Wow. I am more than impressed. I love the redesigns for the starters' Mega Evolutions, and I am very excited that Diancie may actually turn out to be more viable than previously expected (and I'm theorizing/hoping it gets a flat +50 to both Special Attack and Speed... and fucking Power Gem somehow PLEASE). If stats are distributed correctly, I can imagine that both Mega Sceptile and Mega Swampert could make it into OU.
And what's all this talk about Sceptile having a shallow special movepool? Leaf Storm, Giga Drain, Energy Ball, Dragon Pulse (now with STAB!), Focus Blast, and Hidden Power are all it needs. Sure, it'll be somewhat predictable, but is there really any other move it could ask for, besides Aura Sphere or Earth Power or something? Even then, it can always go mixed, depending on the distribution of stats, with access to things like Drain Punch, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Thunderpunch, Low Kick, Dragon Claw, Outrage, and Crunch. But, again, its special movepool has all it needs. Aegislash is the main threat that walls the combination of Dragon Pulse, Leaf Storm, and Focus Blast, but Sceptile is more than capable of running Earthquake or Hidden Power Fire over Focus Blast, with Earthquake only being walled by Togekiss, Whimsicott, Shedinja, and Skarmory and Hidden Power Fire being walled by Heatran only (and if you take a look at all threats that resist Grass/Dragon coverage, they're ALL weak to Hidden Power Fire).
Meanwhile, with the ability to destroy every weather inducer besides Abomasnow who is largely irrelevant, Mega Swampert can effectively run Rain Dance with Earthquake, Waterfall/Aqua Tail (depending on if certain KOs are met or not after the expected stat increase), and Stone Edge/Ice Punch, with Stone Edge as a better option against Mega Charizard Y. But even then...
252+ Atk Swampert Waterfall vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y in Sun: 156-186 (52.3 - 62.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
That's without any stat increase to Attack at all, or you could simply just re-cast Rain Dance, outspeed it, and OHKO. Really, Swampert's only issue is its lack of recovery once its stats are increased, but I have a strong feeling that Swampert will turn into a Swift Swim sweeper with high defense and a good typing that disallows priority from threatening it much, unlike Kabutops who only resists Brave Bird/Aerilate Quick Attack and ExtremeSpeed. Swampert also has the benefit of actually having good base HP as opposed to most other Mega Evolutions, making any defensive stat increases a lot more useful. But again, we'll see how that turns out once we know what their new stats are.
I'm also really hopeful now that Steven will be the region's champion because Wallace is an easy mode fruitcake while Steven's Cradily used to wall me to hell and back.
Crossing my fingers that character customization stays a feature for these remakes.
And this may be a stupid question, but what moves are Kyogre and Groundon using in the screenshots by their images? (Bolded to bring attention to the only thing I'm looking for a response from in this post.)
P.S. This is baseless speculation, but I'm hoping for Ground/Fire and Water/Ice Prehistoric (or whatever) Groudon and Kyogre. They better not let me down!