A look back at: The Wooper Who Saved Christmas 1+2

Well now isn't this a silly post. One more to cap off the hot month of August, I randomly rolled my next Pokemon ROM hack, and I ended up with a sequel, so I decided, for the better of things, to try out two in one! And it's silly because who could expect a two-for-one special on the idea that a cute little Wooper would be the one to save an entire holiday. Or so it seems. You can be naughty or nice in your doings in order to save the holiday from Team Rocket, because of course it's Team Rocket doing so. The first game is a beta, while the second (Electric Boogaloo) is a final. Or so it seems. Again.

So the first game. Santa's precious Delibird is taken by Team Rocket just as he was giving present to our Wooper. Wooper chases Team Rocket and defeats human trainers who want to catch the poor thing (actually making them white out in the process!). And you can catch other wild Pokemon with...Capture Orbs. Huh. There's only a few of these things around, marts don't sell them, and this is to give the game a more Nuzlocke-like feel. There are dialogue choices that can influence the naughty or niceness, but I don't think it truly affects a whole lot. Especially when the ending is messed up. First of all, "leader guy". Yeah. And he's supposed to be Giovanni but that Giovanni was just a twin brother. And the real "leader guy" is LITERALLY A TRAINER FROM THE BASE FIRE RED GAME! It is Juggler Shawn, who if I recall is one of Koga's gym trainers who has a Drowzee and a Hypno. They're not changed. I should mention the level curve is wild here, especially when you go to Pokemon Mansion's lower floor when your mons are around the teens, the wild ones are around the 30s.

And depending on your actions, you may end up fighting for the good of friends, an obvious anime cliche, but it leads to the idea of a Wooper "mega-evolving" into Quagsire! Truly amazing stuff, if I could attack that is. There's an obedience issue with this all of a sudden with your Lv50 Wooper not responding to the commands at all, so what should have been a rematch against Juggler Shawn (you're technically not supposed to win against him the first time) that was supposed to curb-stomp him ends up in humiliation unless you cheat in a badge that allows your Wooper (your sole Pokemon in that instance by the way) to obey. And the ending, well you either have the leader guy change his ways after all or you just flat out battle a glitch trainer with the ? circle, not too much in difference after that, you can then run around the Indigo Plateau until the game freezes.

So yeah, it's a somewhat unfinished product, that only really had a strong point in silly story. But let's look at TWWSC2 and it's nothing like you'd expect. Wooper conquered Kanto! And now wants to deal with tax evaders and other ne'er do wells, somehow being an enemy of Santa and imprisoned his Delibird. But now he must go on a fetch quest because a witch tells him to. And the outcome? I never got a chance to see it. You see, despite it being a final release, that's a misnomer. There are several places where Walk Through Walls code was required. A trainer who sees you actually crashes the game. One of the two treasures you need is unreachable due to a random invisible wall. And even if you get both treasures, walk through enough walls, and even increase the level of wild encounters, it's still a mess, cause the witch says you still need them. I think there's supposed to be two additional battles, one against Santa himself, and one against the ghostly Christmas Spirit, one of these is the final boss I think, but I could never trigger this ending after exhausting all options, including one small sidequest.

So we're leaving it at that. Shame that we didn't see the true fruits of labor going around. There should be way more to this than meets the eye, especially with fan-fiction worthy story such as this. For two hacks. 

Pokemon ROM Hack walkthroughs

It really does suck that we have lost the GBAHacks site. I guess due to the inactivities, broken links, and possible strikes, it had to happen. And I did have a number of walkthroughs for ROM hacks submitted to Knuckle San so that they can be of help to those who can't understand the crypticness of certain ROM hacks. In that case, I'll just have to post them on PokeCommunity and here. This post will of course be updated accordingly whenever I finish a walkthrough and a ROM hack.

Just to be clear, these are links to walkthroughs. I'm not here to distribute ROMs.

Full walkthroughs:

Pokemon Adventure Yellow Chapter + Blue Chapter + Gold Chapter + Green Chapter

Pokemon Altair and Pokemon Sirius

Pokemon Ash Gray

Pokemon Dark Cry: The Legend of Giratina

Pokemon Dark Crystal

Pokemon Dark Rising 2

Pokemon Dark Rising: Order Destroyed

Pokemon Dark Violet

Pokemon Gold & Silver '97 Reforged

Pokemon Grass Jewel

Pokemon Grass Jewel 2

Pokemon Hyetology

Pokemon Luria

Pokemon Metal Red

Pokemon Nameless

Pokemon Polka Aqua

Pokemon Polka Aqua 2

Pokemon Prism 

Pokemon Scorching Scarlet

Pokemon Sky Twilight

Pokemon Snakewood

Pokemon Stigma

Pokemon Sweet

Pokemon TDT

Pokemon Ultra Fire Sun 

Pokemon Vega

Pokemon Victory Fire

Pokemon Voda Red

Touhoumon Cirno

Partial walkthroughs/Pokedexs/Other stuff

Pokemon Emerald Seaglass (general walkthrough only)

Pokemon Liquid Crystal

Pokemon Mega Power

Pokemon Nameless (battle arenas/department guide)

Pokemon Resolute

Pokemon Sapphire in Reverse 

Pokemon Ultra Fire Sun 

A look back at: Pokemon Sapphire in Reverse

Info guide. Not a real walkthrough, but an info guide.

Well, after taking a while with other things, I opted for a quickie. Sapphire in Reverse is really just Sapphire in its entirety but with the major gym trainers and Elite Four members reversed. So Steven, the champion, is in Roxanne's place as first gym leader, while Roxanne takes his place, and going from there. The major differences are really just the gym trainers and their leaders, but otherwise, you're playing Pokemon Sapphire the same way as before. With the reversal of leaders, the most notable thing is the ability to more easily play with different team members. By the end of the game, having counters to Rock and Fighting are more important, as opposed to having those counters for the early game. I went through it with the team of Sceptile, Tentacruel, Claydol, Altaria, Manectric, and Hariyama. Some familiar types and Pokemon I've used, though I will admit this is a first time for me using Sceptile as a starter cause I usually pick the flame chicken. I've also used Ludicolo primarily for HMs and Crobat because of course.

So as you can see, all I have is an info guide since the ROM hacker only changed trainers in gyms and such. Trainers outside of gyms, wild encounters, these remain the same. There are a few dialogue glitches, but nothing too out of the ordinary or so. It's just a different way to play Sapphire. I would argue there should be a way to get trade evolutions or version exclusives, but it's not too important I guess.

A look back at: Heroes of Might & Magic III, expansion packs, and Chronicles

 

Well what do you know. It's been quite the long while since I last left off on some RPG stuff, but that's cause I was doing things in consistent tandem. I definitely knew Heroes of Might & Magic III was gonna be a big one, and it truly was a big one in this regard. So big, I had to allot time to figure out how the hell I was supposed to do the expansion packs. Eventually I settled on Shadow of Death first, the Restoration of Erathia second (this is the main campaign), and finally Armageddon's Blade last. Oh, and Chronicles too, don't forget that.

From what I can tell, this is the peak of HoM&M as a franchise. The games before it have a system that was in the works, slowly becoming what it ends up being at the climax of this. And people really did appreciate it all alongside the scenario-based war battles. The hex grid is still a favorite, and there's just lots of customization options even if you are dealing with some level limits during these scenarios. It can be a bit too much at times considering you have to do some town building, recruiting of new and strange units, customizing their equipment, customizing your hero generals so their regiments are strong to go up against contenders, finding treasures, and trying to allot your time during the game so that you don't spend too much time in some scenarios.

Plot-wise, I am always sold on the idea of playing as one person or group, and then the focus ends up shifting towards a different main character. For this reason, I consider the Shadow of Death to be my favorite of the main episodes of HoM&M3. I mean, the first few campaigns all have one main hero each, but they then start coalescing, even the main villain you get to play as in his own campaign, and everyone gangs up on the guy. Restoration of Erathia provides some neat continuity to the canon storyline of HoM&M2, since Catherine is the wife of Roland and wants to find him, and then Armageddon's Blade serves as a more interesting continuity to Restoration of Erathia by then, and I love continuity a lot. Don't really care much for fighting necromancers a lot, but Restoration of Erathia provided a strange plot twist to it all. And then there's Chronicles, where while Tarnum is the only person you have as the main hero, his job class changes between campaigns, and the poor guy is looking towards just having a nice afterlife only to never get it. And honestly, going through all of these gameplay, expansion packs, and Chronicles, it can take a lot out of you, but I managed it. If you're a true die-hard for the series, this really ended up being the peak. 

A look back at: Pokemon Ultra Fire Sun

Wow, has it really been nearly three months since my last post? I had to renew this domain name by the way ever since a change occurred in who owned Blogspot, but more importantly, the primary reason why I haven't made any posts here are twofold. First, Heroes of Might & Magic 3, its expansion packs, and, currently, Heroes Chronicles are taking up a lot of my time, and I'm almost done with them. Second, I did a replay of Pokemon Prism. If you guys want, here's a walkthrough to that game. But wait, I should be talking about the current ROM hack I went through, named Ultra Fire Sun. And here's a guide, no, not a walkthrough, a guide, because this game doesn't change base Kanto/Sevii Islands from the original Fire Red. My team was Crobat, Ribombee, Torterra, Infernape, Vaporeon, and Gallade.

So the handful of ROM hacks that I know that barely change base Fire Red have increased. Mega Moemon FireRed, Ash Gray, Red Fire, and Stigma don't count, because Ash Gray tries to follow the anime which has differences, Stigma starts you out in Lavender Town instead of Pallet, and Red Fire and Mega Moemon don't have the Sevii Islands at all. I'm speaking moreso of Metal Red and Voda Red, and Ultra Fire Sun follows in their footsteps. But I would say it's closer to Metal Red overall. The amount of Pokemon goes up to Gen-7, so we're talking a lot of additions, and we even have double wild encounters (but only in grass). There's also fakemon, and while I did recognize some from Vega, they dropped the ball with those, because their types are nowhere what they should be back in Vega and also they are just not obtainable. Boo. Some of the other fakemon at least were somewhat interesting, but then again, I would rather use more familiar Pokemon instead. Voda Red was super difficult with type changes and nonsense I didn't like, while Metal Red just went overboard with content and actually had loads of glitches. Ultra Fire Sun does what Metal Red did, but not with too much in glitchiness and maybe a little more fun. Heck, for my final team, Crobat, Ribombee, and Torterra were already part of my team in Metal Red! It's cause I easily compared things.

The best thing about this hack is, aside from a lack of overall glitchiness and a small graphics facelift, the portals. The green portals that appear in some locations as one-time legendary encounters. Some look inaccessible, but actually are accessible as you can walk through some walls or so to get to them. Thank you for giving me more legendary options if I wanted them. With that said, there were some portals that were supposed to appear but didn't. Furthermore, the Sevii quests had to be completed before challenging the league the first time, and you miss out on a what-would-have-been first league match. Some of the trainers on the Sevii Islands also don't battle, which was weird, especially the admins in the Rocket Warehouse who just let you pass.

The biggest thing Ultra Fire Sun has against it, however, is that it really doesn't follow a good difficulty pattern nor do the trainer teams make sense. For the trainer teams, it's like each and every single trainer just went through a randomizer as to what Pokemon they use. Gym leaders have full teams, but not really in their type specialty at all. They also have default movesets and almost no items, so that mitigates the challenge. Possibly for the better, considering their starting levels. Your first rival has of course the Lv6 starter (which is randomized, and they just had to bump a level up) but the optional rival battle on Route 22? He has a Lv25 and a Lv26 mon! Yeah, that's a lot of grinding just to catch up and you haven't even gotten past Viridian that much yet. The first bug catcher in Viridian Forest has not only Lv22 mons, but fully evolved ones. Brock isn't far behind, with a full team and the highest is Lv29. Misty and Lt. Surge are equal in their highest levels, at Lv39, a lot more grinding still in the early game, but things even out, as later gym leaders don't usually go higher than 68. The highest trainer pre-League would have to be Cue Ball Paxton (Three Island leader of the biker gang) at Lv79, his levels are higher than Giovannis!

The gist of this is: Play to catch a ton of mons just about everywhere, but you gotta do lots of grinding and evolving even before you truly leave Viridian City the first time, and it's like you're playing a randomizer with this hack. I may revisit this game just to do Vs. Seeker rematch info, since those too are randomized, but I'm just tired and glad to have finished something before summer closes.