What's the best Pokémon game?

[Poseidon00]

The Pokemon Crystal Clear romhack. No contest.

 

[Mustawd]

I've been reading the Reborn LP. Truly, it's a must-see experience, because it does everything wrong it can do and then some, truly something to be aware of if you ever wanted to make your own Pokemon fangame. You know that game is hilariously edgy when another game called "Edge Rising" is actually more reasonable than that trainwreck. What's more, the writing is derived from a server RP thing where all players were apparently actual psychos, had RL problems such as car accidents and custody legal battles and, if that wasn't enough, one of their members commited suicide which was reproduced extremely poorly in the game (the daughter of said player also participated in the RP but left for "some reason" (probably related to the fact they made a mockery of his dad's suicide), much to the others' confusion), and then another player died of a fatal illness (which ingame is translated into having said character being brutally cut in half after having her Pokemon thrown into a laval pool because EDGE!). Also, lots of female characters die over and over (even though the writer is a woman).

Of course, the main writer has a patreon account so someone wanted this shit to be a thing.

...Did you seriously just sperg so hard about Pokemon that you used parentheses inside of another pair of parentheses? I'd rate you "Bad Spelling" if I could, but in lieu of that: do you understand the concept of parenthetical asides? Are you aware that it's incredibly poor form to nest them (because this is the English language and not fucking C++)?

He’s right. Footnote that shit.

 

[Üstad]

Does anyone played pokemon reborn or other fan makes, if so I'd like to read your review.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Does anyone played pokemon reborn or other fan makes, if so I'd like to read your review.

I've played Insurgence.

I remember that I had trouble getting the current version of the game to run. I had to download an older version, I think 1.2.5 version. It had screentearing, I couldn't play at fullscreen or use a controller.



Gameplay

The first hour was promising, but then as the hours go on, the gameplay issues became increasingly apparent which made the game an unenjoyable slog. The difficulty is overtuned and there is far, far too much filler (too many filler routes, routes have way too many trainers on them, trainers have too many Pokemon, trainer Pokemon are levelling up faster than your own Pokemon level up so you're forced to rely on one single overlevelled Pokemon rather than levelling up a whole team of Pokemon, etc). The big selling point of the game is 1. the Delta Pokemon and original Mega Evoltuions and 2. the story, but most of the new designs are unavailable until at least 30+ hours into the game and the story advances at a snail's pace. You have to slog through too much unenjoyable gameplay, and I'm not sure I can say it was really worth it.

Due to the sheer number of enemy Pokemon you face, you don't want to learn moves that have a low number of uses/charges like Giga Impact or Focus Blast, which does feel unfair since your enemies have powerful moves like those.

I think rock Avalugg, wizard Ludicolo, and the cake crab were my favorite designs.

The early and endgame are miserable. Before you reach Metchi town, you're really forced to only use your starter Pokemon because he's the strongest and everyone else is too weak and grinding them up is too difficult. Once you reach Metchi town, you buy a secret base. You buy the level trainer for 2,000 pokebucks. You place the trainer down. You fight his level 40 audino (which don't attack and just suicide) over and over to quickly level grind up your Pokemon.

You can press "M" to toggle turbo mode, which helps reduce the tedium.

I found it extremely unfair of the game that all of the E4's Pokemon are in the level 100s. I had never faced any enemy Pokemon higher level than 80 before. My highest level Pokemon was Kou (my Delta Blastoise) at 100, and I had absolutely no reasonable way of levelling up my other Pokemon higher than 75, as the EXP gains from Audino grinding were Abysmal, and this late into the game the one shotting is full swing where it was utterly impractical for me to try to switch in other Pokemon and level them up by having them fight on the front lines.

I spent a couple hours retrying to beat the Elite 4 and half of my team were used as fodder sacrifices for me to revive to revive back and forth while I waiting for the E4's walls to die from Reuniclus' curse. Magnezone's only contribution was using Thunderwave on Togekiss and then killing it with Thunderbolt spam (while I had to keep Magnezone alive with hyper potion spam). Reuniclus cursed and pain splitting all of the walls, and being swapped in to dodge earthquakes. Kou (my Delta Blastoise) did all of the heavy lifting and was responsible for one shotting almost all other enemy Pokemon we faced.

Hall of Fame says 43 hours. It was more like 50 since that doesn't include all of the save scumming I had to do over the course of the game.

There were a few different hats, hair colors, and outfits you could choose from, which was neat.



Aesthetics and music

There were a lot of new regional forms and megas, but I didn't like most of them. I thought most of them were overdesigned and had too many details, or looked a little too on the nose (the Golurk that looked like a Roman Centurion).

Insurgence has three nice musical tracks: the shade forest theme, the gym leader battle theme, and a dungeon theme towards the end. Unfortunately the rest of the OST is unmemorable, but the OST is small and you're going to be hearing those same tracks over and over again for 50+ hours, which wasn't a very enjoyable listening experience.




Story

The first 1/3rd of the story, up to Helios City's tower, had some ideas that captured the imagination. The champion of the region has disappeared, and a new guy steps up to replace him as five evil teams/cults are running around. You wake up in a jail cell, having been abducted by a cult that sacrifices people to Darkrai and try to escape. The confrontation atop Helios City's tower was a little exciting. But otherwise the writing was rather weak, particularly the next 2/3rds of the story. There are too many villains (5 evil team leaders and 3 more solo villains), but only the three solo villains were interesting. The game never gets you to care about the supporting characters, which is sad. The mainline Pokemon games at least got me to care about Wally, Cheren, Bianca, the gym leaders, etc.

I had a chuckle looking through my screenshots. Insurgence predicted the Covid vaccine lunacy. In the last 1/3rd of the game, there is a story arc where a corrupt government is trying to impose an unsafe, untested vaccine upon the populace, and tells people to rat out their neighbors if they don't comply, and ofcourse you're fighting against it. I wonder if that story would still be in if the game had come out now.

TLDR

Hm... not sure I'd recommend this one. If you do play Insurgence, I would advise playing up until the confrontation atop Helios City's gym. After that you're looking at a long slog with only a couple novel story moments.

This is a recurring problem I've noticed with amateur games or revamp mods, like the One Vision mod for Tactics Ogre PSP. They make the game just too damn hard, too long, and kinda unenjoyable. I suspect they're designed by autists with unlimited free time for autists with unlimited free time.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

If you find Pokemon too childish and retarded for adults, Digimon games might be a slightly better, more adult alternative. I watched the pilot episode of the original anime series recently (found nice 1080p prints of it on a torrent) and noticed it had an edge to it compared to Pokemon. Aside from the cutesy mascots that the children befriend at the start as their permanent little buddies, every other digimon in this world (and their are millions of them) has a single-minded purpose - kill, kill, KILL and consume these annoying little fucktard human kids intruding on their pocket universe. Several of the games take this slightly sinister approach too. Seems a bit different than the Pokemon universe where even the battling monsters never really hurt each other other than being captured and put into a pocket for awhile.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I watched the pilot episode of the original anime series recently (found nice 1080p prints of it on a torrent) and noticed it had an edge to it compared to Pokemon. Aside from the cutesy mascots that the children befriend at the start as their permanent little buddies, every other digimon in this world (and their are millions of them) has a single-minded purpose - kill, kill, KILL and consume these annoying little fucktard human kids intruding on their pocket universe.

I remember the show being overall boring. I only remember that moody episode directed by Mamoru Hosoda (around episode 20ish), and the one where Matt is stressing out over his missing little brother but stays behind working as a dishwasher at a restaurant trying to payoff Joe's debt. I also remember that Mimi was chased by poop digimon a lot.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I watched the pilot episode of the original anime series recently (found nice 1080p prints of it on a torrent) and noticed it had an edge to it compared to Pokemon. Aside from the cutesy mascots that the children befriend at the start as their permanent little buddies, every other digimon in this world (and their are millions of them) has a single-minded purpose - kill, kill, KILL and consume these annoying little fucktard human kids intruding on their pocket universe.

I remember the show being overall boring. I only remember that moody episode directed by Mamoru Hosoda (around episode 20ish), and the one where Matt is stressing out over his missing little brother but stays behind working as a dishwasher at a restaurant trying to payoff Joe's debt. I also remember that Mimi was chased by poop digimon a lot.

Yeah, I only watched the pilot and had no desire to watch anymore. Despite the slightly darker premise than most of these things geared for children it was still boring, predictable and childish. At the end of the day, it's still anime and I hate anime (usually). I would consider playing some of the games though. Some of them seem to have interesting monster rancher/evolution mechanics.

 

[musouking]

Any pokemon game without 2 maps & 16 gyms is shit.

As romhacks, Polished Crystal for vanilla lover.

 

[Poseidon00]

For straight difficulty and strategy, you can't beat Pokemon Stadium 1 or 2. Survive the 2nd rounds of those games if you don't believe me. They are notoriously hard because they use all the hidden mechanics and strategies of the top level tournaments of the time.

It is best to complete the original R/B/Y and G/S/C to have an appropriate team.

Past that, I would say HeartGold/SoulSilver, Emerald, the original 2 gens and Ultra Sun/Moon are all pretty good.

Crystal Clear is the ultimate rom hack for a variety of reasons, accept nothing less. But the UPR is great for when you want your own unique starter.

Pokemon had a one-off side series that was a tactics RPG game set in the ancient samurai era where people would go to war with their pokemon. Cool idea that never got enough attention

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Pokemon Stadium 1 or 2

The game straight up cheats by tweaking the RNG on the hit and crit rate in its favor. Not that fun. I did like the look of the stadiums and the announcer's lines. The minigames in 2 were also fun.

 

[Poseidon00]

Pokemon Stadium 1 or 2

The game straight up cheats by tweaking the RNG on the hit and crit rate in its favor. Not that fun. I did like the look of the stadiums and the announcer's lines. The minigames in 2 were also fun.

Stadium does have a bit of a unique ruleset and one of the changes is a more even crit rate across the board, yeah. A massive disadvantage to certain pokemon whose base speed made up for their low special/attack by giving them a high crit rate to compensate. Electrode and dugtrio, already niche picks, most affected. And snorlax, already very powerful, buffed because of it.


If you want to cheat Stadium yourself, bring Crystal Clear pokemon into Stadium with upgraded movelists. Jump Kick Dodrio becomes scary good, the pokemon learns it later anyway, and it's perfectly fitting

 

[flyingjohn]

Does anyone played pokemon reborn or other fan makes, if so I'd like to read your review.

Uranium and Alchemist are one of the better ones.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I've been playing Emerald Rogue lately, and I think it's great.

IMO, there are three fundamental problems with the franchise: Having advanced knowledge of enemies (I enter a water gym therefore I use a grass pokemon to annihilate everything) and lack of consequences for using glass cannons that just alpha strike everything. And lastly, there's no reason to use the vast majority of pokemon or think about their abilities or ways they could synergize.

Rogue fixes all these problems. The boss fights along the way are randomized, so you actually need variety not just on your team, but on individual pokemon. Death is permanent, which adds a lot of value to more defensive strategies as opposed to just spamming psychic with an alakazam or whatever. And lastly, what you have access to is randomized on each run, so you can't just get your ideal team and ignore everything else. You might end up using something you think is pretty crap because it's your only way to cover certain types offensively or defensively.

It's just a fundamental shift in the gameplay (which is the entire focus, there's no story to speak of) that suits the core concept perfectly.

 

[Yuber]

For me HeartGold/SoulSilver is the perfect Pokemon Game.
Black&White 1&2 are the second best

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

IMO, there are three fundamental problems with the franchise: Having advanced knowledge of enemies (I enter a water gym therefore I use a grass pokemon to annihilate everything) and lack of consequences for using glass cannons that just alpha strike everything. And lastly, there's no reason to use the vast majority of pokemon or think about their abilities or ways they could synergize.

I think there is a disconnect between the fantasy the Pokemon franchise promises, vs the gameplay you get in the mainline games. The fantasy is that you are a beastmaster who bonds with one or two fantastical creatures (ie, maybe a cute critter that can walk besides you like a dog like Eevee, or cling to your shoulder like a Pikachu, and then you might have a bigger creature you can ride around on like a Rapidash or a Swampert or Salamence). But the actual gameplay treats the Pokemon as interchangeable. You fill your party with six mons and don't care if they get KOed, you just revive them at a Pokemon center, and then when something shinier or more useful comes along you throw one of your Pokemon into storage.

There are only two Pokemon games that really deliver on the fantasy of a trainer and his partner Pokemon are are. Hey You Pikachu is all about you and Pikachu. And then you have Pokemon Masters, where each character is partnered with one Pokemon (and occasionally one other in a skin variant), so the duos feel more distinctive and real.

 

[lightbane]

I've played Insurgence.

As far as I know, ALL fangame Pokemon entries are edgy and have retarded try-hard stories. At worst, they also have stupid gameplay with ridiculously tough battles to artificially lengthen the game. Also, thinking about reading lengthy dialogues on that tiny dialogue screen sounds horrible.

 

[Damned Registrations]

As far as I know, ALL fangame Pokemon entries are edgy and have retarded try-hard stories.

, there's no story to speak of

You should check out Emerald Rogue. There is literally no story beyond 'Oh we made a safari zone for you to use cause uh... you helped us by finding pokemon or something?' It's just straight up battles and team building.

Can't really comment on the difficulty. Seems tough to me, but I'm also way out of touch, I can't even guess at the types of stuff I fight in every fourth battle or so. I'd imagine someone who knows the series well could steamroll through. Anyways it has a bunch of ways to adjust the difficulty too, ranging from meta progression crap, to disabling all the meta progression and giving trainers better AI and meta competitive teams and builds.

 

[Paladino]

FireRed and LeafGreen. They are very faithful remakes of the originals.

 

[Maxie]

FireRed and LeafGreen. They are very faithful remakes of the originals.

I'm currently playing through FR on my Anbernic machine and it really loses steam past Lavender Town, though with age I wouldn't claim that the water section is as incessantly long as, say, in gen3, it's dungeon-length really

 

[Gandalf]

I've heard Pokemon Unbound is pretty cool. Played it for an hour and it was indeed very interesting.

 

[Üstad]

Does anyone played pokemon reborn or other fan makes, if so I'd like to read your review.

I've played Insurgence.

I remember that I had trouble getting the current version of the game to run. I had to download an older version, I think 1.2.5 version. It had screentearing, I couldn't play at fullscreen or use a controller....

Thanks for the detailed post, I really appreciate it. Though it seems like a slogfest probably not something I look for.

Any pokemon game without 2 maps & 16 gyms is shit.

As romhacks, Polished Crystal for vanilla lover.

Which games have 2 maps& 16 gyms? Btw crystal clear seems a like a better romhack but it lacks physical/special split that comes with gen IV. Not sure if that would make the game better or worse balance wise. I would play a vanilla friendly romhack with QoL features, minor balancing and level scaling to make overleveling to beat gyms a less viable strategy.

 

[musouking]

Which games have 2 maps& 16 gyms?

Gold/Silver/Crystal and their remake HeartGold/SoulSilver.

I personally don't get into romhacks that be like a brand new game rather than mods. Polished Crystal is definely vanilla friendly and you can change the settings anytime.

 

[Üstad]

Which games have 2 maps& 16 gyms?

Gold/Silver/Crystal and their remake HeartGold/SoulSilver.

I personally don't like romhacks be a brand new game rather than mods. Polished Crystal is definely vanilla friendly and you can change the settings anytime.

I didn't play pokemon games for a long time, what does natures do and how does EXP scaling, perfect stats and IVs vary colors work exactly?

 

[musouking]

I didn't play pokemon games for a long time, what does natures do and how does EXP scaling, perfect stats and IVs vary colors work exactly?

• Natures: Enables natures from Gen 3 onward.
• Abilities: Enables abilities from Gen 3 onward.
• Phys/Spcl split: Enables the Physical/Special split from Gen 4 onward.
• Exp. scaling: Enables the experience formula from Gen 5, 7 and 8, which scales experience by the ratio of the opponent's level to your level.
• IVs vary colors: Enables color variation inspired by Stadium. DVs will subtly vary Pokémon colors. This applies to normal and shiny Pokémon.
• Perfect stats: All Pokémon stats, for you and the opponent, are calculated as if they had maximum IVs. The actual IVs are still random, so color variation and Hidden Power type are not affected.

You can check the auther's github out. https://github.com/Rangi42/polishedcrystal

 

[Poseidon00]

Hey You Pikachu is all about you and Pikachu.

I adored that game as a kid and I am very disappointed that you still can't play it on anything but original hardware, and you need a unique peripheral at that.