I can't see it - getting an error message I heard rumors that Shimomura is somehow involved in ORAS. I'll just leave a link to the track, if you want to listen to it, cause it sounds really like her. (will leave it in spoiler tags, in case you don't want to see it yet). (SPOILER)
Not as far as I can tell. Composition and Arrangement done by: Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Morikazu Aoki Also, I now totally want Pokémon X Fire Emblem, because of this picture: I'm thinking of making it my new avatar.
I'm listening to the ORAS soundtrack now, and I must say, it sounds nothing short of amazing. I especially like some of the new tracks. One stands out especially, I think it's from that new Delta Episode. It sounds like it's straight out of a KH game. Is it possible that Shimomura was involved in this?
Well, you're free to like them. Just be aware that after the 450 Pokémon in the Kalos Pokédex, going back to a mere 150 seems really limited. I got so used to seeing new encounters on every route that the older structure seemed a lot more restrictive. That said, the plot really is quite good once it finally gets going, and they improved the characterization quite a bit. I'm actually looking forward to playing OmegaRuby so that I can see how Team Magma's philosophies play out. Also, they gave Vibrava Boomburst, making Special Flygon a terror in Double and Triple Battles. I love the dragonfly, so I'm quite happy with that.
Well, sounds like I'll really like it then. The only reason why I don't think as highly of gen III as others due is due to the fact that it took away a lot of great stuff that made gen 2 awesome (like the day and night cycle). I actually always really liked Hoenn and its Pokemon selection. For some weird reason, I tend to like the "reboot generation" (Gen. 3 and 5) Pokemon than the ones in the "expansion pack generations", as I like to call them But yeah, HMs suck anyway you look at it.
HeartGold was good, but at the same time, it felt limited by the source material. Don't get me wrong, Gen II was great. But, at the same time, we had move past things like the stupid phone system to get great new features like the Pokétch. And, again, the world was designed better in the later games. The biggest problems with the Gen III remakes come from the original Gen III. Hoenn feels like a video game level, not an actual world. The zones are horribly designed. You do so much backtracking, and you always spot the obvious "here's the shortcut to get back to the start" that just makes it feel like a game level. Trekking through feels like a chore, with half of the areas being convoluted mazes that feel unnatural. The Pokémon selection is really weak, especially early on. There just aren't a ton of Pokémon that you want to use. It took about four gyms to get a team I was actually excited about (and that's including the fact that I actually really like both of Ralts's evolutions). Wingull? Wurmple? Zigzagoon? Yay, I guess? But they just felt lackluster and unoriginal. The story takes way, way too long to get moving. Whereas most games set you out and you feel like you're going on an adventure almost immediately, in Gen III, you spend the first half of the game feeling like you're on a very structure fetch quest. The HM requirements get absurd. You need basically 11 Field Moves by the end of the game, meaning half of your team is HM Slaves. Way too out of hand in this generation. The structure of the world does limit the excellent camera work. You don't get the sweeping panoramas that you had with XY, or even the fantastically well designed areas that we had in Sinnoh and Unova. It just feels so bland. Mauville is perhaps the worst. It's massively redesigned, and built up as a counterpart to Lumiose City, but you can tell just how shallow and empty it feels by comparison. The mechanics are excellent, though. The AreaNav and DexNav are absolutely brilliant. Being able to track down specific Pokémon, acquire Egg Moves easier, get Hidden Abilities... All fantastic. The Secret Base system? Great, and functions fantastically as a StreetPass feature. The new Delta Episode part of the story? From what I've heard, utterly brilliant, but I haven't reached it yet. Move Tutors coming back? There was no reason they shouldn't have been in XY, since they were in the previous three generations. Kind of the same with the new Mega Evolutions, I feel that they should have been patched into XY.
Well, I cannot wait to play it. I loved Heart Gold to bits, so I have great faith in the remakes
I did acquire them. They're good, and they improve A LOT of technical details over XY. However, they are still Gen III, and suffer the same problems the old games did. The overall Pokémon selection through the main game is really lackluster, and the Hoenn region is abysmally poor in terms of layout and overall construction (and the lack of XY's excellent camera angles did not help). It's a great game, and a great update of the Gen III (the plot and characters are especially improved). But, similar to HeartGold/SoulSilver, it only really stands as a remake, and it overall feels inferior to the actual current gen games (in my opinion).
Do you have (or are getting) the Hoenn remakes? I'm hoping to get Alpha Sapphire for Xmas.
I actually like the semi first person used in Persona Q, but I normally loathe the perspective almost universally. I appreciate moral ambiguity. I just don't feel the series handles it well. SMT lacks morals almost altogether. The closest it gets is the struggle between Order and Chaos. I don't really ever feel that there is any overriding moral themes or struggles throughout the series, which is why the "true ending" almost always devolves into a world based on hedonism and self-interest. It's very well written, and there is some merit to watching the characters collapse into nearly unrecognizably awful versions of themselves, but in pretty much every game, you're left with a world with no value, nothing to redeem it or make it worth living in.
