MAJOR ORAS SPOILERS
While the Pokemon story and mythos started off as fairly simple, it has become so convoluted and bizarre. Game Freak took it to the next step with ORAS. Let's briefly look at the HISTORY OF POKEMON:
Gen I: Scientists attempt to clone Mew, thought to be the progenitor of Pokemon, and create Mewtwo. Mewtwo causes havoc and escapes, science vs. nature blah blah also some Pokemon may come from the moon.
Gen II: Legendary Pokemon are akin to mythological beasts and affect the weather or something. Probably the least crazy legendary backstory.
Gen III: Legendary Pokemon helped shape the world. Not too wild, I mean it's clearly based on similar myths we have here. Think of the legendary Pokemon like super dinosaurs.
Gen IV: Oh boy. Pokemon can now affect space, time, spacetime, the idea of consciousness, and go through dimensions. Also the bad guy wants to create a new reality, the most JRPG motive ever. Also the fucking GOD of Pokemon appears.
Gen V: Something with yin yang dragons, and the three musketeers, also more weather-affecting Pokemon. A castle burst through the ground but let's ignore that.
Gen VI: A nine foot tall homeless man named AZ helps you stop a Pokenuke fueled by dead Pokemon that he created 3,000 years ago.
The Pokemon timeline went like this: Gen I/III are concurrent and the beginning of the story. Three years later, Gen II/IV happen concurrently. Then about ten or so years later, Gen V happens. After several more years, we have Gen VI.
While ORAS' story is almost identical to the original games, it has one major addition: Delta Episode. Delta Episode is a post-game storyline that fleshes out some things. And by flesh out, I mean literally renders the Pokeuniverse in twain.
Delta Episode has you track down Zinnia, someone who looks like she fell out of a Nippon Ichi SRPG. She descends from a tribe of people that worshipped Rayquaza since he told Kyogre and Groudon to simmer down. They could invoke him, and they even accidentally made him mega evolve via a meteor. Well guess what, ANOTHER meteor is coming to hit Hoenn. The scientists in Mossdeep have a brilliant plan: what if we just threw the meteor into another dimension? First of all, the two story Mossdeep Space Center has DIMENSION RENDERING TECHNOLOGY? Holy shit, how is this legal? If I was Team Aqua/Magma I would be trying to steal that instead of waking up a Pokemon. Anyways, Zinnia pops up and destroys the dimension opening dongle. She then implies a major revelation: Pokemon XY and ORAS take place in a completely different timeline/universe than the first five generations. Here is a full quote:
She is clearly referring to the original Ruby/Sapphire, as a world without the ancient Pokewar and Mega Evolutions. They pulled a Zelda on us. I am pretty baffled at this storyline decision. One thing I liked about Pokemon is how all the games were somewhat connected, with constant references and crossovers. It's unlike many RPG series where each game is in a completely different world or set very far apart. This revelation is especially interesting as there is a single character that appears in both Gen V and Gen VI, a detective named Looker. He appears again in an ORAS post-game area, but has amnesia. Wait, how did he appear in Gen V, which takes place in the original universe, AND the new XY/ORAS universe? The mysteries never end. Also, ORAS clearly takes place AFTER XY, so that may imply that Gen II-V have not even happened yet in the new universe.
So I know I'm kind of LttP with this plot point, but I thought it was a pretty wild retcon. It has so many implications and questions. It's kind of sad to just conveniently toss five generations of games into another universe. My memories are in this universe, not another one!
While the Pokemon story and mythos started off as fairly simple, it has become so convoluted and bizarre. Game Freak took it to the next step with ORAS. Let's briefly look at the HISTORY OF POKEMON:
Gen I: Scientists attempt to clone Mew, thought to be the progenitor of Pokemon, and create Mewtwo. Mewtwo causes havoc and escapes, science vs. nature blah blah also some Pokemon may come from the moon.
Gen II: Legendary Pokemon are akin to mythological beasts and affect the weather or something. Probably the least crazy legendary backstory.
Gen III: Legendary Pokemon helped shape the world. Not too wild, I mean it's clearly based on similar myths we have here. Think of the legendary Pokemon like super dinosaurs.
Gen IV: Oh boy. Pokemon can now affect space, time, spacetime, the idea of consciousness, and go through dimensions. Also the bad guy wants to create a new reality, the most JRPG motive ever. Also the fucking GOD of Pokemon appears.
Gen V: Something with yin yang dragons, and the three musketeers, also more weather-affecting Pokemon. A castle burst through the ground but let's ignore that.
Gen VI: A nine foot tall homeless man named AZ helps you stop a Pokenuke fueled by dead Pokemon that he created 3,000 years ago.
The Pokemon timeline went like this: Gen I/III are concurrent and the beginning of the story. Three years later, Gen II/IV happen concurrently. Then about ten or so years later, Gen V happens. After several more years, we have Gen VI.
While ORAS' story is almost identical to the original games, it has one major addition: Delta Episode. Delta Episode is a post-game storyline that fleshes out some things. And by flesh out, I mean literally renders the Pokeuniverse in twain.
Delta Episode has you track down Zinnia, someone who looks like she fell out of a Nippon Ichi SRPG. She descends from a tribe of people that worshipped Rayquaza since he told Kyogre and Groudon to simmer down. They could invoke him, and they even accidentally made him mega evolve via a meteor. Well guess what, ANOTHER meteor is coming to hit Hoenn. The scientists in Mossdeep have a brilliant plan: what if we just threw the meteor into another dimension? First of all, the two story Mossdeep Space Center has DIMENSION RENDERING TECHNOLOGY? Holy shit, how is this legal? If I was Team Aqua/Magma I would be trying to steal that instead of waking up a Pokemon. Anyways, Zinnia pops up and destroys the dimension opening dongle. She then implies a major revelation: Pokemon XY and ORAS take place in a completely different timeline/universe than the first five generations. Here is a full quote:
Zinnia said:"My people know it. From generation to generation, we pass along the lore about the distortions in the world borne by the Mega Evolution mechanism. And about the existence of another world, which we have long observed to be just like this one and yet not the same... That's right. A Hoenn region that's almost exactly like this one we live in. Filled with Pokémon and people like us. A world where maybe the evolution of Pokémon took a slightly different path, where Mega Evolution is unknown... A world where that war 3,000 years ago...never happened. A world where the ultimate weapon was never even built. And in that Hoenn of that world... What would happen if one day, out of the blue, a meteoroid appeared? What would happen to the people of that world, without the technology to destroy the meteoroid or the power to warp it away? ... Looks like it's beyond the power of your imagination."
She is clearly referring to the original Ruby/Sapphire, as a world without the ancient Pokewar and Mega Evolutions. They pulled a Zelda on us. I am pretty baffled at this storyline decision. One thing I liked about Pokemon is how all the games were somewhat connected, with constant references and crossovers. It's unlike many RPG series where each game is in a completely different world or set very far apart. This revelation is especially interesting as there is a single character that appears in both Gen V and Gen VI, a detective named Looker. He appears again in an ORAS post-game area, but has amnesia. Wait, how did he appear in Gen V, which takes place in the original universe, AND the new XY/ORAS universe? The mysteries never end. Also, ORAS clearly takes place AFTER XY, so that may imply that Gen II-V have not even happened yet in the new universe.
So I know I'm kind of LttP with this plot point, but I thought it was a pretty wild retcon. It has so many implications and questions. It's kind of sad to just conveniently toss five generations of games into another universe. My memories are in this universe, not another one!