A look back at: Pokemon Scorching Scarlet

Featuring: Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Lost, Arrow, Castle, Smallville, Sliders, Roswell, Riverdale, The Music Man, Desperate Housewives, Three's Company, The Big Bang Theory, Full House, One Tree Hill, The Odd Couple, The Three Stooges, Samantha Who, Gilmore Girls, Friends, Glee, The Nanny, Smash, Sex and the City, Jessica Jones, Quantico, Beauty and the Beast, Home Alone 2, Forever, I Love Lucy, The Newsroom, How I Met Your Mother, Kyle XY, iZombie, Life UneXpected, Pretty Little Liars, Once Upon a Time, I Dream of Jeannie, Dexter, House, Vampire Diaries, Ally McBeal, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Eastwick, Chuck, America's Sweethearts, Agent Carter, Veronica Mars, 90210, Two and a Half Men, Alias, The Catch, The Timeless, The Scorpion, The Greatest American Hero, Scream, Charmed, Psych, How to Get Away With Murder, and Scandal

Phew, what a mouthful. It's no secret the creator LatiosAzurill really likes sitcoms, and Scorching Scarlet is a rom hack that incorporates the Hoenn region as a huge crossover of sitcom worlds. So Rustboro is NYC, Lilycove is SanFran, Pacifidlog is the island from Lost, etc. And many known characters from the sitcoms can be trainers, like Chloe from Smallville is a gym leader, as is Doyle from Buffy. You also battle known villains from some of these series like Queen of Hearts Cora, Black Fairy Fiona, Eli "Rowan" Pope, and Tom Riddle. Getting to be on the cops' side of things by helping out S.H.I.E.L.D. as well as Clark Kent as they investigate a possible murder, and even stopping Lex Luthor's plans and such. Warping through numerous locales with the kooky detective Castle can get you lost a lot, and a lot of places are initially not available due to guards, Wingulls, or Azumarills just blocking the way. Annoying, but you do unlock everything eventually.

Gameplay-wise, Scorching Scarlet plays a lot like the Grass Jewel games by the same author, the level curve is generally much higher overall, and those Lv100 elite trainers are naturally saved for last and are quite numerous in many places. It's not an Emerald hack, so there's a lot less trainers to battle, thankfully. Progression is a bit all over the place, doesn't follow the traditional routes in general. The idea of actually becoming a gym leader in this game by defeating Eric in Hawaii's elite gym though, it's actually a bit cool. Particularly due to facing a few familiar trainers from the series such as Wally, Phoebe, Winona, and Wallace, all who take the challenge! Apart from difficulty the game does offer the incentives of cheaper things to buy and rarer encounters being much more common, and it's still very enjoyable overall.