Pokémon: Omega Ruby journal - entry three

Adding Emolga to my team has paid off wonderfully, as its Electric and Flying dual-typing and moveset have given me a consistent counter to the company of other Flying-type Pokémon, as well as the Grass/Fighting combo presented by Breloom. My reliance on Phantump is a bit more sporadic, but I still appreciate the Grass, Ghost, and Dark-type moves he’s learned, especially considering how offensively powerful they are. Coupled with his immunity to Normal and Fighting-type moves, I still consider Phantump to be a valuable asset to my team, if not something of a wild card in the grand scheme of this playthrough.

Metagross has become more frequently useful as of late, as has Toxicroak, something that I thoroughly appreciate, as I was never particularly keen on swapping either of those two out. Infernape has also proven a solid pick, while Crawdaunt keeps on trucking along, being the team member I have arguably gotten the consistent and reliable results from. Omega Ruby is, however, considerably lesser in its degree of challenge than most other Pokémon titles, as it utilizes the same experience share system from X and Y, rendering many of the trainer encounters and gym leader battles during the game’s second half laughably easy.

Another oddity that provides players with a distinct advantage over in-game opponents is the fact that Steven Stone takes you on a brief sidequest which ends with Latias or Latios in your company, depending on which version you are playing (in the case of Omega Ruby, Latios was added to my party for a short while). For anyone who might pick up Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire after the shiny Beldum event has ended, these legendaries might be a tad more appealing. Given how much lower a level than the rest of my part members were, as well as the fact that I’d have been double-dipping into the pool of Psychic-type Pokémon, I did not feel that I needed to make use of Latios. It would only have made the game that much more of a cakewalk, though I don’t deny that from the standpoint of trying to collect all the Mega Stones for completion’s sake, it’s an appreciated gift.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire sprinkle in little bits of extra dialogue and cutscenes every so often to try and better flesh out the stories of Team Magma and Team Aqua. While the team admins are wacky, even mildly amusing, the ultimate ends for these two villainous element-obsessed factions still stand among the least compelling plotlines in the Pokémon franchise. This, tied with the fact that the Hoenn region offers very little in the way of distinctly memorable locales or events compared to nigh on every other entry in the series, leaves me somewhat disappointed over the fact that these games could have been so much better with all their new menu inclusions and user-friendly design points, were it not for the simple fact that they are remakes of the generation III titles.