Ok, sure. What did we ignore?Sure, let’s stop ignoring the Frontier. But then we shouldn’t ignore a lot of the things OR/AS has to offer either.
No, no. This is a reference to Masuda's infamous quote about not adding the Frontier because he thinks that it's not worth the effort since kids will just think it's too hard and go back to mobile games. (Or something along these lines, I don't remember it verbatim.)If liking OR/AS and other modern Pokémon games makes me a ”mobile player”, then sure.
It wasn't a shot at you.
And here's why we're having this discussion, to begin with.They are a great training spot, way ahead of how they were in Emerald. And there’s also Secret bases, which are a downright epic training spot if you use Blissey Bases. Which is easy since those are online-based and you can just scan the QR codes and then start racking up Exp. that way. Emerald doesn’t come close to this, and even if you somehow do Blissey bases or something similar, it will be a lot less convenient and take longer to set them up. I speak from experience as I did Gardevoir bases in Emerald. While they were worth it in the end, making them took a very long time. Without secret bases, the training spots in Emerald are average at best, not epic like in OR/AS.
Doesn't it strike you as odd that we're seriously discussing whether Emerald a GBA game has better content than a 3DS Remake, 3 Pokémon generations later?
If we just look at it logically, ORAS should be straight up making Emerald obsolete. Just getting to replay through Hoenn in 3D (and ORAS looks very good on that front) is a massive advantage (although I think that Emerald still holds up as a good looking game.), the modern mechanics like the Physical/Special Split are even more of an advantage and yet, we're comparing the post-games and preferring ORAS over Emerald is actually an unpopular opinion.
Don't get me wrong, ORAS is not a bad game, and doesn't have a bad post-game per se, but the difference is immediately obvious. The scale and ambition.
You need to remember that people were already expecting the Frontier in ORAS because it not only was one of the things that defined Hoenn, but also because it's natural for a series to progress, not regress.
Ever since XY, the scale and ambition of the post-games jumped off a cliff. They literally went the extra mile to give a shoutout to the Frontier just to rub it in for crying out loud.
XY was understandable since GF clearly bit off more than they could chew, so the post-game being a step-down was collateral damage. Not ORAS though. They went the extra mile to do everything but one of the most requested post-game activities for these games. And I still stand by my stance that the Frontier beats everything ORAS had to offer 1v1.
QoL stuff is nice and much appreciated, but it's not enough, or we'd consider SnS to have one of the best post-games of all time, so no, Secret Bases being upgraded to be easier to use ain't it. Again, appreciated, but not original. It's the refining of a Gen 3 idea. And a lot of ORAS's post-game can be defined by that. The one standout and original idea is the Delta Episode, and it's a great addition, but again, it doesn't compare to the Frontier.