A look back at: Pokemon Glazed

No mod is perfect, especially since bugs tend to be overlooked and found by the most prying eyes such as myself. Glazed though is honestly a worthwhile mod, giving us loads to do for an Emerald hack while keeping any bugs to a minimum. Not to mention giving a plot that winds its way in and out of every trainer's goal, numerous sidequests to gain the legendaries, and some really tough trainer battles. The whole Team Fusion plot is another case of "these guys want to manipulate legendaries", giving the twist that after the main bad guy fails and realizes his failure, the freaking wife divorces and continues it. This is compounded by their son fighting against his mother, as well as some crazy church guys who are very strict but still hostile to the enemy team. It ends poorly, with Pius and Regina for some dumb reason exclaiming they love each other, and while you don't see them again, what's even up with that ending?

Well on the Pokemon side of things, you can communicate with some mons on the field, particularly talking to the legendaries as well as that annoying red-scarfed Pikachu. I like how the legendaries have noble personalities fitting for their characters, and most of which actually accept your challenge to fight or capture, the exception being the Swords legendaries (Cobalion, Virizion, Terrakion) who are just sort of assholish. Mew is perhaps the oddest, deciding to immediately become one of your mons for some sort of redemption after you return to the scene.

There's some inconsistency in terms of plot when a legendary is caught by an enemy, notably after Moltres and later Zapdos, the weather gets worse, but when you decide to catch them, the weather is fine. Speaking of weather, my god there's just too much rain, especially in the Johto region, and there's no real explanation as to why it rains so much everywhere. Also some places, like that route outside of Johto's Safari Zone or the area after Bamboo Forest, are sort of bugged in that some menu options aren't available. What gives with that?

On the whole though Glazed is worthwhile, decent gym challenges, an interesting Elite Four that specializes in colors instead of types, difficult rival battles that somehow manage to be enjoyable, and different uses of moves on the field (okay I don't like HMs but hey, using Headbutt on a tree to get a Pokemon is nice and consistent with the Johto region that had it in Gen-2).