Thursday, August 8, 2019

A look back at: Pokemon Brown

Whaddya know, I actually played a Pokemon game, or rather, a ROM hack. These things are quite the rage and Brown isn't much different. The idea is you get a new setting, different gym leaders, new types, but pretty much the regular doses of Pokemon. All your Gen-1s are there, a good chunk of Gen-2s, and even some Gen-4 evolutions like Magnezone and Magmortar along with every Eeveelution (yes, even Sylveon). The whole thing is pretty odd, and the trainers are a lot tougher. There's even a patch of grass for power leveling in the first real city.

It's a crazy trip. You can't name Mura, the rival, but he's basically the same kind of rival as before. I like how the main character can speak too. There's a boatload of inaccessible stuff, notably the entirety of the Johto region excepting Azalea Town (yes, the gym is accessible but it's like the fighting dojo in Saffron) and then the whole tunnel meant to reach Naljo, which is where Pokemon Prism takes place. As par for the course Brown does offer a lot when it comes to battles and Pokemon. I'd say the most interesting piece is the way you evolve the Eevees you might find. Having to read the wiki page on how to evolve each Eevee threw me for quite a loop there, but eventually I had them all. When it comes to catching them all, well, it's not really possible. Mankey for example doesn't show up in the wild in Rijon (although Primeape does, but you can't breed in a Gen-1 game or ROM hack). That and you only get one Gen-1 starter plus there's the matter of which legendary you run into (either Raikou or Zapdos for the Power Plant, e.g.). One thing I like is the use of trade evolutions, either use a Trade Stone (for the Gen-1s) or the item that is to be held (since Gen-1 doesn't have held items) to evolve a trade evolution (so Seadra evolves to Kingdra when you use the Dragon Scale for instance).

There's bound to be some roughness in this ROM hack but it's pretty well made.

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