Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Shrine

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire are remakes of the 2002 Game Boy Advance role-playing video games Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire. The games are part of the sixth generation of the Pokémon main series of video games, developed by Game Freak and published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS.

Announced worldwide on the official Pokémon websites on 7 May 2014, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were released in most regions of the world on 21 November 2014 except for Europe, where the games were released on 28 November 2014.

I was introduced to Pokémon in the late 1990s through its very first game, Pokémon Red. Like many other children my age, I quickly became a Pokémon fan. Later I also played Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Crystal, the second generation of Pokémon core series games, with Crystal being my absolute favourite Pokémon game as a child.

However, in the early 2000s, the Pokémon mania died down. Pokémon released its third generation of games starting with Ruby and Sapphire, but when I tried out Ruby, I was disappointed to learn that only a few of the previous generation of Poké were available in the game, and I could not revisit any of the past regions, which was a major part of why I adored Generation 2.

Meanwhile, Digimon replaced Pokémon as the Mon franchise cool kids liked and talked about in my primary school — I still vividly remember a classmate dismissively telling me that Pokémon was out of fashion. As a result, the combination of my lack of interest in Generation 3 of Pokémon and my changed interest to Digimon, I moved on from Pokémon for the rest of my primary school years. As a result, except for briefly trying out Ruby, I did not play any other third generation of Pokémon games when they were released.

During the later half of the 2000s, when I was in secondary school, I started to browse the internet more. At one point, perhaps out of nostalgia, I looked for Pokémon stuff online, and discovered several Pokémon fan sites including Serebii, Bulbagarden, and more. Exploring the Pokémon fan sites rekindled my interest in Pokémon and motivated me to not only replay the first two generations of Pokémon games, but also play the third and fourth generations of games to catch up, including Sapphire, FireRed (which was also the very first video game remake I ever played), Emerald, Diamond and Platinum.

I decided to give Generation 3 another chance, many years after my initial disappointment in it. This time I had warmed up to the Generation 3 games, despite them still not being my favourite Pokémon games.

My rekindled interest in Pokémon remained throughout the rest of Generation 4 and then Generation 5. When I played Generation 3 and 4 for the first time to catch up, it was known that Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, remakes of the Pokémon Gold and Silver, would be released soon. I was already looking forward to HeartGold and SoulSilver because Generation 2 was my favourite, and when I played HeartGold for the first time, it instantly became my favourite Pokémon game. Later I followed the release of Generation 5 games, and played Pokémon Black and its sequel Pokémon Black 2 and enjoyed them as well.

However, in the early 2010s, my video game interest started to shift focus to BioWare games and the Ace Attorney series. As a result, my interest in Pokémon became dormant again until 2021.

In 2014, I had learned that Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire would be getting remakes would be released in that year. Even though I did not consider Generation 3 my favourite Pokémon generation, I was happy that they were getting remakes, because I remember that the Hoenn region and the games based on the region were not very popular among Pokémon fans when they were first released. Fortunately, as Hoenn fans grew up, they were more vocal about their appreciation for and defence of the games.

However, by the time Generation 6 of Pokémon began in 2013 with Pokémon X and Y, my main interest had changed to BioWare games and Ace Attorney, so I ended up not playing both X and Y as well as Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire when they were released, despite owning a Nintendo 3DS.

Fast-forward to 2021, for some reason I was compelled to return to the Pokémon franchise again, which started my second phase of catching up with the Pokémon main series by playing Generation 6, 7 and Pokémon Swotd and Shield. Specifically, the Hoenn game remake I chose to picked up was Alpha Sapphire.

To my surprise, this time after catching up with the Pokémon main series games again, I found Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire my favourite Pokémon games.

You may be wondering why Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are my favourite Pokémon games, since they are not a common answer to the question "What is your favourite Pokémon game?" Even as far as Pokémon game remakes go, you may be more likely to hear Pokémon fans consider HeartGold and SoulSilver as their favourite, if not even their favourite Pokémon games ever. Admittedly, before finally playing Alpha Sapphire, that used to be the case for me too.

The short answer is: Out of all Pokémon games, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were the ones closest to Cassette Beasts in terms of how much I like the monster roster, human characters and region.

The long answer is: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have the great combination of things I like in a Pokémon game: a roster of Pokémon that includes some of my all-time favourites, such as the Shroomish and Breloom evolutionary line, a charming cast of human characters, and a beautiful region with many things and places to explore.

I consider Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire good remakes, not only because they use the latest generation of graphics and include new game mechanics, but also expanding the story and lore of the Hoenn region, and adding more character to the human characters with animated 3D cutscenes. These factors helped making Hoeen officially my favourite Pokémon region.

The EXP. Share that rewards experience points to your entire active Pokémon party also significantly cuts down the level grinding, which has honestly become one of my least favourite aspects of old Pokémon games because I am too old to enjoy grinding in video games any more. As a result, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have become the only main series Pokémon games I am still willing to play or replay after discovering and playing Cassette Beasts.

My taste in entertainment media, including video games, have changed a lot since my childhood and adolescence. Cassette Beasts instantly became my favourite video game ever, and not just in the monster collecting game genre, from the moment I started playing the game, to the extent I have created a shrine for it on this website as well. The many, many reasons I love Cassette Beasts include an appealing cast of characters, an amazing roster of monster creatures and an intriguing setting to explore — qualities shared by Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

How high my standards for monster collecting games were raised by Cassette Beasts cannot be overstated, due to me finding Cassette Beasts better than Pokémon in many ways. This sentiment only gets reinforced by the disappointing direction of the Pokémon franchise since the Nintendo Switch era, due to frequent releases and rushed development schedules taking their toll on the quality of recent Pokémon titles. Even though I still harbour nostalgia for the Pokémon franchise due to it being a huge part of my childhood and adolescence, I also firmly believe there is nothing inherently wrong with letting something newer and better replace your old favourite, which is what Cassette Beasts has done to Pokémon as my favourite monster collecting game, and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have done to HeartGold and SoulSilver as my favourite Pokémon games.

This is also why the only Pokémon shrine I am making for my website is dedicated to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire only, and not the franchise in general.