First Hack of the Quarter - 2012

[CycloneGU]

Originally Posted by Fireworks

It's not just a hack, it's a fake Pokémon game, therefore a Fakémon game.
Try again.

If that is a reference to CrystalDust not being a legitimate Pokémon game, I hate to point out that you've just shot a remark against the entire Emulation forum (it's true BTW, none are official Pokémon games). Which includes Snakewood and Dark Future. I await your next volley.

If that was a reference to Snakewood, I wouldn't call it so much a Pokémon game as an original storyline using Fakemon mixed with standard Pokémon and zombies. Screens look nice, but it just seems blah to me.

Cyclone

[NarutoActor]

Originally Posted by manutdrule

if all that hacking prowess had been used for say, Snakewood with its more original story (and maybe refined a little). Was precisely thinking if Snakewood has better graphics/sounds/ASM...perhaps some grimy L4D2/Fallout esque post apocalyptic tilesets/mapping plus better designed sprites for the Fakemon (rather than just recolor), woot. What about custom music relating to zombie themed pop culture? We would easily had ourself a Hack of the Year.

Felt it was wasted on a hack which already has countless remakes. Already have more than enough my fill of nostalgia playing HGSS/Shiny Gold/LiquidCrystal/Gen2 hacks etc thank you.

You just named everything that should be in a hack, without it, it is just a story with trainers.

It surly was not wasted work, CD is a great addition to the Rom Hacking community.

[machomuu]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

You just named everything that should be in a hack, without it, it is just a story with trainers.

It surly was not wasted work, CD is a great addition to the Rom Hacking community.

Just because someone doesn't want new graphics doesn't make their hack bad (or mediocre). Besides, the point of his hack is to prove that with a good story any hack can be successful, and he's right. He's put a lot of work into his hackSeriously, you said you don't understand why it's so popular, but to find out you only have to do a few simple steps. There's no guidelines to becoming a great hack, it's completely subjective, and I don't think a game that doesn't have "uber nuw grafix" and "super awesome new sprites" instantly makes it better than one that doesn't (That's not to say it never can, because those types of things do attribute), if it has a crap story and crap characters (or crap gameplay, crap music, or crappy sprites or tiles), I'd rather take my chances with another hack, even if it has no new graphics, sprites, or music.

[manutdrule]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

You just named everything that should be in a hack, without it, it is just a story with trainers.

It surly was not wasted work, CD is a great addition to the Rom Hacking community.

then do that. We need more of those hacks, not just the same old stuff that just spruced up prettily.

Why very few of that so far?

cos people are still sticking to the same old formula when making hacks, the same old concept from all the original games so far. Fight gyms, fight E4, fight "insert evil team here", get legendary, finish. Snake wood at least try to deviate from the norm, yet it is being put down for the same reason.

CD is a great hack only in terms of the graphics/scripting dept, but Snakewood trumph in trying to be more original in its story and concept, though it is rough at the edges. And its not easy to come up with interesting stories/ideas either. My point is that if we grab both their advantages into a single hack, we have the best of both worlds.

If you really want to pick, Good gameplay/story/idea>graphics erryday. Just look at Minecraft and then look at the obsessive CoD crowd.

Look no flaming/insulting here. Just stating my opinion and notice i NEVER deviate from the forum topic. Dunno how people like to become trollbait so easily. The internet i guess.

[NarutoActor]

I think fakemon are fine, as long as they look professional. Which snakewood did not have, they were just massively ugly pallet edits. A hack is the utilization of reverse engineering, adding rocks, and a story is not a hack. It is not subjective, there is low quality and bad quality. Some people just settle, or are so obsessed with Zombie's that anything with the sentence "Zombies" in them, instantly makes it become awesome.

EDIT:

What game play do you speek of, if the maps are the same, going throw the game seems very boring. Hence no gameplay, the only gameplay you have are trainer battles which a monkey can script. Why not put in special events, or mini-games? Oh wait it isn't a hack, it is a mod. Which is not necessarily bad, but you can not compare it to CD or any other real rom hack.

[machomuu]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

I think fakemon are fine, as long as they look professional. Which snakewood did not have, they were just massively ugly pallet edits. A hack is the utilization of reverse enginering, adding rocks, and a story is not a hack. It is not subjective, there is low quality and bad quality. Some people just settle, or are so obsessed with Zombie's that anything with the sentence "Zombies" in them, instantly makes it become awesome.

We live in a subjective world, you can't say something is "bad or low quality" and have it be fact, it's still opinion.

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

What game play do you speek of, if the maps are the same, going throw the game seems very boring. Hence no gameplay, the only gameplay you have are trainer battles which a monkey can script. Why not put in special events, or mini-games? Oh wait it isn't a hack, it is a mod. Which is not necessarily bad, but you can not compare it to CD or any other real rom hack.

Even if it were simply an edited Ruby rom (which some would argue it is, I won't combat that), it is still a hacked version of Pokemon Ruby, therefore it's a hack. I won't call fact on this, though.

[Roareye]

My vote goes for the Dark Future. (Just how ominous this sounds!)

Before HG/SS came out, I've played quite some 2nd gen remake hacks, CrystalDust being among them. It's a well-made game and much effort was put into it, but it just doesn't have what it takes to get that award, in my opinion.

Snakewood is on the lead, and that was obvious. As for myself, I just don't like the overall idea of it, zombies? Sigh. Also, fakemon is the last thing one would like to see in a decent hack. That same thing goes for the type changes, and that was also the only downside of Prism, IMO. I'm not saying this hack is bad, it's just not my taste.

Dark Future, on the other hand... well, it didn't seem that special at first. The main reason that brought me to play this hack was that it was a 2nd gen one, and the fact it involved ASM editing (guys from Skeetendo usually have the job done nicely). I've played this one just recently, and haven't finished the beta yet, but I must say:

Dark Furute is the best out of those three. Just play it and find out yourselves.

That RPG feel it's something that was always missing in Pokemon. Yes, Pokemon is a RPG game by default, but it lacked some elements that defined this genre. Dark Future is packed with quests, has a really decent storyline (it does not involve zombies as far as I'm concerned, though.), and has some really unique traits not found in any other hack I've played so far, and I've played quite a lot of them. I'd even go ahead and say it rivals Prism in some aspects. Not convinced yet? Just play it already!

(No seriously, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people voting here didn't even play all of the hacks qualified for this HotQ, and that's bad. Sadly, we just tend to vote for what we know.)

[PsychoToxin]

My vote goes to DiegoisAwesome.

Why? He's awesome. I honestly don't get the fuss.

@Fireworks: Even Black and White 2 had some changes in towns. ESPECIALLY Driftveil.

[Banjora Marxvile]

Originally Posted by PsychoToxin

My vote goes to DiegoisAwesome.

Why? He's awesome. I honestly don't get the fuss. :P

@Fireworks: Even Black and White 2 had some changes in towns. ESPECIALLY Driftveil.

B2 and W2 are not remakes though, they are set in the future, so things will have changed...


ANYWAY, back on topic for a sec, Snakewood is original, CrystalDust has potential, Dark Future has a lot of time and dedication placed into it. From what I believe is the best, I believe Dark Future gets my vote, due to the fact it's a GBC hack, and that makes it a shot above the rest to begin with. Then we've got the dedication of miksy on the hack, making it one fun hack to play.

[giradialkia]

Originally Posted by Banjora Marxvile

B2 and W2 are not remakes though, they are set in the future, so things will have changed...


ANYWAY, back on topic for a sec, Snakewood is original, CrystalDust has potential, Dark Future has a lot of time and dedication placed into it. From what I believe is the best, I believe Dark Future gets my vote, due to the fact it's a GBC hack, and that makes it a shot above the rest to begin with. Then we've got the dedication of miksy on the hack, making it one fun hack to play.

I generally agree with this post. Each hack definitely has its strong points, and to be honest each hack has very few weak points, too, so it's hard enough to choose- however, I'm going to vote for Dark Future. The fact that it's a GSC tells me how it's no cakewalk to work on it. In my time here I've seen that miksy has put a lot of time and effort into learning how to hack GBC games well, and the result is a fun, very good hack in general.

That is not to say that I don't think Snakewood or Crystal Dust are good- I do, of course. I believe that Snakewood is honestly a great hack, and find that people tend to focus too much on certain aspects that people generally like and call it 'overhyped'. The only thing that irks me a bit are the graphics, but I can get past that because it's just so damn interesting what he's turned Ruby into.
Crystal Dust is obviously a great hack, too- although one thing that irks me about it is that it actually tries to stick to being as similar as it can be to GSC. I feel that that's the very thing that made FireRed and LeafGreen suffer as remakes, and I'd prefer if a remake had as many original (well, 'new') features as possible.
Crystal Dust is a fine hack, and diegoisawesome is a great hacker too (imo), and I feel the same about Snakewood, but when all is said and done, I feel Dark Future deserves my vote.

[DarkRisingGirl]

My vote is for Pokemon Snakewood. It kept me interested the entire way through & it was really funny & felt different.

From my personal experience playing these hacks & 60-70% of the other hacks on PC, the "Omg such amazing graphics! Ahhhhh!" doesn't make me want to keep playing. Yeah, they're really cool to look at, but after awhile, it becomes boring if the story isn't fun. I'd choose a very good plot over graphics any day. I enjoyed Snakewood over all of these hacks with newer tiles because it pulled me into the experience. Imagine a full hack with beautiful new tiles but a boring story? Seems like that's what PC hackers are going for these days...

[CycloneGU]

My vote went to CrystalDust, FTR, as it is a challenge to remake an existing game on another game's platform. I know Liquid Crystal did the same thing porting to FireRed, and there are still bugs being ironed out of that. This is after four years

Cyclone

[Tcoppy]

I voted for Snakewood because that's the only hack I actually played here and it's great but it lacks good spritework and graphics (but that wouldn't stop me from playing anyways).
Crystal Dust is probably good, it's nice to see a G/S/C remake on Emerald but lacks originality.
I can't say anything about Dark Future because it seems not to lack anything except it's a Silver hack and R/B/G/Y and G/S/C had bad graphics (but those were games on GB and GBC) but it seems like it has a great story.

TLDR: Everybody just vote and don't bash on other people opinions, it's not like you can change anybody's mind.

[Mr. X]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

For you guys who actually voted for snakewood, did you actually play it? Not to be mean to the owner, but when I saw CoolBoyman play it during the Rom Hacking Charity, it was really disappointed. A lot of the maps were ruby maps, with added rocks. . . Most of the fakemon where just pallet edits, and some of the trainers looked really weird.

The earlier work done in that hack is pretty crappy yeah, but that's just part of what makes it interesting. If you play through the game you'll see how the quality of the game improves.

Thats what I like about it. This game is pretty much "Look at how crappy it was in the beginning, and see how good I've gotten since then."

This game is on this list because it serves as a inspiration to new hackers. This game can give them a view of how their skills can change over time.

Edit - As for the game, Snakewood is pretty much Pokemon Ruby all jacked up on meth and LSD. Your going to see some real crazy stuff.

[machomuu]

I'm not bashing or insulting anyone or their opinions (and if I did then it was inadvertent and I apologize), and I'm fine with the that freedom of opinion (general disrespect for opinion is something that pisses me off), but I do think that we should stop attacking people, the owners of the hacks, and the hacks themselves. I mean, it's fine that someone doesn't like a hack, but is it really okay to belittle it in plain sight of the owner? I mean, I think there should at least be more subtlety to the comments at the very least, saying something "frankly sucks" or calling someone a "dick" is pretty unbecoming of a voting thread.

But then again, this is all (ironically) subjective. Anyway, I voted for Dark Future, which, like CD, is a technological beast. The use of ASM is impressive, and it does retain a "Traditional RPG" style lost in the official Pokemon games, yet still has it's own uniqueness.

[First time hacker]

I'm happy diegoisawesome is back working on Shining Opal because that is more original, it's something I haven't done 100 times already. Snakewood was something new, and I'm voting based on the type of hacks I want to see more of. New story, pokemon, plot. Snakewood delivers on all those levels where CD doesn't. I could care less about graphics honestly, as long as we get games that are original.

[NarutoActor]

Originally Posted by Mr. X

The earlier work done in that hack is pretty crappy yeah, but that's just part of what makes it interesting. If you play through the game you'll see how the quality of the game improves.

Thats what I like about it. This game is pretty much "Look at how crappy it was in the beginning, and see how good I've gotten since then."

This game is on this list because it serves as a inspiration to new hackers. This game can give them a view of how their skills can change over time.

Edit - As for the game, Snakewood is pretty much Pokemon Ruby all jacked up on meth and LSD. Your going to see some real crazy stuff.

Then redo the beginning, everything should be good quality, the beginning is probably one of the most important aspects.

Porting G/S/C maps into emerald still takes time and effort, using the same maps that are in the rom you are hacking does not. I would give snakewood more credit if it was at least done on firered with the maps that resemble rubys maps, but are amped up

[Ach7AC]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

Then redo the beginning, everything should be good quality, the beginning is probably one of the most important aspects.

Porting G/S/C maps into emerald still takes time and effort, using the same maps that are in the rom you are hacking does not. I would give snakewood more credit if it was at least done on firered with the maps that resemble rubys maps, but are amped up

Tell me why Snakewood is bad even if you haven't played it? The rocks are around as ruins of the houses. As I've said before, the game takes place in Hoenn, so there's no need to re-invent the wheel. The maps are changed, as there are several rocks in the place of houses, which represents the ruin and rubble. You'll also find corpses in the houses that have not been destroyed, which further marks the destruction. Cutlerine decided to only use the default textures, which means he couldn't have simple "built destroyed houses," as there are none in Ruby itself. Moving on to the fakemon. The zombie Pokemon such as Rotmander and Boilbasaur are palette swaps because there was no need to re-create the sprites. A simple palette swap would have given them an undead look.

[RoarignSam]

Well duh! Obviously Dark Future! I've played all of Miksy91's hacks and I loved them all! This one is the same. But, IDK why everyone says Snakewood is good.... it's okay. But didn't catch my interest. All 2nd gen remakes I've played...so yeah Dark Future.

[rpg man]

I Did like the game it is just that There are Lots of ROCKS.


Still a good game but i really think Crystal Dust deserves This one.

GSC remake hacks don't get much credit....

[giradialkia]

Aight, that's it. Everybody, please chill out and shut up.
This thread is to post about why you voted for one hack, and perhaps why you didn't vote for another. Not to bash on each other in disagreement.

Feel free to discuss each others' opinions, but do it in VMs, not here (And for Christ's sake, try to be mature about it!).

[linkandzelda]

I voted for Crystal Dust. Why? Because being a fellow remaker I know how much work goes into making a remake, especially one of GSC. Diego pulled off things I couldn't even attempt so kudos for a great GSC experience.

I didn't vote for Snakewood because after seeing the screenshots I was interested, until I saw the game in action was quite disappointed. It needs a lot more work especially the palettes of the trainers and Pokemon. Inverted palettes doesn't make them undead in my opinion. Someone mentioned the rocks and I'd have to agree to that too.

So yea, thats my vote.

[SkyIsDarkBlue]

I'm gonna vote for Snakewood.

[Fireworks]

I shall vote for snakewood.

[Retribution]

I voted for Crystal Dust, and I know it's just 'another remake', but I really enjoyed (the original) Crystal- it being my favourite Pokemon game. This remake unlike some others does stick to the original, but that's what I like. I like Pokemon Crystal, not Pokemon Crystal with a gazillion of fan-made rivals (although I must admit I did really enjoy Shiny Gold when it was hip.) Not only that, but a lot of effort has gone into the hack, such as changing the TMs and HMs, the modification of the PokeNav to the PokeGear, a Emerald game having two regions and more! I just can not express how much I enjoyed it, and I am eagerly awaiting the next beta.