I had a lot of fun with this game! While in this playthrough I had used some members were always staples (Typhlosion and Espeon) I got to use Pokemon that I either have not used because of trade evolutions (Gengar and Scizor) or availability (Pupitar/Tyranitar) or just never had any interest in using such as Crobat and Lanturn. By the end of the game I felt like every Pokemon, whether they were on my team or the AI's team, they all had a chance to shine and the changes to the encounters and trainer battles made this the perfect version of Crystal. The fact that there were times that I was worried I would be knocked out by a random trainer somewhere in the mid-late game speaks volumes. I can't wait to see how you update Kanto and I plan on doing another playthrough using Pokemon that I have never used before just to get a really fresh experience. Thank you for this romhack and for making my favorite Pokemon game live up to it's fullest potential while keeping it classic!
In Patch 1.2 is coming: 1. Move Reminder 2. Run Animation 3. Hard Mode (No Switch & No Item in Battle) It’s impressive how much a game can be improved.
@@a.carnevale4910 Excuse me, at which level Haunter evolve into Gengar? im running my first playthrough and i found out some Trade evolutions evolve by level
Having a blast playing this. For Johto the team was: Feraligatr, Houndoom, Ampharos, Espeon, and Steelix. When I got to Kanto added Dragontie to round it out. Training up for a second go at Red. The repeatable gym leader rematches have been a godsend for grinding
Actual TTar will probably be top tier in Emerald Legacy but babysitting Larvitar and Pupitar is a very big opportunity cost for most of the game in Crystal Legacy or HGSS, so I think in that sense it will be overall balanced.
I loved meganium in this game. With leech seed, flash and giga drain, and leftovers its a great tanky staller. I love the grass type so its cool that i could use meganium literally all game even the red fight where it took down snorlax,blastoise and reds new ace
Vileplume just needs a defence/special defence increasing move, then you could beef up, use moonlight and giga drain, and just be a real nuisance haha. Fuk vileplume is cool
Exeggutor is Much STRONGER than Vileplume, despite a lot of weakness IT'S S TIER😂😂😂 . . BONKERS ? Quite at first sight, but in pratictise NO, I tried it in Battle Tower from lv 30 to lv 70, except when losing happened for extremely RNG, I've always WON STRAIGHT 10/10 battles in a row, With tyranittar+ Gyarados, it always Exeggutor carrying the TEAM MOVES: Sleep Powder, Psychic, Giga Drain, EXPLOSION, The only "drawbacks", you've to get or exchange an Exeggutor wth TM Explosion from GEN 1 🙂, Pshycic type and Explosion (250 damage and -50% defense for opponent LUL ) are stupid OVERPOWER in gen1/2
I got an early Scizor, which carried me through a playthrough because I got lucky and caught a Magnemite holding a metal coat right before Morty. It was incredible and so bulky for the run!
@@iamgams haunter evolves at 42, there’s a cool option in the Pokédex that shows what levels/items needed for Pokemon to evolve. Smith also made a video on it you should check it out!
I've hardcore nuzlocked this game twice up to this point: GREAT job on the romhack btw!!!! I do gotta stand up for my boi Dewgong here. Outside of legendaries, he's the fastest STAB user of Ice Beam and with his Sp. Atk reaching Lapras's I'd say there's no reason for him to be below Lapras anymore. You get him between gym 6-7 depending on when ya beat Pryce, and has a use for almost every fight after that point with level caps. (It's not outspeeding Lance's Aerodactyl/Zapdos, but it'll outspeed the Dragonites by this point in its EVs!)
I'll have to try Crystal Legacy to confirm, but I suspect Feraligatr is still better than the other two starters in terms of utility, especially since it can learn Dig. My ideal Gen II Feraligatr knows Surf, Ice Punch, Dig, and Slash, while this romhack gives it the very useful buffed Bug-type Cut for additional coverage against Grass, Psychic, and Dark-type Pokémon.
It's only problem is not getting any Ground move bar Mud-Slap until 38, which hinders him pretty much together with not having Rock coverage, especially on Jasmine's fight and both Team Rocket mid game segments: in that regard, i feel like making him able to learn Dig through TM could work wonders.
@@jackrecher6986 he didn't get both in original gen2 and i can see why (technically he's not a grounded creature, nor a really capable-of-flying one since it glides), but since Fly is only a 70 BP 90 ACC move, i'd say you're not gonna miss it that much with Wing Attack in early 20s. On the other hand, Ground is one of the 3-4 typings you *always* want to fire off in GSC, tied with Rock, Fire, Psychic and probably Water, so having to rely on Mud-Slap for so much is detrimental, especially when far stronger mons like Rhyhorn or Nidoking gets Magnitude at 27 at worst and are available one or two gym earlier, while EQ Gligar has the risk of coming after the Radio Tower, when the majority of Poison types are disappeared. Probably Magnitude would help him too, despite having to face terrible opponents both on Ground AND Flying spectrum (Golem, Rhydon and Steelix are all better than him, and so are Pidgeot and Aerodactyl, which can carry the game by itself).
id actually give skarmory an S tier based on my personal playthrough of legacy. this thing was AWESOME, it was super bulky, really good moves, hits decently hard, and has spikes which is really underrated, it was honestly one of the big players for a huge amount of the tough battles in this game
It's quite impressive how much stuff Skarmory straight up walls. I ran both Skarm and Steelix for a while and they synergy pretty well. I had a Kingdra to cover Fire-types.
I didn't try spikes but I did notice that late/post-game trainers do switch out of bad match-ups quite often in Legacy. Though on the other hand, it should be possible OHKO them most of the time at that point once you gt them pinned down.
I think this underrates Poliwrath in the sense of just how much role compression fighting and water provides for a team insofar as hitting a ton of different stuff for super effective damage with a single pokemon, on top of being able to use hypnosis.
Poliwrath is a creatively unique Pokemon, with alot of utility. It's my favourite Pokemon, a set of angrily intense eyes set upon a swirling vortex of madness, and some muscular arms with giant fists. What a weapon! I'm not sure if there is, but there should be a pitch black Variant, to channel that unnerving Poliwrath sprite from Pokemon Red/blue.
Poliwrath just feels like a more complete pokemon than feraligatr. They have very similar stats, they get mostly the same move, but poli can reliably come in on all the rocks and totally counters all the houndooms the bosses love to use. And then you have hypnosis which can atleast completely reset the field.
Don't forget Spikes; entry hazards can bring things into OHKO range for other pokemon and it has Explosion and a well timed Explosion can just punch a massive hole through a team. Similar reasons to why I also favor Cloyster a lot as well. Spikes plus Explosion is great to have for punching holes through a team's defense and helps set things up for your sweeper.
Just completed it on a normal play through, literally first encounter was a uncatchable shiny pidgey. May I add I have NEVER had that happen to me on any Pokémon game ever 😂 that being said, amazing game 😁 Separate thought, but I basically swept through the majority of the game with Yanma. Thank you for buffing this bug I’ve always wanted to use 😊
One thing I'd love to see is some way to change your Hidden Power types, like maybe an NPC that uses some Unown-related magic to unlock a new perspective. Since almost everything gets Hidden Power, Gen 2 coverage is pretty limited, and every mon has DVs instead of IVs, it could be a neat buff to everything. The only downside is that so many things could use Hidden Power to decent effect that it would create an odd contrast in which the player has tons of options for Hidden Power, but it would be weird for the AI to do the same thing since it's hidden information
My team for most Johto playthroughs: Typhlosion (Axel) Steelix (Terrafax) Crobat (Ronin) Kingdra (Azul) Herracross (Rambo) Tyranitar (Tyrant) -Alternating- Ampharos (Signal) Skarmory (Raptor) Scizor (Stark)
Been extremely sick this weekend, and I’ve put like 30 hours into this game and it’s been my saving grace. Such a fun play with just enough changes and new combos. Also just playing a game I haven’t touched in a decade has been interesting. Using some Pokémon I never even caught in my copy as a kid. Excellent work, can’t wait to finish
With this TierList in mind, we can also think on what can be modified, like maybe a little buff to Delibird and Lickitung. The problem with Azulmarill and Wigglytuff is only solved in Gen 6, with the Fairy Type introduction. They become insanely good to play. SO yeah, can't argue with these tiering for them. But one thing I think you missed is about Stantler and Shuckle in the TL.
I think something like Delibird is always going to be more of a "joke" Pokémon just due to the fact that Ice/Flying is horrible, movepool and stats are awful in gen 2 in general. I think it would need an evolution to significantly improve. Just look at how pushed Iron Bundle had to be for it to be relevant.
Their buffed BST for Delibird is less than Ledian. I would bring up its speed to 105 and maybe do something similar with its special attack. Then it would at least be threatening.
I played through when 1.0 came out and loved it. My team was Meganium, Magcargo, Ursaring, Tyranitar, Slowking and Scizor. I tried using Meganium since you said it was buffed and I don't think I ever did a full playthrough of gen 2 with Meganium, and I enjoyed it a lot. Having access to Larvitar and Teddyursa early (I know [now] that Teddyursa is available in vanilla too, but I never got one lol) was so cool, having Larvitar early and evolving it throughout the whole game makes so much sense and I really don't understand why they don't do it in the regular game. Slowking and Scizor are such cool mons that I never got to use in gen 2 since they are trade evos. Magcargo was just a pokémon I never used so I said "why not? he's a tiny guy". Overall I was pretty satisfied with my team, didn't face many hurdles throughout the whole game and had a lot of fun with the game as a whole. Only way I'd improve this hack is by changing some tilesets to something similar to Polished Crystal, so that goes to show the great job you guys did with balancing and stuff. Can't wait for the next steps you take!
Thanks to the spc. defense and defense buffs Corsola oneshots Lance's Zapdos and Red's Pikachu with magic coat. It tanks/hits basically any special move/pokemon (magic coat+recover) but grass and hits flying, bug and rock with STAB surf and ancient rock, being overall a consistently good pokemon, even though it may be literally situational (like almost every pokemon on A and S tier anyway). One love corsola
You gave Ariados doubled base speed, slightly higher bulk, slightly earlier evolution, early 80 BP Bug STAB (which has full badge boost effect already) and STAB Megahorn among other things. It really easily kills most Pokemon by itself and is far more consistent and powerful than "Situational" B tier.
@@Shyguymask Chill… This is why i prefaced my comment the way i did. It was more of a side remark aimed at the game’s difficulty which the buffs also intentionally affected. Ariados is a cool mon, I’ll agree that it does better than B tier for the main game, probably low A below the Nidos. But it’s still just okay. Its speed gives it more usage in the main game sure, but if you want more of a challenge in the post game it’s there. 90 atk is nothing to write home about even with STAB and it can’t really do much with its special learnset later on. Plenty of mons get great mileage from badge boosts in gsc so if you like it, use it, but don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.
@@estabravo 90 atk is actually decent enough in gen 2, the standards for stats are lower than in the later gens. Coupled with Badge boosts it simply two-shots or one-shots most enemies with Twineedle (which it gets right as it evolves) to the point it even smashes through Whitney's Miltank with ease. And later on it gets Megahorn and its damage output is outright above average relative to other Pokemon at that point. Two of the elite four members are weak to Bug, as well. Ariados is not mainly a special attacker and doesn't need to be one when it already has Twineedle, Megahorn and Sludge Bomb to kill most things already. Even then, he learns Giga Drain which easily one-shots random rock/ground type mons as well as one-shotting Brock's water/rock Pokemon. What am I pretending Ariados to be that it's not, exactly? I called and described Ariados as a very effective offensive powerhouse. It is in fact a very effective offensive powerhouse, and if you want to disagree then please list every major fight in the game where Ariados is not at least somewhat useful in past Falkner.
@@Shyguymask did you even read my response? I already agreed it should be higher and does well in the main game. Before I list anything, because it seems like you think i am in complete disagreement with you, and because the spot I placed it at now has mons with their own list that compete with the one you’re after, I want to know where you think Ariados should be?
Forretress is actually pretty good, spike cannon and pin missile may not do consistent damage but his incredible bulk and typing allows him to completely wall any poison, psychic, or normal type that doesnt have a fire move. Then his physical defense also allows him to beat most physical sweepers that hit for neutral. Not scizor, but certainly not terrible! He's actually pretty fun to pilot.
If you guys end up doing more updates, I'd love to see Noctowl and a handful of other lower tiers get some buffs as we adapt. This is making a childhood dream here stellar work!
Alakazam was my hard carry until I got Kingdra. I never really had a chance to use it till now in a main play through so I was really excited to use it. Can definitely say it was a beast
Maybe it's just me, but Gengar being the best non-legend in the game might be overselling it. It is very frail, Hypnosis has a massive chance to miss, so it's not as reliable as it may seem, it has limited coverage & you can't reliably use it against Psychic Types because of its secondary Poison Typing. Actually, that Poison Typing makes Gengar worse when you consider how good Ground Types are in this game, let alone how common it is. Plus, you can only use Gengar at the Eight Gym & in the League, where he can't really do much. Maybe it's because i had a Tyranitar instead? I don't know, to me, i felt really disappointed to grind up a Gengar in my first playthrough, only to do next to nothing with it when it finally became a Gengar due to how... *Not good* he is in the Johto Endgame
Gengar is stupid STRONG and a good movepool, but NEED TM unlocked and it's frail, Gengar doesnt win/carry battle alone...Or better there's one close but Genj become slow in Killing 1) "tank set" CONFUSE RAY, HYPNOSIS, DREAMEATER, SHADOW BALL : Pratically use confuse Ray for confonding opponent (50% opponent HIT itself ) and then spam Hyposis, Dream-eater for recharge HP, shadow ball for bishotting or oneshotting almost everything. 2) Assasin Set Thunderbolt, ShadowBall, Hypnosis/GigaDrain/ Pshicic, Destiny Bond/ Explosion (if you want transfer in Gen1 for tm Explosion) More optimized set .... much much less tanky but more braindead/ more FuN I dont know why but Gengar doesnt learn Ice punch in this rom
@aleger620 Both he & Alakazam lost access to both Fire & Ice Punch in this ROM Hack In Base Gen 2, those 2 were WAY to strong due to learning all 3 Elemental Punches... Like- "You can basically steamroll the entire game with this one unit" kind of strong. Remember, the Elemental Punches in Gen 2 were Special Attacks, so Gengar & Alakazam could do big damage with it thanks to their high Special Attack stat So both lost access to both Ice & Fire Punch in Crystal Legacy to make them both more balanced
Fyi for anyone reading this later on, you can actually get Scizor affer the third gym and Kingdra after the 5th gym by using thief on the pokemon who holds their evo item, magnamite and horsea for their metal coat /dragon scale.
I think you're sleeping on Granbull. It walls Morty pretty hard if you give it a mint berry. Physical dark bit and it's very good early game but falls off late. Definitely high B low A.
I really enjoyed this rom hack. I deliberately ran Pokemon I wouldn't usually use. I'll rate the mons I used. Buffed Murkrow is super good. Feint Attack/Drill Peck with high attack and high speed makes it a super cool/weird sweeper. Easy A tier. Maybe even low S. Meganium is way better than vanilla. Giga drain plus leach seed gives it mega longevity, screens give it good support, and it actually has decent coverage too e.g. body slam or rock smash to help supplement any team gaps you might have. It's still a grass type in Johto though which makes it hard to be more than B for me. Magcargo was interesting. It dies very easily due to 4x weak to ground and water, and being slow, but it also packs a punch in the right situation. It's very much a glass cannon. Rock slide and flamethrower are great stab options. I gave mine earthquake too but its attack wasn't enough to use that well without stab. Decent but definitely outclassed by a more traditional fire type and a more traditional rock/ground type. Also everything late game seems to have earthquake on it in this rom hack which makes magcargo quite hard to use. B. Scizor was incredible. Buffed cut, buffed rock smash, earlier steel wing. This thing can kill anything if you can go first. I played 1.0 only and only had swords dance and didn't have agility. The extra speed was definitely missed but this thing still was awesome. Steel type is nice too. S. Ampharos was nice but a little boring. Fire punch for coverage (especially when magcargo was usually dead) and a thunder wave that works on electric types in gen 2 was pretty cool. Light screen was nice for support too. A. Slowking was a nice novelty instead of the usually more accessible Slowbro. It has a similar problem to Magcargo through where despite its bulk, it still dies often due to its low speed. Still, you can't sniff at a Pokemon that can Stab Surf, Ice Beam, Stab Psychic and Special Shadow Ball all in one go. Low A. As an aside, opponents' Pidgeots and Qwilfishes were often surprisingly good, and made me want to try another run with another team.
Can't stress how much I love this ROM hack. Exactly what I was looking for after my recent playthrough of vanilla Crystal, fixes almost all of the design flaws of Gen II. You guys have done such a phenomenal job. The only issue left with the base game I would love to see fixed is just the TM variety. There are so many good/fun TM's from Gen 1 that are MIA in Gen II. Tier list is also very on point, I agree with all of it. Good way of looking for some pain point Mon's too. Maybe Licketung could get the Dunsparce treatment? Would make sense as a super rare spawn in Ilex Forest, canonically Licketung hang out in forests/jungles, and use their tongues to eat fruit from tall trees. Licketung is gonna fall off of course, but having some way to get him early would make a decent beater. As for Delibird, I have no ideas that make any sense lmao. Thanks for the ROM Hack again!!
Flareon was such a beast in this romhack. Thank you for buffing its special attack. If only Flareon was good in the actual Pokémon games since I like its fluffy design.
Played all the way throuyh and completed the Pokedex. I have just a couple points I'd add to the game. 1) make a move relearner available (maybe in blackthorne or vermilion ?) Making it work like in gen 9 where you can relearn previously used tms, I really felt limited in moveset composition after elite 4 round 1 and would have loved to shift my team around more. 2) For the love of god adjust breeding mechanics so they are more in line with modern titles less than 4% chance every 256 steps for the least favorable combo of pokemon is waaaaay to little. Breeding with Ditto just for multiple Eevees took me really long even at 16x speed😢
slowking should be double S tier. You can get it before gym 2, because wild slowpoke can hold king's rock. Compared to the lvl 37 evolution of slowbro, slowking is bringing his full stats for an insanely large portion of the game.
Forretress was done really dirty by this tier list. You get it early and it can be useful as a defensive pivot vs Bugsy and evolves before Morty for a useful ghost resist. Pin Missile & Spike Cannon while not offering amazing offensive coverage do let it beat many Pokemon. Vs Jasmine it resists many of her pokemon and can use Rock Smash/Dig. Not an ace but can contribute meaninfully. Its super effective vs Pryce and also resists dragon and ice which is very useful vs Clair. In E4 Forretress performs very well vs Will, Koga and Karen, and can eat a meaty physical attack from Bruno in a pinch. Vs Lance Forretress will likely eat an Outrage or face off vs Aero in a pinch, but that is more value than most Pokemon above it. As it is I would rate Forretress as a mid-A tier. If it learned Toxic or Earthquake by level up I would consider putting it near bottom of S-tier.
Some of the rankings were questionable. Tentacruel above Lapras for example even though Lapras is bulkier and stronger. Ice stab is also much better than Poison. Kangaskhan being B tier is also pretty low, stab normal moves in a gen with so few steel and ghost types is very underrated. But pretty good list nonetheless!
Beat the game on Set with 3 S-tiers (Scizor, Gyarados, Starmie) and 3 A-tiers (Typhlosion, Ampharos, Gligar). I agree with all of their placements with how well they performed. Gligar was great with its STABs and switchin resistances, but lacks in raw power. Typhlosion, Ampharos, and Starmie performs as well as the base game with better move progression. Scizor sweeps Will and Karen. GIVING GYARADOS A CONSISTENT FLYING STAB IS A TRIED AND TESTED WAY TO MAKE IT BROKEN.
I want to actually make an argument that Ariados is a sleeping S tier. It is pretty weak early one, but it absolutely trivializes the late game once it gets access to megahorn. It levels up extremely fast so it actually ends up being close to the opponent’s level at both elite 4 runs. Stab Megahorn plus agility allows it to sweep both the psychic and dark type elite 4 members, giving it even more levels and stat experience for its special moves. I put psychic and gigadrain on it for coverage, allowing it to out- heal steelix, and 2 shot all of Bruno’s other Pokémon which it resists. This speedy spider is a great coverage choice for dark types if you are using a psychic sweeper. Houndoom and murkrow both take neutral damage from megahorn and its high attack and bug typing make the move easily one-shot. The one thing really holding it back is how late it gets its moves. For the early game it is trash. It’s typing makes it weak to the first gym. Can we please get this thing to learn cut? I am sure it could slice things with its mandibles.
pS: there is no way in helll venamoth is better than Ariados. I played with both and venamoth just sucks. It’s worse than any special attacker that gets a stab move and struggles against the same things Ariados struggles against, without an ability to counter dark types well, because it’s attack stat is not great and it’s best bug move is leach life. Before it evolves it has terrible special and is weak to so many things. After it evolves it learns good moves late and can’t take advantage of stab sludge bomb with its horrible attack. Stab psychic users work better as sweepers and its access to sleep powder can’t be taken advantage of without a setup move like growth. Overall this Pokémon is trash.
It would be cool to see the really low teir Pokemon here get some additional buffs. Some even from Yellow Legacy that weren't buffed in Crystal Legacy.
I might use Meganium for the first time in my life with this hack. I did just start a playthrough with Cyndaquil, but I'm really feeling Chikorita for some reason, lol. Excited to try mons I've never used before (Houndoom, Scizor, Gengar, Tyranitar).
"Miltank is kind of a Tauros" Wiser words haven't been spoken. Great tierlist. My hard carry will always be Ampharos, it crushed most of Elite Four in my playthrough by itself, reaching level 50 just after Lance.
It's really funny to me seeing Wobbuffett in with the Legendaries. I get it, but it's just a really funny image seeing all these like, noble, majestic creatures and then Wobbuffett.
I would easily put Lanturn in S tier, I used him on my first run and he just slaps so hard. The typing is nutty, along with his massive bulk he feels very powerful.
Hard agree, I ran mine with Ice Beam, Tbolt, Surf and Confuse Ray and that thing could solo most fights. Got even more ridiculous in Kanto when we got Leftovers.
In the middle of doing a full dex playthrough, so my thoughts: 1. Both the Chansey and Cleffa lines I would put lower, due to availability. Chansey is Kanto only. As for the Cleffa line, unless you get lucky and get a Cleffa from the Odd Egg, Clefairy is also Kanto only (I got very unlucky and got a Pichu, who I had caught already on Route 31, which means I have to get to Mt. Moon and breed a Clefairy to get Cleffa). 2. Beedrill is pretty good in Johto, and has been part of my normal travelling team. The moveset fixes plus Bug type Cut make it pretty consistent against normal trainers and some gyms, so A for me. Scizor does outclass it later on. 3. Hypno and Marowak have been consistent when catching mons, between Hypnosis and False Swipe. The Gastly line is better for Hypnosis and speed, so it falls down usually to if you want a Psychic type or a Ghost type on your team for catching normal mons (the roamers, though, Haunter or Gengar win due to Mean Look as well). Solid niche duo. I would usually value Alakazam more due to Teleport utility before you get Fly plus stats and the rest of the movepool, but Teleport hasn't been as handy in Johto, whereas I am running Hypno constantly. 4. Magneton being Steel as well as Electric bumps it up for me over the other Electrics for me. Core part of my Blackthorn and E4 teams because of thst. Lanturn is the only one I would put up with Magneton, for that dual typing. 5. Quagsire is S not just for typing and moves, but because of the ultimate friend shaped vibes. 😍 6. Quilfish is better than Tentacruel due to Spikes. 7. Speaking of Spikes, that plus typing makes Skarmory top tier for me. Mine soloed early Chuck roster, and was a valuable part of my E4 team. S for me. 8. Kingdra can be before Gym 7, if you try Thiefing Dragon Scales of wild Horseas. One reason Furret has a niche, as mine was used for that and getting me a second King's Rock. 9. I hate that Forretress is meh at best, as the typing is the same as Scizor and it has Rapid Spin to deal with Spikes, but it just gets killed too quickly to be a viable spinner. 😔 10. Poliwrath vs. Jasmine. Water/Fighting trumps the bulk of her team and that Rain Dance strat.
Unfortunately for the initial Gen 2 games: GSC a lot of the Gen 2 Pokemon were either hard to get and/or had bad moves along with very limited TMs. HG/SS along with the Gen 4 changed helped a lot
Pretty solid list, though I'd personally put the slow bois at the bottom of S because of how long you'll likely just have slowpoke since they don't evolve until level 37 at the least, and for Amnesia Slowking you have to wait till level 43. My first playthrough of this had Slowpoke in the party since I could catch it, and It's one of the most drastic changes in term of carry factor because you'll have a mon with stab water/physic but little sp. attack to outright monsters once they have actually decent stats + either Amnesia or Withdraw making them impossible to kill outside their loosing matchups.
Misdreavus was great on my playthrough, hypnosis and perish song took care of first pass Lance. Early shadowball and the flip of ghost and dark damage types made it very good. Forretress was great for the Whitney battle because protect allows you to stop her rollout steam roll. I had never used it before but the buff you gave to spike cannon made it decent, and selfdestruct/explosion was useful for getting some of the more pesky elite four pokemon out of the way.
Man, I admire the amount of thought you obviously put into this rom hack. For 2023/4 standards it's genuinely UP THERE in terms of games with soul. I pray that corporate gaming never get their dirty necromancer hands on your productions!! 🙏 Thank you for this rom I love it! ❤
15:40 lanturn comes late? You can use good rod to catch it after 4th gym is over. What does "comes late" means in this context because I am missing something here I think.
I know this may not be the right place to put this critique, but I would love for the magnemite line to get some sort of steel stab. I know ..... literally none of the steel damaging moves in gen 2 would fit, but MAYBE spike cannon if you squinted your eyes enough that bolts and screws looked like a nail flying toward you ????
Haven’t made it through the whole video yet but I’m surprised at the s tier ranking for rhydon and golem with their awful sp d and 4x weakness to water/grass making them almost always a OHKO with any grass/water move
sawing pidgeot getting Extreme Speed and broken Sky attacks just made me cry deciding for gligar instead of Pidgeot. But Gligar itself is very good too! The typing carries until getting earthquake and wing attack. These two moves alone can fit so many problems, It really is consistent.
Just finished my play through today not 100% yet tho! very solid fix! Crystal is already my favorite mainline pokemon game, but legacy just fix all my problem of it!
You should share the tierlist. You don't really show us the finished list at the end. By my tally, these were the top 3 Pokemon for each type: Bug Scizor, Heracross, Pinsir Dark Houndoom, Tyranitar, Umbreon Dragon Kingdra, Dragonite Electric Lanturn, Jolteon, Ampharos Fire Houndoom, Arcanine, Typlosion Fighting Heracross, Machamp, Primeape Flying Aerodactyl, Gyarados, Jumpluff Ghost Gengar, Misdreavus Grass Victreebel, Jumpluff, Meganium Ground Golem, Rhydon, Steelix Ice Jynx, Lapras, Poliswine Normal Porygon 2, Snorlax, Girafarig Poison Gengar, Victreebel, Crobat Psychic Alakazam, Starmie, Slowking Rock Aerodactyl, Golem, Tyranitar Steel Scizor, Steelix, Magneton Water Kingdra, Starmie, Gyarados
Man, you're going to cost me so much money. I've avoided buying an EverDrive GB for years, but this might genuinely be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
So I binged this game and beat it in 2 days (4x speed). I got both Alacazam and Gengar which kinda made the game really easy. Thunder-punch may not be ice punch, but it's good enough honestly. I think severe nerfs are in order if we want to actually balance these pokemon. The problem with their design is that they are frail but fast, and do insane damage with good coverage. So if you reduce that damage they just get eliminated by whatever they don't 1 hit ko. I think they would be more fun if we just levelled out the damage and bulk a little more so they didn't one shot or die. But maybe that's their whole identity. I used a belly drum/ body slam and then earthquake Polywrath for a lot of the run to cover against Pokemon I couldn't obliterate with my special attackers, and that was fun. I had ideas of setting up rain dance and swapping into a thunder user, but it just never happened. The tm is too expensive and I never found a reason to buy it. So it would be nice to maybe lower the price of that? Thunder really isn't even that good, and it would be nice to give some electric pokemon a reason to join a diverse team. I eventually gave up on my starter (Typhlosion line), because it was getting out-done by my special attacker specialists and I only used it for hms. By Kanto I swapped it out for Houndoom, which I think is basicly just a straight upgrade. So yeah, I accidently picked 3 SS tier pokemon apparently and had to literally remove them from my party to maintain the challenge. My eventual lineup ran the entire elite 4 (round 2) below level 65, without using healing items between battles. It was Kazam, Gar, Zapdos, Polywrath, Doom, and a pathetic dragonite that never found it's reason to exist. The game is great and I am planning to run it again next weekend but I was a bit disappointed that I chose the wrong pokemon and had too easy a time in a game that started out so challenging. I did lose early on quite a bit and that was awsome, but by the time I finished Johto, the carries got too strong and it was just silly. Red was a first time victory with a team that hadn't even hit level 70, and I didn't feel it was because I was good at the game. I just killed pikachu with psychic. I set up light screen and bolted Mewtwo to death with Zappy, and ironically put snorlax to sleep. He didn't know snore or rest which actually made him more annoying in vanilla. Overall I will say the game is fantastic. I think I should avoid SS tier pokemon in the future though.
Just beat the game, and here's some key Pokemon. My final main team was Typhlosion, Steelix, Heracross, Lanturn, Dragonite, and Meganium. Typhlosion was my starter and actually is kinda mid in the mid-game: it doesn't really face a lot of GREAT matchups against most Gyms, and its line's power lacks til they get Flamethrower. However, Sunny Day is a HUGE power spike that can destroy the Elite Four and Kanto. A-tier is obvious. My full set was Charcoal with Sunny Day, Flamethrower, Thunder Punch, Dynamic Punch. My next catches for the early game were Phanpy and Sentret. I didn't hold on to Phanpy toooo long because I didn't want Donphan as my Ground type, but it's neat and strong for the early game outside of the gyms. Probably A-tier, maybe S. Sentret was eh, mine was particularly slow but also surprisingly tanky. It did end up getting used to Thief an early Metal Coat, though. I will also say I can see the appeal of its speed, HM utility and strong Normal type attacks even into the late game, so I'll call it B-tier. Next were Pichu, Gastly, Larvitar, and Dunsparce. Pichu was as it usually is, a nice early game Electric type, and I appreciated how even though it got fainted a couple times, it evolved at about level 20 (admittedly helped by running around for Dunsparce). From there, I used Raichu through Chuck, and it was strong enough. Always a good Electric type. A-tier. I didn't want to use Gastly or Larvitar for the whole game, knowing how busted S-tier they ultimately become, but they were fun early game as a utility and a strong hitter respectively. Dunsparce took FOREVER to find, was kinda fun to use, then fell off by the time I replaced it. C-tier. Onix into Steelix was next, and one small detail I really like is that Jasmine's Steelix is at max two levels before Onix learns EQ. As I was trying to level match the Gym's, it made for an interesting contrast where I had to keep my Onix a little underpowered for her fight. After evolving, though, it WRECKS. In particular, most of the E4 and Kanto get owned by it. Incredible how a Steel type runs through Kanto. Arguably my ace at a certain point, and the one I used Curse (best move in the game). S-tier, even its low speed after evolving was made up for by incredible bulk. My full set was Leftovers with Earthquake, Iron Tail, Curse, and Rock Slide. Heracross was Heracross as it should be! Cross Chop and Thief make for great moves it desperately needed compared to base, and god does Megahorn hit hard. It also lets me talk about another feature in this mod: being able to replace HM moves meant I could swap between Strength and Cut easily when I needed one or the other. My full set was SilverPowder with Megahorn, Cross Chop, Thief, and Strength/Cut (usually the former). I got Murkrow next and it was pretty handy. Strong and fast and has a good typing, although it struggles with Steels. Still though, against weaknesses and neutralities, it's a good choice. Same goes for Tauros, my next catch, albeit with the concession that it can NOT hit Ghost types well until it gets Pursuit. Still, it's strong enough and does get ultimately enough coverage it has to be A-tier. I also used it as my first Surf user, until I replaced it with... Lanturn improves what Heracross proved, as you can swap Surf with Whirlpool and Waterfall while surfing. Super convenient! I also abused the hell out of ParaFuse with it, a moveset that's always enticed me but never really does it for me in competitive the way it did here. A-tier for that and how it clears caves so efficiently. My full set was King's Rock with Surf, Thunder Wave, Confuse Ray, and Thunderbolt. I replaced Murkrow with Sneasel for Blackthorn, and it surprised me. Despite being at odds with its own Ice typing, Ice Punch was strong enough to do the job against anything weak to it. With its speed and surprising resistances, I think Sneasel is another strong choice. It's tough between it and Murkrow for a Dark type. I do think its typing may have suffered more had I used it later in the game as well, so I'll call it B-tier. Dragonite was what I refused Tyranitar to be. I ran BoltBeamFlame with Outrage (ironically despite getting the ExtremeSpeed Dratini). This moveset destroys both Lance and the Clair rematch, and is still one of the best all-around Pokemon in the game. A very obvious S-tier indulgence. I chose to get Meganium before the E4 as my final Pokemon. It was... interesting. With it, Dragonite, Typhlosion, and Steelix, I ended up orienting towards a sort of Sun team. Meganium was, of course, used for firing off Solar Beams. One of the strongest moves in the game, but balanced with Meganium's still very poor typing. I thought Kanto would provide more for it, as imo Venusaur is the best Gen 1 starter, but only a couple gyms did. That said, while I was indecisive about having Leech Seed in the last slot (along with Giga Drain and ofc Sunny Day), that Seed ended up SAVING me during the Red fight (my one really underleveled fight after most of the game). A-tier, but mainly by being one of the better Grass types, which are mostly eh. All in all, a very good mod! If it ever gets a Kanto overhaul, and said overhaul forces a save reset, I may give things another go with another set of Pokemon, probably including Feraligatr and at least one of the Kanto starters.
I just finished my Nuzlocke with it today. Espeon was a hard carry for me. I didn’t realize all of my team was basically S tier. Machamp, Golem, Crobat, Lanturn. Feraligatr was meh but he’s still a personal fave. Took me 5 tries.
I caught all 251! Such a fun way to revisit crystal! Great list! I mostly agree with yours aside from some personal notes from my play through : Scizor - I’d bump up into hard carry because of its resistances. Makes it easy to set up and sweep. Snorlax - SS as well or at least high S as once you get it, it can literally solo the post game, elite 4 teams, and Red if it wanted to with the right setup. Pidgeot - felt somewhat underwhelming even with Sky Attack, and closer on par with Dodrio, but i guess that’s Pidgeot. Marowak - I would bump up into lower A because of its decent physical bulk and double attack holding Thick Club. It can hit like a truck, the only thing holding it back is its speed which a baton passer can help it unlock. Also, I have a few questions: since all pokemon are catchable, any thoughts on bumping the mew requirement up to 250 seen and caught? I was at 250 seen/249 caught and unlocked mew but still had lapras left to catch in Union Cave so that actually wound up being my last catch 😅. Secondly, maybe i missed it but did you buff sleep turns for gym leaders? Falkner’s noctowl sleeps my Pokemon for a minimum or 5 turns almost 90% of our battles (and i battle him a ton for grinding purposes). If it’s intentional, I get it. Lastly, what are your thoughts on buffing Koga’s team, specifically his bugs? I know that traditionally Elite 4 team levels tend to be mostly in the same ball park across only creeping up to their ace, but I really wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of his bugs (Ariados and Parasect) a bit higher level in the rematch so that they bring the same challenge. Thanks so much for all the time and effort you put into this rom hack, it’s pretty replayable and I’m interested in trying it with different teams!
As someone nuzlocking Legacy Crystal my word I cant believe you made Pryce terrifying. My team is Feraligatr, Electabuzz, Golem, Scyther(soon scizor hopefully) and 2 HM slaves
I have really been enjoying Crystal Legacy ! Cristal was my first pokemon game, so it has been a blast playing a smoothed out version with QoL features that is not a difficulty hack. (Although i would love having more TMs being available for purchase, especially after entering the Hall of Fame.) Would for you to make the same analysis you did for Crystal but for Emerald and Platinum (although i the base games don't have as much problems as Crystal). And hey, while i'm (apparently) writing my Christmas wishlist, i would not say no to the same kind of romhack for those two. :D Thanks for your hard work !
Jost beat Johto today, and I think this hack is great, it's given me a new interest in Gen 2 which I never liked, not even the remakes. I just have one suggestion: I think Yanma needs a liiiiitle help. I'm not sure if you're still patching the game with balance updates, but like you said in the video, he's basically a discount Scyther... And that's it, it's worse in nearly every way and I think the way to remedy this is to bring it's sp atk back to the original 75, letting it have a decently higher special stat than Scyther to differentiate it as a kind of mixed attacker (not a great one, but it's something), which works since it already has access to decent special moves like Twister, Giga Drain, and Solar Beam. Giga Drain being especially interesting since it'll give it the niche of hitting ground types for super effective damage and recovering health while being immune to ground type moves. I think it should be balanced since I think there's still a decent chance of getting slammed by a rock type attack when taking on ground types.
Scizor was unbelievable in my run. Ran it with Agility, Swords Dance, Twin Needle, and Stength to hit anything neutral. He is an absolute sweeper. For sure SS tier, hard carry.
Played it and finished it on the Steam Deck. Game plays so much better with the fixes. If this version had been the original launch, I'd rate gen 2 as one of the goat generations.
Dunsparce should be higher, imo. It gets strong stab Normal moves via level up and TMs, and fairly early too. It gets Dig early. It can use the broken Defense Curl + Rollout combo.
Breeding a scyther with agility swords dance and baton pass > makes for one nasty scizor to use in the battle tower. Even fun using it with no attacking move and double team. It's so broken.
Maybe it's due to my experience where I don't have Gengar and Machamp yet. But with just hitting Clair's gym at lv37/38/39 the experience so far with Haunter and Machoke are consistently bad so far. Like losing match ups they're supposed to win half the time bad.
Not a lot of disagreement from NPC Bob here. Seriously, good eye my guy. I might have added a “utility master” category for mons like paras, smeargle, you name it. Basically the ones you never bring to the gym, but always keep around. Like (gen 4 only)stantler with frisk and thief, meowth with payday, pickup in any game with abilities…
Heracross struggles hard without an early fighting move, it doesn't get reversal until the 40s and its moves aren't the best. I can confirm that during my current playthrough.
Sandslash isn't mere situational. I raised a Sandshrew - Sandslash through Gen II with Dig, Rollout, and Slash (I had other Pokemon to teach Cut to), and honestly, Sandslash can almost solo the game. It is awesome against Morty, Jasmine, most NPC trainers, almost all of the Rockets, and does very decently against the Elite Four. In this game I wasn't soloing with Sandslash, but I was still amazed at how many opponents it wiped out on its own.
@@iamgamsoh it’s been awhile! I want to say 45? Can’t exactly remember. There should be a word file somewhere by the creator and the level will be under evolution changes. Have fun!
Another random question, you're the only one in the comments section mentioning Togetic, did you enjoy using it? He ranked it as B tier, considering it as my flying type because, you're just given it after 2 steps, was it a pain to evolve from happiness?
@@conza1989 I was having a blast using metronome I loved the randomness of it. If I remember correctly togepi just evolved without me even paying attention to the happiness level. Maybe it’s a little lower for togetic than compared to say espeon? I primarily used Return and metronome.
Been loving the content recently and I’ve been inspired to create an advancement hack of pokemon emerald. I wanted to know how you changed the ghost and dark physical ghost special split because I can’t find any guides of it and wanted to try it out in my hack.
I made a full flinching move set of Feraligatr in this game lol (Waterfall, Crunch, Rockslide(egg move from Ttar), Icy wind for faster opponents and King's Rock as ITEM hold) full flinch😂🎉
![🔴 ฟุตบอลแชมป์กีฬา 7HD แชมเปียน คัพ 2024 [รอบ 8 ทีมสุดท้าย] - ช่วงบ่าย](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/M0S_ReCIkxg/mqdefault.jpg)
I had a lot of fun with this game! While in this playthrough I had used some members were always staples (Typhlosion and Espeon) I got to use Pokemon that I either have not used because of trade evolutions (Gengar and Scizor) or availability (Pupitar/Tyranitar) or just never had any interest in using such as Crobat and Lanturn. By the end of the game I felt like every Pokemon, whether they were on my team or the AI's team, they all had a chance to shine and the changes to the encounters and trainer battles made this the perfect version of Crystal. The fact that there were times that I was worried I would be knocked out by a random trainer somewhere in the mid-late game speaks volumes. I can't wait to see how you update Kanto and I plan on doing another playthrough using Pokemon that I have never used before just to get a really fresh experience. Thank you for this romhack and for making my favorite Pokemon game live up to it's fullest potential while keeping it classic!
In Patch 1.2 is coming:
1. Move Reminder
2. Run Animation
3. Hard Mode (No Switch & No Item in Battle)
It’s impressive how much a game can be improved.
@@a.carnevale4910 Excuse me, at which level Haunter evolve into Gengar? im running my first playthrough and i found out some Trade evolutions evolve by level
@@iamgams Kadabra and Haunter at l42
Having a blast playing this. For Johto the team was: Feraligatr, Houndoom, Ampharos, Espeon, and Steelix. When I got to Kanto added Dragontie to round it out. Training up for a second go at Red. The repeatable gym leader rematches have been a godsend for grinding
You can get a Dratini in the Goldenrod gamecorner if you wanted to round out the team early
I will asume tyranitar is broken in emerald legacy
Actual TTar will probably be top tier in Emerald Legacy but babysitting Larvitar and Pupitar is a very big opportunity cost for most of the game in Crystal Legacy or HGSS, so I think in that sense it will be overall balanced.
I loved meganium in this game. With leech seed, flash and giga drain, and leftovers its a great tanky staller. I love the grass type so its cool that i could use meganium literally all game even the red fight where it took down snorlax,blastoise and reds new ace
It also gets Cut which is good against psychics and mono dark types
Hitmonlee with mind reader and dynamic punch is amazing, also imo Vileplume is S tier. Sludge bomb, sleep powder, and giga drain is an amazing combo
Vileplume just needs a defence/special defence increasing move, then you could beef up, use moonlight and giga drain, and just be a real nuisance haha. Fuk vileplume is cool
bellsprout is an earlier encounter learns growth and is a lot stronger
vile is the goat
NO NOT VILE HIMSELF
Exeggutor is Much STRONGER than Vileplume, despite a lot of weakness IT'S S TIER😂😂😂 . . BONKERS ?
Quite at first sight, but in pratictise NO, I tried it in Battle Tower from lv 30 to lv 70, except when losing happened for extremely RNG, I've always WON STRAIGHT 10/10 battles in a row, With tyranittar+ Gyarados, it always Exeggutor carrying the TEAM
MOVES: Sleep Powder, Psychic, Giga Drain, EXPLOSION, The only "drawbacks", you've to get or exchange an Exeggutor wth TM Explosion from GEN 1 🙂, Pshycic type and Explosion (250 damage and -50% defense for opponent LUL ) are stupid OVERPOWER in gen1/2
I got an early Scizor, which carried me through a playthrough because I got lucky and caught a Magnemite holding a metal coat right before Morty. It was incredible and so bulky for the run!
Excuse me, at which level Haunter evolve into Gengar? im running my first playthrough and i found out some Trade evolutions evolve by level
@@iamgams haunter evolves at 42, there’s a cool option in the Pokédex that shows what levels/items needed for Pokemon to evolve. Smith also made a video on it you should check it out!
@@iamgamslvl 42, high but then again Gengar is a pretty broken mon
I've hardcore nuzlocked this game twice up to this point: GREAT job on the romhack btw!!!! I do gotta stand up for my boi Dewgong here. Outside of legendaries, he's the fastest STAB user of Ice Beam and with his Sp. Atk reaching Lapras's I'd say there's no reason for him to be below Lapras anymore. You get him between gym 6-7 depending on when ya beat Pryce, and has a use for almost every fight after that point with level caps. (It's not outspeeding Lance's Aerodactyl/Zapdos, but it'll outspeed the Dragonites by this point in its EVs!)
You forgot Stantler and Shuckle :(
Stantler is actually good. Shuckle is poop
I'll have to try Crystal Legacy to confirm, but I suspect Feraligatr is still better than the other two starters in terms of utility, especially since it can learn Dig. My ideal Gen II Feraligatr knows Surf, Ice Punch, Dig, and Slash, while this romhack gives it the very useful buffed Bug-type Cut for additional coverage against Grass, Psychic, and Dark-type Pokémon.
playing it, gligar was a really surprisingly strong pick. the buffs you gave it were just about perfect to make it viable but not crazy
It's only problem is not getting any Ground move bar Mud-Slap until 38, which hinders him pretty much together with not having Rock coverage, especially on Jasmine's fight and both Team Rocket mid game segments: in that regard, i feel like making him able to learn Dig through TM could work wonders.
@@massimilianodelrosso5495 yeah i see what you mean, i was also shocked it didn't get fly
@@jackrecher6986 he didn't get both in original gen2 and i can see why (technically he's not a grounded creature, nor a really capable-of-flying one since it glides), but since Fly is only a 70 BP 90 ACC move, i'd say you're not gonna miss it that much with Wing Attack in early 20s. On the other hand, Ground is one of the 3-4 typings you *always* want to fire off in GSC, tied with Rock, Fire, Psychic and probably Water, so having to rely on Mud-Slap for so much is detrimental, especially when far stronger mons like Rhyhorn or Nidoking gets Magnitude at 27 at worst and are available one or two gym earlier, while EQ Gligar has the risk of coming after the Radio Tower, when the majority of Poison types are disappeared. Probably Magnitude would help him too, despite having to face terrible opponents both on Ground AND Flying spectrum (Golem, Rhydon and Steelix are all better than him, and so are Pidgeot and Aerodactyl, which can carry the game by itself).
Gligar gang❤️
@@smithplayspokemoncan flight learn fly?
id actually give skarmory an S tier based on my personal playthrough of legacy. this thing was AWESOME, it was super bulky, really good moves, hits decently hard, and has spikes which is really underrated, it was honestly one of the big players for a huge amount of the tough battles in this game
I always forget that Skarmory is Gen 2, not Gen 3.
It's quite impressive how much stuff Skarmory straight up walls. I ran both Skarm and Steelix for a while and they synergy pretty well. I had a Kingdra to cover Fire-types.
I didn't try spikes but I did notice that late/post-game trainers do switch out of bad match-ups quite often in Legacy. Though on the other hand, it should be possible OHKO them most of the time at that point once you gt them pinned down.
I think this underrates Poliwrath in the sense of just how much role compression fighting and water provides for a team insofar as hitting a ton of different stuff for super effective damage with a single pokemon, on top of being able to use hypnosis.
Poliwrath is a creatively unique Pokemon, with alot of utility. It's my favourite Pokemon, a set of angrily intense eyes set upon a swirling vortex of madness, and some muscular arms with giant fists. What a weapon!
I'm not sure if there is, but there should be a pitch black Variant, to channel that unnerving Poliwrath sprite from Pokemon Red/blue.
@@trevorstevenson4038 How... eloquent!
Poliwrath just feels like a more complete pokemon than feraligatr. They have very similar stats, they get mostly the same move, but poli can reliably come in on all the rocks and totally counters all the houndooms the bosses love to use. And then you have hypnosis which can atleast completely reset the field.
@@zate5355 Yeah certainly Feraligatr above Poliwrath is just kind of a crazy take.
Forretress with the new Spike Cannon and Pin Needle buff has worked out for me. He just became even more busted with Curse.
Don't forget Spikes; entry hazards can bring things into OHKO range for other pokemon and it has Explosion and a well timed Explosion can just punch a massive hole through a team.
Similar reasons to why I also favor Cloyster a lot as well. Spikes plus Explosion is great to have for punching holes through a team's defense and helps set things up for your sweeper.
@@ArchetypeLuna Forretress sweep real
Just completed it on a normal play through, literally first encounter was a uncatchable shiny pidgey. May I add I have NEVER had that happen to me on any Pokémon game ever 😂 that being said, amazing game 😁
Separate thought, but I basically swept through the majority of the game with Yanma. Thank you for buffing this bug I’ve always wanted to use 😊
One thing I'd love to see is some way to change your Hidden Power types, like maybe an NPC that uses some Unown-related magic to unlock a new perspective. Since almost everything gets Hidden Power, Gen 2 coverage is pretty limited, and every mon has DVs instead of IVs, it could be a neat buff to everything. The only downside is that so many things could use Hidden Power to decent effect that it would create an odd contrast in which the player has tons of options for Hidden Power, but it would be weird for the AI to do the same thing since it's hidden information
My team for most Johto playthroughs:
Typhlosion (Axel)
Steelix (Terrafax)
Crobat (Ronin)
Kingdra (Azul)
Herracross (Rambo)
Tyranitar (Tyrant)
-Alternating-
Ampharos (Signal)
Skarmory (Raptor)
Scizor (Stark)
i loved crystal legacy. it is the perfect gen 2 rom hack
Been extremely sick this weekend, and I’ve put like 30 hours into this game and it’s been my saving grace. Such a fun play with just enough changes and new combos. Also just playing a game I haven’t touched in a decade has been interesting. Using some Pokémon I never even caught in my copy as a kid. Excellent work, can’t wait to finish
With this TierList in mind, we can also think on what can be modified, like maybe a little buff to Delibird and Lickitung.
The problem with Azulmarill and Wigglytuff is only solved in Gen 6, with the Fairy Type introduction. They become insanely good to play. SO yeah, can't argue with these tiering for them.
But one thing I think you missed is about Stantler and Shuckle in the TL.
I think something like Delibird is always going to be more of a "joke" Pokémon just due to the fact that Ice/Flying is horrible, movepool and stats are awful in gen 2 in general. I think it would need an evolution to significantly improve. Just look at how pushed Iron Bundle had to be for it to be relevant.
Their buffed BST for Delibird is less than Ledian. I would bring up its speed to 105 and maybe do something similar with its special attack. Then it would at least be threatening.
I played through when 1.0 came out and loved it. My team was Meganium, Magcargo, Ursaring, Tyranitar, Slowking and Scizor. I tried using Meganium since you said it was buffed and I don't think I ever did a full playthrough of gen 2 with Meganium, and I enjoyed it a lot. Having access to Larvitar and Teddyursa early (I know [now] that Teddyursa is available in vanilla too, but I never got one lol) was so cool, having Larvitar early and evolving it throughout the whole game makes so much sense and I really don't understand why they don't do it in the regular game. Slowking and Scizor are such cool mons that I never got to use in gen 2 since they are trade evos. Magcargo was just a pokémon I never used so I said "why not? he's a tiny guy".
Overall I was pretty satisfied with my team, didn't face many hurdles throughout the whole game and had a lot of fun with the game as a whole. Only way I'd improve this hack is by changing some tilesets to something similar to Polished Crystal, so that goes to show the great job you guys did with balancing and stuff. Can't wait for the next steps you take!
Marowak? Defensive ground type? He can literally sweep teams.
Thick Club goes brrrrr
Cute Batton pass bastard :3
you never did Stantler or Shuckle. I probably wouldn't have noticed, but I always had a Stantler and Girafarig on my team as a child.
I used Girafarig on my first playthrough and it was great
Thanks to the spc. defense and defense buffs Corsola oneshots Lance's Zapdos and Red's Pikachu with magic coat. It tanks/hits basically any special move/pokemon (magic coat+recover) but grass and hits flying, bug and rock with STAB surf and ancient rock, being overall a consistently good pokemon, even though it may be literally situational (like almost every pokemon on A and S tier anyway). One love corsola
You gave Ariados doubled base speed, slightly higher bulk, slightly earlier evolution, early 80 BP Bug STAB (which has full badge boost effect already) and STAB Megahorn among other things. It really easily kills most Pokemon by itself and is far more consistent and powerful than "Situational" B tier.
I know this is usage tiering, thought sadly it really didn’t feel like much of a threat to fight against, at least on my run.
@@estabravo That's irrelevant to how effective the mon is when used to its strengths by the player.
@@Shyguymask Chill… This is why i prefaced my comment the way i did. It was more of a side remark aimed at the game’s difficulty which the buffs also intentionally affected.
Ariados is a cool mon, I’ll agree that it does better than B tier for the main game, probably low A below the Nidos. But it’s still just okay. Its speed gives it more usage in the main game sure, but if you want more of a challenge in the post game it’s there. 90 atk is nothing to write home about even with STAB and it can’t really do much with its special learnset later on. Plenty of mons get great mileage from badge boosts in gsc so if you like it, use it, but don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.
@@estabravo 90 atk is actually decent enough in gen 2, the standards for stats are lower than in the later gens. Coupled with Badge boosts it simply two-shots or one-shots most enemies with Twineedle (which it gets right as it evolves) to the point it even smashes through Whitney's Miltank with ease. And later on it gets Megahorn and its damage output is outright above average relative to other Pokemon at that point. Two of the elite four members are weak to Bug, as well.
Ariados is not mainly a special attacker and doesn't need to be one when it already has Twineedle, Megahorn and Sludge Bomb to kill most things already. Even then, he learns Giga Drain which easily one-shots random rock/ground type mons as well as one-shotting Brock's water/rock Pokemon.
What am I pretending Ariados to be that it's not, exactly? I called and described Ariados as a very effective offensive powerhouse. It is in fact a very effective offensive powerhouse, and if you want to disagree then please list every major fight in the game where Ariados is not at least somewhat useful in past Falkner.
@@Shyguymask did you even read my response? I already agreed it should be higher and does well in the main game. Before I list anything, because it seems like you think i am in complete disagreement with you, and because the spot I placed it at now has mons with their own list that compete with the one you’re after, I want to know where you think Ariados should be?
Forretress is actually pretty good, spike cannon and pin missile may not do consistent damage but his incredible bulk and typing allows him to completely wall any poison, psychic, or normal type that doesnt have a fire move. Then his physical defense also allows him to beat most physical sweepers that hit for neutral. Not scizor, but certainly not terrible! He's actually pretty fun to pilot.
If you guys end up doing more updates, I'd love to see Noctowl and a handful of other lower tiers get some buffs as we adapt. This is making a childhood dream here stellar work!
Alakazam was my hard carry until I got Kingdra. I never really had a chance to use it till now in a main play through so I was really excited to use it. Can definitely say it was a beast
What is a "hard carry"?
@@StephaneArcher your mother is a hard carry
@@0_0-x7s don’t waste my time
Maybe it's just me, but Gengar being the best non-legend in the game might be overselling it.
It is very frail, Hypnosis has a massive chance to miss, so it's not as reliable as it may seem, it has limited coverage & you can't reliably use it against Psychic Types because of its secondary Poison Typing. Actually, that Poison Typing makes Gengar worse when you consider how good Ground Types are in this game, let alone how common it is. Plus, you can only use Gengar at the Eight Gym & in the League, where he can't really do much.
Maybe it's because i had a Tyranitar instead? I don't know, to me, i felt really disappointed to grind up a Gengar in my first playthrough, only to do next to nothing with it when it finally became a Gengar due to how... *Not good* he is in the Johto Endgame
Ghost typing is stupidly broken early game when most Pokemon are limited to Normal type moves for coverage.
@@ShiningJudgment666 Fair enough. Plus, Ghost is now special here, so it actually makes Gengar's Ghost Typing actually useful
@@BardockSkywalker Yep, because now it can do more damage on neutral hits without needing to resort to the unreliable Thunder.
Gengar is stupid STRONG and a good movepool, but NEED TM unlocked and it's frail, Gengar doesnt win/carry battle alone...Or better there's one close but Genj become slow in Killing
1) "tank set"
CONFUSE RAY, HYPNOSIS, DREAMEATER, SHADOW BALL : Pratically use confuse Ray for confonding opponent (50% opponent HIT itself ) and then spam Hyposis, Dream-eater for recharge HP, shadow ball for bishotting or oneshotting almost everything.
2) Assasin Set
Thunderbolt, ShadowBall, Hypnosis/GigaDrain/ Pshicic, Destiny Bond/ Explosion (if you want transfer in Gen1 for tm Explosion)
More optimized set .... much much less tanky but more braindead/ more FuN
I dont know why but Gengar doesnt learn Ice punch in this rom
@aleger620 Both he & Alakazam lost access to both Fire & Ice Punch in this ROM Hack
In Base Gen 2, those 2 were WAY to strong due to learning all 3 Elemental Punches... Like- "You can basically steamroll the entire game with this one unit" kind of strong.
Remember, the Elemental Punches in Gen 2 were Special Attacks, so Gengar & Alakazam could do big damage with it thanks to their high Special Attack stat
So both lost access to both Ice & Fire Punch in Crystal Legacy to make them both more balanced
Fyi for anyone reading this later on, you can actually get Scizor affer the third gym and Kingdra after the 5th gym by using thief on the pokemon who holds their evo item, magnamite and horsea for their metal coat /dragon scale.
which horsea has dragon scale
@@jackg93 Potentially any Horsea, but it's only a 2% chance. The same goes with magnamite.
I think you're sleeping on Granbull. It walls Morty pretty hard if you give it a mint berry. Physical dark bit and it's very good early game but falls off late. Definitely high B low A.
I really enjoyed this rom hack. I deliberately ran Pokemon I wouldn't usually use. I'll rate the mons I used.
Buffed Murkrow is super good. Feint Attack/Drill Peck with high attack and high speed makes it a super cool/weird sweeper. Easy A tier. Maybe even low S.
Meganium is way better than vanilla. Giga drain plus leach seed gives it mega longevity, screens give it good support, and it actually has decent coverage too e.g. body slam or rock smash to help supplement any team gaps you might have. It's still a grass type in Johto though which makes it hard to be more than B for me.
Magcargo was interesting. It dies very easily due to 4x weak to ground and water, and being slow, but it also packs a punch in the right situation. It's very much a glass cannon. Rock slide and flamethrower are great stab options. I gave mine earthquake too but its attack wasn't enough to use that well without stab. Decent but definitely outclassed by a more traditional fire type and a more traditional rock/ground type. Also everything late game seems to have earthquake on it in this rom hack which makes magcargo quite hard to use. B.
Scizor was incredible. Buffed cut, buffed rock smash, earlier steel wing. This thing can kill anything if you can go first. I played 1.0 only and only had swords dance and didn't have agility. The extra speed was definitely missed but this thing still was awesome. Steel type is nice too. S.
Ampharos was nice but a little boring. Fire punch for coverage (especially when magcargo was usually dead) and a thunder wave that works on electric types in gen 2 was pretty cool. Light screen was nice for support too. A.
Slowking was a nice novelty instead of the usually more accessible Slowbro. It has a similar problem to Magcargo through where despite its bulk, it still dies often due to its low speed. Still, you can't sniff at a Pokemon that can Stab Surf, Ice Beam, Stab Psychic and Special Shadow Ball all in one go. Low A.
As an aside, opponents' Pidgeots and Qwilfishes were often surprisingly good, and made me want to try another run with another team.
I went with Slowking too and ran curse on it which changed everything for it. More longevity and sweep potential.
Thanks for making me fall back in love with Pokemon again dude
Can't stress how much I love this ROM hack. Exactly what I was looking for after my recent playthrough of vanilla Crystal, fixes almost all of the design flaws of Gen II. You guys have done such a phenomenal job. The only issue left with the base game I would love to see fixed is just the TM variety. There are so many good/fun TM's from Gen 1 that are MIA in Gen II.
Tier list is also very on point, I agree with all of it. Good way of looking for some pain point Mon's too. Maybe Licketung could get the Dunsparce treatment? Would make sense as a super rare spawn in Ilex Forest, canonically Licketung hang out in forests/jungles, and use their tongues to eat fruit from tall trees. Licketung is gonna fall off of course, but having some way to get him early would make a decent beater. As for Delibird, I have no ideas that make any sense lmao. Thanks for the ROM Hack again!!
Flareon was such a beast in this romhack. Thank you for buffing its special attack. If only Flareon was good in the actual Pokémon games since I like its fluffy design.
Thank you for giving this game, and its Pokémon, they’re much-needed buffs!! 🙏
Played all the way throuyh and completed the Pokedex. I have just a couple points I'd add to the game. 1) make a move relearner available (maybe in blackthorne or vermilion ?) Making it work like in gen 9 where you can relearn previously used tms, I really felt limited in moveset composition after elite 4 round 1 and would have loved to shift my team around more. 2) For the love of god adjust breeding mechanics so they are more in line with modern titles less than 4% chance every 256 steps for the least favorable combo of pokemon is waaaaay to little. Breeding with Ditto just for multiple Eevees took me really long even at 16x speed😢
Can't wait to see what you folks add for Kanto, excited to try it out
slowking should be double S tier. You can get it before gym 2, because wild slowpoke can hold king's rock.
Compared to the lvl 37 evolution of slowbro, slowking is bringing his full stats for an insanely large portion of the game.
Forretress was done really dirty by this tier list. You get it early and it can be useful as a defensive pivot vs Bugsy and evolves before Morty for a useful ghost resist. Pin Missile & Spike Cannon while not offering amazing offensive coverage do let it beat many Pokemon. Vs Jasmine it resists many of her pokemon and can use Rock Smash/Dig. Not an ace but can contribute meaninfully. Its super effective vs Pryce and also resists dragon and ice which is very useful vs Clair. In E4 Forretress performs very well vs Will, Koga and Karen, and can eat a meaty physical attack from Bruno in a pinch. Vs Lance Forretress will likely eat an Outrage or face off vs Aero in a pinch, but that is more value than most Pokemon above it.
As it is I would rate Forretress as a mid-A tier. If it learned Toxic or Earthquake by level up I would consider putting it near bottom of S-tier.
Some of the rankings were questionable. Tentacruel above Lapras for example even though Lapras is bulkier and stronger. Ice stab is also much better than Poison. Kangaskhan being B tier is also pretty low, stab normal moves in a gen with so few steel and ghost types is very underrated. But pretty good list nonetheless!
Beat the game on Set with 3 S-tiers (Scizor, Gyarados, Starmie) and 3 A-tiers (Typhlosion, Ampharos, Gligar).
I agree with all of their placements with how well they performed. Gligar was great with its STABs and switchin resistances, but lacks in raw power. Typhlosion, Ampharos, and Starmie performs as well as the base game with better move progression. Scizor sweeps Will and Karen. GIVING GYARADOS A CONSISTENT FLYING STAB IS A TRIED AND TESTED WAY TO MAKE IT BROKEN.
I want to actually make an argument that Ariados is a sleeping S tier. It is pretty weak early one, but it absolutely trivializes the late game once it gets access to megahorn. It levels up extremely fast so it actually ends up being close to the opponent’s level at both elite 4 runs. Stab Megahorn plus agility allows it to sweep both the psychic and dark type elite 4 members, giving it even more levels and stat experience for its special moves. I put psychic and gigadrain on it for coverage, allowing it to out- heal steelix, and 2 shot all of Bruno’s other Pokémon which it resists.
This speedy spider is a great coverage choice for dark types if you are using a psychic sweeper. Houndoom and murkrow both take neutral damage from megahorn and its high attack and bug typing make the move easily one-shot. The one thing really holding it back is how late it gets its moves. For the early game it is trash. It’s typing makes it weak to the first gym. Can we please get this thing to learn cut? I am sure it could slice things with its mandibles.
pS: there is no way in helll venamoth is better than Ariados. I played with both and venamoth just sucks. It’s worse than any special attacker that gets a stab move and struggles against the same things Ariados struggles against, without an ability to counter dark types well, because it’s attack stat is not great and it’s best bug move is leach life. Before it evolves it has terrible special and is weak to so many things. After it evolves it learns good moves late and can’t take advantage of stab sludge bomb with its horrible attack. Stab psychic users work better as sweepers and its access to sleep powder can’t be taken advantage of without a setup move like growth. Overall this Pokémon is trash.
Can’t wait to try and get Hitmontop in my game, just started
I just did a run with Wigglytuff and lovely kiss, elemental punches, and an earlyish evolution make it way better than a lot of mons around it.
It would be cool to see the really low teir Pokemon here get some additional buffs. Some even from Yellow Legacy that weren't buffed in Crystal Legacy.
I might use Meganium for the first time in my life with this hack. I did just start a playthrough with Cyndaquil, but I'm really feeling Chikorita for some reason, lol. Excited to try mons I've never used before (Houndoom, Scizor, Gengar, Tyranitar).
Much love from the YTC institute (help us)
what i actually used aipom in your romhack and its definitely very good, fast hitter and a lot of flinches with low kick, i really like it!
Aipom has very good speed with stab return and swift, plus baton pass and agility is pretty versatile. It also learns cut and strength if needed
"Miltank is kind of a Tauros"
Wiser words haven't been spoken.
Great tierlist. My hard carry will always be Ampharos, it crushed most of Elite Four in my playthrough by itself, reaching level 50 just after Lance.
It's really funny to me seeing Wobbuffett in with the Legendaries. I get it, but it's just a really funny image seeing all these like, noble, majestic creatures and then Wobbuffett.
I have been playing this rom hack and it's been a lot of fun so far.
Great stuff Pat!
Kinda cool that most of the pokemon I use in a standard Gen 2 playthrough are in S and high A tier, even the ones that aren't that good in vanilla
I would easily put Lanturn in S tier, I used him on my first run and he just slaps so hard. The typing is nutty, along with his massive bulk he feels very powerful.
Hard agree, I ran mine with Ice Beam, Tbolt, Surf and Confuse Ray and that thing could solo most fights. Got even more ridiculous in Kanto when we got Leftovers.
In the middle of doing a full dex playthrough, so my thoughts:
1. Both the Chansey and Cleffa lines I would put lower, due to availability. Chansey is Kanto only. As for the Cleffa line, unless you get lucky and get a Cleffa from the Odd Egg, Clefairy is also Kanto only (I got very unlucky and got a Pichu, who I had caught already on Route 31, which means I have to get to Mt. Moon and breed a Clefairy to get Cleffa).
2. Beedrill is pretty good in Johto, and has been part of my normal travelling team. The moveset fixes plus Bug type Cut make it pretty consistent against normal trainers and some gyms, so A for me. Scizor does outclass it later on.
3. Hypno and Marowak have been consistent when catching mons, between Hypnosis and False Swipe. The Gastly line is better for Hypnosis and speed, so it falls down usually to if you want a Psychic type or a Ghost type on your team for catching normal mons (the roamers, though, Haunter or Gengar win due to Mean Look as well). Solid niche duo. I would usually value Alakazam more due to Teleport utility before you get Fly plus stats and the rest of the movepool, but Teleport hasn't been as handy in Johto, whereas I am running Hypno constantly.
4. Magneton being Steel as well as Electric bumps it up for me over the other Electrics for me. Core part of my Blackthorn and E4 teams because of thst. Lanturn is the only one I would put up with Magneton, for that dual typing.
5. Quagsire is S not just for typing and moves, but because of the ultimate friend shaped vibes. 😍
6. Quilfish is better than Tentacruel due to Spikes.
7. Speaking of Spikes, that plus typing makes Skarmory top tier for me. Mine soloed early Chuck roster, and was a valuable part of my E4 team. S for me.
8. Kingdra can be before Gym 7, if you try Thiefing Dragon Scales of wild Horseas. One reason Furret has a niche, as mine was used for that and getting me a second King's Rock.
9. I hate that Forretress is meh at best, as the typing is the same as Scizor and it has Rapid Spin to deal with Spikes, but it just gets killed too quickly to be a viable spinner. 😔
10. Poliwrath vs. Jasmine. Water/Fighting trumps the bulk of her team and that Rain Dance strat.
Could a guaranteed Thick Club be made available somewhere? obviously not too early but it would make Marowak more interesting. Maybe post Clair?
Use thief on Cubones in the cave. 2% chance of stealing it.
@@Ishouldstudy69ngl even with thief it took a while due to Cubone’s spawn rate, and i was playing on 3x speed.
Unfortunately for the initial Gen 2 games: GSC a lot of the Gen 2 Pokemon were either hard to get and/or had bad moves along with very limited TMs. HG/SS along with the Gen 4 changed helped a lot
Pretty solid list, though I'd personally put the slow bois at the bottom of S because of how long you'll likely just have slowpoke since they don't evolve until level 37 at the least, and for Amnesia Slowking you have to wait till level 43. My first playthrough of this had Slowpoke in the party since I could catch it, and It's one of the most drastic changes in term of carry factor because you'll have a mon with stab water/physic but little sp. attack to outright monsters once they have actually decent stats + either Amnesia or Withdraw making them impossible to kill outside their loosing matchups.
Hard agree. Tried using slowpoke in my recent run, this Pokemon goes from HARD carried to hard carry once it evolves.
Misdreavus was great on my playthrough, hypnosis and perish song took care of first pass Lance. Early shadowball and the flip of ghost and dark damage types made it very good.
Forretress was great for the Whitney battle because protect allows you to stop her rollout steam roll. I had never used it before but the buff you gave to spike cannon made it decent, and selfdestruct/explosion was useful for getting some of the more pesky elite four pokemon out of the way.
Man, I admire the amount of thought you obviously put into this rom hack. For 2023/4 standards it's genuinely UP THERE in terms of games with soul. I pray that corporate gaming never get their dirty necromancer hands on your productions!! 🙏 Thank you for this rom I love it! ❤
I hope there’ll be an in depth explanation for SS and S tier pokemons in this list. More power 🎉
For a possible update, would be to maybe change the availability of the Kanto starters and have them available earlier.
15:40 lanturn comes late? You can use good rod to catch it after 4th gym is over. What does "comes late" means in this context because I am missing something here I think.
Remember this guy is a psycho who thinks the best route is doing Pryce after Morty, and only then doubling back to Olivine.
I used Kingdra in my playthrough, and it was an absolute beast
With no real exploitable weaknesses and good bulk, it should be. Only real issue would be Lance and his Outraging Dragons.
I know this may not be the right place to put this critique, but I would love for the magnemite line to get some sort of steel stab. I know ..... literally none of the steel damaging moves in gen 2 would fit, but MAYBE spike cannon if you squinted your eyes enough that bolts and screws looked like a nail flying toward you ????
Haven’t made it through the whole video yet but I’m surprised at the s tier ranking for rhydon and golem with their awful sp d and 4x weakness to water/grass making them almost always a OHKO with any grass/water move
sawing pidgeot getting Extreme Speed and broken Sky attacks just made me cry deciding for gligar instead of Pidgeot. But Gligar itself is very good too! The typing carries until getting earthquake and wing attack. These two moves alone can fit so many problems, It really is consistent.
I feel like Unown should be with Delibird and Lickitung
This hack is so awesome that this is the first time i've been indecisive on what my final team should be in a Crystal run
Just finished my play through today not 100% yet tho! very solid fix! Crystal is already my favorite mainline pokemon game, but legacy just fix all my problem of it!
You should share the tierlist. You don't really show us the finished list at the end.
By my tally, these were the top 3 Pokemon for each type:
Bug Scizor, Heracross, Pinsir
Dark Houndoom, Tyranitar, Umbreon
Dragon Kingdra, Dragonite
Electric Lanturn, Jolteon, Ampharos
Fire Houndoom, Arcanine, Typlosion
Fighting Heracross, Machamp, Primeape
Flying Aerodactyl, Gyarados, Jumpluff
Ghost Gengar, Misdreavus
Grass Victreebel, Jumpluff, Meganium
Ground Golem, Rhydon, Steelix
Ice Jynx, Lapras, Poliswine
Normal Porygon 2, Snorlax, Girafarig
Poison Gengar, Victreebel, Crobat
Psychic Alakazam, Starmie, Slowking
Rock Aerodactyl, Golem, Tyranitar
Steel Scizor, Steelix, Magneton
Water Kingdra, Starmie, Gyarados
Man, you're going to cost me so much money. I've avoided buying an EverDrive GB for years, but this might genuinely be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
So I binged this game and beat it in 2 days (4x speed). I got both Alacazam and Gengar which kinda made the game really easy. Thunder-punch may not be ice punch, but it's good enough honestly. I think severe nerfs are in order if we want to actually balance these pokemon. The problem with their design is that they are frail but fast, and do insane damage with good coverage. So if you reduce that damage they just get eliminated by whatever they don't 1 hit ko. I think they would be more fun if we just levelled out the damage and bulk a little more so they didn't one shot or die. But maybe that's their whole identity. I used a belly drum/ body slam and then earthquake Polywrath for a lot of the run to cover against Pokemon I couldn't obliterate with my special attackers, and that was fun. I had ideas of setting up rain dance and swapping into a thunder user, but it just never happened. The tm is too expensive and I never found a reason to buy it. So it would be nice to maybe lower the price of that? Thunder really isn't even that good, and it would be nice to give some electric pokemon a reason to join a diverse team. I eventually gave up on my starter (Typhlosion line), because it was getting out-done by my special attacker specialists and I only used it for hms. By Kanto I swapped it out for Houndoom, which I think is basicly just a straight upgrade. So yeah, I accidently picked 3 SS tier pokemon apparently and had to literally remove them from my party to maintain the challenge. My eventual lineup ran the entire elite 4 (round 2) below level 65, without using healing items between battles. It was Kazam, Gar, Zapdos, Polywrath, Doom, and a pathetic dragonite that never found it's reason to exist. The game is great and I am planning to run it again next weekend but I was a bit disappointed that I chose the wrong pokemon and had too easy a time in a game that started out so challenging. I did lose early on quite a bit and that was awsome, but by the time I finished Johto, the carries got too strong and it was just silly. Red was a first time victory with a team that hadn't even hit level 70, and I didn't feel it was because I was good at the game. I just killed pikachu with psychic. I set up light screen and bolted Mewtwo to death with Zappy, and ironically put snorlax to sleep. He didn't know snore or rest which actually made him more annoying in vanilla. Overall I will say the game is fantastic. I think I should avoid SS tier pokemon in the future though.
Just beat the game, and here's some key Pokemon.
My final main team was Typhlosion, Steelix, Heracross, Lanturn, Dragonite, and Meganium.
Typhlosion was my starter and actually is kinda mid in the mid-game: it doesn't really face a lot of GREAT matchups against most Gyms, and its line's power lacks til they get Flamethrower. However, Sunny Day is a HUGE power spike that can destroy the Elite Four and Kanto. A-tier is obvious. My full set was Charcoal with Sunny Day, Flamethrower, Thunder Punch, Dynamic Punch.
My next catches for the early game were Phanpy and Sentret. I didn't hold on to Phanpy toooo long because I didn't want Donphan as my Ground type, but it's neat and strong for the early game outside of the gyms. Probably A-tier, maybe S. Sentret was eh, mine was particularly slow but also surprisingly tanky. It did end up getting used to Thief an early Metal Coat, though. I will also say I can see the appeal of its speed, HM utility and strong Normal type attacks even into the late game, so I'll call it B-tier.
Next were Pichu, Gastly, Larvitar, and Dunsparce. Pichu was as it usually is, a nice early game Electric type, and I appreciated how even though it got fainted a couple times, it evolved at about level 20 (admittedly helped by running around for Dunsparce). From there, I used Raichu through Chuck, and it was strong enough. Always a good Electric type. A-tier. I didn't want to use Gastly or Larvitar for the whole game, knowing how busted S-tier they ultimately become, but they were fun early game as a utility and a strong hitter respectively. Dunsparce took FOREVER to find, was kinda fun to use, then fell off by the time I replaced it. C-tier.
Onix into Steelix was next, and one small detail I really like is that Jasmine's Steelix is at max two levels before Onix learns EQ. As I was trying to level match the Gym's, it made for an interesting contrast where I had to keep my Onix a little underpowered for her fight. After evolving, though, it WRECKS. In particular, most of the E4 and Kanto get owned by it. Incredible how a Steel type runs through Kanto. Arguably my ace at a certain point, and the one I used Curse (best move in the game). S-tier, even its low speed after evolving was made up for by incredible bulk. My full set was Leftovers with Earthquake, Iron Tail, Curse, and Rock Slide.
Heracross was Heracross as it should be! Cross Chop and Thief make for great moves it desperately needed compared to base, and god does Megahorn hit hard. It also lets me talk about another feature in this mod: being able to replace HM moves meant I could swap between Strength and Cut easily when I needed one or the other. My full set was SilverPowder with Megahorn, Cross Chop, Thief, and Strength/Cut (usually the former).
I got Murkrow next and it was pretty handy. Strong and fast and has a good typing, although it struggles with Steels. Still though, against weaknesses and neutralities, it's a good choice.
Same goes for Tauros, my next catch, albeit with the concession that it can NOT hit Ghost types well until it gets Pursuit. Still, it's strong enough and does get ultimately enough coverage it has to be A-tier. I also used it as my first Surf user, until I replaced it with...
Lanturn improves what Heracross proved, as you can swap Surf with Whirlpool and Waterfall while surfing. Super convenient! I also abused the hell out of ParaFuse with it, a moveset that's always enticed me but never really does it for me in competitive the way it did here. A-tier for that and how it clears caves so efficiently. My full set was King's Rock with Surf, Thunder Wave, Confuse Ray, and Thunderbolt.
I replaced Murkrow with Sneasel for Blackthorn, and it surprised me. Despite being at odds with its own Ice typing, Ice Punch was strong enough to do the job against anything weak to it. With its speed and surprising resistances, I think Sneasel is another strong choice. It's tough between it and Murkrow for a Dark type. I do think its typing may have suffered more had I used it later in the game as well, so I'll call it B-tier.
Dragonite was what I refused Tyranitar to be. I ran BoltBeamFlame with Outrage (ironically despite getting the ExtremeSpeed Dratini). This moveset destroys both Lance and the Clair rematch, and is still one of the best all-around Pokemon in the game. A very obvious S-tier indulgence.
I chose to get Meganium before the E4 as my final Pokemon. It was... interesting. With it, Dragonite, Typhlosion, and Steelix, I ended up orienting towards a sort of Sun team. Meganium was, of course, used for firing off Solar Beams. One of the strongest moves in the game, but balanced with Meganium's still very poor typing. I thought Kanto would provide more for it, as imo Venusaur is the best Gen 1 starter, but only a couple gyms did. That said, while I was indecisive about having Leech Seed in the last slot (along with Giga Drain and ofc Sunny Day), that Seed ended up SAVING me during the Red fight (my one really underleveled fight after most of the game). A-tier, but mainly by being one of the better Grass types, which are mostly eh.
All in all, a very good mod! If it ever gets a Kanto overhaul, and said overhaul forces a save reset, I may give things another go with another set of Pokemon, probably including Feraligatr and at least one of the Kanto starters.
I just finished my Nuzlocke with it today. Espeon was a hard carry for me. I didn’t realize all of my team was basically S tier. Machamp, Golem, Crobat, Lanturn. Feraligatr was meh but he’s still a personal fave. Took me 5 tries.
I caught all 251! Such a fun way to revisit crystal!
Great list! I mostly agree with yours aside from some personal notes from my play through :
Scizor - I’d bump up into hard carry because of its resistances. Makes it easy to set up and sweep.
Snorlax - SS as well or at least high S as once you get it, it can literally solo the post game, elite 4 teams, and Red if it wanted to with the right setup.
Pidgeot - felt somewhat underwhelming even with Sky Attack, and closer on par with Dodrio, but i guess that’s Pidgeot.
Marowak - I would bump up into lower A because of its decent physical bulk and double attack holding Thick Club. It can hit like a truck, the only thing holding it back is its speed which a baton passer can help it unlock.
Also, I have a few questions: since all pokemon are catchable, any thoughts on bumping the mew requirement up to 250 seen and caught? I was at 250 seen/249 caught and unlocked mew but still had lapras left to catch in Union Cave so that actually wound up being my last catch 😅.
Secondly, maybe i missed it but did you buff sleep turns for gym leaders? Falkner’s noctowl sleeps my Pokemon for a minimum or 5 turns almost 90% of our battles (and i battle him a ton for grinding purposes). If it’s intentional, I get it.
Lastly, what are your thoughts on buffing Koga’s team, specifically his bugs? I know that traditionally Elite 4 team levels tend to be mostly in the same ball park across only creeping up to their ace, but I really wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of his bugs (Ariados and Parasect) a bit higher level in the rematch so that they bring the same challenge.
Thanks so much for all the time and effort you put into this rom hack, it’s pretty replayable and I’m interested in trying it with different teams!
Next up: Making a true sequel for gen 2 by rom hacking!
(Legit just the same game with new characters lmao)
As someone nuzlocking Legacy Crystal my word I cant believe you made Pryce terrifying.
My team is Feraligatr, Electabuzz, Golem, Scyther(soon scizor hopefully) and 2 HM slaves
I have really been enjoying Crystal Legacy ! Cristal was my first pokemon game, so it has been a blast playing a smoothed out version with QoL features that is not a difficulty hack. (Although i would love having more TMs being available for purchase, especially after entering the Hall of Fame.)
Would for you to make the same analysis you did for Crystal but for Emerald and Platinum (although i the base games don't have as much problems as Crystal). And hey, while i'm (apparently) writing my Christmas wishlist, i would not say no to the same kind of romhack for those two. :D
Thanks for your hard work !
Jost beat Johto today, and I think this hack is great, it's given me a new interest in Gen 2 which I never liked, not even the remakes. I just have one suggestion: I think Yanma needs a liiiiitle help.
I'm not sure if you're still patching the game with balance updates, but like you said in the video, he's basically a discount Scyther... And that's it, it's worse in nearly every way and I think the way to remedy this is to bring it's sp atk back to the original 75, letting it have a decently higher special stat than Scyther to differentiate it as a kind of mixed attacker (not a great one, but it's something), which works since it already has access to decent special moves like Twister, Giga Drain, and Solar Beam. Giga Drain being especially interesting since it'll give it the niche of hitting ground types for super effective damage and recovering health while being immune to ground type moves. I think it should be balanced since I think there's still a decent chance of getting slammed by a rock type attack when taking on ground types.
Scizor was unbelievable in my run. Ran it with Agility, Swords Dance, Twin Needle, and Stength to hit anything neutral. He is an absolute sweeper. For sure SS tier, hard carry.
Played it and finished it on the Steam Deck. Game plays so much better with the fixes. If this version had been the original launch, I'd rate gen 2 as one of the goat generations.
Crobat and Scizor are beasts.
My moveset:
Crobtat
Wing Attack
Sludge Bomb
Leech Life
Confuse Ray
Scizor
Cut
Wing Attack
Slash
Swords Dance
I'd love to see a remake of this ROM hack in 3rd generation!
Espeon does learn Zap Cannon, why bot buff the accuracy for extra move potential?
Oh man I wasn’t expecting that yakuza business mini game music nice choice
I'm wondering how hard it is to code the evolutions to be either level up or friendship. I think it could help the idea of some early evolved Pokemon
I love this sort of thing with a new game, being told the meta. TY
Dunsparce should be higher, imo. It gets strong stab Normal moves via level up and TMs, and fairly early too. It gets Dig early. It can use the broken Defense Curl + Rollout combo.
Exeggutor is S tier, you can get it fully evolved before the 3rd gym, base 125 special attack, hypnosis, it’s just insane
Breeding a scyther with agility swords dance and baton pass > makes for one nasty scizor to use in the battle tower. Even fun using it with no attacking move and double team. It's so broken.
Maybe it's due to my experience where I don't have Gengar and Machamp yet. But with just hitting Clair's gym at lv37/38/39 the experience so far with Haunter and Machoke are consistently bad so far. Like losing match ups they're supposed to win half the time bad.
I think they evolve at level 42?
Not a lot of disagreement from NPC Bob here. Seriously, good eye my guy.
I might have added a “utility master” category for mons like paras, smeargle, you name it. Basically the ones you never bring to the gym, but always keep around. Like (gen 4 only)stantler with frisk and thief, meowth with payday, pickup in any game with abilities…
Heracross struggles hard without an early fighting move, it doesn't get reversal until the 40s and its moves aren't the best. I can confirm that during my current playthrough.
thick club marowak is absolutely RIDICULOUS. as long as it can take a hit from something faster, it WILL win the matchup. Dont underestimate it.
Sandslash isn't mere situational. I raised a Sandshrew - Sandslash through Gen II with Dig, Rollout, and Slash (I had other Pokemon to teach Cut to), and honestly, Sandslash can almost solo the game. It is awesome against Morty, Jasmine, most NPC trainers, almost all of the Rockets, and does very decently against the Elite Four. In this game I wasn't soloing with Sandslash, but I was still amazed at how many opponents it wiped out on its own.
First play through I’ve got Togetic, gengar, seadra, scizor, slowbro, and aerodactyl. Having a blast!
Excuse me, at which level Haunter evolve into Gengar? im running my first playthrough and i found out some Trade evolutions evolve by level
@@iamgamsoh it’s been awhile! I want to say 45? Can’t exactly remember. There should be a word file somewhere by the creator and the level will be under evolution changes. Have fun!
Another random question, you're the only one in the comments section mentioning Togetic, did you enjoy using it? He ranked it as B tier, considering it as my flying type because, you're just given it after 2 steps, was it a pain to evolve from happiness?
@@conza1989 I was having a blast using metronome I loved the randomness of it. If I remember correctly togepi just evolved without me even paying attention to the happiness level. Maybe it’s a little lower for togetic than compared to say espeon? I primarily used Return and metronome.
Encountered a Bug. I beat Sabrina but received Janine‘s Badge in the Badge Screen.
Misdreavus is S tier because of it's type, a pure Ghost type is better than poison/ghost type
Been loving the content recently and I’ve been inspired to create an advancement hack of pokemon emerald. I wanted to know how you changed the ghost and dark physical ghost special split because I can’t find any guides of it and wanted to try it out in my hack.
I made a full flinching move set of Feraligatr in this game lol (Waterfall, Crunch, Rockslide(egg move from Ttar), Icy wind for faster opponents and King's Rock as ITEM hold) full flinch😂🎉