water starter is based on stonefish, rock/water and weird as fuck
fire starter is just a volcano torterra, fire/ground
grass starter is some panda, bamboo becomes rocket launcher for sig
region is unova 2.0
12 gym leaders, they give you z-crystals instead of TMs
that one flying type eeveelution you're all so hard for
z moves are protected by totems, underused kantomons like Farfetch'd and Weezing are used for totems
postgame episode about UBs, 6 new ones which all look like ass (no changes there)