A look back at: Pokemon Korosu

I must be on fire this summer, and more specifically, this July. While it took me a while to beat this compared to the much shorter Outlaw, that's cause I was cashing in the chips on the other RPGs I've been cooking, so at times I had those to play first. Anyways, I eyed Korosu when I first saw it, but because Outlaw had a lot of information that pertained to Korosu, that's why I had to play it first. And there's also Pokemon CAWPS, which also took place before Korosu, but had much less referential material, so I was okay with skipping it. My end team was Crobat, Ampharos, Magmar, Gallade, Lapras, and Golem. I did have a Shelgon and Heracross for certain points earlier in the story.

Pokemon Korosu is Pokemon meeting Kill Bill. And Bill does get killed, although he is a completely minor character and isn't even killed by your character. But the gist is you're a girl who will fight her way out of human trafficking thanks to a Gastly to help out. The preamble to the whole game was weird enough, yeah, the opponents only have Fighting or Normal attacks, so Gastly has no struggles, that is until Sergi destroys you. And then Lance, you know, the guy who murdered his own Elite Four members in Outlaw, decides to save and help our girl protagonist. Atoning for his sins, or perhaps he was under control of CJ from the previous game, this guy essentially sets up our girl to destroy any evil doers. Biker gangs, a new team called Team Ice, a reformed Team Magma, a Team Rocket in hiding, and some weird company named X Inc. (no relation to THAT X), these will all feel the vengeful nature of our soon-to-be femme fatale. But none so much as the Salone crime family on Six Island (now known as Fortune Island). This all is the first half of the storyline in Korosu, and you're a one-woman army to eventually take those Salone freaks out. All of them.

But then the rest of the plot is just, I guess just going after other corrupt dudes. I mentioned the X Inc. corporation, that ended up being AFTER destroying the Salones. And it's a little goofy, for one, X Inc. is just a remodeled Silph Co. that is on Seven Island (named Quest Island here). Second, the employees are just genuine people with no crime activity. And three, yeah, Xandus is a magician, he's technically a bad guy from CAWPS (the only real reference to that game for the record), but man his team was stupid ridiculous for the point you battle him, yes, he's got some legendaries). And then the last half of the plot returns to Kanto. I love how you start in the Seviis and make a name for yourself, then return to Kanto. But when everything's open-ended, aside from getting the eight badges, you'll easily lose yourself. And it's not like the citizens got better since Outlaw, because the titular Outlaw decided to become an absolute ruler, what he hated the most. The place still has scum and villainy, and then there's the 64-person Pokemon tournament that felt like padding. Easy padding, no battling five elite trainers back-to-back cause you can rest between rounds. And for those who played and struggled with Outlaw, this nonsense about him not losing a battle, or even having his iconic Sandslash faint? Nonsense, I say! And after you dispose of the Outlaw, there's no postgame, well there is the one-time chance to get a Deoxys, but the rest of the game doesn't even recognize your girl protagonist as the leader. Basically speaking, the plot falls after you defeat the Salone crime family, with only one of those so-called "Sons of Salone" actually trying to avenge his kin. We don't even see the real results of the post-Outlaw demise, just our assassin girl killing anyone who tries to kill her. 

Again, no walkthrough from me because someone has already beaten me to it. The same one who made a walkthrough for Outlaw for that matter. Maybe someday I will get back to walkthrough writing for Pokemon ROM hacks again. 

A look back at: Front Mission

 

Fantasyanime and RPGClassics are two of the sites that I credit for showcasing loads of classic RPGs that I just had to check out. Of the two, Fantasyanime is a lot smaller (and lost its download links like years ago) but it has shrines dedicated to lots of games that I just had to play. And honestly, I think out of their catalog, there's only like 8 or so left, including this game's spinoff sequel. As for RPGClassics, their walkthrough did guide me in how to get through this particular Square game that initially didn't make it out of Japan until a Nintendo DS remake occurred. And it even spawned a whole franchise of sorts. So yay, Front Mission. This was a long time coming.

Mecha combat meets Fire Emblem-like tactical turn-based strategy RPG gaming. Player phases and enemy phases, grid-based movement, different weapon styles for melee, short-range, and long-range, finite shoulder-mounted missiles for sniping, experience for actions you take, it's certainly all here. Though no permadeath, oddly enough, even though it would make sense with the modern war-like setting and mechs blowing up. A huge chunk of this game was spent on spending money on upgrading mechas, I mean wanzers of course. Gotta have a durable body, arms, and legs, arm the wanzers with weapons that work well with multiple bullets or better hit percentages, but at the same time keeping the weight at most 100, so even if you have the money you might not have the weight. I do like that you can customize not just the parts and weapons, but also the name and paint job too. Grinding for levels and skills boils down to using the units that need the grinding, and the colosseum option exists in towns for individual grinding a la the Fire Emblem arenas (without permadeath of course)

Storywise Front Mission proves to just be a linear game, which is fine by me. You just progress across the island, sometimes not being able to backtrack, and each town has upgrades that the others don't. Most missions, as in all but like one or two, have your main objective be to just destroy all enemy wanzers. There's thankfully only a small couple of escort missions, and even then, if the escortee doesn't survive the game still continues fine with just a small penalty. The idea of fighting a war, a war that was caused by your main character, but also the horrendous problem of mad science in using human brains for wanzer computers reared into the plot. A lot of old games delved into that mad science, it's certainly a trope that has shown face many times. As a reminder, I didn't play the DS remake, meaning I'm missing out of the USN storyline which was added there, but I really don't care that much at the moment. It was a fun game and I'm going to try the others soon enough. 

A look back at: Treasures of the Savage Frontier

Again, sorry for not creating the post on Gateway to the Savage Frontier earlier. I am done with Treasures of the Savage Frontier now. And it is "more of the same but with marginal differences with talking about", surely. Yay, weather effects, okay? Not my favorite gimmick, but the in-battle reinforcements on the other hand are more intriguing. Plus, your choices in the game matter for certain, due to some sort of political intrigue. And you get plenty of interesting allies, such as Jabarkas/Siulajia as well as Kriiador, the ones I mentioned here are those that are in your team most of the time, and either Jabarkas or Siulajia even have romance options, probably a first for the Gold Box games.

So about that political intrigue? Oh yeah, your group are the Heroes of Ascore from the previous game. Your group also get a simple escort mission courtesy of the seer Amanitas, who you can also telepathically communicate with. The intrigue? You ONCE AGAIN are tricked, a nice feast in the honor of being heroes turns into yet another instance of evildoers drugging your food. Seems like a good strategy for the enemy to use, nobody would suspect it. Okay, this time it's more of an imprisonment, but also a bunch of framing the heroes as true enemies of the hopeful Lord's Alliance, so now you gotta clear your name as well as the names of other, innocent locations. Because the enemies of the game, combining Zhentarim, Kraken, or Hosttower enemies from the previous game, are going to be doing false flags, wearing colors of the supposed allies, and you uncover this plot with crystals to decipher some coded messages. And when things get brought together, that helps everyone.

Though honestly I do think the plot somewhat falls apart after that. The finale involves climbing an icy mountain area, freeing the town from the black-robed enemies, several kinds of ice monsters, and while it is hard and all, it just culminates in a dragon to defeat. All for the treasures. In other words, it goes from being somewhat politically intriguing to "okay you guys are allies and true heroes, go beat a dragon and get treasure". At least that's what it feels like. Anyways, while there's more Gold Box games to check out, I'm gonna take a break from this series for a little bit. 

A look back at: Gateway to the Savage Frontier

 

Did I, somehow forget to talk about this? Oops, looks like I did. I'm going through both of the two Savage Frontier Gold Box games in other words, and believe it or not, I played this one through weeks ago and I'm almost done with the second one. And yeah, I went back to the Gold Box games again. There's just something about the grid-based tactical RPG format of the DND games here that I really just enjoy for some reason.

It is a far cry from The Dark Queen of Krynn, which was easily the most advanced of the Gold Box games. So I have basically not much to say with regards to character creation, since you make your own party, and barely a thing to say about the gameplay, since it's the same thing as the other games. But it is surprisingly an open-ended adventure for once. It's got quite a few sidequests off the main path, but the adventure's culmination means finding a pyramid where the titular Savage Frontier is. Oh, by the way, a common theme this game and a number of other DND games in the series seem to have, you have a band of heroes, they feast after they become heroes, and something bad happens to the heroes, and it's usually drugging their food and drink, making them pass out, and stealing their stuff. This actually happens in the beginning. Pirates, Krakens (both the actual monster and a band of thugs who are named Krakens), Hosttower wizards, and the Zhentil Keep Zhentarim are the main enemies to meet all throughout the game, and there's also a number of guest star party members. One of which actually betrays you as you try to leave a certain tower. The most notable party member is Krevish, who has another type of plot twist but sticks with you most of the game. It's a game that certainly tries to have more intrigue to it than Pool of Radiance, and it was worth a go just because it is technically better, but not by much, just kind of more of the same thing. Again, sorry for not putting this post up sooner, but it does mean the Treasures of the Savage Frontier lookback will come rather soon since I'm almost done with that game.

Game/mod/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 Cloud White 

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 Saiph  

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 

The Wooper Who Saved Christmas 1 + 2 

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 

And now for a new and additional bonus. I'm playing through ROM hacks of other games as well and will be writing walkthroughs of official games! Check the categories below:

Official game walkthroughs:

Turbo Turtle Adventures 

Legend of Zelda (NES) ROM hack walkthroughs: 

Timecrisis: Fall of the Moon

Zelda Challenge: Outlands (1st Quest)

Zelda Challenge: Outlands (2nd Quest)

Super Monkey Ball 2 ROM hack walkthroughs

Monkeyed Ball (includes Forgotten Stages)

Monkeyed Ball 2: Witty Subtitle 

NGUU 1 

NGUU 2 

NGUU 1+2 

SMBDX in SMB2 

SMB2 SMB1 Style 

Super Monkey Ball Gaiden 

A look back at: Pokemon Outlaw

Well, what do you know, another ROM hack done in a month. I guess if there's anything I truly enjoyed about Pokemon Outlaw, is that it doesn't offer too much. That's what usually keeps me playing several ROM hacks, due to lots of diversity in Pokemon and locations in general. Pokemon Outlaw doesn't have that diversity. It makes you go through Kanto like normal, but there are less Pokemon to encounter and you also don't get to go through Viridian Forest or Mt. Moon, they're just not in the game. Same with Pokemon Tower. And no Sevii Islands or postgame quests either, no Cerulean Cave, and...wait, no legendaries either? What? NO FISHING? This game really does limit your options. You can only play as a homeless male character too, and the total amount of Pokemon you can own is 143, counting the ones from outside Gen-1 that you can actually get for that matter.

For all it's worth, the biggest benefits Outlaw does give you are the ability to run indoors and you can use Pokemon outside of Gen-1. Three of my end team are Kanto mons: Alakazam, Magneton (no Magnezone here, it's Gen-3), and Nidoqueen, while three more were Johto: Crobat, Bellossom, and Feraligatr, the latter being a freebie received early on. You start out as a poor homeless kid who somehow saves Oak from a coworker accusing him of harassment, then you go around being...how should I say this, Neutral Evil, perhaps? Maybe Chaotic Evil, but you never really do stuff that's actually evil like killing others. Basically the game mocks your character for being homeless, you don't do any drugs or killing despite the NPCs talking about doing those things, you go to weird locations like a Pewter City nightclub or the "Party Mansion". The slums are extra places where you can find items and battle destitute trainers, and I guess some of that is cool and extra? Even some people you can battle in their houses cause you barged in and all.

Those are definitely parts worth talking about for your neutral/chaotic evil protagonist. The NPC dialogue is the other highlight, dare I say it. Almost every NPC has dialogue that can definitely be written off as "edgy teenager vibes", and I already had some examples mentioned earlier. It's not like the named people are any better. Brock is some sort of pervert? Okay? Misty and Sabrina are always referred to as hot? Blaine's a nerd? Fuji's a pedophile? Oh, and you technically have two rivals, Leaf, who becomes a random love interest, and the named one who is just trying to actually kill you. And Team Rocket are more ambiguous than ever, as they are supposed to be evil, but Silph Co. actually LIKES them and the actual cops in this game who fight them (and you) are just corrupt. Yeah, that's a plot point. Everyone sucks, except Leaf I guess. Oh, and May is somehow Viridian's gym leader, and then Lance is the "Elite One", having rid the other Elite Four members (but you still have to fight this death ninja clan of three before Lance, and also another dude as the "champion") fight.

No walkthrough from me, someone has beat me to it! Though that walkthrough actually doesn't have a whole lot, it was more like "these are the Pokemon to get, try to get them all!" Considering how this game doesn't have much else? I took it in fine. 

A look back at: Planescape: Torment

 

Well this one was an interesting game. I knew I was going to experience it at least once, and I'm glad I did, even if I received it rather lukewarmly. It's nowhere near the best of games, but its probably the most interesting D&D game that is standalone or part of a lesser-known D&D plotline. No Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, or Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment is about seeking mortality, as your Nameless One has immortality and would rather figure things out with lots and lots of dialogue compared to just bumrush battling.

This is the first game I've played in a very long while where combat is usually put in the backseat. It's a bit of real-time strategy and commanding your characters to attack a target or several, and real-time battles could get hectic. Though it's important to do some grinding at some points, as well as skill point allotting. What this game is really going to do is make your character go through the dialogue, and lots of it. You'll be going around, asking denizens questions with multiple possibilities, some of which can change alignment. And for once, the game offers actual named party members, each with some sort of connection to the main character. And even the main villain of the game and a random love interest also have some connection. It's super strange. It's even strange that the main character can't even properly die.

The journey the Nameless One goes through is a confusing one indeed. Aside from the dialogue, there is the inner incarnations of himself that he should fuse himself with. This happens at the end, which also separates and KILLS the other party members. And the main villain is...the Nameless One's mortality? Where all of a sudden the Nameless One can coerce to joining, killing it altogether, or killing his own self in order to...rejoin a blood war going on. Yeah, the ending really did confuse me a bit. The philosophical nature of the game is certainly its highlight, as is the lack of combat, but it's a weird game any way. 

A look back at: Pokemon Emerald Legacy

There's no doubt that Pokemon Emerald is a legendary game, a version that is considered the true version of the Gen-3 Hoenn games, and one people will remember more than the other two. Sleeker interface, Pokemon animations, trainers call you, pincer double battles, more trainers, combining two enemy teams and a cooler legendary storyline, it was something to behold. But it just had so many flaws at the same time.

Due to my age, I loved Emerald as a kid, but looking back at it, some of the stuff I mentioned above I don't really like anymore. For those pincer double battles, I like to talk to the trainers individually, which helps better if they have more than three Pokemon (they wouldn't be able to send out full teams otherwise). I actually turn battle animations off because while novel for its time, they kind of got in the way. More trainers means more lines in walkthrough writing. And honestly, I despise the Match Call feature so much now. It's an unnecessary interruption, and the worst part is you can never turn the damn thing off. And that's just scratching the surface, because even some of Emerald's BEST stuff could be better.

I remember watching SmithPlays Pokemon's Youtube channel, where he went over the flaws of the early games, and worked to try and make them better. We see games such as Crystal Legacy form from the ashes of the flawed Johto games, and it only makes sense that Gen-3, and Emerald in particular, came next. I even saw his full playtesting stream, and it shows a lot of what I really enjoyed, so naturally, this ROM hack ended up on my wishlist at some point. And it delivered once I played it.

Emerald Legacy doesn't increase the difficulty that much, in fact not bothering to do so until post-game stuff. It's not meant to showcase lots of could-have-beens, but there are some. Now you get more Pokemon options pre-national dex, like Ponyta and Sneasel. Underwhelming Pokemon like Masquerain were made a lot more viable this time. Underwhelming or inaccurate moves got buffs to make them very much usable. And Pokemon with movesets that definitely deserved improvement got them. Characters like Courtney came back, and Matt and Archie got more battles with the player. Gym leader teams were done in a way to make them much more in line with their type specialties, with nice twists like Magical Leaf-using Plusle on Wattson's team or Breloom already being on Brawly's team. But all this while preserving the good parts of Emerald, thankfully there's lots of them.

I managed a good run of this game in under 20 hours, with a team of Blaziken (starter), Crobat, Magneton, Claydol, Ludicolo, and Glalie (obtained in an early in-game trade!), with Skarmory as an additional Fly user, Ninjask as a Cut user, and of the main team, Ludicolo was able to swap between HMs (no need for a Move Deleter, you can delete HMs easily). I of course tried to do some post-game stuff, but didn't bother with everything, since I'm not too interested in contests or Battle Frontier stuff like I used to, the only real reward for those are the legendaries as usual. But another nice touch is once you get Jirachi (Birch immediately asks you about this after the main run is over), you can get non-Hoenn dex mons out in the wild locations, and they even tried to make some sense of it. Clefairy in Meteor Falls, Caterpie and Weedle in Petalburg Woods, incredibly rare Lapras on one of the current routes, and so on. I think that's more than enough, but of the REAL improvements this game brought, the biggest one is no more annoying Match Call feature. The second biggest thing? Holding B while surfing makes you go ultra fast. There's a lot more, such as easier fishing, better utilization of the user interface, a few cut trees being permanently gone, and the Acro Bike upgrade that can even let you switch between Mach and Acro and jump up actual ledges. The team deserves praise for going after even minor things that needed attention and ensuring that the experience of playing Emerald again was much better than before.

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.

A look back at: The Dark Queen of Krynn

 

I played this one in spades, often taking breaks either from work or trying to do other things. Nevertheless, I'm quite glad this one took a little less than a month in hindsight. It's just as linear if not more than Death Knights of Krynn, though it's both longer and harder in general. I mean, more dragons to deal with, more Draconians and their special nonsense death conditions. Yay, exploding enemies, rising into another form and exploding, or just blowing fireballs diagonally. And as I would always expect, both Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball were the fun spells to use for almost every encounter with the mages taking point. The developers of this game really took that into account because there's an underwater kingdom to deal with though, so obviously the favorite spells aren't always useful. And then there's the dragons and beholder enemies which also proved quite challenging especially with multiples of them in one area!

So aside from fun and frustration, I take it that The Dark Queen of Krynn is perhaps the most advanced game of its engine, the Gold Box engine. The graphics are sleeker and there's more color usage, and I think the AI might have been slightly tweaked better, you never know. I also enjoy the guest characters here far more. Whereas your own party completely lacks characterization, where they MAY have something during the story in spades depending on who you choose to tackle certain events, the guest characters and other major characters shine a lot brighter. Captain Daenor is an ally who comes and goes, with his own story and trying to get his sister back. Grunschka and Baldric are other characters who are interesting allies, with the former being a party member until the end and the latter ending up doing something for the semi-twist ending. It's a shame that black mage guy in the Abyss isn't playable, and the defeat of the actual dark queen is underwhelming since you really don't directly fight her. It is sort of funny when dragons invade the celebration victory party at the end though, that was the semi-twist ending. But all in all, it really boils down to "do I already enjoy playing through the other Gold Box games" here. If you know nothing about them, it's probably not as good. 

A look back at: Death Knights of Krynn

More Krynn-inge. Nah, just kidding. I'm quite glad I knocked this one out in less than a week. Chock it up to the importing of characters from the previous game, as well as delving into the right quests at the right time. Death Knights of Krynn is certainly about defeating the new evil in the death knights, and at least two instances are where you have to battle former friendly NPC characters. That's cause this is a game where necromancy takes center stage in the plot. Lord Soth is the main bad guy to quell, and he's got the previously dead Sir Karl to his side WITH the Dragonlance. Note to the idiots in the epilogue of Champions of Krynn, THIS is why you don't take the Dragonlance from the party! Now we have to be in a terrible situation of having to bring Sir Karl to rest, which would definitely hurt his lover Maya, who's a dragon herself, of course.

The other major character for this game is Durfey, and he's a bit like Vala from Secret of the Silver Blades in that he's around for a very long haul once you recruit him. He then leaves to help a lovely woman, only to find himself as another undead trying to defend her and you have to slay him. Poor man. Oh my, are we really talking about the main plot of "Just defeat Lord Soth before he uses lots of undead, especially this one badass hero"? Yeah, that's the gist of the plot. This game, without sidequests, is very short. Though even WITH the sidequests, it was still short. But it was worthwhile to do them. I haven't really mentioned gameplay here since it's basically identical to Champions of Krynn, with the only notable new thing is the re-addition of the Paladin class. And they brought some DOS chiptune music back which is always nice. Alright, let's see what that last Dragonlance chapter will offer.

A look back at: Pokemon Star Twinkle

Walkthrough as usual

During the disaster that was the previous ROM hack I played, which was Cloud White, I heard about this hack and its in-development sequel, Delicious Party. Both Star Twinkle (also known as Pokemon Stellar) and Delicious Party get their names from the Pretty Cure series, which I have of course been watching and enjoying as I do my usual gaming. And of course, they take inspiration from Pretty Cure, but also several other magical girl-oriented series, such as PMMM and Puyo Puyo. That goes for Pokemon and characters. Let it be known there was a lot to take in, despite this hack being a "go through Kanto but a little differently" hack.

If you are going to make a "go through Kanto a little differently" ROM hack, it's gotta really show its teeth, and this one thankfully does. The routes are different, the majority of mon encounters are fakemons with a small sprinkle of regular Pokemon. And if you're gonna add fakemon, you best make as many of them seem interesting to use, and almost all of them were! The battles in this game were a surprisingly even mix of both single and double battles, and the toughest ones aside from gym leaders and league members were the evil team members, most of which were double battles to begin with. There's a buttload of variety and that's a huge selling point. You get to see many of the new Pokemon well before you have access to them, and as far as I can tell, all but one are available. My team included Homucifier, Sakyako (these two based off of PMMM characters and are Dark/Fairy and Fire/Steel respectively), Miitsudoki (Electric/Fairy based off of Cure Sunshine), Claydol, Stalikata, and Wyrmfish (last two have some inspiration but I don't know what it is). And it doesn't end there, as magical girls are a trainer class, including some favorites like the PMMM characters themselves and several Pretty Cures. And Usagi Tsukino is somewhere here too.

With all that said, Delicious Party is still in development, and Star Twinkle was a hack I seriously, seriously wanted to get into. It got a release, but it also got patched multiple times as I played and made my walkthrough. You can say I had a hand in finding several bugs and glitches, which will be ironed out each release. The whole experience remained enjoyable and I look forward to Delicious Party. 

A look back at: Champions of Krynn

It's a good thing I saved my characters for these DOS games...wait, I can't transfer them over? Oh, right. So as it stands, the Pool of Radiance sub-series is separate from the Dragonlance sub-series as well as other sub-series in the Gold Box games. Have I mentioned that yeah, I am churning through these games again? Might as well, there's a little of that DOS charm along with some hardline tactical RPG gameplay. But in any case, I modeled my party after the ones I used up to Pools of Darkness, with only a few minor exceptions as usual.

Champions of Krynn is delightfully a lot shorter and actually easier in most regards compared to the other games. There's not too much in dawdling around for sidequests this time, and the plot is...honestly quite typical. That is something of a problem I guess, it's really just "find missing maidens to rescue" as well as "defeat dragonkin characters, including the big bad who is one himself" with a little dose of tragedy when your mentor and troop leader ends up perishing. Though there's a little more intrigue plot-wise, as not only are some of the guest characters very interesting, so are the races themselves. When Maya decides to join you, the twist of her becoming a dragon in combat was not something you expected, was it? What about Skyla, that doofus guy who actually gets new orders to kill you? Or how about the ogres, who are actually good characters, except for a select few, but you still get them to form a nice alliance? Oh yeah, and two flying fortresses, they crash into each other, and there's drunken Draconians, civil conflict in the final town, honestly, it's these little things that produce a nice charm to a fairly average Gold Box game. Not too much to really look back on, but it is the little things. 

A look back at: Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor

(Note: I finished this game last week from the timestamp of this post. Whoops, I usually do the post here after I finish, but I forgot. I did finish this game on around the 22nd of March though).

And so I continue with the Advanced D&D games but going away from Gold Box for a moment for this game that seriously has those WOW or Diablo vibes. I mean, look at that screenshot and you should be able to see some similarities. The vibes are certainly there with the medieval setting and all, but the gameplay is anything but MMORPG. Don't worry, I've got no intention to play those games, since I prefer the more linear plotlines of regular games in all seriousness.

Ruins of Myth Drannor is heavily, and I mean heavily, quest-driven. There's so many quests or steps to get to quests that I got sidetracked far more than I usually would. The main quest is basically "big good wizard tells your four heroes to stop this evil sorceress and her dragon boyfriend from using the Pool of Radiance, and to also finally destroy it", and then there's a bunch of other things to cover, maybe a few select characters that are temporary party members or so for extra fun. Plus all the extra treasures and having to fight all the denizens of the ruins. Yippee?

Well, not so much. First of all, the gameplay still practices the turn-based mechanics of its predecessors. When you have free-range like this, maybe trying the Diablo route would work better. Cause moving units to be right in melee weapon range will look awkward in free-range movement. Oh, but look at those D&D flair, the rolls and such. That's neat, but of course missing is never fun. An ideal party is two strong physical fighters and two mages, their classes could be anything aside from the cliche ones of course but there's always the skewing upon leveling up units and such. But the hardest thing about this game is just how boring it got. You go on the quests, but you basically have to tough out encounters each time of varying degrees, and that drowning orchestra does get grating after a while with each battle.

And then, there's the game-breaking nonsense that could ruin save files at times. It's easily the most annoying thing about this game. I think I might just return to messing around with the Gold Box games in the meantime. 

A look back at: Pokemon Cloud White

Walkthrough, not entirely complete, but like I couldn't get absolutely everything when bugs and glitches prevent me from doing so.

Well hello there. My goodness, how long has it been since my last Pokemon ROM hack? 5 months? Wow. This is what happens when I have a bunch of other commitments and I decide to try my hand at many, many more. I got into the hang of doing walkthroughs for different ROM hacks outside Pokemon, and then I had my RPGs that I took more time in doing, so clearly the ROM hacks here have been delayed considerably. But even with those in mind, guess what? I had an ENORMOUS one when I decided to check out Cloud White. My team here was Infernape, Claydol, Crobat, Lapras, Jumpluff, and Mega Ampharos (megas are permanent in this game).

I honestly don't know where I could begin. Cloud White includes base Fire Red (Kanto + Sevii). It includes Johto. It includes the Mangan Archipelago which is an entirely new region, and some of these islands are actually shaped like Japan. So meta. What? Oh, and there's an entire region based entirely out of France, and this region in particular, they all speak it. Cute, but this meant that for the non-French speaking audiences, they have no clue what things are, so my walkthrough shows some translations. Maybe a bit too much?

But the whole hack seems like too much, and not in the best of ways. Yes, your money amount can go above what Game Freak set the max as. And you can go above Level 100, there are some trainers there in that regard too. But even with all this, there's way more regions that trying to make a guide on all this is insane enough on its own, and that's not getting into the fact that the game's trainers get to be stagnant at the end of it all. Major trainers will either have a theme or all megas, and there's supposedly some edgy story for the Azur region in particular about samurai clans. Oh, and you get to be an emperor. Yeah, emperor, no gender differences were considered here. Very lame in that regard.

More mons up to Gen-6, getting all the megas in as well. The Fairy type was one I considered getting and god I need to vent about this, because this SUCKS. The Fairy type was just not implemented well at all. I was hoping to get a good fairy mon, but neither Gardevoir (or its mega), or Togekiss, the best possible options for me not counting Xerneas or Cresselia, just didn't learn the moves I need (plus Shiny Stones are extremely late for Togekiss anyways). I was stuck with Fairy Wind off of Jumpluff for a Fairy move as my only real option. Also for Moonblast, the de facto Fairy move, I mentioned those two legendaries, who do learn it by level, but who's bright idea was it to make Moonblast a STATUS move in categorization? That's just straight up awful, and you can't even use it to hit a Mega Sableye super effectively cause it will get bounced back to you via Magic Bounce. Just, no. No changes to TMs by the way.

And even with all this, there's the definite screw-ups, such as not being able to correctly finish off the Johto region because the Manaphy event is a soft lock, preventing you from getting the next one down as well. The Tyranitar'Arena is supposed to open after you become emperor, but I think the script is broken cause I can't enter that either. And there are some locations where walk-in flags aren't in the right spots and I can't even enter, or there's some guard in the way regardless of what I do. Also Johto more or less feels like it's straight from Liquid Crystal, and they also have the randomized rain for EVERYTHING in the entire hack. Pokemon Cloud White is a perfect example of going too far. There's going to be things that are fine, and many other things that are just not fine. The walkthrough for this game that I made was my second-largest walkthrough ever after the main Pokemon Nameless walkthrough. It could probably be a lot larger if I was able to access some extra events. The official game guide did help me somewhat in making my own, and I ensured that I let you all know of all the trainers to battle and where.

A look back at: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

It's rather telling that I'll try to get to every single franchise I can at one point or another, and now I finally get to check out the flagship game of a number of Super Smash Bros. characters, starting with Marth's flagship game, translated to Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. Honestly in hindsight, the fan translation I picked up for this NES game pissed me off. Mars? Really? He's known all around as Marth, and I realize some things may be lost in translation at some point or another but the translators of the patch I picked up took a lot of liberties, to the point of even breaking the fourth wall in one rare dialogue box that references future games in the series. Thanks a lot. Don't spoiler me on that stuff just yet.

As for Fire Emblem's gameplay, I feel as if this is a relatively nice starting point if someone would get into tactical RPGs, though not the best starting point. Final Fantasy Tactics does a great job, while I was not a fan of how Shining Force dealt with things. Fire Emblem is somewhere in between. Units pretty much always counter, and depending on speed stat, one unit could get a follow-up attack which is one thing you'd really want to get. Skill stat is what dictates hit percentages, and misses still suck, but at least you'll be able to gauge your hit percentage with the stat bars at the bottom of the units, plus attack and defense. Critical hits are awesome surprises when you get them, and deadly when used against you. Because of the permadeath mechanic that units have to deal with, you really don't want to take chances with losing the best units. I believe the creators of this game wanted all players of it to do an Ironman-style challenge when playing, as in you lose units, you just move on. Well, you still have a lot of limited choices in term of characters, AND a limited choice in weapons before they break, so you know that's always a ton of fun, ain't it?

Marth, being the main character, is an enemy magnet. He at least dodges many attacks and counterattacks well. I recognize his critical hit animation is different from others, and actually translated to his Final Smash from Brawl onwards. As for the other characters, those in the mercenary class, which could promote to the hero class, were the exceptional ones without weaknesses, and they were pretty much in all my parties. The horseback riders (social knights, paladins, horsemen) were great for maneuverability, while armor knights were the opposite yet were walking tanks, but both do a decent job with things until you meet the enemies that have specific weaponry against them. Dragon knights were awesome but then you contend with those with the dragon-slaying weaponry. OR arrows, which work well against the pegasus knights too. Mages and clerics are quite typical, with bishops combining them. Clerics on the other hand have the dumbest leveling up mechanic, they have to be hit!? Weird. Then there's the Mamkutes, secretly dragons who have infinite uses of their stones and just are tanks as dragons unless you have the dragon-slaying weaponry. And of course, all these kinds of units, you gotta figure out ways around them all the same. Along with that, weaponry dropped by enemies is usually better than what you own, the shops only give half-decent things until you find a good member card and find SECRET SHOPS. Oh, and I spent a lot of time in arenas, saving before using each one hoping that the character that enters doesn't die. It made some chapters go up to 99 (turn limit), but it's worth it to level people up before promoting them or using them later. But hey, at least I got the chance to play a Fire Emblem game and enjoyed what I could. I look forward to many others.

A look back at: Pools of Darkness

First of the year. It took 24 days, but I get caught up being bored and doing my own advanced college work when no one is looking, still churning through one Pokemon ROM hack while at the same time working on walkthroughs of other game ROM hacks (there's now four for SMB2 on my main walkthroughs page), but I also churn through other series that I've had to deal with and Pools of Darkness is the fourth out of five Pool of Radiance games. Again, franchise in a franchise with strategy RPG mechanics that have remained the same with each game. Slightly better graphics! Freakier sound effects! That's what the developers have decided to ensure the game didn't feel more like an expansion pack to the others.

Yet overall, the gameplay is largely similar, but I guess slightly better than Secret of the Silver Blades. This is largely in part due to the game actually having more than one overworld, and you can navigate freely on the overworlds (though of course there are random encounters, what you do is your decision in these cases). I of course import my characters and their stats, plus equipment hold over. Neat, until I horrifying find out that the game still is quite difficult despite this. Dragons always terrify you. Those annoying spiders and their instakill poison are there. Bane's minions have magic resistance. Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball, as great spells as they are, are often not useful due to fire monsters taking a lot of precedence. And don't even get me STARTED on the unfairness that is the finale of this game. Yeah, no in-between rests for three or so battles, one of which has the beholders with multiple instakill gaze sets. Even the walkthrough I was using this game to complete with gave up at some point and changed the difficulty setting, while a Youtube video I watched went with a "tire out the enemy until enough turns have passed" cheese strategy. I was obviously quite exhausted with this nonsense, and didn't even bother to try Dave's Challenge as a result. Note to creators, I know you want the best of the best beating your post-game challenges, but when you have exhausting finales for the main game, it's very likely that I'm not even gonna bother with the postgame.

But I guess despite that I did enjoy what I did. A hub dimension where you go around, doing major quests in that dimension to unlock the way to the other dimensions (one of which being a giant god's body) and defeating one of Bane's lieutenants in each one feels a lot better than a game that didn't even have a true overworld. And these overworld have sidequests and side characters meaning that there is usually something worthwhile to do if you deviate from the main quest. 

Blog Timeline 2025

And well I'm not gonna say I hated 2025. Wait, why are we starting out with THAT sentence? Because of the times I said it multiple Blog Timeline posts ago. To be perfectly honest, this might have been my most productive year yet and it will be a precedent for years to come because soon I'm bound to be submitting more things to the internet, whether it's reviews or internet walkthroughs or such. I had to renew a few things for my real life, including my card for this yearly payment thing for this whole blog, plus I went back into the college life, though it's mostly virtual and I find most of the subject matter easy to follow. It will damper my activity somewhat, or will it? I'm making some seriously good progress on games I both play a lot and do a lot.

Doomwiki: As usual I provide the template in adding in secret descriptions and anyone can re-edit things to make them more descriptive if that's their thing. Ever since December 10th's Cacowards I am actively trying to mull through anything that currently has a redlink on Doomwiki, and am still doing it into the new year. But when these new mods get pages, my descriptions are already ready. Yeah, so that's more or less copypasted from last Blog Timeline post, but it's EXACTLY how this has been going and amusingly enough I'm almost done with this stuff. But DAMN some of these newer WADs I'm mulling through are taking a toll on me. Physically, I might add.

Music: I got quite a lot of favorites this year. We have new releases from Tremonti, Chevelle, and Deftones (The End Will Show Us How, Bright as Blasphemy, and private music), they keep doing what they do and they do it extremely well. Volumes went for the djent-pop route in their latest release Mirror Touch and it's not too terrible, while Unprocessed's Angel is trying to straddle the line between the Polyphia-pop sound and trying to be edgier metal, considering how poorly received their last album seemed to have been. Dance Gavin Dance let loose with Pantheon, with Andrew Wells as the new lead vocalist and the sound is all over the place, but not in the best of ways, arguably in my opinion this was my biggest disappointment. 40 Below Summer and Earshot returned with Untethered and Humaning, respectively, and these two actually managed to make fantastic albums. The biggest surprise though? Three Days Grace with Alienation. While I preferred some of the other albums to this, the big surprise was making it so that both main vocalists were kept, and there's some really great tracks on this album.

What I've been watching: Obviously it's gonna be some more Pretty Cure. I binged through Wonderful Pretty Cure, an enjoyable but less combative season rather quickly. It then took me months before I saw its movie and that was fine. I also got on to watching Mirai Days, the sequel to Mahou Tsukai as well and it's like Otona, very few episodes and not overdoing things, thankfully, making it an appropriate sequel season I guess. Soon I'll be binging through Kimi to Idol Precure next, as it's getting ready to end.

ROM Hacks: Surprisingly for Pokemon ROM hacks, I only actually did six (technically seven). Even more surprisingly, I did guides and walkthroughs for ALL of them. Pokemon TDT, Gold & Silver '97 Reforged, Ultra Fire Sun (not a full walkthrough cause this game's setting is unchanged from Fire Red), Sapphire in Reverse (read above, but for Sapphire), The Wooper who Save Christmas 1 + 2 (two hacks technically), and finally Saiph. I am currently playing through the gargantuan hack that is Cloud White, trying to make a walkthrough of it, but it's taking a while due to job commitments and now college work.

And now THIS! If you've seen my pinned walkthroughs post, guess what, I've created some guides for Legend of Zelda (NES) ROM hacks! Oh yes, I got so bored with playing some of the same things over and over that I branched out slightly and played other childhood classics. So I just downloaded one ROM hack which changed only parts of the overworld and some dialogue and made a Google Sheets guide for it, then I moved on to the true classic ROM hack: Zelda Challenge: Outlands. I then made maps for it in the same format. And I plan to do more for other games. I did mention last year I went through custom levels for the Super Monkey Ball games. I just may revisit those and make walkthroughs of those ROM hacks, among other things that could come soon.

RPGs: Last year was 18. This year? 13, technically speaking. But that's because several of these were games plus their expansion packs. I am of course talking about this because of how I separated my Heroes of Might & Magic III and IV playthroughs to include expansion packs separately. Including expansion packs, my actual number was 17. So the vast majority of this was Heroes of Might & Magic mania. I told everyone I would get to this series and I made it quite clear. Started from the beginning, played the first game, the second game and its expansions all in one, and when I got to the third game I separated things and tried to play in the best chronological order possible. I then did Chronicles and then Heroes IV and its expansions. Whew, all in a year's work, but I gotta rest from all this. Apart from that, the start of this year saw me go through the Last Bible spinoffs to the Megami Tensei franchise, they're a whole lot easier than the mainline games for sure. And then I did not one, but TWO Kingdom Hearts games this year! One of which was my 200th RPG reviewed. Yippee! It's an example of hack-and-slash action RPG I actually enjoyed for that matter, though the card game mechanic with Re:Chain of Memories was enjoyed a little less. I'm just glad these games aren't that large. The current franchise I'm tackling, bear in mind, there's a ton of games in it, is another CRPG series, this time it's all Advanced Dungeons and Dragons stuff. Really going old school with this, and I've already completed three games already. But if you're expecting me to play Fire Emblem at some point, or Ultima, hold your horses. They are coming. I promise.

Other games: As I said earlier, I've been tackling Legend of Zelda ROM hacks, so that's something I am gonna do for certain. And the Super Monkey Ball ROM hacks for that matter as well. I did say I messed around in Freelancer more recently, and I played a lot of Discovery's newest update. A more recent thing was that I made a walkthrough for a licensed game I owned. I did in fact make a walkthrough for Turbo Turtle Adventures on the GBA, yeah it's an old game but it was an addicting puzzle-like game and I do in fact plan on making more game walkthroughs, mod or official game, in the future.

Productivity on my end has hit quite the peak for 2025 in terms of what I do for gaming and I don't plan to slow down. This of course means I will slow down when I least expect it though, because I did have to deal with some real-life issues, such as a loving pet dying and two grandparents also dying this year. I don't want to lose more than I gain. But I want to go through 2026 as strong as I went through 2025. 

A look back at: Secret of the Silver Blades

Wow, I was on fire this entire month. Quite ironic given that it is December we're talking here, but also even moreso when it was all little Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games from the early years of CRPGs, and believe me, I've got a lot on my plate with those. But it's actually nice to know that the games aren't super long either. Some, like this game for example, were somewhat arduous yet still very much doable, but hey, I gotta get to experience some oldies regardless.

So far I think Curse of the Azure Bonds is the best of the three I played. All three of these games have the same overall gameplay style (so I'm not commenting about that cause I did that already) and you customize your characters AND can import them (without a doubt the biggest plus of this series thus far). Plot-wise, all games are quite simple in plot. In Pool of Radiance, you basically go after Tyranthraxus and that's all there is to that. In Curse of the Azure Bonds, you also go after Tyranthraxus in a different body, but I enjoyed the whole scope of getting rid of the accursed bonds a whole lot more. In Secret of the Silver Blades, we get to hear about some lore of two twin brothers, one good, one evil, but good doesn't want to strike down evil so he wants others to do it even after he is long gone. And we got rivaling factions to deal with. Black Circle! Banites! Silver Blades! The latter is the actually good faction of course.

The game's difficulty did surprise me a whole lot more than the previous games. While I got annoyed with those phase spiders in the last game, this one also has enemies that can instantly slay your characters. Or rather turn them to stone, lots of medusae, basilisks, and cockatrices in the mine shafts near the middle of the game AND near the end. Combine that with the drider enemies, the very annoying storm giants, and the durable iron giants, and by the end it felt like the mini-franchise was toughening it up a whole lot more. And then there's Vala, the one guest character in the series so far who proved the most useful out of all of them, mostly because she actually stuck around all the way to the end and was a competent fighter. Couldn't have done it without you. But hey, expect a blog summary tomorrow, I'm really on fire with reviewing things and other stuff I've been doing in the meantime. 

A look back at: Curse of the Azure Bonds

Yeah, gonna be going through quite a lot of D&D Gold Box games for a while. Luckily, they aren't that long in length, and the bonus of importing characters is a huge plus! Meaning I don't need to over-customize on things, and the going is easier. Slightly, easier. Of course, it's not all set in stone, despite a whole lot of the game already being similar than Pool of Radiance. The sidequests are actually tough this time around, and the game is a lot more linear as some of those quests are more mandatory than I once thought. And woo, we got some additional grub, two new character classes as well as more monsters that are far more dangerous. Otyughs, yuck! And don't get me started on those truly annoying phase spiders who's poison bites are lethal. That and the more human enemies and their classes show a little bit more intelligence overall, actually casting some annoying spells like the holding ones and such. So yeah, it was a tougher game despite importing my characters.

Aside from this, well I am a bit intrigued by the plot. How your characters get cursed with these accursed Azure Bonds is interesting, you don't remember what happened, you just know you got ambushed somehow and then the bonds are on all your characters. Ironically this kind of "ambush while you are sleeping" mechanic is in the games overall, it's just that this happens before the game starts and is "special", I guess. And having to remove the bonds one by one by defeating evil factions tied to those bonds, well, it is considered original at the time. I feel like Tyranthraxus returning as a different beast and being able to mind control the party feels like a small Deus Ex Machina. And then there's Nameless? Is this the same Nameless One I hear from other games? I will certainly keep an eye out.