More Alpha Sapphire!
So I checked out the Safari Zone... and apparently it's been renovated! The Safari Zone itself seems to have been visually revamped, though some areas are still cut off my Mach/Acro bike usage, but there are a couple of major changes. Firstly.... it's no longer a Safari Zone as we know it, since you don't have to pay, and you can battle inside it. There's a pamphlet talking about how the old Safari Zone was a lot more commercialized and was the product of the owner's greed and whatnot, but I for one am of two minds about this. On one hand, it would certainly be easier to capture pokemon... on the other, I really miss the Safari Zones! They were one of the most memorable parts of the Kanto and Hoenn games, and I'm just kind of sad that they seem to be kind of exorcised from this one. I realize a lot of people aren't fans of the Safari Zone, but I'm not one of them and I'm just sad to see it go.
I headed down to Mt. Pyre, and it's likewise been renovated. Someone even lampshaded that there used to be holes and whatnot on the floor, and it's been relatively streamlined. The upper part of the mausoleum has apparently been taken up by some rich dude yapping about fancy graves and whatnot, and the inner part has gotten an influx of Hex Girls... including that bitch from Kalos who goes 'you are not the one'. Which scared me. Because little miss 'you are not the one'? She was horrifying as all sorts of hell in XY. But she does nothing here, not even a jumpscare. She just hangs around and says her dialogue.
The ghosts in Mt. Pyre do the same teleporting thing like pokemon in the sand and the water, but I find it a lot easier to ignore the Shuppets and the Duskulls here, because they're not really interesting and I'll be able to capture evolved versions in the Sky Pillar anyway. The graveyard battle background is cool, though. I wish in Wi-Fi battles or whatever we'll be allowed to select battle backgrounds. Mt. Pyre, Mt. Chimney, the desert, Slateport beach, Cycling Road... so much pretty backgrounds that are kind of wasted!
There are Mega Stones just hanging around in the outer areas of Mt. Pyre, the Medichamite and Banettite. And the summit is pretty, with the initial overlooking angle towards the Team Aqua gauntlet leading up towards Archie and Matt. Oh, and Archie isn't a tool in this one, picking the correct, blue-coloured orb this time. Which I thought was one of the stupidest part of the original Ruby/Sapphire games, how they picked the wrong-coloured orb when anyone with half a brain would know that blue would correspond to the big sea monster and the red orb would correspond to the lava ground monster. Also, the orbs are inscribed with alpha and omega now.
After a little fight with Matt as Archie heads off -- again, I'm a big fan on how much more involved the Admins are in this game -- the old people on the mountain gives me the Red Orb, which for a moment does this weird pulsating thing with blue backgrounds and whatnot.
I fly to Slateport afterwards and continue the plot, with Captain Stern being interviewed and whatnout outside the Slateport docks, but Team Aqua shows up with a megaphone and goes all 'we'll return everything to the beginning!' Archie and Shelly show up inside the docks -- Shelly apparently not putting too much thought regarding the 'Archie lied to me' thing from the Weather Institute, and they steal the submarine to head off to their Hideout in Lilycove as the grunts distract me. I guess I'll tear through their hideout soon!
Probably need to check out the sea routes some time soon. Wonder how the Abandoned Ship looks this time? Also the Trick House. And New Mauville. Lots of things in this game, eh? Again, the sheer amount of side-quests you can do in this game as compared to XY or BW is a large reason why I like the Hoenn region so much.
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