Leaving home to explore a vast and beautiful world. Befriending adorable and impressive creatures to fight by your side. Collecting badge after badge until finally ready to take on the region’s powerful champion. Encountering legends that only ever appeared in stories. Every main series game in the always-popular Pokémon franchise has followed this traditional formula. However, each new game also makes an attempt to add to this formula – not just with new Pokémon and items, but with new mechanics and features as well. The newest generation was no exception. Two pairs of games made their debut in the sixth and most recent generation of Pokémon: Pokémon X and Y (commonly abbreviated to XY) in 2013, and Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (commonly abbreviated to ORAS) in 2014. XY has since become the #1 most sold game on the Nintendo 3DS system, while ORAS hit #3, making them both extremely successful. However, despite their very similar success, XY’s mechanics and features were much more unique and charming, offering the player a more rewarding gameplay experience overall.
XY, being the very first games of the sixth generation, introduced a plethora of additions to the franchise. The graphics now boldly featured 3D models, shaking up the almost exclusive use of cute sprites for the past 17 years. These 3D graphics looked smooth enough, but in some cases were slightly awkward in presentation. ORAS refined and expanded on these 3D graphics, even allowing you to take full advantage of every dimension by flying freely around the region on a Pokémon’s back. The presentation was no doubt better in ORAS, but this is to be expected, considering XY was the first game to try out this style and ORAS had the opportunity to further polish it. In this case, XY’s ambition is much more impressive than execution.
In terms of features and mechanics, however, execution is hugely important, and ORAS did not manage to reach many fans’ expectations in this regard. XY introduced features that were both fun and functional, such as a convenient way to connect to other players (the Player Search System, or PSS), a fun way to help complete your Pokédex (Wonder Trade), and a new way for Pokémon to become more powerful and reach their full potential (Mega Evolution). These all carried over to the ORAS titles. However, in addition to those, XY also had many features fans fell in love with that were absent in ORAS, such as being able to customize your character’s appearance, riding Pokémon in many parts of the region to travel through difficult terrain, and being able to ride and do various fun tricks on roller skates. These features were mostly for fun and less for functionality, but added to XY’s unique personality, which enhanced the gameplay experience a great deal. ORAS, on the other hand, only added a few brand-new features, the most notable perhaps being the DexNav, which offered a useful way to find better-than-average Pokémon in the wild. The vast majority of its features, though, felt copied from other games in the franchise, or at least uninspired. This could be partially attributed to ORAS being a remake while XY was entirely new, but it certainly could have made more of an effort – as an example, XY introduced a building called the Battle Maison, where you could participate in increasingly difficult battles and keep winning consecutively to earn points, which can then be exchanged for rare items. Meanwhile, ORAS quite literally copied over the same building with the exact same name and exact same appearance. ORAS also introduced a new way for Pokémon to become more powerful, but it was extremely similar to the previously introduced Mega Evolution. Because of this, ORAS did not feel very ambitious and did not have much personality to boot.
ORAS also suffered when it came to mechanics. Perhaps because ORAS tried a little too hard to stay true to their originals, some mechanics even felt outdated. One of the most glaring examples is the way it handled Hidden Machines, or HMs. These are special moves you teach your Pokémon to clear certain obstacles in the world, and used to be rather excessive and intrusive in older games of the franchise. XY had a modern approach to this, not requiring an unreasonable amount of HMs to continue progressing through the game. ORAS, however, stuck with the outdated mechanic of needing HMs at nearly every turn to progress, even in extremely late parts of the game when you’re just about to complete the story. For many players, being forced to waste one of four move slots (and sometimes more) on a Pokémon for HMs, simply to continue through the game, was downright infuriating and unnecessary. Of course, ORAS had plenty of great mechanics as well, especially since it is part of the newest generation, but most of them were also present in XY. ORAS’s mechanics weren’t bad by any means, but they didn’t exactly make the game feel exceptional over other Pokémon games like XY’s did.
ORAS also offered a more questionable variation of Pokémon available. While XY introduced the fewest amount of new Pokémon out of any previous generation, it also sprinkled plenty of Pokémon from previous generations all over the region, allowing a huge variety when it comes to what you can catch and use on your team. But ORAS, once again, seemed adamant to stay true to its originals, only providing roughly the exact same roster – which, sadly, was rather limited. However, right in the middle of the game, it also hands you a powerful Legendary Pokémon that you can Mega Evolve, which has sparked controversy among fans. On one hand, it’s exciting to be able to use something so strong so early on, but on the other hand, it offers no challenge, and helps make the game laughably easy should you choose to use it. This doesn’t help ORAS’s case for older fans, especially since it also had a tendency to hold your hand, so to speak, which wasn’t quite as prevalent in XY. This on top of the aforementioned lack of ambition in ORAS’s features simply made the game feel empty and lifeless compared to XY.
So then, are the graphics the only place in which ORAS truly shines over XY? Not at all. In fact, when fans discuss which game is better, one of the biggest topics that comes up is the post-game – how much content is offered beyond just defeating the main story? And, unfortunately, this is where XY falls flat. After defeating the champion, the player is able to travel to a new city with a few useful features, and can begin a hunt for new Mega Stones, the items required for Mega Evolution. Other than that, XY’s only notable post-game activity is a short side-quest, which does have a very emotional story and great characters, but not much purpose beyond that. ORAS also has its own side-quest after defeating the champion, which is frustratingly required to continue to other elements of the post-game, but awards you with a stunning cutscene and two Legendary Pokémon at the end. After that, you can visit a small island that contains the aforementioned Battle Maison and a more convenient place to hatch Pokémon. However, the true selling point of ORAS’s post-game is the ability to find and capture almost every Legendary Pokémon in existence. Although the experience isn’t exactly innovative – players simply fly to specific “Mirage Spots,” which appear randomly every day, and interact with a portal to battle them – this gives players a ton to do, as well as tons of Legendary Pokémon, which makes it difficult to argue against, especially in comparison to only being able to find a couple of Legendary Pokémon in XY’s post-game.
Many fans will say the more expansive post-game alone makes ORAS the superior generation six Pokémon game, but at the end of the day, games are truly all about the experience and the atmosphere, not necessarily the sheer amount of substance. Although there isn’t quite as much provided to do past completing the story, XY still has plenty to do to make it enjoyable, and is such a remarkable adventure. From start to finish, it ensures you have a fun and smooth experience, and really grow attached to the world it takes place in. It has heart and soul, and a beautiful world with so much personality. When looking at quality over quantity, XY is super effective with superior features, mechanics, and overall experience, and defeats ORAS easily.
