Pokémon Alpha Sapphire - Nintendo 3DS

Alpha Sapphire came as described. It is such a fun, enjoyable game!

Its a great game! I especially love the Soaring ability and the updated graphics. I just wish some of the elements like the Battle Frontier had also been included in this version, or the ability to customize your trainer. I loved the new post-elite four episode!

For the beginner, this is a fantastic step into the Pokemon franchise. It has all the characters, creatures, and plots that made me love this series. But for the girl whos played every Pokemon since Pokemon Blue on her grape purple Gameboy Color.. somethings lost. I love this series. I love Pokemon. (My favorite is Psyduck!) Pokemon X and Y got me amped up for this remake, to the point I was jittery waiting for my shipment to arrive at home. I tore this open, breezed through the beginning, and then for the first time, I actually grew so disenchanted that I put this down. Its not a bad game. Its just a remake and thats exactly what it feels like. In comparison to the remake of HeartGold and SoulSilver, which added a smorgasbord of new, exciting content, Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby just prettied things up and took a few steps backward. Remember how they gave us the Berry pots in Black/White and the Berry Farm in X/Y? Yeah, you now get the privilege of once again traveling from route to route to pick and replant berries. Remember how the contests were just animations of your Pokemon making attacks from behind? Same thing. Despite the painstaking process Gamefreak and Nintendo took to do 3D animations of attacks from all sides, contests are EXACTLY what they were before. Remember how annoying it was to travel to Mauville City to change your bike from Acro to Mach? You have to do the same damn thing now. Pokemon Amie, Super Trainer, and PSS were GREAT additions to the franchise, but were they so great that they needed to be included exactly as they were in X/Y? Apparently, Nintendo thought so. We didnt even get any new games with Pokemon Amie! This just screams laziness to me. Character customization, a feature I enjoyed ridiculously, has been removed in its entirety. Why? I feel that the AI is incredibly dumbed down. Ive had no trouble whatsoever with the gym leaders, and Im almost to my eighth badge. I even switched my Pokemon team just to see if the battles would be any more challenging--theyre not. Even the bad guy bosses are ridiculously easy. I understand that this is a childrens game at its core, but one of the reasons Pokemon does so well is because of its long-term fans, who have since entered adulthood. Yes, Im 25, with a job and a house, and I still play Pokemon, but I know Im not the only one. For the price and the time spent waiting for this remake, I expected the same love and care that went into HeartGold and SoulSilver, and FireRed and LeafGreen. This game, though pretty, is nowhere near the quality Ive come to expect from Nintendo.

It wasnt that long ago that my itch to play a Pokemon game came back, and I thought that Pokemon Y had satiated that itch. But thats the thing with Pokemon, once you got it its real hard to get rid of. Seeing as how I had never played the original Pokemon Ruby or Sapphire this whole game was new to me, and I was looking forward to an experience similar to that in Pokemon Y. This did not happen, and I found this game to be rather lacking. The story was kind of silly, the selection in pokemon was boring, and they didnt include most of the features from Y that I enjoyed. As the game began I was pretty happy with the more unique introduction, the player is in a moving van playing on their DS-like handheld as they are introduced to the wonderful world of pokemon. You pick your gender, your name, and find yourself now at your new home. You introduce yourself to the next-door neighbor, who in my case was May, and of course you pick your starter pokemon; I went with Torchic. Now if you know my play style from Y then you know I only ever capture female or genderless pokemon, I even reloaded the start of the game thirty or so times until I got a female Torchic. I also have a habit of grinding past the gym leaders level, and just steam rolling their entire team. Im not a competitive type so I dont bother with special training or breeding, I catch a team I had picked before I began the game and run with it as my main. I do catch other pokemon I ran across, but only if they are female or genderless. This time round I had a Gardevoir I named Ananchel, a Blaziken I named Garuda, a Roserade I named Antheia, a Sharpedo I named Iso-onna, a Skarmory I named Nyotengu, and a Gigalith I named Krystal. (Big thanks to Darkfire for helping me evolve Krystal to her final form.) Once I had this team, I basically was unstoppable. Mowing down grunts left and right, toppling gym leaders, and one shoting the entire Elite Four. The only trouble I had was in the pokemon contests, but even that was solved by grinding berries to make an immense collection of rainbow pokeblocks to raise all the base contest stats. Unlike my friends, I dont play games for a challenge, I play them to relax, have fun, and enjoy the story. Sadly the story was kind of weak, as I chased down a muscle head who had no clue about the terrible power he was attempting to mess with. I did like that Team Magma were kind of like my allies in this entire endeavor, attempting to stop Team Aqua from carrying out their insane plans. The only interest I had in Team Aqua were the female grunts who I liked the design of, and Shelly who I thought was hot; however when I later realized that Shelly didnt have a thing for Brendan I lost interest in her. (Especially after I found a Pokemon Web Comic dedicated to Brendan x Team Magma Female Grunt.) In the end the plot just couldnt compare to Pokemon Y, which just felt so much more mature. Heck, even random trainers I ran across in Pokemon Y felt more mature, talking about past lovers and death. As an antagonist Archie failed big time, he felt more like a bro then anything. He was nothing compared to Lysandre, who was a total badass antagonist who met a conclusive end in his mad quest to rid the planet of humans. There were no sky battles, no character customization, no third person or first person perspective areas, no battle chateau, and only a few trainers had special 3D battle models. But it wasnt all bad, they added in a new DexNav feature that made finding certain pokemon much easier. The pokemon contests were fun, and felt like their own side story. The delta episode was interesting, and while I hated her personality I really liked Zinnias character design. Though the delta episode was a lot less interesting then the Looker missions, and Zinnia didnt capture my heart like Emma did. I will say that the relationship that Brendan and May share is the closest to that of boyfriend and girlfriend Ive seen yet in a pokemon game, even more so then the one between Shauna and Calem. I mean, they go on a date and watch a meteor shower together! I was expecting May to confess her love to Brendan at the end of the game, but then she challenges him to one last pokemon battle; sad. If Game Freak and Nintendo keep putting out HD 3D remakes of the previous games, I want to see then not just slap on a fresh coat of paint and move on. Put some time into the game and spice it up, sure it will be brand new to me, but give those who already played that story something new to much on while they play. Not just some candy at the end of the story, Im talking about at least some beef jerky and chips during the main game. You can put that treat at the end game like before, but dont think just that is going to do it. Pokemon Alpha Sapphire gets a 6.8 out of 10

Highly recommend

I played the original sapphire and the story on this one is pretty much the same just in 3d, and the inclusion of mere evolutions. Still holds up today

I never played the original Alpha Sapphire game on GBA, but this remake on 3DS is great. The adventure is your standard Pokemon adventure where you get a starter Pokemon that you battle with to catch more and more Pokemon. There are a total of 8 gyms, which come with a few easy puzzles to solve, pretty standard stuff. Ive played at least 10 different Pokemon games all the way through from the original Blue Version, Yellow Version, Gold, Silver, and Crystal versions. I also played Diamond, Heart Gold, and Soul Silver, and Pokemon X. If youre looking for an adventure that will be fun and give you a dose of good old Pokemon adventure time this is a great title. It took me 18.5 hours to finish the game all the way through, so there is a great amount of value to be had here. I bought this game for $30 so that is $1.62 per hour of entertainment.

I purchased this game for my five year old, new to handheld gaming. A month later, its all he ever talks about. It is by far his favorite DS game. He has the New 3ds XL, and the graphics on the game are fantastic. I havent seen a Pokémon game in action since Gameboy Color days and, well, this is totally new-gen. The storyline is immersing and he is able to follow it mostly without help. The game play is fluid and easy to follow, and the graphics! Once he finishes this one Im going to buy him the Omega Ruby to play through, too.

This game is the best Pokemon so far. The very first pokemon game I played was Pokemon Silver and Gold (my friends) for the GameBoy Color. Then Ruby and Sapphire came out and I bought Pokemon Ruby (the first pokemon game I owned). THey were so much fun. The cartoon was fun to watch as well (advanced challenge). Pokemon ORAS has so much to do in this game, the story line is great. I havent finished the game yet (up to the 6th gym in Fortree) but so far its been great. New features from XY added onto ORAS makes the games fun. THeres a lot more things you can do now, as a sideline, even as youre playing through the storyline. You can get many more diverse pokemon from other regions before beating the Pokemon League thanks to the PSS system. You can use the GTS or Wondertrade. Thanks to those I now have a Dragonair and a Charizard on my team; which you can NOT find in the ORAS games. You can grow berries to enhance your pokemon looks for the pokemon contests. You can do Daily Battles in the restaurant in Maullville City. Im raising a second team, made up of some of my other favorite pokemon such as Sharpedo and Camerupt. You can use the DexNav to find common pokemon with rare abilities and EGG Moves with perfect IVs!!!. And theres the trainer rematch feature I have yet to touch on. So above all POkemon ORAS is a game with similarities from the POkemon Ruby I played when I was 12 yet the new features in these games makes ORAS completely new and refreshing. My ratings so far: 10/10.

As a long time Pokemon fan (since 96!) I just had to get Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. I had high expectations for this title after having watched the trailers a few dozen times. Let me say that this game far surpassed all of my expectations. Alpha Sapphire stays true to the nostalgia of the original title while also building upon and surpassing the experience. I enjoyed the graphics, the music, and the gameplay and highly recommend this game to both veterans and newbies alike.