It's going to be another one of these posts in list format because DAMN did I not like this one. There was a lot going on and to be honest, I had no idea where any of it was going. Sure, you don't need the traditional Pokemon cliches at times, but there were a lot of sacrifices made here that I really did not like this for an Emerald hack. My final team included: Blastoise (my starter), Octillery, Quagsire, Ampharos, Primeape, and Dragonite (plus a Pidgeot which I used before Dragonite and a Linoone for HMs). With this kind of team not being the overall best in stats for at least half of them, you can tell I didn't enjoy this one. But hey, if you want to suffer like I did, use the walkthrough.
1. First things first, the Pokemon are completely unchanged from ordinary Gen-3, down to not having new movesets or abilities. Not a real problem overall, but then you realize that certain trade evolutions weren't accounted for. I went to Gen-3 Tools to change some evolution methods personally, even though I didn't use any of the trade evolutions long-term here. That's one of my #1 rules for a ROM hack, modify trade evolutions so that we can play with them, cause we can't usually trade in ROM hacks anyways.
2. And for the Pokemon themselves, there's a somewhat limited scope of Pokemon you can actually catch. It's about half of 386, which is okay, but not the greatest set overall. Several Pokemon were just not available, and worse yet there were some evolutions that can be caught, but not pre-evolutions. Yes, there's a day care, and yes, Ditto is available to catch, but there's no Day Care Man to receive eggs from in this hack so breeding isn't going to be a thing, sorry.
3. Hyetology means a branch of meteorology that deals with precipitation. I'm not sure what that even means in the context of the hack itself but wow this hack loves to have rainy weather almost everywhere.
4. I would argue the biggest thing about Hyetology is that it is completely storyline-based. Not much in terms of how or why Pokemon teams your opponents have are, nor are there any characters from canon Pokemon installments (this was already in the forum thread and all though). But there ought to be at least some sense in what you're facing.
5. Instead, much of the plot is in pop culture references. I can accept this, considering I went through LatiosAzurill's main works and they do the same thing. But here it's sort of a mishmash that doesn't really blend well.
6. The mother in this game is so lamenting and actually has no role in the plot at all. She doesn't even notice you after the first cutscene. Damn, that's cold as heck.
7. And the game already shows its glitches. I haven't played Pokemon as a boy in a long time unless I'm forced to, but the girl's bag is all glitchy when you open it aside from the Items purse.
8. Right off the bat, I have the eighth badge. I did nothing to get it either. Meaning I can use Waterfall if I find the HM or a Goldeen/Seaking. It also has an effect for making any traded Pokemon obey you, but there's no in-game trades here.
9. So there are starters in this game, Treecko, Cyndaquil, and Squirtle. The cross-generationalism here is fine, but it's kinda meh considering that they all end up monotyped at their fully-evolved forms. But it doesn't end there. These starters start at Lv15. Yeah, one level away from evolving. The level curve for wild Pokemon starts out somewhat higher than that, and is unorthodox with its progression too. Lastly, Cyndaquil is literally, literally the only Fire type you will have access to in the entire game. Yeah, there's no other Fire types to get besides Typhlosion. People certainly like to have a Fire type on their team more often than not.
10. Oh and to further add insult to injury for the Cyndaquil line, you'll notice that more than three-quarters of locales you go to in Hyetology have rain. Which will hamper battling efforts for the poor Fire type. Why so much rain when it really doesn't do anything besides ruin the Fire starter? Heck I wasn't expecting my pick of Squirtle to end up being very justified.
11. While we're still talking Pokemon in Hyetology, the cries in this game are just glitched out at times. Some Pokemon like Mareep, when sent out, emit their cry, then a glitched, distorted, and overly loud version of cries after it, in Mareep's case it plays Flaaffy, Ampharos, and Bellossom's cry all at once! My ears! Other times, like with Blaziken and Camerupt (Pokemon that trainers have by the way, you'll never have them), you don't hear a cry at all! How did the sound get this screwed up?
12. The Unity Ruleset Committee here really doesn't make much sense. Just say it's a town with a gym. But I guess it's much better than the gyms themselves. In Hyetology, only the first gym has other trainers, called "Gym Followers" here, but whatever. Every single other gym, you fight the gym leader one on one.
13. Inui is the guy in the gym entrance, and he's acting like the gym guide. But bro, not gonna lie, he's a flat-out LIAR. "Hey trainer! Darwin uses Ghost types!" *battles gym leader Darwin and realizes he uses three Normal types, plus a Voltorb*. No Ghosts though. Yeah, I don't like gym guides that blatantly lie.
14. Dabuz's "I want to impress a girl" quest is set up like a sidequest, but is actually required to even get to the gym. If it looks like a sidequest it should act like a sidequest.
15. James Woods might be a nifty reference to the actor, but I would 100% guarantee everyone reading this right now that if you first go into this place blind, you would think that the ROM hack actually ended here. Because it looked like the trees only allow you to explore one side of the forest. You have to find the trees that don't have stumps below them and pass THROUGH them to continue going through it. And that really sucks because no NPC tells you in advance you're supposed to do this.
16. Also, you can't surf in the pond here (you get Surf later, but still).
17. This reminds me, this hack is missing a ton of stuff that most players usually get in Pokemon. There's no fishing rods, therefore there's no fishing encounters. There's also no bicycle at all. And it would be neat to see a map of the region here, but there isn't one. There's also no Fly at all, which makes things more inconvenient.
18. Enter the PokeCenter on New Gotham and take the escalator, you'll end up in a random house and going out will create the sequence break that New Gotham ends up covered in snow.
19. Dear lord the town of New Gotham ends up being a mess. The north exit, which you must go to continue by the way, is glitched so much that there are half-trees in the way and you can only enter The Crossroads at the northeast side. And by the way, the snow event encompasses surrounding routes and changes the Pokemon, making the pre-snow Pokemon missable. Sort of. You can re-enter James Woods and come back out to make it not-snow again, and re-enter the gym and leave to make it snow again. Seems very odd that this would be the case. And a house is above the waterfall, and I got the requirements to enter that house somewhat early, but it is a softlock trap.
20. Vision Tunnel is an interesting concept to get around the Fly problem but there's no Pokemon inside and Vision Tunnel doesn't extend to the points of no return later on.
21. Route 16 has another thing that becomes annoying later on, a house you cannot enter. In fact, when you enter the Town of Greenwich, there's a major concern of mine here, many normal houses are just not enterable. Or, they are enterable. If you are NOT playing the Hacksrepairman fix of Hyetology, you'll be in a glitched Petalburg with duck noises and messed-up tiles. If you are, you'll enter a safe Debug Room. Either way, that sucks as there's no way to interact with anyone inside houses in this game. A Scott-like figure will be in front of buildings you can enter, but that still is a load of bogus. And then in later towns, you just won't be able to enter some buildings, and there's just a ton of buildings in the hack overall.
22. Corona Mountain. Certainly seems like it could be a badass location with plenty of cave mons. But it has no Pokemon in it at all. None. Crazy how this area just feels like an unfinished beta yet we're only at the break point of chapters. Oh yeah, there's chapters, but they're not too important.
23. Corona Mountain is also the location where you can get the only evolutionary stone in all of Hyetology. Not joking, there is ONLY ONE EVOLUTIONARY STONE IN THE GAME. And it's a Moon Stone. Chalk this one up for things this game lacks, as you can't evolve most Pokemon, including the entire Eevee line barring Espeon and Umbreon.
24. Route 14 is an enormously empty water route with one person who's not a trainer. Route 13 is another enormously empty water route with no trainers. This ends up becoming a trend later on in the game, not necessarily the water routes, but the large routes with no trainers. It gives the strange sense that this ROM hack did not know where to go after a while so there were just locations that were given grass and water for Pokemon and literally nothing else. Story-wise there's a small bit of justification as some trainers feel hopeless on later routes about the Pokemon deaths storyline, but even then, there ought to be some strong trainers here and there. The only one was the last battle with the rival Fatal.
25. Another softlock moment, talk to the first guard in Greenwich. Really for no reason this is a softlock. Another happens if you take the escalator in the PokeCenter which drops you into an inescapable house.
26. Something else I've noticed, the PokeMart wares actually change each time you get new badges. And after beating Greenwich's gym leader, the PokeMart wares got TOO huge, and filled with ???????? items. Which repeat, along with random held items that could be useful and the only two berries you will ever get in the whole hack. Later on after a couple or so new badges, they went to the main items you would get pre-Pokemon League. Question is, why the glitched mart wares at the midpoint?
27. Mesa Residentials is a primary example of what I was talking about in #21, and to an extent #24. There is NOTHING of use here aside from a PokeCenter. All houses lead to the debug room, and going to the stadium can softlock the game. This entire area is just a pit stop for healing and that's it.
28. Cole Phelps waiting outside a building I can never see, nice. Also had to deal with a gym further up, plus a Fatal battle and the so-called Evolutionists being annoying, plus the myriad of houses I can never enter in Liberty City, just to continue the plot. Also the casino is completely off-limits.
29. Who was the guy that runs into you when you enter Liberty City? He ends up not being anyone important at all except for this one event, no name, nothing else.
30. Another key thing to mention, Hyetology doesn't take into account gender differences and thinks your character is always male. Which gets awkward when Cole Phelps refers to you as a brother if you're playing as the girl. It also gets awkward when hinkage (the author's avatar) is an Elite Four member who plays a joke in impersonating you, but it looked like he impersonated the boy character when I went up to him.
31. Black Mesa being bad guys after all was cliche, but this part where you and Cole go through the base is literally the only time that you get to go after actually bad guys.
32. Haven't mentioned this until now, but since the field-to-transition screen for the evil bad guys looks really bad, I need to mention the title screen. In all honesty, the best thing to do, instead of this blocky thing that the creator admits to screwing up, is just to leave it as the regular Emerald title screen.
33. Why is Adam Gibson so stupid? Why is his title not gym leader (he's the second one) but rather "former champion"? And why does he think you are Darwin (the first gym leader, and consequently Black Mesa's leader too) no matter if you say Yes or No the first time? And he follows you in the evil team mission to get...Darwin's autograph, completely missing the fact that Darwin leads the villain team and just being some sort of extra character with nothing else.
34. Oh yes, and Rick Castle ends up being in the plot, providing you a boat. This is a concern however because sailing from Greenwich is the first point of no return. This leads to the Dead Island area, which, surprise, damn near everything here is desolate. Route 19, no Pokemon, just a water route. Isle Delfino, a Super Mario Sunshine reference! But there's nothing here aside from a house you can't enter and just some Pokemon. Route I-95 seems like it could be cool! But a guy blocks a cave and you cannot enter it at all. Not only that, but the wild Pokemon can ambush you everywhere, even OUTSIDE THE GRASS. It's not even intuitive what you're supposed to do in Dead Island. You gotta beat the gym, head back to the harbor, realize Castle forgot you and left with his boat, and talk to a random fisherman who provided a unique set of wares earlier (but why would you buy Star Pieces, Stardusts, Pearls, and Big Pearls), in order to sail away. And that in itself ends up being a point of no return, for once you enter Route 6, you're locked in for the remaining routes for the rest of the game up to and including the Pokemon League. Once you leave the Dead Island part, say goodbye to it (and the mons on it) forever. Not even in post-game can you revisit that location.
35. Route 6 is literally the last area in the game with regular trainer encounters. No joke, there are no more trainer encounters after this, aside from one battle with Fatal, the remaining gym leaders, and the League. Also there's one black belt trainer who didn't battle me, but I think he has battle data.
36. What was I saying? Oh yeah. North of Route 6 is Lake Chad. There's just a lake, and cave entrance to the east. No Pokemon. Enter the cave, you get SmashOr Pass. What? It's a rectangular cave with two exits. That's it. No Pokemon. So much wasted potential with these two locations.
37. A guy at the entrance to Smashville claims that Igglybuff, which can be found in the grass near the cave entrance, is super powerful. Yeah right, these things are in the single-digits for levels. By the way, you can catch wild Wigglytuff later, which isn't good cause catching a stone evolution Pokemon means you can't get some good moves on it via level-up. Raichu and Shiftry are two other examples.
38. Oh that reminds me, there are only a handful of TMs you get in the game, usually for winning against the gyms. Just a handful, nowhere else can you buy these things and you also only get half the HMs in this game. Surf was placed on my Blastoise, Waterfall on Quagsire, Cut and Rock Smash on a Linoone, and I only used one TM, Dragon Claw on my Dragonite once I trained it enough.
39. There really is no reason why Smashville had to have two gyms. One of the later towns could have had a gym and more stuff to it. And Inui did not need to be another gym leader.
40. I love how the Safari Zone is just one small area and doesn't even have the Safari Zone mechanics.
41. Route 4 has the FunFun Mountain. Route 2 has the Gump Forest, and there's a forest that probably would have been some sort of Victory Road in the middle of Route 20. What do they have in common. They WOULD have been areas of the game, but you enter them and you just appear on the other side! In other words, these areas are technically skipped. That's a huge swath of wasted potential, my goodness.
42. The stretch south of Street City, which is New Canaan and adjoining routes, is totally optional. The Battle Factory-like area is also not accessible. For really not much reason. And New Canaan itself also doesn't have a PokeMart.
43. Oh look, another softlock in the random guards in Route 2. Also what's with hinkage making a reference to another ROM hack not played yet?
44. So there is a bike shop, but it plays the Abandoned Place music, is dark, and looks exactly like Rydel's Cycles, except you can't get a bike here because no one is inside to give you one. So much for the bike!
45. You can't even enter the league without Hacksrepairman's patch. If you do, it's a glitchy mess.
46. The league was...half okay. It really is kind of lame in hindsight. The first two members are Fat Tony and heysp00ky, and both of them use Sidney's Emerald team and Phoebe's Emerald team respectively. No changes whatsoever. Bombay changes it up for an Ice team which was better, and hinkage actually uses a varied team.
47. I am a bit disappointed in the champion though. Making it Castle was okay, making him into a villain a little earlier in the story was also okay. But his team isn't that great. His ace is Aggron, and Hypno is a bit lame. Dusclops, Venusaur, Crobat, and Arcanine make the rest of his team, but compared to many other champions I battled in ROM hacks, it was a bit underwhelming.
48. By the way, hinkage, the fourth Elite Four member, gave you FIVE TIMES THE MONEY that Castle gives when you beat him. That's nuts.
49. Beating Castle doesn't heal you or give you HOF, but it gives you credits I guess? You are back at Kokiri Town, which also means that beating Castle is a point of no return, to that latter half of Hyetology. And there's really no post-game.
50. Well, there is, in Hacksrepairman's fix of course. That one blocked path north of the Crossroads, to Green Mtn. Base. But why can't I run while climbing up? Why are there no Pokemon in the grass? Why not in the cave? Why is Kyogre even in the cave? This event Hacksrepairman actually admitted to adding just to give some sort of thing to it, meaning it was wasted potential to begin with, which is so sad.
Man, Hyetology really should have been miles better, but there we go, so many issues with this hack. The strongest thing here is easily the plot, which takes two things, a false advertisement and dying Pokemon, tying them together and crafting a murder mystery with references. The gameplay makes the strangest leaps and bounds, but it ends up being a ROM hack that doesn't know what direction it really wanted to go in by the end and looked like just gave up entirely. It's another one that's not worth playing.
