I hear a lot about this game, how amazing it is for a ROM hack, possibly because of the whole "Gen-5 mons in a Gen-3 hack" thing and all. But as I played there was wrong. Lots and lots of wrong. I have to list them all, all that I can because wow, this ROM hack is amazingly bad.
1. While I'm generally okay with most familiar Pokemon characters, it's best to ensure that character names don't overlap with others. Which is why I'm not fond of the professor named Jasmine unless the Jasmine I know from the Johto region decided to migrate over to Zhery for whatever reason and dye her hair.
2. The game doesn't even give you chances to have fun right away because you're immediately confronted by the Zhery champion! Although it's of course a friendly greeting and all so whatever which then leads into the cliche where you have to fight a Poochyena, which ends up actually being owned by some random Team Steam grunt and his mon is labeled as "wild". Great job.
3. Said greeting involves you apparently being the only person in all of Zhery who can translate a language known as "Alpha". It makes no sense.
4. Oh yeah, speaking of characters, Ash Ketchum is here and is just shown to be around everywhere. He ain't the only one, as familiar faces are everywhere, the male character from Gen-2 (Gold/Ethan, here he's called Kenta), the male from Gen-4 (Lucas, known as Diamond), Red, and the two Pokemon Ranger protagonists (Lunick and Solana) are flummoxing around this place trying to beat gyms. Is this game some sort of weird crossover? Also Silver, the rival from Gen-2 is apparently in the Lauren region, along with that a female named Pearl (no relation to Dawn who's the female in Gen-4) and Yellow (clearly not related to Ash in any way).
5. Well at least you don't have a destined rival all the time, but as I played, I noticed each rival somehow gets weaker. Example: Kenta has a well-rounded team when he starts, three mons of Grass, Fire, and Water. He then gets a Pichu and a Shroomish. Third time? He evolves his mons but ditches Pichu for some reason. He then abandons most of his mons for a three-mon team that a Water type can sweep. Last time I saw him? Only Aggron and Typhlosion. Come ON. Red naturally has a Pikachu, plus Riolu and Turtwig. Okay. He gets better by evolving and catching a Gyarados, but abandons half his team for a Bagon as well as his Lucario. Next match he has Scyther, and then after that he DOESN'T have Scyther. He then loses his fully-evolved Salamence for Charizard. Why?Lucas...I mean Diamond (there's a gym leader named Lucas) again starts out good, with a Flying, Fire, and Electric type. His team dynamic changes considerably the second time, but that's okay because it's a bit more challenging. It changes AGAIN but he now has three mons, then the last two times you see him he has only two mons, and both teams are different. My guess is they just want to fight with special teams or something. Lunick and Solana don't meet you a whole lot in Zhery, but they stay consistent by keeping their respective starters, Chimchar and Turtwig. Can't say the rest for their teams as you go, again they keep getting easier. The rival battles in these cases are random, but not necessarily more fun the more you go. Also just because the people online are dumb they don't seem to document the mons used by the rivals in Lauren (or for that matter, the post-Lauren champions, Professor Ellie, or Team Steam bosses), so have a crappy MS Paint graphic that shows what mons they have.
6. Where was I? Oh yeah, the prologue. Spoiler alert, Kaori apparently has an Empoleon at the beginning, but when you fight him during the champion bout, he doesn't have it.
7. Team Steam's motives are pretty much crap and like all others ("we wanna capture legendaries and rule the world). Then when you beat the bosses over and over (at least the ones that stay relevant) they're like "STOP BEING BETTER THAN US WAH". They become laughingstocks in the Lauren region and honestly should've been sidelined.
8. One of my biggest grievances with this game is the fact you don't get the running shoes until after the first gym. That is much longer than it needs to be.
9. The second town seriously has the Safari Zone? I'm okay with the Pokemon Contest building (honestly I care less about those things anyways) but why the Safari Zone?
10. Oh yeah, cool, multiple areas, different mons. It's like the game doesn't want to really challenge you. Furthermore, you can get every single mon in the Safari Zone elsewhere, so it's a waste of cash.
11. Speaking of lack of challenge, the "freebies" in this game are a perfect example of what I hate. NPCs can give Pokemon to you if you have a free slot, these usually aren't mons you can find in the wild in most cases which is alright but there's way too many of them in the game when you can probably just make them rare encounters. I mean you have quite a lot of rare encounters and I'm okay with those! The only mons that should be "freebies" are selection of starters where you have to pick one. That's about it. Also Eevee.
12. Those aren't the only freebies. Very early in the game you're able to find items you should be getting just before the Elite Four. Really? A Max Potion in the first town? Ultra Balls? Full Restores? You don't even get an Old Rod first, you get the Good Rod, and the Super Rod comes quickly afterwards. For some reason, I think that some items flat out reappear in visited places, possibly due to a glitch involving in-game saving (there's a part for this below).
13. This also applies, strangely, to the Pokemon Marts in the first few towns up until Groment City or so. Endgame stuff so soon? This also has the extreme hassle of never being able to buy an Escape Rope until you reach the second-to-last city in Zhery. That is just atrocious.
14. If there's one thing that seriously bugs me, it's the NPC dialogue. It's often repeated between NPCs a few steps apart, those who usually aren't related in any way to each other. This goes to even trainers you battle, they don't have any new lines upon talking to them again and many just say the same crap!
15. Oh yeah, and the NPCs in some places are in the exact same locations. Like there's two cities with Pokemon Centers, somewhere in the middle of the game, and for some reason the NPCs in both are completely identical down to the dialogue!
16. The small towns in the game don't have Pokemarts.
17. The cutscenes involving Team Steam awakening legendaries basically involves opposites fighting each other (Groudon vs. Kyogre, Ho-oh vs. Lugia, Reshiram vs. Zekrom, Palkia/Giratina/Dialga vs. Arceus) until Arceus calms things down. But these cutscenes take longer than necessary. Also the sounds are just generally recycled from Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza with the exception of the Ho-oh/Lugia fight.
18. The whole Seanport Lighthouse area is a waste of time and is pretty much an "extension" to Lucas's gym.
19. Cool, a National Park like in Johto games! What's that? You wanna go bug catching? Too bad! There wasn't one in Glazed either, but the Johto section of that game was mostly rushed, while this game is pretty much finished.
20. Mienshao's sprite in the Pokemon or PC menu is Arceus's. And then if you catch Arceus, the sprite is Mienshao's.
21. Want a lesson in repetition? Are the pretentious NPC dialogues not enough to satisfy that? Try the actual Pokemon teams you have to fight against! Team Steam grunts especially count here, while the team itself varies its Pokemon types which is good, many don't think properly. Mt. Winter has six grunts that have two level 40 Kadabras, a level 40 Gardevoir, and a level 38 Lopunny. Six grunts have the same team of four mons. And it gets worse once you reach Steam HQ. There are nine grunts with a team of a level 41 Glameow and two level 43 Puruglys. And seven of them you fight in a row! This isn't challenge. It's just a complete slog.
22. Other trainers tend to have complete discrepancies in level by the time you reach them. One Lass trainer after the seventh gym has a level 39 Croagunk, okay, but then a level 18 Scraggy?
23. You know how in every game there's usually only one Master Ball unless you decide to Gameshark more. But in this one, a glitch allows you to have unlimited Master Balls inside Steam HQ without any Gamesharking. That's shameful. I'm not even gonna spoil where it is.
24. Those times you finish a rival battle, the rival character just pops in for a split second like he wasn't supposed to have been there earlier.
25. Probably the most notorious problem I have with this game? Rayner not appearing at the Power Plant. The idea to meet gym leaders before challenging them is a good idea, but Rayner not showing up in that Power Plant due to an unexplainable glitch is asinine. Worst part is I can't think of any solution other than "reset lots of times". After going through the Lauren region though I think the explanation for the glitch of course has to be in-game saves, which I still have issues with.
26. Oh yeah and Sophia is a troll, by not being in her gym and instead being in an ice cave you've already been to, saying she's gonna be back there once you talk to her. Only she just goes to the other cave exit. You're just delaying the inevitable.
27. How do both Ash and Wesley (the eighth gym leader in Zhery) not be able to beat down Steam Leader Zero? Especially Ash, the so-called "World champion". It's just storyline cutscene paralysis in order for you to inevitably beat Zero and face Giratina. I mean, his entire team can be sweeped by an Ice type or Dragon type.
28. Even the signs in the game are outright repetitive.
29. Here's something you can apparently do while using the Dive HM, you can resurface while in the seaweed. Which leads way to some dumb glitches that shouldn't be happening.
30. Why am I always facing downward when going through the Elite Four rooms?
31. Those running shoes I mentioned earlier? Glad to have them after the first gym, but the hell is that running animation supposed to be? My character model like shrinks down or something and it's just weird.
32. Oh yeah, the Steam Uniform concept is neat, except two problems. One is you can't use it indoors when infiltrating Team Steam strongholds much like running, making it moot to be infiltrating in the first place. The other is a reason for the previous problem, it's a reskinned Acro Bike, which naturally can't be used indoors. Being a reskinned Acro Bike alone makes the uniform ten times as awkward. The idea's there, but the execution is hilariously dumb.
33. I'm not a fan of HMs, but they are hilariously underused too. I just mentioned Dive earlier, but the others don't get used much. You use Strength for crates, cool, but you only use Rock Smash to go from one route to the next and that's it. Same with Cut, really. Special mention goes to the new HM Lava Surf. This has LOADS OF POTENTIAL, but you only use it to cross across a lava lake once. Of course, it's a Fire type's Surf equivalent and that's cool, but...
34. Double battles can be a load of fun but there's not a single one in this game.
35. Drakebreath City's gym is pretty much a direct ripoff of Blackthorn City's gym.
36. Team Steam's leaders and admins aren't that memorable and you pretty much stop seeing some since they get arrested easily. Then you meet completely new ones and well you just sort of forget who anyone is in that team.
37. Where the heck is the Move Relearner? Why only a Move Deleter? Oh great, two Name Raters. Two.
38. After visiting the Lauren region, apparently once I got some fossils I went back to Groment City to resurrect them. What did I notice? Those Team Steam people are back. I can't battle with them since I already did, but then again, they don't do anything new and the ones at the end don't even have lines. WTF?
39. One of the more blatant things this offers are the trainers on either flying mons or surfing mons (they are SO not swimmers). When you battle them share the exact same mons on the field basically. So the second gym in Lauren has trainers that only have one Skarmory or one Altaria and it's easy to tactically battle them. Surfing trainers are a little weirder but there's usually Tentacruel or Wailmer involved.
40. So one thing I'm glad I have so far is a Scrafty with Ice Smash (read, Brick Break) and Rock Climb, plus a Mandibuzz with Glide (read, Aerial Ace) that way the Lauren TMs won't get wasted on HM slaves or anything. One thing bothers me though. What's with the Pilot License? Just like the Steam Uniform, the License is basically a bike reskin, this time it's the Mach Bike. I don't understand this. Also in regards to Lauren field TMs, they are again only used for very specific routes that are just meant to block until you use them, but Water Pulse doesn't even get used at all (it's supposed to be used to put out fires, but there's none).
41. Apparently despite Glide being a TM all you need is a mon with it, and it's even dumber when you actually go on the flying route because for some reason a mon that DOESN'T know Glide (in my case it was Typhlosion of all mons) is the one who uses it, instead of the one that does know it (in my case Mandibuzz).
42. Music needs to be quite consistent for certain battles. So far, the trainer battles are ALL the same, including the leaders, rivals, and the Elite Four. The evil team battle plays appropriately for Team Steam grunts but also the flying trainers too?
43. I don't understand why the Giratina statues in the Sky Tower are considered "blueprints". Also the cutscene after Kratos sees a lot of people just appearing and disappearing without reason, possibly a glitch.
44. So get this, I can go a bit through the Lauren region up to Mt. Vulcan, battle Ellie cause she's a trainer, but when I return to her lab I can choose ANOTHER Unova starter? Weird. But it's even worse than I imagined because when I evolved Tepig up to Emboar, level it up to 37, it EVOLVES INTO SCOLIOPEDE. WHAT.
45. Actually I found out another huge problem in the Lauren region. You reach Flamerny City, and Ellie both before and after you battle her tells you that you need to go to Mt. Vulcan. Okay cool, I'll go there, just gotta explore Flamerny City, do some shopping whatever, save. Except that last part. I read on Vizzed that there's a huge glitch that prevents you from accessing Mt. Vulcan due to the guy standing in the entrance. And then I had to do #44 above, then fight ALL the rival battles up to that point as well as Kratos in Sky Tower, then Ellie again, and only then can I enter Mt. Vulcan. It's nonsensical and the worst part is I heard it has something to do with in-game saving. Which honestly, glitches tend to happen for save stating rather than in-game saving.
46. Merydian City's Pokemon Center has the Pokemart theme
47. So when I beat the Lauren League, it says I beat the Zhery League. Also I don't understand why after beating a league with both this ROM hack and Glazed, I immediately am back home without any Hall of Fame entries. Even more when none of my mons got healed.
48. So does Eusine not use his Skarmory in battle? Because I didn't fight one.
49. Also regarding Eusine, you battle him to access the Johto legendaries. BUT there's two problems. The 3 beasts are of course the problem, they of course have Roar (aside from Suicune), but a weird catch is that the player must not enter any building before catching any of them or they are lost forever (this is aside from Roar of course). Finally according to the site they show up in "random Lauren routes", okay.
50. You know I'm really not a fan of having just about every legendary who isn't Giratina be available post-game. Not to mention that aside from those that have Roar above (oh and Registeel has Roar too), there's one with Explosion (Azelf) and Self-destruct (Regirock). Basically you need to exploit the Master Ball thing I mentioned earlier (or just cheat). And I'm sure you need to cheat regardless because what I said with #45 and in-game saves means that some areas are pretty much locked out completely (Steam HQ has the people in front of it, they do nothing, and I go back there to get Mewtwo for instance).
Well, how about what's actually good in this hack?
1. Feebas evolving into Milotic via Water Stone helps alleviate the pains of feeding it Pokeblocks or farming nature. Also catching Feebas is better than it was in the main games.
2. The overall design barring a few glaring flaws (running shoes animation) is pretty good.
3. Again, Lava Surf. It's a cool idea for an HM (that pun was completely not intentional).
4. Trade evolutions are pretty difficult to do in the ROM hacks due to lack of proper trading protocols apart from some sort of "trade with yourself" mechanic requiring some obscure emulator. While other games used Trade Stones, this one makes all the in-game trades out to be mons that you receive evolve into the form you get. So you will always get Scizor, Alakazam, Kingdra, Steelix, Machamp, etc. that way. It's a little more challenging than getting Trade Stones (although Light Platinum is quite light on the evolution stones, pun intended, until the Lauren region) since you have to get specific mons to trade with.
5. Since it's a Gen-3 hack, the abilities and moves that were introduced in Gen-4 and Gen-5 aren't present, which changes the dynamic a bit and gives mons different movesets and abilities to work with, adding to a challenge. This hack makes Archeops a good mon, since it doesn't have the awful Defeatist ability but rather Sturdy (well Sturdy isn't THAT great, but maybe in a metagame). The same with Regigigas, who gets Natural Cure instead of Slow Start.
6. I never was a fan of mons with very limited movepools. Luckily for Beldum, it already learns Tackle, Confusion, and Hypnosis when I first get it at level 10, plus Imprison at level 12, Confuse Ray at 14, and Extrasensory at 19 before it evolves. Neat!
It may have been cool back when it came out, it felt complete, so to say, and it was worthwhile for mobile ROM hack players. But there's a load of problems to it and the bad outweighs the good quite easily.
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