Pokémon is a lot like your favourite dish — you will gladly consume the same recipe over and over and still enjoy it, because you love how it makes you feel. That feeling is being the ultimate master of all awesome and mighty creatures, some capable of bending the very fabric of space and time (or being able to dress up Pikachu in a pretty pink dress and bow to perform in an adorable pageant show).

Outside of Pokémon’s addictive gameplay — collecting and training all your various pocket monsters, many of which will probably sit in the PC box for all eternity — the newest instalments, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, are shaping up to be very enticing. They’re filled with features we didn’t even know how badly we wanted until they were dangled before our eyes like leftovers in front of a dog.

5. Much Less Trubbish Pokémon

I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say Garbodor is an abomination. Stand him next to Charizard and you’ll wonder where it all went wrong. I’ve never had an affinity for my garbage bin, much less felt compelled to have it battle others. Who knows what chaos will ensue if we keep letting Trubbishes breed?

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are transporting us a few generations back, which means we can wave a temporary yet zealous goodbye to all the reject Pokémon — designs probably pulled out of a hat — which linger in the grass like Zubats when you’re trying to hunt for a female Ralts (admit it, you want to try Gardevoir’s Mega Evolution too). I can’t possibly fight anything with a set of keys, or with ice cream, or a sword…wait a minute…!

Damn…now THAT’S a new-gen Pokémon I wanna use!

Well, some will be missed, but Omega and Alpha will take us back to basics when Pokémon were based on unbelievable exotic creatures and Japanese mythology, not items I can find around my house or in my freezer.

4. New Mega Evolutions

Yes, it’s getting a little out of hand now. Did you see Mega Slowbro? He looks absolutely terrified! But now there’s finally a reason to use all the weaklings that wound up in the underused/never used tiers on Smogon, much like Woody and the gang who found themselves dumped into a toy box in Toy Story 3.

If there’s one Pokémon that I’ve always wanted to use — but couldn’t because of its horrifically low stats and terrible type combination — it’s Beedrill. It’s a bee with drills on its arms. It’s badass!

Beedrill is probably going to be a staple in my Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire team now.

Sadly, none of Beedrill’s base stats stretch past 90 in its normal form, which makes for a pathetic Pokémon. But when you power it up with a Mega Stone, it boasts a crazy 150 base attack, 145 base speed, and gains an ability which doubles its STAB attacks. Not to mention, it transforms into a freaking wasp. Holy hell! Some people’s phobias just got ten times worse.

3. Mega Awesome Super-Secret Bases

Who doesn’t want to relive their childhood, back when throwing a duvet over a bunk bed or piling furniture around an alcove made the perfect secret hideout? When I was playing through Pokémon Pearl, I had two friends whom I spent numerous hours in the underground with, farming for heart scales and repeatedly reloading saves to find the perfect cave for a base. We were also self-proclaimed trap masters. Y’know, those tiles you could place down to unleash mildly inconvenient effects upon your friends? We would often create elaborate layouts in order to maximise our victim’s irritation level. Ah, those were the days.

But in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire you no longer have to go underground  to acquire a secret base. Apparently, there will be many locations across Hoenn — indicated by small blocks on trees and walls — where you can use the move Secret Power to open a Super-Secret Base (I see what you did there, GameFreak). All the awesome decorations and furniture are back too, so you can go crazy personalising your secret home with everything you wish you could afford in real life, like a giant Snorlax Pokédoll or a jukebox.

I wish I had a giant Charizard in my secret base…

2. The ‘Area Nav’ Reveals and Allows Visual Tracking of Pokémon on Routes

Finally! The PokeRadar is getting an update! The Area Nav will supposedly enable players to see which Pokémon are available on each route (a silhouette will be displayed on the mini map after you first encounter them) and can be used to sneak up on Pokémon whose tails poke precariously out of the grass.

According to Gamespot, Shigeru Ohmori stated: “It’s actually created in a way that the more you encounter that type of Pokémon in that area, the more detailed info will appear, and you’ll actually be able to encounter more rare types of that specific breed of Pokémon.” If he’s talking about shinies, then I’m sold.

1. Fly Freely Above Hoenn! 
   

   Soar as free as a fearow in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. It’s…it’s beautiful.

On top of the revelation that characters are no longer restricted to grid based movement (a restriction which made controls in X and Y extremely awkward), the new ability Soar has been announced for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. With it, you have complete control — much like the way Dive functioned in Ruby and Sapphire — to fly and land anywhere you desire. Yes, that means even in the middle of routes. This will apparently enable you to reach previously-inaccessible spots across Hoenn and acquire rare items and Pokémon. The life of a Pokémon trainer just got 10 times easier!

The only downside, however, is that Soar is restricted to the legendaries Latios and Latias (potentially even to their Mega Evolution forms, according to IGN). But knowing Pokémon, we can probably expect the Soar feature to reappear in future instalments. Who knows, maybe the Soar ability will be shared with other Pokémon too, so you can perform mid-air twirls and barrel rolls on the back of a Pidgey.