Recently bought a 2Ds and was struck with the sudden, insatiable urge to play some Pokémon, so this is what I’ve been up to for the past 2 weeks. I have A Lot of grievances with how this franchise has handled itself in the jump to 3D (I know, shocker) but for my money this is probably the best of the post-B2W2 outings. At least, I’m assuming it is, I still haven’t played Scarlet and Violet because I refuse to learn what “terrastilizing” is. ORAS isn’t without its problems of course—the cutscenes and general handholding are as overbearing as ever, and there’s some pretty egregious difficulty pacing issues. But the structure and general aesthetics of Hoenn are just so many leaps and bounds ahead of anything else this series has put out since XY first drunkenly stumbled onto shelves that it still manages to squeak by as a pretty likable Pokémon game. It’s kind of a testament to how fundamentally decent a lot of Gen 6’s features actually were—movement feels great, super training and the new EXP share provide nice if messy quality of life features, and I always forget just how much I adore fairy types. When you put that engine in a game with actual level design, it’s a surprisingly good time. Go figure! Megas are still stupid as fuck but ehh whatever, I can’t die on every hill. Pretty chill game to nuzlocke too, for what it’s worth. Just try not to lose half your team to Wally like I did. Shoutout to Clucky Balboa the Blaziken—he’s a real one.