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I liked pretty much every new addition/change: DexNav, soaring, Sea Mauville, the team redesigns, Delta Episode (bar Zinnia), Mall-ville, the list goes on. I was also a really big fan of the new world-building. Say what you like about Gen 6, but I liked the Infinite Energy plotline and the extra lore surrounding stuff like Devon, Wattson and the evil teams. It really made it all feel more real.
The problem was how much of an injustice they did to the actual returning content. Lack of Frontier was lazy, Safari Zone getting gimped was shit, I hated what they did to Granite Cave and Sky Pillar, I wish they included more of the Emerald locations (Mirage Tower for example) and even New Mauville got cut down, not that I ever really went there in the originals. Shit, they could've at least put Trainer Hill in as an alternative for people who dislike the Maison, I get that the Frontier might be asking for a bit much but Trainer Hill would hardly have been a drain on dev time.
I honestly feel like they should've done sequels instead of remakes. Everything new in ORAS was brilliant as far as I'm concerned, but it seemed clear to me that they either couldn't follow the source material, or just didn't want to. Between the new content/changes and all of the removals/"streamlining" they did, it's not hard to see why it didn't meet peoples' expectations.