Here's a walkthrough. You know, if you've been checking out my walkthroughs, you'll notice they aren't as descriptive. This is entirely due to the fact that you don't really need lots of fluff in them, just the basics. So I just provide trainer info, wild encounter info, items to get, and where you should be going, usually trying to get optional things out of the way first. And due to Pokemon's mostly linear nature, especially for hacks like this, it's easy to do. But being concise is the key.
Graphically, Saiph succeeds greatly. Musically, I enjoyed the Gen-5 music. Plot-wise, it is a bit cliche as Shenow isn't as different as Cyrus or so, but I actually could care less about the plot. Gameplay is important, but woo, I did not enjoy this. My team by the way: Sawsbuck, Aggron, Crobat, Zebstrika, Froslass, and Gastrodon.
Okay, core gameplay basically adds up to Gen-6 for Pokemon, plus new moves and abilities up to that generation. That's the good. You also got reusable TMs, the B/W repel system, and the creator even made Cut useful as a Steel-type move. The game is not that difficult overall, you do go through gym leaders quickly but the levels allow for leeway in low level playthroughs. And then there's everything else, and I mean it by the way when I say there's everything else. First of all, the Pokedex really doesn't work. It only registers Kanto mons, and you never upgrade it. Then there's a lack of really good items or TMs available. There's no department store, no bicycle, no Vs. Seeker, plus in the beginning you barely can afford much. I guess having marts integrated into the PokeCenters is good enough, but then you have a lot on your plate.
Then there's the problems involving evolution and leveling, with some Pokemon it's impossible to use. This is honestly the big one. You can pause your progression through the hack to try and get the encounters to deal with (also I despise it when 1% encounters are always lower level than everything else, it prevents the repel trick from being utilized. That was everywhere here and made me take longer in playing). And then you find out that some of them, specifically trade evolutions, you have no actual method of evolving them! It gets worse, because there's also the stone evolutions, while the basic stones work, the post-Gen-3 stones like Dawn, Dusk, and Shiny, they do nothing. I also ran into reset bugs when trying to level up very specific Pokemon. Budew and Chingling, in particular, cannot level past a certain threshold or the game resets! Oh, and breeding only seems to work properly for Kanto mons, owing to the Pokedex problem earlier. I can breed for, say, a Bellsprout cause it's Gen-1, but anything not in the Kanto dex is off limits unless I want the question mark. And finally, while there is a Hoenn post-game, it is lackluster. You catch two legendaries doing weather things (and no Kyogre or Groudon this time), realize that the place is more or less razed as said in the lore, and then your main ally just leaves you to go back home. There's also the other post-game things in Colen, the northwest route was supposed to have something, and doesn't have it. The only other thing is to catch Darkrai. So yeah, Saiph is super-rough around every edge despite the gorgeous looks. There's apparently more to play from the so-called Vytroverse, but that will certainly wait until much, much later.
