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Shigeru Ohmori is the director of SM. Thoughts and opinions?

Boss1708

Boss1708

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I was very shocked to learn that Masuda is not directing SM. It is the first time ever that he is letting somebody else direct an initial pair game.

Are you ok with this? Do you think Shigeru Ohmori will do a good job with SM, based on his experience sofar? What do you think of the only game he has directed sofar: ORAS? Did you like what he changed/modernized from RSE to ORAS, and did you like ORAS as a whole?

Also, iirc Ohmori also designed the Sevii Islands in Gen III, did you like those?

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Anyway, I think Ohmori is a good choice. I like his work sofar.

I think he did a great job with ORAS. The game really fleshed out Hoenn a lot more than RSE did, both in terms of plot, lore and characters (much more than past remakes did for their regions). Region wise, most of the changes they made felt quite fitting (Mauville becoming a metropolis, Sea Mauville). Also, Mirage Spots were a great addition, and so were the new Underwater sections.

A few of the things I didn't like, are New Mauville being simplified a lot, and the Trick House having 6 levels rather than 8. But I think both of those changes were made to make the game a bit easier for new players/ casual players. What's your opinion of those changes?

Also, Sevii Islands are probably one of the coolest postgame areas in any Pokemon game, imo. Nice lore, nice design, and nice plot (forshadowing of TR's future Johto deeds.)
 
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I don't want to look like i'm mini-modding, but i think your thread fits better in the " Current events: Pokemon Sun and Moon" subforum than here....
 
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Icy Wind said:
I don't to look like i'm mini-modding, but i think your thread fits better in the " Current events: Pokemon Sun and Moon" subforum than here....
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Oops... I was sure that I made this thread on the SM forum, actually xD

Yeah, any mod should feel free to put it there, if he finds it more fitting.
 
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Moved it ;)

On topic, I don't have any strong feelings about this. I've never actually visited the Sevii Islands but the overal opinion about them seems to be very good. And I didn't like X/Y and ORAS much so maybe it is time for someone new to do the direction now. I'm very curious to see if Sun/Moon are going to be very different from the others because of this change.

Edit: I missed that he had directed ORAS too. In that case I'm less enthusiastic as I disliked most of the changes made in ORAS. But still, wondering what he does with a completely new gen instead of a remake.
 
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I really am not huge on ORAS and it really took me a long time to play through as a result so I dont really know how to feel about this. I am honestly surprised. I still hope that the games will be good as a result. It would be interesting to see how he handles non remake games.
 
I'm pretty interested and hopeful with this change. I do like Masuda's work throughout the franchise, but OR/AS were the best games in the sixth generation for me. They had their problems. I didn't like that some features like Gym Leader rematches and the Battle Frontier weren't included and getting a thousand flags led to a massive burnout from the games to where I still haven't finished getting my teams to level one hundred, although I'm really close now. Even so, they were pretty solid and enjoyable games. The storyline incorporated Mega Evolution quite nicely, the Delta Emerald was an interesting way to include Rayquaza without just covering stuff from Emerald and the updated graphics did help to make some of the characters more likable. Brendan/May still wouldn't rank high among my list of favorite rivals, but their added scenes, lines and especially facial expressions help to give them more personality, which was appreciated given that they were one of the weakest elements of the original R/S.

I'm not sure what Sun/Moon will be like story-wise or why they made this decision, but based on his work on previous games, I think that Ohmori is a good choice. Having someone else direct the initial pair of a generation might help to provide some fresh ideas on the story and game mechanics.
 
I reserve judgment. He seems pretty influenced by Masuda so far, and I'd wager that the latter came up with the initial concepts in 2013 when Ohmori was busy with ORAS.
 
I'm pretty optimistic about it. I thought a lot of the decisions in ORAS were quite savvy and overall, I think that they had a lot to like.

We can already see to a small degree how his style has affected the storytelling - note the similarity between how SM start off with a lot of plot-heavy material in the beginning (mentions of Tapu Koko, the player being chosen, etc. which will almost certainly factor in later on in the game), and ORAS's foreshadowing of the Delta Episode with a mention of the upcoming meteor shower as early as when you're first exploring your house, and with Zinnia appearing in Petalburg Woods. I'm quite keen on this style, and I really liked the story in ORAS, so, I hope I'm not getting too ahead of myself, but I think we could possibly have a game that returns to the BW level of storytelling, or at least comes close. Notably, this will be his first original tale, as the framework for ORAS's story had obviously been pre-established by the originals, so I'm very interested to see what he does when left to his own devices.

I didn't like everything about ORAS, but most of the things that I didn't like seem to come down to a difference in opinion about how to handle remakes, which SM aren't - what I didn't like about ORAS was the absence of customization (which obviously isn't a problem anymore), the unchanged Pokémon distribution* (which isn't a factor here since these are new games, and they've already described the region as "teeming with life" which gives one the sense of a lot of variety), the splitting of Pokémon Centers and Poké Marts (they're fused again in these games, so that's definitely just a remake thing), and the reliance on HMs (but again, this could just be because ORAS were remakes - HMs don't have nearly as much of a presence in BW, B2W2, and XY).

* I'll give him credit, though - the post-weather crisis revitalization of Hoenn's wildlife was a good compromise between keeping the old distribution and completely overhauling it like I wanted.

Well, all of that, plus the absence of Gym Leader rematches, but they've been so inconsistent about those over the years that I honestly don't know what to think. I don't think it's just an Ohmori problem, because it's been an issue in many games. I guess I'll say, it would be great to have them, but I won't count on their inclusion.

I'm not going to say much about the Battle Frontier. Personally, I never cared if they included it or not (to be honest, I find it boring, and the Battle Royal looks a thousand times more interesting to me), but I can certainly understand why others were disappointed.
 
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Meta Boss said:
A few of the things I didn't like, are New Mauville being simplified a lot, and the Trick House having 6 levels rather than 8. But I think both of those changes were made to make the game a bit easier for new players/ casual players. What's your opinion of those changes?
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Well, I certainly don't like seeing ORAS use the Ruby/Sapphire gym leader teams and not their Emerald teams. Seriously, Wattson with no Hoenn-native Pokemon at all (let alone his signature Manectric) and Tate/Liza with only two Pokemon total (both of them weak to Water, in an area surrounded by ocean) ?

But overall I liked Hoenn back in Emerald and that tides me over, and many of the new ORAS features (like DexNav) are welcome additions.
 
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Silktree said:
It won't be his "original tale" since there are always at least two people credited for the plot/scenario. Ohmori was actually one of the people listed for Diamond and Pearl's plot scenario.
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Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for the correction. Well, at any rate, it looks rather different from what we're used to, so I'm still intrigued.
 
On one hand, Ohmori makes me worry because alot of ORAS' faults might fall 9n him that could be considered negative. On the other hand, I am starting to wonder if its really nothing to worry about. His work on the series overall boils down to great route layouts and dungeons, interesting plot concepts, and again despite the changes to ORAS, he did great service to some of the best games in the series. An all Ohmori game has never been truly seen, and this is the first Non-Masuda Directed gen, so judgement should not be past till after release. And so far, we have gotten great Pokemon design(not entirely his choice but as a Director I would assume he wants to have Pokemon that fit the region), crazy good routr layout and a damn fine looking region, and the plot looks to have some of his previous stuff seeping through. Not to mention that as he was hands on with gen 6 as a whole, perhaps the continued plot from gen 6 is some of his doing, and I jave no qualm with an overarching plot instead of the isolated incidents we've been getting all these years.
 
From the current footage and things we have seen for Sun and Moon, Shigeru Ohmori seems to know what he is doing so I trust that he would make the games great.
 
Personally, what I disliked in ORAS, was basically just three things:

- lack of Gym Leader rematches, which I thought was an absolute must for ORAS, especially after XY had that feature. It is the decision that bothered me the most. (Although, at least Ohmori gave us a decent enough equivalent with the Battle Resort type Specialist daily rematches, and at least one actual gym leader, Wallace, is rematch-able via Contests).

- the Trick House having 6 levels instead of 8. This change basically makes NO SENSE to me. Why would you decrease the amount of levels, when a remake is supposed to expand the originals, not the opposite?!?!

The only explanation that I can think of, is that they reduced it to make it easier for the casuals, but I don't think the Trick House needed to become shorter. So it still pisses me off a lot, and I am still trying to find a decent explanation for this decision.

- Emerald locations like Artisan Cave, not being present in ORAS. (although this could be excused, if we consider ORAS to be a Ruby/Sapphire remake exclusively).

The other controversial decisions in ORAS:

+ I actually liked that there was no Trainer Customization. It just doesn't fit a remake at all, imo. Even if I am free to ignore it and play with the original outfits, it still disturbs me. So the absence of Customization was a plus for me, not a negative.

+ no Battle Frontier. The more I think of this, the more it makes sense to me. It is a feature that's too time consuming to develop, (especially in 3D, with so many new moves and Abilities since Gen III, etc), and it isn't an Emerald remake, so I don't understand why some fans act as if it was a must for ORAS. (also, I find the Battle Resort incredibly charming and great in its own right).

+ no Trainer Hill: same as above. And we got the Battle Institute instead, which wasn't in RSE. Feature out, feature in.

Overall, I could say that I liked a lot almost everything else in ORAS, more or less. Great features, great story, great music, great art style, and so on.

To summarize, if I consider ORAS an RSE remake, then I do have some (notable) issues with Ohmori's decisions.

But if I consider ORAS to be a R/S remake (and that's what it is, confirmed by Masuda in an interview), then I think it is a fantastic game, and makes me like Ohmori a lot.
bugmaniac20 said:
According to Bulbapedia, Masuda didn't direct RBY or the original GS. He started with Crystal.
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I know, I meant sinceRuby and Sapphire, which is when he became Director.
 
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I think Masuda made the right move here. The guy is really passionate about the franchise ( The dude literally thanked everyone that congratulated him about Oras's success)
Also I'm loving how most of the Pokemon are based on actual Hawaiian wildlife too
 
Another thing about Ohmori, and I dunno if this is on him entirely, is that in SM the soundtrack so far is VERY VERY Classic Pokemon. Either the composers from XY onwards saw the light with ORAS, or they got back Ichinose for the soundtrack. So yeah, if this is an Ohmori decision, I am very pleased.
 
I'm pretty pleased, yeah. Ohmori is a great director, he proved that with OR/AS. I think Sun/Moon will be a better experience with him being at the helm.
 
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