I want to add, 1) if youre gonna have a complex story, make the cast shorter and have each character be complex or storyteller thru the region you’re creating. 2) Pokemon Mugen? a technical 2d fighter? We gotta complete the idea that was Type Wild.
I think a real start would be implementing another region into radical red. that is probably the best rom hack because it really adds every mechanic in Pokémon besides Pokémon following you. Add emerald to radical red and you will have a masterpiece.
Not to mention doing radical red to hg/ss then you would start with 2 regions and the amazing ds sprite work. That would be such a good game. Then you could probably add gen 4 to it because they are on the same engine.
@@captinwafflez1 But the problem with that is it's still recycling existing official Pokemon regions/story/designs. A lot of people want an original experience that can stand the test of time the same way those official games (and their improved hacks) would.
@@Sincald I understand but can you point to a rom with multiple regions. I’m all for something new but I think most people’s fantasy pokemon game is to be able to explore all the regions or at least more then one. I feel like radical red is a great base for something like that.
A lot of these fan games begin with fairly strong premises, but then they delve too much into the “I need to be different” mentality, and the games become a massive cluster of business. I don’t know how many times I’ve started a game gassed up for it, and it just falls off about an hour in.
also how they make it "difficult" by having mons with ridiculous stats and moves and not provide you the tms and mons you can use before certain fights (gyms, rival fights, etc.)
I feel like fan game writers, write it like this because It's only one shot. It's a fan-game that's gonna fall into obscurity in a couple years. Pokémon games released by Gamefreak are so cookie-cutter nowadays. People want to do crazy dumb stuff with Pokémon in their story. There's so much potential for good story telling when it comes to Pokémon, Iimting it to such a small cast, with bare bones story telling is just copying what Game Freak does, which takes away the spirit of a fangame. It's fan content. The story always takes precedent because you've already seen everything else Pokémon has to offer from Game Freak. The only thing fan creators can do now is create a new cast of characters and a new story to grip people who are looking for a more serious Pokémon experience which the mainline games barely give you.
I feel like dark fan games come from like people thinking mature means more dark, sure you have things implied and be disturbing but it doesn’t have to be edgy. It doesn’t have to be too cheery but like I feel you on the darkness in some of em. Dark doesn’t mean more mature
This, I think the amount of edge Xenoverse had was tolerable but the amount that I have heard with Reborn, along with the worst dialogue and the fact that the characters were based on Tumblr users (Including the person who committed suicide, which actually happened and they decided to add that as a plot point. Insensitive fucks) are enough for me to never wanna touch it unless I was paid.
@@BlinkofaStorm Don't know how much of that is true but sincerely, can't care less. The game is spot on, yes the plot may feel kinda meh at points, but the dificulty, the challenge it provides and the concepts and mystery it brings forward with it's plot more than makes up a reason for me to play it. Blame the creators not the game, the game's fine, perhaps the people behind it are not but that's not my problem as I don't interact with them.
The team never disappeared. While there's still only Episode 1, they're still working on updates (even though they're quite small), and that can be seen in their Discord server. The reason the auto-update launcher thing doesn't work anymore, as far as I'm aware, is because it was coded and managed by someone who's since left the team. You need to remember that game development requires both time and money, not to mention that they also have their own lives.
I really don't like how the main character in fan games like Pokémon Rejuvenation and Reborn don't talk, the main character should do more interacting within the story, the main character could be downright disrespected, but they won't even have a reaction, other characters have to speak up for them. I want the main character to act like a character and not a lens for the audience
@@mathewricafrente5984 Because bizarrely the plot doesn't revolve around the main character, so they don't really do anything to drive the story forward, take them away from the plot, and the story would progress as normal
Idk, I remember playing some pokemon romhack with a talking protagonist and I hated it, but maybe it was just the writing. I never saw it done well yet
That would be because everyone has a different notion of what's a "good" pokemon game for them, for some it's the plot, for some it's the extreme dificult, for some it's the characters and so on. Trying to imply a game's not good because it doesn't suit your taste is personally a stupid thing to do.
So far the best Fangame for me is Xenoverse. The story is easy to follow, the fakemon are great, the Xenoverse species are great, the amount of content in game and post game reminds me of the old games....Granted Mewtwo X is 20 flavours of bullshit and the Xenomon encounter rate is frustrating. But that is 2 nitpicks of an entire game. I played a little of Insurgence years ago, I was a teen back then and I liked the fact the story was so edgy. We saw actual people murdered using pokemon, which makes sense when you take into account that there are criminal organizations in the pokemon world.....I really should download it and play it through
@@garreonlefay6703 my only nitpick with xenoverse, infinity, uranium, and insurgences is the lag. I really wish I could play them but the lag and screen tears gives me severe headaches. :(
As a fangame creator, I see your problems, but the Dev team in normal fangames is too small for them to make new tilesets and character customisation, besides Dev teams tend to take breaks because, you see making fangames is a hobby not a job, people have other stuff to do besides going game dev 24x7.
As someone working on a project myself, if it’s a hobby out of a passion, one naturally creates a schedule and stays devoted to finding new ideas. Issue is “hobby” in America is associated with “just something I do when I feel like it,” vs others are, “this is passion of mine I am going to be devoted to while living my life.” No one argued that it’s an expectation to sacrifice your life priorities. I work 12 hours five days a week and still make time for a project I am working on. TLDR, hobby shouldn’t mean being lazy or being obsessed, it’s not about extremes-it’s about being devoted to your passions in being creative without compromising your life. Better to just admit you really weren’t passionate about the subject or project you were working on. People can respect that.
@@lackdejuranez7084 hobby doesn’t mean lazy. If you’re passionate about something, working hard on it within reason come naturally. That’s why Japanese fan-works are amazing while these fans still hold a productive life.
@@justabearbrowsingyoutube4968 I'im passionate about the idea of wanting to make a fangame, but this video sums up why I wouldn't. To make something good, it would take years and a team. Thats already a big ask, to try something that at any stage in my life could have to be dropped, thus draining that time out of my life. It would be enjoyable in some parts sure, but the rest would be having mini nightmares trying to solve the next coding issue or doing the same repetitive motions to slowly make a single script scene. The team i'd need's work? All wasted because I had to move on, either left to rot or for them to attempt to salvage with the story draft. And then the chance that I spent 9 years making my dream game and just like Uranium, it gets nintendo'd. Maybe it'd get preserved by fans, maybe i don't get to release it at all. Maybe nintendo decides to just sue me after I release it which has happened to at least one person, rather then a takedown order. Or worse, in the sea of literal 1000s of fangames, it gets forgotten. Left behind. And if I scale back time investment or do it solo or whatever to make a project I can actually make, the less polished it feels compared to the games who did put in that effort, and the less people play and its forgotten faster. I would have to dedicate a chunk of my life to a gamble on a non-profit fangame that nintendo itself is against and may actively pursue just for the fuck of it while ignoring all the other big name ones because they practically throw a dart at a board and take down whatever it lands on. I suppose you could argue in that sense i'm not passionate enough. I'd personally call it a dangerous level of passion. I wouldn't advise anyone to ever be that passionate about making a pokemon fangame, but if you want to go for it thats all you. Just know the insane risk you're taking on that time investment.
I have played 90% of Reborn and I totally agree. Way too many characters. Why are there characters with story arcs who aren't even gym leaders? Way too many villains. I can't keep track of which character has a grudge on which other character for something that happened 60 hours ago in game time. Honestly, you have to play through the game twice just to fully understand what is happening (which is what I am doing now that it is complete). P.S. The reason Shofu quit was because he releases reborn episodes that are about an hour long. Well at one point of the story, there is a solid hour of dialogue and Shofu couldn't believe that he had to release an entire episode of pokemon content without a single pokemon battle.
What do you think real life is? lmao Many of these videogames are dark and depressing because it reflect the nature of their creators. Nowadays, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who suffers from depression or has an entire list of health/mental problems to deal with. Everyone knows those who have a career or hobby in the arts are some of the most depressed people all around, followed up by those in technological areas. (To be fair a lot of jobs are trash nowadays; low wages, contracts with expiration dates, many hours a week, etc. No wonder people hate life.) Videogame developers are the culmination of these two. The thing about these "edgy" poke games though is that it feels like almost every character is going through their punk/emo/gothic phase, complimented with a dash of rebelliousness and trashy taste in music. Basically, a fair chunk of the teenage population (because that's what the characters are supposed to be). It's just... I think we could have a more "mature themed" game without the teen theme/aesthetic. God knows the adult world has a ton of (dark) topics that can be explored...
@@ivoryowl not everyone’s life is all dark, people have good in their lives too, and both should be explored equally. All dark is specifically for a certain audience, but that audience isn’t large compared to others.
@@ivoryowl "Nowadays, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who suffers from depression or has an entire list of health/mental problems to deal with. Everyone knows those who have a career or hobby in the arts are some of the most depressed people all around, followed up by those in technological areas." Please don't tell me you believe this teenage Reddit energy tortured artist bullshit. Here's a little fact. Mental illness isn't as common as you think it is. The internet isn't good representation for mental illness being common.
@@justabearbrowsingyoutube4968 Happy people are people that don't think very hard. Because if you actually think about why you or me exist, it's depressing
@@johnnyslokes89 What are you talking about? I don’t see life the same way that you do. Pokémon fan games shouldn’t all be dark because then it becomes repetitive and players are going to notice patterns and keep checklists for the stories.
I love Insurgence's Delta Species feature, and the new Megas. But it's kinda sad that the creators are no longer implementing new ideas for Delta Species because development is pretty much over. Also kinda sad they are not doing semi-monthly Mystery Gifts anymore......not even putting up old events for those who missed them.
pokemon insurgence is basically the only fan game with actually good new monsters. jes, it's not THAT hard to create one or two decent regional variants. I'm not saying to create and 300 mon new dex, but it's kinda boring playing a fangame with the same pokemon you already played dozen of times
Pokémon insurgence is easily the best made Pokémon fan game (that’s not a ROM) out there. The vase amount of delta Pokémon, added mega evolutions, and even mega evolutions for delta Pokémon give you so much enjoyable content to explore. My only gripe is the edginess of the plot but honestly it’s not that bad, a darker plot like is better than a cutesy one imo. On top of that the difficulty of the game is intermediate but would be a lot more difficult for a nuzloche which I believe is another plus. Also the delta Pokémon themselves have really cool designs and type combinations. Another thing is being able to fight all of the original Pokémon trainers at the end of the storyline (i.e. Dawn, Steven, red, gold) which I really enjoyed. Lastly the quality of life additions such as 3 stages of speed up, the witchdoctor for trade evolutions, character customization, no need for HM’s, emolga taxi, and the first Pokémon in your party follows you around. I love Pokémon insurgence 👌
I think one of the biggest issues that people who make fan games face is 1: if your game is too good like Uranium when it got released you get noticed by nintendo and told to shut it down 2: finding people to actually work on the project that have the necessary skills and asking them to do it without promise of payment is ROUGH. I myself am trying to test out making a fan game but finding artists, spriters, etc is extremely hard unless you have something tangebile to show people and that requires skills that not everyone can have. Not to mention there are very few places you can go to search for people to recruit that also then require you to have a good amount of stuff already done before you can recruit anyone.
It feels a lot like whenever someone complains about Pokemon Fan Games they don't even understand in the slightest what effort needs to go in. Sacred could probably get whatever he wanted for a game because he's a well recognized Pokemon TH-camr, but for other people who are essentially nobodies to find people like you said is so rough. Keep working hard I really hope your game gets to a demo.
There’s different types of fan games: The anime games where there’s 100 characters who’re important, the straight ports of main series with difficulty increases or other changes, and the best ones who make original stories and combine them with good gameplay without overdoing it
@@nickwatic There's difficulty and then there's needing high IV'd pokemon to win. It was pretty tedious to hunt for near perfect pokemon just to stand a chance lmao
Personally I just think that fan games, are games made by fans for fans. Now what I’m trying to say that each one of us has something specific they like about Pokemon games and it will never be the same thing. So fan game makers just want to enhance what they like about Pokemon games with the limited ressources and knowledge they have.
@mystical Fangames should be allowed in indulge in want they want but aren't exempt from critisim in the way they go about it Developers should think about how the general public might perceive their game .
I remember watching Rejuvenation (I think) and the plot was so full of holes that could be solved if the main character just freaking said something, dozens of times. A well-written plot is incredibly important in RPGs like these, even if it's not the most deep or interesting. I don't wanna be like "that makes no sense" twice every hour lol
@Roman Francis I'm not even sure it's that tbh (although it could be). My theory, and knowing what little we know about the "interceptor" so far, I don't think the player character is actually "alive" so to speak. I'm guessing their more just a creation from the universe as a balancing tool, so death isn't really relevant to the MC.
@Roman Francis Yeah that's true I suppose. I'm still not sure I agree with the "designated amount of lives" theory, tho I see how it has some merit fs. I'm just excited for the next chapter man, the progress bars on the development blog are all at 100 percent save for the "testing" bar so hopefully it'll be soon and we'll learn some more about this whole interceptor thing.
I preferred Rejuvenation to Reborn because even though there are a lot of characters, there is a consistent main cast seen throughout the game. To me, the game felt like I was on an adventure with friends because the cast felt relatable. Whereas in Reborn, there is a revolving door with the characters and they just felt less memorable because of that. I think more people will enjoy Reborn once the whole game is released so they can play it all at once instead of going years without seeing a character that just drops back into the story. Also a big fan of their difficulty and access to EV training. Rejuvenation made EV training quick and accessible so my team could keep up. Though the fact that every NPC has perfect IV pokemon annoys me because of how difficult IVs are to manage. I don't want to spend hours breeding pokemon all day.
rejuvenation is easily the best fangame i have played. the way the story is told is good, considering it isn't from a professional studio at least, i'd never accept this if it was from c.d. projekt red but it is alright for a random creative on the 'net. the characters are about the same quality. the difficulty is good, and the mechanics/gameplay are better than the main series by far (credit to reborn, though, the environmental system is now border-line necessary for me to actually enjoy a pokemon game). most of that can be said about reborn too, but reborn drops the ball hard on characters and story telling. the edgy tone just wears so thin if it is all it has (and it is all it has).
That is indeed a valid criticism of the way Reborn handles story and characters. As for Rejuvenation NPC IV and EV issues, you can alter the difficulty which solves this issue for the most part. Both Reborn and Rejuvenation are a lot harder than the base pokemon games, and Rejuvenation Hard mode is bloody demonic to say the least, but if it annoys you too much, you can always lower the difficulty. Personally I play hard mode because I'm a stubborn masochist. And it has caused me to run into a wall from time to time, which usually mean I need to change my strategies significantly, which I do consider great fun. Also, I can really recommend Pokemon Desolation, also a rather small cast of characters and in my opinion really nice story. It plays a lot faster than Reborn and Rejuvenation, but is also quite a bit shorter sadly. Is also another member of the Reborn family, thus it contains field effects, which to this day remain my absolute favourite addition to a pokemon game, including fan games.
You can change your IV in Rejuvenation but only when you get to GDC District of Hope which is very late in the game, or you can also get the debug mode which you can find in their forum and give your pokemon all 31 IVs
Just gonna say, I love Clover 'cause it doesn't take itself serious at all and is just fun, no overly complicated story and also doesn't have a ton of characters that don't matter. It's only issue is that it's super offensive at times but even then, I think it's one of the better hacks out there
People think that clover is offensive but actually all those kinda racist memes are just a parody of 4chan, back in the days some boards on 4chan were totally out of control, and clover makes a parody of it. The gameplay in clover is probably the best ever created for a rom hack, the AI is so smart, also the music in clover is awesome. Many people that criticize it for being "offensive" are actually too young to remember how the internet was back in the early 2010s
@@marcorossi2854 you can't defend clover when some of the people who made the racist fakemon actually hold the beliefs that the fakemon were based on. clover is a well designed game aside from its fakemon
Sometimes I feel as though these fangames need to take a page outta Gen 5 of Pokemons book. It's different, but it doesn't feel cluttered. Also thank you for calling out edgy ass stories. I'm here to battle and play with my mons not read Twilight fanfiction
It feels like all the popular fan-games lean way too heavily on the evil teams. I want a Pokemon game that's more about the adventure and the exploration of a new region instead of always having to stop some wack ass group of villains from killing everyone or whatever. I remember as a kid, and even to this day, I always dreamed of going to the Pokemon world, but I can't name a single fan-game that has a world I wanna go to! Gimme a cool ass region that's fun to explore! I wanna see some cool ass shit man, I want the spectacle of it!
yeah, the ideal pokemnon game isn't one that is incredibly difficult (although i like difficulty), or one with amazing fakemon (although genuinely good fakemon can help), or an incredibly complex and in-depth story (although i like me a good -space- pokemon opera). an ideal pokemon game would be one with a living, breathing world that you _adventure_ through. hunting through massive forests for a pokemon you heard weird rumors about and want to see for yourself, climbing massive mountains because it is the greatest training you will ever have, challenging a league of the greatest trainers in the world just to prove you are one of them. that is what an ideal pokemon game would focus on.
This is my biggest gripe with the main official games. Evil teams and god that you the choosen has to stop... I wish they would just make a game where this was not the case. Even in Arceus you have to after a god... let someone else do that stuff. I want them to ditch the puzzles in gyms and make the league a real tournament with character, story and flair. And the gyms should be much more interesting with effects, strong opponents and more.
I don't like the after games usually. But I also realize that funding can affect this. These games are free so I can not expect them to have an amazing after game. But what is amazing is subjective. Also I wish more games had a journal system that kept track of where you left off or your next task. I often forget because I might go to another game. If that is possible
I don't care for how dark reborns story can be, more so because it gets really predictable at some points. But the combat is amazing. Different terrains that can buff or need typing throughout the battle is something I wish we had in the mainline games
Oh also. One thing Reborn does that could work if implemented well. Episodic releases. If you know the game is gonna take years, then make each section feel self contained. Use actual episodic storytelling and have each episode feel like a mini arc. If I'm playing episode 1 and it ends at a reasonable place then I won't be as deflated when it ends compared to "well we programmed the third gym so let's just end it here."
The whole "i want my main character to speak" thing in pokemon games is sorta dumb/useless to me cause you're playing through those characters, so if they interact with other characters in a way that you wouldn't, would that not feel weird? Also, if you're making a video on it, people are going to see you react even if you arent, you'll still react and its not like the main character talking will change the story. What they should do is give the characters a choice or like branch in the story. Like maybe there's two different gym leaders that you can challenge at this time in two different cities or maybe there's just 2 different gym leaders in that town and you can pick; Reborn does a good job with different choice stuff like that: ex. Fighting the evil team admin and getting the emerald or fighting the doctor that is shocking that little girl to save her *or* the getting Corey arrested before you fight him so he doesnt "commit"
the implication, generally, is that your character is interacting with the other characters in a way that advances the plot, it isn't a big deal imo if you don't have actively written out dialogue. if we have to implement something, though, i'd move away from traditional character dialogue (main character speaking in response to other characters) and instead make these nominal RPGs into real RPGs* by having you pick out your own dialogue that influences the story in some way (like getting dialogue options every time we actually speak, a la the persona games but more meaningful). i haven't made a proper game myself, but i know the logic isn't that hard to follow and implement in modern engines (like RPG maker or unity, which i assume most fan game are made in) so long as you keep a good dev log. * traditional JRPGs are not real RPGs and i will die on this hill, there is more to an RPG than just having numbers.
Man I know I’m late to this video but I really appreciate you criticizing “dark” Pokémon fan games. I don’t play a lot of fan games because so many games think a mature game means an edgy one lol I found personally I couldn’t take Pokémon insurgence seriously because the plot was to edgy.
One of the main issues is that people seem to go the edgy routes for the sake of it being edgy, not to make any meaningful message or good stories. it's gotten to the point where it's just so predictable, and boring.
Timestamps e-e 1:15 Enhancements Hacks struggle to add something new to the game 3:57 Fangames try too hard to be dark (I agree so fucking much) 5:17 Fangames have too many characters/ too many arcs 8:51 Fangames need more customization, I love that (yes!) 9:44 Fangames having exclusive tilesets/being unique is important 13:33 Fangames taking breaks pisses me off (me too! releasing chapters is shit) Bro, that was a really good video! As a fangame-maker myself, it only makes me feel great that I don't fall too much in those categories, haha
You realize why the chapters are released it's because it takes ages to make a game. Otherwise your fangames wouldn't come out for 12 or so years and most likely die off. There is also a lot of work involved. Complain all you want but unless you have tried making one you can't really comment on that. Dark themes are also not a bad thing. And the characters/arcs make a more complex story it is better than over simplifying
It's subjective, I personally prefer fan-made Pokemon games. Reborn, Rejuvenation, and Desolation are my favorites. I never had issues remembering the characters although I can nit pick some parts I didn't like about it. Reborn's gym puzzles were way too hard especially when I have no clue how to play chess (Radomus' gym) or the fact that I'm no musician (Hardy's gym). Rejuvenation tossed my ass into a double battle at every opportunity so it can get frustrating when a random character ambushes me out of nowhere. For Desolation almost a metric butt ton of characters have access to a Mega evolution while I finally get mine towards the end of the game. Other than that these games have an excellent story, gameplay, and cast which takes a lot of patience and preparation to beat. I find myself rotating my pokemon and using different strategies as well as pokemon I thought I'd never use. Overall I love these games for the challenge it provides and it feels rewarding when I make progress (like beating gym leaders or super bosses) rather than be spoon fed and given everything for little effort.
I personally enjoy these dark stories. I don't get why people shit on games with "dark stories". Its something called preference. No need to call out anyone who enjoys stories like these. No need to make videos about people who enjoy these stories and don't treat it like having dark stories in a game is "bad" or "too edgy". Because if you're allowed to have an "opinion" (which people just use as an excuse to hate on something nowadays) then people who enjoy em also get to have an opinion and preference on them its that simple. Just because you don't enjoy these games doesnt mean you get to shame people who do enjoy these games.
@@DullaZulla mhm year later and i still hold the same view point. Well structured, well written dark story shouldn't be discriminated against just cause it's edgy or dark. Pokemon opalo for example is a generally grim story but it is so so good, one of the best fan games ever. A few bad apples shouldn't be enough to hate the entirety of the story genre fr.
What if, just, what if.. someone likes a story with complex characters and a large cast? What if the game.. wasn't made to cater to your own demands - your own ideas.. but instead.. in the creators vision? What if.. you can just play the game.. or not play the game? I think your points are somewhat valid at times, but they make it seem like they're right because you think they're right. In regards to Reborn, what if you joined during E18? What if people are taking that long on an episode because they want to make it good? I've played reborn a lot by now - I've played rejuv a bit as well.. And I don't think it's a bad thing. I understand the story (mostly), I know the characters, and just because you aren't focused enough to remember a gym leader - someone with a distinct sprite, personality, etc.. Doesn't mean it's bad? And if you don't want to read, then hold down your B button, becaus that'll speed through the text. If your problem is large amounts of diaogue, then that's *your* problem. Yes, the end of Reborn E18 is dialogue heavy - the void part especially, and I will give you that, but honestly? that's nitpicking, if you ask me, and it's still playing into the vision of the creator. Can you defy that vision? Sure. But don't try to control how others make a fangame because "I don't like it" Let us enjoy what we want.
I feel like a lot of fangames I watched eventually forgets it's Pokemon fangame and will never mention pokemon ever like in Reborn. The developing too many characters thing really hurts when you have GBA style graphics cause you can't see that much of them. I rather not see games try to cram in every legendary or pokemon like Insurgence
The video can be summed up like this: “don’t try to make your video game into an anime” The people who start these projects are the types with a lot of creativity stored up combined with a deep love for pokemon, so they end up letting that all out forgetting that they have to make something that is enjoyable to play for others.
I remember at one point playing Pokémon Rejuvenation where you roll up to a late game city to get your next badge. You see the gym leader next to his gym and think ‘Fantastic, we get get right to work on getting the next badge’ Only for the gym leader to turn to you and go ‘hey protagonist! I’m gonna fuck off into the desert for 4 hours, let’s goooo!’ I’ve never wanted to nail a man’s feet to the ground so badly in my life. And then the game has the kahonas to tell ME off when they asked me to fight for them against the bad guy who I’ve never met and I told them to go pound sand. I don’t give a fuuuck about the story my man! I just wanna have hard fights!
Maybe because an edgy story makes it more frustrating that you can't interact with it in a meaningful way In normal Pokémon games you standing there or actually doing something doesn't really affect the story
Big facts on the tiles. Fangames that have similar tiles sets to the original games really kind of a turn off tbh. Also I agree with the too many characters point, especially in fangames. There be A LOT of characters I don't care for just popping out the woodworks like dawg who are you??
I whole heartedly agree with your video here as from what I've noticed they usually follow a sort of recipe that you mentioned before with it dipping into an overly mature subject such as just ending people with it being given little foreshadow or just randomly done. Reborn for example is rather trigger happy in this case. In regards to little customization I feel like it would be easier to give them dialogue to cut down on time given for new sprites but the individuality done in Pokemon Apex is done nicely so you aren't just playing a mute slate but instead a confused boy struggling to come to terms with what happened. It just gives it a greater edge compared to the others where you control a puppet. That is all.
I think something that has become repetitive as the years have gone on is the majority trying to create a dark storyline for the sake of it, and it feels forced in points. 100% agree on the complexity with characters as well, I think if the games dropped in one shot it's fine, but having played reborn/rejuvenation over periods it gets too much after updates
Nick I just wanna say I love this discussion style videos they breath a lot of diversity into your channel besides regular play throughout keep up the good work brother 🙌🏾
yea fan games have their issues but I still enjoy games like reborn rejuvenation insurgence and empyrean for being different and giving players things that they've been asking for in main series games for decades.
I love how the video is cut off at the end. It's perfect. It's really nice that you're addressing the common issues that Pokémon fangames. I have learned how to spot a video game's shortcomings through analysis videos and I also got an idea of what makes a game good. I never really thought about what makes a Pokémon game good, until recently. Then, I ran into this video and finally found an answer.
I think the "edgy" thing on pokemon reborn and rejuvenation is gym battle and boss battle hands down nothing come harder to em even radical red doesn't feel that hard on gym battles and boss battles I still remember how cursed double battle on reborn and rejuvenation cuz sometime it's 6 vs 12 I remember last time on reborn when face 3 pokemon battle with 2(12 vs 6) doubles and one single on raw that fking hard but something radical red didn't do I don't care about how badly you hate em but like or not rejuvenation and reborn are the face of fan game community we didn't have a good fan game for very long time and adding cfru engine to fan game is pretty hard unless the developer wanted to do it and Amy isn't going to add gen 8 right now they have to literally remake the game just for sake of adding gen 8 mons and moves
My main issue with many Pokémon fangames and ROM hacks is that a lot of them try to be super extremely challenging. I get it, there are people who enjoy difficulty, but many of these fangames and ROM hacks feel like they expect anyone who plays the game to be a professional Pokémon player who knows the ins and outs of everything, to the point that the game is practically unplayable for anyone on the casual side of things, such as myself. If you want to have that kind of difficulty, then maybe consider giving a difficulty option, so that casual players can still enjoy the game on the lower difficulties, while more hardcore players can give the higher difficulties a try.
I know this is an old video but i restarted a pokemon reborn save file and HOLY CRAP the ammount of dialogue is just stupid. It's a shame because the system is nice but the dialogue is a big giant pile of garbage...
Pokémon doesn’t need to be edgy to be fun just challenging makes me wonder why a difficulty setting wasn’t made standard on the games since Black 2 and White 2
First 2 hours of desolation I was having a great time and then I got to the second gym and got wiped so I made a new team, found out you can't use stealth rocks and got wiped so I made ANOTHER new team and then got wiped again by xatu because it's fucking IMMUNE to ice and electric moves after replacing every mon from my original team except for 1 with pokemon that are strong against flying types and built to take on specific mons from her team but having my strategies completely invalidated by random out of my control attributes that I don't get to have knowledge of until they happen to me is bullshit and I just couldn't be bothered to build a fourth team so I stopped playing
The thing is, most points in this vid are really subjective. There are many sorts of hacks and fangames out there for you to choose, depending on your taste. If you don't like dark, don't play it and dan't say it's bad. For example, I love dark storytelling and find enhancement hacks kind of boring. Yet, I don't say enhancement hacks are bad, it just depends on the taste. As for me, pokemon reborn is a perfect game. And everyone should have his own opinion. But please, don't say that pokemon reborn for example is an objectively bad game.
I personally mainly look for the fangames with mature stories. Pokemon has a lot of potential as a dark universe and that is never explored in the main series because its made for kids. Tried a bunch of fangames, some have decent story and dialogue, while others are too childish and I lose interest. Its inevitable that some games end up being too edgy or badly written because fans of all ages makes them. So yeah, I am not surprised if a story written by a 12yo sounds like something written by a 12yo.
I really hate how so many fangames seem to be the creator's attempt at writing pokemon like an HBO show. It feels like they're all trying to prove something rather than tell a cohesive story and I'm just tired of it. I've started playing Pokemon Unbound which is otherwise a pretty neat game and was wasn't even bad writing wise until I play through the first gym which was basically one giant weed joke, complete with police storming the gym right after you get your badge. Not only was it a poor attempt at comedy, it was completely out of place with the rest of the game's tone so far.
Sacred, I like your points but I think that they could be made stronger by doing research on what it takes to make a Fan Game. Not everyone can invest hundreds of dollars into custom material for their game with the knowledge that it won't make them any money in return. As nice as it is to make these points and I understand that you come from a point of wanting to help motivate Fan Game creators please remember that not everyone has the money, resources, or time to make the games to the standards you want.
Pokemon Reborn, Pokemon Insurgence, Pokemon Xenoverse, Pokemon Rejuvination, and Pokemon Desolation I feel like besides the cast and plot problems, is that all of them forget that there are casual fans that might find the projects different. Ive been in discords for these games, and all of them are full of IV and EV Trainers, people who play competitively or use competitive play talk. And yeah people love challanges in thier game, but not when it ruins the experience for those who want to follow the story. Which brings me to the next issue I personally have. These stories are so so dark. Maybe too dark than it should be to the point where it's not even a Pokemon Plot anymore, but than a near modern Final Fantasy clone. And like Sacred said, the designs are almost too anime like or too dark, the casts are too big and everything just runs together. Story also effects how people play the game as well.
Thank You Nick for what you said. I didn't notice it at first until you said it. Deadass almost every fan game has a dark story to it and it does get old
@@brysonreedy7067 I tried to replay it but for some odd reason the game makes me physically ill, this is not a jab at the game or the creator itself, Idk why this game makes me feel sick playing it, when it didn't before.
I agree with most of your points. Especially the second point of too many characters and dialogue. This is especially the case for reborn and rejuvenation. In rejuvenation the story, the endless (boring) dialogue -- that imo isn't even that interesting -- even ruins the gameplay. Levels are locked behind gyms and to get to said gyms, you have to sit through all the endless story and characters. Meanwhile half the time my pokemon are level capped. So half the time most of the gameplay mechanics are simply locked. How is that fun? I play these games for the gameplay and to build a team that can overcome challenges. Not to sit through some mediocre (at best) and confusing story line that won't let me do what I want. Besides which, the engine of these games don't work well with a lot of dialogue. If you want to create an expansive story, make it so I don't have to click for every line of text.
I agree with all of this, a thing that I would like to point out in Reborn is the ridiculous feats you have to go through in order to get specific pokemon. Unless they changed this since I last played it, I had to go through an exorbitant amount of time and effort just to get a Magnezone! I wanted it so I could face the poison gym leader and because Magnezone is one of my favorite electric/steel type pokemon in either single type category. Despite not enjoying that long slog to get Magnezone I decided to continue playing until the episode ended after defeating the rainbow haired chick. Then afterwards I made the decision to never play it again, no disrespect to the creators but it's way too dialogue and cast heavy for my taste. Not to mention what you stated about levels and gyms being locked due to a gym and/or endless storytelling. I can do dialogue heavy games, I played Vampyre and Phoenix Wright for godsake, so I never understood why I couldn't play through Reborn with that same ease.
People who make edgy pokemon fan games saw what Sega did with Shadow the hedgehog and, unironically, want all their favourite childhood games to be that. I don't mean to be hard against what people like and are into, but the conflation of mature=edgy is really embarrassing at times. Maybe if you're 13 its cool, but when people use that approach in their fan games because that is genuinely the direction they want actual pokemon games to go, should really ask their future selves if they still think its cool. I went through it. Playing pokemon hacks 10 years ago that said they were mature and had a dark story was an interesting and novel prospect. But overuse of swearing, sexual references and threats of violence is just so embarrassing to still consider the pinnacle of being mature is. This is especially true when you consider that actual pokemon games handle mature themes in their stories and characters all the time with much more grace and respect for the subject matter (and no I don't just mean maniacally trying to end the world).
Ik this is a year old but Pokemon Rejuvenation has been my favorite fangame EVER, because even if I take a long break, I STILL remember these characters. And if I don't at first, I will remember them after a while. I couldn't keep playing reborn cause I DO NOT care about the 70+ story lines.
That's because of the unique circumstances that led the cast to be this wide. The devs didn't add these characters because they felt like they served a purpose in the game, they added them because they're based off real people that used to roleplay as these characters back in the league and it would somewhat awkward to include some and not others (although it would have benefitted those irl characters whose trauma was exploited for edgy value * coff coff Kiki, Corey and Luna *)
As a pokémon fangame developer, I can surely agree with EVERYTHING you said here. I am really disappointed in a lot of fangames recently, and I just regret the 'early' fangame era (talking about the ones that introduce brand new 'gens'), there were only a few, like I played Sage, I played Spectrum, I played Uranium, I played Solar Light/Lunar Dark, I played Ethereal Gates, but everytime either there were only short demos, or full games that had just too much features and stuff... For example if I remember well, there were like 300+ fakemons in Solar Light, and... that was just too much... I also really enjoyed Ethereal Gates, and I've now been waiting for like... more than 5 years for the whole game to come out, and it's still not out yet. That being said I will surely note every single issue you spotted there to make sure my own fangame is actually a banger x)
I'm working on a Pokémon fangame (very early in development, though I got the gist of plot, characters, region and most fakemon ready) but I don't want to make it dark or edgy. I'm honestly trying to follow more or less the official games' formula because I believe simplicity works best and in my experience I prefer games that aren't too heavy or complex when it comes to the plot.
They all to Fucking Edgy... Like the writers suffering from PTSD, ADHD and Depression Shit my fav game is Light Platinum cause it's fun, difficult, lots of Pokemon and it ain't edgy and boring
One thing all fan games need to add is an easy way you can grind without cheating. Forcing the players to grind makes the game so boring and slows down the pace tremendously.
What I want from a pokemon fan game is for it to just feel more personal and focussed than the official games. Have there be literally any relationship between the main character and their pokemon, have bigger idea in the narrative that might speak to something very personal in the creator's life. The Pokemon games don't suffer for pokemon variety, they don't lack ways to make them challenging, and they aren't short on dialogue or characters. But it has been a long time since any mainline Pokemon game had a heart, or a reason to exist beyond just continuing the franchise. If there is a fan game like that, I want to play it.
I have less of a problem with fangame stories touching more into darker or even lesser touched concepts, for me it's all about execution. For example I finally played Insurgence last year and while it had some very interesting concepts, allot of them were either handled sloppily or dropped almost entirely, and really overall the game's story becomes very convoluted when you actually sit down and think about it. But I don't really want to critique it too hard since one of the devs DO want to go back and overhaul the game including the story so maybe everything will flow better afterwards..., And I honestly didn't find the "dark" mode as edgy as people made it out to be, I might just be desensitized though all the messed up things JRPGS threw at me The other thing I can care less for is when games try to shoehorn in characters or events from previous mainline games, While I loved Xenoverse i a the same time felt like an idiot and rolled my eyes once I figured out there the plot was truly going.. and it sucks too because I REALLY liked the driving motivation of the opening, but the whole end of the game was just a giant but why? Also what is it with games and having 8 gyms but the badges don't do anything, or not replacing "missing" leaders rendering the gym challenge impossible? like if you don't wanna follow the 8 badges then league formula then try something different because it makes the badges feel worthless..
Come to think of it why did the player character in xenoverze want to beat the gyms again? Did it just become a secondary side goal for them? As much as I love xenoverse...
I don't think it was ever stated outside of being there along the way. It's even more weird when an NPC in one of the last cities says there I no Elite 4, and Mt. Zodiac has a completely different reason for climbing it. I loved how unique all the gyms were save for the final 2 and the first, but they feel so disjointed, kinda wish fan games and poke likes would find a better way of having bosses because the gym formula just doesn't worth with every case
I agree with these points, but I get the vibe that we are assuming mainstream Pokémon game stories are good. I personally think that most of the main Pokémon game stories are pretty bad, aside from one or two generations, and I'm hoping that we aren't using these main games as a standard, because then I would argue that the fan games are good, at least compared to most main games.
evne reborn, notorious for being too edgy even for 14 year old goth kids, beats every official pokemon story handily, so i am personally pretty lenient with story stuff.
The big DON’Ts of fan games(notice how I didn’t specify Pokemon. I’ll apply most of these to Pokemon for examples, but these occur in a lot of fan games in general). Don’t: • Make the story hyper edgy. Death and dark themes are acceptable. But when over three quarters of the characters you see die and people get hanged or shot while they have *superpowered beings capable of generating(and thus tanking) black holes held in their back pocket* then the suspension of disbelief gets thoroughly ground to dust. Which is a bad thing. As an aside, why do fan games love downplaying the strength of Pokemon? The Pokedex _could_ be hyperbolizing everything, but then how did the protag defeat Dialga or Palkia, who in-game literally distorted spacetime by _existing?_ • Make the game annoyingly difficult. Stuff like battlefield auras that remove half of the opponent’s type weaknesses or enemies with levels 50% above the level cap for the player aren’t enjoyable. They’re artificial difficulty modifiers that stops the player from using 99% of the dex. Improve the AI instead, which is open like a book as its own secluded script file in Pokemon Essentials. It’s more tedious to manage, but the reward will be well worth the effort. • Make the puzzles annoyingly difficult. “Hehe, it would be incredibly engaging and interactive if the player had to press A on every tile in this town to find a random item that we never explicitly told them even exists.” • Fall for feature creep. Adding 900 new mons, 10 new battle gimmicks, and 8 regions seems pretty fun, doesn’t it? See you in 20 years. • Fall for plot creep. Adding tons of side plots and unrelated detours in a game can also be fun, but once you make them mandatory experiences, don’t expect your players - who downloaded the game for the blurb plot - to stick around through them. If you can’t at all summarize the plot beats that are required through gameplay within five - eight sentences, then chances are it’s too bloated. The big exception is if you are _certain_ you can manage these areas. If you *can* make weaponry that can believably cause damage within the setting(*cough*lifepoweredflowernuke*cough*), then by all means go ahead. If you have a hundred strong group at the ready and can push out 10 regions within 2 or so years, then by _all means_ go ahead. If you can kill everyone and still maintain suspension of disbelief, then sure, go ahead. But if you have even the slightest doubt in these areas, then do not try them. If you want to _test_ them, then don’t do so in a serious project, or you’ll regret it a few months down the line.
My biggest problem with Pokemon fangames like Insurgence and such is how many powerful Pokemon are available to you and how encouraged and available stuff like EV farming and IV scanning and breeding and stuff is, my favorite Pokemon romhacks are the ones that give you more trashy Pokemon and you gotta get creative with them and make use of their quirky moves for beating gym leaders and such like Emerald Kaizo. Games like Renegade Platinum which start you off with all 3 starters and a free Eevee which already occupies 4 of the 6 Pokemon you could have had on your team and limits your playstyle where you and everyone playing the game have nearly the same teams and stuff because its not worth not using the stuff it gives you.
Because of the difficulty increase in insurgence I think it's great to have access to teambuilding tools early on, the worst part of insurgence is the first gym where you only have access to limited pokemon, with how hard some of the teams you face can be having the ability to change your team up on the fly without needing to waste hours and hours grinding a newly caught pokemon up to level cap and having good evs is a major blessing, wish you could get more iv stones before post game
I remember when Pokémon Sage hype was coming up. Pokédex was fire. Sometimes concepts and art can be just as exciting. I also really agree that it’s cringe-worthy (for lack of a better word) how edgy these games can get. Maybe that’s the way of the internet but it’s goddamn everywhere.
I like the stories in Unbound and Gaia. They're not too EDGY AND BADASS LUL, its just like "here's a game where Hoopa and Regigigas respectively are the main mon the baddies are gonna get. here's gameplay and story that's relevant to the myths of that mon. challenging gameplay and All The Pokemon gens 1-7. Yes please :D" i hear ya on the characters thing. i've been playing Insurgence and i have no idea who or what most of the characters are lol. there's a bazillion of them. i like the concept and designs of the delta pokemon, and the puzzles and tilesets are pretty good. Pokemon unbound kinda has that problem too, but I feel the story in that one is told better somehow. My favorite graphically that i've seen so far is DarkFIre. I started playing it last week, thanks to your vids, and its gorgeous! a bit dissapointing it only has gen 1-3 mons though, but it is a beta so i'll just wait. The story seems less muddled too, but i'm only a few hours in rn.
I'm invested in darkfire too! It's sprite art is very pretty and the plot seems to revolve a bit around pokemon this time. Hopefully the story doesnt get too intrusive with edgy cutscenes though. (It has a more mature story, which I'm fine with innately at least (
I feel like this is mainly directed to Xenoverse considering the region was corrupted and it was all dark and the father goes missing but Xenoverse was good it adds that more realistic vibe to it and makes it seem like the Pokémon world isn’t all happy and perfect that there are problems that need fixing and with the goth look is to roll with the dark vibe also the gym leader commiting seemed pretty dark to me 🤨
@@ravennightmare1277 yea I heard things about these games but never played them. It's a new one coming out early next yr around the time of Legend Arceus and I can't wait for both because the new fan game is based off of africa
All of this seems to me to boil down to you not liking stores where you are not the center of the universe. Other people exist, even if things are going well for you it doesnt mean it is for everyone, conflict and mental health issues exist. In the real world everyone you pass by on the street has their own story that is just as rich and important as yours, but many people play games to escape that and to feel more important. That isnt what these games are about.
If they wanted to make a story about a bunch of already established characters talking to each other about their own business why not just make a visual novel? Not a JRPG. If I have to roleplay, I have to be at least included in most of the story.
I honestly never even got too mad at the fact that GameFreak wanted to cut down the amount of Pokemon in the full Dex for SwSh. The only thing I can be mad about for that is their choices of who came back and whatnot, but no one will agree on that of course. But honestly, I'm not interested in a game with 900 pokemon, 90 forms, 100s of megas, whatever.
A cool idea for a fan game would be like at the beginning. Hey I wanna be an E4 member or a Gym Leader or a Evil Team Leader and it all connects together. Like that would be cool it doesn't need the very deep story it's Pokemon it shouldn't go as deep as like it's a whole novel.
Honestly, I'm just sick of Pokémon fan games wanting to be more difficult than they really should have. It's why Radical Red and Reborn turned me off. If people like challenge in their Pokémon games, then that's perfectly fine. But me, I don't want to have to use a team that would fit right in the competitive scene just to beat a main game. I want to be able to make my own team and be able to get through a region with it, and these fan games with higher difficulty unfortunately won't let me do that. If anyone can point me to a fan game that is not too difficult and is still fun, then I'd love to hear it.
I agree with you on most points especially Pokemon rejuvenation, the game is amazing the only problem is that, the game has so many characters that all are complex and shit which we have to Re remember when we come back for a update, like when I first played through it and got to the end of the update I was happy, though I have to try to remember everything that I loved about it when I come back. The story is good and there's a set of characters that are obviously the "main cast." And I like that unfortunately again there's a lot of characters in which you have to remember. I do like darker stories but only when done right pokemon rejuvenation has a right amount of realism of pokemon to something that would happen in real life and how people would react but yeah I agree rejuvenation has too many characters, rejuvenation has great characters but if I have to come back and remember "fuck who was important again." Then you probably have a issue there.
@@MitchJustChill I consider it good it’s heavily inspired by like reborn and rejuvenation but there’s isn’t a lot of characters so it isn’t that confusing and I think the story is pretty decent I would recommend it. Also the decisions you make in the game change parts of the story.
@@kamamara2567 that sounds badass I'm going to love almost killing a character, I remember when rejuvenation gave me a choice and I almost deleted my save file.
Definitely don't agree with you on why pokemon game shouldn't be dark. That's just ur own preference. Being dark doesn't mean there isn't "bustling town, cheerful atmosphere " it simply encompasses other elements that normal games do not include in: the possibility of death, corruption etc. games like desolation, insurgence, reborn makes the characters much more realistic than actual pokemon games. Regarding the long update, I agree with u. I usually have to replay it to enjoy it again. But idm since I only replay games that I like. Redoing it with support of cheat engine to speed run back doesnt rly bores me.
You know, I agree with every single point you made about all these fan games and rom hacks. In terms of rom hacks, I've mostly played remakes or "enhanced" versions of Fire Red and Emerald that always try to be darker and better and nothing new is really added to the table. I mean there's so many times you can redo the story of Red before it get stale and feels like it's overdone. And as for fan made games, very few fan made Pokemon games that tried to be edgy, dark, and mature actually kept my attention. I've played half way thru insurgence and reborn before getting tired of the "edgy feel" these games were trying to project. I think the only game I really played all the way through that handled a mature storyline quite well was Pokemon Uranium and Pokemon Solar Light/Lunar Dark but that's because both games weren't afraid to slow down and let the player take in what had just happened in the cut scene they were just, we weren't forced into a rival battle right away, and there weren't a shit ton of characters that appear and disappear constantly.
I don’t mind the dark story, but the difficulty of it. Like it’s ok to have a challenge in these games, but it just gets irritating to the point where you have to constantly grind up certain mons to beat a legendary. Take El’s fake level 75 arceus for example. I literally had to grind up a destiny bonding cofagrigus to beat an arceus. It kinda pisses me off tbh.
I remember many people saying that these should be the direction that Pokemon official games should take and even then, where I was really, really hyped over Reborn, I always knew that this wasn't going to work. I'll gladly finish the game when the final update drops though, I need to close this page lol.
Another big thing is that whole edgy thing needs to go cause calm down. Also the super long multiple update joints, i love Reborn (cause of how different and big it seemed), but it was started during like Gen 4-5 times in 2009-2010 and its 2021 we almost done with Gen 8, like come on now
I feel like you contradict yourself with not liking how long episodes take but want unique things and new things which take longer too make. But I do agree with how many characters they are in reborn and how important they are. Which rejuvenation handles with a few important characters and others regulated to side quests. And having side characters stay on the side lines but still being important
Pokemon Sage had a great, /beautiful/ new world, an interesting but not cluttered cast, really great fakemon and player models- it just isn’t finished yet. The demo is three badges. Sometimes I open up the wrong “game.exe” and I just get so damn wistful for that title music (even when the overworld music barely ever played in-game lol)
As edgy fangames go, Rejuvenation was just about the most I can handle but was a genuinely good story. Desolation had great facilities and a fun world, at least for the most part. The dream world arc was too long, too difficult to see, and relied on edgy, unlikeable characters. By isolating me from the community of npcs they had developed really well, it felt like the I was suddenly doing a group project with the Cullens. The three remaining siblings were demanding and unsympathetic to the point that I genuinely didn’t care about the twists in their backstory.. I just wanted to go back home to my awkward gym leader pals.
I heard the suicide in reborn was actually like Really offensive Because a lot of the characters in reborn are based on real people involved in development and that character killed themself after the person they represent committed suicide irl Just feels kinda gross and exploitative ngl :/
@@user-pp6pr5fg8w If it's an "homage" to those people, then it's a really bad one. From the story, you get the impression that irl Corey was a shitty abusive father or that irl Kiki is whining to you about the circumstances of her death. Not to mention that you first need access the "redemption arcs" of these characters in the first place. Imagine someone did that so someone you loved and that passed: theyre in a game that paints them as arrogant/whiny/mentally unstable in front of dozens of stangers. What a cute and respectful homage, right?
From what I remember, there was an online league where real people roleplayed as characters that would then be put into Pokémon Reborn (mainly gym leaders + a couple of villains), and Corey was one of those characters. But I’m pretty sure his character committed suicide in the role play, not the actual person. Though the creators of the game acted like everything that happened in the role play actually happened in real life even though it wasn’t, which might be worse.
If you acess the dev room you can interact with Ame, the sprite of the main developper, and she basically explains that all those real life events are roleplay. It's a thing she come up with during the Reborn league before she developed the game in itself. The sprite and the characters were already created along their story, thing is, she didn't expect to put those story in the game, it's the community that convinced her to do it and pretend that it was all real life events because they became attached to these stories and thought that new players would have liked to be included without revealing the truth about the origines of these stories.
I want to add,
1) if youre gonna have a complex story, make the cast shorter and have each character be complex or storyteller thru the region you’re creating.
2) Pokemon Mugen? a technical 2d fighter? We gotta complete the idea that was Type Wild.
Ok
I think a real start would be implementing another region into radical red. that is probably the best rom hack because it really adds every mechanic in Pokémon besides Pokémon following you. Add emerald to radical red and you will have a masterpiece.
Not to mention doing radical red to hg/ss then you would start with 2 regions and the amazing ds sprite work. That would be such a good game. Then you could probably add gen 4 to it because they are on the same engine.
@@captinwafflez1 But the problem with that is it's still recycling existing official Pokemon regions/story/designs. A lot of people want an original experience that can stand the test of time the same way those official games (and their improved hacks) would.
@@Sincald I understand but can you point to a rom with multiple regions. I’m all for something new but I think most people’s fantasy pokemon game is to be able to explore all the regions or at least more then one. I feel like radical red is a great base for something like that.
A lot of these fan games begin with fairly strong premises, but then they delve too much into the “I need to be different” mentality, and the games become a massive cluster of business. I don’t know how many times I’ve started a game gassed up for it, and it just falls off about an hour in.
also how they make it "difficult" by having mons with ridiculous stats and moves and not provide you the tms and mons you can use before certain fights (gyms, rival fights, etc.)
@@jiocrestfall rejuv is incredibly guilty of this. Lots of the late game fights have 252 ev’s in more then 2 stats lol. Illegal mons everywhere
I feel like fan game writers, write it like this because It's only one shot. It's a fan-game that's gonna fall into obscurity in a couple years. Pokémon games released by Gamefreak are so cookie-cutter nowadays. People want to do crazy dumb stuff with Pokémon in their story. There's so much potential for good story telling when it comes to Pokémon, Iimting it to such a small cast, with bare bones story telling is just copying what Game Freak does, which takes away the spirit of a fangame.
It's fan content. The story always takes precedent because you've already seen everything else Pokémon has to offer from Game Freak. The only thing fan creators can do now is create a new cast of characters and a new story to grip people who are looking for a more serious Pokémon experience which the mainline games barely give you.
@@JunoAndIce But you need to put more passion so people always remember it
@@JunoAndIce Put more effort into it
I feel like dark fan games come from like people thinking mature means more dark, sure you have things implied and be disturbing but it doesn’t have to be edgy. It doesn’t have to be too cheery but like I feel you on the darkness in some of em.
Dark doesn’t mean more mature
This, I think the amount of edge Xenoverse had was tolerable but the amount that I have heard with Reborn, along with the worst dialogue and the fact that the characters were based on Tumblr users (Including the person who committed suicide, which actually happened and they decided to add that as a plot point. Insensitive fucks) are enough for me to never wanna touch it unless I was paid.
100%
@@BlinkofaStorm Don't know how much of that is true but sincerely, can't care less. The game is spot on, yes the plot may feel kinda meh at points, but the dificulty, the challenge it provides and the concepts and mystery it brings forward with it's plot more than makes up a reason for me to play it. Blame the creators not the game, the game's fine, perhaps the people behind it are not but that's not my problem as I don't interact with them.
@@tankunt87 100% agree with you and honestly the plot was pretty damn good, only gripe i had was how tedious traversing the region in general was
@@BlinkofaStorm I didn't know that now that's so fucked up??
Pokemon phoenix rising had so much hype just so later for the team to disappear. This was a major disappointment. Truly sad to this day
Guessin game never got a update?
The team never disappeared. While there's still only Episode 1, they're still working on updates (even though they're quite small), and that can be seen in their Discord server. The reason the auto-update launcher thing doesn't work anymore, as far as I'm aware, is because it was coded and managed by someone who's since left the team.
You need to remember that game development requires both time and money, not to mention that they also have their own lives.
@@pxlpancakes "The team never disappeared"
But it's the fourth time they're switching their team bro.
@@pokemonkarma are you not in the discord sever for phoenix rising they give out updates every few weeks
@@skitzer5195 I'm in the server that's not true
I really don't like how the main character in fan games like Pokémon Rejuvenation and Reborn don't talk, the main character should do more interacting within the story, the main character could be downright disrespected, but they won't even have a reaction, other characters have to speak up for them. I want the main character to act like a character and not a lens for the audience
The MC in Reborn feels like a walking camera that's just there to show the entire story. It's almost like they don't even matter.
@@mathewricafrente5984 Because bizarrely the plot doesn't revolve around the main character, so they don't really do anything to drive the story forward, take them away from the plot, and the story would progress as normal
Idk, I remember playing some pokemon romhack with a talking protagonist and I hated it, but maybe it was just the writing.
I never saw it done well yet
@@scyi.3665 Hmm, the only fan game I can think of where the MC talked was Pokémon: Legends of The Arena.
@@relaxationnetwork6285 it was a french romhack that I forgot the name. The game wasn't a joke but I remember thinking the dialogue was cringy
Talking about tiles “I’ll never forget...... I don’t remember what game this was”
Lmao so much for "never"
I think that game was Xenoverse: Per Aspera ad Astra. It fit the description, and also it's a difficult name to remember. It's in the video cover too
Def was Ethereal Gates
Those fakemons were ass tho
Let’s be honest us Pokémon fans never know what we want lmao
That would be because everyone has a different notion of what's a "good" pokemon game for them, for some it's the plot, for some it's the extreme dificult, for some it's the characters and so on. Trying to imply a game's not good because it doesn't suit your taste is personally a stupid thing to do.
That's not entirely true. It's just not everyone defines a "good fangame" the same way.
well your not wrong
So far the best Fangame for me is Xenoverse.
The story is easy to follow, the fakemon are great, the Xenoverse species are great, the amount of content in game and post game reminds me of the old games....Granted Mewtwo X is 20 flavours of bullshit and the Xenomon encounter rate is frustrating. But that is 2 nitpicks of an entire game.
I played a little of Insurgence years ago, I was a teen back then and I liked the fact the story was so edgy. We saw actual people murdered using pokemon, which makes sense when you take into account that there are criminal organizations in the pokemon world.....I really should download it and play it through
@@garreonlefay6703 my only nitpick with xenoverse, infinity, uranium, and insurgences is the lag. I really wish I could play them but the lag and screen tears gives me severe headaches. :(
As a fangame creator, I see your problems, but the Dev team in normal fangames is too small for them to make new tilesets and character customisation, besides Dev teams tend to take breaks because, you see making fangames is a hobby not a job, people have other stuff to do besides going game dev 24x7.
And if fangame development is the hobby?
@@leonardofarias8843 It IS a hobby, not a job.
As someone working on a project myself, if it’s a hobby out of a passion, one naturally creates a schedule and stays devoted to finding new ideas. Issue is “hobby” in America is associated with “just something I do when I feel like it,” vs others are, “this is passion of mine I am going to be devoted to while living my life.” No one argued that it’s an expectation to sacrifice your life priorities. I work 12 hours five days a week and still make time for a project I am working on.
TLDR, hobby shouldn’t mean being lazy or being obsessed, it’s not about extremes-it’s about being devoted to your passions in being creative without compromising your life. Better to just admit you really weren’t passionate about the subject or project you were working on. People can respect that.
@@lackdejuranez7084 hobby doesn’t mean lazy. If you’re passionate about something, working hard on it within reason come naturally. That’s why Japanese fan-works are amazing while these fans still hold a productive life.
@@justabearbrowsingyoutube4968 I'im passionate about the idea of wanting to make a fangame, but this video sums up why I wouldn't. To make something good, it would take years and a team. Thats already a big ask, to try something that at any stage in my life could have to be dropped, thus draining that time out of my life. It would be enjoyable in some parts sure, but the rest would be having mini nightmares trying to solve the next coding issue or doing the same repetitive motions to slowly make a single script scene. The team i'd need's work? All wasted because I had to move on, either left to rot or for them to attempt to salvage with the story draft. And then the chance that I spent 9 years making my dream game and just like Uranium, it gets nintendo'd. Maybe it'd get preserved by fans, maybe i don't get to release it at all. Maybe nintendo decides to just sue me after I release it which has happened to at least one person, rather then a takedown order.
Or worse, in the sea of literal 1000s of fangames, it gets forgotten. Left behind. And if I scale back time investment or do it solo or whatever to make a project I can actually make, the less polished it feels compared to the games who did put in that effort, and the less people play and its forgotten faster. I would have to dedicate a chunk of my life to a gamble on a non-profit fangame that nintendo itself is against and may actively pursue just for the fuck of it while ignoring all the other big name ones because they practically throw a dart at a board and take down whatever it lands on.
I suppose you could argue in that sense i'm not passionate enough. I'd personally call it a dangerous level of passion. I wouldn't advise anyone to ever be that passionate about making a pokemon fangame, but if you want to go for it thats all you. Just know the insane risk you're taking on that time investment.
I have played 90% of Reborn and I totally agree. Way too many characters. Why are there characters with story arcs who aren't even gym leaders? Way too many villains. I can't keep track of which character has a grudge on which other character for something that happened 60 hours ago in game time. Honestly, you have to play through the game twice just to fully understand what is happening (which is what I am doing now that it is complete).
P.S. The reason Shofu quit was because he releases reborn episodes that are about an hour long. Well at one point of the story, there is a solid hour of dialogue and Shofu couldn't believe that he had to release an entire episode of pokemon content without a single pokemon battle.
The problem with Reborn and Rejuvination is that they aren't pokemon games, not in your traditional sense
The edgy thing is actually facts. They wanna give it a more "mature" vibe, but it ends up just coming off dark and depressing.
What do you think real life is? lmao
Many of these videogames are dark and depressing because it reflect the nature of their creators. Nowadays, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who suffers from depression or has an entire list of health/mental problems to deal with. Everyone knows those who have a career or hobby in the arts are some of the most depressed people all around, followed up by those in technological areas. (To be fair a lot of jobs are trash nowadays; low wages, contracts with expiration dates, many hours a week, etc. No wonder people hate life.) Videogame developers are the culmination of these two.
The thing about these "edgy" poke games though is that it feels like almost every character is going through their punk/emo/gothic phase, complimented with a dash of rebelliousness and trashy taste in music. Basically, a fair chunk of the teenage population (because that's what the characters are supposed to be). It's just... I think we could have a more "mature themed" game without the teen theme/aesthetic. God knows the adult world has a ton of (dark) topics that can be explored...
@@ivoryowl not everyone’s life is all dark, people have good in their lives too, and both should be explored equally. All dark is specifically for a certain audience, but that audience isn’t large compared to others.
@@ivoryowl "Nowadays, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who suffers from depression or has an entire list of health/mental problems to deal with. Everyone knows those who have a career or hobby in the arts are some of the most depressed people all around, followed up by those in technological areas."
Please don't tell me you believe this teenage Reddit energy tortured artist bullshit. Here's a little fact. Mental illness isn't as common as you think it is. The internet isn't good representation for mental illness being common.
@@justabearbrowsingyoutube4968 Happy people are people that don't think very hard. Because if you actually think about why you or me exist, it's depressing
@@johnnyslokes89 What are you talking about? I don’t see life the same way that you do. Pokémon fan games shouldn’t all be dark because then it becomes repetitive and players are going to notice patterns and keep checklists for the stories.
I love Insurgence's Delta Species feature, and the new Megas. But it's kinda sad that the creators are no longer implementing new ideas for Delta Species because development is pretty much over.
Also kinda sad they are not doing semi-monthly Mystery Gifts anymore......not even putting up old events for those who missed them.
pokemon insurgence is basically the only fan game with actually good new monsters. jes, it's not THAT hard to create one or two decent regional variants. I'm not saying to create and 300 mon new dex, but it's kinda boring playing a fangame with the same pokemon you already played dozen of times
@@fv8405 fakemon almost always suck, though. about the only really good fakemons i have ever seen are based on real mons and come from insurgence.
@@fv8405 So the Xenoverse dex was bad?
@@mr.preston1632 He said almost always suck, xenoverse could be an exception.
Pokémon insurgence is easily the best made Pokémon fan game (that’s not a ROM) out there. The vase amount of delta Pokémon, added mega evolutions, and even mega evolutions for delta Pokémon give you so much enjoyable content to explore. My only gripe is the edginess of the plot but honestly it’s not that bad, a darker plot like is better than a cutesy one imo. On top of that the difficulty of the game is intermediate but would be a lot more difficult for a nuzloche which I believe is another plus. Also the delta Pokémon themselves have really cool designs and type combinations. Another thing is being able to fight all of the original Pokémon trainers at the end of the storyline (i.e. Dawn, Steven, red, gold) which I really enjoyed. Lastly the quality of life additions such as 3 stages of speed up, the witchdoctor for trade evolutions, character customization, no need for HM’s, emolga taxi, and the first Pokémon in your party follows you around. I love Pokémon insurgence 👌
I think one of the biggest issues that people who make fan games face is 1: if your game is too good like Uranium when it got released you get noticed by nintendo and told to shut it down 2: finding people to actually work on the project that have the necessary skills and asking them to do it without promise of payment is ROUGH. I myself am trying to test out making a fan game but finding artists, spriters, etc is extremely hard unless you have something tangebile to show people and that requires skills that not everyone can have. Not to mention there are very few places you can go to search for people to recruit that also then require you to have a good amount of stuff already done before you can recruit anyone.
Nintendo shut down pokemon clover too I believe
It feels a lot like whenever someone complains about Pokemon Fan Games they don't even understand in the slightest what effort needs to go in. Sacred could probably get whatever he wanted for a game because he's a well recognized Pokemon TH-camr, but for other people who are essentially nobodies to find people like you said is so rough.
Keep working hard I really hope your game gets to a demo.
And then there's Xenoverse, which is a goddamn Miracle
There’s different types of fan games: The anime games where there’s 100 characters who’re important, the straight ports of main series with difficulty increases or other changes, and the best ones who make original stories and combine them with good gameplay without overdoing it
Is insurgence in the 1st or 3rd one. I haven’t played it yet
Feel like Unbound gets slept on because Radical Red pushed out its release before it
Radical red ain't even that good tho it's literally just harder fire red from what I can tell
@@lordtt3984 yeah but pokemon community loves "difficulty" and cramming every modern feature possible into a game that has a speedup button
@@nickwatic There's difficulty and then there's needing high IV'd pokemon to win. It was pretty tedious to hunt for near perfect pokemon just to stand a chance lmao
@@lordtt3984 yeah but thats what pokemon community PERCEIVES as difficult. Competitive battling without the simplicity of showdown
@@nickwatic lmao I don't wanna be playing compet against cpu's that's just ass 🤣
Personally I just think that fan games, are games made by fans for fans.
Now what I’m trying to say that each one of us has something specific they like about Pokemon games and it will never be the same thing.
So fan game makers just want to enhance what they like about Pokemon games with the limited ressources and knowledge they have.
@mystical
Fangames should be allowed in indulge in want they want but aren't exempt from critisim in the way they go about it
Developers should think about how the general public might perceive their game .
@@sunsetter4940 that’s really hard to do. Some people have diametrically opposed opinions. I liked Insurgence and some will prefer Steam 🤔
@@sunsetter4940 It doesn't matter they are making a game for them and yes people to enjoy but they shouldn't bend to whatever some random person wants
I remember watching Rejuvenation (I think) and the plot was so full of holes that could be solved if the main character just freaking said something, dozens of times. A well-written plot is incredibly important in RPGs like these, even if it's not the most deep or interesting. I don't wanna be like "that makes no sense" twice every hour lol
Strong agree, It got difficult at times to ignore parts with the story and just decide to roll with how the plot is going.
Yeah, that game's crazy.
There's death cults, shadow pokemon, people being petrified, pokemon corrupted by dimensional rifts, it's crazy!
@Roman Francis to be fair, they give an explanation for the seemingly immortal MC (it hasn't been fully fleshed out yet tho)
@Roman Francis I'm not even sure it's that tbh (although it could be). My theory, and knowing what little we know about the "interceptor" so far, I don't think the player character is actually "alive" so to speak. I'm guessing their more just a creation from the universe as a balancing tool, so death isn't really relevant to the MC.
@Roman Francis Yeah that's true I suppose. I'm still not sure I agree with the "designated amount of lives" theory, tho I see how it has some merit fs. I'm just excited for the next chapter man, the progress bars on the development blog are all at 100 percent save for the "testing" bar so hopefully it'll be soon and we'll learn some more about this whole interceptor thing.
I preferred Rejuvenation to Reborn because even though there are a lot of characters, there is a consistent main cast seen throughout the game. To me, the game felt like I was on an adventure with friends because the cast felt relatable. Whereas in Reborn, there is a revolving door with the characters and they just felt less memorable because of that.
I think more people will enjoy Reborn once the whole game is released so they can play it all at once instead of going years without seeing a character that just drops back into the story.
Also a big fan of their difficulty and access to EV training. Rejuvenation made EV training quick and accessible so my team could keep up. Though the fact that every NPC has perfect IV pokemon annoys me because of how difficult IVs are to manage. I don't want to spend hours breeding pokemon all day.
Not as dark as reborn either. But I do like reborn story better though. Rejuvenation seem more connected.
rejuvenation is easily the best fangame i have played. the way the story is told is good, considering it isn't from a professional studio at least, i'd never accept this if it was from c.d. projekt red but it is alright for a random creative on the 'net. the characters are about the same quality. the difficulty is good, and the mechanics/gameplay are better than the main series by far (credit to reborn, though, the environmental system is now border-line necessary for me to actually enjoy a pokemon game).
most of that can be said about reborn too, but reborn drops the ball hard on characters and story telling. the edgy tone just wears so thin if it is all it has (and it is all it has).
That is indeed a valid criticism of the way Reborn handles story and characters. As for Rejuvenation NPC IV and EV issues, you can alter the difficulty which solves this issue for the most part. Both Reborn and Rejuvenation are a lot harder than the base pokemon games, and Rejuvenation Hard mode is bloody demonic to say the least, but if it annoys you too much, you can always lower the difficulty.
Personally I play hard mode because I'm a stubborn masochist. And it has caused me to run into a wall from time to time, which usually mean I need to change my strategies significantly, which I do consider great fun.
Also, I can really recommend Pokemon Desolation, also a rather small cast of characters and in my opinion really nice story. It plays a lot faster than Reborn and Rejuvenation, but is also quite a bit shorter sadly. Is also another member of the Reborn family, thus it contains field effects, which to this day remain my absolute favourite addition to a pokemon game, including fan games.
You can change your IV in Rejuvenation but only when you get to GDC District of Hope which is very late in the game, or you can also get the debug mode which you can find in their forum and give your pokemon all 31 IVs
@@cindermoth3421 They said they will remove intense mod in next update tough
I dont mind dark pokemon games, the issue is most of the people who make darker pokemon stories arent good writers.
Just gonna say, I love Clover 'cause it doesn't take itself serious at all and is just fun, no overly complicated story and also doesn't have a ton of characters that don't matter. It's only issue is that it's super offensive at times but even then, I think it's one of the better hacks out there
It's actually well designed and balanced lmao
People think that clover is offensive but actually all those kinda racist memes are just a parody of 4chan, back in the days some boards on 4chan were totally out of control, and clover makes a parody of it. The gameplay in clover is probably the best ever created for a rom hack, the AI is so smart, also the music in clover is awesome. Many people that criticize it for being "offensive" are actually too young to remember how the internet was back in the early 2010s
@@marcorossi2854 you can't defend clover when some of the people who made the racist fakemon actually hold the beliefs that the fakemon were based on.
clover is a well designed game aside from its fakemon
@@PrismaAce and even then some of its fakemon have some really good designs, lookin at you two, Honrade and Frutagon
@@tangerinepaint3643 oh yeah absolutely, some of the fakemon are really cool
Sometimes I feel as though these fangames need to take a page outta Gen 5 of Pokemons book. It's different, but it doesn't feel cluttered. Also thank you for calling out edgy ass stories. I'm here to battle and play with my mons not read Twilight fanfiction
Yeah definitely. The fan game I’m making, called Pokémon Infinite Glitch, is going to probably be 80 or 85% fakemon, and 15 or 20% official Pokémon.
@@awesometoadultimate8562 Sounds interesting
Then don't play the romhacks what? Play the normal pokemon games or the basic romhacks
@@mr.sinister5584 Write what you want but when it's Rejuvenation levels it's kinda ridiculous
Twilight fanfiction 💀💀 how could u say something so bold but so correct
It feels like all the popular fan-games lean way too heavily on the evil teams. I want a Pokemon game that's more about the adventure and the exploration of a new region instead of always having to stop some wack ass group of villains from killing everyone or whatever. I remember as a kid, and even to this day, I always dreamed of going to the Pokemon world, but I can't name a single fan-game that has a world I wanna go to! Gimme a cool ass region that's fun to explore! I wanna see some cool ass shit man, I want the spectacle of it!
pokemon emprean and pokemon story and pokemon royal
give it a try
yeah, the ideal pokemnon game isn't one that is incredibly difficult (although i like difficulty), or one with amazing fakemon (although genuinely good fakemon can help), or an incredibly complex and in-depth story (although i like me a good -space- pokemon opera). an ideal pokemon game would be one with a living, breathing world that you _adventure_ through.
hunting through massive forests for a pokemon you heard weird rumors about and want to see for yourself, climbing massive mountains because it is the greatest training you will ever have, challenging a league of the greatest trainers in the world just to prove you are one of them. that is what an ideal pokemon game would focus on.
You can have both
This is my biggest gripe with the main official games. Evil teams and god that you the choosen has to stop... I wish they would just make a game where this was not the case. Even in Arceus you have to after a god... let someone else do that stuff. I want them to ditch the puzzles in gyms and make the league a real tournament with character, story and flair. And the gyms should be much more interesting with effects, strong opponents and more.
I don't like the after games usually. But I also realize that funding can affect this. These games are free so I can not expect them to have an amazing after game. But what is amazing is subjective. Also I wish more games had a journal system that kept track of where you left off or your next task. I often forget because I might go to another game. If that is possible
Well if I ever make my fan-made region into a game, it will actually have a quite long post-game
I don't care for how dark reborns story can be, more so because it gets really predictable at some points. But the combat is amazing. Different terrains that can buff or need typing throughout the battle is something I wish we had in the mainline games
Oh yeah. Reborn's story is pretty cringe, but it's definitely a super enjoyable game regardless.
@@Bladehound83 story is like ok not cringe but just the whole fact that u do everything but noone gives a shit
No that’s what makes the game complete trash. Terrain was the worst idea ever.
@@Bladehound83 nope
@@paulkendrick4153 howso?
Oh also.
One thing Reborn does that could work if implemented well.
Episodic releases.
If you know the game is gonna take years, then make each section feel self contained. Use actual episodic storytelling and have each episode feel like a mini arc.
If I'm playing episode 1 and it ends at a reasonable place then I won't be as deflated when it ends compared to "well we programmed the third gym so let's just end it here."
You DO realize that's how time constraints are RPG making works, right?
The whole "i want my main character to speak" thing in pokemon games is sorta dumb/useless to me cause you're playing through those characters, so if they interact with other characters in a way that you wouldn't, would that not feel weird? Also, if you're making a video on it, people are going to see you react even if you arent, you'll still react and its not like the main character talking will change the story. What they should do is give the characters a choice or like branch in the story. Like maybe there's two different gym leaders that you can challenge at this time in two different cities or maybe there's just 2 different gym leaders in that town and you can pick; Reborn does a good job with different choice stuff like that: ex. Fighting the evil team admin and getting the emerald or fighting the doctor that is shocking that little girl to save her *or* the getting Corey arrested before you fight him so he doesnt "commit"
the implication, generally, is that your character is interacting with the other characters in a way that advances the plot, it isn't a big deal imo if you don't have actively written out dialogue. if we have to implement something, though, i'd move away from traditional character dialogue (main character speaking in response to other characters) and instead make these nominal RPGs into real RPGs* by having you pick out your own dialogue that influences the story in some way (like getting dialogue options every time we actually speak, a la the persona games but more meaningful). i haven't made a proper game myself, but i know the logic isn't that hard to follow and implement in modern engines (like RPG maker or unity, which i assume most fan game are made in) so long as you keep a good dev log.
* traditional JRPGs are not real RPGs and i will die on this hill, there is more to an RPG than just having numbers.
Man I know I’m late to this video but I really appreciate you criticizing “dark” Pokémon fan games. I don’t play a lot of fan games because so many games think a mature game means an edgy one lol I found personally I couldn’t take Pokémon insurgence seriously because the plot was to edgy.
One of the main issues is that people seem to go the edgy routes for the sake of it being edgy, not to make any meaningful message or good stories. it's gotten to the point where it's just so predictable, and boring.
...Which isn't even the point with Reborn/Rejuvenation/Desolation
Timestamps e-e
1:15 Enhancements Hacks struggle to add something new to the game
3:57 Fangames try too hard to be dark (I agree so fucking much)
5:17 Fangames have too many characters/ too many arcs
8:51 Fangames need more customization, I love that (yes!)
9:44 Fangames having exclusive tilesets/being unique is important
13:33 Fangames taking breaks pisses me off (me too! releasing chapters is shit)
Bro, that was a really good video! As a fangame-maker myself, it only makes me feel great that I don't fall too much in those categories, haha
You realize why the chapters are released it's because it takes ages to make a game. Otherwise your fangames wouldn't come out for 12 or so years and most likely die off. There is also a lot of work involved. Complain all you want but unless you have tried making one you can't really comment on that. Dark themes are also not a bad thing. And the characters/arcs make a more complex story it is better than over simplifying
It's subjective, I personally prefer fan-made Pokemon games. Reborn, Rejuvenation, and Desolation are my favorites. I never had issues remembering the characters although I can nit pick some parts I didn't like about it. Reborn's gym puzzles were way too hard especially when I have no clue how to play chess (Radomus' gym) or the fact that I'm no musician (Hardy's gym). Rejuvenation tossed my ass into a double battle at every opportunity so it can get frustrating when a random character ambushes me out of nowhere. For Desolation almost a metric butt ton of characters have access to a Mega evolution while I finally get mine towards the end of the game. Other than that these games have an excellent story, gameplay, and cast which takes a lot of patience and preparation to beat. I find myself rotating my pokemon and using different strategies as well as pokemon I thought I'd never use. Overall I love these games for the challenge it provides and it feels rewarding when I make progress (like beating gym leaders or super bosses) rather than be spoon fed and given everything for little effort.
I personally enjoy these dark stories. I don't get why people shit on games with "dark stories". Its something called preference. No need to call out anyone who enjoys stories like these. No need to make videos about people who enjoy these stories and don't treat it like having dark stories in a game is "bad" or "too edgy". Because if you're allowed to have an "opinion" (which people just use as an excuse to hate on something nowadays) then people who enjoy em also get to have an opinion and preference on them its that simple. Just because you don't enjoy these games doesnt mean you get to shame people who do enjoy these games.
fr man you have a point, me personally I like me some dark stories if their not too dark sometimes stories get too "edgy" for no reason
@@DullaZulla mhm year later and i still hold the same view point. Well structured, well written dark story shouldn't be discriminated against just cause it's edgy or dark. Pokemon opalo for example is a generally grim story but it is so so good, one of the best fan games ever. A few bad apples shouldn't be enough to hate the entirety of the story genre fr.
I love pokemon reborn, desolation and insurgence because chaos is all I want. Any similar games?
Rejuvenation. Pokemon Xenoverse is great, but not enough chaos compared to Insurgence, if that's what you are looking for
Pokémon shouldn't be grimdark. You can have a dark premise, but there needs to be something there to balance out the tone.
What if, just, what if.. someone likes a story with complex characters and a large cast?
What if the game.. wasn't made to cater to your own demands - your own ideas.. but instead.. in the creators vision?
What if.. you can just play the game.. or not play the game?
I think your points are somewhat valid at times, but they make it seem like they're right because you think they're right. In regards to Reborn, what if you joined during E18? What if people are taking that long on an episode because they want to make it good?
I've played reborn a lot by now - I've played rejuv a bit as well.. And I don't think it's a bad thing. I understand the story (mostly), I know the characters, and just because you aren't focused enough to remember a gym leader - someone with a distinct sprite, personality, etc.. Doesn't mean it's bad?
And if you don't want to read, then hold down your B button, becaus that'll speed through the text. If your problem is large amounts of diaogue, then that's *your* problem. Yes, the end of Reborn E18 is dialogue heavy - the void part especially, and I will give you that, but honestly? that's nitpicking, if you ask me, and it's still playing into the vision of the creator.
Can you defy that vision? Sure. But don't try to control how others make a fangame because "I don't like it"
Let us enjoy what we want.
Great response. Sacred is just nitpicking
I feel like a lot of fangames I watched eventually forgets it's Pokemon fangame and will never mention pokemon ever like in Reborn.
The developing too many characters thing really hurts when you have GBA style graphics cause you can't see that much of them.
I rather not see games try to cram in every legendary or pokemon like Insurgence
I very badly want to make a Pokémon inspired game that speaks to so much of what you're saying
I’ll play it if it’s fire bro
I wish I had the ability to do so
im trying to make a rom game right now and maybe use that to make another kaiju collecting game in the future.
Yeah customization is a must for me I don’t really like games where they just use red/Ethan sprites lol
@Rocks yeah I know I just prefer games that don’t reuse assets
@Rocks I guess you can say that one of the reasons I started playing xenoverse lol
The video can be summed up like this: “don’t try to make your video game into an anime”
The people who start these projects are the types with a lot of creativity stored up combined with a deep love for pokemon, so they end up letting that all out forgetting that they have to make something that is enjoyable to play for others.
I remember at one point playing Pokémon Rejuvenation where you roll up to a late game city to get your next badge. You see the gym leader next to his gym and think ‘Fantastic, we get get right to work on getting the next badge’
Only for the gym leader to turn to you and go ‘hey protagonist! I’m gonna fuck off into the desert for 4 hours, let’s goooo!’ I’ve never wanted to nail a man’s feet to the ground so badly in my life.
And then the game has the kahonas to tell ME off when they asked me to fight for them against the bad guy who I’ve never met and I told them to go pound sand. I don’t give a fuuuck about the story my man! I just wanna have hard fights!
just seems a (you) problem
I don't understand the complaints of Main characters being mute when in every damn pokemon game the character is mute.
Maybe because an edgy story makes it more frustrating that you can't interact with it in a meaningful way
In normal Pokémon games you standing there or actually doing something doesn't really affect the story
Big facts on the tiles. Fangames that have similar tiles sets to the original games really kind of a turn off tbh.
Also I agree with the too many characters point, especially in fangames. There be A LOT of characters I don't care for just popping out the woodworks like dawg who are you??
I laughed because you actually mentioned Gaia online. I thought I was the only one who still remembered that lmao
Xenoverse is now the fan game I love. Everything is new and unique even the end game kept me interested.
Exactly, Xenoverse is great
I wanna play but I got downloading issues with it.....
I whole heartedly agree with your video here as from what I've noticed they usually follow a sort of recipe that you mentioned before with it dipping into an overly mature subject such as just ending people with it being given little foreshadow or just randomly done. Reborn for example is rather trigger happy in this case. In regards to little customization I feel like it would be easier to give them dialogue to cut down on time given for new sprites but the individuality done in Pokemon Apex is done nicely so you aren't just playing a mute slate but instead a confused boy struggling to come to terms with what happened. It just gives it a greater edge compared to the others where you control a puppet. That is all.
I think something that has become repetitive as the years have gone on is the majority trying to create a dark storyline for the sake of it, and it feels forced in points. 100% agree on the complexity with characters as well, I think if the games dropped in one shot it's fine, but having played reborn/rejuvenation over periods it gets too much after updates
Nick I just wanna say I love this discussion style videos they breath a lot of diversity into your channel besides regular play throughout keep up the good work brother 🙌🏾
im trying man thank you
@@SacredAlmighty ong this format type beautiful
yea fan games have their issues but I still enjoy games like reborn rejuvenation insurgence and empyrean for being different and giving players things that they've been asking for in main series games for decades.
I love how the video is cut off at the end. It's perfect.
It's really nice that you're addressing the common issues that Pokémon fangames. I have learned how to spot a video game's shortcomings through analysis videos and I also got an idea of what makes a game good. I never really thought about what makes a Pokémon game good, until recently. Then, I ran into this video and finally found an answer.
I think the "edgy" thing on pokemon reborn and rejuvenation is gym battle and boss battle hands down nothing come harder to em even radical red doesn't feel that hard on gym battles and boss battles
I still remember how cursed double battle on reborn and rejuvenation cuz sometime it's 6 vs 12
I remember last time on reborn when face 3 pokemon battle with 2(12 vs 6) doubles and one single on raw that fking hard but something radical red didn't do
I don't care about how badly you hate em but like or not rejuvenation and reborn are the face of fan game community we didn't have a good fan game for very long time and adding cfru engine to fan game is pretty hard unless the developer wanted to do it and Amy isn't going to add gen 8 right now they have to literally remake the game just for sake of adding gen 8 mons and moves
14:21 Pokemon Azurite was teased in 2014 and progress seems to be going very slow if it hasn't already stopped completely. Makes me kinda sad.
My main issue with many Pokémon fangames and ROM hacks is that a lot of them try to be super extremely challenging. I get it, there are people who enjoy difficulty, but many of these fangames and ROM hacks feel like they expect anyone who plays the game to be a professional Pokémon player who knows the ins and outs of everything, to the point that the game is practically unplayable for anyone on the casual side of things, such as myself.
If you want to have that kind of difficulty, then maybe consider giving a difficulty option, so that casual players can still enjoy the game on the lower difficulties, while more hardcore players can give the higher difficulties a try.
pokemon r.o.w.e does that
I know this is an old video but i restarted a pokemon reborn save file and HOLY CRAP the ammount of dialogue is just stupid. It's a shame because the system is nice but the dialogue is a big giant pile of garbage...
Pokémon doesn’t need to be edgy to be fun just challenging makes me wonder why a difficulty setting wasn’t made standard on the games since Black 2 and White 2
I hate it when a Pokémon fan game is ridiculously hard
I agree. Like, it's fine to want challenge, but there's a point where it gets too ridiculous.
@@AuraStrikeAce exactly my thoughts.
First 2 hours of desolation I was having a great time and then I got to the second gym and got wiped so I made a new team, found out you can't use stealth rocks and got wiped so I made ANOTHER new team and then got wiped again by xatu because it's fucking IMMUNE to ice and electric moves after replacing every mon from my original team except for 1 with pokemon that are strong against flying types and built to take on specific mons from her team but having my strategies completely invalidated by random out of my control attributes that I don't get to have knowledge of until they happen to me is bullshit and I just couldn't be bothered to build a fourth team so I stopped playing
The thing is, most points in this vid are really subjective. There are many sorts of hacks and fangames out there for you to choose, depending on your taste. If you don't like dark, don't play it and dan't say it's bad. For example, I love dark storytelling and find enhancement hacks kind of boring. Yet, I don't say enhancement hacks are bad, it just depends on the taste.
As for me, pokemon reborn is a perfect game. And everyone should have his own opinion. But please, don't say that pokemon reborn for example is an objectively bad game.
I personally mainly look for the fangames with mature stories. Pokemon has a lot of potential as a dark universe and that is never explored in the main series because its made for kids.
Tried a bunch of fangames, some have decent story and dialogue, while others are too childish and I lose interest. Its inevitable that some games end up being too edgy or badly written because fans of all ages makes them. So yeah, I am not surprised if a story written by a 12yo sounds like something written by a 12yo.
I really hate how so many fangames seem to be the creator's attempt at writing pokemon like an HBO show. It feels like they're all trying to prove something rather than tell a cohesive story and I'm just tired of it. I've started playing Pokemon Unbound which is otherwise a pretty neat game and was wasn't even bad writing wise until I play through the first gym which was basically one giant weed joke, complete with police storming the gym right after you get your badge.
Not only was it a poor attempt at comedy, it was completely out of place with the rest of the game's tone so far.
Towards the end, the last word I heard was “STOP” then I had an ad and came back and it was over 😂! The Outros are too good!
Sacred, I like your points but I think that they could be made stronger by doing research on what it takes to make a Fan Game. Not everyone can invest hundreds of dollars into custom material for their game with the knowledge that it won't make them any money in return. As nice as it is to make these points and I understand that you come from a point of wanting to help motivate Fan Game creators please remember that not everyone has the money, resources, or time to make the games to the standards you want.
Pokemon Reborn, Pokemon Insurgence, Pokemon Xenoverse, Pokemon Rejuvination, and Pokemon Desolation
I feel like besides the cast and plot problems, is that all of them forget that there are casual fans that might find the projects different. Ive been in discords for these games, and all of them are full of IV and EV Trainers, people who play competitively or use competitive play talk. And yeah people love challanges in thier game, but not when it ruins the experience for those who want to follow the story.
Which brings me to the next issue I personally have. These stories are so so dark. Maybe too dark than it should be to the point where it's not even a Pokemon Plot anymore, but than a near modern Final Fantasy clone. And like Sacred said, the designs are almost too anime like or too dark, the casts are too big and everything just runs together. Story also effects how people play the game as well.
Thank You Nick for what you said. I didn't notice it at first until you said it. Deadass almost every fan game has a dark story to it and it does get old
that Reborn shit is so true, I went back to my save file after about a year and was confused as shit
That's why most people are waiting until the final episode
I know this is old but I did the same thing and had no idea what I was doing nor where I was going.
@@RoyG.BivDevoe I ended up just replaying the whole game 😂, this team I have now is a whole lot better too
@@brysonreedy7067 I tried to replay it but for some odd reason the game makes me physically ill, this is not a jab at the game or the creator itself, Idk why this game makes me feel sick playing it, when it didn't before.
I agree with most of your points. Especially the second point of too many characters and dialogue. This is especially the case for reborn and rejuvenation. In rejuvenation the story, the endless (boring) dialogue -- that imo isn't even that interesting -- even ruins the gameplay. Levels are locked behind gyms and to get to said gyms, you have to sit through all the endless story and characters. Meanwhile half the time my pokemon are level capped. So half the time most of the gameplay mechanics are simply locked.
How is that fun? I play these games for the gameplay and to build a team that can overcome challenges. Not to sit through some mediocre (at best) and confusing story line that won't let me do what I want.
Besides which, the engine of these games don't work well with a lot of dialogue. If you want to create an expansive story, make it so I don't have to click for every line of text.
I agree with all of this, a thing that I would like to point out in Reborn is the ridiculous feats you have to go through in order to get specific pokemon. Unless they changed this since I last played it, I had to go through an exorbitant amount of time and effort just to get a Magnezone! I wanted it so I could face the poison gym leader and because Magnezone is one of my favorite electric/steel type pokemon in either single type category. Despite not enjoying that long slog to get Magnezone I decided to continue playing until the episode ended after defeating the rainbow haired chick. Then afterwards I made the decision to never play it again, no disrespect to the creators but it's way too dialogue and cast heavy for my taste.
Not to mention what you stated about levels and gyms being locked due to a gym and/or endless storytelling. I can do dialogue heavy games, I played Vampyre and Phoenix Wright for godsake, so I never understood why I couldn't play through Reborn with that same ease.
People who make edgy pokemon fan games saw what Sega did with Shadow the hedgehog and, unironically, want all their favourite childhood games to be that.
I don't mean to be hard against what people like and are into, but the conflation of mature=edgy is really embarrassing at times. Maybe if you're 13 its cool, but when people use that approach in their fan games because that is genuinely the direction they want actual pokemon games to go, should really ask their future selves if they still think its cool.
I went through it. Playing pokemon hacks 10 years ago that said they were mature and had a dark story was an interesting and novel prospect. But overuse of swearing, sexual references and threats of violence is just so embarrassing to still consider the pinnacle of being mature is. This is especially true when you consider that actual pokemon games handle mature themes in their stories and characters all the time with much more grace and respect for the subject matter (and no I don't just mean maniacally trying to end the world).
Ik this is a year old but Pokemon Rejuvenation has been my favorite fangame EVER, because even if I take a long break, I STILL remember these characters. And if I don't at first, I will remember them after a while. I couldn't keep playing reborn cause I DO NOT care about the 70+ story lines.
Reborn wouldn’t be a good game without its character cast. Requiring mental investment isn’t a bad thing
i disagree by a loooooong mile
@@SacredAlmighty And I disagree with you
That's because of the unique circumstances that led the cast to be this wide. The devs didn't add these characters because they felt like they served a purpose in the game, they added them because they're based off real people that used to roleplay as these characters back in the league and it would somewhat awkward to include some and not others (although it would have benefitted those irl characters whose trauma was exploited for edgy value * coff coff Kiki, Corey and Luna *)
@@SacredAlmightyWell I disagree with you by a loooooooong mile.
Pokémon Reborn is obviously not finished yet, but oh boy it looks epic when it is.
The battle facilities looks AWESOMESAUCE.
Basically, there's already enough Poke-Darksouls out there
As a pokémon fangame developer, I can surely agree with EVERYTHING you said here. I am really disappointed in a lot of fangames recently, and I just regret the 'early' fangame era (talking about the ones that introduce brand new 'gens'), there were only a few, like I played Sage, I played Spectrum, I played Uranium, I played Solar Light/Lunar Dark, I played Ethereal Gates, but everytime either there were only short demos, or full games that had just too much features and stuff... For example if I remember well, there were like 300+ fakemons in Solar Light, and... that was just too much... I also really enjoyed Ethereal Gates, and I've now been waiting for like... more than 5 years for the whole game to come out, and it's still not out yet.
That being said I will surely note every single issue you spotted there to make sure my own fangame is actually a banger x)
I'm working on a Pokémon fangame (very early in development, though I got the gist of plot, characters, region and most fakemon ready) but I don't want to make it dark or edgy. I'm honestly trying to follow more or less the official games' formula because I believe simplicity works best and in my experience I prefer games that aren't too heavy or complex when it comes to the plot.
Keep going at it, I hope your game gets to a Demo, or if it has then congrats I hope I can get the chance to play it.
You can do it! I also would like to play the demo, if it ever gets released. Kinda tired of the 3edgy5me stories a LOT of these fangames have.
Good luck with that.
Last good rom hack I played was Unbound. For me, I'd like to see more games like that.
I strongly believe Unbound is a blueprint for future CFRU rom hacks
I couldn’t get into it for some reason but seeing let’s plays of it it is pretty good
10:12 "I will never forget, literally... I forgot what game this was..."
Lmfao, bro.
They all to Fucking Edgy... Like the writers suffering from PTSD, ADHD and Depression
Shit my fav game is Light Platinum cause it's fun, difficult, lots of Pokemon and it ain't edgy and boring
Dark stories are just better
Look out for a fan game that me and a few friends will be developing in the upcoming years
One thing all fan games need to add is an easy way you can grind without cheating. Forcing the players to grind makes the game so boring and slows down the pace tremendously.
What I want from a pokemon fan game is for it to just feel more personal and focussed than the official games. Have there be literally any relationship between the main character and their pokemon, have bigger idea in the narrative that might speak to something very personal in the creator's life. The Pokemon games don't suffer for pokemon variety, they don't lack ways to make them challenging, and they aren't short on dialogue or characters. But it has been a long time since any mainline Pokemon game had a heart, or a reason to exist beyond just continuing the franchise. If there is a fan game like that, I want to play it.
I have less of a problem with fangame stories touching more into darker or even lesser touched concepts, for me it's all about execution. For example I finally played Insurgence last year and while it had some very interesting concepts, allot of them were either handled sloppily or dropped almost entirely, and really overall the game's story becomes very convoluted when you actually sit down and think about it. But I don't really want to critique it too hard since one of the devs DO want to go back and overhaul the game including the story so maybe everything will flow better afterwards..., And I honestly didn't find the "dark" mode as edgy as people made it out to be, I might just be desensitized though all the messed up things JRPGS threw at me
The other thing I can care less for is when games try to shoehorn in characters or events from previous mainline games, While I loved Xenoverse i a the same time felt like an idiot and rolled my eyes once I figured out there the plot was truly going.. and it sucks too because I REALLY liked the driving motivation of the opening, but the whole end of the game was just a giant but why?
Also what is it with games and having 8 gyms but the badges don't do anything, or not replacing "missing" leaders rendering the gym challenge impossible? like if you don't wanna follow the 8 badges then league formula then try something different because it makes the badges feel worthless..
Come to think of it why did the player character in xenoverze want to beat the gyms again? Did it just become a secondary side goal for them? As much as I love xenoverse...
I don't think it was ever stated outside of being there along the way. It's even more weird when an NPC in one of the last cities says there I no Elite 4, and Mt. Zodiac has a completely different reason for climbing it. I loved how unique all the gyms were save for the final 2 and the first, but they feel so disjointed, kinda wish fan games and poke likes would find a better way of having bosses because the gym formula just doesn't worth with every case
I agree with these points, but I get the vibe that we are assuming mainstream Pokémon game stories are good. I personally think that most of the main Pokémon game stories are pretty bad, aside from one or two generations, and I'm hoping that we aren't using these main games as a standard, because then I would argue that the fan games are good, at least compared to most main games.
evne reborn, notorious for being too edgy even for 14 year old goth kids, beats every official pokemon story handily, so i am personally pretty lenient with story stuff.
The big DON’Ts of fan games(notice how I didn’t specify Pokemon. I’ll apply most of these to Pokemon for examples, but these occur in a lot of fan games in general).
Don’t:
• Make the story hyper edgy. Death and dark themes are acceptable. But when over three quarters of the characters you see die and people get hanged or shot while they have *superpowered beings capable of generating(and thus tanking) black holes held in their back pocket* then the suspension of disbelief gets thoroughly ground to dust. Which is a bad thing.
As an aside, why do fan games love downplaying the strength of Pokemon? The Pokedex _could_ be hyperbolizing everything, but then how did the protag defeat Dialga or Palkia, who in-game literally distorted spacetime by _existing?_
• Make the game annoyingly difficult. Stuff like battlefield auras that remove half of the opponent’s type weaknesses or enemies with levels 50% above the level cap for the player aren’t enjoyable. They’re artificial difficulty modifiers that stops the player from using 99% of the dex. Improve the AI instead, which is open like a book as its own secluded script file in Pokemon Essentials. It’s more tedious to manage, but the reward will be well worth the effort.
• Make the puzzles annoyingly difficult. “Hehe, it would be incredibly engaging and interactive if the player had to press A on every tile in this town to find a random item that we never explicitly told them even exists.”
• Fall for feature creep. Adding 900 new mons, 10 new battle gimmicks, and 8 regions seems pretty fun, doesn’t it? See you in 20 years.
• Fall for plot creep. Adding tons of side plots and unrelated detours in a game can also be fun, but once you make them mandatory experiences, don’t expect your players - who downloaded the game for the blurb plot - to stick around through them. If you can’t at all summarize the plot beats that are required through gameplay within five - eight sentences, then chances are it’s too bloated.
The big exception is if you are _certain_ you can manage these areas. If you *can* make weaponry that can believably cause damage within the setting(*cough*lifepoweredflowernuke*cough*), then by all means go ahead. If you have a hundred strong group at the ready and can push out 10 regions within 2 or so years, then by _all means_ go ahead. If you can kill everyone and still maintain suspension of disbelief, then sure, go ahead. But if you have even the slightest doubt in these areas, then do not try them. If you want to _test_ them, then don’t do so in a serious project, or you’ll regret it a few months down the line.
My biggest problem with Pokemon fangames like Insurgence and such is how many powerful Pokemon are available to you and how encouraged and available stuff like EV farming and IV scanning and breeding and stuff is, my favorite Pokemon romhacks are the ones that give you more trashy Pokemon and you gotta get creative with them and make use of their quirky moves for beating gym leaders and such like Emerald Kaizo. Games like Renegade Platinum which start you off with all 3 starters and a free Eevee which already occupies 4 of the 6 Pokemon you could have had on your team and limits your playstyle where you and everyone playing the game have nearly the same teams and stuff because its not worth not using the stuff it gives you.
Because of the difficulty increase in insurgence I think it's great to have access to teambuilding tools early on, the worst part of insurgence is the first gym where you only have access to limited pokemon, with how hard some of the teams you face can be having the ability to change your team up on the fly without needing to waste hours and hours grinding a newly caught pokemon up to level cap and having good evs is a major blessing, wish you could get more iv stones before post game
I remember when Pokémon Sage hype was coming up. Pokédex was fire. Sometimes concepts and art can be just as exciting.
I also really agree that it’s cringe-worthy (for lack of a better word) how edgy these games can get. Maybe that’s the way of the internet but it’s goddamn everywhere.
Bro sage was teased in what, 2012?
@@nickwatic waaay back yeah
I like the stories in Unbound and Gaia. They're not too EDGY AND BADASS LUL, its just like "here's a game where Hoopa and Regigigas respectively are the main mon the baddies are gonna get. here's gameplay and story that's relevant to the myths of that mon. challenging gameplay and All The Pokemon gens 1-7. Yes please :D"
i hear ya on the characters thing. i've been playing Insurgence and i have no idea who or what most of the characters are lol. there's a bazillion of them. i like the concept and designs of the delta pokemon, and the puzzles and tilesets are pretty good. Pokemon unbound kinda has that problem too, but I feel the story in that one is told better somehow.
My favorite graphically that i've seen so far is DarkFIre. I started playing it last week, thanks to your vids, and its gorgeous! a bit dissapointing it only has gen 1-3 mons though, but it is a beta so i'll just wait. The story seems less muddled too, but i'm only a few hours in rn.
I'm invested in darkfire too! It's sprite art is very pretty and the plot seems to revolve a bit around pokemon this time. Hopefully the story doesnt get too intrusive with edgy cutscenes though. (It has a more mature story, which I'm fine with innately at least (
Agree unbound and gaia is too of my favs
I feel like this is mainly directed to Xenoverse considering the region was corrupted and it was all dark and the father goes missing but Xenoverse was good it adds that more realistic vibe to it and makes it seem like the Pokémon world isn’t all happy and perfect that there are problems that need fixing and with the goth look is to roll with the dark vibe also the gym leader commiting seemed pretty dark to me 🤨
Yea suicide is not needed. Being down is one but there should be a climax but a suicide is like wtf
@@bdb7185 Xenoverse did a good job on introducing X Pokémon and the Corruption but at the same time it’s something I’ve never seen in a game
@@ravennightmare1277 yea I heard things about these games but never played them. It's a new one coming out early next yr around the time of Legend Arceus and I can't wait for both because the new fan game is based off of africa
It feels like a mainline game
@@bdb7185 oh word? I kinda skipped over this but like around December?
All of this seems to me to boil down to you not liking stores where you are not the center of the universe.
Other people exist, even if things are going well for you it doesnt mean it is for everyone, conflict and mental health issues exist.
In the real world everyone you pass by on the street has their own story that is just as rich and important as yours, but many people play games to escape that and to feel more important.
That isnt what these games are about.
If they wanted to make a story about a bunch of already established characters talking to each other about their own business why not just make a visual novel?
Not a JRPG. If I have to roleplay, I have to be at least included in most of the story.
Its why Bushido is my favourite fan game. Keeps things simple and polished and doesnt overstay its welcome
I honestly never even got too mad at the fact that GameFreak wanted to cut down the amount of Pokemon in the full Dex for SwSh. The only thing I can be mad about for that is their choices of who came back and whatnot, but no one will agree on that of course. But honestly, I'm not interested in a game with 900 pokemon, 90 forms, 100s of megas, whatever.
A cool idea for a fan game would be like at the beginning. Hey I wanna be an E4 member or a Gym Leader or a Evil Team Leader and it all connects together. Like that would be cool it doesn't need the very deep story it's Pokemon it shouldn't go as deep as like it's a whole novel.
Honestly, I'm just sick of Pokémon fan games wanting to be more difficult than they really should have. It's why Radical Red and Reborn turned me off.
If people like challenge in their Pokémon games, then that's perfectly fine. But me, I don't want to have to use a team that would fit right in the competitive scene just to beat a main game.
I want to be able to make my own team and be able to get through a region with it, and these fan games with higher difficulty unfortunately won't let me do that.
If anyone can point me to a fan game that is not too difficult and is still fun, then I'd love to hear it.
Uranium is difficult but fair insurance is the same way
I agree with you on most points especially Pokemon rejuvenation, the game is amazing the only problem is that, the game has so many characters that all are complex and shit which we have to Re remember when we come back for a update, like when I first played through it and got to the end of the update I was happy, though I have to try to remember everything that I loved about it when I come back.
The story is good and there's a set of characters that are obviously the "main cast." And I like that unfortunately again there's a lot of characters in which you have to remember.
I do like darker stories but only when done right pokemon rejuvenation has a right amount of realism of pokemon to something that would happen in real life and how people would react but yeah I agree rejuvenation has too many characters, rejuvenation has great characters but if I have to come back and remember "fuck who was important again." Then you probably have a issue there.
Have you played desolation
@@kamamara2567 was planning on playing it and watching Nick's playthrough along the way but never got around to it, why is it good?
@@MitchJustChill I consider it good it’s heavily inspired by like reborn and rejuvenation but there’s isn’t a lot of characters so it isn’t that confusing and I think the story is pretty decent I would recommend it. Also the decisions you make in the game change parts of the story.
@@MitchJustChill Also there’s original sprites for all the main characters which I think look really cool
@@kamamara2567 that sounds badass I'm going to love almost killing a character, I remember when rejuvenation gave me a choice and I almost deleted my save file.
I didn't expect that ending LMAOOOOOOO
If you want to truly play a fangame that is unique and avoids most of those pitfalls (minus the dark story parts) then play Ashen Frost.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who though Reborn was too edgy I feel like Insurgence had a good balance
Definitely don't agree with you on why pokemon game shouldn't be dark. That's just ur own preference. Being dark doesn't mean there isn't "bustling town, cheerful atmosphere " it simply encompasses other elements that normal games do not include in: the possibility of death, corruption etc.
games like desolation, insurgence, reborn makes the characters much more realistic than actual pokemon games.
Regarding the long update, I agree with u. I usually have to replay it to enjoy it again. But idm since I only replay games that I like. Redoing it with support of cheat engine to speed run back doesnt rly bores me.
Phoenix Rising was a fucking amazing fan game only for their dev team to almost completely disband. Why did that happen? I have absolutely 0 idea.
You know, I agree with every single point you made about all these fan games and rom hacks. In terms of rom hacks, I've mostly played remakes or "enhanced" versions of Fire Red and Emerald that always try to be darker and better and nothing new is really added to the table. I mean there's so many times you can redo the story of Red before it get stale and feels like it's overdone. And as for fan made games, very few fan made Pokemon games that tried to be edgy, dark, and mature actually kept my attention. I've played half way thru insurgence and reborn before getting tired of the "edgy feel" these games were trying to project. I think the only game I really played all the way through that handled a mature storyline quite well was Pokemon Uranium and Pokemon Solar Light/Lunar Dark but that's because both games weren't afraid to slow down and let the player take in what had just happened in the cut scene they were just, we weren't forced into a rival battle right away, and there weren't a shit ton of characters that appear and disappear constantly.
I don’t mind the dark story, but the difficulty of it. Like it’s ok to have a challenge in these games, but it just gets irritating to the point where you have to constantly grind up certain mons to beat a legendary. Take El’s fake level 75 arceus for example. I literally had to grind up a destiny bonding cofagrigus to beat an arceus. It kinda pisses me off tbh.
prankster perish song murkrow my guy, does every boss just fine if you have enough revives
@@arcticgalaxies9160 didn’t think about that at the time. I’ll try it out.
you dont have to win you still move on even if you lose god you got yourself piss off
@@thesleepykirbygamer8711 that only works for Solaris garchomp. You have to beat the arceus to progress.
@@Raimundeezy No you dont who told you that you had to beat it you dont have to
I remember many people saying that these should be the direction that Pokemon official games should take and even then, where I was really, really hyped over Reborn, I always knew that this wasn't going to work. I'll gladly finish the game when the final update drops though, I need to close this page lol.
Another big thing is that whole edgy thing needs to go cause calm down. Also the super long multiple update joints, i love Reborn (cause of how different and big it seemed), but it was started during like Gen 4-5 times in 2009-2010 and its 2021 we almost done with Gen 8, like come on now
I feel like you contradict yourself with not liking how long episodes take but want unique things and new things which take longer too make. But I do agree with how many characters they are in reborn and how important they are. Which rejuvenation handles with a few important characters and others regulated to side quests. And having side characters stay on the side lines but still being important
Yep. Sacred has no idea to what he's talking about. Super unnecessary
Pokemon Sage had a great, /beautiful/ new world, an interesting but not cluttered cast, really great fakemon and player models- it just isn’t finished yet. The demo is three badges.
Sometimes I open up the wrong “game.exe” and I just get so damn wistful for that title music (even when the overworld music barely ever played in-game lol)
As edgy fangames go, Rejuvenation was just about the most I can handle but was a genuinely good story.
Desolation had great facilities and a fun world, at least for the most part. The dream world arc was too long, too difficult to see, and relied on edgy, unlikeable characters. By isolating me from the community of npcs they had developed really well, it felt like the I was suddenly doing a group project with the Cullens. The three remaining siblings were demanding and unsympathetic to the point that I genuinely didn’t care about the twists in their backstory.. I just wanted to go back home to my awkward gym leader pals.
I heard the suicide in reborn was actually like
Really offensive
Because a lot of the characters in reborn are based on real people involved in development and that character killed themself after the person they represent committed suicide irl
Just feels kinda gross and exploitative ngl :/
It's an homage that ties perfectly into the story to creat emotional depth. How is it gross and exploitative?
@@user-pp6pr5fg8w If it's an "homage" to those people, then it's a really bad one. From the story, you get the impression that irl Corey was a shitty abusive father or that irl Kiki is whining to you about the circumstances of her death.
Not to mention that you first need access the "redemption arcs" of these characters in the first place.
Imagine someone did that so someone you loved and that passed: theyre in a game that paints them as arrogant/whiny/mentally unstable in front of dozens of stangers. What a cute and respectful homage, right?
From what I remember, there was an online league where real people roleplayed as characters that would then be put into Pokémon Reborn (mainly gym leaders + a couple of villains), and Corey was one of those characters. But I’m pretty sure his character committed suicide in the role play, not the actual person. Though the creators of the game acted like everything that happened in the role play actually happened in real life even though it wasn’t, which might be worse.
If you acess the dev room you can interact with Ame, the sprite of the main developper, and she basically explains that all those real life events are roleplay. It's a thing she come up with during the Reborn league before she developed the game in itself. The sprite and the characters were already created along their story, thing is, she didn't expect to put those story in the game, it's the community that convinced her to do it and pretend that it was all real life events because they became attached to these stories and thought that new players would have liked to be included without revealing the truth about the origines of these stories.