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. 

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 

SMBDX in SMB2 

SMB2 SMB1 Style 

Super Monkey Ball Gaiden 

A look back at: Pokemon Cloud White

Walkthrough, not entirely complete, but like I couldn't get absolutely everything when bugs and glitches prevent me from doing so.

Well hello there. My goodness, how long has it been since my last Pokemon ROM hack? 5 months? Wow. This is what happens when I have a bunch of other commitments and I decide to try my hand at many, many more. I got into the hang of doing walkthroughs for different ROM hacks outside Pokemon, and then I had my RPGs that I took more time in doing, so clearly the ROM hacks here have been delayed considerably. But even with those in mind, guess what? I had an ENORMOUS one when I decided to check out Cloud White. My team here was Infernape, Claydol, Crobat, Lapras, Jumpluff, and Mega Ampharos (megas are permanent in this game).

I honestly don't know where I could begin. Cloud White includes base Fire Red (Kanto + Sevii). It includes Johto. It includes the Mangan Archipelago which is an entirely new region, and some of these islands are actually shaped like Japan. So meta. What? Oh, and there's an entire region based entirely out of France, and this region in particular, they all speak it. Cute, but this meant that for the non-French speaking audiences, they have no clue what things are, so my walkthrough shows some translations. Maybe a bit too much?

But the whole hack seems like too much, and not in the best of ways. Yes, your money amount can go above what Game Freak set the max as. And you can go above Level 100, there are some trainers there in that regard too. But even with all this, there's way more regions that trying to make a guide on all this is insane enough on its own, and that's not getting into the fact that the game's trainers get to be stagnant at the end of it all. Major trainers will either have a theme or all megas, and there's supposedly some edgy story for the Azur region in particular about samurai clans. Oh, and you get to be an emperor. Yeah, emperor, no gender differences were considered here. Very lame in that regard.

More mons up to Gen-6, getting all the megas in as well. The Fairy type was one I considered getting and god I need to vent about this, because this SUCKS. The Fairy type was just not implemented well at all. I was hoping to get a good fairy mon, but neither Gardevoir (or its mega), or Togekiss, the best possible options for me not counting Xerneas or Cresselia, just didn't learn the moves I need (plus Shiny Stones are extremely late for Togekiss anyways). I was stuck with Fairy Wind off of Jumpluff for a Fairy move as my only real option. Also for Moonblast, the de facto Fairy move, I mentioned those two legendaries, who do learn it by level, but who's bright idea was it to make Moonblast a STATUS move in categorization? That's just straight up awful, and you can't even use it to hit a Mega Sableye super effectively cause it will get bounced back to you via Magic Bounce. Just, no. No changes to TMs by the way.

And even with all this, there's the definite screw-ups, such as not being able to correctly finish off the Johto region because the Manaphy event is a soft lock, preventing you from getting the next one down as well. The Tyranitar'Arena is supposed to open after you become emperor, but I think the script is broken cause I can't enter that either. And there are some locations where walk-in flags aren't in the right spots and I can't even enter, or there's some guard in the way regardless of what I do. Also Johto more or less feels like it's straight from Liquid Crystal, and they also have the randomized rain for EVERYTHING in the entire hack. Pokemon Cloud White is a perfect example of going too far. There's going to be things that are fine, and many other things that are just not fine. The walkthrough for this game that I made was my second-largest walkthrough ever after the main Pokemon Nameless walkthrough. It could probably be a lot larger if I was able to access some extra events. The official game guide did help me somewhat in making my own, and I ensured that I let you all know of all the trainers to battle and where.

A look back at: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

It's rather telling that I'll try to get to every single franchise I can at one point or another, and now I finally get to check out the flagship game of a number of Super Smash Bros. characters, starting with Marth's flagship game, translated to Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. Honestly in hindsight, the fan translation I picked up for this NES game pissed me off. Mars? Really? He's known all around as Marth, and I realize some things may be lost in translation at some point or another but the translators of the patch I picked up took a lot of liberties, to the point of even breaking the fourth wall in one rare dialogue box that references future games in the series. Thanks a lot. Don't spoiler me on that stuff just yet.

As for Fire Emblem's gameplay, I feel as if this is a relatively nice starting point if someone would get into tactical RPGs, though not the best starting point. Final Fantasy Tactics does a great job, while I was not a fan of how Shining Force dealt with things. Fire Emblem is somewhere in between. Units pretty much always counter, and depending on speed stat, one unit could get a follow-up attack which is one thing you'd really want to get. Skill stat is what dictates hit percentages, and misses still suck, but at least you'll be able to gauge your hit percentage with the stat bars at the bottom of the units, plus attack and defense. Critical hits are awesome surprises when you get them, and deadly when used against you. Because of the permadeath mechanic that units have to deal with, you really don't want to take chances with losing the best units. I believe the creators of this game wanted all players of it to do an Ironman-style challenge when playing, as in you lose units, you just move on. Well, you still have a lot of limited choices in term of characters, AND a limited choice in weapons before they break, so you know that's always a ton of fun, ain't it?

Marth, being the main character, is an enemy magnet. He at least dodges many attacks and counterattacks well. I recognize his critical hit animation is different from others, and actually translated to his Final Smash from Brawl onwards. As for the other characters, those in the mercenary class, which could promote to the hero class, were the exceptional ones without weaknesses, and they were pretty much in all my parties. The horseback riders (social knights, paladins, horsemen) were great for maneuverability, while armor knights were the opposite yet were walking tanks, but both do a decent job with things until you meet the enemies that have specific weaponry against them. Dragon knights were awesome but then you contend with those with the dragon-slaying weaponry. OR arrows, which work well against the pegasus knights too. Mages and clerics are quite typical, with bishops combining them. Clerics on the other hand have the dumbest leveling up mechanic, they have to be hit!? Weird. Then there's the Mamkutes, secretly dragons who have infinite uses of their stones and just are tanks as dragons unless you have the dragon-slaying weaponry. And of course, all these kinds of units, you gotta figure out ways around them all the same. Along with that, weaponry dropped by enemies is usually better than what you own, the shops only give half-decent things until you find a good member card and find SECRET SHOPS. Oh, and I spent a lot of time in arenas, saving before using each one hoping that the character that enters doesn't die. It made some chapters go up to 99 (turn limit), but it's worth it to level people up before promoting them or using them later. But hey, at least I got the chance to play a Fire Emblem game and enjoyed what I could. I look forward to many others.

A look back at: Pools of Darkness

First of the year. It took 24 days, but I get caught up being bored and doing my own advanced college work when no one is looking, still churning through one Pokemon ROM hack while at the same time working on walkthroughs of other game ROM hacks (there's now four for SMB2 on my main walkthroughs page), but I also churn through other series that I've had to deal with and Pools of Darkness is the fourth out of five Pool of Radiance games. Again, franchise in a franchise with strategy RPG mechanics that have remained the same with each game. Slightly better graphics! Freakier sound effects! That's what the developers have decided to ensure the game didn't feel more like an expansion pack to the others.

Yet overall, the gameplay is largely similar, but I guess slightly better than Secret of the Silver Blades. This is largely in part due to the game actually having more than one overworld, and you can navigate freely on the overworlds (though of course there are random encounters, what you do is your decision in these cases). I of course import my characters and their stats, plus equipment hold over. Neat, until I horrifying find out that the game still is quite difficult despite this. Dragons always terrify you. Those annoying spiders and their instakill poison are there. Bane's minions have magic resistance. Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball, as great spells as they are, are often not useful due to fire monsters taking a lot of precedence. And don't even get me STARTED on the unfairness that is the finale of this game. Yeah, no in-between rests for three or so battles, one of which has the beholders with multiple instakill gaze sets. Even the walkthrough I was using this game to complete with gave up at some point and changed the difficulty setting, while a Youtube video I watched went with a "tire out the enemy until enough turns have passed" cheese strategy. I was obviously quite exhausted with this nonsense, and didn't even bother to try Dave's Challenge as a result. Note to creators, I know you want the best of the best beating your post-game challenges, but when you have exhausting finales for the main game, it's very likely that I'm not even gonna bother with the postgame.

But I guess despite that I did enjoy what I did. A hub dimension where you go around, doing major quests in that dimension to unlock the way to the other dimensions (one of which being a giant god's body) and defeating one of Bane's lieutenants in each one feels a lot better than a game that didn't even have a true overworld. And these overworld have sidequests and side characters meaning that there is usually something worthwhile to do if you deviate from the main quest.