A look back at: Pokemon Luria

Walkthrough here.

Betas really don't manage to get finished all the way, do they? There's definitely room for improvement in all of them, but at least from what players can experience, there's definitely glimmers of hope for some fun storytelling and/or gameplay. Pokemon Luria certainly has the hallmarks of this, it's got a new region, new characters, new storyline. The overall plot is still "get starter, battle gym leaders, battle enemy team on occasion", and that's more or less fine and dandy. There were some decent ideas here, the B/W repel system is here, the Pokemon Centers and Marts are merged, and the hidden grottos offer neat exploration. Plus there's 1% encounters in the caves, and one of them was a Bulbasaur too. By the way, you do get the Hoenn starters as your pick.

It would have been nice if we got to see what development the main characters have. We know Prof. Gillian travels, Tutai is your childhood friend and rival, Simon is some guy chasing Team 1.5.1., and the leader of said team is named Butler. But that's about it. If this beta were to be finished, we might have found out more of course, but we got what we got. I usually try not to play unfinished betas as much, but at least this one made you get to at least two gyms, so that's pretty fair. And yes, I'm still making these walkthroughs, just for informational purposes.

A look back at: Realms of Arkania: Star Trail

CRPGs are such silly games, aren't they? Tons of customization options for player characters, incredulously difficult gameplay with tons of micromanaging, this kind of stuff won't ever appeal to casual gamers. Which is why I find it so darn fun, honestly. Realms of Arkania has insofar been a rad series with the tactical combat, which I find more fun than the usual turn-based stuff that Might & Magic and Wizardry have been pulling me with. Battles will of course take a while, or not, depending on how strong you are and how chicken the enemies can be. The many niches of combat end up with quite a lot of RNG. The spell failed! The attack failed! Bear in mind I finished a Pokemon ROM hack recently and those games are of course rife with attacks and moves that fail, kinda like these ones. But as you might think, it's honestly all in good fun regardless and I still enjoy this stuff.

Though, frankly, there's really not a whole lot to talk about with regards to Star Trail. The changes are minor but are clearly better, so one who plays this first and goes back to Blade of Destiny will find the latter to be less than stellar (hah, a star pun). Personally though, I always play from the roots up. It's real nice that you can aim on a diagonal now. The music is really good. The dialogue in the game is quite interestingly voiced. The computer combat has nice imagery but is an incredibly risky way to skip some battles. And the overall plot does try to steer away from general cliches, but still has a few, like the shady briber who ends up being the evil sorceror summoning a dragon for the final boss. And well, you don't actually defeat that boss, you just have to survive. The alliance of races to stand up to another race was a nice main quest, but it was the main one and there was very few side stuff compared to the previous game. It all sets up for Shadows over Riva, whenever I get to playing that.

A look back at: Pokemon Dreams

No walkthrough from me here guys! Sorry about that. I found one online as well as several very good guides on the locations of Pokemon, items, and the info about the fakemons, all in good company. My final team for the game included Dusknoir, Claydol, Vikavolt, Florges, Emboar, and Orcavion (this is a fakemon pseudo-legendary with Water/Dragon typing), plus a Magnezone which was used for much of the game but I swapped it for Dusknoir because of a certain Elite Four's Mega Banette.

So with that roster in my final team, yes, we got mons up to Gen-7, as well as a number of fakemons. And a new region, and the use of the CFRU (Complete Fire Red Upgrade) made things extremely well. Day/night cycle, a way around trade evolutions, free move tutoring, new options for double and inverse battles, and TONS of ways to catch the many Pokemon and fakemon of the Solda region. So the grass is always green, the water can be fished or surfed, the caves have plenty, the trees can be headbutted, and postgame you got these Ultra Wormholes scattered for all the legendaries and such. And yeah, I actually legitimately found and caught the 844 Pokemon here. There was just truckloads of stuff that the overall plot came to a halt and I enjoyed wasting my time with it all. Whether it was spending time catching the wild mons, grinding coins at the Game Corner to buy the Pokemon (every starter as well as plenty of other mons were available as prizes there), or actually using the DexNav, the game went to a halt for me as I did all sorts of stuff. With the DexNav, an important piece to consider is looking for specific Pokemon, one of which is the high experience yield Audino which I fought very often for conventional grinding and IVs. The game also had a Gen-6-style Exp. Share too, making me use my team to my fullest extent without nearly as much excessive grinding on my part.

While the overall story is simple and linear, it does feature some usual suspects. The gym leaders do have interesting niches in accordance to their team lineups and type specialties. We also got the TWO evil teams, Team Coil and Luna Gang, the former is the main team with a former friend who has to be an enemy and the other actually taking over a town and doing tons of mafia-style business. And these teams worked together. Your rival is a very relatable guy who is actually enjoyable, he yearns for strength, and does get stronger, but having his parents kidnapped caused him to decide on desperate decisions that he probably regretted. He isn't the only one as both main leaders of Team Coil, Cobra and Vincent, find their errors in their ways, along with Garter, the craziest of the bunch as well. The game even offered interesting still images that showed Cobra and the protagonist saving Garter from killing himself which was real cool. An interesting plot twist at the champion battle. Wait, it's Vincent, no wait, the rival beat him before you did so now you have back-to-back champion battles!

It's quite a ridiculous journey. Another thing about this hack is that it is quite pro-LGBT, as Prof. Conifer's lab has the trans flag and there are also cameo appearances about, the ones I recognized were from the comics El Goonish Shive and Rain on the two water routes. Plus the Golden Sun characters are in the grass gym I think, a few names from Xenoblade and Fire Emblem were around, and Wes and Miror B. from Pokemon Colosseum have very interesting cameos. I also manages to catch a full-odds shiny in an Alolan Geodude before getting the Shiny Charm. Overall though, this has earned a spot among my favorites, as I thoroughly enjoyed wasting my time playing this and if I enjoy wasting my time as much as this, it's hard to beat.