechanics behind it, but the original games were a lot more open world. There were not loading screens in between regions. For example, now when you leave Petalburg city to the left, the screen goes black and has to load. I think this is because of the game engine or whatever and it allows for the superior depth/detail once the region has been loaded up, but the tradeoff is not worth it to me. Pauses like those disrupt the continuity. In the original games, there were loading screens for distinct areas. For example, going into the woods warranted a loading screen, going through buildings did as well. I noticed Rustboro city DID have a seamless transition, unlike Petalburg. So its not for all cities. Probably just has to do with how the regions of the game are programmed and how the system can access the data, but I dont know understand that part of it. What I do know is that discontinuity subtracts from the experience. 7. PSS/EV training. I dislike this new gimmick for EV training. Biased toward gen 4 training/breeding mechanics since thats where I learned, but I feel these new gimmicks subtract from the original experience of training your pokemon, even though it was hard, and time consuming and boring. Thats what being a trainer is all about. 8. Event pokemon. All these event pokemon and limited offers and everything make me uphappy. From the release day Victini and Torchic, to the numerous other event pokemon like Diance and Mega Gengar and whatever. Theres too many special pokemon for me to keep track of and to me, it devalues the value of rare pokemon. I suppose this reflects the veracious consumer demand from fans in the modern day... Nintendo needs to offer frequent DLC to appease its fans and remain competitive. Overall the greed of capitalism and the free market are ruining the experience of pokemon for me. [9. This last one is a personal thing, but I dislike the new connectivity of the games. Personally I disliked making pokemon a more interconnected experience. Things like streetpass and the ease at which you can trade/battle online discourages me. To me, pokemon is a deeply personal and individual adventure] So in summary, while ORAS is a polished and modernized version of my all time favourite video games, they also represent the change in values of the game makers. No longer is it about creating a unique and personal experience, so much as it is about showing off flashy new graphics and features. Of course, Im not even that far in the game yet. I will adjust my opinions and re-evaluate as I progress. I want to make it clear Im not trying to rip on ORAS as much as I am gen 6 and the modern idea of a pokemon game. This may reflect my own inability to stay with the times. I was really hoping for Omega Ruby to be a major nostalgia trip, but its really showing me that my values of an ideal video game may not be as mainstream/profitable from a developers standpoint. tl;dr Im a grumpy old man now.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 22:23:38 +0000
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