Even more Alpha Sapphire after the break!
So I traveled all the way through the whole Team-Aqua-tries-to-blow-up-Mount-Chimney plot, which is fun. Then I beat Flannery and Norman in quick succession, and is faced with many things to explore. The desert, the water routes and progressing up to Fortree.
Anyway, initially Team Aqua grunts blocked the cable car used to get to Mount Chimney, so I took a detour through Fiery Path. It's still as spartan and barren as before, though they put some volcanic vents here and there to make it look less boring. I've always wondered the logic of having Grimer in this cave, though. The fire-types are obvious, and I suppose the Koffing sort of makes sense due to the gas and whatnot. But Grimer?
As I transverse the long trek from the Fiery Path to Fallarbor Town, I meet... Aarune! Aarune is a new character in ORAS that brings the whole 'Secret Base' mini-feature into the fore, like how Liara was for contests. And like Liara, Aarune loves to talk and talk and talk to no end. He's this cowboy-looking fellow with massive bags under his eyes and he just talks and talks and talks. I know all about Secret Bases and don't particularly care to muck around with it at least until post-game. Aarune goes all 'depending on the particular spot, the size and shape of the secret base will be different. Well, I'll save any commitment I have for when I have Fly, then. Though I did bring out the little Hoenn starter dolls out so my Secret Base isn't just a laptop on a purple rug.
And the ashen-covered route! I loved this route. The ashy grass patches don't transform into normal grass patches in this generation, though. Also, May gets significantly more screentime this time around, being heavily involved in the Meteor Falls plot and showing up at least twice to direct me in the right direction.
Fallarbor down looks pretty but is still more or less the same. Cosmo's house has a new swanky telescope setup straight out of Majora's Mask, though, which is awesome. The other things are still around and are basically prettied up. Fossil Maniac's House, Lanette's House... Lanette gives me the option to put 'organize boxes' on the topmost of the PC, which is an absolutely welcome feature. Hell, I'm not sure why 'organize boxes' and 'organize items' aren't the only two options in the PC, the Withdraw and Deposit options have been redundant for nearly ten years.
Meteor Falls and the area outside it looks absolutely gorgeous! The craters outside, and the nice clear cavern rivers inside Meteor Falls, and... well, I've always loved Meteor Falls, and this generation made it so pretty. And the battle background! And that series of waterfall things that leads to Rustboro! I caught a Zubat in Meteor Falls and it replaces my Gyarados to give my team more coverage. Planning to make that Crobat.
Also, not only has May been given a larger role, so has Aqua Admin Shelly! Shelly wasn't in the ORAS demo, but now she's been reimagined as a haughty arrogant bitch which is a lot more interesting than the generic personality she used to have. And since Omega Ruby players will get the crazy Makuhita Man Tabitha, I can imagine there's a fair amount of dialogue differences between the two.
And then after a double battle to bring down Shelly -- who uses a Grimer, which I thought is a nice change from Team Aqua's formula of Carvanha/Poochyena/Zubat lines -- Maxie shows up! Maxie's cool, and I do like the longer interaction between Maxie and Shelly. I'm also a big fan how Maxie isn't outright sympathetic and two-dimensional 'good' here. Maxie is just as big a fanatic and pretty evil 'get in my way and I'll crush you' type of fellow, it's just that he's not the one trying to blow up the volcano and therefore not as evil. And I like it, sort of, how the 'good' team has been turned into a lesser evil than being outright good. It's nice. And Maxie is all formal and prim and proper, which plays as a stark contrast to Archie's HOOHAAHAA crazy bubbly pirate self.
In between all this, I abused Super Training and forced it to cough up a Shiny Stone for my male Kirlia, Maxwell, and he evolved into a Gallade. See, the thing about Gallade is that Kirlia only learns special moves, whereas Gallade is a physical attacker. So up until he learns Psycho Cut a fair bit later in my playthrough, he's forced to make do with Secret Power and Thief, both relatively sub-par moves. Also with Kirlia disappearing, my team is comprised with six physical attackers (Swampert, Metang, Gallade, Mightyena, Shedinja and Golbat) which may or may not pose a problem for the future.
After finishing up on Meteor Falls and Fallarbor, there's a bit of backtracking and I have to reach the Cable Car, and again May helps out in telling me where to go and stuff. The cable car is, to be honest, a bit disappointing considering how all these 'travel' things usually are given rather elaborate animations.
Anyway, Team Magma and Aqua are doing battle on Mt. Chimney, and I do love how there's a pair of grunts near the Cable Car station, where the Magma grunt is like 'we need to expand the land' and all philosophical and stuff, while his opponent is all 'GO GO DRENCH HIM'. Maxie takes on three other grunts, and of course, like old-school generation 3, everyone's using Poochyenas. I mean Maxie would've fared better and looked a lot cooler if he had his Camerupt out, but hey.
Mount Chimney, by the way? There were only three battles here, but the background, and the overworld itself... they look so gorgeous. I absolutely fucking love it all to bits. Looks so fucking good.
Shelly's got a fair amount of dialogue as she cuts me off from reaching Archie and his doomsday machine thing (which, ten years down the line, and we still don't really know what they plan to do with it) which is nice. Archie's dialogue is also a lot expanded, with him going on about how he finds me interesting, how he's just this rambunctious pirate with a crazy giant gold-chain necklace... he's also gotten a few nice expanded dialogues about how he can use mega evolution, and how the meteorite might be reforged into a Mega Stone or a Key Stone, which is actually a pretty nice segue from the generation 3 plot into generation 6 mechanics.
Archie's battle was pretty fun. He's not really difficult, but the Mightyena did pull off some funny moments with it spamming Swagger and Roar and just screwing up my team by bringing up the underleveled Golbat I'm trying to friendship-evolve. And then, as Archie is about to 'unleash the power of mega-evolution'... he gets stopped by the most humble of excuses, which is a phone call from the other Aqua Admin, Matt, and they progress the plot forwards by finding the Orbs on Mt. Pyre. Archie gives me the Meteorite like in RSE, but unlike RSE where the Meteorite does jack shit but make Cosmo happy as an optional and completely redundant sidequest, apparently it has some uses in ORAS? Uses regarding Deoxys? We'll see. I've been keeping myself mostly in the dark regarding this.
Maxie shows up and talks a fair bit too, and I like how the game's actually fleshing out characters like May, Wally, Maxie, Archie and Shelly where they were pretty basic and honestly bland characters back in RSE. Maxie gets some moments where he looks pretty frustrated because he gets outmaneuvered by Archie all the time, and I thought that was funny.
Anyway, I head down the Jagged Pass... which, like the Fiery Pass, isn't all that changed but still looks quite pretty. I've always like the Jagged Pass, weird one-way-trip-with-multiple-ways that it is.
I reach Lavaridge Town afterwards, which is pretty similar. I can't bury myself under the hot sand anymore, sadly, but the hot springs are still around! The old grandmas that used to bathe there are gone, and apparently I can zip around the hot springs with my bicycle. The Medicine Shop looks pretty. The Pokemon Center has been sort of redesigned to look like an onsen and I do love what they've done. It's pretty atmospheric.
Likewise the Lavaridge Gym is made to look more like a hot spring facility and it looks freaking gorgeous. The original RSE Lavaridge Gym actually looks more like a sandy, steamy cave instead of the hot springs, but this one? With the basement filled with water and hiding Ninja Boys, and the upper levels filled with nice decorative rocks and autumn trees? Lavaridge Gym looks pretty. It's also still a pushover as my Swampert just literally one-shots everything in it that is Fire type, and my Gallade and Golbat making quick work of the odd Koffing and Meditites that show up.
Flannery also gets some additional dialogue as she does this awkward screaming thing as she tries and fails so miserably to look intimidating. I like Flannery. She's funny.
And I do like how May shows up right after I defeat Flannery, gives me the Go-Goggles... and offers to teleport me to Petalburg City, which is a nice touch for all those who hate the backtracking in RSE. I personally find backtracking to be one of the nicer, funner aspects of Generation 3, finding some other games (like BW1 Unova and Kalos) to be too linear in comparison, but hey, convenience, right?
Norman's Gym looks so freaking Japanese and formal and shit and I love it. Vollstandig the Shedinja just tanks every single gym trainer and laughs at their pathetic attempts to try and cycle through all their moves... one Linoone was even forced to use Covet and Bestow in a row!
But Norman? Well, Norman is still a beast as ever. His first Slaking killed Vollstandig with a Faint Attack, and my attempt to overpower his Normal-types with my Swampert ended up with her falling for the first time in the playthrough to the final Slaking's Retaliate. I'm not an entirely big fan of Retaliate replacing Facade as Norman's signature move, but I can't deny that it looks freaking boss with the generation 6 animation. And so appropriate too, considering the gym.
Norman gets some additional scenes with him getting up from his samurai-style meditation thing, some extra 'I am so proud' moments, and we meet Wally and his father. Wally offers to teleport me to Mauville to progress after giving me Surf, and we get a nice extra cutscene of Norman talking to Wally's father.
All nice and good. I do love how a lot of these characters have had expanded dialogue and backstories compared to their RSE selves, and I do find them to be extremely likable. And now I have a couple of options... exploring the Desert with my Go-Goggles (I might pick up that Lileep and replace Mightyena on the team), explore the Sea Routes with the newfound Surf, or trek on upwards to Fortree City.
A little team roll-call! There's Lady Armstrong the Swampert, who rocks Muddy Water and Surf at the moment. I know she's a physical attacker, but until I get Waterfall and Earthquake I'll make do with what I have. Maxwell the Gallade. Steven Stone's Shiny Metang. Vollstandig the Shedinja, who's actually pulling his weight despite a couple of surprises here and there. Ronnie the Mightyena, somehow still earning his keep with Fire Fang. And Grayson the Golbat, who I'm hoping to evolve into a Crobat soon.
And there's the Demo Glalie in the box, who I don't think I'm planning on using, as well as Aizen-sama the Dustox, KHRP the Gyarados and El Pika the Cosplay-chu. Plus a fuckton of additional captures. Not really planning on using any of them, since I'm quite happy with my current team, and if there's going to be a replacement it's going to be for something cool. Like Kyogre. Or Latias. Flirting with the idea of using Cradily or Sandslash, though the latter would be redundant with Swampert on the team.
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