Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire

You all knew this was coming. But storywise I can't go into too much detail as it's the same... well 90% the same as the original Ruby and Sapphire, but watch out for spoilers ahead. The game starts out with the classic Birch speaking to you scene in the GBA graphics and before you think you're being cheated it's revealed you're looking at the Pokenav Plus, the upgraded version of the Pokenav from the original and you're looking first person inside the moving truck taking you to the start town of Hoenn. Though I do question where this road is as it never turns up in the game again. Anyway the game is pretty much the same afterwards, though you are shown about the Dexnav pretty earlier on. Basically you'll come across pokemon that appear in the open world and you have to sneak up to them by moving the control stick very slowly otherwise they'll scarper.

Now this is a great way to get shinies and pokemon with moves they wouldn't normally learn like a Poochyena with thunder fang or a Pikachu learning Lucky Chant.

The mapnav is the town map but much more improved showing you where secret bases, trainers who want to battle and berries for picking are. We also have the newsnav which gives news on other players and the last nav contains the aime, pss and super training from X and Y and trust me they are exactly the same, merely copy/pasted over.
What about the other new features, well we have contests back, you know from ruby and sapphire, though they do work exactly the same as Ruby and Sapphire, except you can choose to have our camera work as the background.

Now you know the drill you give pokeblocks to a pokemon to raise it's stats in cute, tough, beauty, tough and smart and you make theses by mixing four berries, but now that is easier as you do all this by yourself rather than with three a.i. or friends.

Anyway there's only one pokemon you need for this task. Simple play one contest you don't need to win and Lisia will appear, who's Lisia, well...

She's a contest star and she well gives you the contest Pikachu, which have different costumes for each contest, pop star for cute, pro wrestler for tough etc. This Pikachu's contest stats are all over half full and if you feed this thing rainbow pokeblocks until the meters are full and then see the head of the Pokemon fan club to get all five contest scarves and then easily dominate the contests without even trying and if you don't want to do this tough, because if you don't do this, you can't challenge Lisia to a contest and if you don't do that you can't get the Lucarionite and no you can't take it from X/Y with the pokebank, that thing don't take items.

But there is a worse megastone to get than that. Do you want the Garchompite, well then you'd better get streetpassing and explore other people's secret bases because if you want the garchompite, you need 1000 flags which is no easy task at this point I have only 136.

Do you remember secret bases by the way... they are virtually the same as in Ruby and Sapphire with some changes, the flags for one and the ability to invite other trainers ... i.e. players from their bases to be gym trainers for your base with you as the leader, though on the downside you only get 3 monsters when other players attack the a.i. you and you're locked at level 50 max unless you install the level restriction machine taking up one of your precious decoration slots as do the trainers. Though on the plus side dolls don't have to be on mats, tables or tires anymore, you can just shove them on the floor.

You all remember Wally right, well for the most of the game his shit is the same, but on your final encounter with him, he now has a Gallade instead of Gardevoir, and Mega at that... and the coolest theme song ever... don't believe me.

Right... but guess how many times this turns up in the game... ONCE... WHY?!
You've got the coolest theme ever and you use it once why? Anyway... other trainers have Megas, specifically, Lisia with Mega Altaria, Maxie with Mega Camerupt, Archie with Mega Sharpedo and Steven with Mega Metagross. And these aren't the other megas. There's also Mega Lopunny, Mega Sceptile, Mega Swampert, Mega Glalie, Mega Steelix, Mega Pidgeot, Mega Beedrill, Mega Diancie, Mega Slowbro, Mega Salamence, Mega Sableye, Mega Audino, Mega Latias and Latios and Mega Rayquaza.

Oh and Groudon and Kyogre at the back there aren't Megas, they're primals. What's the difference you ask? Primals, don't use a mega stone but rather the red and blue orbs from ruby and sapphire, yes no longer key items but held items, which means you can use a Mega and a both primals in your party if you wish. But Mega Rayquaza is different, but we'll get to that later on. Primal Groudon's ability makes it impossible for water moves to be used and it becomes part fire, while Kyogre's ability makes fire moves unusable. Now this makes Groudon immune to Kyogre and Groudon can learn solarbeam, so you think Kyogre would lose this bout, well I can beat Primal Groudon with Primal Kyogre with one move... teach it earthquake, Groudon's primal form makes it weak to it's own core type, because ground isn't not very effective against itself.

Now Latias and Latios in the original ruby and sapphire ran around the map proving to be a nightmare to catch, but in this game they join you (depending on which version) in my case Latias with their Mega Stone right after you learn surf.

Right, after a certain point in the game but before the league you get the ability to fly on the Latis' backs and explore the skies of Hoenn finding mysterious islands and glowing areas on the maps, these areas can contain portals created by a mysterious unreleased pokemon which lead to legendaries from classic games such as the black and white dragons, the gen 4 pixies and so on. Though on a plus side the Latis are a dream to fly on... DO A BARREL ROLL!

 Now I missed out some important things, like the gyms. Now the puzzles are in the same style as before, but the puzzles are different, keeping that nostalgia but not making it so you can walk through from memories from playing the first time.

Another major change is Mauville City, no longer a little town with a bike shop, gym and a now shut down casino, rather it is now a gigantic mall with loads of moves shops, a cafe from X/Y, apartments upstairs, battle institute, inverse battling house and the battle restaurants return as the Mauville Food Court. It's basically a mini Lumiose in the form of a mall.

Another change is the removal of the sunken ship replaced with a collapsed Oil rig called Sea Mauville, where depending on versions Ho-Oh or Lugia are there and the creepy Spiritomb.

But the end story known as Episode Delta is a huge add on. Now going after Rayquaza is related to a story arc where you fly into space on Mega Rayquaza's back to destroy a meteor and what lies inside is awesome. But yeah you save the earth by flying into space and destroy a meteor, I can already hear the Aerosmith.

Yes, I made an Armageddon reference in 2014, deal with it and oh yeah it's Deoxys, it's not so much a spoiler when Game Freak let it slip in a fucking trailer a few weeks before release you bastards Game Freak!

But now for the elephant in the room... Hi Brian

Yeah new elephant, the old one charged me a fortune, I got this guy from an agency. Anyway Character customisation is completely gone which was introduced in the last games which drags the game down several points as does a critical error in the game that required 2 fucking patches. Again X/Y became unplayable if you saved in Lumiose's streets until it was patched, but simple solution don't save there, but in this game you risked your game being broken when entering the Hall of Fame, SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO DO! Meaning I had to wait a fucking week until I could beat the goddamn league, what the fuck!
Also Looker is in the game in a very small cameo.

Yeah he does precisely nothing, having no story arc this time, even though he has Amnesia.

Oh and I didn't talk about Mega Rayquaza did I, the cheapest Mega in history. Mega Rayquaza doesn't have mega stone, he can mega as long as he has the move Dragon Ascent which is a flying move oddly and therefore can hold something as well, say a focus band or a life orb and fuck you up. Also it's special ability makes flying types lose all weaknesses and shuts down the primal pokemon's abilitys. Talk about overpowered.

So is it better than X/Y. Story wise honestly yes, but the lack of character customisation and the fact the X/Y add ons feel tacked on, but Mega Stones can be found at any point after the Primal showdown of the game (Groudon/Kyogre), but in the end I still prefer X/Y... but not by much. I'm The Joel MH signing off.