Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire [3DS Hoenn Remake, November 2014]

[Blue Blood]

Who wouldn't like her?

 

 

 

I don't dislike her (which is more than I can say for the vast majority of Pokémon characters) but even looking at that... I suppose what ever you guys all seem to love about her so much completely goes over my head. Her dialogue is neither funny nor endearing. 

[Jolt_TH]

I think it's the novice/naievety of her character aswell as the obvious nervousness and uneasiness of being a new gym leader. She shows lost of actual emotion and makes her feel more human?

I think that's it, I may be wrong though

[Solkia]

That and she's a hot dork

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Am I the only one that thinks that Norman

 

 

Looks like David Tennant a bit?

 

Anyway, I love these redesigns. They look really good, since I wasn't big on the old art for these characters.

[Solkia]

I'm so glad Roxanne no longer has the stupid Chun-Li legs going on anymore. It was always so jarring to see this girl with a petite build and beefy legs.

[Teoskaven]

Am I the only one that thinks that Norman

 

 

 

 

Looks like David Tennant a bit?

 

Anyway, I love these redesigns. They look really good, since I wasn't big on the old art for these characters.

 

He looks more like Lupin III if you ask me.

[Dantemustdie00]

Norman needs a Samurai Sword or something.

[TCB]

I still hope for a Battle Frontier. Who's with me?

[Gabz Girl]

^ I do, whether it's DLC or whatever. I just wanna see something Battle Frontier related, especially after all the teasing that GF has been doing. >< Its like they're taunting us!

[Mania Pipe]

^ I do, whether it's DLC or whatever. I just wanna see something Battle Frontier related, especially after all the teasing that GF has been doing. >< Its like they're taunting us!

 

I just want to battle the Hoenn Frontier Brains again. Love the battle music, but doesn't fit the Battle Chatelaines at all imo.

 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Welp, there went the Pokemon OMEGARUBY tournament we had at the start of the year. Crow lost his badge.

[SuperLink]

Oh man! That huge plot speculation post I made a couple months back is now lost in the void! Oh well. Long story short, ORAS is #DEEPESTLORE and #SHALLOWESTREMOVEDFEATURES. Buy for the nostalgia, stay for the fascinating worldbuilding and story, leave for all the Emerald shit they took out.
 
This is speculation of another kind that I'm posting here bc it's currently the most active Pokémon thread (and it kinda involves ORAS. Kinda.) and keep in mind it is just speculation but I'm still interested.
 
Now, since there was a lot of GameFreak confusion yesterday due to a certain game announcement, the internet went into a tizzy and assumed GameFreak and/or Pokémon were leaving Nintendo. As a result, some well-researched NeoGAFers made this amazing thread that basically explains in a fair amount of detail how the ownership of Pokémon works, including what The Pokémon Company's role in it is. Which is probably boring for a lot of you so I'll skip to the speculation, I highly recommend the thread if you're interested in the company politics though.
 
Long story short, eventually Serebii himself dropped into the thread and said a couple of things that I'm not sure he'd be allowed to say. So I'll put it in spoiler tags.
 

http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=155618815&postcount=70

I believe this year is to be the year of spin-offs since we're not getting a main series title this year.

We actually have a 3DS one due out in the next few months (unless it got canned/delayed) which isn't a puzzle title, and certainly isn't small.

 

The second point I'm assuming is about Great Detective Pikachu which was initially announced for Summer 2015, but I'll be very surprised if it's on track for Summer release.

 

The first paragraph is the most interesting to me, because iirc we're had no confirmation of this and yet he says it with confidence. Serebii has insider knowledge and shit so he's probably right, we are not getting a mainseries game this year. This is interesting for multiple reasons.

• This is the first time since 2008 we've had a year with no mainseries Pokémon title.
• All Pokémon games so far took 1/2 years to get their upgraded/sequel version. XY will take 3.
• If what I hear about XY and ORAS being dev'd by two different teams is true, then the XY team will have been working on the next Kalos game for much longer than any other upgraded version has been worked on.
• 2016 is Pokémon's 20th anniversary, and all this means that the next Kalos game is also going to be the 20th anniversary game.

Put this all together with all of ORAS' lore, all of XY's plotholes and the fact that Pokémon Bank data suggests there are 1 or 2 more games on the Gen6 engine, this kind of development cycle has never happened with Pokémon before and it kinda seems like the last Gen6 game (or pair of games) will be a pretty big deal. I don't know what to expect but I am prepared for disappointment anyway especially since they've made me all interested now.

 

All this speculation leads me to some kinda grasping speculation though, since 2015 is the first year since 2008 with no mainseries Pokémon game, I wonder if instead there will be some kind of ORAS dlc or expansion pack to fill the gap? It probably won't happen, but it'd make sense if it did if they're not releasing anything else this year and wanna release something small to keep us going.

[Solkia]

I'm not entirely convinced there will be a third Kalos game.

[Mania Pipe]

I'm not entirely convinced there will be a third Kalos game.

 

Are you talking about Pokemon Z/X2Y2? Or the game after that?

[Solkia]

I mean Z. Everyone thought we were going to get Pokemon Grey back when Black and White were out, but GF decided to expand Unova's story instead.

 

Since 2010, Pokemon games have had heavy emphasis on story. I'm betting we either get sequels or a new region entirely.

[SuperLink]

Are you talking about Pokemon Z/X2Y2? Or the game after that?

I assume he's talking about "whatever's next". I don't entirely disagree.

 

I'm sure that whatever's next will involve Zygarde and not necessarily Kalos, but the reason I think it's gonna be Kalos is because GameFreak and Nintendo kinda love Kalos and play it up a lot, I don't think they'd abandon it after just one major release.

 

EDIT: Oh, I thought Solkia meant he thought there wouldn't be a Kalos sequel either P:

I do think a sequel is more likely but I kinda think we'll see something different again.

[Solkia]

I wouldn't mind sequels if it was an excuse to bring back customization.

[Gabz Girl]

So no major Pokémon title this year besides Pokkén? Whatever they're working on next has to be a pretty big deal, especially if they're waiting for Pokémon's 20th Anniversary next year.

 

I don't care what it is, but please GF bring back customization. PLEASE.

[Mania Pipe]

I think they could actually make a sequel to XY's story in some way or probably have to make an all new storyline, referencing the original's story and bringing up old plot points of it. Although I have this gut feeling they won't and just make Z, but I may be wrong. As long as the customization returns, I'd be okay with either one.

[Salamander]

On a commercial level, I would be astonished if we didn't get a third/fourth Kalos game, as GameFreak has years of precedent of being able to resell the same assets in an added version.  It won't necessarily have a Z in the title, but it's practically guaranteed that Kalos will be back.  With that said, putting a lot more effort into a remake version, as was done with B2W2, is not only very welcome but might actually be obligatory at this point.  Would be interesting to see sales figures of past third versions relative to their originals and compared to the BW approach.  In any case, let's not kid ourselves - B2W2 was "Grey" in almost every respect.  It had a new(ish) rather than expanded story and they sold it as two games, but besides those points there's absolutely nothing it did that Grey wouldn't have done anyway - that previous third versions hadn't done already.

 

Meanwhile, doing a new game with a new region I think would be... confusing.  They've set up a clear pattern of new regions entailing new Pokemon and indeed a new generation.  If the next game had a new region but simply used all the existing Pokemon, then it would quite frankly be slammed as a pointless new iteration.  Added to that, what's GameFreak's incentive for taking all the time, effort, and money to design and produce a new region only to push it out as a spin-off with no new Pokemon to sell it?  Again, I'd be astonished if that happened.  An expansion to Kalos, yes, certainly, but a new region won't be happening.

 

Delaying Z - I should mention that this is my codename for the next Kalos title, it could be X2 and Y2 or whatever - could also be a commercial decision, for that matter, to let this year's big Pokemon release be Great Detective Pikachu, which otherwise might be crowded out by Z.  Hopefully that will provide an impetus to show that that delay was good for something in Z, though.

 

In other words, I think it's business as usual.  Maybe it'll be next year, but we'll be getting another Kalos game with customisation, Zygarde, and more Mega Evolutions.  If it's a twentieth anniversary game and they decide to give us more bang for our buck in consequence, all the better, but they won't skip out on all of their customary money-making tactics.

[DarkRula]

Sounds interesting, but I can't help but wonder how many people - wherever they may be - are looking at all of this and just thinking "new game with all regions or remade 3D red/blue for 20th anniversary please"?

I can't see that happening, even for an important anniversary. Maybe a surprise of some sort will come - travel to Kanto/Johto in Kalos2, maybe - but nothing too drastic. They've still to continue the gen 6 story, and I can't see them extending the generation out past what's neccessary.

[Sean]

Once again I really want a game where you explore Kalos and Hoenn both. It would be the greatest third version in existence due to being an updated version of two pairs of games

 

but making a single updated version won't get Game Freak and Nintendo more money tbh

[Kuzu]

Depends on what they want to do with this DEEPESTLURE.

[LATER BUDDY]

Kinda hope it goes the GSC route, where they bring us an entirely new region, just to find out after the E4 that it was right next door to Kalos. It's been a few years and you get to go back and go through Kalos again, this time slightly altered, and maybe now focusing on Zygarde or something. So almost like an entire second story to do after you beat whatever is happening in said new region. Heck, they could even introduce another Gen 6 sized Pokedex for the new region since the last one was so light. Wouldn't be an outright seventh gen Pokemon list, but more over a Gen 6.5 type deal.

 

Honestly have no idea what's in store and kinda like it that way, but this would be my ultimate wish anyway

[Salamander]

Can they even fit a whole second region onto the game cartridge, though, with how resource-rich and expansive modern regions are?  I suspect there's also a cost-benefit analysis as to how many players would play all the way through and enjoy a second region, too, if it doubled the length of the game - not necessarily a good thing.  I've felt the games have started overstaying their welcome with just one region.  They'd need to balance the game difficulty quite carefully to make the second region still interesting rather than just busy-work, unless both regions were very short.

 

I guess there's an issue there in that, the longer the game is, the harder it is to control the player's level, and with typical evolutionary levels and the time investment needed to level up a party, practically speaking a story player will probably have hit their final team (if not moveset) by say the sixth gym, seventh tops, maybe even fifth depending on how they're arranged.  Grinding that team through about another ten gyms is a tough proposition in terms of keeping it interesting - and asking them to train a new team, hmm, I don't know if it'd be viable.  Make it too separate and too thorough, and you've just made another game at zero cost to the player.  And for competitive players, I'd assume they'd want the story over with as soon as possible and all Pokemon unlocked so they can get on with selecting, breeding and grinding...  GSC probably made the right call - even if it was also due to technological constraints - in having Kanto be so much shorter and relatively free-roaming; it definitely feels like a postgame.

 

I guess I'd be okay with a second region if it was really easy-going and you could pretty much just wander around wherever you liked, with only a few short, focussed quests and not too many pushover trainers hurling themselves at you to die.  If they only plonked down a trainer in front of you if they were going to be interesting and a challenge on their own terms.  A sort of extreme hard mode.  Although actually, they should cut busywork pushover trainers from the main game, too.  Towards the end of the recent games it's been very easy for battles to just be not worth it because they don't show you anything new.  GameFreak have learnt to make bigger areas, but they haven't figured out yet how to make them interesting.

 

I'm also expecting future Pokedex expansions to continue to be relatively "short."  Mega Evolutions don't count numerically but are very much new Pokemon, and they bumped Gen VI's new Pokemon count up to the one hundred baseline even before ORAS.  Add in ORAS and Z, and we'll probably hit a hundred and fifty, or not far off it.  It's actually a pretty clever idea; it allows them to capitalise on nostalgia and past Pokemon favourites with limited conceptual effort, and means they can put more effort into a much more concentrated, limited cast of wholly new Pokemon.  (Wouldn't be surprised if Gen VII gave Mega Evolutions a Pokedex number to make this clearer, as a lot of people missed it.  Even if they're just .5 on the original number.)  Unova having a full Pokedex of entirely new Pokemon with no returning ones was a pretty revolutionary experience, but it was very hard to disguise the fact that a lot of them were recognisably just retooled versions of old favourites (the Roggenrola line is the Geodude line, Trubbish is Grimer, Timburr is Machop, Elgyem is Drowzee, Woobat is Zubat, etc.).  Creatively, GameFreak don't have too many new Pokemon at once in them.

 

On the subject of anniversary remakes, though, I've said it before, but I wouldn't say no to a Red 2 / Blue 2 for the 25th anniversary, set twenty-five years later.  Show us how far the franchise has come.  But I think the series is reaching its limits for remakes short of radical gameplay changes and further technological leaps.  The differences between Gen IV and Gen VI are honestly pretty negligible, visually and in gameplay terms, and remaking previous generations again outside of a one-off and hugely ambitious Gen I remake would be more milking of the franchise than I think anyone could take.

 

...I'm incapable of writing a short post in a Pokemon thread.