A look back at: Pokemon Timeless Diamond/Spaceless Pearl

First of all, I'm not actually done playing through this hack yet. I'm currently writing an NPC trainer guide, including rematch teams for post-game stuff. This is my first ever ROM hack dealing with Generation 4 though, so things had to be set up in detail. DesMuMe is not good at handling the WiFi stuff in the Underground, but thankfully I DON'T need to mess around with this too much. But of course, the nature of Pokemon Diamond (I went with Timeless Diamond for this) means there's a ton to consider. Anyways, I went through with a decent team: Raichu (a gift Pichu from a mystery gift password, with Surf and Volt Tackle), Crobat, Mamoswine, Lopunny, Gyarados, and Leafeon. Plus Bronzong for some time before I needed Mamoswine for Rock Climb (somehow the only one I could use that Rock Climb). My starter was Chimchar but I was pissed about how the RNG dictates both the starter gender and even the level and gender of the wild Starly I battled.

Gameplay and story of TD/SP is going to be the same as regular D/P. So nothing on that regard. What's important is what's improved. You've got the Platinum mons in the regional dex here, thankfully allowing for better use of those types, plus a few others added like Pinsir, Gulpin, Hoppip, Vulpix, and Smoochum for further variety. Version exclusives aren't a thing to worry about, you can actually encounter all Pokemon necessary in either version. This also does mean that trainers in the game not only have higher-level Pokemon after the first few routes, but much nastier teams to tangle with, to make the game better. After all, with more experience comes more challenge. But also perks. Ability to change HMs easily, unlimited TM usage, better surfing speed, an Advance Radar mechanic to mitigate the dual-slot cartridge issue, move tutors scattered about, wait what's this? Honey tree mechanic overhauled? Makes getting a Munchlax actually doable in this game! Yes!

Of course, the waiting does still have its issues. Some trainers are only battled on certain days or times. Some swarm Pokemon only happen on random days, along with the daily encounters in the Great Marsh and all. Small prices though, as the game itself is a nice return to Gen-4 Sinnoh in a better limelight than what the original games held. Sure, Platinum also exists too, but this set of hacks is like the Legacy hacks, improvements to the original games that inspired it.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Pokemon Saiph

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.

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. Minor walkthrough of both games by the way.

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: 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.

A look back at: Pokemon TDT

Detailed walkthrough here!

So I have seen my fair share of "play as the bad guy" hacks, but never really played any of them yet. I think this is an alright start though, since you only play with the original 151 Pokemon, through a heavily modified Kanto rife with some pop culture references, and starting in a different location going in a less logical progression. These are nice, overall. Yep, you deal with Team Rocket jobs, stealing from museums and caves, but also even committing worser crimes with your brother (who is the rival). And of course, a good Team Rocket is you in the end, since you see just how far things could get and run away. Meanwhile, your brother is brainwashed constantly, Giovanni makes a huge mistake calling Mewtwo a clone, and Mew, the actual mascot of this game, just joins your party and is required for one segment. My party by the way did use Mew for that one section, but it ended up being varied as best as I could: Machamp, Golem, Alakazam, Raichu, Pidgeot, and Vaporeon made up the core members. I should mention the Eeveelution because you can only get one in the game; the maximum you can get is 149 Pokemon as the other two Eevelutions aren't really available since there's no breeding or finding other Eevees.

And besides that, the game did go through quite fast. At least in-game time, since I only spent 13 hours. I played through much of it in February, took a long 2-month break to focus on other things, and then only two days in April I resumed playing this and already finished it. As for cons, there are two major game-breaking bugs that the creator acknowledges, and I put them in the walkthrough. The first one in the captain's room of the boat is significantly more egregious, but either way, you should definitely have lots of testing to ensure these things don't sneak through. Speaking of "testers", why are the Kanto gym leaders called this? They actually don't give badges (you just somehow get them randomly as the game progresses), but what bothers me is that they seem like optional trainers (you gotta talk with them to battle, they at least give a good reward like usual) yet these optional trainers are required for the finale, so you just gotta find them (these "Force" ladies just give vague hints as to where they are), and then they appear to cheer you on as you battle...the Quad Core. And while I always expect challenge in hacks, this finale was too easy, the first three trainers even have unevolved mons and their movesets are just not good. The rematch doesn't do a whole lot to improve other than levels and having Big Fudge battle you at the end either.

But if you put this aside, if you really are contemplating playing a "bad guy" hack (one where you turn good anyways), this could be a first one that works for you.

A look back at: Pokemon Emerald Seaglass

Yes, that's right. It's another one of those ROM hacks that doesn't change the setting from either Hoenn or Kanto. In this case Hoenn, but you get the idea. This hack despite not providing a new setting ended up with a niche following on Reddit, basically giving players a chance to experience Emerald as if it were done Gen-2 style. Not in a Gen-2 engine, the engine is still Gen-3, but with Gen-2 sprites. That is its main selling point by far.

But sprites aren't gonna impress me as much as gameplay. So we gotta focus on what was changed in that regard and see what really shone. This game's got a Shiny Charm out of the box? Okay! Though I didn't get shinies, the thought is nice. What about that Gamecube being used as a cheating device or to change up playthroughs? This offers a ton of replayability. Is that a DexNav? One that totally works superbly? Yes! Now we're talking. Catching mons is a pain in most games, but this always makes it easier. There's even following Pokemon and you can set whichever to follow you. Plus your notebook has level caps if you want more challenge. Of course, I would NOT be satisfied if battling your opponents resulted in some sameiness, and it delivered. Mons from Gen-1 to Gen-3 are always available, along with newer evolutions and the Applin and Tinkatink lines for good measure. Maps remain the same, with minor changes here and there regarding some of the newer content, you got a wishing well for example for getting random mons. And the Pokedex is extremely helpful for picking and choosing some of my team members due to showing all the abilities, moves, locations, and evolution methods. There's even Alolan and Galarian forms available.

And the best part is how you can play it any style you want. Nuzlocke, type expert, casual, anything will work. It's what Emerald probably should have been all along. They even keep things that were joyous to begin with, like contests and the Battle Frontier. I have once again made a walkthrough, but this isn't as detailed. Emerald Seaglass has TONS of documentation and I don't need to go over what has already been covered.

A look back at: Mega Moemon FireRed

Heh heh, I honestly wouldn't have imagined this would be something. But it sure is, and doesn't seem to get too far into other resources, instead everything is done well by a team of spriters in order to ensure nice quality. And with it, we have what is generally considered the best of the Moemon games as a whole. Mega Moemon FireRed features mega evolutions, lots of new generation moves, mons up to Gen-6, double wild battles, about six new locations, and even event distributions via password. And while all this is nice and all, really the fun is just trying to get everything in the hack for me. With it being base FireRed, many things are identical aside from Moemon and their trainers. I have even decided to pick up sprite replacement so that for future ROM hacks that don't change their dexes, I can change them into Moemon. What? I like this girly stuff. For the record my main party throughout the game included several picks that I have used in many other ROM hacks prior, and it was Magnezone, Claydol, Emboar, Crobat, Empoleon, and Florges, with Scrafty used for the final Elite Four rematch, Bibarel for the majority of HMs, and a Fearow for flying, plus Swampert, Gardevoir, Gallade, Flygon,  and Riolu were all used prior to deciding on my main party members above.

I guess I can actually use the rest of this post to critique my favorite Moemons, though I won't be providing images of their sprites, go look that up yourself.

Raticate line - honestly I like it. Rattata is a small cosplay but Raticate kinda looks genuine

Furret line - average really. Lots of fur for Furret which makes sense.

Linoone line - Linoone got that sexy hair and Zigzagoon got the obvious raccoon mask.

Mightyena line - well, Mightyena tries to be a sexy wolf girl here.

Nidoqueen line - love how they're all carrying swords

Nidoking line - see above, this is the male version of course but it still works very well.

Dodrio line - I actually kinda hate it. It's a little more difficult to do those that have multiple heads like some Kanto mons have, but they tried by having some small head things added to Doduo and Dodrio. Not a fan though.

Swellow line - Taillow is the better one.

Tangrowth line - Tangela being super messy is awesome. Tangrowth somehow has more volume

Sunflora line - of course Sunkern is cute but I question why Sunflora gotta look middle-aged

Roserade line - I LOVE Roselia's sprite, and Budew's being a baby makes perfect sense. Roserade is kind of odd with the hair but it still seems cool enough.

Jumpluff line - probably the first line where I don't really like all of their designs despite the different colors.

Vileplume/Bellossom line - Glad they didn't overdo the hair with Vileplume. Bellossom is a lame flower girl though.

Arbok line - Ekans is straight up Shantae and I love the middle-eastern vibes from Arbok

Wigglytuff line - not surprising they got microphones and seem like something from Aikatsu

Ampharos line - Sheep herders! Ampharos actually looks menacing

Farfetch'd - not entirely the best

Lickilicky line - so the tongue is the scarf. Very strange. Somehow the pink haired girls are good.

Scizor line - bug warriors! Though Scyther is too small.

Hypno line - awkward hair, okay dress on Hypno.

Swalot line - Turned both Gulpin and Swalot into connoisseur princesses. Awkward designed hair.

Kangaskhan - so this is one with two of them, kinda neat how it at least looks like a mother trying to get into the game.

Girafarig - The other tail is the whip. Real funny.

Tauros - a personal favorite design of mine. Manly cowboy.

Miltank - Well she has some obvious...mammaries

Ninetales line - This one looks like one of those girls you see in every anime that does stuff at some religious shrine and looks super devoted to what they do.

Rapidash line - Flaming good hair and design.

Electivire line - Oddly enough, I think most of the designs are boring. The suit Electivire wears isn't that great.

Manectric line - Electrike is good, but not really a fan of Manectric's.

Zangoose and Seviper - I like these two, they look like warrior cosplayers.

Plusle and Minun - These two are also surprisingly very good. Of course they would be cute cheerleaders! Top tier design for these two.

Arcanine line - All I see is a furry girl.

Castform - The plumpy hair is ridiculous but makes sense. Haven't actually seen the other weather forms.

Chimecho line - Chimecho is somehow VERY GOOD.

Venusaur line - Bulbasaur is the CUTEST, but the line doesn't really get better.

Meganium line - Chikorita and Bayleef are by far and large top-tier Moemon designs. Bayleef in particular is the girl I like. Meganium isn't that good though.

Typhlosion line - Cyndaquil is holding a mask of her Pokemon, while the evolutions act like they are Human Torch. Kinda warm. Typhlosion looks like a JoJo character.

Blaziken line - I'm kinda disappointed in this line, but at least Mega Blaziken is good (one of the few mega forms I was able to see from the front)

Legendary Johto Beasts - Warrior priestesses! Some of my all time favorites, reminds me of the valkyries.

Torterra line - Grass starters have been quite cool, but Turtwig takes the cake with the boyish school looks. Torterra is both okay and good, which is weird to me.

Staraptor line - Goes from cute maid to sexy maid quick.

Bibarel line - for a base form Bidoof has a great dress. Bibarel not as much a fan.

Luxray line - I was sort of expecting it to look like Aoi Tategami from KKPCALM, guess I was wrong.

Pachirisu - cosplay

Lopunny line - honestly what I expected it to be.

Purugly line - Glameow is what I expected. Purugly is skinny and decent.

Serperior line - of these, Servine is the best.

Watchog line - they are scouts, and I kinda enjoy the color scheme on the binoculars of Watchog.

Liepard line - domino mask for Liepard and laziness.

Stoutland line - somehow Lillipup and Herdier are the same size, and Stoutland is too small. Not "intimidating" by any means.

Zebstrika line - Eh, Zebstrika just looks like a Sonic OC.

Florges line - only the red flower variant here. And it looks exactly how I expected.

Gogoat line - You catch Skiddo on the cycling route. And the best part is, Skiddo is on a bicycle while Gogoat is on a motorcycle. These are also top-tier Moemon designs for me.

Furfrou - kind of a kid who crosses pajamas with cosplay.

Slurpuff line - These two look like rejects from KKPCALM

Butterfree line - Yep, Butterfree itself is top tier, and you get it early enough.

Beedrill line - honestly Beedrill itself tries to be an actual Beedrill.

Beautifly/Dustox line - Beautifly is easily the better one here. Wurmple itself looks weak, and the cocoons are sleepy.

Pidgeot line - I love Pidgeot's face. The rest resemble Parakarry from Paper Mario for me.

Noctowl line - both look like Harry Potter fangirls

Xatu line - I really like these two. Design-wise Xatu is certainly top-tier, they both look like they belong as the tribal leader for their groups.

Raichu line - Raichu is the best, the others are honestly cosplay. Yes, even the event Witch hat Pikachu.

Victreebel line - somehow all of these are very good? Bellsprout is very cute, Weepinbell has a funny face and is still cute, while Victreebel's got the skirt.

Parasect line - This resembles that Chun-li hairdo for Paras, and I love how it's a food server. Parasect has got that Raiden hat too.

Breloom line - didn't like Shroomish in the first place. Breloom is just Street Fighter's Cammy.

Shiftry line - average in my opinion.

Venomoth line - Venomoth is a granny while Venonat tries to be one.

Yanmega line - Love how Yanma is somewhat unique.

Ledian line - arguably more cosplay, don't like

Ariados line - well, Ariados looks sexy, but that's it.

Ninjask line - They're both ninjas which makes a ton of sense. Shedinja is appropriately awkward.

Volbeat and Illumise - if only both of these mons were decent, either way, top-tier designs.

Forretress line - Forretress itself is all over the place, while Pineco is kinda boring.

Slaking line - Vigoroth is quite appropriate.

Delcatty line - One is trying to nya you, the other is just sitting there being sexy. That's it.

Honchkrow line - looks exactly how I expected them to look

Weavile line - Sneasel is better cause of the swords and pirate hat. Weavile looks like a girl who just wants to be a part of it. A huge downgrade.

Exeggutor line - Exeggutor is a top-tier design in my book. Makes it work very well for what it is.

Sudowoodo line - Obvious actress is obvious.

Ambipom line - love how one's a skateboarder and the other's a rollerblader. Oddly enough both are top-tier designs.

Stantler - Very meh.

Kecleon - looks like the nervous geeky kid.

Pinsir and Heracross - Heracross is cuter but both look like cute amazons.

Altaria line - Top tier designs for both. Love those dresses.

Tropius - also top-tier design, looks like the Pacific Islander I would enjoy.

Dusknoir line - Why is Dusclops the only one with a reaper scythe? It should be there for the others.

Togekiss line - they're all actually good. Different eye colors for all.

Sceptile line - Grovyle is my favorite. Another good job on the grass starter. I wonder if Sceptile's sword is longer than it looks in the sprite.

Celebi line - look exactly how I expected it to look like.

Infernape line - Monferno and Infernape are top-tier designs, fit well with "fighter monkey of fire" vibes.

Wormadam and Mothim - Mothim wins by far.

Vespiquen line - This should be better in my opinion.

Cherrim line - I wasn't able to get sun-form Cherrim but I actually like both of these.

Drifblim line - can't think of this line unless I think about the Pokedex entry.

Skuntank line - obvious punk vibes

Leavanny line - Leavanny is obviously good but the rest look boring.

Scolipede line - oddly enough I don't like this line. The pre-evolutions have swords but Scolipede drops it for a smoking pipe?

Zoroark line - One is a punk 3rd grade kid while the other is a furry.

Sawsbuck line - I love Deerling. Sad that we only have spring form in this case for both by the way.

Escavalier line - Escavalier by itself is a top-tier design, maybe even top 10. Karrablast isn't bad either.

Vivillon line - Don't like the pre-evolutions, and the final could have had more variety but it doesn't. Tea is cool.

Emolga - this is a cosplay.

Trevenant line - very good designs. Unsure if I should say top-tier though.

Galarian Rapidash line - the odd thing here is I see these two and they look like they could be Pretty Cure villains instead of decent magical girl heroes.

Seaking line - Goldeen's alright but Seaking's too much.

Gyarados line - oddly enough I think Gyarados is too small.

Kingler line - the hair is way too wacky, and why goggles?

Crawdaunt line - these two look badass.

Whiscash line - Love Whiscash's design a lot.

Ludicolo line - I actually don't like how there's too much to Ludicolo's design. Lombre also looks smaller than Lotad.

Masquerain line - These are both somehow very good! Surskit got crazy hair and skates, but it works out. Masquerain's color scheme and costume work very well.

Golduck line - the umbrellas are kind of a neat touch.

Quagsire line - not actually good.

Poliwrath and Politoed - oddly Poliwhirl has my favorite design. The twintails on Poliwrath are nice and the sandal flying off Politoed is hilarious.

Azumarill line - Azumarill is made sexy but the others are basic.

Slowbro and Slowking - lazy pink-hairs. Slowking is the best.

Milotic line - Feebas looks like a rookie diver. Milotic is a very appropriate mermaid.

Armaldo line - Anorith is VERY CUTE, Armaldo is a downgrade.

Dragonite line - honestly, all are top tier designs. Dragonair is the best.

Blastoise line - another line that is not that good except for its mega (yeah I made my rival had Mega Blastoise).

Feraligatr line - the multicolor hair is what saves this ethnically diverse line.

Swampert line - Marshtomp and Swampert being cool surfer chicks is what makes them top-tier.

Latias and Latios - not bad.

Empoleon line - Prinplup is the best. There's too much with Empoleon.

Floatzel line - competitive-looking water gun-toting chicks? Awesome. Floatzel in particular is a top-tier design.

Lumineon line - very cute mermaids.

Samurott line - hey, they all get nice swords. that's cool.
Seismitoad line - oddly Palpitoad is the best, a top-tier design in my opinion too. But I guess the dress on Seismitoad works well.

Basculin - no thank you.

Swanna line - Ducklett is super cute. Swanna works well.

Accelgor line - weird how you go from knight cosplayer to ninja for this one.

Stunfisk - face is weird, but I think that might be the point.

Greninja line - this is alright.

Barbaracle line - there's too much going on with Barbaracle but that might be the point.

Dragalge line - ooh, an ominous purple orb for Dragalge. Me like.

Clawitzer line - Clauncher just looks like a Mega Man cosplay. Clawitzer enhances on this and tries to make a corrupted Mega Man (X) OC.

Goodra line - Sliggoo's the only one I don't like. Why cover the face?

Tentacruel line - Tentacool sucks but we got a bikini babe with long black hair for Tentacruel. Good.

Pelipper line - Appropriately the two are mail deliverers. Wingull is better.

Starmie line - they managed to make Starmie be very cute, and Staryu not far behind.

Lanturn line - in two minds about Lanturn but Chinchou works well.

Octillery line - these are BOTH top-tier. Love how the Remoraid has a Remoraid-shaped gun. And Octillery getting a bazooka is also great.

Cloyster line - Cloyster has interesting hair and a death skull mask. Making it the better one.

Huntail and Gorebyss - love Gorebyss being a bored mermaid. Huntail is kinda good. Clamperl oddly enough is what I expected it to be.

Qwilfish - a punk girl, what else is there?

Corsola - I actually don't like it.

Luvdisc - I oddly enough like it.

Dewgong line - mermaid-looks done right yet again.

Mantine line - once again, shrine-maiden looks, and they actually work.

Walrein line - Sealeo is the best. Walrein oddly enough has the weight to work too.

Sharpedo line - Top-tier designs here. Pirate chicks, one with a sword and the other with a blunderbuss.

Wailord line - VERY ODD DECISION to make them holy nuns. Very odd decision.

Kingdra line - spiky hair and lots of clothing and jewelry appropriate for a dragon shrine maiden. Not surprised. Seadra is the best design.

Relicanth - aw, such a cute face. For a rock type that's great.

Lapras - flute Lapras is nice. Summer Lapras is better.

Omastar line - actually don't like it.

Kabutops line - they gave Kabutops a better scythe than the Dusknoir line or Scyther. What the heck?

Cradily line - nerdy girls. Cradily looks like some sort of weird mystic.

Phione and Manaphy - both are surprisingly well done.

Carracosta line - okay

Jellicent line - only the female forms exist, because of course. Jellicent is a top-tier design.

Crobat line - it might surprise you but I actually don't like these designs at all, not even Crobat, which tries to be sexy but I think is a bit too much. The others are cosplay.

Dugtrio line - Dugtrio works very well. Love how it has the other heads as puppet things.

Steelix line - Both are nice and tall. Steelix and the armor are wonderful.

Mamoswine line - the pre-evolutions have funny faces but I love the snowboarder vibe of Mamoswine the most.

Glalie and Froslass - Glalie is 100% top-tier, maybe even top 10 design for me. Froslass disappointed me, but Snorunt with its white face is nice.

Exploud line - Loudred and Exploud are great rockers and are top-tier designs.

Mismagius line - cute Misdreavus as a trick-or-treater, while Mismagius is an obvious witch.

Dunsparce - it makes no effort to be cute. That is fine.

Probopass line - they somehow managed to make Nosepass and Probopass good. Wow.

Sableye and Mawile - Sableye isn't that great. Mawile is basically just Venom or something.

Gengar line - the pre-evolutions look like funny maids, while Gengar straddles the line.

Wobbuffet line - weird how both have random dogs with them. I love the noble lady look on Wobbuffet.

Lunatone and Solrock - even though both look like Touhou or fairies or such, they are top 10 designs in my book. Very, very cute designs.

Regis - they're all made to look gigantic. Especially Regigigas and its assets.

Rampardos line - This one tries to be the cleric from Hexen.

Bastiodon line - And this one apparently can lift Thor's hammer.

Bronzong line - most Steel types have great designs overall, but this isn't one of them, sorry.

Garchomp line - basically it's like they want to shank you.

Gigalith line - this is an example of one that gets better and better the more it evolves.

Swoobat line - Swoobat is good, Woobat is ugly.

Excadrill line - Excadrill looks like a communist general which is interesting.

Galvantula line - I'm extremely disappointed how one of my favorite Bug types turned out.

Ferrothorn line - I like the spiky dress Ferrothorn has.

Klinklang line - cute androids, reminds me of Hugtto Pretty Cure's Ruru.

Eelektross line - this one looks like it's trying to do the Smooth Criminal lean.

Haxorus line - Just too obvious with the weapons, should be better designed.

Cryogonal - very average

Hydreigon line - Deino and Zweilous look how I expect it. But Hydreigon somehow deconstructs it and manages to be a good design all the same.

Volcarona line - Larvesta's weird and Volcarona's a cosplay.

Swords of Justice - all with appropriate swords, all good.

Avalugg line - Avalugg is a top tier design with a sword and appropriate ice shield.

Carbink - appropriate cosplay

Golem line - it's odd that twintails work so well here.

Primeape line - this one makes sense for those who love MMA stuff I guess.

Grumpig line - Spoink is better and the pogo stick helps it.

Machamp line - to be honest I expected this to be better than it really is, and it's disappointing.

Clefable line - these are straight from Tokyo Mew Mew I swear.

Marowak line - uh I don't think we're supposed to see Cubone's face there? Ah oh well.

Magcargo line - the fact that both have eggs with their voluminous hair is a nice nod to how Flame Body can help in hatching eggs. I love these designs, top-tier.

Camerupt line - they made them look like packmules on purpose.

Hariyama line - the hands on Hariyama are weird.

Medicham line - interesting monks, bit of a Middle East vibe too. By the way this game did not have Mega Medicham, but every other Mega Stone was available.

Shuckle - low-tier design

Ursaring line - also low-tier designs in all honesty.

Delibird - very obvious Santa cosplay.

Gliscor line - what to make of this? Honestly I don't know.

Spinda - could be better, could have differing patterns.

Magmortar line - Magmar is a kick-ass top-tier design. I actually had to breed to get Magby by the way.

Torkoal - looks like a happy meemaw

Aggron line - more swords and steel justice, I like.

Tyranitar line - Pupitar has the best design, looks like a cool ninja. The others suck.

Snorlax line - Snorlax is what you expect. Munchlax is cute.

Absol - oddly enough this is also top-tier for design.

Aerodactyl - very cool, top-tier design

Charizard line - I'm, oddly enough, disappointed with this. The cute Charmander is decent, but the rest feel like cosplay to me.

Jirachi - looks how I expected it to.

Lucario line - Lucario is fearsome and I like that.

Toxicroak line - They both look mischevious. Cool, but Lucario's better.

Carnivine - surprisingly decent

Abomasnow line - kinda half-expected them to look like they do.

Conkeldurr line - I'm not really impressed. These are very close to the actual Pokemon.

Throh and Sawk - karate and judo boys. Throh actually looks like a guy from River City Ransom.

Archeops line - these are alright

Vanilluxe line - Vanilluxe itself is top tier and they got two girls to do it.

Druddigon - love it, top-tier

Braviary line - not bad for tribal Indian references. Though oddly I can only get the Paradox form via event, the normal Rufflet and Braviary were unobtainable.

Heatmor - she got a good flamethrower

Durant - too big

Mandibuzz line - Mandibuzz is good, Vullaby not so much.

Tyrantrum line - Tyrantrum has a huge sword, why?

Aurorus line - the faces being white is nice, but the design could be better.

Noivern line - probably the best-designed bats.

Fearow line - look like Roaring twenties girls.

Sandslash line - boring. Which makes sense considering how bored Sandslash looks.

Rhyperior line - in hindsight, I thought they were good but they're really not

Magnezone line - the Usagi Tsukino hair on Magneton is the best design. Some of it is retained in Magenzone too, but I don't like what she sits on. Magnemite is okay.

Houndoom line - they went for sexy on Houndoom, wow.

Donphan line - they went overboard on the cup size on Donphan here.

Cacturne line - well, this could be nice, but I know a better cactus mon.

Flygon line - Trapinch is creepy cute. The others do improve a bit.

Skarmory - top-tier design here.

Claydol line - Baltoy is funny cute. Claydol looks too much like a Touhou.

Salamence line - don't like it. At all. Especially Bagon's mouth.

Metagross line - interesting how they all have big freakin' hammers. It works out.

Hippowdon line - goggles are a very nice touch.

Drapion line - both feel like cosplays but Skorupi and the skirt are better.

Krookodile line - Krokorok has the best design here and feels the most Indiana Jones-like.

Maractus - This is the better cactus Moemon. Prove me wrong.

Darmanitan line - Both look like funny fiery chicks

Scrafty line - Scrafty is a huge improvement over the ugly Scraggy here. Actually looks like an evil hoodrat.

Sigilyph - kind of a cosplay here.

Cofagrigus line - Cofagrigus is the better one, and I love how she actually resembles a pharaoh.

Golurk line - these are cosplays

Bisharp line - these are dead center average

Persian line - Meowth looks like a cute schoolgirl while Persian is a seductress.

Granbull line - these two are basically the opposites of above

Muk line - I have to wonder, is their hair the sludge? Not too much a fan.

Weezing line - Now I still love the pirate inspirations, and these work out very well. Top-tier designs.

Banette line - Banette has a creepy cute stare.

Alakazam line - I think Alakazam is too brown. Kadabra has the best design.

Gardevoir and Gallade - Kirlia has the perfect ballet design here. Gardevoir is too much of a cosplay while Gallade and the swords work out.

Jynx line - Smoochum is a cute little princess while Jynx is a socialite girl. Very appropriate.

Mr. Mime line - just some jesters, nothing else.

Smeargle - a nerdy artist? Okay then...

Hitmons - all are physical men and actually hot.

Blissey line - The egg for the pre-evolutions check out well. The stethoscope on Blissey is a nice touch to the nursing role but the hair is Chibi-Usa Tsukino's in full view.

Electrode line - It looks like Electrode is pregnant here. Very weird vibes, especially since you guys give it dynamite. Oddly I don't know if this Moemon design could be better in any way.

Porygon-Z line - Porygon2 wins in design, Porygon's blocky design is also good. Porygon-Z looks like it's hypnotized.

Ditto - OH NO

Eeveelutions - all except Jolteon I like.

Rotom - There's only one form and it LOOKS like the Ice form but it's not. For that, this design is bad.

Emboar line - Loving the big cup size on Emboar, and the morning stars make them cooler.

Musharna line - Musharna's top tier. That's all I got.

Audino - half cosplay half weird

Unfezant line - the thing that bothers me the most is that Pidove, the base form usually with the childish-looking girls, looks the most like a granny. Unfezant by the way has a mask, kind of like the male form somewhat.

Garbodor line - it's actually amazing that Garbodor looks like a loving-and-caring mother with voluminous green hair and looks very, very pretty. Top-tier.

Gothitelle line - Kind of looks like what I might expect out of this.

Reuniclus line - They're all quite cute. Except Reuniclus, oddly.

Beheeyem line - Beheeyem looks like a cool code breaker.

Chandelure line - maybe I'm just tired, but I don't see how the Chandelure face on her dress is any good.

Klefki - someone ought to make this sprite better

Unown - they're all very creepy with white faces and I guess they really did do all the symbols

Legendary birds - I guess they did decently enough with these five

Deoxys - since this is based on Fire Red we only got the attack form and I actually don't like it that much.

Mewtwo - she looks like a sexy overlord

Mew - and she's got the bubblegum pop look

Spiritomb - this one is WILD

Victini - I guess it's fine but it's got a weird face and the wings don't make sense.

Chatot - Just painfully average

Lilligant line - this needs to be way more extravagant.

Chesnaught line - quite average, guess it's because it becomes a rough Fighting type soon enough.

Alolan Ninetales - last one, kinda princess-y which is nice.

Whew! Anyways if you want to anime your Pokemon experience this is a fun game to try out.

A look back at: Pokemon Polka Aqua 2

Two years ago I reviewed Polka Aqua 1, and now, it's sequel. More sitcom/movie characters, same setting, but different ways of making it through. Tons of modifications to existing Pokemon, many new moves, changes to stats, possibly some changes to types, and Pokemon up to Gen-8. The author even had the gall to include every single legendary up to this point, including the Isle of Armor ones. And of course, lots of Lv100 full team competitive trainers, which is the difficult part, while the gameplay makes itself SEEM easy because you can easily get many decent items in PokeMarts at relatively cheap prices at every PokeMart. Base stat totals are all over the place, making Pokemon like Altaria, Azumarill, and Blissey more viable than some legendaries (it's so unorthodox for BSTs that Salamence for example is basically a joke now). Surely enough, I like having this much to do.

Back in Polka Aqua, my team had five Pokemon in it that I actually decided to also have for this rom hack, just because I liked using them then. Those were Empoleon, Delphox, Swampert, Altaria, and Chesnaught. I also had spiky-eared Pichu in the first Polka Aqua, however for this game, I decided my Electric type was gonna be Luxray, which, oddly enough, was my starter for this game (you can choose between Shinx, Sandshrew, and Spheal here). So other than that change, and the fact that my Altaria this time was shiny (it was a fixed-encounter Swablu in Portland, and I think fixed encounters have better shiny odds), my team was the same.

You know what, speaking of shinies, I'm actually gonna criticize this bit, because some shiny colorations, I'm personally not the biggest fan of. I liked green Beartic to be frank, so why the change to it? And navy blue Blissey is super weird. A lot of blue shinies that are really weird, Raikou and Entei, and even Groudon and Gallade are kinda awkward to see. Also having to keep the Pokemon at the number 386 was a harsh decision when subtracting Pokemon overall, that and the methods to getting Volcanion and Meloetta (which would take the most work overall) were still around. Oh, and I wasn't able to fill the Pokedex here cause I for some reason could not find Carbink. So this is still in to do overall.

I've finished a full walkthrough of this and will put it up eventually on this post. With that said I will announce that I will not be working on any future walkthroughs for Pokemon ROM hacks. The reason being is that I will actually get to modifying my other Pokemon ROM hacks, starting with my Victory Fire walkthrough. That was the first one I ever did, and all things considered, since the author of that hack has updated things extensively, I figured I'm going to redo my Victory Fire walkthrough. Following that, I will help out Allen Ceedos with changes to Pokemon Resolute (if they show up) and perhaps even go back to my Snakewood walkthrough considering a (unofficial) new release was on PokeCommunity. So that's what's going on with ROM hacks right now.

A look back at: Pokemon Azure Horizons

Team: Quagsire, Aggron, Clefable, Crobat, Ampharos, and Infernape (starter). These being Pokemon I have used a number of times (or just twice in Clefable's case), so these end up being the ones I tend to gravitate to in terms of what we have.

Well, Azure Horizons is alright to me. I would say it's a hack in a similar form to (Blazed) Glazed or Dark Cry, it uses new mons (up to Gen-4 in this case though), new character sprites, new story, new gym leaders, new evil team, and new region, and melds things properly. This is something I tend to think of when I think of decent ROM hacks due to it having these things. I am of course not insinuating that ROM hacks that keep the base region or story the same are bad though, it's just sometimes you want more than just going through the Kanto region again, and this delivers quite fine in that regard.

And luckily, I did use Allen's walkthrough to get through this one, but due to the fact that it was of an older version and that Hacksrepairman had a new patch and there was a new update and all that, many parts were modified. I took it upon myself to document any changes and Allen will probably get to them when he modifies the walkthrough he made, it must have been a coincidence he was getting to modifying his walkthrough around the time I played Azure Horizons. And well, it's worth noting that this is the second ROM hack I played that actually had Gen-9 mons in them (Nameless was the first, the author added Farigiraf, Archaludon, and Koraidon in the complete release). And while the old walkthrough states that stuff involving Team Tundra and Leon were left unfinished, the new update does in fact finish them, giving a new leader (Frost, doubling as champion of the region), making Leon a secret Elite Four member, making Wallace more important, and even offering a post-game battle facility (just a house). Plus new legendaries.

My gripes come from not being able to get certain mons due to bugs or things like that. Shedinja somehow didn't come to me after I used the method when evolving Nincada. Croagunk, for some inexplicable reason, evolved into Bulbasaur. And I tried breeding Manaphy to get Phione and got another Manaphy. These are small hiccups though. It can be argued that Team Tundra kinda sucks since they just want Suicune to help...only Ice type Pokemon? Sure, but for one Suicune is already the mascot of Crystal so has already seen canon prominence and two I can actually argue that there should really just be more Ice types available. Tundra grunts aren't bad though, and have surprisingly varied teams. Overall though I liked Azure Horizons for what it has.

A look back at: Pokemon Kanlara Ultimate

Yep, it seems that nowadays I finish both an RPG review and a ROM hack around the same time. And what a disappointing summer before I head back to the workplace all things considered, I didn't get nearly as much done as I was vouching to do. But I am proud to say that Kanlara Ultimate wasn't a bad hack at all. New region, new storyline, plenty of Pokemon options, good sidequests, it was overall all very enjoyable. My team included Swampert, Blaziken, Gardevoir, Aegislash (in shield form, this line has the Tyrogue evolution mechanic), and Magnezone. The last member basically was different the whole way through, with Cradily for the midgame, then Armaldo before the league, then Demon Tyranitar for the league itself, then Lucario for the postgame.

The Demon forms were interesting but I didn't really use them much. Liked the concept of elite trainers using them at least, so that's that. Yes, amplified stats, nastier moves, and all. I ended up using Demon Tyranitar and researching about the remaining demon forms, even the ones that weren't in the library. But there is a bit of misinformation, Demon type doesn't resist the other types at all. In other words, a Demon/Water Demon Gyarados is still weak to Electric and Grass. Demon itself doesn't resist anything and is weak to itself, while as an attacking type it is resisted by both Fairy and Steel and neutral to everything else. At least the type and the forms are limited to specific Gen-2 mons, so they didn't go too overboard with things.

And I guess I'll appreciate the plot of yet again Team Rocket doing bad stuff, going as far as to conquer the Pokemon League and to use mind control. And heck, that postgame creepy village stuff made for cool sidequests, I don't know if it is all finished, cause you can still build reputation with the Forsaken by buying more goodies. As far as Pokemon go, the only ones in the dex I could not get are: Unown (the only one I couldn't see), and the other two Kanto starters (for example, you pick Charmander and you can never get Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or their evolved forms). All other mons are available in some form or another.

I will go ahead and link the walkthrough I used to go through Kanlara Ultimate. It's Allen's walkthrough, not mine this time, and it is fairly good, though there are some things that are missing which I'll outline:

1. I fought Brock instead of Misty in that special Battle Boat in Sunside City. I'm guessing this is based on gender.

2. May's teams. These correspond to the Kanto starter you pick near the beginning. Allen must've picked Squirtle which explains why May would have Wailord, Camerupt, and Sceptile by the end. But I picked Charmander and found Camerupt, Breloom, and Swampert at that point.

3. Raikou. This is just in the Power Plant after beating the League and was hinted at previously. It's in the NE room.

4. Deathweed and Tomb Ashe in the Cursed Isle sidequests, when you harvest them you actually have a bit of RNG here, getting from 1-3 of whichever you find. So you can savestate abuse to always get 3 if you need.

5. There's a third quest from the bazaar guy in Cursed Isle after delivering him Tomb Ashe. He gives you an Empty Vial if you don't have one, and you can bring it to the Lost Cemetary, go to the NW water area, fill it, battle a random ghost, and give it back to finish his experiment and gain a new item.

6. The Wilds. When you win TMs from the trainers there you actually get 10 of each.

7. Mimikyu. Had to look it up, was the last thing I got. Talk to a guy in the SW building in Kaji City who asks if it's daytime/nighttime, answer nighttime, then enter Haunted Mansion, go to NW room with TV, inspect TV, then talk to capped Pikachu which is the Mimikyu encounter.

8. Not nearly as important but there are other tombstones you can enter with the Cemetary Key aside from Sinner's Tomb, all are empty rooms and are marked as Underground Tomb. Data states that Unown can be found in these but using Sweet Scent/running around finds zero encounters.

A look back at: Touhoumon Cirno

And here's something that isn't involving Pokemon but has Touhou characters as the Pokemon, with a handful as the trainers. Really interesting. Of course, this little version here actually doesn't change the base game of Pokemon Ruby apart from those things. My final team was LFlandre (Fire/Dark), LSuwako (Water/Ground), EHatate (Psychic/Flying), LYuyuko (Ghost), LSakuya (Ice/Steel), and EShou (Electric/Rock). Some may recognize the names but why do they have L and E in front of them? You'll see. And by the way, have an EXTENSIVE GUIDE, one with the Touhoumons listed, new moves, abilities, a brief walkthrough, and trainer info all in one.

So the Touhoumon are interesting, and I'm glad they retain their overall name and status as specific Touhou characters as they evolve so to speak. I guess C is for Chibi, then you have the normal, non-prefix character, then E (dunno what this means) as the more advanced form. Some alternate forms exist, some characters have L when they level to Lv75, I assume it stands for legendary? Some have F, or EA, or SS (I assume this is swimsuit cause they all look like they wear swimsuits), A (angel), DE (demon), you get the idea. Some of the alternate forms do require stones to evolve.

Well really the Touhoumon are all I can really discuss for this hack as the base game and the plot remains totally the same. There's a few design differences in some cases, like Route 2 (Route 102) looking entirely different, and the Trick House now requiring Waterfall to access and seeming largely post-game as the trainers there all are unique. But as usual, there are still flaws with the game and I'll list them below. Unordered this time.

- There are still mentions of Pokemon in the game despite the Touhoumon replacing them.

- The rival character in dialogue still mentions Brendan/May instead of becoming Renko/Merry.

- Cut is, sadly, a necessary HM. This is mitigated however by the fact that it now is a 100% accurate Steel type move. And you know what? Some types got changes to their viability, like Ice resisting Ground, Rock not being weak to Water or Ground, and Steel just being surprisingly good; sure it's not resistant to Grass or Psychic but it gained a lot of good moves and is now super effective against Dark. This is handy for Ghost/Dark types who now have a weakness in Steel.

- The north side of Route 15 is off-limits completely. Why? No reason to have an invisible wall where I can surf.

- For that matter, you can't head to Route 26 via Route 24 and vice versa. To get to Route 26 you have to enter from Route 27, which I don't like.

- Several fixed encounter Pokemon, like the Wynaut egg, Castform, invisible Kecleons, and the legendaries will seem a bit awkward given the forms that they have when you encounter them. And a bit underwhelming when you find out that DERemilia is the Rayquaza encounter, especially if you ALREADY got a DERemilia!

- There are Z variants of Touhou, but for some weird reason they're all in the Transport Ship (Abandoned Ship) as fishing encounters. Trying to catch these glitches the game. Vocaloid characters are also present as fishing encounters in Lunar Falls' (Meteor Falls) first floor but they also are messed up. The whole thing seems awkward.

- At times, Slateport's PokeMart freezes the game. I did save and reload and can access the mart then but after a while it doesn't seem as usable.

- Yes, you can buy evolutionary stones at certain places, but my biggest issue of all is the Sun Stone. You can get it early at Petalburg, it costs a hefty P9000 at that point, but due to the way Petalburg's mart works, after some time (I assume after the fourth badge), one item is no longer sold, and that item ends up being the Sun Stone. After that, there's only one other Sun Stone in the game to get in Mossdeep City, and no you can't farm the Solrock replacement for Sun Stones cause it's not catchable in the wild here. And then yes, there are plenty of alternate forms that require the Sun Stone. Kind of bad when you want to try the A forms of Touhoumon and have to farm money early before the Sun Stone becomes permanently gone.

Even with these flaws though, I can easily appreciate this entire game for what it contains. No new plot, but it's not necessary. Touhoumon are interesting and also helping out are the increases in difficulty that don't go too far. Almost every one of them is accessible, but I did a lot of data mining to find out some things just aren't programmed to appear or will glitch the game.

A look back at: Pokemon Sky Twilight

Well, this one is an in-between in my eyes. My team consisted of Pokemon I have used multiple times in other hacks: Blaziken (was my mega), Quagsire, Claydol, Crobat, Florges, and Galvantula. I flipped mons a few times, notably having a Vaporeon instead of Quagsire for a good chunk but the HM usage was a thing to consider. My walkthrough is here too.

So this features mons, abilities, and moves up to Gen-7 and a slightly expanded dex, which is great. Most if not all evolution methods are changed, trade evolutions usually require a new stone or a certain level, and things generally work out. The difficulty in this one is probably the first I played to not be actually that difficult, there's no super trainers to battle postgame (actually there's no postgame), and the champion's highest level mon is Lv48. Granted, it's a new mega evolution, and yes there are new mega evolutions and all existing ones in this game. So you have all of this, and then you have a brand new region to comb through, a plot with a traditional evil team that wants a legendary (but the legendary is actually Noivern) and it is fairly easy due to big trainers having no more than three Pokemon and three moves each. Some criticize a decision like that, but I could use a difficulty break.

With all this said, it's no Dreams. There still lies a number of problems, and that usually has to do with progression. It's fairly open, although some routes your character just refuses to enter until you get the next badge or do the next event. One of my bigger gripes has to be that some places are not possible to fly out of, due to certain towns replacing Sevii island locations therefore you cannot fly back to other areas (and the map gets glitched too). The worst of this is Amaranth Village, because the day care is there, and you have to go all the way through Amaranth Path to the previous route to fly somewhere else. And it takes at least two Super Repels to even head on out of that cave. I used the day care for breeding, specifically for getting the base forms of pseudo legendaries, which while they are static encounters in secret caves, why in the world are they mid-stage starting out? I also was unable to resurrect the Old Amber fossil nor was I able to get an egg at Camellias Island.

But this all pales in comparison to the fact that some areas just weren't accessible, and that there were a number of other bugs not weeded out. The sign in Amaryllis Town softlocks the game, and sending a Drilbur out to battle for some reason also freezes it! That's a bit severe especially if you like Drilbur. Then there's Begonia Cavern, the later parts of it, where you can't cross one bridge and need the Walk Through Walls code to see what's on the other end. Of course, that area is optional, but Victory Canyon? The Victory Road of this game? You need to go through it, and can get as far as the second floor before the glitch tiles get in the way. And then there's the cave with the Deino and the exit cave, both of which have an invisible wall blocking. And then, every single Elite Four room has an issue with the door to the next room not being accessible. Why the invisible walls? I could have used AdvanceMap to modify the movement permissions for this too, but it's not something that a person just downloading the hack should have to deal with. And these things can certainly ruin a hack with a lot of great features.

A look back at: Pokemon Hyetology

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.