Welcome to the world of Pokemon, and for those who have played the original GameBoy Advance games, welcome back to the Hoenn region. Nintendo’s newest editions to the Pokemon series, Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire for the 3DS, are the highly anticipated remakes to the GameBoy Advance games, Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire. These remakes revive the old games with brand new graphics, a remade story, more Mega Evolutions, and much more.
In these remakes, you travel through the Hoenn region, and catching Pokemon to complete the Pokedex. As you go through the game, you battle gym leaders to earn gym badges which allow you to eventually face the Elite Four and the Champion. Throughout your journey, you face the evil Team Aqua (Alpha Sapphire), or Team Magma (Omega Ruby), who are each trying to give the world back to the Pokemon by either flooding the world (Aqua), or creating more land (Magma). To do this they try to use the power of the Pokemon Kyogre (Aqua), or Groudon (Magma), and using each Pokemon’s Primal Mode to ensure that each teams goals are met.
Something that I really enjoyed about both games (as I always get both) is the revamped storyline. It was refreshing and surprising when certain parts of the story were either redone or added in. It made playing through the game a lot more entertaining, since I have played the older versions so many times that I knew what would happen before it happened.
I also enjoyed how Nintendo used the mystery of Mega Evolution and now Primal Reversion as a main point of interest in the game. An important character in the game, Steven Stone, is searching for more answers on this new form of evolution, and why it happens.
Something else that was an amazing add-on to the game was the PokeNav Plus. This has four functions in it, the DexNav, the PlayNav, the BuzzNav, and the AreaNav. The DexNav is arguably the most useful function as it allows trainers to detect the Pokemon in the tall grass or water while they surf. It also shows what ability the pokemon has, their level, and some even have an egg move, which is a special move that, that specific pokemon can only have when one of their parent pokemon has that move.
The only thing that was disappointing was how easy the main story was to go through and beat. While the game says it took me five days to beat, in reality it was actually only about six to eight hours of casually playing. At certain points in the games, things were either to easy or literally given to you.
Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire are amazing. With all of the new features, updated graphics, and all the other aspects of this game, barring the way to easy story, these remakes are worth picking up and playing. The original Ruby and Sapphire were my absolute favorite GameBoy Advance Pokemon games, and these are absolutely fantastic remakes. Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire get five out of five stars.