Emerald with Fresh Eyes
I had defeated Emerald for the first time since not playing it... gosh. I can’t even say when. Maybe when I was around 10? And nostalgia wise, I always ranked it high. And it was to a point that with ORAS, they were a mixed bag due to being more of an RS remake than not including Emerald like HGSS did. And to me, the Delta ep wasn’t enjoyable at all.
And now playing it with fresh eyes....
Yeah I couldn’t rank Emerald super high on my list anymore. I still love this region, I love the evil teams, love a lot of the pokemon, and Emerald I’d play over RS any day; but it wasn’t all that great narratively. And some choices in it were just weird choices to make.
Like, Wallace being the Champion of Hoenn... I don’t get why they did this. I was pretty much ten levels beneath him (he’s a few levels under 60 and I was around 50) and destroyed him with two pokemon alone essentially. He was not hard at all. And it’s also weird to me as they have two Water masters in the League. Idk, it was a weird choice that I didn’t like in Emerald, even back in the day of childhood it bothered me.
And the space station attack from Magma, replaying it now, did feel forced in and random. And it made Magma out to be desperate and spiteful wanting to blow up the region because bAd GuY!!!! Could’ve worked tweaking the dialogue, using the satilite to try and find Groudon, but otherwise, as cool as it was to join Steven in saving the space station, yeah that can be cut out. Especially since you don’t really get anything new with Steven himself.
And the climax of Emerald, as much as I love seeing Rayquaza tell Groudon and Kyogre off, it does take you out a bit knowing that you have to leave seeing Groudon and Kyogre duking it out to get fetch Rayquaza.
So a lot of this I can get cutting/not including in ORAS. Why they opted more for RS base than Emerald. I honestly wouldn’t want a full blown Emerald remake anymore. So I can now better get ORAS and the choices they made.
Though, its still not so ideal to me. And it has made me realize what would’ve been for my definitive Hoenn remake: having ORAS be like HGSS. At the core, the base is RS, but they include Emerald aspects, which not only would’ve really amp up the version differences. Something between Emerald and ORAS would’ve made these solid remakes and the best Hoenn to play. So, if we ever get that 2nd Hoenn remake, here’s what I’m hoping for.
- Keep Steven as Champion. He’s a lot harder and better than Wallace. A Champion I’d look forward to fighting far more.
- Take a page from BW and do version exclusive Water gym leaders. I felt bad for Juan getting side lined so hard in ORAS. Have Juan/Wallace as optional bosses, maybe you can face them if you get into contests or something.
- Keep the Emerald gym leader teams. Those were a lot harder.
- Amp up the version differences by working off what Emerald included for the two evil teams, specifically having it be that Magma’s hide out is in the volcano. Aqua can stay in the cove near Lilycove. Magma would make more sense to be in a volcano, and it could’ve been cooler to see Groudon crawling out of a volcano and roaring at the sky to amp up the sunlight.
- Optionally, do allow us to clash against both evil teams, just that depending on your version, you see more Magma or Aqua. And maybe to see the Emerald climax better done, you don’t see Aqua/Magma awakening the other legendary. But you do get to see the two clash, and could get to witness Rayquaza coming down on its own to yell at them. And based on your version, one goes under the sea and into hiding, the other continues to the Cave of Origins for you to face and maybe catch. Rayquaza and the other can be high leveled post game legendaries to catch. If HGSS can allow you to catch both Lugia and Ho-oh, I don’t see why not here.
- Just cut Brendan/May. They don’t know what to do with them personality wise, they aren’t appealing rivals, they were a blank slate in RSE and easy to forget about, or so overly friendly and chummy in ORAS I wanted to sign a restraining order. They just need to stop with opposite gender player character being your rival. They don’t know what to do personality wise as they’re not supposed to have one. It makes them bland as characters. Even worse when they push “you’re good friends agenda!” Like, no we’re not. I barely know them. Why are they trying to join me into the Champion’s room?! Trying to ride off my victory? Yeah, I don’t like them. Not in RSE. Definitely not in ORAS. If we need another rival outside Wally, why not make use of the son from the family you fight outside Mauville? Fighting his family and hearing about him, I was curious about this guy. And he starts his journey a little before you, that would’ve made him more challenging as he’d be higher than you by a few levels. I’d love to truly see him and not have him be a random trainer to fight in Victory Road.
- Battle Frontier. I personally don’t care if it comes back or not, I play more for the story and the journey; but everyone has been wanting it back. Bring it back.
- Walking pokemon please and thank you. And not the BS walking pokemon we got in BDSP. Just stick to what you did in HGSS or Let’s Go. Those were the best takes of it. Big bonus if some we can ride.
- Don’t bring back the Delta Episode. I personally didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like Zinnia. I don’t like space so riding Rayquaza into space did nothing for me. And I didn’t care for Pokemon trying to build up the idea that there’s a multiverse. To me it felt like they were trying to work off what LoZ was setting up for their multiple time lines and it just didn’t work for me.
- Expand the dex. The biggest thing that’s driving me crazy with these remakes is a reluctancy to expand the dex and match with the old dex. And the old dex isn’t perfect. If they want pokemon to ideally match the region, why not include more that can fit into it? It’d be a nice surprise for players to see the dex shaken up and encourage us to see what else was added to the region. And some really need it. Like Sinnoh remake really should’ve taken the chance to add in more fires. Even Platinum knew that was an issue and added a few more and allowed you to get Ponyta earlier. And I know, too much water, but I wouldn’t have minded more water pokemon added to Hoenn, when you’re surfing and getting random encounters, it gets old seeing nothing but Wingull and Tentacool lines. Give me more seafaring pokemon to mix it up at least.
- Speaking of which, can we just keep with overworld encounters cause omg. Random encounters (specifically with Zubut) were driving me up the wall. I made use of repels like crazy. I missed Let’s Go dynamic of overworld encounters so I can avoid pokemon and have a smoother journey. And when you have a small number of pokemon in an area, well, its no surprise what you’re going to get. I’d rather the overworld encounters.
So, over all, if we ever get another Hoenn remake, this is what I would hope for as my definitive Hoenn to play. An ideal mixture of ORAS and Emerald. ORAS did make some solid improvements, and brought in nice features, but you also really miss Emerald. And it would’ve been better incorporating aspects of Emerald. It really could’ve joined BW for having the most version differences if they included aspects of Emerald (like Magma base being in a volcano, giving you a mini different story element to go through).
Thank you for coming to my TED Talks.
