Pokemon Millennium - Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Interview
Published December 7, 2014.
Interviewees: Junichi Masuda, Shigeru Ohmori
Translation from Reddit, allegedly originally from /vp/.
All emphasis and commentary is mine.
Interview
Q:Pokemon ORAS have some features that have never been implemented before, such as Soaring in the sky and DexNav. Are you going to keep them in the next generation of games? Are there going to be any changes?
A:The basic structure of Pokemon games and the elements that keep the series together like Gyms, Elite Four and Champions are not going to change. We still haven't decided which of the newly-introduced features we're going to keep; we never distinguish between "experiments" and "features to keep". It all depends on the fans' reaction.
Q:There's been a lot of hype for a hypothetical remake of Ruby and Sapphire these last years. The internet was flooded with "Hoenn confirmed" images and you, Mr. Masuda, have been able to see this enthusiasm for yourself with your countless followers on Twitter. We were wondering if all of this had anything to do with your decision to make ORAS a reality.
A:This time we have indeed been influenced by fans and we had planned to make these remakes for some time. November 21 2012, the day of the tenth anniversary of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, I decided to assign the role of Game Director to Shigeru Ohmori, it was the first game he worked on as Director since he joined Game Freak.
Q:We noticed ORAS had a lower difficulty level compared to previous Pokemon games. What bought you to this decision? Any chance that future games will have the possibility to adjust difficulty level as seen in Black and White 2?
A:What? How come you've already played the games? hearty laughter [the games were supposed to come out in Italy the day after the interview] We created a "balanced" game that was suited for our time and age, where everyone is very busy and young people have various means of entertainment. Using smartphones and other devices they can access a great number of games, so the time they dedicate to a single game is less than in the past. The player can choose to keep on playing after the main story and continue to the post-game, where the difficulty rises and there are much more difficult Trainers and challenges to overcome.
Q:Why wasn't the Battle Frontier in the remakes?
A:This question is connected with my previous answer. We didn't put the BF in ORAS for this very reason. Interviewer's note: In short he means that they didn't include the BF because only a very small part of the players would have fully appreciated and made use of this feature; nowadays players get bored and frustrated more easily and they aren't interested in things that are so demanding/challenging.
Q:The soundtrack in HeartGold/SoulSilver was completely made anew from the original Gold/Silver, whereas in ORAS the arrangements were very faithful to the original music and some areas even had music that was made specifically for them. How come?
A:It's a rather technical matter, we had some limitations whan creating music before but now with the Nintendo 3ds the whole process is a lot easier and we can take full advantage of the potential of the console.
Q: How do you choose what region a Pokemon game takes place in? Do your journeys influence that decision? What about Italy, is there a chance a future Pokemon game could take place in our peninsula and feature some typical cities and cultural elements?
A: First we choose the theme of the game and then we decide where it will take place. For example, in X and Y we picked France because of the "beauty" theme (Kalos means beauty in Ancient Greek). We wanted to highlight this aspect seeing as this was our first game on 3DS. In Black and White the theme was "union" so there were a lot of different people and cities, all united together (that's where the name Isshu/Unova comes from). Perhaps in the future we'll find a theme which could be represented by Italy, who knows... laughter
Interviewer's note: we didn't have time to ask about MegaFlygon and MegaMilotic but they already answered the question in GameXplain's interview. [basically they choose which Pokemon will be blessed with MegaEvolution depending on three elements: 1 - which Pokemons are more used in official tournaments and wifi competitions, so they can balance the game and shake up strategies 2 - the importance some Pokemons have in the main story (see Lucario) 3 - finally, they also consider what the fans want the most]