A look back at: Treasures of the Savage Frontier

Again, sorry for not creating the post on Gateway to the Savage Frontier earlier. I am done with Treasures of the Savage Frontier now. And it is "more of the same but with marginal differences with talking about", surely. Yay, weather effects, okay? Not my favorite gimmick, but the in-battle reinforcements on the other hand are more intriguing. Plus, your choices in the game matter for certain, due to some sort of political intrigue. And you get plenty of interesting allies, such as Jabarkas/Siulajia as well as Kriiador, the ones I mentioned here are those that are in your team most of the time, and either Jabarkas or Siulajia even have romance options, probably a first for the Gold Box games.

So about that political intrigue? Oh yeah, your group are the Heroes of Ascore from the previous game. Your group also get a simple escort mission courtesy of the seer Amanitas, who you can also telepathically communicate with. The intrigue? You ONCE AGAIN are tricked, a nice feast in the honor of being heroes turns into yet another instance of evildoers drugging your food. Seems like a good strategy for the enemy to use, nobody would suspect it. Okay, this time it's more of an imprisonment, but also a bunch of framing the heroes as true enemies of the hopeful Lord's Alliance, so now you gotta clear your name as well as the names of other, innocent locations. Because the enemies of the game, combining Zhentarim, Kraken, or Hosttower enemies from the previous game, are going to be doing false flags, wearing colors of the supposed allies, and you uncover this plot with crystals to decipher some coded messages. And when things get brought together, that helps everyone.

Though honestly I do think the plot somewhat falls apart after that. The finale involves climbing an icy mountain area, freeing the town from the black-robed enemies, several kinds of ice monsters, and while it is hard and all, it just culminates in a dragon to defeat. All for the treasures. In other words, it goes from being somewhat politically intriguing to "okay you guys are allies and true heroes, go beat a dragon and get treasure". At least that's what it feels like. Anyways, while there's more Gold Box games to check out, I'm gonna take a break from this series for a little bit. 

A look back at: Gateway to the Savage Frontier

 

Did I, somehow forget to talk about this? Oops, looks like I did. I'm going through both of the two Savage Frontier Gold Box games in other words, and believe it or not, I played this one through weeks ago and I'm almost done with the second one. And yeah, I went back to the Gold Box games again. There's just something about the grid-based tactical RPG format of the DND games here that I really just enjoy for some reason.

It is a far cry from The Dark Queen of Krynn, which was easily the most advanced of the Gold Box games. So I have basically not much to say with regards to character creation, since you make your own party, and barely a thing to say about the gameplay, since it's the same thing as the other games. But it is surprisingly an open-ended adventure for once. It's got quite a few sidequests off the main path, but the adventure's culmination means finding a pyramid where the titular Savage Frontier is. Oh, by the way, a common theme this game and a number of other DND games in the series seem to have, you have a band of heroes, they feast after they become heroes, and something bad happens to the heroes, and it's usually drugging their food and drink, making them pass out, and stealing their stuff. This actually happens in the beginning. Pirates, Krakens (both the actual monster and a band of thugs who are named Krakens), Hosttower wizards, and the Zhentil Keep Zhentarim are the main enemies to meet all throughout the game, and there's also a number of guest star party members. One of which actually betrays you as you try to leave a certain tower. The most notable party member is Krevish, who has another type of plot twist but sticks with you most of the game. It's a game that certainly tries to have more intrigue to it than Pool of Radiance, and it was worth a go just because it is technically better, but not by much, just kind of more of the same thing. Again, sorry for not putting this post up sooner, but it does mean the Treasures of the Savage Frontier lookback will come rather soon since I'm almost done with that game.

Game/mod/ROM hack walkthroughs

It really does suck that we have lost the GBAHacks site. I guess due to the inactivities, broken links, and possible strikes, it had to happen. And I did have a number of walkthroughs for ROM hacks submitted to Knuckle San so that they can be of help to those who can't understand the crypticness of certain ROM hacks. In that case, I'll just have to post them on PokeCommunity and here. This post will of course be updated accordingly whenever I finish a walkthrough and a ROM hack.

Just to be clear, these are links to walkthroughs. I'm not here to distribute ROMs.

Full walkthroughs:

Pokemon Adventure Yellow Chapter + Blue Chapter + Gold Chapter + Green Chapter

Pokemon Altair and Pokemon Sirius

Pokemon Ash Gray

Pokemon Cloud White 

Pokemon Dark Cry: The Legend of Giratina

Pokemon Dark Crystal

Pokemon Dark Rising 2

Pokemon Dark Rising: Order Destroyed

Pokemon Dark Violet

Pokemon Gold & Silver '97 Reforged

Pokemon Grass Jewel

Pokemon Grass Jewel 2

Pokemon Hyetology

Pokemon Luria

Pokemon Metal Red

Pokemon Nameless

Pokemon Polka Aqua

Pokemon Polka Aqua 2

Pokemon Prism 

Pokemon Saiph  

Pokemon Scorching Scarlet

Pokemon Sky Twilight

Pokemon Snakewood

Pokemon Stigma

Pokemon Sweet

Pokemon TDT

Pokemon Ultra Fire Sun 

Pokemon Vega

Pokemon Victory Fire

Pokemon Voda Red

Touhoumon Cirno 

The Wooper Who Saved Christmas 1 + 2 

Partial walkthroughs/Pokedexs/Other stuff

Pokemon Emerald Seaglass (general walkthrough only)

Pokemon Liquid Crystal

Pokemon Mega Power

Pokemon Nameless (battle arenas/department guide)

Pokemon Resolute

Pokemon Sapphire in Reverse 

Pokemon Ultra Fire Sun 

And now for a new and additional bonus. I'm playing through ROM hacks of other games as well and will be writing walkthroughs of official games! Check the categories below:

Official game walkthroughs:

Turbo Turtle Adventures 

Legend of Zelda (NES) ROM hack walkthroughs: 

Timecrisis: Fall of the Moon

Zelda Challenge: Outlands (1st Quest)

Zelda Challenge: Outlands (2nd Quest)

Super Monkey Ball 2 ROM hack walkthroughs

Monkeyed Ball (includes Forgotten Stages)

Monkeyed Ball 2: Witty Subtitle 

NGUU 1 

NGUU 2 

NGUU 1+2 

SMBDX in SMB2 

SMB2 SMB1 Style 

Super Monkey Ball Gaiden 

A look back at: Pokemon Outlaw

Well, what do you know, another ROM hack done in a month. I guess if there's anything I truly enjoyed about Pokemon Outlaw, is that it doesn't offer too much. That's what usually keeps me playing several ROM hacks, due to lots of diversity in Pokemon and locations in general. Pokemon Outlaw doesn't have that diversity. It makes you go through Kanto like normal, but there are less Pokemon to encounter and you also don't get to go through Viridian Forest or Mt. Moon, they're just not in the game. Same with Pokemon Tower. And no Sevii Islands or postgame quests either, no Cerulean Cave, and...wait, no legendaries either? What? NO FISHING? This game really does limit your options. You can only play as a homeless male character too, and the total amount of Pokemon you can own is 143, counting the ones from outside Gen-1 that you can actually get for that matter.

For all it's worth, the biggest benefits Outlaw does give you are the ability to run indoors and you can use Pokemon outside of Gen-1. Three of my end team are Kanto mons: Alakazam, Magneton (no Magnezone here, it's Gen-3), and Nidoqueen, while three more were Johto: Crobat, Bellossom, and Feraligatr, the latter being a freebie received early on. You start out as a poor homeless kid who somehow saves Oak from a coworker accusing him of harassment, then you go around being...how should I say this, Neutral Evil, perhaps? Maybe Chaotic Evil, but you never really do stuff that's actually evil like killing others. Basically the game mocks your character for being homeless, you don't do any drugs or killing despite the NPCs talking about doing those things, you go to weird locations like a Pewter City nightclub or the "Party Mansion". The slums are extra places where you can find items and battle destitute trainers, and I guess some of that is cool and extra? Even some people you can battle in their houses cause you barged in and all.

Those are definitely parts worth talking about for your neutral/chaotic evil protagonist. The NPC dialogue is the other highlight, dare I say it. Almost every NPC has dialogue that can definitely be written off as "edgy teenager vibes", and I already had some examples mentioned earlier. It's not like the named people are any better. Brock is some sort of pervert? Okay? Misty and Sabrina are always referred to as hot? Blaine's a nerd? Fuji's a pedophile? Oh, and you technically have two rivals, Leaf, who becomes a random love interest, and the named one who is just trying to actually kill you. And Team Rocket are more ambiguous than ever, as they are supposed to be evil, but Silph Co. actually LIKES them and the actual cops in this game who fight them (and you) are just corrupt. Yeah, that's a plot point. Everyone sucks, except Leaf I guess. Oh, and May is somehow Viridian's gym leader, and then Lance is the "Elite One", having rid the other Elite Four members (but you still have to fight this death ninja clan of three before Lance, and also another dude as the "champion") fight.

No walkthrough from me, someone has beat me to it! Though that walkthrough actually doesn't have a whole lot, it was more like "these are the Pokemon to get, try to get them all!" Considering how this game doesn't have much else? I took it in fine. 

A look back at: Planescape: Torment

 

Well this one was an interesting game. I knew I was going to experience it at least once, and I'm glad I did, even if I received it rather lukewarmly. It's nowhere near the best of games, but its probably the most interesting D&D game that is standalone or part of a lesser-known D&D plotline. No Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, or Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment is about seeking mortality, as your Nameless One has immortality and would rather figure things out with lots and lots of dialogue compared to just bumrush battling.

This is the first game I've played in a very long while where combat is usually put in the backseat. It's a bit of real-time strategy and commanding your characters to attack a target or several, and real-time battles could get hectic. Though it's important to do some grinding at some points, as well as skill point allotting. What this game is really going to do is make your character go through the dialogue, and lots of it. You'll be going around, asking denizens questions with multiple possibilities, some of which can change alignment. And for once, the game offers actual named party members, each with some sort of connection to the main character. And even the main villain of the game and a random love interest also have some connection. It's super strange. It's even strange that the main character can't even properly die.

The journey the Nameless One goes through is a confusing one indeed. Aside from the dialogue, there is the inner incarnations of himself that he should fuse himself with. This happens at the end, which also separates and KILLS the other party members. And the main villain is...the Nameless One's mortality? Where all of a sudden the Nameless One can coerce to joining, killing it altogether, or killing his own self in order to...rejoin a blood war going on. Yeah, the ending really did confuse me a bit. The philosophical nature of the game is certainly its highlight, as is the lack of combat, but it's a weird game any way. 

A look back at: Pokemon Emerald Legacy

There's no doubt that Pokemon Emerald is a legendary game, a version that is considered the true version of the Gen-3 Hoenn games, and one people will remember more than the other two. Sleeker interface, Pokemon animations, trainers call you, pincer double battles, more trainers, combining two enemy teams and a cooler legendary storyline, it was something to behold. But it just had so many flaws at the same time.

Due to my age, I loved Emerald as a kid, but looking back at it, some of the stuff I mentioned above I don't really like anymore. For those pincer double battles, I like to talk to the trainers individually, which helps better if they have more than three Pokemon (they wouldn't be able to send out full teams otherwise). I actually turn battle animations off because while novel for its time, they kind of got in the way. More trainers means more lines in walkthrough writing. And honestly, I despise the Match Call feature so much now. It's an unnecessary interruption, and the worst part is you can never turn the damn thing off. And that's just scratching the surface, because even some of Emerald's BEST stuff could be better.

I remember watching SmithPlays Pokemon's Youtube channel, where he went over the flaws of the early games, and worked to try and make them better. We see games such as Crystal Legacy form from the ashes of the flawed Johto games, and it only makes sense that Gen-3, and Emerald in particular, came next. I even saw his full playtesting stream, and it shows a lot of what I really enjoyed, so naturally, this ROM hack ended up on my wishlist at some point. And it delivered once I played it.

Emerald Legacy doesn't increase the difficulty that much, in fact not bothering to do so until post-game stuff. It's not meant to showcase lots of could-have-beens, but there are some. Now you get more Pokemon options pre-national dex, like Ponyta and Sneasel. Underwhelming Pokemon like Masquerain were made a lot more viable this time. Underwhelming or inaccurate moves got buffs to make them very much usable. And Pokemon with movesets that definitely deserved improvement got them. Characters like Courtney came back, and Matt and Archie got more battles with the player. Gym leader teams were done in a way to make them much more in line with their type specialties, with nice twists like Magical Leaf-using Plusle on Wattson's team or Breloom already being on Brawly's team. But all this while preserving the good parts of Emerald, thankfully there's lots of them.

I managed a good run of this game in under 20 hours, with a team of Blaziken (starter), Crobat, Magneton, Claydol, Ludicolo, and Glalie (obtained in an early in-game trade!), with Skarmory as an additional Fly user, Ninjask as a Cut user, and of the main team, Ludicolo was able to swap between HMs (no need for a Move Deleter, you can delete HMs easily). I of course tried to do some post-game stuff, but didn't bother with everything, since I'm not too interested in contests or Battle Frontier stuff like I used to, the only real reward for those are the legendaries as usual. But another nice touch is once you get Jirachi (Birch immediately asks you about this after the main run is over), you can get non-Hoenn dex mons out in the wild locations, and they even tried to make some sense of it. Clefairy in Meteor Falls, Caterpie and Weedle in Petalburg Woods, incredibly rare Lapras on one of the current routes, and so on. I think that's more than enough, but of the REAL improvements this game brought, the biggest one is no more annoying Match Call feature. The second biggest thing? Holding B while surfing makes you go ultra fast. There's a lot more, such as easier fishing, better utilization of the user interface, a few cut trees being permanently gone, and the Acro Bike upgrade that can even let you switch between Mach and Acro and jump up actual ledges. The team deserves praise for going after even minor things that needed attention and ensuring that the experience of playing Emerald again was much better than before.

A look back at: Pokemon Sors

A substantial improvement, that's for sure. Saiph was a disappointment, plagued with a number of bugs and just not feeling all that great despite having a large selection. Sors, the immediate sequel, provides us with a whole lot more without all the bugs that ruined the previous game. You get the new region, mons up to Gen-7 with the Pokedex covering all of them (except a select few mons including some legendaries not coded in), but when you have so much you'll have lots of options for party configuration, which makes it more adventurous. Even with the trade evos accounted for too. I went with a party of those I have used in the past: Crobat and Ampharos I have used more than many other Pokemon in ROM hacks, Gardevoir and Aegislash I last used in Kanlara Ultimate, Lucario I've used a number of times (it was the starter here, and has a red scarf, so it's special), and then Lapras I last used recently in Cloud White.

Having a tournament-style arc welded in to a plot involving your evil mother was interesting in and of itself. Even more when this isn't a tournament where every battle is back-to-back, where you can actually prepare before every single battle. But it's such a weird thing when you do the tournament, then the plot, then the tournament again. Super weird and seesaws the plot. The characters you battle in the tournament are familiar characters, from gym leaders to Elite Four members to other protagonists or rivals or companions, and it's quite the weird ensemble. Nevertheless, when the plot goes on, your character Asher goes with his father, a woman caretaker professor, and an actual love interest that grows on you as they battle...mom and her company of grunts. And then you have the Eclipse species of Pokemon, all with an ability that halves direct damage. How fun. Needless to say those were the biggest challenges going up against Eclipse mons, culminating in an actual fakemon legendary as the actual final boss. Unfortunately just like Saiph, Sors' postgame is lackluster, even if it's a little better. You can't explore much of Colen, and the Cord Island is just a battle location with...well...Discord mods as a small sidequest. And the legendaries of course, what else. Battles in this hack thankfully are light on the difficulty, which is one of the major things that sells it, as the game doesn't go immediately to level 50 before the halfway point unlike other hacks I've played. So it's all a substantial improvement. Sorry, no walkthrough from me here, there's enough documentation for this hack already including one full walkthrough from Allen.