Sorry to wrench this conversation back to my older post, but just watched through the DisastORAS "playthrough" (they don't finish the game (it's only 5 parts afterall), they stop after Brawley, but I think they got most of their points across) and while it's not filled with as many of their grievances it may have sounded they had they still presented plenty of them. So here are the major ones (at least to me):
From Part 1:
Brendan's Redesign: Chuggaa didn't like it and when he pointed it out to Marriland he agreed. At the start they mentioned the proportions were off and then much later, I think Part 4, they also added his feet look strangely elongated and curved, comparing them to Sora's feet from Kingdom Hearts (which were stylistically made bigger as a reflection of the Disney character style).
My Thoughts: I included May also as, though it's not as extreme as I think they made it out to be, when I did see the redesigns I also at first noticed there was something a bit off about them. It wasn't just they new designs, but if you compare their designs to
Calem and
Serena there is this slightly different style used to draw them that separates them. I don't think it's the proportions either or the size of their arms and legs (though those do look rather thin now looking at it, but Serena's arms are no better). I think it's the shading/lighting that is throwing their design off for me. Like, while their bare skin is drawn in the light or shaded as normal, their clothes on the other hand looks to be made of this rubbery material with the way they have this glare lighting streaked on them. Gives them a plastic figurine-like appearance. Going back to the thinness of their design, there's also really not baggy part of their clothes, it looks all but skintight where as with Calem and Serena you see creases and folds of their clothes.
PokeMarts Are Separate Buildings: A more obvious one, Marriland shared annoyance how he liked the convenience of the Marts being a part of the Pokemon Centers starting Gen V and found it backwards they separated them again just because Gen III had them separate. Chuggaa even chimed in saying if they wanted to keep the music they always had the big department stores like the one in Lilycove.
My Thoughts: A complaint they'll later on have is how tile-y ORAS looks and I feel it's a prominent complaint here too as it addresses a big issue I had with ORAS: for many towns & cities the map is essentially a one-for-one recreation from the GBA games. And it only stands out more when you compare them to the places they did re-design like Mauville City and Sea Mauville. This was their chance to modernize these locations, maybe add a bit more to them to at least look more visually interesting as they did the town and cities in Kalos. But no, for the most part they stuck strictly to the old maps recreating it tile-by-tile. It gives the game a really artificial look which is a major criticism as Hoenn's whole thing is about being nature heavy region! Sorry to go off in a tangent like that, I do agree with them I also think they should have kept the Marts combined in the Pokemon Centers, but felt this was also a good opportunity to go into detail not only how it was backwards to make them separate but in general the design of the region was a step backwards from XY.
US Got Bogus Bonus: Preordering the game in Japan got you neat figurines of Primal Groudon & Primal Kyogre. Preordering the game in Europe also got you the figurine AND a steelbook case of the game. Preordering the games in the US got us... 200 Potions. One of things is not like the other...
My Thoughts: Oh, and this is just the tip of the iceberg,
Chuggaa had this famous moment during his Yoshi's Woolly World going into how sucky Nintendo of America sometimes is with some games & related products like preorder bonuses and soundtracks. Now just before the video ends he knows Europe has a ton of its own problems... though seriously, why? Why be like this Nintendo? Why didn't us in the US get if not the figurines but the steelbook cases? And why did you think an appropriate would be of all things 200 Potions? I don't think I ever use more thank 20 Potion before I then gain access to Super Potions (and overall I don't think I use over 50 healing items during my entire playthrough). And even if they gave us a ton of Master Balls it would still be a pale comparison to actual physical bonuses. At the very least sell the darn figurines and steelbook in the US Pokemon Store and give us a code we can use to redeem one for free!
DexNav Takes Away Excitement: Now as much as they praise the DexNav, Chuggaa had one big complaint about it: since you can search for any Pokemon you've encountered and that Pokemon you manually searched for will have better IVs, Hidden Ability, and possibly an Egg Move, after the initial encounter there is no reason why you should ever do a normal random encounter again. It even increases the chance of the Pokemon being a Shiny! What's the benefit when searching for a Pokemon after building up its Search Level to max gives you a better Pokemon? Chuggaa argues this takes away the excitement of walking into the grass and possibly encountering a rare Pokemon as now you can just force it to be a rare Pokemon. Now he's not saying it shouldn't be in the game, but rather maybe the search feature should have either been toned down and/or its full feature be kept until post game.
My Thoughts: I can see where Chuggaa is coming from. Chuggaa would also add that Pokemon speedrunners he talked to don't bother doing ORAS because the optimal strategy involves getting lucky with the DexNav and catching a Boomburst Taillow to sweep most of the game with. I'll add an experience I had with it where I grinded Skarmory encounters until I got one with Drill Peck. Instead of dealing what the game gave me and progressing at my usual casual pace, I purposely stopped to abuse a system to get a good Pokemon I'd normally have to work harder to get. Now that's probably not a good example as that Skarmory became a core member of my team, but still that shows overpowered this feature kind of was and I can see a player doing that on every route to get the best Pokemon they could on each route and just waltz through the game (though Chuggaa mentions even when not doing that it's easy to do... and with Exp. Share off). I'll agree with maybe the feature should have been toned down during main game, like maybe not let you search for a specific species but rather call for a random species (and maybe add in a recharge time between each use). At least that'll keep a bit of the surprise excitement if its a rare Pokemon and between recharges force you into the grass (maybe have a way to keep the effect of the Search Level still active so you can still run into a Pokemon with good IVs, an Egg Move, or Hidden Ability); and then post game unlock the search feature as we know it fully (or make that an incentive for getting a number of Pokemon's area list filled or their Search Level to 100).
Would Rather Play Emerald: Mentioned Chuggaa's complaints mostly but Marriland had his own including this one: between ORAS and Emerald he's rather played Emerald.
My Thoughts: And I don't think that's a point we've actually discussed. Yes, we pointed out all the features Emerald had that were missing in ORAS and that what it all boils down to was the Battle Frontier being missing was what most people cared about... but we never explored this angle. Would you rather play Emerald over ORAS? Despite all the features and modern day improvements ORAS has, does the third "enhanced" version of the original Hoenn games sound more intriguing to play? As far as I can tell this isn't an argument we have with FRLG or HGSS. It's with little opposition that FRLG is superior to the original Gen I games and HGSS is superior to the original Gen II games; if you want to play Kanto or Johto play the remakes instead of the originals (... I say when they most recent release of these games is the virtual console version of the original Gen I and II games; not counting Let's Go). But with ORAS, I can actually see someone deciding to play Emerald instead because of the combined plotline and additional stuff here and there culminating with the Battle Frontier. And yes, I suppose the answer "both" can also be used, but now with the 3DS going the way of game consoles passed and you only have the money to buy a GBA & Emerald or 3DS & copy or ORAS, which would you take (ignore GBA & Emerald would be much cheaper... and that you could probably just download a ROM...).
I started this late so going to end it here. But this was just from part 1 of their playthrough. Here's a sneak peak at the points raised in the other parts:
Part 2: Berry Farming, Norman's Involvement
Part 3: ... didn't really have any major annoyances.
Part 4: Event Torchic
Part 5: Trendy Sayings, Art Direction
Hopefully I can get to all of these tomorrow!