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.

A look back at: The Dark Queen of Krynn

 

I played this one in spades, often taking breaks either from work or trying to do other things. Nevertheless, I'm quite glad this one took a little less than a month in hindsight. It's just as linear if not more than Death Knights of Krynn, though it's both longer and harder in general. I mean, more dragons to deal with, more Draconians and their special nonsense death conditions. Yay, exploding enemies, rising into another form and exploding, or just blowing fireballs diagonally. And as I would always expect, both Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball were the fun spells to use for almost every encounter with the mages taking point. The developers of this game really took that into account because there's an underwater kingdom to deal with though, so obviously the favorite spells aren't always useful. And then there's the dragons and beholder enemies which also proved quite challenging especially with multiples of them in one area!

So aside from fun and frustration, I take it that The Dark Queen of Krynn is perhaps the most advanced game of its engine, the Gold Box engine. The graphics are sleeker and there's more color usage, and I think the AI might have been slightly tweaked better, you never know. I also enjoy the guest characters here far more. Whereas your own party completely lacks characterization, where they MAY have something during the story in spades depending on who you choose to tackle certain events, the guest characters and other major characters shine a lot brighter. Captain Daenor is an ally who comes and goes, with his own story and trying to get his sister back. Grunschka and Baldric are other characters who are interesting allies, with the former being a party member until the end and the latter ending up doing something for the semi-twist ending. It's a shame that black mage guy in the Abyss isn't playable, and the defeat of the actual dark queen is underwhelming since you really don't directly fight her. It is sort of funny when dragons invade the celebration victory party at the end though, that was the semi-twist ending. But all in all, it really boils down to "do I already enjoy playing through the other Gold Box games" here. If you know nothing about them, it's probably not as good. 

A look back at: Death Knights of Krynn

More Krynn-inge. Nah, just kidding. I'm quite glad I knocked this one out in less than a week. Chock it up to the importing of characters from the previous game, as well as delving into the right quests at the right time. Death Knights of Krynn is certainly about defeating the new evil in the death knights, and at least two instances are where you have to battle former friendly NPC characters. That's cause this is a game where necromancy takes center stage in the plot. Lord Soth is the main bad guy to quell, and he's got the previously dead Sir Karl to his side WITH the Dragonlance. Note to the idiots in the epilogue of Champions of Krynn, THIS is why you don't take the Dragonlance from the party! Now we have to be in a terrible situation of having to bring Sir Karl to rest, which would definitely hurt his lover Maya, who's a dragon herself, of course.

The other major character for this game is Durfey, and he's a bit like Vala from Secret of the Silver Blades in that he's around for a very long haul once you recruit him. He then leaves to help a lovely woman, only to find himself as another undead trying to defend her and you have to slay him. Poor man. Oh my, are we really talking about the main plot of "Just defeat Lord Soth before he uses lots of undead, especially this one badass hero"? Yeah, that's the gist of the plot. This game, without sidequests, is very short. Though even WITH the sidequests, it was still short. But it was worthwhile to do them. I haven't really mentioned gameplay here since it's basically identical to Champions of Krynn, with the only notable new thing is the re-addition of the Paladin class. And they brought some DOS chiptune music back which is always nice. Alright, let's see what that last Dragonlance chapter will offer.

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 

SMBDX in SMB2 

SMB2 SMB1 Style 

Super Monkey Ball Gaiden 

A look back at: Pokemon Star Twinkle

Walkthrough as usual

During the disaster that was the previous ROM hack I played, which was Cloud White, I heard about this hack and its in-development sequel, Delicious Party. Both Star Twinkle (also known as Pokemon Stellar) and Delicious Party get their names from the Pretty Cure series, which I have of course been watching and enjoying as I do my usual gaming. And of course, they take inspiration from Pretty Cure, but also several other magical girl-oriented series, such as PMMM and Puyo Puyo. That goes for Pokemon and characters. Let it be known there was a lot to take in, despite this hack being a "go through Kanto but a little differently" hack.

If you are going to make a "go through Kanto a little differently" ROM hack, it's gotta really show its teeth, and this one thankfully does. The routes are different, the majority of mon encounters are fakemons with a small sprinkle of regular Pokemon. And if you're gonna add fakemon, you best make as many of them seem interesting to use, and almost all of them were! The battles in this game were a surprisingly even mix of both single and double battles, and the toughest ones aside from gym leaders and league members were the evil team members, most of which were double battles to begin with. There's a buttload of variety and that's a huge selling point. You get to see many of the new Pokemon well before you have access to them, and as far as I can tell, all but one are available. My team included Homucifier, Sakyako (these two based off of PMMM characters and are Dark/Fairy and Fire/Steel respectively), Miitsudoki (Electric/Fairy based off of Cure Sunshine), Claydol, Stalikata, and Wyrmfish (last two have some inspiration but I don't know what it is). And it doesn't end there, as magical girls are a trainer class, including some favorites like the PMMM characters themselves and several Pretty Cures. And Usagi Tsukino is somewhere here too.

With all that said, Delicious Party is still in development, and Star Twinkle was a hack I seriously, seriously wanted to get into. It got a release, but it also got patched multiple times as I played and made my walkthrough. You can say I had a hand in finding several bugs and glitches, which will be ironed out each release. The whole experience remained enjoyable and I look forward to Delicious Party. 

A look back at: Champions of Krynn

It's a good thing I saved my characters for these DOS games...wait, I can't transfer them over? Oh, right. So as it stands, the Pool of Radiance sub-series is separate from the Dragonlance sub-series as well as other sub-series in the Gold Box games. Have I mentioned that yeah, I am churning through these games again? Might as well, there's a little of that DOS charm along with some hardline tactical RPG gameplay. But in any case, I modeled my party after the ones I used up to Pools of Darkness, with only a few minor exceptions as usual.

Champions of Krynn is delightfully a lot shorter and actually easier in most regards compared to the other games. There's not too much in dawdling around for sidequests this time, and the plot is...honestly quite typical. That is something of a problem I guess, it's really just "find missing maidens to rescue" as well as "defeat dragonkin characters, including the big bad who is one himself" with a little dose of tragedy when your mentor and troop leader ends up perishing. Though there's a little more intrigue plot-wise, as not only are some of the guest characters very interesting, so are the races themselves. When Maya decides to join you, the twist of her becoming a dragon in combat was not something you expected, was it? What about Skyla, that doofus guy who actually gets new orders to kill you? Or how about the ogres, who are actually good characters, except for a select few, but you still get them to form a nice alliance? Oh yeah, and two flying fortresses, they crash into each other, and there's drunken Draconians, civil conflict in the final town, honestly, it's these little things that produce a nice charm to a fairly average Gold Box game. Not too much to really look back on, but it is the little things. 

A look back at: Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor

(Note: I finished this game last week from the timestamp of this post. Whoops, I usually do the post here after I finish, but I forgot. I did finish this game on around the 22nd of March though).

And so I continue with the Advanced D&D games but going away from Gold Box for a moment for this game that seriously has those WOW or Diablo vibes. I mean, look at that screenshot and you should be able to see some similarities. The vibes are certainly there with the medieval setting and all, but the gameplay is anything but MMORPG. Don't worry, I've got no intention to play those games, since I prefer the more linear plotlines of regular games in all seriousness.

Ruins of Myth Drannor is heavily, and I mean heavily, quest-driven. There's so many quests or steps to get to quests that I got sidetracked far more than I usually would. The main quest is basically "big good wizard tells your four heroes to stop this evil sorceress and her dragon boyfriend from using the Pool of Radiance, and to also finally destroy it", and then there's a bunch of other things to cover, maybe a few select characters that are temporary party members or so for extra fun. Plus all the extra treasures and having to fight all the denizens of the ruins. Yippee?

Well, not so much. First of all, the gameplay still practices the turn-based mechanics of its predecessors. When you have free-range like this, maybe trying the Diablo route would work better. Cause moving units to be right in melee weapon range will look awkward in free-range movement. Oh, but look at those D&D flair, the rolls and such. That's neat, but of course missing is never fun. An ideal party is two strong physical fighters and two mages, their classes could be anything aside from the cliche ones of course but there's always the skewing upon leveling up units and such. But the hardest thing about this game is just how boring it got. You go on the quests, but you basically have to tough out encounters each time of varying degrees, and that drowning orchestra does get grating after a while with each battle.

And then, there's the game-breaking nonsense that could ruin save files at times. It's easily the most annoying thing about this game. I think I might just return to messing around with the Gold Box games in the meantime.