On November 21st 2014 The Pokemon Company released Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. A remake of the much beloved Ruby; Sapphire; Emerald. The game sports the 3DS graphical upgrade, the charming touches from X&Y and for those of you who have the handheld console 3D graphics. Minus the touch they gave to Heart Gold and Soul Silver of being able to have your first slot Pokemon follow behind you while in the over world.
After ten years we are treated to a graphical upgrade to a game that redefined the series with implementation of being able to choose the gender of your character and not getting your pokemon from a sterile lab but throwing you right into a battle. The Hoenn Region has not changed at all save for the real world references it makes. The games story has not changed. You are still the child of a gym leader who just shipped his family up from Jhoto. You still have to stop Team Magma and Team Aqua from trying to destroy the world with Land or Water dominance.
From the opening cut scene you are treated to a visually smoother and richer Hoenn Region, the land is more fleshed out much like in the newer Pokemon games. You start off with your NavGear like in the original game. But here is where things get wonky. You get upgrades to it like a radar that helps you detect near by potentially rare Pokemon. From what I am told the more you use it the easier it is for the radar to pick out rarer subtypes of Pokemon. Once you reach the town your father is in you are given the ability to play online with others. It gives you the options you had in X&Y to Wonder Trade, Battle, Trade, Global Trade anytime anywhere......
This is where my beef with the new games lay. Wifi has made an easy game easier. The ability to connect to the internet without the need to hook it up to a line or a special device you have to shell out cash for. Each game has a mystery gift event pokemon that you get when you launch the mystery gift feature. You recieve a Shiny Beldum..... so essentially you are giving a hard to find Steel Type to a new player where there is no elemental weakness for it in the first couple of areas..... Way to break the game right out of the gate. With the Wifi feature you can essentially get anything you want within minutes or if you know friends who already have what you want you can trade or get better Pokemon and get through the game faster. Lets not forget that the series started making it less challenging when you gave out experience for catching Pokemon. The Experience Share Item makes leveling easier cause it effects EVERYONE on your team. There is no challenge anymore, no more need to go to the surrounding area and train to figure out patterns to beating the leaders team.
Maybe it is because I am getting older or maybe I am just so jaded to everything. It just seems like these new innovations to games are just pandering to the GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME youth of today. Innovation in games is good, but when you dumb down your content to pander that is when you lose what made you great. Why spend so much time innovating and making great new features when they will lose their novelty quickly. When you can use WiFi to battle, trade and beat the game with little to no effort.
I give this game a 3 out of 5. Why? On a grand scale the game is playable, it is fun. But the story has been done already. The enemies have not improved. The game world itself has not changed to a point where it can be differentiated from it's source game. As a fan of the series I would have much rather waited a few years for the next generation to be created instead of getting an updated version of a game I already have. The graphics nice, the music still nice. Make the game more difficult and stop dumbing it down.
No comments:
Post a Comment