>>29058909I actually really like a lot of the new stuff ORAS added. I like Mallville, I like the new Sea Mauville and Mauville Greater Holdings stuff, I like Dexnav and Soaring, Mirage Spots are great, the new Scorched Slab was pretty cool... hell, I even liked the Delta Episode except for Zinnia herself. Pretty much all of the character redesigns were ace, I have no problem with Mega's personally and I'm a big fan of most of Gen 6's quality of life features and online functions. All in all, it's a decent game.
With that being said, I'm able to recognize the fact that objectively speaking, ORAS is a pretty gimped interpretation of Hoenn. Even if we ignore the Battle Frontier for a second, there's still the fact that the Safari Zone got gimped, Sky Pillar got gimped, Granite Cave got gimped, New Mauville got gimped, and areas like the Mirage Tower from Emerald didn't make a return. There's dozens of smaller things as well, like the soot collecting as an example.
It's a shame really, because everything new about ORAS is brilliant, but everything where they tried to play it true to the originals is either lazy, """"streamlined"""" or just downright misunderstands the source material. It feels like they wanted to make a new game or a RSE sequel/revisit but felt obligated to make a remake anyway to keep the fans satisfied. The worst thing is that now there isn't a "complete", absolute version of Hoenn - whether I play ORAS or Emerald, I always find myself missing features from the other.
