A look back at: Might and Magic IX: The Writ of Fate

Too much Might and Magic for me right now, I think I put so much focus over it during the extent of my working hours and it's obviously time for a break from this franchise. Well, Heroes of Might and Magic will have to wait quite a while. During the summer, I got quite a few franchises that I want to explore soon enough.

So Might and Magic IX puts a new paintbrush on the previous games in the series and makes it look snazzier, but doesn't really change the core gameplay. It's somewhat appreciative, just putting on the new graphics may be all that's needed. I played through the series in such an order that rivals that of the Wizardry series and watched it evolve into what it is at the moment, active-time, freeform navigation, plenty of sidequests and interesting story areas, and all that. Each game I felt like doing something different each time but even then it all feels the same. And overall, Might and Magic's later games do get easier, which is something I don't have a problem with.

So since gameplay is the same and character customization is as always a high point for the series, especially with all the class changes possible, it really boils down to how this game's plot goes. Imagine if you will, a plotline that goes off the rails because some random guy was basically deciding not just your destiny, but the destiny of your supposed opponent. Because that's exactly what happens in this game. Axeoth, the region of the game, is brand new, there's barely any mention of this place at all in previous games (apparently this takes place after Heroes of Might and Magic IV, which I will of course have to play in the long run). Then you have warring clans that you want to unite against foreign invaders and some crazed barbarian of sorts. You also have this Writ of Fate stating "you must defeat this guy". Except the guy also has a Writ of Fate stating "you must defeat the player character's party". So with all the intrigue and subterfuge going on, we do some Norse mythology stuff, or at least a knock-off of it in name (but I'm sure we can agree that Hallenhalt is Valhalla, Krohn is Odin, Njam is Loki, Fre is Freya, Hanndl is Heimdall, etc. No Thor if you ever wanted him though). So yeah, Krohn is the benevolent king of the gods, and realizes that yes, you and your supposed enemy are being trolled by the mischief god Njam the whole time. Well, so much for this whole war. All because one guy just wants things to himself (this includes Krohn's wife Fre, yeah, he wants to go there). And Krohn's his main obstacle, so he'll allow both sides of the conflict to work together to defeat Njam for the end. And that's essentially what happens and in all honesty, I'm not amused by this. Maybe cause I figured out that if we have anyone based on Loki as a main villain, it's going to be one of THOSE plotlines and needs to be done amazingly right, which this one doesn't really hit the stride as much as hoped.

Oh well, at least I can take a break from this tiring franchise for a while.

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.

A look back at: Pokemon Adventure Green Chapter

Here be a walkthrough. Or at least a consolidated one with the Yellow, Blue, and Gold ones. I've finally finished with all the non-Red chapters, and I ended on the best note with Green's chapter. Well, it's not a complete game, but it felt like a halfway done one. Green's chapter proved to be quite ambitious, and while I did play along with reading possible source material, there wasn't nearly as much with Green's overall chapter that I can go off of, which meant there were some liberties with the game itself.

If I were to rank all the non-Red chapters, Blue and Gold are at the bottom due to them not allowing you to catch Pokemon at all in them, which is due to the betas being rather small. Yellow is next, going as far as the end of Viridian Forest. But Green's chapter stands out at top due to starting in Kanto, going to BOTH Johto and Hoenn under some faction, and then returning to Kanto and going as far as Lavender Town. Plus like Yellow, it's possible to catch mons and do regular Pokemon stuff on the whole, well, not collect badges, but the rest remains. And yes, this includes the event Pokemon that Green would canonically get. I also enjoy how this is the black dress Green and not the FR/LG incarnation.

I certainly wasn't expecting her to be a part of some cult movement in the beginning, of course she was kidnapped as a child so it's justified. But it's interesting to see that Silver, Will, and Karen were also taken in as children. Like other manga characters, things are different depending on who's who, and Silver will be a good guy like Green is, wanting to escape with her and to find his own place in life, while Will and Karen, much like the Kanto Elite Four, are fine with the villain path. Trouble in Johto is started by this group, led by some "masked man" who's obviously after legendaries, and for some reason they even have a base in the Hoenn region. And for both Johto and Hoenn, all the native Pokemon in certain areas are found there! I also enjoy that once Green and Silver reach Johto, that's where they part ways, since Silver would have to find his own journey and Green should head back home.

Green's a charming yet cunning character, being quite a thief, but still a better thief compared to the likes of Team Rocket. The events in Kanto are quite enjoyable. The tournament with Brock was interesting, as this is where I realize a number of battles in the game are supposed to be lost. Though in these cases, it seems to be lost in cutscene, as the battles you fight (specifically Red and Blue) can be won if you leveled enough. Commerce City was an interesting subplot, and Gringey City is also mentioned (this ended up also being an anime location). The beta ends at Lavender Town, during one final Team Rocket event.

So apart from the odd battles that you are supposed to lose but totally can win, you can definitely deviate from the story by catching other mons. Also, it's possible to get both a Mudkip and a Growlithe for free from certain NPCs. Though since you only get a regular dex here, the former cannot evolve, not that I care since it's not canon how she gets this. Overall though, Adventure Green Chapter is a relatively-well-fledged beta. Sure it's not finished, but out of the four non-Red chapters it's the most finished, and even has several liberties to it I found cool.

A look back at: Pokemon Voda Red

Walkthrough here. And my team was: Mega Blaziken, Alolan Raichu, Ludicolo, Claydol, Aurorus, and my starter, Arbok. Plus a Noivern for Fly purposes and a Mega Garchomp which I used a few times. What's also interesting is that every single Pokemon on my main team had a Special Attack-increasing nature. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Pokemon Voda Red. It's honestly a mess. I really don't know what I should think regarding this crazy hack. It's clearly some sort of difficulty hack, but there are so many things that I guarantee will rub off the wrong way. So let's list format things for the sake of fun!

1. I don't have a freakin' clue what "Voda" is supposed to mean. Voda? Vodka? What? Confusing title and it doesn't even show up on the splash screen. So what is "Voda"? I'm never getting an answer to this, aren't I?

2. I could not find much backstory behind this hack. It mentions that the default names for the player character are Mahian and Sabrina. Mahian23 is the maker of this hack, so I guess the male one makes sense. But why Sabrina for the female? We actually have the gym leader Sabrina in this hack.

The next points all have to do with the type chart because GOD it is a mess.

3. So first up, the Bug type. It...has no weaknesses. There's not too much in the regards of good Bug type Pokemon here, but wow, no weaknesses is ridiculous for the usually underwhelming type. A secondary typing does mean that a Bug Pokemon could get weaknesses though. As for offensive capabilities, Bug is strong against...just one type. Dark. Not Grass. Not Psychic. Just Dark. Really kind of lame considering both Silver Wind and Signal Beam are quite well-used with many Pokemon in this hack. Oh by the way, a Dark/Psychic Pokemon like Grumpig or regular Mewtwo will have no weaknesses (apart from one type I'll talk about later on).

4. The Grass type I feel got nerfed, which is problematic due to Grass as a type in general already having tons of types resistant to it. Okay, it's not weak to Bug anymore, but it keeps the rest of its weaknesses, but the main nerfs are that it's resisted by Ghost and is also no longer super effective against Rock, adding on to troubles it already has.

5. Speaking of Rock, that's another type that got wrongly nerfed. Normally good offensively, while it's not weak to Grass anymore it's got the remaining weaknesses left and is now resisted by itself and Psychic. And is no longer super effective against Flying and Bug.

6. But you know what Rock is actually ineffective against now? Ghost. I guess that makes sense, throwing rocks at ghosts wouldn't normally do anything. But not only that, Ghost is also immune to Ground (which thankfully wasn't nerfed nearly as bad as Rock was). And with those in mind, Ghost has a whopping FOUR immunities, adding on Normal and Fighting. Cool, isn't it? Well, it's still not the best offensively since it's still only strong against other Ghosts and Psychic types, and is even resisted by Bug. I should mention though that a Fighting/Psychic's only weakness is Ghost.

7. Flying...is interesting. All of its moves are now 115 base accuracy, which is weird, but we'll get into that in a moment. Ice now resists it, which is cool, but guess what? Flying is only super effective against Grass. Yep. Bug and Fighting no longer are weak to Flying.

8. Speaking of Fighting, um, it's got a bit weird. No longer is it strong to Ice, which honestly doesn't make much sense to me. However, it's also only got Psychic as its weakness. Fighting's also not good against Water, while Electric and Ice are both resisted by Fighting. Now it seems like Ice and Fighting are the types that resist each other here.

9. Remember how overpowering Psychics were in Gen-1? Well, prepare yourselves, Psychic types are quite overpowering here, well as long as the Dark types are kept at bay. That said, Psychic wasn't great on the resistance side in the original game, but here, Ground, Rock, Bug, and Normal now are resisted by Psychic. Offensively it stays the same but to think that Psychics got more defensive is gonna make things harder.

10. There's no Fairy type, which would be a sin in itself, but then again, Dragon is ineffective against Dark as a repercussion for this hack. Okay I guess. Dark itself is ineffective against Fire. This probably makes a little more sense, but it definitely can lead to some annoying moments for me, which I'll describe later on in the Pokemon section of this writing.

11. Finally, the ??? type. Yeah, this mystery type that is only reserved for the move Curse now is used for special, unknown Pokemon and/or moves, usually the moves Selfdestruct, Explosion, Horn Drill, Egg Bomb, and Magical Leaf are the ones to look out for, but there's also an annoying signature move that the Mewtwos get for this type. As for the type itself, it's got SIX types its good against: Dragon, Psychic, Grass, Fire, Dark, and Ghost. As if some of these typings aren't nerfed enough. But you know what? That pales compared to what this type resists. Grass and Poison cannot affect it at all (Poison still sucks in this game too, still only good against Grass, but now Bug resists it and it's worse now), and it resists EVERY SINGLE OTHER TYPE IN THE GAME. Except for one. Electric. Why? How should I know? But it definitely is telling that me getting an Alolan Raichu ready for the endgame with dealing with the last few trainers is a major importance seeing as it has two typings that I practically need for my team.

The other typings do have issues too but not to the level of those ones up there. So now to the moves of the game, which I'll cover before the Pokemon. Again, this is a mess. My guide covers most of the major changes in the last section.

12. First of all, the status moves are a total mess. Most if not all of them have increases in priority, making it feel like every opponent with a status move has Prankster, and some moves even have priority of +5, higher than Protect and Detect. It can also lead to weird moments in the AI, where they try to use, say, Recover, but it happens before your attack move and they waste a turn. Still, there's a lot here that ends up being excruciating because of the weird increases in priority for status moves. You have to set up around moves like Seal! (the new Safeguard), Destiny Bond, and Endeavor (not so much a status move but it got priority still).

13. Many moves end up with extreme boosts in power that really didn't need them. Hyper Beam is a big one due to some elite trainers using Choice Band-Hyper Beam setups that you want to avoid (though a Ghost type is good for that if you wanna be sneaky).

14. Why does Wrap have to behave like Fury Cutter? That just seems weird to me. Extrasensory also does the same thing, as does Psycho Boost.

15. Horn Drill is no longer an OHKO move but it might as well be one. Same garbage accuracy, but if it hits, it's a 255 base power move of the ??? typing (remember what I said about that typing) and it hits multiple times. Wow.

16. Some attack moves actually go THROUGH Protect and Detect. Namely the Psychic type attack moves seem to do this.

17. Egg Bomb's priority, accuracy, and typing makes it an incredibly annoying move.

This is about as much as I can offer for the moves to be honest. Most of the move changes I'm okay with, or I think they're better. Heck, I didn't even include name changes like Safeguard becoming Seal! and Flamethrower becoming..."Dracarys". Again, my guide offers all the changes. Now to the Pokemon themselves and my problems with them.

18. First, some of the final evolutions for Pokemon are them in their mega forms right off the bat. To me, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Other hacks I've played had some method of mega evolution, but this one just skips the regular stage and goes for the throat. Though not all the time. The starters that can mega-evolve can do so, but certain other Pokemon like Gardevoir, Gallade, Medicham, and Manectric don't have this luxury.

19. The base stat totals of many Pokemon have been inflated. Actually, I think all of them have to some degree, but it does mean battles can be a lot tougher than before.

20. Actually on that topic, some of the stats for certain Pokemon cap out at FREAKIN' ZERO. My Arbok for example has zero Special Attack, so its Special Attack-boosting nature is useless unlike the rest of my team which was more balanced. The Mega Mewtwo variants are similar, the Y one has 0 Attack and the X has 0 Special Attack. Granted, these cases use exclusively Special Attack and Attack respectively, but gosh it makes zero sense for certain stats to be zero.

21. Evolution methods I'm mostly okay with, since trade evolutions are usually level evolutions now and so on. Eevee's two Johto evolutions require the Sun and Moon stones for example, while Feebas needs a Water Stone. Kirlia's evolution into either Gardevoir or Gallade isn't good though mostly because it's similar to Tyrogue's on balancing Attack and Defense. Clamperl is far worse as it relies on the "personality value" mechanic that Wurmple has, but at a higher level. I'm also okay in general with certain lines like Slugma or Koffing, which usually evolve late, to evolve at much earlier levels, but at the same time, other lines like Pidgey evolve much later. But the worst part HAS to be the new mega evolutions for Pokemon like Flygon, Tyrantrum, Starmie, and Lapras. You have to evolve these things at high levels, like Lv80 or Lv90. It's a lot of effort.

22. And that's also taking into account the fact that some lines are missing evolutions or pre-evolutions. Bisharp and Aegislash are examples in one way, you can never get their pre-evolutions. The Sinnoh starters also can be caught in the wild, usually as rare encounters but always in their final forms. Bellossom is another one, somewhat egregious considering it's the ONLY member of its evolutionary line left. Then you have mons like Wailmer and Tentacool, who's evolutions are taken up by other Pokemon therefore they CANNOT EVOLVE and are useless for anything aside from the dex.

23. Oh and speaking of Bisharp, it and a handful of mons are essentially shinies, but without the sparkles. So you WILL be seeing blue Bisharp no matter what, making it much less cooler. There are other mons like this, like the Voltorb line.

24. Shedinja's only got one weakness, and it's Dark. Makes dealing with the Wonder Guard somewhat annoying.

25. I don't understand why Squirtle's line is Water/Dark. Maybe I just don't see it being a Dark type at all. Sure, Squirtle itself has shades but it removes them upon evolving and the shades don't really make the mon.

26. Butterfree got a mega, a Bug/Psychic one which looks like what I would expect its Gigantamax form to look like but it also replaces Xatu making Natu useless.

27. Charizard once again got too much on its plate. Regular Charizard megas into its Y form at Lv70, but Mega Charizard X is now called...Xairus. What? Does that mean anything? Why can I find these in the wild and why does it not come from Charizard initially? And it can further mega-evolve into...Zardiax. I still don't understand, but hey it's Dark/Dragon now. Still, what?

28. Vulpix and Ninetales are in this hack, but so are their Alolan forms, which are named...Pixi and Verulia. They are Ice/Psychic, since Fairy is not in this game, but the names, I don't know what or where they came from.

29. Speaking of Alolan forms, sure, Raichu and Marowak have them, but their regular forms are nowhere to be found.

30. Vulpix and Ninetales itself can be problematic to defeat due to their Fire/Psychic typing. They're immune to Dark thanks to Fire, and Ground and Rock do normal damage thanks to Psychic. Water is the answer, but even this is nerfed due to them having the ability Drought.

31. Certain other abilities can make one have foolish mistakes every now and then. The Magnemite line has a chance to have Levitate, so I'd personally pack Fire and Fighting moves for them. Infernape has frickin' Water Absorb, so Water's off the table with that mon. Gastly's line is all Ghost/Dark (weak to only Bug in this game) but Shadow Tag is extremely annoying once you get to the Pokemon Tower.

32. Why are all the Johto starters part Normal when they start out? It's not that great to have them be like that, giving them an extra weakness (plus Ghost is actually not ineffective against Normal in this hack). Meganium got an advantage now being Grass/Electric, but so did Feraligatr now being Water/Dragon. Typhlosion just became pure Fire though.

33. Speaking of Water/Dragon, both Gyarados and Milotic got this treatment, and this even goes into Mega Gyarados. Milotic however seems like a better Pokemon due to now being a Drizzle setup.

34. What the heck are Izikiel and Seameore? These are two fakemons that ONE trainer has with her, and yet they don't appear anywhere else. Would have been amazing easter eggs if I could get them.

35. Pyroar doesn't have Litleo before it, but both male and female forms are rare encounters. Two problems. One, female Pyroar is useless due to it not evolving into Solgaleo at Lv80 (which I think is ridiculous too by the way) and two, their abilities are Plus and Minus making them very niche.

36. The Kalos starters are in their final forms only but making them all ??? types is incredibly odd. Plus they are super rare anyways.

37. Moltres and Deoxys both get Wonder Guard for their ability, but they deserve far better than that.

38. Cobalion and Virizion can apparently evolve into...each other via certain stones. It's strange and unnecessary. Tauros evolves into Terrakion with Moon Stone, which is somewhat cool though.

39. The gender ratios for the Pokemon are incredibly strange. My guide does dictate these at some point and they are probably not that important apart from breeding but it seems strange that every Gliscor you find is female, every Geodude and Makuhita you find are male, etc.

40. Aurorus cannot learn Rock Slide. I hate this so much.

41. Finally a big one: The legendaries that the elite trainers use, they cannot be used at all. Mega Lugia? Shadow Lugia? A gigantamax Charizard? An armored Mewtwo? A Grass/Ghost Arceus? Zamazenta and Zacian? Giratina and Palkia? Zekrom and a fused Kyurem? Badass! But you can't get them anywhere else, the same with the Izikiel and Seameore fakemons. Boo. Yet you can get other legendaries after eight badges or in eggs and even other lesser legendaries like Heatran and Zeraora in the wild. Please make it make sense.

And now, for the game problems in itself.

42. So the game offers some new characters but some grammar issues always arise. Don't need to go into further detail there.

43. And by characters, I mean new rivals that aren't just freakin' Blue. First is May. She's probably the one you'll be forced to run into most, she's traveling from Hoenn, and she gets involved in the main plot of the game a lot. And by that I mean she's just another character who is useless and doesn't offer much in plot device other than just being an additional battle you must get through to proceed.

44. Oh yeah, the plot. It's...actually the exact same as the original FR/LG. No actual changes besides these new characters.

45. So the other rivals basically resemble other playable characters. You have Donny, Jessica, and Riki, who resemble Red, Leaf, and Brendan respectively. Yet Riki's overworld sprite is the same as Red's, yet May's sprite is the FR/LG May. They could've at least tried to make the sprite like Brendan's. Oh, and Donny bails after Pewter City and you run into Isyindo, who has a Super Nerd battle sprite yet a Red overworld sprite. And for the record, these rivals are always going to be in the cities, sometimes usually optional. Isyindo talks about the so-called elite trainers after you beat him, and yet they are completely post-game and the lore doesn't really mean much since these trainers don't have any notable backstory as does this game.

46. And some of the gym leaders and Elite Four have changes too. Roxanne now replaces Brock. Why? I don't know. Flannery replaces Blaine. Janine replaces Koga. Clair replaces Lance, and Chuck replaces Bruno. I guess it's interesting but it is just kinda meh and doesn't offer much aside from this character visiting from another region.

47. Speaking of Roxanne, why is she in Pallet Town initially? And why can't we surf south to Route 21? I appreciated the nonlinearity of the original game with regards to this stuff but now it's gone! And they do it again between Routes 11 and 12, heck you couldn't even enter those areas without the Soul Badge. This also means the only way to Fuchsia City from the northern part of Kanto is via Cycling Road.

48. And there are...Team Rocket grunts in Oak's lab? What? They function like the aides for some reason, yet aides for the rest of the game actually look like aides. So what gives?

49. They clearly had a sprite for Roxanne in the game, yet in the gym battle her overworld sprite is a female Rocket grunt. Make it make sense.

50. When you get to Oak's lab, you see the Johto starters on the table. Upon inspecting, they are NOT the Johto starters, but they tried something interesting. You get Abra, Machop, and Ekans. Okay cool, non-typical starters. Pick one. Now your Blue-like rival is going to pick one, except he gets a base form PSEUDO LEGENDARY INSTEAD. Again, make it make sense. You pick Machop and you supposedly see him pick Abra, but he gets freakin' Dratini instead. So unfair that the rival gets Dratini, Larvitar, or Gible if it is supposed to be from the same table you chose from. Oh, and if you are choosing Ekans, the Gible is IMMEDIATELY holding a Salac Berry, which is a crazy instance of an immediate early battle where your opponent has a held item.

51. Speaking of held items, be prepared as every rival, boss, gym leader, and Elite Four member can and will use teams that have some competitive viability to them. So they'll have custom movesets and items. And I mean coverage moves, annoying status moves, and the special berries and other held items to ruin normal playthroughs. Special mention goes to the Leftovers healing. There were TONS of it in the post-game. Honestly that might be the most annoying held item your opponent can ever have.

52. While getting the Old Rod early is nice, as well as getting watering holes in Pewter City and Route 2, what does that make of the house where you normally get the Old Rod for? Nothing. There's an old man blocking it, but interacting with him does nothing and I went through the whole game expecting a way past this particular roadblock.

53. Speaking of which, man there were a lot of roadblocks which were dumb. Sure most were the optional legendaries that say "you need the eight badges to pass", but there were a few others like the aforementioned Route 11 and Route 12 (actually 13 and 12 in this case) where you need the Soul Badge, plus ALL of the Saffron gates have this as well with the excuse of "Team Rocket is too strong here". And some roadblocks are in front of gyms and such, where they give you eggs that hatch into some mons in the game. These are less annoying, but still tedious because you clearly would have a full team and need to head back to the PokeCenter to make room so you can an egg with you. I also don't think it's okay that they tell you what the egg hatches into. I prefer it to be a mystery.

54. Several towns have grass which you can catch mons in, I assume this is for Nuzlocke runs but it's a bit on the sporadic side. Lavender, Fuchsia, Saffron, and Cinnabar don't have grass with them, and while you can surf or fish in two of those, it isn't right. Plus, the towns you can get encounters in the grass from only have one or two mons available, usually not good ones for that matter. Special mention goes to the Pokemon League grass. Which has...Natu. Again as I said before this thing cannot evolve since Mega Butterfree replaces Xatu. How good is a Natu in near post-game if it is unable to evolve? And also those places have weird encounter rates. You could get a 1% encounter of a certain mon that has several levels ahead, or later on, several levels behind. Still needs to make some sense.

55. Cerulean City has rain in it, but this seems to be the only place that has overworld weather of some kind. And also, there's two tiles that look like openings in the south wall, but you cannot pass through them. What is it with that?

56. So a glitch I found with the gift Bulbasaur in Cerulean City involves naming it. I tried naming it, it went to the PC, and I discovered that I renamed a Pokemon in my party, which wasn't supposed to happen. Also the girl wonders if you are taking care of the Charmander which is funny.

57. Bill apparently turned into a Torchic and there's Torchic sprites here, yet the thing doesn't have moving or even turning sprites so it looks weird.

58. The "Kanto Leaders Tournament" isn't a tournament. It's just a house where you can rematch the Kanto gym leaders at your own pace and order and oddly can be accessed before challenging the Elite Four the first time. Yet they are all double battles against Lv100 teams and way harder than they should be.

59. Team Rocket's Jesse and James are in the hack. While nice, the first encounter I had with them was before Vermillion's gym and they mention how you foiled their plans on Mt. Moon. Two things. One is that Mt. Moon is skippable. And two, I went through all of Mt. Moon without encountering Jesse and James. So how would they know about you ruining their plans? And yes, they reappear a lot and are the typical double battle opponents, who can be quite tough. The first meeting was really awkward though.

60. Speaking of which their sprites are recolored sprites of theirs from Yellow version, which look scrunched up. Janine's sprite has the same issues.

61. Why does the Engineer class of trainer give an astronomically large amount of money?

62. Selling a Max Revive reveals that it sells for the price of P16111. That's at least three Nuggets and doesn't make sense.

63. Super Mewtwo, which is the dark Mewtwo, is used by Giovanni, but why is it Dark/Electric type? I realize I'm talking about this now and not in the Pokemon section but this is mostly something that Giovanni uses plus Mewtwo is a legendary anyways and not as prevalent as frickin' Charizard, yet I'm still bothered by this thing being on his team the whole time. I'd argue it's a weaker version of the real deal, maybe, since Electric typing makes it seem like it's an artificial creation. But if that were really the case it ought to be like the Armored Mewtwo, which is also in this hack. It just hurts my head thinking about it. And to think the Mewtwo variants get TWO signature moves makes them more overpowered.

64. The Regi chambers have Braille on several walls but they are just useless and don't help at all.

65. Some of the items in the game have P?000 as their money amount, which I think roughly translates into P100000, making them ultra-expensive. At least that's what I think, I don't believe I bought these items because I feared they might glitch the game. The strongest elite trainers give out P?20000 which seems to be a very large amount actually, I'm thinking P120000 or so, but the ? makes things weird.

66. Speaking of the items, if TMs are sold with other items, it causes major issues with the descriptions being glitched for the non-TM items.

67. It's somewhat troubling that you still get the National Dex only after you beat the league the first time. I say somewhat because you CAN still evolve non-Kanto native Pokemon before getting the National Dex, but not being able to see info on them without using them is still not cool.

68. Neither May nor the Team Rocket duo have any reason to be in the Sevii Islands as much. Also they HAD to tack on a Giovanni battle before Gideon, which is more annoying than it should be.

69. A nitpick here, but I did mention how the rematches against gym leaders are all at Lv100, why aren't the Elite Four this way? Like, Lorelei has all Pokemon at Lv96, Chuck Lv97, Agatha Lv98, and Clair Lv99, then your rival at Lv100. But it means that the Elite Four are somehow easier than the leaders level-wise. That said they do have diverse teams this time and aren't usually in type specialty.

70. Oh gosh did I forget the level curve overall? Yeah I did. Roxanne is at Lv20 maximum, but Misty jumps 10 levels above that. Lt. Surge is 9 levels above Misty, and Erika, just the fourth gym leader, has one Lv50 mon. So clearly the level curve requires tons of grinding before you get half the badges. I get this is more of a difficulty hack but remember people don't like grinding. Also Sabrina has a Lv100 Sableye in her first match which is a gimmick with only Curse and Memento, so they're already pulling some gimmicks off before post-game. The first League battle has the champion capping out at Lv94 for his starter, yet the rematch doesn't make the Elite Four all be Lv100, just the champion then. Again, make it make sense.

71. Okay so the Altering Cave here is where the uber trainers hang out and you can challenge and re-challenge them at your leisure. First, why are there still encounters here if they are not useful? Second, why Protector Zolman? He ambushes you at the start and honestly he was the most annoying opponent, with the MOST buffed legendaries on his teams. Giratina, Kyurem, Zekrom, and Palkia. It's unorthodox, where's Dialga and Reshiram? Why Kyurem and Zekrom have ??? typing with Kyurem having no weaknesses, yet Palkia and Giratina their typings are the same? I had more trouble with his team than the ones that had full teams of six. Which also gets ironic because...

72. The three main elite trainers, Fikri, Haniff, and Farhan, don't have full teams either. I guess they don't need them? But at the same time, they still have the most overbuffed Pokemon out there. Fikri's probably the most annoying, due to Water/Flying Mega Lugia with VOLT ABSORB, plus the other two having good coverage and held items. Thank god for my Choice Band-wielding Alolan Raichu with Volt Tackle, some sacrificial play but it was worth using. Haniff wasn't as bad but you kind of had to guess Arceus' typing (Grass/Ghost) and deal with its moveset and stats, plus the Zacian and Zamazenta with ??? typings. And Farhan has the Armored Mewtwo, his only mon, but Supreme Psyc is the most powerful priority move in the game that can really just sort of sweep full teams even if they are at Lv100.

73. But the guy two steps from Farhan is ridiculous. This guy has no real name, just ??????, and he states he's there for you to get exp and money. However, it's just the latter, because what is his team? Six Caterpies. They are at Lv100, but they are Caterpies and only have Tackle as their move. You can sweep his team for money reasons, sure, but levels not so much. And why is he tucked at the back end of the Altering Cave with Farhan? Shouldn't he be the one to introduce you to this place instead of that protector Zolman? I think it would fit. Or possibly not.

But why not, let's talk about some thing I actually enjoyed too.

1. Having megas for certain mons that didn't get them was nice. Tyrantrum, Flygon, and Starmie all got megas and I think they look nice enough.

2. Physical/Special split. Allows for better thought-out gameplay.

3. Being able to skip Mt. Moon altogether, plus being able to backtrack through Route 4 back from Cerulean City is a great idea.

4. The HMs are actually viable moves now. Rock Smash is now Drain Smash, it does what you expect and has better overall power as a Fighting type move. Strength is also a Fighting type move that can omniboost. And Cut is Flying with a great power score and chance to flinch. Waterfall normally is inferior to Surf but is actually on the same power level as Surf this time around except physical. Surf is of course reliable, as is Fly, and both got minor buffs. Dive is also available, but it's not that great anyways. Like how you can just buy it and that some of the HMs are available via level-up on some mons.

5. I definitely like the idea of Seviper being in between for Arbok and Ekans, which allows them to work as a starter line with three stages. And I also appreciate them being Dark/Poison, makes them tougher (but in this hack, actually weak to Bug too).

6. Some type changes I can appreciate. Namely Onix's line is much better. Onix is pure Rock, and Steelix and its mega are now Steel/Dragon which is super nice. Azurill is water type, while the Rhyhorn line and Donphan are now Steel/Ground. Grimer and Muk may not be in Alolan form but they do have Dark/Poison, a really great type combo. Golduck is now Water/Psychic which makes sense, and while I personally don't get it, I'm okay with the Nidos being Water/Poison. I'm okay with Aggron's line being pure Steel. I like that Trapinch's line is Bug type, later Bug/Dragon. Heck, even Electrode being Ice/Electric is cool somewhat, they changed this one a lot to make a normally-not-fun Electric type better. Yanma is Bug/Dragon and gets its evolution, while Cloyster's Ice/Ghost typing is real sneaky.

7. I like how the Fighting Dojo is now a Dragon Dojo, and having a Hoenn Elite Four member Drake be there.

8. Chanseys outside PokeCenters were very good. I'm super glad they give you a good item, even if it's only one. Special mention, the Choice Band which won me several elite trainer battles at the very end.

9. I'm also okay with some starter Pokemon being either fixed encounters or gift encounters. Gives them fun status.

With all of this said, do I recommend this challenge hack? Much less than any other ones I can think of. You have to think of a lot of factors that went into this, the biggest ones being the stat changes, the status moves having more priority, the ability changes, and the type chart changing. It's so much to take in. There's barely any real info to find for this hack besides what I actually provided, so if you want to challenge yourself, be prepared to suffer a lot and not enjoy it.

A look back at: Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer

 

Ah yes, a good old case of "stop this whacko from killing everyone through world destruction means". At this point, this game in the series feels run of the mill, using the exact same engine as the previous two games, though I would say it's a bit better. Better classes to choose from right from the start, a fifth party slot, and the ability to recruit cool monsters as your party members is fun. I followed Eltimar's Youtube let's play playlist in figuring a few things out, and decided to go with what he did, recruit dragons! Oh yeah, it was really cool. It of course means my main character, the only one I cannot remove, is the weakest, but whatever, dragons feel overpowered and I enjoyed having to use them to fly around, breathe fire, and just be resilient to everything in general. And to have up to four is just amazing.

Still a tough game mind you, just like before, especially if you decide to start solo without recruits. Plenty of sidequests I loved doing off the beaten path and the usage of elements is something that isn't new, but still fun all the same. Yeah, fun, but I did take numerous breaks throughout. Since this game plays almost exactly like the previous two entries, there were quite a lot of instances of me getting bored with the gameplay and playing something else. Plus work gets in the way, always hard to play when you have work to do. But I'm glad this will be the last one to utilize this particular game engine, as Might and Magic IX is up next, and from what I have seen, will turn things around.

A look back at: Pokemon Kalos Crystal

No walkthrough from me this time, there's a reason for that. I will say my team though: Delphox, Jellicent, Krookodile, Florges, Aegislash, and Galvantula, plus a Watchog for HM usage, a Swoobat as a Fly user, and a Slurpuff for Sweet Scent.

So my expectations for this were ultimately shattered, as I thought it was going to be like Gold Unova, playing through a full region just demade. Instead, it's actually the other way around. Kalos Crystal is a sequel to a hack called Unova Red. What these hacks are is you play through the original game (Red or Crystal), but with the Pokemon from those regions. So Unova Pokemon were only in Unova Red, while Kalos includes them as well as the Kalos-native Pokemon. And there's 229 total, and yes it's possible to get all of them, including legendaries. Plus with the Fairy type added, a few minor changes to special and physical attacks, and new moves and TMs to accommodate the new Pokemon, and honestly it wasn't entire as shattering as expectations ended up, since yes you are playing the original Crystal, you're just playing with two different generations of Pokemon.

So yeah, nothing new in the storyline at all. The only real difference is whenever someone mentions some Pokemon. For instance, Slowpoke Well is now Stunfisk Well, because Slowpoke and its line aren't in the game. The author certainly went out of the way to make sure the sprites for some Pokemon were also different, including ones for Stunfisk and a few others like Honedge. Neat. Battles with major opponents were also done so that they would still use their type specialty, but of course with different Pokemon. The biggest change would be towards Elite Four Will who is now a Fairy specialist instead of Psychic. Makes sense, Sabrina I guess would have to keep her specialty in Kanto.

I think I did more than my fair share when playing, after all the Gen-2 games are longer than most people realize. I'm glad the roaming legendaries (Thundurus and Tornadus) are in the dex after you release them, plus the Ruins of Alph sidequests were somehow made more interesting. And they did make both the Elite Four and additional rival battle stronger, while not going too far with day/night events. It's just a nice hack to play if you don't mind any new story stuff and want to play Crystal differently. So yeah, no walkthrough because the story is the same. I mean I could have made a trainer guide but I decided not to.

A look back at: Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor

Still going on that Might and Magic streak, yes, I will play other games as I play this, because if I'm going through a franchise like this all in one sitting, I'd get bored quickly. You gotta jump between franchises man, otherwise stuff will wear thin.

Anyways, the seventh iteration of Might and Magic proves to not be too different than the sixth. Or does it really? Frankly the core gameplay elements all remain, they just decided to bring back the other races aside from humans and add some new classes. And they then got the nerve to get inspired from FF8/FF9. Okay I kid, but seriously, an addicting card minigame was given into this one. This took a while to get used to though, so it really reminded me a lot of Triple Triad except probably harder. Well, that's kind of the deal with the Might and Magic series. Though easier than older iterations, M&M7 still has its many moments.

But I think we can agree that with all these branching points and the fact that I nowadays like to play a game all the way through only once, it gets to that point where half of my review is just me watching Youtube videos on the alternative paths to take while I take what I presume to be the canon path. And part of me keeps thinking that the non-canon paths could have been canon cause they are sometimes more interesting. I took the evil path, which proved to be quite fun. Didn't really understand what was up with the eight heroes and the fact that they all split themselves up into the good 4 and evil 4 and you had to pick a side. And them being advisors for other races, in the middle of you cleaning out your castle and realizing you've got some diplomacy placed onto your hands. Loved some of the ideas in the plot a lot more than the sixth game overall though, and I think the game is enjoyable regardless of the path you take. Still got that customization, still got the difficulty.