[Released] Pokécurse: BloodRed Version (ALPHA 0.8 Update)

1. Right out the gate, we've got a grammatical error. "Turn up the volume until you get to clearly listen the sound effect, then continue." My enthusiasm has been dampened sligtly. Still, headless Pikachu!

2. I can't stop reading CURSEDONE as curse-ed-own. Makes an otherwise spooky moment slightly hilarious.

3. This is a good Pallet Town recreation. It kind of bugs me that you have to read signs by running into them, instead of selecting them. And when the Professor led me to the Lab, why did he wait outside, then somehow teleport in front of me when I went in? (Speaking of the Lab, found another gem: "PROFESSOR OAK is a very working man!")

4. Off we go! Adventure ahoy! I like the inclusion of the Bad Egg. It's just the right amount of same-but-different for this kind of game. I did, however, note that the "The egg seems to be moving..." event could be walked over and triggered multiple times. Also, the left side of Route 1 has a huge, visible black map border, which is a shame since the game's otherwise looked pretty good so far.

5. So... bug? Oversight? I took the Egg down to Pallet Town, reached the point where the Egg wouldn't let me go any further, turned to go back, and then got attacked by a Rattata and blacked out. I warped back to Mom's house and was able to head straight to Professor Oak. He took the Egg without complaint, but I definitely feel like I skipped part of the story. Later I'll reload and go back to the forest like I'm supposed to, but for now, I want to see where this goes.

6. So far, Viridian Forest is a bit broken. None of the signs work, and in several places I walk over the tops of trees instead of under them. Do we ever get the Running Shoes? Did I miss them? Trudging all the way back and forth to train isn't very exciting, especially since by now the game has pretty much gone back to being FireRed. The abundance of Pikachus is making me regret choosing Squirtle.

7. Made it to Pewter City! There are still lots of map issues, with exposed map borders all over the place and buildings I can't enter. For some reason that includes the Gym. Giving up that Egg seems to have turned the game into FireRed with fewer features, so to heck with it, I want to get back to the story. Restarting.

8. Playing as a girl this time! Although the male sprite still appears on the name selection screen... and I seem to have spawned as a boy. Okay, odd.

9. With my trusty Bulbasaur by my side, I made it to the Forest with the Egg. The Egg tells me it's protecting me from the forest's curse, which isn't very helpful, because the only reason I know about the curse of random damage and status effects is because I used an exploit to get rid of the egg and enter the forest without it. I suspect that the average first-time player will be entering these woods with egg in hand and no idea what curse it's talking about.

10. Entered Pewter City. There seems to be nothing here, and the Egg has nothing more to say. The only way forward is a gauntlet of trainers, so... sigh... time to start grinding.

11. I didn't stock up on Poke Balls before I left, and the shop here won't sell me any, so with just Bulbasaur and Pikachu I fought my way to Mount Moon. And I can tell you, this took way longer than it should have. In the regular game there's a sense of progression as you level up your team to take on increasingly powerful Bug Catchers and then the Gym, but here all progress came to a screeching halt for more than half an hour as I did nothing but build up to fight the first real enemies of the game, who would normally come after the first gym. And after a quick cutscene which indicated that something interesting was finally about to happen, it looks like I'm back to training to get through Mt. Moon...

12. Just as I was starting to get properly bored, the game suddenly kicked into high gear! Out of nowhere, suddenly there's plot! Intrigue! Suspense! Mystery! And those corrupted Pokemon sprites are absolutely gorgeous. The preview images really don't do them justice, they look fantastic in motion. I just wish it hadn't taken so long to get here. I was seriously on the verge of giving up when the map started to change. I recognize that a horror game needs a slow-burning start, but it's badly in need of a more interesting change to gameplay well before Mt. Moon.

I'm surprised the Egg hasn't had more to say by this point, as well. Come to think of it, why did it want to go to the forest? There wasn't anything there. Some kind of event there, just a small one to assure players that they're on the right path, would help a lot. Now, onward! Sure wish there was a Pokemon Center I could use...

13. For a couple of minutes of vast disappointment I thought that I was stuck. I didn't see the cave entrance within Cerulean Cave and thought that the game had come to a dead end. Putting up a wall on the map and something on the ground to guide me would make that clear. All these black map boundaries are really hampering the game experience.

14. Just to see what would happen, I went into wild grass and intentionally lost the battle. Despite the game's warning that losing a second time would kill me, I had to be defeated by a wild Paras on my way out of the cave twice before the death stuck. While I was wandering around with my soul in a Poke ball, I tried to catch a Paras with the balls I'd (finally) stocked up on in town, but since I couldn't attack without getting trapped in a loop I failed to catch one. I'm honestly unsure what I was supposed to do to get myself out of that situation. I now head back to my old save, feeling slightly miffed, since apparently the cost of failure is high and I don't have a Pokemon center to go to.

15. So touching Houndour locks me in an unwinnable battle? Gee, thanks for warning me.

Honestly though, this game has completely transformed. I'm falling in love with the design, the ambiance, the story. I never would have guessed we'd end up here after such a dull start! Though, another note: Sending out my Ekans (female) gave me an error message and made the HUD disappear. Sprites missing, it seems.

16. And that seems to be the end of the first true dungeon! I think. I found the photograph, did another circuit of the house to see if anything new would happen, and gave up. It was a great time up until then, though! Puzzles, spooks, story, boss battles, the works. My only criticism are the unexpected unwinnable battle, as mentioned above, and the sheer number of battles down in the basement. When PP is limited I'm not going to fight everything that comes my way, especially not one that knows Spite and Psywave. I very quickly started just running from every encounter, which got frustrating when on the lowest level I started running into something every few steps. The encounter rate definitely doesn't need to be that high.

Frostleaf25 said:

I dont know if I will get that far to get them but good to know. I have to say you do seem to have made a certain good amount of a spooky undertone in the game. I only have my starter so far but I'm at mt moon.

One question, in viridian forest....
The last guy in the forest on the way to pewter, was i suppose to understand what gray statues he talks about or is it a reference to something? The other two trainers had me a bit spooked....

Click to expand...

Yes, you'll encounter grey statues sooner or later, and are very important towards progressing and surviving the game.