"Every Addition OR/AS Added From Emerald"

There are still a ton of people out there that have this notion that OR/AS didn't add very much from Emerald, or that they tried to pass it off as if Emerald somehow didn't exist. While it sucks that OR/AS didn't have a fully-fleshed out Battle Frontier, the ability to rematch Gym Leaders (with potential Mega Evolutions), and getting to fight Hoenn's Gym Leaders and bosses with Emerald's level of difficulty and updated teams, OR/AS added a ton of references, nods, and other features that Emerald had that most people tend to miss.Here are all the ones I could remember, aside from the "Battle Frontier project started!: Battle Tower Replica" sign in the Battle Resort that everyone loves to hate:There's a Volcanion event coded in the game where NPCs in the Mauville City News Station mention "Brandon the Explorer", who's out of the region on an expedition. This directly references Brandon the Frontier Brain.At one point near the end of the Lisia-Contest sidequest, Lisia and Wallace end up mentioning Wallace's mentor, Juan, the 8th Gym Leader in Emerald.The final Elite Four member, Drake, uses a team that's a mix of both his Emerald team and his R/S team when you battle him during the main story. In R/S, he uses a Shelgon and two Flygon on his team, and in Emerald, he replaces one of the Flygon with a Kingdra. In OR/AS, he replaces the Shelgon with his Kingdra instead.In the Battle Resort, there's an agent NPC that says he's working under Scott and that he had just finished scouting for the Battle Frontier's Pike Queen. That NPC is staring directly at a Delinquent NPC. Said Delinquent talks about her Seviper, implying that this Delinquent is Lucy, the future Frontier Brain.At the very end of the credits, after beating Brendan/May on Route 103 and watching the ensuing cutscene introducing the Delta Episode, the theme from Emerald that plays when Rayquaza descends and quells Groudon and Kyogre is played, unaltered from its original GBA likeness. That same theme is later shown to be fully remastered and looped and played anytime you enter the Sky Pillar later in the Delta Episode.In the Delta Episode, Steven uses a prototype of the Emerald-exclusive Match Call PokeNav app. The only difference is the calls are one-sided, meaning only Steven can talk to you, but you can't talk to him, as the app is still stated to be a work in progress.An exact replica of a story-exclusive event in Emerald takes place in OR/AS's Delta Episode. In Emerald, after beating Tate and Liza, you run into Team Magma taking over the Mossdeep Space Center and stop them from stealing rocket fuel to cause Mt. Chimney to explode and destroy the entire region. You also get to team up with Steven in a Double Battle against a boss. In OR/AS, the exact same thing happens, even down to the cutscene that takes place when you run into the team outside the Space Center. Only difference is, the team taking over depends on your version, and whatever team that takes over is run by one of its admins, not their boss, and that the rocket fuel they plan to use to destroy the region is elaborated on as "Infinity Energy".At one point in the Delta Episode, you're required to meet Steven deep in Meteor Falls, in an area that is only accessible through Waterfall. In Emerald, the last place you encounter Steven is also in Meteor Falls, past the area you use Waterfall, but instead in a room exclusive solely to Emerald only.You get to battle an exact replica of Wallace's Champion team from Emerald in the Delta Episode right outside the Sky Pillar, but one level lower. Wallace's historical ties to the Sky Pillar and Sootopolis that were originally only in Emerald are also elaborated on in OR/AS.Emerald was all about stopping Groudon and Kyogre from fighting and destroying Hoenn with Rayquaza. In the Delta Episode, Zinnia is revealed to have been trying to replicate exactly that this entire time--the only thing is, she only managed to help on team in your version succeed and couldn't push the other to do so, and you managed to stop the legendary whatever team summoned before Zinnia could pull anything to try to get Rayquaza to show up. In the Sky Pillar, Zinnia references exactly what players saw in Emerald as well--how Groudon and Kyogre fought all the time in ancient times, and how Rayquaza would stop them. None of this was in the original R/S.Rayquaza is important in Emerald, and you have to meet it at the top of the Sky Pillar to try to convince it to stop a disaster that'll destroy the world, with Wallace helping you and allowing you entry inside. You do the same in OR/AS.The formations that Deoxys makes in its black triangle form in space at the end of the Delta Episode are exactly the same as the formations you have to make Deoxys's black triangle form take in the Birth Island event in FR/LG and Emerald. It even remixes the same Deoxys battle music from those games and allows you to battle and catch it.At the end of the Delta Episode, it's confirmed why R/S had Steven as Champ and E had Wallace as Champ. OR/AS has a scene between Steven and Wallace where it's implied that Steven asks Wallace to take over as the Hoenn region's Champion if and when he ever decides to step down and travel the world with his own eyes, without being tied down to the League. Being constantly outshined, surpassed and made near-useless by the player when the world was in danger has made Steven want to better himself and travel the world like the player chose to.The music that plays in the Battle Resort is a lighthearted, tropical remix of Emerald's Battle Frontier theme.The Battle Chatelaines use a remix of Emerald's Frontier Brain battle theme.In R/S, one team was evil and the other was good, so you fight one and ally with another. In Emerald, both teams are evil and you fight both. In OR/AS, both teams are still evil, but only one succeeds in their plans and you only get to stop that one. I think this is a perfect balance between what R/S did and what Emerald did to make a balanced story for a two-version remake. This is similar to how Eusine's story from Crystal wasn't just copy-pasted in HG/SS; it was altered greatly and rearranged to allow Ho-Oh and Lugia's stories to take the forefront instead of Suicune's.Literally the only things that OR/AS didn't include from Emerald that people wanted were the Battle Frontier, Gym Leader rematches, and Emerald's teams for the Gym Leaders during the main story. The Trainer's Eyes is a much better and less intrusive feature than Emerald's Match Call system since it lets you know what Trainers need a rematch without having you wait to be called by them first and being interrupted while you're traveling through the region.Sure, there was also Emerald's Mirage Tower and Desert Underpass for getting both fossils, but since OR/AS were remakes of R/S, getting both fossils would eliminate some of the need to trade to get Pokemon you don't have in your version. HG/SS may have added Platinum's Battle Frontier, but it still kept most of G/S's version exclusives at the end of the day, not Crystal's. After all, HG/SS were also two-version remakes.FR/LG and Emerald also had Trainer Hill, but not many people even remember or care about Trainer Hill to begin with. So not having it in OR/AS doesn't really matter that much.Sorry for the long post! But really, saying Game Freak made OR/AS feel like they forgot Emerald existed or didn't bother to make anywhere near as many additions as HG/SS did with Crystal is far from the truth. There's a ton of attention to detail and love pored into these many ties to Emerald throughout the games and even the main story.The only questionable and wrong decisions Game Freak made here were the lack of Emerald's Battle Frontier, the ability to rematch Gym Leaders (potentially with Megas), and applying Emerald's difficulty to the Gym Leaders during the main story (Tate and Liza were much harder in Emerald than in R/S, for example).But even then, I feel deadlines and Game Freak's assumption on the mentality of the majority of most Pokemon players at the time were the reasons why they didn't add Emerald's Battle Frontier into OR/AS. And even past that, if you look back at HG/SS, the only reason they really added an entire Battle Frontier there was because all they had to do was copy/paste Platinum's Battle Frontier with little changes and little effort. With OR/AS, they did the exact same thing--copy/paste the last battle facility from the last game with little effort. That last game just happened to unfortunately be X/Y and the Battle Maison. via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2s0VjbV