What bugs you in a ROM Hack?

What bugs me are hacks with bad new tiles. I mean, just use the old FireRed/Emerald tiles or well-edited new tiles. Some look like they were drawn by a five years old.

Also, I hate when the game doesn't tell you where to go. You just keep hours struggling around to find the next city/whatever. I don't mean they must shout GO NORTH THEN PICK THE EAST ROUTE AND GET TO THE CITY. But just don't make maps that look like labyrinths (unless it's indeed a labyrinth).

Also, I don't like when the type of the gym leaders are bad planned. Like, make the first Gym Leader Steel-type when all you have are Normal and Bug-types isn't cool. Or when 7 of the gyms are weak to the Fire starter and 6 are strong against the Grass starter or something like this.

Games that raise the difficulty of the vanilla format really tick me off. I can get wanting a new challenge, but there's a difference between wanting to make a new challenge and being sadistic. Too many hacks that raise difficulty are the latter.


Nuzlocke is another huge dislike of mine. If you're gonna do nuzlocke hacks, make it an optional feature as you alienate a huge percentage of the pokemon fanbase.


Fire Red as a rom base, while understandable due to it being a remake of the original games and thus has more tools, bothers the heck out of me as it makes it near impossible to EV train a pokemon without having to resort to breeding due to the lack of EV berries as seen in emerald. This is especially an issue if said hack is a completely new game or a remake of an existing game with so much new content it feels like a whole different game altogether. Not having an easy way to EV train ruins a lot of the enjoyment of battling.

-Sudden brick wall made of level numbers. I like a good grind, but then there's an awkward 20 level jump with no warning.
-Sudden trainer with hard to catch legend appears out of absolutely nowhere for no reason. This sounds specific, but it happens a lot.
-Sells upon "Darker and Edgier" as the only plot point. It just makes things a slog to go through in the end.
-Huge long cutscenes (a gripe with official games too, Pokemon was not made for that.)
-Important trainers have impossible movesets.

Anything lazily done. It really shows when effort was put into it.

azurile13 said:

I don't like when you go onto the first route, find 5-8 species of pokemon, walk one route over, find a completely new set of 5-8 mons, walk one more route etc. I like when hacks have a ton of species, but I don't like when they feel extremely crammed. I'd prefer being able to find new mons at a rate similar rate to normal games, perhaps with more post game routes, or even sections of regular routes for additional mons that can only be accessed later in the game. As much as people complain about all of the wild Rattatas/Tentacools/Zubats, they add connectivity. Regions feel more cohesive when routes that are close to each other feel similar.

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Lycanthropy said:

-Too many Pokémon. Seriously, you just end up using only six on a team, why bother to make tons of them obtainable, it makes the game quickly chaotic. 150 of them is enough, but I don't have a problem with less..

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Completely disagree with these two statements. The problem with having many pokemon is that it affects the other mentioned points of challenge difficulty and balance, yes. But for me, you SHOULD have an incredible variety of pokemon available to you even if your team is going to consist of 6 - being able to customize your team the way you want and pick which 6 are going to be your team is the ultimate selling point of pokemon, it's what distinguishes it from other RPGs where you have fixed characters. I always disliked in the original games every time I came across an enemy trainer with the same pokemon as me - why do you think everyone loves the starters? Because they feel unique; no one else has a bulbasaur until you come across another ace trailer late in the game etc. If I train a rattata, and am constantly fighting other people with rattatas, then it doesn't feel like my pokemon is special. It doesn't make sense for my hometown only having 5 different kinds of pokemon. I think Drayano does a nice job with his pokemon variety in Blaze Black; the pokemon you first encounter aren't just pidgeys/rattatas, and the more unique pokemon don't feel out of place. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to come across a sandshrew or diglett right outside your house for example in a dusty field, that's a lot more fun. And while you shouldn't be able to encounter a tropius right outside your house, the amount of grass pokemon you encounter early game should be a lot higher than it is, from hoppip to cottonee.

I love sideshow hacks. I hate it when they change around too much of a Pokemon though; pure stat changes are tolerable up to a limit. Ability changes are the worst, usually Speed Boost is slapped onto random pokemon. If not all of a Pokemon's abilities exist in Gen3, just repeat the ones that are. Typing changes are often unbearable. I'm sure most agree Flygon should have been Bug/Dragon, but it's not, so when you notice an attack being incorrectly effective it just gets annoying.

Also seconded is the showpokepic mugshots. It's distracting and not true to the games, anyway.

- A very common plot: a legendary Pokemon that unexpectedly awakes and tries to destroy the world, the classic evil team (consisting of brainless grunts) which will surely be beaten by the protagonist without problems OR this mentioned evil team that tries to conquer the world using a legendary Pokemon. This is sooo boring. We have a bunch of original games that follow this line: Pokemon Black/White 2, Pokemon DPP, Pokemon RSE... so why would people play your hack if all you can offer is a very linear story like original games?
- A f*****g childish and banal title like: Pokemon Darkness, Pokemon Light, Pokemon Adventures and so on (I'm not referring to a specific hack, I'm just putting random names). This is valid for evil teams names as well such Team Darkness etc... Really, it makes me mad.
- 8954782 Pokemon to catch. Really, there's no needing in my opinion to do so. I won't said anything else about this because everything has been said before in the previous posts.
- Grammar errors: ok, as you may have guessed, English is not my native language and I'm putting all my efforts to speak English properly, but I can't help but get mad when I see a hack filled with grammar errors. I'd rather play it in Greek than play it in a messed English. It makes me think that the author made the hack with superficiality.

Thanks for reading.

When the game lags, freezes, or crashes. Already had an experience where Pokémon Emerald's First Battle was like, "Mudkip used-- Hello! You over there!", after my Save Data corrupted as soon as I started playing the game. I'll link it later, but for now, you might have to wait.

Found the image I was talking about. Sorry about the whole, "I'll find it later" thing, I just found it now. Welp, here's the pic:

GalladedOlive said:

Found the image I was talking about. Sorry about the whole, "I'll find it later" thing, I just found it now. Welp, here's the pic:

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That's beautiful. When stuff like that happens you just have to keep playing, just to see how bad things can get.


As for me? Anime based hacks just are annoying to me. It's not really 'creative' if you're not making your own plot.

NewDenverCity said:

That's beautiful. When stuff like that happens you just have to keep playing, just to see how bad things can get.


As for me? Anime based hacks just are annoying to me. It's not really 'creative' if you're not making your own plot.

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I can't stop laughing after you said that.

Hovering sprites, useless backtracking, and one time key items/hms (Every light platinum hm and the delusifier in glazed especially) are THE WORST.

I want to mention (if i havent before) when the hacker focuses too much on story and not enough on innovative and creative gameplay concepts. I can say with 100% certainty that none of the hackers here are exceptional writers, and half the time your plots sound like some weird Shadow the Hedgehog fanfiction. Spend less time on your bad stories and spend more time making the hack fun.

Grammatical errors aka Engrish. Just an absolute turn-off for me.

when overworld sprites don't move properly, like when the player moves it doesn't look right, i hate it and will just stop playing the hack, which is a shame cuz some of the hacks that do this are really good

When people make Master Balls a buyable item. It completely trivializes the process of catching Pokemon and completely ruins one of the most important parts of a Pokemon game.

Day/Night systems that have no effect on gameplay e.g. Pokemon that can only be caught at certain times of day.

Lazily made maps that don't flow well.

It also bothers me when a rom hack doesn't have enough tall grass. This is actually a consistent issue with many rom hacks, and makes leveling Pokemon frustrating.

A lack of interesting lore for areas is also quite bothersome. I see you made this cool tower, but what is it? Why is it here? Who made it? Provide more context for your locations.

Rom hacks that are sadistically difficult. Calm down, people like a good challenge yes, but there is a difference between a good fair challenge and being forced to fight Pokemon ten or so levels higher than yours. Rather than do level increases, gives the opponent's Pokemon better movesets that mirror (but do not replicate) competitive movesets (competitive movesets are far too difficult to deal with in the main game).

Other than what has been said, if your hack name starts with "Dark," it probably sucks
- DarkSneasel

Cool idea for a thread!

• This one's completely personal but I can't stand new/fake Pokemon. I already need to learn the names and types every time a new generation comes around. I don't want to learn dozens of new Pokemon when I play a hack. Applying the knowledge I already have in a new context (story/region) is what makes it fun for me.
• Messing with the type matchups. For the same reasons as new Pokemon. I know the matchups already and with new weaknessess and resistances I'm bound to make a mistake, which will annoy me to no end.
• The inclusion of everything (30 Gyms, ALL the Pokemon, and every region thinkable). I'd like to play something new. Simply putting a ton of content in there doesn't necessarily make for a good experience. If you can make something with good Pokemon variety, interesting towns, and a somewhat compelling story, I am a perfectly happy player. If you want to go the extra mile and make it a bigger game, go for it. But that comes after you already have a solid base.

Oi, wanna know what really grinds my gears?
Broken English, every pokémon center having a warp tile left of the door taking you to the 2nd or 3rd region, random breaking of Nurse Joy turning into a hiker you have to battle (yes this actually happened for me in glazed), being able to catch every pokemon but 2 of the starters and when you catch them, the game crashes (yes, also glazed).
Random warp tile leading to (literally) the other side of the world with no way back but to faint or reset. Having the ability to catch a pokémon near the beginning of the game that you shouldn't have access to until the end, and if you catch it you crash the game.
FAKEMON I am sorry, but I cannot stand them. It's just not my cup of tea. And the number one absolutely worst that I cannot stand is a Rom hack that does absolutely NOTHING, but raise the trainer pokémon levels and overall difficulty, while having 20-30 different pokemon species on each map. If you can do all that for one hack that basically fulfils the pokedex and makes it harder, get with some people and make a hack with a new storyline, different region, have a challenger mode like continue+ or new+.

When playing ROM hacks, it's the game-breaking glitches that bug me the most (pun intended, hehe), from anything that freezes the game to some that leave you completely stuck at a location, resulting in the necessity of a fallback savefile at all times. I usually don't mind minor grammar errors or slightly broken English since it's not everyone's native language, but I do have to admit that some of them are absolutely cringe-worthy. Some hacks have terrifyingly steep level curves (ie. one trainer with level 6 'mons, the next with a level 13 beast), turning the game into a grindfest that leaves you leveling up your Pokemon in tall grass by the time you should already be at the next town over. Graphical errors to me are tolerable unless you end up having to see them a lot; for example, I would not play a hack that has me looking at glitched out battle backgrounds and/or broken tree tiles, because chances are they will be on the screen lots.