More Alpha Sapphire! Again, after the break.
Basically I played up to the Rusturf Tunnel. I did the whole Wally thing, went through Petalburg Forest and fought the Aqua grunt there, beat the Rustboro Gym and beat the Aqua grunt in the Rusturf Tunnel. Not really going to go in-depth about the stuff I did, but mostly will just talk about the changes that ORAS brings to the table, including some things that escaped my mind last time.
First off, Berry trees are back! And I'm actually quite surprised that they didn't go entirely faithful and recreate those weird-looking trees they turn into back in RSE. The Berry trees still function as before -- you can pillage every tree you pass, and plant the things in the soil to get an everlasting supply of berries, or you could just ignore them. They're just back, being big clumps of trees with berries that disappear in a flash of light when you pluck the berries.
We've got Wingull just hanging out in the beach near Petalburg City which flap away in panic if you approach them, which I think is cool and adds to the immersive feel that pokemon are actually, y'know, animals and not just things that only appear in the grass.
I've also since gotten the things form the promo. The mega-evolving Glalie from the ORAS demo now sits in the box until I've gotten enough badges to train it, and I've gotten Steven's shiny Beldum... and for once, the Beldum doesn't only know Take Down! It knows the Stab moves Zen Headbutt and Iron Head, which are pretty awesome, as well as the event-exclusive move Hold Back, which is basically a fancily-named False Swipe that makes Beldum a monster not only for battling, but also to capture stuff. Beldum is a bit of a game-breaker considering how excellent its stats are this early in the game, and how few things can reliably take it down... and considering that it's counted as a traded pokemon, it's going to level up super-fast. I'm not sure if I'm going to be using Beldum that often in this playthrough, though I'm sure he'll spend some time in my party.
And leveling up is going to be absurdly easy, since Exp. Share works in the same fashion as XY, which means it's no longer a held item and affects the entire party. My Ralts and Cascoon benefits the most from that, because holy shit training Ralts up is a pain in the ass, especially during this stage where it can only Growl.
After beating down the Team Aqua grunt in Petalburg Woods, we've got this anime/manga-esque cutscene of a female Aqua grunt just reporting in to the Admins, which I thought is pretty cool! Have we ever had cutscenes where the player character isn't present? I don't think so... not even in the plot-heavy generation 5 games. I mean the stuff the female grunt said were pretty basic, but it's a nice touch nonetheless.
There's also this ranger in Rustboro City who gives me the Float Stone (halves the weight of the pokemon who holds it), and when I go up the stairs and down the stairs, he's transformed into a hiker. It's an easy-to-miss visual gag which I liked.
The Rustboro Gym has been completely revamped. The original Rustboro gym has had your standard simple gym layout, with a mini-maze with which you can avoid the trainers and head straight up to Roxanne, but no. They could've just remade the thing and be done with it, but they went the extra mile. They revamped Roxanne's gym into this big fossil-based museum thing, which looks freaking gorgeous. And the kicker? It's still got the same basic layout. They replaced the featureless boxes and ramps with displays of fossils and geographic strata and whatnot, but it's still basically the same gym. It's wonderful. It's gorgeous and wonderful.
And there's this giant Kabutops animatronic waving its scythe-arm and a giant Lileep with flashing eyes, and the Dragonite fossil background... and I do absolutely love how the actual battle with Roxanne has a custom background with the gym's wonderful arena serving as the backdrop. I mean, it was a relatively quick battle as my Mudkip just spat high-pressure water at her rock things, but still.
Rustboro gym took moderately longer for me to clear than back in RSE, because Sturdy works differently back then and now. Back then Sturdy only protects from actual one-hit-KO moves, not the annoying way it does now. But still, a bunch of Geodudes aren't any threat to a water starter.
I do love how they redesigned a lot of the NPCs to resemble how they look in generation 3, by the way. They're drawn in the same art style as the XY standard, but aside from the main characters, who sport updated looks, all the random NPCs, like the Youngsters, the Rich Boys, the Lasses, the Ladies, they all are basically the generation 3 look, but updated with a new art style. Of course, there are some -- like the Hikers -- that are identical to their XY artwork, but what are you going to do with those.
And even the overworld graphics look brilliant. They went the extra way to beauty up the Flower Shop and craft all these miniature flower objects, the Rustboro Trainer School actually... looks like a freaking school! That whiteboard, and those funky children's books, and everything... the Pokemart's shelves aren't filled with generic crap but with actual pokemon items like Potions and Pokeballs and Full Heals and stuff... the Devon Corps building in particular blew me away. From Mr. Stone's impressive collection of stones, to that simply gorgeous glass floor with that crazy stone-wood display... to the hilarious Helix-Dome pictures and symbols they have all over the place... it's a gorgeous game.
I've also just noticed that they used actual RSE graphics for the DexNav, which is another nice nod to the original third generation. Like, the leaves and the background and the trees are sprites lifted wholesale from RSE. I appreciate this so much. The game's also since unlocked the Super Training/Pokemon Amie/PSS features that XY had on the lower screen as an app on the PokeNav, which is awesome. I don't think I'll Super-Train my team just yet, though, because with Exp. Share and Egg Moves and Beldum they're overpowered as it is.
Oh, and some stuff do end up getting replaced. Like how the dude outside the Flower Shop gives me the TM for Echoed Voice instead of Bullet Seed like back in RSE, which I don't really mind.
And, well, those hidden pokemon you need to sneak up to? Turns out the Fire Fang Poochyena isn't the only one with a wacky move, which, as it turns out are Egg Moves. My Lotad's got Teeter Dance and my Zigzagoon's got Charm... both of which are completely worthless and will stay in my PC forevermore. But my Slakoth's got Crush Claw, which is a nice Stab move even if I don't think I'll be using Slakoth at all, and my Skitty's got Zen Headbutt of all things.
So far my team's made up of Marshtomp (who evolved right after the battle against Roxanne), the event Beldum, the Zen Headbutt Skitty, the hard-to-catch Ralts, a Dustox that evolved from a Wurmple, and a sixth slot that will rotate out between HM slaves depending on which I use.
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