A look back at: Pokemon Polka Aqua

 So far, so good this month! I recently got back into the RPG groove, continuing the Might and Magic series, and I finally finished this up. So yes, another LatiosAzurill hack, having done two Grass ones and the Fire one, it's time to check out the water in Polka Aqua, and there's a sequel on the way too. Welcome me back to this after I somehow took three months off to focus on Doom stuff, welp. Indeed, as I did with the others, I had a walkthrough going, and I'm sure glad to have saved it. Many, and I mean, many of the things here really felt like Scorching Scarlet, but sort of an expansion and such. Some towns like Chicago weren't there before, and I also appreciate the fact that the map is now showing the other towns properly (sadly you cannot fly to any of them that don't replace the vanilla Pokemon towns).

As for the gameplay, if you already know the drill, the author likes high-level trainer battles, up to the ubers with Lv100 teams and everyone seems to have 255 EVs, some with held items that do things, plus the Eric-like trainers will for some reason always have shinies. Wild encounters, well, there's nothing bad about most of them, and the key highlight I found is that the starters can all be encountered really early on! Great! In wild grass, but these are in certain early towns like River City and Stars Hollow. Quite fun. 

When it comes to legendaries, some were in bags, most required me to finish all the post-game plot stuff, but the two that really sealed the deal were for some reason Volcanion and Meloetta. One required you to "prove yourself" with a 50-win streak at the Battle Tower, the other requires five paintings in the Art Museum (so lots of contests). Both tasks are also tasks that change the trainer card color, and are hugely difficult and time-consuming in the regular game. Sadly, for two more legendaries Cosmog and Necrozma, you must complete the PokeDex, so you gotta get those two, as well as everything else, Safari Zone Pokemon, other one-time only legendaries, a few freebies here and there that can be hard to find (having to sleep in random beds to get Cresselia and Darkrai is creative, but certainly not something even savvy players would think of, yes, you can sleep in any of the white beds and it's a way to heal too). Really am not a fan of Wingull/Azumarills blocking the way to places either, but I guess it's to keep from certain premature entrances into places from occurring. And I still hate that Neverland maze and Infinite Forest. Real hard! But it's all still entertaining to play a "Hoenn but not Hoenn" hack, with all those sitcom and movie people all around playing in a strange crossover of sorts. Glad I didn't forget about this, huh?