For some obscure reason, a friend of mine gave me Alpha Sapphire as a present. Which sort of surprised me since the last Pokemon game I played was Soulsilver about 6 years ago. I had afterwards fallen for the "kid's game" meme.

I'd like to take another shot at Pokemon, but I'd like to play it "seriously" rather than in the casual, no-bullshit beatdown way I used back then. What do I need to know and learn in order to play the game to it's fullest?

Also, I need to choose a game to play. My previous experience with the series (which is pretty far in the past at this point) is just Diamond, Platinum and Soulsilver, so I can go back to those instead of playing Alpha Sapphire. Note that my friend doesn't own a 3DS so I won't be playing AS with him.