Pokemon Fire Red Omega In-Game Discussion/Tiering (2024)

OK'd by Jellicent
(DO NOT TALK ABOUT ROMS OR EMULATORS HERE)

Have you ever wished that in-game Pokemon was much more challenging? That opponents had actual movesets? That there were more options in team building? Look no further

Pokemon Fire Red Omega is a hack of Pokemon Fire Red with numerous significant changes to make the game an intriguing and sophisticated experience for knowledgeable players. The first and most obvious change is the sheer volume of available Pokemon-- over 30 are available just in the opening routes/Viridian forest, and all 389 are incorporated into the game. Furthermore, evolution stones are easily accessed earlier and trade-evolution Pokemon instead evolve by level up, making everything fair game. Wild Pokemon (and trainers) all tend to be at higher levels too, and your Pokemon grow quickly as a result.

But, you're going to need all the extra strength you can get-- because the battles are real challenges. All the gym leaders have 6 Pokemon, and they are TOUGH. You can't just catch a grass and expect to beat Brock when Rhyhorn uses Flamethrower and OHKO's your Shroomish. You can't expect Nidoking or Diglett to win you the match against Surge when Raichu outspeeds and OHKOes you with Surf.

Because of the sheer challenge of bosses, not all Pokemon can be useful throughout the entire game-- you can't just keep grinding an early game Pokemon and expect to come out on top. Also with the high availability of high level and powerful teammates, switching the team up partway through becomes a real considerable strategy. You can't just think to rely on old R/B favorites like Nidoqueen and Snorlax and expect to walk through the game!

It's a frontier where we Poke nerds can really be put to the test. :D

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Full List of Changes:
http://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=42301

Just To get players started and get you an idea of how things work, here's a list of some early route choices:

:
Magby
Elekid
Smoochum
(All starters and there evolutions have +10 added to all their base stats. They also have improved level up movepools and better abilities, so this makes them really good!)

-Staryu
-Shelder
Level 5-7 Shelder and Staryu can be fished up using the old rod in Pallet Town. The Old Rod is available in Viridian, beyond the old weedle man. Protip: Shelder often come equipped with Water Stones, and Staryu's equipped items can be sold for big $$$. Also they give almost double the experience of any wild Pokemon-- perfect for training a grass or electric type.

-Pidgey
-Ratata
-Nirorans (both)
-Doduo (rare)
-Ponyta (usually level 2)

-Mankey
-Zigzagoon
-Houndour
-Mareep
-Swablu
-Shroomish
-Treeko (Present)
-Torchic (Present
(Mudkip is at the Pewter Pokemon Center, so you have to wait)
-Barboach (Old Rod, LOTs of EXP for beating)
-Magikarp (Old Rod)
-Clamperl (Old Rod)

-Caterpie
-Metapod
-Weedle
-Kakuna
-Wurmple
-Surskit
-Venonat
-Oddish
-Belsprout
-Pikachu

So you can see there's a huge selection right from the start, and it pretty much stays this way throughout the game. I won't spoil all the fun though, since finding these Pokes and figuring out how to leverage them in-game is a good deal of the fun.

I will however, write some "in-game tier" style reviews for you on the Pokemon I actually tried using. I won't give a full write up (hard to apply to Omega Red since it's so much more sophisticated, and the gym battles are so much more involved with 6 enemy pokes using TM moves up the yin-yang), but I'll give my general impressions.

Smoochum -> Jynx
Tier: Top Tier
So far, I've done 2 runs, both with Jynx, and it's definitely impressive to say the least. Smoochum has THE HARDEST time beating the rivals Magby (Scratch + Magby's ATK > Smoochum's Pound), but it QUICKLY picks up Speed, learning the awesome Powder Snow at level 6 (you'd be surprised how much Freeze Hax you'll get) and Confusion soon after. Smoochum/Jynx is powerful, fast, and always seems to get just the right move at just the right time (it picks up Ice Punch around Cerulean, and quickly gets Lovely Kiss after evolving at level 24-- then it gets Ice Beam, and Psychic just as Confusion starts to get weak. Fake Tears and Psycho Boost are both awesome too. Also, Jynx may not get an awesome ability like Volt Absorb / Flash Fire like her brothers do, but Insomnia is extremely useful in the game since so many key enemies love to abuse Sleep + Confusion (and seem to hit Hypnosis constantly). With her high Speed, Insomnia and STAB attacks, Jynx is a great answer to Gengar/Crobat that appear through the game, including the ones used by your rival.
Jynx is very useful throughout the game. She contributes to Brock, but because so many of his pokes have Rock moves and no Ground attacks, you'll need some Water/Grass teammates to back her up (you really don't want to take on Kabuto/Omanyte/Vulpix with her for instance). Misty is pretty much outside the scope of Jynx's ability, but she can contribute by killing Togetic and Luvdisc (If you have only males on your team, Luvdisc could easily sweep you with its amped base stats, blistering Speed, and Water Pulse / Aurora Beam / Attract). Lt. Surge is of course batter tackled by Ground-types but with her high speed, high special bulk and good offensive abilities, she can take them on well in a neutral fight. As one would expect, she stomps Erika, and is useful against Giovanni as well (though Shadow Ball Persion stomps her and one false Rock attack will kill her). Jynx does OK against Sabrina because of neutral Ice Beam, but don't let the enemy start setting up Calm Minds. Jynx can contribute a lot to the Koga fight too-- but don't expect a clean sweep out of her, as Crobat can potentially outspeed and KO her with Shadow Ball, and Forretress stomps her too. Of course, Jynx has NO BUSINESS stepping in the ring against Blaine (though she can pick off Blaziken if you got nothing better for it). She's ok against the final Giovanni battle, but has to steer clear of Tyranitar, Persion, and Swampert to some extent.
Against the E4, it's an uphill battle against Lorelei, and many of Bruno's pokes are not weak to her STAB and can do massive damage to her with their physical attacks. She does have an incredible advantage against Agatha, and is really useful against Lance (steer clear of Aerodactyle and Charizard).
Note: The big thing to remember with Jynx is to NEVER UNDERESTIMATE MAGMAR. If you are picking Jynx, than your rival will get Magby, and it is a MONSTER. Magby/Magmar is on par or better than Smoochum/Jynx in Speed most of the time, and can OHKO her and almost everything else you can get in the game, especially in the Cerulean City battle where Fire Punch / ThunderPunch / Karate Chop / Sunny Day OHKOes almost every Ground-type with Fire Punch, can crit and kill every Rock-type, and outspeed, set up sun and lol at any incoming water move before 1-2 HKO'ing just about any Water-type. Therefore, if you pick Jynx, Mudkip (or Barboach) is almost a MUST add-- if you don't, you will have to do what I did the first run and raise up a Flygon later in order to insure victory against Magmar. Your rival's Magby/Magmar is fully capable of 6O'ing a team that doesn't have a Water/Ground or Dragon/Ground poke.

Staryu
Tier - Mid Tier
Staryu appears in the very first town (old rod now in Viridian), at a high level of 7, with Water Gun, access to Water Stones immediately (attached to Shelder in the same area) and has those "exceptional" 100 SpA / 115 Spe offensive stats-- none of this means that it's very good.
This is one example of how bizarre Omega is as an in-game. By any common-sense notion of in-game tiers, a Staryu in the first town with Water Gun and the freedom to evolve whenever should be incredible-- but overall it was pretty underwhelming.
Probably Staryu's first and most immediate problem is that it can't defeat your rival's Magby (if you picked Jynx). I had a level 19 Staryu fighting my rival's level 22 Magby in Cerulean, but Staryu's Water Gun did only like ~25% damage (12.5% in the sun). Furthermore, Magby outsped, had Sunny Day, and its Un-STAB'ed ThunderPunch did around 80% damage to Staryu (ridiculous I know). Get used to this-- unless you found a +Speed Staryu with a high Speed IV, odds are Magmar is going to outspeed, can shrug off your water attacks, and will be doing massive damage with Thunderpunch throughout the game. Starmie is almost its bitch, so if Starmie is your main water-type, you'll need some other answer to your rival's Magby/Magmar.
The second problem with Starmie is that its movepool really sucks. I know, I bet you thought you'd never see a thread where someone said Starmie's movepool sucks, but this is reality in Fire Omega. Starmie can't learn Shock Wave (Surge's TM-- Ironic, because Misty's Starmie DOES have Shock Wave... Hacker...), so it's basically stuck with ONLY water coverage (Water Gun-> Water Pulse) all the way until Saffron City where you can get Psychic. This is at the same time when the best pokes have some form of powerful dual-offense (Jynx with Ice Punch/Confusion, Larvitar with Dig/Rock Slide, Marshstomp with Water Pulse / Rock Tomb / Mega Punch / Dig, etc.) Furthermore, there's no Ice Beam TM in the Dpt. Store like in Red/Blue-- but is instead a heinously expensive game corner TM. Blizzard is in the Pokemon Mansion. So all early game, Starmie's stuck with only Water-coverage, and later only Water/Psychic coverage for most of the game (and also DEMANDS that you give it the Psychic TM). This is a real liability when trying to blitz through the variety of different Pokemon used by opponents in Omega, even just regular trainers.
Even in the last legs of the game, it's weird, but Starmie's 100 base Special just doesn't pack enough punch against the E4-- even with Blizzard/Thunder, it can fail to kill enemies and take massive damage. It's certainly very useful against the majority of them, but it takes massive damage from most late game enemies and doesn't have the power to one shot many. Whenever it gets outsped (and this can ironically happen fairly frequently), it has an even harder time.
Is Starmie still a fast/powerful threat with access to great TMs? Yes. Is it a monster in-game Fire Red Omega? Far from it... Then again, I've yet to use it with Elekid/Magby as my starter; that might make it a bit better (though I'm sure it's even more useless against an enemy Smoochum/Elekid).

More reviews later! But I think these two should give you some idea of what kind of game Pokemon Fire Red Omega is!