A look back at: Pokemon Ephemerald

Walkthrough

My final team: Glalie (Fire/Water), Raichu (Fire/Ground), Golduck (Bug/Dragon), Pidgeot (Grass/Electric), Kingdra (Psychic), Blastoise (Ice/Poison).

It's Emerald, but different, since every single Pokemon out of the 386 has had changes to design, typing, and moveset. And yes, there's grass just about everywhere, even on some water routes and in the towns. And while the storyline isn't all that different, who really cares right? There's new regional forms and such and yes you can complete the whole Pokedex in one sitting! So for this hack, I did a ton, and I mean a ton, of research before even starting the whole thing, crafting my own spreadsheet in order to analyze the best possible Pokemon to use before I even played. I paid special attention to typings, abilities, and movesets in particular, and that culminated in what I had as my team above, plus a few other ones like Houndoom which were also useful.

It was also very nice to know how every trainer had differing teams (well, almost, the S.S. Tidal trainers were not changed), and the difficulty curve was honestly perfect, nothing too much in overleveling aside from Magikarps that some trainers have. Heck, on that topic, Magikarp is actually more annoying due to being a Poison Point Pokemon. There's a few other ones where the ability can totally mess you up. Mankey and Primeape are Ice type, yet they have Flash Fire. Tentacruel's typing should make it weak to Water but it has Water Absorb. Quite a few Pokemon have Fire or Ice weaknesses in typing, but also Thick Fat. Then there were Pokemon I just thought weren't all that great in the long run. The Hoenn starters were all mono-typed, and most Fighting types weren't as good as I expected. Some move changes at least made some moves more interesting, like Water Pulse being 90 base power and Rock Smash being 50 base power. There's a lot to take in and I looked back at my own spreadsheet constantly as I went along.

Furthermore, even though there's no Fairy type, I do like the workaround of making Poison strong against Dragon. It gives the normally not-so-good typing a better crutch with an extra type it's good against aside from Grass. Ice also got crutches with being resistant to Ground and Water, while Steel isn't resistant to Ghost and Dark (as it should be) and also Psychic as well. Anyways, the game sort of has some linearity to it, due to ledges being in place in certain areas preventing backtracking at times, but it's not so bad. Victory Road was a surprise with every gym leader and frontier brain battling you again. Emerald but with a twist. I dig it, especially since I haven't played a Hoenn-native game in a while.

A look back at: Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

It's going to be a Might and Magic marathon for me when it comes to some RPG reviews for a while, since I'll be exploring the remainder of the mainline games and the Heroes of Might and Magic semi-spinoff series. I say semi because this game sort of intertwines in the timeline of that series for some reason. Yeah, I'm probably going to miss some plot parts as I work my way through this.

With regards to the sixth game, I do miss the grid-based movement and the party size of six. That's quite the negatives there. But the positives are a bit better here. The sixth Might and Magic has already got full 360 degree movement going for it and even has not only real-time combat, but the option to turn it on or off. Wizardry 8 had at least one of these things, but the fact that this game came out before that already proves this series is already on a roll before that one. Real-time combat is a lot more engaging overall, as you're limited heavily in the traditional turn-based combat and many players of old probably got tired of that style, so having this come out at the turn of the century of RPG combat was nice. I enjoyed what I did overall using the real-time combat; combining this with the full movement range was icing on the cake.

And I do enjoy the immersiveness of the game overall. Seeing NPCs walking around casually makes the series seem like it's going to be more lively in the future, and that's even seeing them walk around while I battled enemies. The sidequests are nice too, most are for further promoting your characters up in their classes. As I got more used to the combat, I will say that it's not as hard as it seems, but it still can be nasty. I mean, it's Might and Magic, it's going to be nasty. With real-time combat, there's a very good chance that swarms of enemies can easily overwhelm parties while you're trying desperately to input all sorts of commands. And I'll see more of this in the immediate next installment soon enough!

Blog Timeline 2022

I hated 2022. Yes, I realize I hated 2021 the last time I made a post like this but when you have all these world events enveloping your very surroundings the way they are, and the recourse of the many jobs I had over this one year, this year was substantially worse, and you know what? I feel an "I hate 2023" already brewing 365 days from now. Had lost a full-time teaching position which surprisingly paid LESS than the next position I had, which felt a bit insulting when you consider the rates some teachers get paid, now I'm sort of back where I began in my favored school system with a job board-style layout for the latest one. Hey, it's better than nothing, and I still nightly tutor students elsewhere, so at least my income is somewhat stable. But it's like everything is encroaching and it feels like an inevitability with everyone out to get you while lying directly to your face about it.

Blog: If you can't tell, I rarely update this blog unless I'm actually finished with a game. I just don't have much time with the blog in general when I have friends to contact, work to worry about, games to play, etc. But hey, at least I don't neglect it, so that's something!

Doomwiki: Secret-hunting is still my forte over there and frankly I'm still doing it each time a new mod has pages for their levels. I basically go until there's nothing left, because filling in the space is perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. Didn't expect to have over 10,000 edits, I had realized I was hitting that mark at some point, but of course December 10th when the Cacowards get released meant more new articles and pages created, so more hunting is fine! I'll do it whenever possible.

Real-life: I kinda talked about this already. To be honest, the only advice I can actually say is look out if some place wants to hire you almost immediately. Because they're probably lying to your face about it. Either they'll hire you and you'll realize they are a terrible company to work with (or the environment flat out sucks) or they just duped you into trying to get in. With my preferred school system at the moment I'm doing some phone calls to ensure a proper environment and such, and that's my current goal.

Music: The tail end of the year was an interesting one for me because I finally put in several albums into my playlist that for some reason I haven't done yet. In other words, albums I have listened their entirety of on Youtube, like Ultraspank's Progress, but never bothered to have them in my official libraries. Helping matters was getting a brand new computer for the idea. And I was doing this because I actually ran out of all the other stuff to do. For the new stuff this year, the only ones I can even remember listening to this year that I liked were Alter Bridge's Pawns & Kings, Novelists' Deja vu, Monuments' In Stasis, and Dance Gavin Dance's Jackpot Juicer. Maybe I'll update this with stuff I remember later on?

What I've been watching: So I finished watching the Pretty Cure seasons up to Tropical Rouge, which I finished some time in...October I presume. Right now I'm probably going to binge watch Delicious Party, it's ending some time next year and they will have a new season out for it soon. Maybe some day I'll offer a ranking post on this blog of some kind. But I really do enjoy these seasons and their action and fun.

ROM Hacks: I stated that Pokemon Polka Aqua was under my belt last year, and I did finish it this year. Aside from that this was a year of me finishing quite a lot of ROM hacks for Pokemon, 13 more besides Polka Aqua to be honest. I did several betas, including Adventure Blue Chapter, Adventure Gold Chapter, Dark Crystal, and Luria. Gold Unova was the first Gen-2 hack I did since Prism. Metal Red was a jumbled mess. Dark Cry: Legend of Giratina was somewhat interesting. Dark Violet was an interesting revamp of Kanto games while Blazed Glazed was a surprisingly inferior version of Glazed. Stigma was an attempt to put strange lore in a game format, while Red Fire was intended for Nuzlockes and is actually not hard if you're not doing that gameplay style. But Pokemon Dreams? That stole the show and is my new favorite, having nearly everything including the kitchen sink. I really do recommend playing some of the ROM hacks that have the CFRU if anything cause they are a lot of fun.

RPGs: Might and Magic III was something I had been doing, but I put it aside for a while for some reason because of the platformer reviews. However, past completing that, this was my least active year yet for RPG playing due to only completing a whopping nine. Two more M&M games were finished, I finally reviewed Vandal Hearts, and even got to its interesting sequel. I also checked out the predecessor to Shadow Hearts, Koudelka, as well as two games from Realms of Arkania. Plus Chocobo's Dungeon 2 which was a load of fun. But that was it. Damn jobs, having to ruin my schedule a lot.

Platformers: Okay this is surprising. While I ended up doing a ton of platformers in the previous year, my intention this year was to not do nearly as much this year, and in the end, I finished...nine.

Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion

Alex Kidd: High-Tech World

Looney Tunes

Xargon

Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap

Kabuki: Quantum Fighter

Solomon's Key

Moai-kun

Aside from maybe three of these, I didn't feel as much excitement with them and frankly I only played them because I felt like playing them. The latter two were part of a 750-in-1 NES bootleg set and I wanted to try that out, and well maybe I'll get back to that if I'm extremely bored.

So yeah, what a year. Did terribly with RPGs and platformers, while ROM hacks are starting to be my forte for a while. Plus all the Pretty Cure stuff I've been accumulating, and the fact that real life is taking more out of me than usual. I want to survive 2023. I want to. I believe that I won't be doing much in 2023 with regards to platformers unless I really don't want to do anything else. ROM hacks will happen, and the occasional RPG will show up too. Maybe these both will show up more often due to not having as much on Doomwiki to do left.

A look back at: Pokemon Red Fire

The name is dumb, but the premise is that this is just Fire Red but as a Kaizo hack. Though to be honest, Kaizo doesn't mix all that well with Pokemon in general, due to the fact you can just overlevel before any fight. Playing this casually, it wasn't honestly that difficult overall, and it seems to be made for the ones who use Nuzlocke challenges or otherwise. There's no walkthrough from me, due to several documents that help already been released. My team for the end was Medicham, Crobat, Marowak, Raichu, Ludicolo, and Charizard (my starter).

Red Fire has no new story. It's the same Fire Red, but made to be much more linear and much more tough, but to appease Nuzlockers, more Pokemon are available, even in cities to help out. The difficulty will scale up quite considerably in many places, after you beat a gym leader do expect trainers later on to have Pokemon of their levels or higher. And expect teams to not only expand to many members, but be very type diverse. By Celadon City, where you challenge Erika's gym, the opponents will NOT be using purely Grass type Pokemon there. And the Rocket Hideout, which you have to do AFTER the gym, the Rocket Grunts have teams of five. From then on, expect trainers to have teams of five to six, and ESPECIALLY six by the time of the seventh gym. The biggest level spike is after the last gym and before Victory Road, as the trainers there push up to the late 90s from just 70 or so. And the Elite Four and Champion all have Lv100 full teams.

Be glad there's some other things aside from using up to Gen-3 Pokemon in Kanto here. The PP of most moves is maxed out (there's actually no vitamins in this game either) and many moves' accuracies have been thrown up to 100%, which makes for more move usage. Marowak's signature moves became good as a result, and Hi Jump Kick is really useful against those weak to Fighting now. The same with Rock Slide and other such moves. There's now a Move Reminder in Celadon, which requires Big Mushrooms but those are hidden around. It's certainly a lot to take in but for very good reason. Every team's movesets have coverage of some kind, and apart from the TMs you need it just as much as well. I hate that we still need HMs to get around, like ONE instance of having to use Rock Smash to get anywhere south of Fuchsia.

Certain Pokemon in this game definitely deserve mention due to how powerful they can be. I had a Medicham on my team, and although I had to teach it Psychic it worked well using Hi Jump Kick and Rock Slide, plus having Pure Power is very important. Ludicolo is another useful Pokemon, gotten really early and has excellent typing. Most every Pokemon with arms can learn the elemental punches, the water types primarily getting Ice Punch. Opponents will have the coverage moves and other strategies like full Dragon Dance teams or Toxic/Protect to use. Some will have certain annoying Pokemon like Wobbuffet. Speaking of which, um, you can only get 300 Pokemon maximum, there's no breeding in this game, no Ditto, and although you can get a few evolved Pokemon like Tentacruel, you can never get their base forms. So clearly this was not meant for Pokedex completionists, but for those who really like battle challenges.

A look back at: Chocobo's Dungeon 2

While I didn't really pay as much attention to the first Chocobo's dungeon, that is in part due to not being translated as well as this one. Here it's more of the same thing for those who are already familiar with the Mystery Dungeon games. And well, this and its predecessor incorporate Final Fantasy elements of course, all the creatures you know and love and the items too. I'd argue it's one of the cutest looking games ever, especially in its FMV sequences which are wonderful.

So again, randomized dungeons, wandering enemies, random traps and chests, losing all equipment if you die in a dungeon, and a partner that is used to help out whenever necessary. And of course the village is the hub, where you can do things on the side as needed. Music is very nice throughout, enemy ranks can get tough, but the items I think are the showstealers of this game. Refilling bottles in springs, finding out what they do upon consumption or kicking them. The same with cards and tags, all have varying effects. Spellbooks being the ONLY source of magic leads to a little bit of grinding in and around times, but these are easy to come by with bookshelves. Recycle boxes change items around for the price of two, stoves are great for refurbishing existing equipment, and it is quite annoying to have to lose your equipment in the middle of the game or if it breaks somehow. So the fun value is a total rollercoaster and that's all I can say about that. One minute you'd cruise through after doing some grinding of your own and the next the enemies show up to surround you with all sorts of problems. Oh, and there's technically a time limit, as Doom the reaper will come in to destroy if you take too long or if you're unlucky with chests or cards.

As cute as it is, plot-wise it can get sad since it revolves around Shiroma the white mage and her mysterious time-traveling or what not. It's quite interesting how a lowly enemy very early in the game ends up being a final boss since Mog the Moogle shoved him out of the way in the beginning, and having the dungeon being sentient is both dangerous and hilarious somehow. The FMVs are the real storytelling and I liked them even without the words (sorry Bahamut, I was bored with your speeches). Isn't it strange that a sequel game got a better translation? They could have renamed this one so that people don't get curious as to why the first one wasn't as well-translated.

A look back at: Pokemon Luria

Walkthrough here.

Betas really don't manage to get finished all the way, do they? There's definitely room for improvement in all of them, but at least from what players can experience, there's definitely glimmers of hope for some fun storytelling and/or gameplay. Pokemon Luria certainly has the hallmarks of this, it's got a new region, new characters, new storyline. The overall plot is still "get starter, battle gym leaders, battle enemy team on occasion", and that's more or less fine and dandy. There were some decent ideas here, the B/W repel system is here, the Pokemon Centers and Marts are merged, and the hidden grottos offer neat exploration. Plus there's 1% encounters in the caves, and one of them was a Bulbasaur too. By the way, you do get the Hoenn starters as your pick.

It would have been nice if we got to see what development the main characters have. We know Prof. Gillian travels, Tutai is your childhood friend and rival, Simon is some guy chasing Team 1.5.1., and the leader of said team is named Butler. But that's about it. If this beta were to be finished, we might have found out more of course, but we got what we got. I usually try not to play unfinished betas as much, but at least this one made you get to at least two gyms, so that's pretty fair. And yes, I'm still making these walkthroughs, just for informational purposes.

A look back at: Realms of Arkania: Star Trail

CRPGs are such silly games, aren't they? Tons of customization options for player characters, incredulously difficult gameplay with tons of micromanaging, this kind of stuff won't ever appeal to casual gamers. Which is why I find it so darn fun, honestly. Realms of Arkania has insofar been a rad series with the tactical combat, which I find more fun than the usual turn-based stuff that Might & Magic and Wizardry have been pulling me with. Battles will of course take a while, or not, depending on how strong you are and how chicken the enemies can be. The many niches of combat end up with quite a lot of RNG. The spell failed! The attack failed! Bear in mind I finished a Pokemon ROM hack recently and those games are of course rife with attacks and moves that fail, kinda like these ones. But as you might think, it's honestly all in good fun regardless and I still enjoy this stuff.

Though, frankly, there's really not a whole lot to talk about with regards to Star Trail. The changes are minor but are clearly better, so one who plays this first and goes back to Blade of Destiny will find the latter to be less than stellar (hah, a star pun). Personally though, I always play from the roots up. It's real nice that you can aim on a diagonal now. The music is really good. The dialogue in the game is quite interestingly voiced. The computer combat has nice imagery but is an incredibly risky way to skip some battles. And the overall plot does try to steer away from general cliches, but still has a few, like the shady briber who ends up being the evil sorceror summoning a dragon for the final boss. And well, you don't actually defeat that boss, you just have to survive. The alliance of races to stand up to another race was a nice main quest, but it was the main one and there was very few side stuff compared to the previous game. It all sets up for Shadows over Riva, whenever I get to playing that.