Let's Play Dark Rising: Order Destroyed! Final Thoughts

[Listen to this while you read through: Yuukyou Seishunka]

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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: Order Destroyed

Originally published: June ‎26, ‎2016 (that's at least what the rom says) and it was published on the Dark Rising weebly page.

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

Length: 2 hours and 35 minutes

Difficulty: Medium-to-above-average. It is far more balanced and keeps it to a strictly 20-40 range, but enemies tend to be more prepared than you. The lack of resources prevent you from grinding comfortably until you reach Zinnia's Whismur... but the final boss is still level 100.

Developers/Artists/Etc.:

• DarkRisingGirl- Story/Mapper
• Franco Kuchiki- Gatolete World Rom Base
• Mr.DollSteak- Decap & Attack Rom Base
• E.C./Red-Ex/Seiyouh/Zein/Wesley FG/Javs/Steven/Erma96/Kyledove- Winter Tiles
• Newtiteuf Chaos Rush & Mr.DollSteak Pokemon Sprite Resources- Pokemon Sprites
• Mike39201- Mega Sceptile Sprite & Mega Swampert Sprite
• iihurricane- Mega Lucario Sprite
• quanyails- Hoopa Sprite/Diancie Sprite
• Brylark- Mega Sableye Sprite
• Gnomowladny- Mega Glalie & Zinnia Sprites
• Samurai_Rendan- Pyroar Resized Sprite
• Commander F- Charizard X Sprite
• Arc- Mega Blaziken Sprite
• Archeopteryxx- Mega Manectric Sprite & Zygarde Sprite
• Absoluteweapon- Mega Absol Sprite
• Chasemortier & Azira- Carbink OW Sprite
• Pokeargentum- Diancie OW Sprite
• Gardemenoko- Mega Diancie Sprite

Overall Plot:

• This takes place after the events of Dark Rising 2 and you play as the rival instead. Your goal is to "survive" in Hoopa's new world and a zombie apocalypse is involved.

Pros & Cons–

·The mapping, when it's not horrendously done on purpose or stolen from vanilla maps, is actually pretty decent. I like the tiles she puts in, even if they're not animated. The winter tiles are easily my favorite.

·No HM use at all, mostly due to the short length and lack of gym battles

·It is easily the shortest game in the series and extremely brief, thank god.

·The game is far more lenient compared to the previous two due to having an extremely tight level curve. You can reasonably defeat everything in the game barring the final boss without having to grind or cheat, which is damn impressive after slogging through Dark Rising 1 and 2.

·Some of the writing was decent, like the parts with Noah and his Shadow. I can see why people would like the Zygarde twins, but they're just... okay to me.

·You get Megas to use for yourself! Not only that, a lot of the sprites are decently made... barring Mega Diancie.

·I do like some of the survival aspects even if the game started to be a bit more difficult than necessary.

·It's something I would consider... playable, at least.

·The Pied Piper was honestly a more interesting villain than Hoopa.

·The eventing still suffers the same problems as the past two games. Nothing amazing really happens and you're more or less locked in an extremely linear path from beginning to end.

·The maps that look bad look horrendous. The first room where we get the Pokedex set the tone of what I was getting myself into this time.

·Hoopa was arguably even more insufferable than Darugis. Somehow, with both god and "the devil" out of the way, Hoopa gains the power to control the universe... even though that makes zero sense.


It doesn't help that they're just an annoying kid version of Darugis (gary stu powers and all) that thinks they're being clever by being meta even though they're the worst villain I've seen in a while. They did have one or two moments that weren't dumb, but that's about it.

·Aizen was another low point because they don't even try to be subtle with him being evil, yet Noah and the others are shocked about his betrayal. I assume he had to be brought into this story somehow due to being brought up in Dark Rising 2, but he's just... there.

·The whole zombie apocalypse setting. Ignoring everything else, it's pretty basic and loaded with cliches. The Trainer's Curse is poorly explained and Noah getting all depressed over killing the undead is so forced that I'm not even going to play along. The human fatalities are even worse because every single one is because they just don't want to listen for the sake of drama. Every tear Noah sheds is bound to catch the audience, am I right?

Then there was that bit where Hoopa tried to hold that against you despite the fact he's the one who summons the black holes that kill people.


Plus, don't get me started on how it's almost a wholesale ripoff of Snakewood - it's obvious Dark Rising Girl is a fan due to mentioning it in Dark Rising 1.

·The enemy trainers you face were pretty damn harrowing. Shout outs go to Mega Sableye and both times you fight Mega Charizard X. You might have to do some grinding, but with no Pokecenters and a finite amount of items... it might seriously bite you in the ass. It sort of boils down to luck until you get to the one or two healing spots.

·The dupe towards the end that the Machine wasn't real and that you're sealed off from going back to it. Imagine you're playing along and you don't have a walk through walls code like me - if you put any Pokemon in it like Aizen was suggesting, you'll never get them back. I don't know why you would, but it's still a real dick move.

·The Pokedex being broken to the point where just viewing an entry will completely softlock the game. This also prevents you from catching Pokemon, so what you see is what you get. Then there was the bit where weather effects crash the game. I don't know what happened in Order Destroyed's development, but this is just awful... and the fact she decided to write around all of it is even worse.

·The Zygarde Twins literally being the result of a human-Pokemon romance with Zygarde. Not only did I not want to see bestiality played completely straight and seriously, Zyro and Zyree also hold the key to defeating Hoopa... somehow.

·What is the point of a survival game if you get killed at the end by a level 100 Hoopa anyway? The scenes with Noah's Shadow (which are also plagarized from the Persona series) are made worthless because of this.

Final Thoughts (27/100):

Order Destroyed was an interesting experiment with mediocre-at-best execution. Let's have a short zombie survival game where the goal is to make it to the end with minimal supplies.

That would be great if it weren't for the fact that almost every part about this was mismanaged - the story is as flimsy as ever, but now that I actually got to see Hoopa, I can't stand him. Not because he's well written or because of the trolling aspect - in fact, if any legendary were to turn evil for some reason and act like this, Hoopa would make the most sense.

Nah, it's because they're also an ultra competent chessmaster with super uber powers. Even then, the way they're written makes them so annoying that they'd be better off as a side villain, not the main bad guy. Sort of like Mason from the second game.

Add all of the other disposable characters and the fact you die at the end regardless of what you do is just... it's infuriating.

In fact, this entire series may not be on the same level of pure garbage like something I've discovered recently called Pokemon Ultra Version (a game that is literally broken), especially as Dark Rising got slightly better in each new game... but I dunno.

There's something about Dark Rising that makes it even more offensive than a Big Rigs-esque disaster of coding and misdirection. (although the first game definitely qualifies for that, holy hell.)

It hits me in all the wrong places and if it weren't for certain things and my own perseverance (plus there's a little something called Bile Fascination - people love a good shitshow), I wouldn't have even made it to 2.

I do like how Order Destroyed wasn't impossible without cheating, but the bugged mechanics and... everything else make it not worth revisiting. I'm just glad I finally got this over with.

And now, for one last time, thanks for watching.