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[COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)

Rainbow Chara X

Impossible to gauge!
129
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8
Years


  • [COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)


    [Divine Bloodlines]


    Dear god, what did I get myself into this time?

    Pokemon Dark Rising is a FireRed rom hack created by the eponymous DarkRisingGirl in 2012. It is supposed to be a darker and more serious take on the Pokemon series's plot, along with having tougher difficulty. I'll admit that my interest level in this hack wasn't the same as Snakewood at first, due to Snakewood having morbid curiosity going for it and the fact I've been wanting to do that game for a long time.

    However, the things I have heard about DRG's game instantly prompted me to check it out. I won't spoil but a great amount of it is not flattering. That said, I'm sure to get some enjoyment either riffing stupid things or doing things my own way like I've done in the past.

    Future Dan: I should mention that while the Dark Risings are individually shorter than Snakewood, I also plan to cover three of them (1, 2 and Order Destroyed).

    I decided against playing Dark Rising 3 ages ago - regardless if the creator manages to pull it out of dev hell or not. I have a few big reasons for turning away from it: namely disinterest, the fact it would just be beating a dead horse and the fact I have much better things to do like actual game development.

    Without any further ado, however, let's slam jam.

    CHAPTER LIST FAST TRAVEL:

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

    Impossible to gauge!
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  • I don't even know where things will go from here.

    Future Dan: Many places, obviously, considering you made this a branching timeline.


    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #2 - Fragile Border[/font]​

    Spoiler:


    (!! Read Chapter 2 first !!)

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #2.5 - No Mercy[/font]​

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • This is just the calm before the storm, fellas. Wait 'till you see how things start breaking!

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #3 - Jaws of a Scorched Earth[/font]

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • Alright, who left the oven on?

    Chapter #4 - Scalding Passion
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    Rainbow Chara X

    Impossible to gauge!
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  • I hate how fun it is to procrastinate. Especially when I have school and game dev to deal with!

    Chapter #5 - Watered Down Expectations

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • Honestly, I don't like playing through Dark Rising and I can't force myself to even half enjoy it... so I guess we're doing things my way.

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #6 - Fight or Die[/font]

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • A new and shiny chapter for the game with no polish.

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #7 - Grinding My Gears[/font]

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • Hauled in a marlin, folks! We've got quite the show for you today in...

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #8 - Made In Heaven[/font]

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • Today, we go to the party... from HELL!

    Chapter #9 - Bad Company

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • So, uh... It has come to my attention that Dark Rising Girl was TWELVE YEARS OLD when she made the first Dark Rising.

    [COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)


    This was honestly a huge shock to my system when I learned about it, and explains too much about why these hacks are the way they are. It's genuinely impressive she accomplished anything at that age, and I can sympathize a lot with her because I used to do this exact kind of thing back then.


    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #10 - Rage Awakened (Second Act)[/font]

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • It's a bit chilly in here...

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #11 - Sleeping Beast[/font]

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • There is no force in the world that drains me more than having to deal with children.

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #12 - Kid Trouble[/font]

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • [COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)


    Chapter #13 - Despair and then Hope

    Spoiler:

     

    Rainbow Chara X

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  • Crazy train only gets more intense from here.

    In fact, this is the first time in my let's playing adventures that I had to split a chapter in two because of how much happens in it. Both parts of Chapter 14 add up to a total of 247 screenshots, which is absolutely bonkers. But hey, you get more bang for your buck I suppose.

    (For contrast, previous two/three parters were literally full blown chapters that I arbitrarily stuck together in the same posts. The Portrait Credits will be stored at the end of Chapter 14-2.)


    Chapter #14 (Part 1) - Debauchery
    Spoiler:


    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #14 (Part 2) - Phantom King[/font]

    Spoiler:


     
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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • I hope y'all got some popcorn and drinks ready because this is where stuff gets real - this is quite possibly one of the beefiest chapters I've ever dealt with in terms of story, both in-LP and in-game.

    Chapter 15 is more of the final exploration than anything else, as chapter 16 will be the Core League and the final boss. Trust me, it deserves its own individual chapter. With that said, let's watch things burn.


    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #15 - The Hero and the Demon[/font]

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • No big speeches, no distractions...​


    [COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)


    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #16 - Hatred Made Flesh [/font]
    (Dark Rising 1 Finale)

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    Rainbow Chara X

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  • (Future Dan: There were originally three bonus chapters dedicated to pointing out all of the bugs and story problems of Dark Rising, but there's a few reasons why they won't ever be coming back:
    • It was petty as sin even back then and especially now that we know the head of the project was an edgy teenager at most.
    • All of the images we used are un-recoverable - they were pasted directly onto a google doc and have been lost to the sands of time. For comparison's sake, I had stored every single image of every let's play I've ever done into Imgur for safekeeping just in case any of their hosted websites ever went down (because you know, I'm paranoid? That's how these HD ports of old LPs are even possible.)
    • Even if I did have the images handy, it's too much effort for... well, read reason 1.)

    Oh no, there's still Dark Rising 2 and Order Destroyed to deal with.

    [COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
    Bonus Chapter - Final Team Setup​
    [/font]
    [Listen to this while you read through: Cave Story - White]

    I'm amazed at how many things became staples of my Pokemon LPs after just Snakewood and this game.

    Active Crew:


    Spoiler:


    The B-Team:

    Spoiler:


    Misc:

    Spoiler:

     
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    Rainbow Chara X

    Impossible to gauge!
    129
    Posts
    8
    Years
  • [COMPLETE] Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising! (HD Remix)

    [font=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
    Final Thoughts​
    [/font]

    Rating scale:

    Excellent (84 – 100)
    Good(70-83)
    Average(50 -69)
    Bad – also counts as B-Movie So Bad It's Good in case I happen to enjoy it (35 – 49)
    Awful (34 to 0)

    Full Title: Pokemon Dark Rising

    Originally published: April 28th, 2012 on Pokecommunity

    Type: Pokemon rom hack, which qualifies as turn-based RPG

    Length: About 44 hours, which can mainly be attributed to the amount of grinding I did in the early parts of the game. Trust me, if I grinded to the levels the team is at now, it would be triple this amount.

    Difficulty: It started off slightly difficult but escalated into Literally Impossible Without Cheating territory. Because, you know, game design is a myth.

    Developers/Artists/Etc.:
    • DarkRisingGirl (Story/Creator)
    • Tajaros (Scripter/Support Banner)
    • Wesley FG (OW Sprites)
    • Kyledove (Tiles)
    • Alienhunterx (Official Walkthrough)
    • Mewmasterifly (2 Evil Fakemon Sprites for Beta)
    • NO_obslayer (Titlescreen)
    • Nightkymz (Tile Inserter)
    • Atif (Mapper for the 1st Half of the Hack)
    • DanielEvans/Pokemon Giratina X/Elite Four Lucian( Banners. If I forgot anyone, please inform me and I'll gladly add you to the list)
    • Evil Arms (Fan-made Titlescreen)
    • PokemonShinySilver (Wii U)
    • Darthatron (Fixed Trainer Card Glitch)
    • Hinkage (Scripting & Mapping)

    Overall Plot:
    • You are one of the chosen ones picked by Arceus to help save the planet from the scourge of Darugis. That's pretty much it.

    ----------------

    Pros:

    + The main hero has genuinely good lines at times

    + It cuts down on HM use, which is good. It's also relatively generous with Poke Centers and rare items sometimes.

    + There's a ton of neat, ambitious ideas that would be better appreciated in a more well-executed hack.

    + It's... relatively short? Can you really say this even if you don't count the grinding?

    + Pete is the closest thing to a developed character this story has.

    + I do appreciate that they give you legendaries to add to your team, but it's a bit of a... too little, too late situation.

    Cons:

    - The eventing and the coding of this game is so bad it transcends reality.
    • It's easily one of the glitchiest games I've ever seen - you can't turn around a corner with some nastiness happening here or there, and a fair amount of them are game-breaking. The Bad Egg incident in Tiki Town is especially chilling, as well as that one Karate Guy in the dragon path that just straight up crashes the game.
    • The sheer lack of care is what kills me though. Like it wouldn't kill you to delete this game-breaking glitch or fix up those repeating legendary events.
    • Not only that, stealing scripts from the vanilla game and not even trying to come up with anything original fails on such a basic level that I can't even get invested on whatever story you might try to tell. It's a good thing I made an entire bonus chapter regarding the glitches, because all of the Con slots would be filled up if I tried talking about them here.

    - The maps in this game start off okay, but for some reason it just devolves into a carbon copy of Kanto with bad tiling. The only late-game exception I can think of is the weird super-long desert that spans like, 20 screens but even that's bad in its own way.

    - The character work is extremely rough, which isn't surprising.
    • There's quite a few stupid edgelord villains that have little depth. V, Light and even Darugis himself are major offenders - V has a betrayal backstory that is made moot by his obvious lack of care towards his own children, his petty motives and the fact he made a pact with who is essentially the devil to torture Monica and her father for eternity.
    • Light is bad because he's not only a hypocrite (Screw you Arceus, I'm going with Darugis instead!) but he's pretty much a manchild who thinks his backstory can make up for how he acts in the present.
    • The side characters (yes, including Pete) are broad stereotypes that barely impact the story. You could remove them and nothing would really change.

    - Darugis is easily the most despicable character in the entire cast. Not because he's well written - quite the opposite, actually.
    • POWERS -See, Darugis has practically every power you can think of - he can bring back the dead, create brand new monsters out of nothing, possess people around the world thanks to "negative thoughts" nonsense and his battle stats are so stupidly blown out of proportion that it makes me wonder how DRG expected anybody to actually beat this dope, especially when he starts saying nonsense like "this isn't even half of my real power".
    • PERSONALITY - He's the "evil overlord" archetype with no tact or charm, straight from the 25 cent villain vending machine down the hall. He only exists because the story needs a villain, but otherwise there's nothing special about him. His backstory quite literally being Lucifer/Satan from the bible is extremely contrived, which isn't helped by his ludicrous power set that I'm pretty sure DRG was making up as the games went along.

    - The plot is practically non-existent for 80% of the game - it's just a non-stop pain train of constant fighting.
    • What plot there is can basically summarized as "WHERE'S MY DAD, DARUGIS" and "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE, MONICA".
    • The only other things I can remember are two things: V being a spiteful idiot and him turning his children to stone. The most baffling thing is that Monica wanted to redeem him, which he absolutely does not deserve in any respect.
    • Which, by the way, I have a personal bone to pick for the Chosen One trope and this game hasn't exactly helped its case.

    - I hate how DRG took the blame away from characters like Kaede and Pete when he was possessed. They were set up to be (at least competent) villains on their own, but oh they were possessed or were wronged by Darugis so it's fine! Ugh.

    - The sprites used without permission are a huge yikes.

    - The connection to Yu-Gi-Oh and Snakewood.
    • So instead of hiding Atem where nobody can see him, he's one of the final required Gym Leader in the game. That's kind of a faux paus for a story that's otherwise 100% Pokemon and nothing else.
    • Snakewood being mentioned doesn't help either, seeing as that game has its own share of major flaws.

    - The few custom sprites we see in the game are unironically horrible.
    • Wrath, Blazard and Atem being the worst sprites I have ever seen, bar none. Wrath and Atem are so horribly done they don't even look presentable, with Blazard being a victim of pure black shading and screwed up lighting - and that's talking about the newer, better sprite!
    • The worst thing about the palette swap characters is that, even if the story were well written, it's hard to just accept that this person who looks exactly like Silver or the Black/White Protagonists... aren't those people.
    • It gets extra confusing when their actual counterparts show up.

    - The level curve defies logic and common sense on top of making grinding necessary.
    • I think the worst part about the level grinding is that it's not meaningful content. You're mainly hacking away at the same few Pokemon or trainers to get an edge, only to fight an enemy literally five minutes later that's at least twice your level afterward... and it's not a forced loss fight.
    • It's so bizarre, since due to the nature of levels in RPGs in general, you have to build it in a way that's engaging regardless of what your actual stats are. That's what types and abilities in Pokemon are meant to do! But here the jumps are so extreme it kind of makes all of that pointless.

    - Dark Rising Girl and Hinkage actually appearing in plain sight.
    • In hindsight, this should have been the smoking gun that this game was a bad fanfiction written by edgy teenagers. Self-inserts are a very bad idea, especially if it's blatantly you putting yourself into the story. That could be quite dangerous if, say, the game were to be infamous for whatever reason...
    • Hinkage should have been hidden in like the developer's room or something, not hanging out in front of the Dark Rising base.

    - The fake base stat legendaries and the 1010 Base Stat Lugia Darugis. It wasn't enough to have max levels - the game itself had to cheat. This was completely unnecessary and honestly, it's just humiliating that anybody thought this was okay.

    - The ending and how the entire game was built up to lead into Dark Rising 2. It felt very rushed and made me question what the point of this game was, if we don't do anything conclusive here.

    Final Thoughts (14/100):

    (Original score was 4/100, since I was particularly angry for some unknown reason back then. The extra points is for Pokemon having a fundamentally solid system but it's squandered to hell here.)

    Dark Rising is a bad fanfic in video game form, with all of the trappings that invites.

    It has little meaningful content, is the epitome of why excessive grinding is bad for RPGs, and tips things too far against the player's favor in a way that makes me question if anybody playtested this before sending it out. It's insanely glitchy in ways I didn't know was possible (re: the male-gender protagonist suddenly appearing in Tiki Village and the bad egg incident) and the characters are flat at best and infuriating at worst.

    Shout out to V being a walking example as to why villain redemption arcs are so hard to get right.

    I wish I could be more witty, but it really did drain the life out of me when I first played it. I recommend nobody play this - it falls into that "bad enough to be awful, but not bad enough to make fun of" category. The only way I survived was to write my own story out of it, since I'm more invested in that than anything DRG herself has made.

    But hey, you know... maybe Dark Rising 2 will be slightly better? Optimism is hard.

    Anyway, thanks for watching.
     
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