A look back at: Pokemon Sors

A substantial improvement, that's for sure. Saiph was a disappointment, plagued with a number of bugs and just not feeling all that great despite having a large selection. Sors, the immediate sequel, provides us with a whole lot more without all the bugs that ruined the previous game. You get the new region, mons up to Gen-7 with the Pokedex covering all of them (except a select few mons including some legendaries not coded in), but when you have so much you'll have lots of options for party configuration, which makes it more adventurous. Even with the trade evos accounted for too. I went with a party of those I have used in the past: Crobat and Ampharos I have used more than many other Pokemon in ROM hacks, Gardevoir and Aegislash I last used in Kanlara Ultimate, Lucario I've used a number of times (it was the starter here, and has a red scarf, so it's special), and then Lapras I last used recently in Cloud White.

Having a tournament-style arc welded in to a plot involving your evil mother was interesting in and of itself. Even more when this isn't a tournament where every battle is back-to-back, where you can actually prepare before every single battle. But it's such a weird thing when you do the tournament, then the plot, then the tournament again. Super weird and seesaws the plot. The characters you battle in the tournament are familiar characters, from gym leaders to Elite Four members to other protagonists or rivals or companions, and it's quite the weird ensemble. Nevertheless, when the plot goes on, your character Asher goes with his father, a woman caretaker professor, and an actual love interest that grows on you as they battle...mom and her company of grunts. And then you have the Eclipse species of Pokemon, all with an ability that halves direct damage. How fun. Needless to say those were the biggest challenges going up against Eclipse mons, culminating in an actual fakemon legendary as the actual final boss. Unfortunately just like Saiph, Sors' postgame is lackluster, even if it's a little better. You can't explore much of Colen, and the Cord Island is just a battle location with...well...Discord mods as a small sidequest. And the legendaries of course, what else. Battles in this hack thankfully are light on the difficulty, which is one of the major things that sells it, as the game doesn't go immediately to level 50 before the halfway point unlike other hacks I've played. So it's all a substantial improvement. Sorry, no walkthrough from me here, there's enough documentation for this hack already including one full walkthrough from Allen.