Here as requested. Sorry it took me so long ^^'
Anyway, I guess the beginning is as good a place to start as any XD I confess that your storyline was hard to read; you had a lot of awkward grammar errors that made puzzling out what you were trying to say a little difficult at times. I think the idea you raised in your thread - a "story organizer" who takes your ideas and rephrases and streamlines them - is a great one, and one I wish more people for whom English is a second language or just simply difficult to grasp on would do. If you haven't already; advertise this "story organizer" position in your hack's team thread - an easily read and understood thread is a great boon to the people who click on your link to check it out :)
Anyway, even though it was hard to read at times (and I read your story-related posts twice to make sure I got it all and knew everything that was going on), it seems that you have thought about and planned your story carefully so far; obviously a lot of work has been put into this undertaking of yours :) Admittedly, once I strip everything away it still feels a lot like Fire Red underneath - you become a trainer; overthrow a series of eight powerful foes, and pursue an evil team and defeat it. But you deviate enough, and mention enough unique gimmicks and ideas, that I have real hope for the heights this hack can reach despite the story's retread. Even if Ace, like Red, is becoming a Trainer and starting out on a journey to take down an evil team; his motivations and history couldn't be more different. We never know why Red decided to become a Trainer, after all, other than the fact that "all boys leave home someday," making it seem like an inevitable truth of the world that no one really thinks twice about. But Ace seems to have something you don't see a lot of in Pokemon games, official or hacks, and that is a player character with a degree of depth. He's got the mystery of his parents hanging over his head, and the spark of desire to avenge the death of his brother at the hands of this mysterious Qais (how would you pronounce this name, anyway? I keep reading it as "Cue-ace," but I have no idea if that's right ^^' ). We know the importance and seriousness of the decision to become a Spirit Trainer - this is nothing like randomly deciding to leave home for an adventure because it's "what boys do." There is a lot of potential in Ace for you to really embrace the idea of a game as a character study as well as a fun way to kill a few hours - and even if the framework of his journey is not unique; he himself certainly is. ^__^ I hope that you take the plunge and really explore these mysteries and plot threads throughout your game and it's
not just "complete a mission where we thwart the plans of some Darkness agents, and then do another mission and defeat more Darkness agents, and so on" - not only do I think it would give your game that "traditional RPG" feel in that a strong story pulls you along rather than the desire to collect and battle creatures and progress through a series of goals with no plot relevance; but it would really help your hack to stand out as a unique interpretation of the plot example set by the original games. :)
I'm not quite sure I really understand what the Darkness is like - the paragraph describing them was one of the most convoluted and difficult for me to read; and even after repeated readings I'm not quite sure I get it all. Is the Darkness simply a group of people seeking Darkrai, or is "Darkness" a force that Darkrai and these evil humans follow? The concept of a fearful, enveloping, malevolent Darkness as the ultimate foe - rather than a human or a Legendary Pokemon like Darkrai - is really creative and I quite like it, if that is indeed what you are trying to get at. It reminds me of that movie The
Neverending Story where the foe is neither monster or man, but a force - the Nothing, that destroys things where ever it can get a foothold. If Darkness is supposed to be a force rather than a group, how do you plan on incorporating the idea of defeating it rather than a tangible foe into your game? Can you
literally battle the darkness? I know that you mentioned that the League is replaced with "a devastating battle with the evil gang," but I think it would be really interesting if perhaps, for the Champion, you have to face off against the Darkness itself, just like the original Trainers of Light did. I would love to see an unconventional way of driving back a foe of this nature, rather than having it be just a battle with tangible foes like Darkness team leaders; but that choice of what you choose to do with your potential is yours - if the Darkness team leaders are interesting enough, I don't think you'll have any problems with me complaining about not getting to go
mano a mano with an omnipotent evil force XD I look forward to what you choose to do (and perhaps a more clear explanation of whether or not the Darkness is merely a evil team of humans, or an evil team of humans serving some sort of ancient evil XD ).
What exactly makes "Ancient Pokemon" different from regular Pokemon, other than that these six species were the first to arrive on the hunk of rock we call Earth? (And if I were to suggest an ancient Pokemon - Relicanth, Relicanth, Relicanth XD Seriously, its
entire point for being is that it's an "ancient Pokemon" personified...) We know the six Trainers of Light owned one each; and that they look older and stronger - more badass, in other words - than what that species normally would look like. But what else is there about them that makes them interesting or special from a
gameplay perspective rather than a plot perspective? Do these "first pokemon" learn unusual moves (Ancientpower would fit right in XD ); have different typing; or stronger stats? And I guess I'm a little confused on their nature within your plot, too - are ancient pokemon implied to be immortal beings, and thus the charmander Ace receives has been alive for Arceus knows how long, and had once helped a Trainer of Light defeat the Darkness? Or do they come from an ancient
lineage - in other words, is Ace's charmander descended directly from that first charmander to step upon Earth? I apologize if I'm being dense, but I really couldn't tell after reading all your posts ^^' I'm also a little surprised that Ace wouldn't figure out rather early on that his charmander is an "ancient pokemon" - a wise, fierce pokemon that looks like no species anyone's ever seen before suddenly appears in his life and he doesn't even seem to entertain the idea that it could possibly be an ancient? And if there are other, normal charmanders around, shouldn't the unique look of the one he owns evoke
some curiosity? Ace's
rival supposedly knows it's an ancient Pokemon - shouldn't Ace, also? I dunno, it just seems weird that his mind doesn't seem to leap to this rather obvious conclusion until sometime later in the game - but if you can explain why this thought
doesn't occur to him in a believable manner, I'll accept it :)
I'm a little confused on the setting of your game - you mentioned you were aiming for "the village era," and in your screenshots, the building tiles look rustic and old-fashioned. Is the game truly meant to be set in a past world; or am I just reading too much into things? And if it is; will we still use Pokeballs (as opposed to Apricorns or some other primitive substitute), heal our Pokemon on a big fancy machine; and use a PC to store and arrange our catches? And do the insides of your buildings look just as rustic as the outsides (or will they, once the tricky issue of indoor tileset editing is solved)? It is a cosmetic issue, of course, rather than something that drastically effects gameplay, but I think it could create some serious style dissonance if you left all these things unchanged. I don't want to be playing through a world made of rustic charms and set in "the village era"; only to walk into an unchanged Pokemon Center and be confronted with the latest technology ^^'
I like your idea for your first little storyline - the forbidden house, and the idea of a force keeping people from leaving the village; and instead putting you into an infinate loop where you just keep walking into the same town, over and over and over again. I love mystery in ROM hacks and in "real" RPGs, and I look forward to seeing what this forbidden house is like. Is defeating what ever is causing this problem roughly like doing the first Gym? If it is, I really like that it's not structured like a gym at all, but seems to stand on its own as its own sort of unique challenge - it's a quest with perhaps a boss at the end, rather than a building whose Trainers you have to defeat in order to get a sparky little emblem. The idea that the main character is unknowingly performing the Darkness's plan
for them is also hugely interesting and a major twist - I'm even starting to feel reassured that maybe this won't retread Fire Red's well-worn storypath as much as I thought, and I commend you very much for this :) It's always good to have my expectations shattered =)
Now, to talk about your screenshots a bit. ^^
Now, is this map actually inserted into your game, or is it just a mock-up of how you want your world to look? Its design looks very flat - actual Pokemon world maps tend to have a lot of colors and shades in them, and the flat look of yours is rather unappealing aesthetically. It serves its purpose of showing where we are and were we should go, though - I like the idea of a region that's pretty much an island chain, and the surfing routes look like they'd be pretty short, which is always a blessing (nothing is more annoying than running into a tentacool every five seconds XD ). If you don't care about it looking pretty, it will do, but if you want to give the map more depth; look at the maps of Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Kanto/Johto in HGSS and examine their use of color. Even just a little shading around the edges of your islands will help to bring them out ^^
I love the house tiles you use - they're wonderfully rustic :) And while this isn't your fault, the grass palette in this rombase is rather bright - it's florescent and seems almost like Astroturf compared to the natural forest greens of your trees. It's not something you should feel like you have to change - it doesn't look
that bad and could certainly be much, much worse- but if you did change it I think it would be just a little easier on the eyes ^^' If you're unsure of picking your own color scheme, find some free grass tiles and look at the colors they use; and find something that looks good to you. A relatively subdued and unsaturated green would work wonders, and wouldn't look so jarring next to the trees :) Also, while this problem seems like it may have been fixed in other screenshots, the shadow under your small trees (the little pines that are one tile wide and two tall) do not go with the color of the grass you are currently using. The color of the shadows that are underneath your big pines are fine, however, and a little work with tile editing should fix your little pines' shadows right up so they match the shadows under the big pines ^^ (I assume you know how to tile edit already; so I'm not going to explain that further XD )
The problem with the little pines you also have here with your grass tuffocks - the shadow color does not go with your grass color. And again, just a tiny bit of tile editing would be enough to fix the issue :) I do like the mapping here though (not that I'm a great judge of mapping ^^' ) - it seems natural and interesting without sacrificing playability for the capricious ways of Nature. And in the little bit of this area we see in your gameplay video; the screen always has a lot of activity on it in terms of different sorts of tiles and not much empty space, and I commend you for good route design ^^ Could you post up some of your maps in full to allow the full areas to be seen? While mapping is far from my strong point, perhaps others better versed in the area could give you some better and worthwhile advice on your landscapes :)
We see an error here in this screenshot that will happen whenever changes to Palette 2 (at least in Ruby, I'm not sure what tileset in Fire Red has all the greens on it) are made - since the long grass animates; making changes to one frame of it does not carry over to all the other frames; hence why the grass reverts back to its original palette when you walk through it. While this is an issue created by your rombase rather than by you; it would make your game look a bit more professional if you fixed it. This can be done via palette editing - for a tutorial that explains it better than I ever could, go to the search field and look for "grass editing Fire Red."
I wish I could help you with the little issue you show in your video, but I'm not really sure why it's doing that exactly :( Perhaps someone in the Simple Questions thread more versed in the world of maps than I could give you some advice ^^
Good luck! It's great to see a hack that concerns itself with story more than the original games ever did; and that seems to have some clever new ideas and a lot of thought and work behind it :) My biggest recommendation though, after all this rambling, would be to repeat that I think a "story editor" would do you wonders :) Especially when it comes time to play the game - a hack with good grammar and spelling is much more easily read and understood, and it will help us to better appreciate your story. ^__^ I anticipate seeing the first beta! :)