3DS review: Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D

Metal Gear Solid 3, the tale of how Naked Snake set out on the path to become Big Boss, and the effective starting point of the entire Metal Gear legacy, received a 3DS port early in the handheld’s life cycle. Much like Star Fox 64 3D, Ocarina of Time 3D, and Majora’s Mask 3D, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D is taken directly from its console version and reworked to fit the control scheme of the 3DS. However, unlike those other 3DS re-releases, Snake Eater 3D does not see any graphical upgrades from the Playstation 2 original. Which is not to say that the game is any less aesthetically pleasing or immersive than ten years ago, when it debuted – the jungles are lush and dense with greenery, the animals active, and the wandering patrols a constant threat to Snake’s location being exposed. The frame rate does, unfortunately, dip a bit during cutscenes where there are many characters or events on screen at the same time. Gameplay, however, is never hampered by this.

The touch screen is utilized wonderfully, as the stylus can be used to easily access Snake’s codec, medical supplies, and food items. Weapons and items have also been relegated to the touch screen, and nine of each can be set to be on-hand at any given time, while another icon allows you to swap those out with additional items that Snake picks up and stores in his supply pack. This cuts down significantly on switching up Snake’s loadouts, which were previously managed via a scroll wheel on the PS2 and HD Collection releases.

Snake can also draw his weapons and put them away with a press of the right shoulder button. However, a simple tap of the shoulder button will not suffice – you have to hold it down for a brief second, otherwise the input may not take. Given the stealth-heavy nature of Snake Eater 3D, this rarely proves problematic, save for a couple of the boss fights, wherein it can be mildly frustrating as you dodge attacks and attempt to quickly react to Snake’s supernaturally-powered foes. While not necessary for playing Snake Eater 3D, the 3DS’ Circle Pad Pro attachment is highly recommended for anyone already familiar with the button and joystick layouts on the home console releases. All in all, though, despite being a port of a game that whose original release was never designed with a handheld in mind, Snake Eater 3D runs very well on the system, and the new control scheme is handled wonderfully – far better than some would have suspected.

The voice acting is, of course, just as great as it was a decade ago on the PS2. David Hayter’s iconic Snake voice keeps players company for the majority of the adventure, with humor from support members Major Zero and Para-Medic often flying right over his head. Suzetta Minet portrays the sultry and quick-witted EVA, Neil Ross puts forth a commanding performance as sadistic villain Colonel Volgin, while Josh Keaton’s depiction of a young Ocelot is one of a lovable try-hard who often slips up in his own attempts to impress his superiors. A few new sequences of dialogue have been added to this 3DS release, covering the updated control scheme. All of the spoken dialogue, as well as the iconic soundtrack and titular theme song, come across clear and clean through the 3DS’ speakers.

Equally memorable to the voice work in Snake Eater 3D are the boss encounters with the members of the Cobra Unit. They remain as intense and varied as ever, seeing no alterations from their PS2 counterparts. More seasoned veterans of the Metal Gear series will likely opt for as stealthy a playthrough as possible, maximizing their camouflage percentage by pairing patterns and face paint to the surrounding environment to better avoid detection. The 3DS' camera can be utilized to make new camo patterns for Snake, though these are not as complex in nature as the game's pre-loaded camo options, and will always default to registering as the most prominent color within the picture that was taken, ignoring any less prominent colors that are a part of that same image.

For those new to the Metal Gear play style, there are plenty of weapons beyond the default silenced tranquilizer pistol that can be found in the jungle, including an AK-47, a short-barrel shotgun, an SDV sniper rifle, and a more lethal handgun, to name a few - just don't expect a warm welcome from Volgin's GRU forces if you fire loudly in their direction. Plenty of additional items and food rations can be missed, should you choose not to devote time to exploration. The 3DS' gyroscope is briefly used to balance Snake on branches and bridges, while the hidden collect-a-thon Kerotan statues have been replaced with the likeness of Mario’s green pal Yoshi.

A first time playthrough of Snake Eater 3D will likely push close to the twenty hour mark, while players who have beaten Snake Eater in the past and simply want a quick retread can finish the game in less than fifteen. Snake Eater 3D does see a few technical hang-ups, and some very minor control oversights, but more often than not it excels as yet another great handheld port of a console classic in the 3DS' library. And at the end of the day, it remains the greatest Metal Gear story ever told.

My rating: 8.75 (out of 10)

3DS review: Animal Crossing: New Leaf

With each release that followed the Gamecube title, the Animal Crossing titles felt, to me, at least, more of expansions on a preexisting core game than full-fledged ‘new’ games. Animal Crossing: New Leaf follows this design of being more evolutionary than revolutionary, but makes a number of noteworthy strides that places it in territory well ahead of its predecessors. One of the most distinct changes is made apparent within the first ten minutes of gameplay – that, of course, being the degree of control players have over the design of their town. While the horizontal main street to the north will always play host to the museum, convenience store, clothing shop, post office, and other frequently-visited buildings, players can select from a handful of predetermined map layouts that will alter the position of the local river, the natural ramps that lead down to the beach, and the mayor’s office.

Once the geography of the town is determined, players can select just about any plot of land to claim for their own house, provided it fits the dimensions required for eventual expansions. From there, players assume the role of the town’s mayor, a responsibility which local secretary Isabelle assures the player is no mistake. As mayor, players have the ability to select construction projects recommended by their animal neighbors, ranging from new bridges, to a lighthouse, to a campground for temporary visitors, and even expansions and renovations to previously existing places on the main street hub north of town.

It is true that each previous Animal Crossing game placed heavy emphasis on understanding your town’s economy, and the worth of individual items in terms of both sales and application to your home or neighborly friends. However, everything in New Leaf costs money, from the more obvious clothing and furniture purchases, to expanding your home, to completing construction projects, to disposing of the odd boot or tin can that is reeled in from the river. It makes the early game more of a crawl than a walk, but a few days later and the game grants you all the freedoms of the previous games and then some. New Leaf adopts the same cartoonish proportions and bright colors of its predecessors, and the soundtrack is simply stated, but it certainly isn’t a game that is lacking in charm.

Whereas in previous Animal Crossing titles, the island was home to one unique inhabitant, New Leaf alters it purpose, offering tours as well as exotic fruits, insects, and sea creatures that can earn you more impressive financial returns than most of what can be caught within the villages. While the familiar fishing rod, shovel, axe, and bug net are present, so are watering cans to keep flowers healthy, slingshots to shoot down uncommon balloon-carried gifts, a stopwatch, and a megaphone. As a reward for catching a high number of fish and insects, the game even offers fishing rods and bug nets of particular colors that indicate the current completion status of your checklist.

As is only to expected, this latest entry offers a decent number of new neighbors and furniture sets on top of the preexisting pool of options. There are, however more outlets through which you can acquire different home decorations. You can also influence which neighbors stay in your town versus which ones move out with relative ease. Above all else, this Animal Crossing title makes the fruits of your labor more visibly obvious, with your town gradually transforming from a basic series of houses set in a forested area to a more fully-functional community with outdoor decorations and major landmarks.

Whether a result of hardware limitations or a general lack of inspired direction, the online components of both the DS’ Wild World and the Wii’s City Folk seemed half-baked. New Leaf, however, pushes the communal multiplayer aspect in directions that feel natural and fluid with the single player experience. In short, Animal Crossing: New Leaf makes a few tweaks here and there to offer more user-friendliness, adds enough new elements to stand out over its predecessors, and offers a full package that feels the part of a proper sequel to the Gamecube title that first introduced North American gamers to the series.

My rating: 8.5 (out of 10)

3DS review: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

The first game from the Persona series to be released on Nintendo’s 3DS is an odd summation of Atlus’ works, to say the very least. All of the useable party members from Persona 3 and Persona 4 are drawn together in a school that seemingly exists outside of normal time and space – the Persona 3 heroes and heroines hailing from the year 2009, while the Persona 4 cast arriving from some point in 2011, which is as simple and convenient an explanation as is need for why the characters look exactly the same as they did during their respective major adventures as any. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth adopts a chibi art style that translates surprisingly well to the slightly altered gameplay of this spinoff title, while the dungeon crawling elements are ripped directly from the Etrian Odyssey series of RPGs.

It’s a curious amalgam, no doubt, but one that works wonders for this surprisingly fully-realized sidestory. Regardless of whether you play the story from the perspective of the Persona 3 cast or the Persona 4 cast, the premise and major story points play out in effectively the same manner, albeit with greater input from the respective cast members on one side or the other. All of the party members find themselves pulled into the Velvet Room, face-to-face with either Elizabeth or Margaret, who explains that the threads of fate are working in ways they cannot explain, yet they know what lies ahead is important to the protagonists’ personal journeys. Upon arriving in an alternate version of Yasogami High School, the P3 and P4 cast members are introduced to Zen and Rei, two amnesiacs who are apparently the only individuals they can interact with outside of their Velvet Room associates. When the party realizes they cannot leave the school due to two doors leading to their respective eras within the Velvet Room being locked, they begin to investigate the first of the school’s festival exhibits, which turns out to be a winding and multi-level labyrinth. Zen and Rei seem quite familiar with the behavior of the Shadows that lie in wait within the labyrinth, despite not having any Personas to call their own, and thus accompany the party on their first exploration of this new realm.

Combat carries over some key elements from the core Persona games, but swaps out others. Instead of earning an immediate second strike on an enemy after exposing which magical element it is weak to, party members are instead treated to a boosted state, wherein they will be allowed to move faster the following turn as well as utilize magic and specialized physical attacks at no cost from their SP or HP meters. The same goes for landing critical strikes. Many of the enemy types will prove familiar to Persona veterans, so those who have previously experienced Persona 3 or Persona 4 may find the variety of run-of-the-mill enemies less trifling early in the game. Capitalizing on this strategy can lead to a higher chance of being offered the Persona series’ signature cartoonish ‘pile-on’ all-out-attacks, and chaining these in successive turns can result in significantly faster victories, as well as experience point reward bonuses and new Personas.

With sixteen playable characters to choose from, there is a lot of freedom offered to how you organize your party. While you are required to keep at least one of the protagonists in the mix at all times, the other four spots can be split between the front and back rows, with three open spaces per row. Should you prefer to place your heavy hitters on the frontline, this can lead to enemies taking greater damage from bash and cut attacks, but will simultaneously place those heroes more directly in harm’s way, as they will generally be the first to take the brunt of an attack. The back row, meanwhile, is ideal for support members, as well as ranged attackers. Some players may prefer three in the back and two in the front, while others prefer the opposite – it’s all a matter of personal preference, though careful strategy and management are just as important as ever, as Persona Q’s difficulty factor increases a bit more frequently than that of Persona 4.

Each labyrinth plays host to a strikingly different thematic, including the fantasy realm of Alice in Wonderland and a haunted school exhibit based off classic Japanese horror tropes. Each is introduced as being exhibits put on as part of the school fair, yet behind their innocent exterior lies a complicated series of hallways and multiple floors, each ending with boss fights that appropriately match the tone of each labyrinth. Entertaining as their brief moments in the spotlight are, the bosses do not play nearly as an integral role in the development of the story and characters – quite unlike the bosses encountered in Persona 4’s Midnight Channel, which served as the darkest parts of the P4 party members’ psyches and self-images, allowing them in turn to grow as individuals once they had learned to accept these imperfections.

Navigating the labyrinths can take a brief while to grow accustomed to, as filling in shortcuts, points of interest, and locations of stairwells is up to the player. This is where the touch screen and stylus come to play an integral role, as any errors in the labyrinth’s layout displayed on the mini-map or missteps in navigation are the player’s responsibility. Knowing where shortcuts are located is key for solving some of the game’s more involved puzzles, and can also provide a quick escape from a pursuing FOE, which effectively serve as the closest thing Person Q has to offer for miniboss battles. Treasure chests can reward players with new armor, weapons, and accessories, while larger chests often house rare and more powerful items, but can only be opened once a floor’s map has been filled in to one-hundred percent completion. Power spots offer up rare materials, typically with one or two being located on any given floor on a labyrinth.

FOEs are incredibly powerful, and though some of the game’s ‘request’ sidequests ask that your party take them on to reap tempting rewards, it is typically best to wait until your party is decently leveled up from their exploration of the following labyrinth before returning to face these beasts in familiar territory. Each FOE sports a unique visual style and behavioral pattern that, much like the game’s bosses, match their respective environments – The card soldiers in the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth patrol set paths, while sometimes directing their attention to tending to bouquets of flowers. Other FOEs will attempt to draw you in from a distance, while others still will adjust their speed and behavior based on whether or not you are in possession of a particular item specific to that labyrinth.

While social links have been entirely removed from the experience, the aforementioned requests can still be accepted the school’s Nurse’s Office. Some of these have a time limit, and these ones typically yield greater payoff, both in terms of physical items and experience points. Some requests can only be activated by visiting specific areas of the game’s labyrinths, while others require use of specific party members. Thankfully, these never result in tying your hands too much with regards to how you can or cannot carry tasks out, and the requests are divided quite evenly between combat-focused treks back into familiar labyrinths and dialogue selection options among your friends and allies related to the school’s fair activities.

Visiting the Velvet Room is, once again, the means through which you can fuse Personas to gain more desirable abilities. Whereas in previous Persona titles the protagonist was privy to use of as many Personas as he/she could carry at a time, Persona Q restricts the P3 and P4 protagonists to use of their iconic main Personas and one other interchangeable Persona. However, the tradeoff to this restrictive measure is that every one of your party members – with the exception of Zen and Rei – can also utilize a secondary Persona alongside their primary canon Persona. This rule also applies to Rise and Fukka, the game’s labyrinth navigation specialists – while they do not join combat directly, their Personas can make use of abilities specific to their roles, offering up offense and accuracy buffs based on the fullness of the P3 or P4 protagonist’s ‘leader skill’ meter, as well as passive ones, like a wider range for detective shortcuts within a labyrinth or a higher rate of cancelling out preemptive strikes from enemies.

There is a limit of sixty individual items to you party’s inventory, which may seem like plenty of storage space early on, but can lead to many trips back and forth from labyrinths later in the game. Any materials recovered that are not specific to a certain sidequest can be sold to Theodore, the youngest sibling of Margaret and Elizabeth, who can craft new weapons, armor, and equipable items from them. Theodore also offers up occasional tidbits of information on particular enemies and sections of the labyrinths as they relate to specific sidequests, making his role in the game a bit more than simple shopkeeper.

The tone of Persona Q is not unlike its predecessor Persona 4 - dark and tense at times, with an overall sense of free-spirited adventure that is a successful match to the teenage heroes and heroines it revolves around. With the social links and larger world absent, Persona Q does not boast as fully-realized or complex a narrative as the core numbered entries, but it is a surprisingly meaty experience for a spinoff. While interacting with your friends in the halls of this phantom Yasogami High does not actually play into the endgame result, the dialogue flows very naturally and shows that a great deal of care went into preserving these characters and their mannerisms. While greater depth to character interactions during these periods of downtime would have been appreciated, the illusions Persona Q relies on to cover this gap are moderately successful, and - if nothing else - maintain the game’s atmosphere well enough.

The soundtrack is jazzy and upbeat, incorporating some hip-hop flair and hard rock vibes into vocal tracks. Other tunes are remixes of tracks that debuted in previous games, but they mesh quite nicely with Persona Q’s new audio offerings. On the whole, the sound design of Persona Q is among the best the 3DS has seen yet, with endearing performances from series veterans and the couple of newcomers alike. Persona Q could have easily been a quick, one-and-done, bare-bones spinoff, but instead it offers up an energetic and intriguing story. The main story will likely last players sixty hours or more, and the bonus ‘new game plus’ allows both money and the compendium completion to be carried over into higher difficulty settings and the opportunity to try out new party configurations. While it may not have all the makings of a proper numbered entry in the Persona series, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is nonetheless a labor of love, filled with references to previous games and fluid gameplay that offers an incredibly rewarding experience for fans of either Persona 3, Persona 4, or both.

My rating: 9 (out of 10)

3DS eShop review: Pokémon Shuffle

Pokémon Shuffle follows in the line of Pokémon Trozei and a number of other Nintendo properties that have spawned puzzle game spinoffs over the years. The gameplay is simple enough – line up three of the same Pokémon in order to clear space and allow more blocks to trickle down. Each time a set of three or more Poké-blocks are cleared, it will inflict damage upon the opposing Pokémon accordingly. And yes, Pokémon Shuffle does take typing advantages into account. Optimizing a team’s format to deal greater damage to a Pokémon can lead to faster victories, and any remaining turns that went unused during a match can be factored into a bonus at the end, improving your chances of catching a Pokémon.

What makes Pokémon Shuffle such a distinct release for Nintendo is its role as the company’s first major ‘free-to-play’ release. Players are allowed to tackle five matches at the outset, with each attempt using a single heart, one of Pokémon Shuffle’s in-game currencies. The early stretch of Pokémon Shuffle is quite generous, as NPCs reward you with jewels, another of Pokémon Shuffle’s in-game currencies, which can be exchanged for either more hearts and thus subsequent attempts at puzzles, or for coins, the third and final of Pokémon Shuffle’s in-game currencies.

As the game progresses, overcoming certain hurdles will reward you with more jewels, which is a welcome substitute for the otherwise thirty-minute wait time it takes for a single heart to replenish. It also lessens the pressure from Pokémon Shuffle’s intended ‘pay-to-win’ formula. Coins, meanwhile, are rewarded in small amounts at each successful conclusion of a match, and can be exchanged to earn a few more rounds in a single given match, a slight boost in the experience points earned by your party members, the chance to start out with a mega-evolution bonus, and more. These coin-based rewards are among the game’s most expensive rewards, and gauging just how much your in-game currency is worth can play a major role in strategizing for matches.

Similar to the jewels, coins are sometimes earned at mile markers, or simply by ‘checking in’ with the network servers on a daily basis. Another of Pokémon Shuffle’s online components comes in the form of special matches, which are only available for short periods of time, but pit you against rarer Pokémon that can make strong additions to your team. Finally, the 'EX' missions pit you against higher-level and even legendary Pokémon, but remove the limited number of turns in favor of a timer countdown that can last anywhere from thirty seconds to a few minutes. Often, these higher-level Pokémon will dish out attacks of their own in an attempt to hinder your progress or throw off your combo chains.

Of course, given the ‘pay-to-play’ formula Pokémon Shuffle is designed to experiment with, there is the option to exchange real world money for in-game currency, and while I am no less opposed to this formula on the 3DS than I am on tablets and phones, it may be worth noting that the exchange prices in Pokémon Shuffle are somewhat less costly than their iOS and Android contemporaries. That said, Pokémon Shuffle is a refreshing addition to the microtransaction school of design, in that the application is not so much that you are paying to win, rather that should you choose to pay, you will be extending your playtime with the game immediately as opposed to waiting a half-hour or more before your next possible match. If you are taking to this game as a casual title to play a few bouts at a time in between sessions of other, more meaty 3DS titles, it’s a solid product that provides intuitive entertainment for free. For those willing to pay for more jewels and coins, your mileage with Pokémon Shuffle may vary.

My rating: 7 (out of 10)

25 Days of Pokémon: Top 5 Endgame Events

Capping off my month’s worth of ‘top five’ lists focusing on the Pokémon series, this list covers five of my very favorite moments or chain of events from late in their respective games. Some are only accessible after completing the main game, while others are incorporated as part of the plot late in the core experience. Honorable mentions go to the Unova Battle Subway and the Delta Episode from the recently released Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. This has been a fun and very different approach to my ’25 Days of Christmas’ special, and I’d certainly consider doing something similar in future years with some of my other favorite video game franchises, like Metal Gear, Metroid, or even some more Legend of Zelda (even though it is one of the most frequently represented series on this blog).

#5) Revisiting the Kanto gyms in Gold and Silver / Heart Gold and Soul Silver – The generation II titles and their DS remakes will always hold a special place for me, as the first proper Pokémon games that I played on the Gameboy Color, as well as the games that got me back into Pokémon just a few short years ago. While the Elite Four and battle against Lance was a properly climactic conclusion to the Johto storyline, discovering how much more lay beyond the borders in Kanto blew my mind as a kid. In reality, this retread of the Kanto region is a trimmed down, fast-paced romp compared to both its original Red/Blue incarnation, as well as the entirety of the Gold/Silver storyline, but it was still tons of fun to go up against the likes of Brock, Lt. Surge, Erica, Misty, and all the other classic gym leaders.

#4) The Distortion World in Platinum – As Cyrus sees his plan to summon the legendary Giratina revealed, the game transports you both to an alien realm, one that appropriately reflects Giratina’s representation of anti-matter. Waterfalls flow from one impossible floating cliff to another, stalks of unnatural plants appear and disappear, and the game requires you to adopt a mindset more common to a series like The Legend of Zelda to solve a few puzzles in order to progress to the final showdown with Giratina. This drastic jolt from intense end-of-the-world scenario to mystical realm of impossibility was one of the moments in Platinum that really made me appreciate the game’s bold and stranger direction than most of its predecessors, even if this approach had not panned out quite as effectively in earlier legs of my adventures through the Sinnoh region.

#3) The Pokémon World Tournament in Black 2 and White 2 – This tournament effectively served as a love letter to Pokémon fans. It allowed players to hone their skills and perfect their strategies while taking on gym leaders and league champions from all the previous regions in a bracket tournament, and even offered up the more highly-specialized tournaments demanding players only use Pokémon that fit a specific typing. Of the plethora of post-game offerings in the generation V sequels, the Pokémon World Tournament was the most intense, the most robust, and constantly offered plenty of opportunities for fun and learning with each successive battle.

#2) The League Champion Battle against Iris in Black 2 and White 2 – While Black and White’s league champion battle was interrupted due to the arrival of Team Plasma, the sequel games do it up properly as one of the most fitting endgame challenges, but also one of the most enjoyable battles in any Pokémon game to date. Iris is so bubbly and excited to see what you’ve made of yourself as a trainer after the remnants of Team Plasma disbanded, and it’s both a breath of fresh air following the darker implications of the main story, and a perfect endpoint for that same journey. This battle against Iris and her team of Pokémon had me on the edge of my seat for all of the right reasons.

#1) The Elite Four in Black and White – This team technically also accounts for the Elite Four present in Black 2 and White 2, but my first time challenging them was truly something special. The Elite Four have always served as the endgame gauntlet-style challenge in the Pokémon titles, forcing players to bring their very best team members and strategies, and carefully planning each move as they attempt to forge a path toward the league champion. And yet, some of these have proved too easy a feat, as was the case in X and Y as well as the recent Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Others still have had such a sudden leap in the scaling of the opponents Pokémon, as was the case in Platinum. The Elite Four of the Unova region present Pokémon that are at a level that is simply perfect for that endgame climax, offering up a high degree of challenge, but one that is certainly possible to overcome, given proper planning and flexibility in the heat of battle. The typings of the Pokémon in the possession of each member of the Elite Four still stands as my favorite combination, with Dark, Ghost, Psychic and Fighting taking the stage in wonderfully-rendered arenas that provide each of the four characters with their own unique arenas that reflect their personalities and provide players a brief look into who they are as individuals. Grimsley’s candleit lounge, Shauntal’s gloomy study, Marshall’s chain-link-surrounded fighting ring, and Caitlin’s lavish bedroom – Black and White breaks from the tradition of trekking down a single linear hallway, allowing you to tackle these in whichever order

3DS review: Pokémon: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

Built upon the same engine used for last year’s revolutionary X and Y, the Pokémon series returns to the Hoenn region for a set of remakes, titled Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. As a young trainer, you start off in Littleroot Town, meet your neighbor/childhood friend/rival, and are given one of three starter Pokémon by the local professor – the grass-type Treecko, water-type Mudkip, or fire-type Torchic. It’s typical fanfare for the series, though not unlike their original GBA releases, these remakes of Ruby and Sapphire do well to get the adventure going faster than other entries in the series – tutorials are covered quickly, and there is a decent variety of Pokémon available to catch in the wild early in the game that will still prove practical team members hours down the road.

Mega Evolutions were among the big new additions in X and Y, and plenty more have been added in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire to better round out the different Pokémon types represented by this new tier of temporary evolution. It’s a decent compromise, given the fact that there are no new Pokémon represented in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and that the vast majority of the Pokémon encountered throughout the Hoenn region are those that are native to it. The Player Search System, Super Training, and Pokémon-Amie all return, providing smooth online components for battle and trade, as well as the ability to easily boost your Pokémon’s skills and affection levels. The Pokenav, meanwhile, provides a new addition for seeking out wild Pokémon that will detail all the types of Pokémon in the area, what level the nearest one is at, and – in some cases – special moves they might not otherwise know. It’s a welcome addition that makes catching them all, or even just a few key Pokémon that you wish to use to round out your team’s typing representation, a much faster and less random process.

The story remains largely unchanged – depending on which version you are playing, the organizations of Team Aqua and Team Magma will seek to revive the legendary Kyogre to expand the seas, or the legendary Groudon to expand the land respectively. It was not the most compelling of plots during its original GBA release, and though some new expanded bits of dialogue have been added to more consistently integrate both these villainous teams and the player into the core story, it stands as one of the weakest narratives in the main Pokémon series. The same can be said for the Hoenn region as a whole – while some of the major cities have been given more of an aesthetic appeal with full-fledged 3D models of notable landmarks, the continent as a whole feels visually underwhelming, and its physical layout archaic. Far too often does the game require you have two or three HM moves to advance down a long stretch of path, which seems counter-intuitive, given that the experience share system from X and Y returns, intended to (more or less) evenly spread experience points between all party members. Unless you intend for your party to retain an HM-specialist Pokémon, this can lead to party member’s levels being skewed quite a bit as you swap them from your party to the PC.

Perhaps uneven party member levels is little more than a minor annoyance to some players, but the experience share will undoubtedly lead to an overly-powerful team past the halfway point of the game, even if you should choose to avoid a large number of trainers on the routes along the way. Late-game gym battles become laughably easy, and the Elite Four – while offering a marginally greater challenge than their counterparts in X and Y, are still easy to sweep with the use of only three or four of your party members. On the other hand, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire do cut out some of the fetch-quest distraction points from the original GBA versions, which streamlines the experience, keeping the story on track better than in its original incarnation.

Another new feature present in these 3DS remakes is the post-game Delta Episode, which sees Steven Stone call upon you, the player character, to help collect meteorite shards in order to construct a device that will be used to deviate the path of a meteorite on a collision course with the Hoenn region. While this premise alone is dire enough, things become murky and complicated when a young woman named Zinnia intervenes, claiming that you must find another solution, as Steven’s scientific plan may result in dark repercussions for humans and Pokémon alike. The Delta Episode lasts a little over an hour, but during that brief window, it manages to deliver a story that is significantly more compelling that the approximately fifteen-hour run of the main story, introducing a character who is a fresh, if not incredibly quirky addition to the series. The Delta Episode also provides a rounding out of some of Hoenn’s regional lore, and expansions of the mysteries tying together some of the other Pokémon games.

As for the rest of the post-game content, it is typically of a hit-or-miss nature. As players near the Elite Four in the main story, they will be granted use of the Eon Flute, which can summon the legendary Latias or Latios to fly them above the continent and plop them down in any city, route, or major landmark they desire. It’s a visual treat that offers fast-travel in the same vein as using the Fly HM move, and even grants players access to otherwise-inaccessible locations off the beaten path to catch legendary Pokémon not native to Hoenn. The process of encountering and catching these legendaries ranges from a simple matter of walking up to a mystical portal and prompting a battle, to traveling to a certain location with certain other legendaries in your party, to hoping there is a randomly-appearing island on the map when you boot up your copy of the game. Personal hideouts dubbed 'secret bases' can be decorated with Pokémon dolls and furniture, or even set up as your own personal gym, though the novelty of this becomes quickly forgettable.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were seemingly promoted largely with two crowds in mind – those who played the GBA versions of Ruby and Sapphire during their initial release, and those who appreciated the streamlined gameplay and inclusion of many new features presented by X and Y. Yet, for all the great elements of the original GBA titles that these remakes retain, they also seem compelled to hold on just as tightly to the outdated design elements and lackluster plot. It is similarly unfortunate that these titles incorporate even less in the way of updated features than last year’s 3DS debut of the series. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are not exceptionally lazy efforts, but they are confoundingly rooted in outdated ideas, and fail to embrace more of what has pushed Pokémon toward smoother gameplay and more intelligent scripting with the last few major releases.

My rating: 7 (out of 10)

Pokémon: Omega Ruby journal - entry five

Well, I did manage to more or less steamroll my way through the Elite Four – Trevenant and Infernape both swept a good chunk of the competition aside, while I really only had to swap out to Emolga in order to counter Glacia’s Wailrein. The Elite Four battles were not quite the cakewalk that their Kalos counterparts provided, but they weren’t much more of a challenge, truth be told. I even deliberately avoided many of the trainers along Victory Road in the hopes that it might balance the fights out a bit, but it seems this game was designed with players being significantly more powerful than necessary in mind.

It’s a bit of a shame, really, as I found the Pokémon typings spotlighted by each member of the Elite Four to be a fun and interesting combo. The champion battle against Steven Stone would have served as the highlight of the whole experience, were it not for the fact that beating him was similarly all too easy. For the sake of the narrative, however, I did appreciate Steven Stone’s constant involvement in major events, and the fact that he is something of a rival character who also acts as a source of inspiration to the protagonist – someone that most people seem to look up to. Thank goodness he wasn’t just dropped in for a brief cameo and then ignored entirely until his climactic battle (I am, of course, making a not-so-subtle reference to Diantha’s minimal role in X and Y). Regardless, above is my team that triumphed over the Elite Four, my ‘dream team’ for Omega Ruby.

I’ve only spent about fifteen minutes or so with the postgame Delta Episode, and have found its narrative to be considerably more compelling than the main game’s story and conflict with Team Magma. It’s comforting to know that at least some part of this remake might leave me somewhat impressed. The ability to soar around Hoenn on the back of Latios is certainly a visual treat, and is seemingly the only way to reach areas where warp holes containing legendary Pokémon await. I suppose it only makes sense to restrict access to these more powerful Pokémon until the main game is nearly over, though the premise of these mysterious holes simply spitting out Pokémon in front of you makes things, yet again, seem a bit easier than necessary. It shouldn’t be too much longer before I post my final review for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, though, depending on how long the Delta Episode content runs, I may yet post another journal entry beforehand.

25 Days of Pokémon - Top 5 Steel Pokémon

In keeping with the previous list, I thought it appropriate that I cover my five favorite Pokémon from my second-favorite typing, Steel. As with nearly every Pokémon detailed as part of this twenty-five days of Christmas special, these Pokémon are simply ones that I enjoyed using during my previous playthroughs, and ones that have served me well in both main storyline and postgame content. Their ordering is not necessarily a reflection of how well I think they would serve me in the competitive scene, as that’s not really my forte. Honorable mentions go to Lucario and Metagross, two Pokémon that - while both awesome in their own right - I prefer for their Fighting and Psychic moves, respectively.

#5) Scizor – Scyther seemed to be a fan-favorite when I was growing up and the Pokémon franchise was brand-spankin’-new. Imagine, then, just how excited young players became when they learned of Scizor, the Bug/Steel evolution of Scyther. Scizor’s dual-typing offers what is a decently useful buff, though it has a glaring weakness to Fire-type Pokémon, and doesn’t fare too well against Fighting-types either. However, the real appeal for my using Scizor during one of my Soul Silver replays lay in his widely varied moveset, which was key in taking down Grass, Psychic, Ghost, and fellow Bug Pokémon. He even fared quite well in the post-game tournaments of Black 2 once I transferred him over to the fifth generation games, and still proves quite useful for friendly competitive bouts in the sixth generation scene.

#4) Steelix – Another generation II evolution of a gen I Pokémon, Steelix is the bigger, badder, and generally cooler-looking evolution of Onix. It does what all good Steel Pokémon do in playing a defensive role, and then ups the ante with its secondary Ground typing. I relied quite heavily on Steelix during one of my replays of Soul Silver, and while Steelix performed wonderfully against the likes of Blaine and Lt. Surge, his crowning achievement was laying the smack-down on Red’s prized Pikachu while a snowstorm swelled atop Mt. Silver.

#3) Mawile – One of the more bizarre humanoid Pokémon designs, Mawile has two mouths - one on its proper, smaller face, and another gaping venus-flytrap mandible attached to the back of its skull. Depending on who you ask, people may describe Mawile as a cute and cuddly Pokémon, or one of the most lethal-looking things to come from the generation III titles. Either way, Mawile is a beast, both offensively and defensively. It can takes hits like a champ, and can learn Flamethrower, Brick Break, Shadow Ball, Ice Beam, Flash Cannon, Solar Beam, and more versatile moves to make it a wonderful jack-of-all-trades.

#2) Genesect – Once upon a time, Team Plasma decided to resurrect an ancient Bug Pokémon. They then decided that, in all his splendor, his physical form was not good enough, and so they decided to strap a giant cannon to his back. Genesect’s origin is probably the most perfect example of a terrible idea birthing something so awesomely dangerous since Team Rocket concocted Mewtwo in their own laboratories. The ability to give Genesect different drives that allow him to attack with Fire, Electric, Ice, and Water blasts respectively only adds to his diverse moveset, and his Bug/Steel dual-typing is certainly a welcome addition to the generally Psychic-heavy representation in the pantheon of legendary Pokémon.

#1) Aegislash – Perhaps some of you were curious as to how Aegislash, one of my all-time favorite Pokémon, was omitted from the top five Ghost-type Pokémon listing – after all, I only made mention of it and its pre-evolved forms in nearly every journal entry that accompanied my playthrough of Pokémon Y. The simple fact is that I was reserving it for this list, as trying to choose between Aegislash and Chandelure as my all-time favorite Ghost Pokémon would have been too close to call. From the moment I learned of Honedge’s dual Steel and Ghost typing, I knew I had to try my best to make it an integral part of my team, and boy did that decision pay off in spades. Aegislash’s moveset is incredibly versatile, his stats thoroughly impressive for both offensive and defensive, and his typing grants him unique additional defensive properties. Plus, his design – and those of his pre-evolutions – are so ridiculous, yet somehow intimidating, that it is awesomely perfect.

25 Days of Pokémon - Top 5 Ghost Pokémon

I’ve made mention in many of my previous Pokémon-related postings (especially my playthrough journals) that Ghost is my favorite Pokémon typing. It only makes sense, then, in my writing about some of my favorite elements of the franchise, that my five favorite Ghost Pokémon should be a topic of one of this month’s lists. While I do love a great number of Ghost Pokémon, I will adhere to my rule of five and five only, but will accordingly give honorable mention to the company of Golurk and Rotom.

#5) Sableye – While technically Ghost is its secondary typing and Dark its primary, I consider any Pokémon with a Ghost typing eligible for this list (and hey, it’s my list, so I can make the rules). Sableye was, surprisingly enough, one of my favorite Pokémon from my Sapphire playthrough. Its dual-typing gives it extra defense against both Dark and Ghost-type attacks, giving it no natural weaknesses save for the generation VI addition of Fairy-type attacks. Sableye can takes hits like a champ and dish out some decent attacks in return, despite what its tiny frame might let on.

#4) Drifblim – I didn’t think much of Drifblim prior to my catching one during my post-game adventures in the generation V titles, but what ultimately piqued my curiosity in this balloon Pokémon were the sinister implications described in the Pokedex entries for both it and its pre-evolved form, Drifloon. Drifloon’s Pokedex entry states that children who grab hold of them sometimes go missing, with other interpretations going so far as to say Drifloon takes children away to a land of the dead. Drifblim’s Ghost/Flying dual-typing and its ability to learn Thunderbolt led it to be a solid competitor in Unova’s Pokémon World Tournament matchups.

#3) Mismagius – Generation II introduced but one new Ghost Pokémon in the form of Misdreavus. While it was nice to see Game Freak add to the company of Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar, Misdreavus was not the most practical team member in those days, and did not receive a proper evolution until generation IV came around. Mismagius’s design is simple, yet effective, with its magician’s hat-shaped head and flowing robe-like body distinguishing it from other phantom Pokémon. Mismagius has a wide variety of typing pools it can draw its moves from, including the new Fairy moves in generation VI, making it a wonderfully useful Pokémon for taking down many a foe.

#2) Gourgeist – An unsung hero of the Ghost Pokémon, Gourgeist was my oddball pick in my playthrough of Y. I came across its pre-evolved form of Pumpkaboo late in the story, but when I learned of this Ghost/Grass Pokémon’s ability to learn Flame Charge, that secured its spot in my party. My Gourgeist was a Large size, and thus was able to both deal and take greater amounts of damage than his smaller kin, but was not nearly as slow as the Super Size variant. Taking to Super Training, I boosted Gourgeist’s speed, attack, and special attack, which – coupled with the speed increase earned from successive uses of Flame Charge – meant it could easily sweep many opposing Pokémon in a blitzkrieg offense.

#1) Chandelure – One of the first generation V designs I came across when I was getting back into the Pokémon franchise, Chandelure stood out to me as a wonderfully bizarre design – so much so, that I made it my mission to incorporate this Pokémon into my team as soon as I came across its pre-evolved form of Litwick. Chandelure is a perfect representation of what the Ghost Pokémon aesthetic is all about, as far as I’m concerned – the Victorian-style chandelier body combined with the purple flames and empty yellow eyes offers a creepy, yet somehow refined creature that fits right in with the limited company of its Ghost Pokémon kin. This lone Fire/Ghost dual typing offers many strong offensive options, and the abilities of Flame Body and Flash Fire can provide a unique edge over the competition in battle.

Pokémon: Omega Ruby journal - entry four

The showdown with Primal Groudon was certainly a visually impressive moment for the game, though the fact that each of my party member’s levels was in the mid-fifties made the battle and capture process more frustrating than need be. Some of my Pokémon were all too likely to one-hit-K.O. Groudon, while the legendary Pokémon’s moveset was still powerful enough to knock out anyone in my party within two or three moves. And the fact that Groudon kept using rest only drew the process out further, resulting in about seven attempts before I actually had a decent shot at catching the beast.

Wallace’s gym battle offered a much appreciated variety in Pokémon that was absent in nearly every gym that preceded it, but my Trevenant was still able to sweep his entire team while taking hardly any damage. The sea routes that are so frequent late in the game do not bother me much, but the game’s archaic design for the overworld and excessive reliance on HMs is borderline-infuriating. I had hoped that with this reimagining of Ruby and Sapphire, Game Freak would incorporate as much from the generation VI titles as possible into streamlining the experience and making the whole package more user-friendly, but as I’ve seen time and time again during my playthrough, Omega Ruby is a classic case of ‘one step forward, two steps back’.

The brief glimpse of Zinnia did not go unnoticed by my eyes, and I’m very much hoping that the bonus content in the post-game Delta Episode makes up for some of Omega Ruby’s fumbles. I clocked in a couple more hours today, and I intend to try my best to burn through the remainder of Omega Ruby’s main story within the next week. Hopefully the Elite Four at least offer something of a challenge – right now, I fear they may be as much a cakewalk as their Kalos counterparts. Going into Victory Road, I’m already having flashbacks to Platinum's nauseating reliance on HM moves to mindlessly zigzag through a labyrinth of tunnels, bridges, and waterways.

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.

25 Days of Pokémon - Top 5 Pokémon Games

For this year’s twenty-five days of Christmas special, I’ll be focusing on the Pokémon series, albeit in a different manner than in years past. Instead of making one giant list of my favorite Pokémon or what have you, I’ve opted to make five separate ‘top five’ lists, each highlighting a different aspect of the series. Each will be posted roughly a week apart from one another, between now and December 24th. Today marks the second list, which details my five very favorite titles in the Pokémon series.

#5) Platinum – Generation IV is heralded as many as one of the weaker offerings of the main series of Pokémon games, due to its lack of new Pokémon, few of which are generally considered worthwhile team members, while others are obtainable only through a convoluted process. Still, I certainly found Team Galactic’s intent to tamper with time and space to serve their own needs entertaining, trumped only by Cyrus’ detached and selfish vision for the world. Platinum offers a completed package, with a bit of extra content not included in the original release of Diamond and Pearl, and between its Distortion World puzzle segment and expansive gyms, is still a fun Pokémon title, even if its reliance on event-distributed items and battery-sapping online components means it does not live up to the quality of some of its brethren.

#4) X and Y – The sixth generation games offered up plenty of new and different features that made the connection between player and Pokémon more immersive. These titles also fell victim to considerably easier playthroughs, thanks to the new experience share system that distributed exp. to all team members, even when wild Pokémon were caught. Even if large portions of routes were bypassed here and there, it was not uncommon to find the endgame Elite Four and Champion battles to be a cakewalk. Mega Evolutions proved a tad underwhelming, save for their use in the competitive scene, though the new Pokémon native to the Kalos region offered wonderful typings and movesets, by and large. X and Y did a great deal to advance the Pokémon formula players had become so familiar with, while being perhaps lighter on post-game content than what series veterans were accustomed to.

#3) Black 2 and White 2 – Two years after Ghetsis’ defeat, Team Plasma is back at it in the Unova region, and the influx of Pokémon from other regions during wild encounters makes for a vastly different play experience, despite running on the same setup as its Black and White predecessors. While it would have been easy for Black 2 and White 2 to simply ride on the coattails of the previous monochromatic titles, the team behind these two sequels decided to up the ante, offering brand new areas to explore, even greater ease of access to newcomers and veterans alike with regards to acquiring TMs and training Pokémon for specialized roles, and did away with the need for HMs in the main storyline almost entirely. There’s a lot to do and see in B2 and W2, from NPC trades, to post-game quests, to the test-your-might tournament that allowed trainers to challenge gym leaders and champions from all five major regions of the Pokémon world.

#2) Heart Gold and Soul Silver – The games that properly reintroduced me to Pokémon, these remakes of the generation II titles carry all the sense of fun and adventure in the Johto region over to a significantly easier-to-navigate menu and faster-paced battles. What Red and Blue laid out in ground work, Gold and Silver nigh on perfected for their heyday, and HG and SS do a masterful job of paying tribute to the Gameboy classics, making routes more distinctly identifiable, updating the soundtrack and splashing plenty of color on the screen, and implementing the generation IV online and wireless trade and battle components in a manner even more so seamless than Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum did beforehand. Few regions will ever stand up to the intelligent layout of Johto, or the solid offering of Pokémon encountered therein, and there’s no more enjoyable way to embark on this journey again than through these DS remakes.

#1) Black and White – One of the few Pokémon games to actually present a decently compelling set of ideals for its villainous team to rally behind, the ‘free-Pokémon-from-their-masters’ cries of Team Plasma put you, the player, in a role that will be continuously questioned over the course of this bold new set of Pokémon titles. Generation V effectively barred players from using any non-Unova Pokémon until the postgame content, forcing creative team building strategies not unlike the days of Red and Blue on the Gameboy, but with overall better-balanced Pokémon to choose from, and highly creative and practical typing and moveset combinations to boot. What I found in Black and White was the most engrossing plot of the series, coupled with the most intelligent, creative, and strategic gameplay of any of the generations, bar none. Black 2 and White 2 did exceptionally well at building off of Black and White’s duality of getting back to the basics while simultaneously breaking into bold new territory, but at the end of the day, Black and White did it first, and did it best.

25 Days of Pokémon - Top 5 Starter Pokémon

For this year’s twenty-five days of Christmas special, I’ll be focusing on the Pokémon series, albeit in a different manner than in years past. Instead of making one giant list of my favorite Pokémon or what have you, I’ve opted to make five separate ‘top five’ lists, each highlighting a different aspect of the series. I will be posting these roughly a week apart from one another, between now and the end of December. So today marks the first list, which details my top five starter Pokémon!

Picking your starter in each Pokémon game is the first major decision toward the long journey ahead. The five listed below are my personal favorites for a variety of reasons, partially because I like their typings and movesets, partially because they simply look cool. But the biggest factor that played into their inclusion on this list was how well they worked for me as team members during my various playthroughs of Pokémon games – and not just for the main storyline, but the post-game content as well.

#4) Typhlosion – The fully-evolved form of Cyndaquil, Typhlosion was the first starter I ever picked in a Pokémon game, back in the days of Gold on the Gameboy Color. It was the first Pokémon I identified as one of my favorites, because despite being into the anime and trading cards during the generation I craze, I didn’t play any of the core video game entries until generation II. When I dove back into Pokémon a few years ago with Soul Silver, Cyndaquil was my obvious choice, and though I’ve since gone back and replayed that DS remake with Totodile and Chikorita, Typhlosion will always hold a special place for me.

#5, #3, and #2) Blaziken, Sceptile, and Swampert (respectively) – While my journal entries on the generation III games and their remakes have indicated my being overall less favorable toward them than practically every other release in the series, I will admit that if there is one thing I felt Ruby and Sapphire excelled at, it was the Pokémon they added to the mix. These three starters are considered by many to be some of the best out there, and for good reason – they changed up battle tactics considerably with Swampert’s dual-typing of Water/Ground, and Blaziken being the first in a line of Fire/Fighting combos. And while Sceptile remained a pure Grass type, its stats and moveset proved that it could certainly hold its own in the company of the other two. The generation III starter Pokémon are among the rare few starters that have seen consistent use between the main single player game and the competitive multiplayer scene.

#1) Greninja – The ninja frog that debuted in generation VI, Greninja is, surprisingly enough, my all-time favorite starter Pokémon. His Water/Dark dual-typing is oddball enough that it offers up moveset options that are both varied and practical, while his stats make him ideal for landing hits fast and hard. He’s become something of a fan-favorite since the release of X and Y, as well as the recent Super Smash Bros. Really though, when compared to his fellow Kalos starters, the only other one that stands up as somewhat practical beyond the main game is Chestnaught. Plus, Greninja's aesthetic is absolutely radical, tongue scarf, water shurikens and all.

Pokémon: Omega Ruby journal - entry two

This 3DS remake is proving, in some ways, a notable improvement over its GBA precursor, and in others, a game that is made frustrating by outdated design elements. First, the good – the Pokénav is a major step forward in scouring tall grass along routes, looking for a certain Pokémon or even specific movesets. It makes wild encounters less of a gamble, and random wild encounters are far less frequent than any Pokémon game beforehand, which is all fine and dandy, considering that the experience share from X and Y makes its triumphant return and seriously boosts the rate at which all party members level up. Also, it appears that one of the sidequests/subplots surrounding a machine piece needed to aid electric gym leader Wattson has been removed entirely – a welcome removal, in my opinion, as it was clunky and was one of the first major moments of the pacing being thrown off in the original Ruby and Sapphire.

Now for the not-so-great – the 3DS retelling of these Pokémon adventures in the Hoenn region suffers from the same lack of direction that I encountered around the halfway point of my playthrough of the GBA Sapphire. This is especially disappointing as Omega Ruby had been going out of its way a bit to give players more clear indication of what their next step was supposed to be. Now that has apparently dropped off, right as I’m reaching the areas of Hoenn where paths begin to split and the environments become winding, lengthy, and generally confusing. IGN received some flack for their dislike of the large water regions in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but I personally have no problem with the Hoenn seaways – at the very least, those are navigable, and rarely are any of the ocean segments of any Pokémon game too large to frequently lose your way. But man, maybe Team Aqua was on to something when they said they wanted to drown the continent, because Hoenn’s continental layout is not the best.

On the topic of my current team, I have put Squirtle away in the PC, favoring Corpish for the time being. Chimchar has since evolved into Monferno, Beldum into Metang, and I’ve added an Emolga to my team to better round it out. This new lineup has worked out pretty well so far, and I’ve only had to box any of them temporarily to progress north with the use of HMs (another aspect of Omega Ruby that feels archaic and saps from the fun factor a bit).

Pokémon: Omega Ruby journal - entry one

My playthrough of Pokémon: Omega Ruby has been off to a slow start for a number of reasons, none of which really stem from the actual game itself. Part of my not jumping on this game immediately after I bought it was the result of my giving priority to the Wii U iteration of the new Super Smash Bros., part of it was due to my being rather busy with real-world going-ons last weekend, and part of it stemmed from the simple fact that the original GBA versions of Ruby and Sapphire were actually my personal least favorite entries in Game Freak’s long-running golden goose for Nintendo’s handhelds.

Before anyone starts berating me for the above statement, let me be clear that the fact that I am not so keen on the GBA Pokémon titles does not stem from their storylines, rather it's from the physical layout of the Hoenn region and associated technological restrictions of the era of their original release. I was a huge fan of the fact that Ruby and Sapphire offered up a nice variety of Pokémon players would actually want to use in early wild encounters, and there were some interesting dual-type combinations and naturally-learned movesets among them. Despite all this, my favorites in the series still prove the generation V entries Black and White, as well as the DS remakes Heart Gold and Soul Silver. I even found myself more fond of Platinum, restrictive hiccups, less interesting new Pokémon, and all that, than I did of Ruby and Sapphire.

With these reimaginings running on the same engine as X and Y, I have a great degree of faith that I will enjoy these 3DS counterparts significantly more, as last year’s introduction to the sixth generation of Pokémon came with an abundance of features that made the entire experience not only more accessible, but more enjoyable on the whole. As with my playthrough of Platinum, I’ve ported over a number of low-level Pokémon (courtesy of the Pokémon Bank) to help shape my party. The six Pokémon currently in my possession are by no means the core six I will ultimately use for my Elite Four encounter, though I’d like to think that at least half of them will stay by my side from start to finish.

As I’ve used each of the Hoenn starters in previous Pokémon playthroughs, I will not be utilizing any of them, despite how great each one is. I do, however, currently have two starters in my party that I have never actually used in a proper playthrough of a Pokémon game. Yes, believe it or not, I’ve actually never used Squirtle in a core Pokémon game, save for grinding in post-game content to raise one to a level fifty Blastoise as part of my desire to fill up the National Pokédex. My experience with Chimchar is similar, though at the moment, the fire monkey stands a better chance of remaining in my company longer, as it seems redundant to have two water types in the form of Squirtle and Corpish. Considering I like Corpish’s moveset at present and the typing of his evolved form more than the generation I water starter, that role may have already filled itself, though I won’t write Squirtle out just yet, as I’d like to see how Corpish fairs in the upcoming gyms and routes.

I’ve mentioned in the past how I am a huge fan of both ghost and steel type Pokémon, and while I’ve used nearly every ghost Pokémon in some capacity, Phantump and its evolved form Trevenant have done little more than sit in my PC Box since I first caught them last Fall. I’m rather curious to see how the grass/ghost combination works in the Hoenn region, though, as Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist proved a force to be reckoned with late in my Kalos region adventures. Beldum was one Pokémon I knew I wanted to use from the moment they announced Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire’s existence, and the fact that a shiny Beldum was made available for download from the moment the game hit store shelves was simply a bonus for me. Croagunk was an odball pick, as I'm not usually too hot on poison type Pokémon, but considering its usefulness against grass and fairy types as well as its secondary fighting type being useful against normal, dark, and steel, it offers up quite a lot of potential.

3DS review - Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

It may be hard to believe that it’s been six years since the last installment in Nintendo’s crossover fighting franchise was released, but now Super Smash Bros. has found a home on two of Nintendo’s consoles. While we won’t be able to get our hands on the Wii U entry until November twenty-first, the 3DS version of the game has already turned plenty of heads for the simple fact that it is a handheld version of the beloved fighter.

This latest Smash Bros. may be running on the same engine that was used for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but the two titles boast play styles that are only so similar. Gone are the inexplicable and unpredictable tripping mechanics, and less gimmicky are the characters. Both of these aspects make for a more enjoyable fighting experience, which is only enchanced by the inclusion of what is easily the most well-balanced roster since the days of Melee. Some players have already taken a liking to a handful of characters for competitive play, but relatively simple downgrades to Meta Knight and Pit as well as slight upgrades to Sheik and Zero Suit Samus leave a major impact on the overall feel of the game. Meanwhile, newcomers like Robin, Mega Man, and the Animal Crossing Villager feel right at home in the company of veterans Mario, Donkey Kong, Captain Falcon, Kirby, and many more.

Similarly, the stages offer a great deal of variety, with the sizes of most ranging from small to medium. Battlefield and Final Destination see mere aesthetic changes, while the latest F-Zero and PictoChat stages are very slight variations on their predecessors. The designs of the Nintendogs Living Room or Find Mii stages may not boast the flash and flair or interactivity of environments like the Unova Pokemon League or Fire Emblem Arena Ferox, but this handheld version of Smash Bros. seems often more concerned about functionality than flamboyance. A large portion of these stages (nearly one-third, in fact) are re-used from previous Smash Bros. games, but are far better suited for the series’ 3DS outing than some of the Melee stages that were carried over to Brawl.

Classic mode returns, with little change to the long-established pattern of squaring off against CPU fighters, be they metal, giant, or in a continuously spawning team. Before the start of each match, however, classic mode does allow you to select your path, the suggested difficulty of each match indicated by green, blue, and red paths. In the vein of Kid Icarus: Uprising, Classic mode allows you to gamble more coins to take on greater challenges on higher difficulty settings and reap greater rewards. All-star mode similarly remains largely unchanged from its Brawl counterpart, as you face off against multiple CPU fighters at a time in what is (more or less) the chronological order of their video game debuts, starting with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Mario, and working all the way on up to Greninja, the Wii Fit Trainer, and the latest Fire Emblem characters.

Training mode still allows you to test out Smash’s many items and stages, as well as hone your abilities in chaining combos (now made more easily identifiable thanks to a successive hit counter and damage percentage numbers that pop up when your character makes contact with an opponent). Stadium sees the return of both the Home Run Derby and Multi-Man Smash, and again, little has been changed on either of those fronts – 100-Man Smash, Endless Smash, and Cruel Smash have you taking on hordes of Mii Fighters, but the concept remains the same. New to this Smash Bros. is Target Blast, something of a hybrid between Home Run Derby and the old Break the Targets mode. In Target Smash, players will have a brief window of time to deal as much damage as possible to a bomb, which they can then launch at a series of targets, blocks, smaller bombs, and occasional bonus trophies and abilities in the hopes of knocking these objects into one another and chaining a high score. Think of it like Angry Birds, except that you have but two successive shots to take out as many targets as possible.

Smash Run operates similarly to Kirby: Air Ride’s City Trial mode, as players have a set amount of time to explore every nook and cranny of a gauntlet-style stage, taking on grunt enemies from many of the game series represented in Smash Bros. How you choose to dispatch these foes, which paths you take, and how many secret rooms you discover influences which stat boosts you will receive, which are then factored into an endgame challenge, be it a vanilla Smash bout or something more directly related to your newfound upgrades like a footrace through a multi-layered course.

Custom versions of each character can also be crafted from a separate menu, and can be used in some of the game’s various modes. These customization options not only include boosts and tradeoffs for a character’s speed, defense, and offense, but alternate moves as well, all of which can be collected as rewards through Smash Bros.’ many game modes. Custom Mii Fighters take this concept a step further, allowing you to give them steampunk outfits, samurai armor, or a mech suit, and designate them as belonging to one of three classes – Brawler, Gunner, or Swordfighter.

Challenge panels make a return from Brawl, though the early sets are decidedly easier than in the previous installment, asking that you play three matches as Meta Knight, hit just over 2500 feet in Home Run Derby, customize a handful of characters, and so on. Later challenge panels do up the ante, though this Smash Bros. is more generous with the number of hammers you earn that can be used to knock out most any space on the board. The rewards for completing these challenges include Smash stages, Mii Fighter stat boosts, sound test tracks, and trophies. While trophies can also be collected from the single player modes, Super Smash Bros. for 3DS introduces both a Trophy Shop and Trophy Rush mode. The Trophy Shop’s offerings will rotate frequently, even slapping a discounted price tag on some, and can be purchased with either in-game coins or 3DS Play Coins. Meanwhile, Trophy Rush is a more robust and fast-paced evolution of Melee’s Snag the Trophies, as players must break down blocks before they stack too high in order to fill a meter to initiate a feverous stream of coins and trophies to fall from the sky, all while avoiding electric balls and explosives. Betting more coins at the start of Trophy Rush will net you more time to try and improve your collection, but any fall out of bounds will subtract fifteen seconds from your remaining time.

One of Brawl’s biggest shortcomings was in the highly unreliable online play. While this new Smash Bros. certainly improves on its Wii predecessor’s faltering, it too is far from perfect in this aspect. Some matches are spot-on, and only once in a blue moon does the online play teeter into the realm of being wholly unplayable. More often than not, however, this multiplayer mode lags just enough to be a constant annoyance. The Streetpass mode known as Street Smash is underwhelming as a top-down ‘bumper cars’ sort of matchup, wherein the goal is to knock other player icons off a small platform. While Streetpass features of any 3DS title are hardly the highlight of the experience, something that was more interactive or dealt out greater rewards would no doubt have been better received.

The 3D effects, while still a cool feature as in nearly any 3DS game, are not utilized for much beyond the added depth perception of stages. It removes potential distractions from the equation, but compared to many other games on the system, does feel a bit underwhelming, especially when the character models are so small compared to their surroundings. On the whole, however, the visuals are thoroughly impressive – bright colors on the Animal Crossing Island pop, metallic textures in Super Mario’s 3D Land glisten, and all of the character models have such fluid and highly-animated motions to match their super-tight controls. Personally, I have only found myself losing track of my own character in Smash on two or three occasions since launch day, but for those concerned with being able to see who’s who on a handheld device, the character outlines can be thickened from the options menu.

For those concerned that Nintendo’s beloved fighter might lose something in translation or fail to work on a handheld entirely, you can lay those worries to rest. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is the best entry in the series since Melee, even surpassing the Gamecube classic in many respects. With so much to do and so many characters to play as, it’s easy to pour hours upon hours into this title and not become even the slightest bit bored with it. The easy settings may be a bit softer for younger players and newcomers to the series, but on a higher difficulty, Smash Bros. for 3DS carries on the tradition of those Smash titles that came before it. If this handheld entry is but a taste of what is to come from its Wii U counterpart, we’re sure to be in for a real treat. With that in mind, this is a great release all its own, and a standout entry in the already stellar lineup of the 3DS’ library of games.

My rating: 9.25 (out of 10)