I'm not parodying anything. The reason why the hack exists is because my family was going to go on a long road trip, so I wanted to bring my Gameboy and a good RPG to play with. I have a GBA Flashcart (EZ Flash IV), so I can play GBA hacks on actual hardware. I didn't want to restart my LeafGreen cart, and I'm disappointed with the overall difficulty level of FR/LG. So I went through the game and applied Black 2/White 2's challenge mode, meaning trainers until the 3rd Gym get +1 in levels, trainers until the 5th Gym get +2 in levels, trainers until the 7th Gym get +3 in levels, and from the 7th Gym to the Elite Four get +4 in levels. However I only applied that to trainers, I rebalanced the Gym Leader levels completely to were I see fit in terms of how strong a boss in an RPG at that particular point should be. I changed the wild Pokemon to include LeafGreen exclusives, and I added a guy in Victory Road that gives you Pokemon that you can normally obtain only in one playthrough. Because of that, it is no longer Pokemon FireRed, but it is neither LeafGreen nor something being called "WaterBlue", since I don't see why a single Kanto starter should be a mascot over the others (hence why in Pokemon DarkViolet, an old hack of mine that I'm currently restarting, Mewtwo is the mascot). I didn't know what to call it, so I just called it =), since FireRed is no longer a fitting title once I added the LeafGreen exclusives.
=) is NOT a parody of the entire Sideshowcase. You see, I simply don't care about what people think on the internet, so why would I make a parody hack? For what, random people on the internet that I don't care about and will never, ever meet? Of course not. I make my hacks so I can play them, I just post them on the internet for feedback and advice. In a nutshell, here's how I do things:
http://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=5884089&postcount=13
There's plenty of hacks I've made that I've never even posted, but would easily belong in the Sideshowcase. Such as a Ruby hack with Emerald font, a Ruby hack with FireRed font, a Ruby hack with FR/LG sprites, a FireRed hack with Ruby sprites (which was used as a base for "=)" ), a FireRed hack with Emerald font (which I'm using a base for something more ambitious I'm working on), and a "Challenge Mode" version of Ruby (just like "=)") with re-leveled Gym Leaders. Do you think I made those for PokeCommunity? NO. I make all my hacks for myself, I would never actually waste my time making a parody hack. Honestly, why would I make fun of a bunch of random people on the internet that I don't care about?
I'm assuming the only reason why people think it's a joke/parody hack is because of the name of the hack. I mean, seriously, what's wrong with naming it =)? There's no way I was calling it FireRed Challenge Mode, since it is no longer FireRed as soon as I added LeafGreen Pokemon.
No, I don't even look at them. I don't think "Hard Mode" hacks are stupid, nor do I think "386" hacks are stupid, since that would be contradictory, because =) is a "Hard Mode" and "151" hack.
No, I did not make =) to show random people on the internet that I don't care about that I'm "better than them", I made =) because I wanted a good hard RPG to play on a road trip.
(I'm not mad at all, and I apologize if my wording makes me sound angry, I'm just explaining in detail that =) is definitely not a parody hack. I even said in the first post of =) that it isn't a joke hack, I guess you might have missed that.) lol, I'm pretty sure people wouldn't be so suspicious if I had simply called it "FireRed Hard Mode" or something, but I refuse to include FireRed in the title since I added LeafGreen Pokemon.