Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Demo Impressions
The wait is almost over. If you have been waiting patiently for the arrival of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, November 21st is just around the corner. To help ease the pain of waiting, a special demo Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire demo was released, but only if you were lucky enough to get your hands on a download code. Controller Crusade happened to get our hands on one of these demo codes and we’ll share our impressions of what we played.
The demo starts out with you being flown to Mossdeep City. After you speak to a professor’s assistant you choose one of three pokemon. These pokemon are Grovyle, Combusken, and Marshtomp, the first stage evolutions of Ruby & Sapphire’s original three. Once you’ve picked, Steven will fly you over to another island where you will enter a cave. In this cave you take on Team Magma and Team Aqua, both of whom are looking for a pokemon capable of mega evolution.
The trainer battles inside the cave are mind-numbingly easy. Since the pokemon you have chosen is level 35 it will evolve after one battle. The pokemon you will battle against are 5-10 levels lower than you which makes these battles pretty non-competitive. About halfway through the cave you will receive the mega bracelet, which replaces the mega ring from Pokemon X and Y. After a few more battles you will then encounter a Glalie. Steven warns you before going into the battle that you must impress the Glalie with your trainer skills before it will submit to being captured in a pokeball. If you’re anything like us you’ll try damaging the Glalie and weaken him enough to catch, only to realize that the Glalie will pretty much one shot your pokemon every time. Instead just simply throw your pokeball out on the first turn and you’ll have yourself a Glalie. So much for trying to impress it with your trainer skills. The glalie you catch can be transferred over once you purchase your copy of Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire on November 21st.
The demo pretty much comes to a conclusion once the Glalie is caught, or so you think. That is only the first of possibly many times you will play through the demo. The rest of the playthroughs are pretty simple and short. Steven will take you on adventures that consist of a handful of trainer battles or finding a lost pokemon in the tall grass. Once these 2 minute tasks are completed you are transported back to Mossdeep city where the demo will end. The reward for completing these incredibly short playthroughs are items that can be transferred when you purchase the full version of the game. After the third playthrough we received a set of 10 pokeballs, after the fifth we received a set of 10 heal balls. After seven playthroughs we decided that we had enough of these 2 minute playthroughs and decided to go back to X and Y.
While the demo is incredibly short, it definitely showcases some new pokemon move animations as well as areas to explore. Mega evolutions look flashier than the previous ones in X and Y. There are also rumors of a secret mission somehow to be unlocked in the demo so make sure you keep your eyes peeled and maybe you’ll figure it out. All we know is November 21st can’t come soon enough.
