[Released] Phoenix Rising

mathiasjrg · Oct 9, 2019

The Phoenix Shall Rise Again

Episode One: Beyond Home now available

Version 0.1.5.1

About this Project

Phoenix Rising is a free fan-made episodic Pokémon RPG developed using RPG Maker XP and the Pokémon Essentials engine. The game is set in a new region known as 'Hawthorne' and will boast changes to the original main-series Pokémon formula to include a more traditional RPG theme as well as many new features.

Release

Phoenix Rising will have an Episodic release schedule with the first Episode releasing on May 25th 2018. Episode One will be considered a "demo". Subsequent releases will be announced in the future.

Platforms

This game is primarily being released on Windows, with a Mac version also in the works. It is anticipated that platforms other than Windows will come after the initial launch.

Languages

The game is primarily being developed in English however there are plans to translate it to various other languages. These translations are anticipated to be available after the English release.

Price

Phoenix Rising is and always will be free. We are not accepting donations or money in return for the game.

THE WAR THAT WAGES

For hundreds of years the Council of Oracles have maintained peace in Hawthorne. They established after a great war saw a revolution overthrow their tyrannical king. However, there are many who believe the Oracles have become complacent and detached. Their integrity is challenged by a family led by a man who calls himself "King" claiming to have descended from Royal Blood -- the true heir to sovereignty. The Royal Family promises to unite Hawthorne and develop it into a powerful force among larger nations. Despite their oppressive distant past people are beginning to flock to the side of the Royal Family. It is time for the High Oracle Anastasia to reunite her Council and regain their grip of peace, or surrender to the pages of history opening once more.

THE PHOENIX RISING

The region of Hawthorne was, at one time, a land torn asunder by war and suffering. Its people despaired in the face of such destruction, crying out for a saviour. In a sign of divine acknowledgement, the Legendary Ho-oh soared across the sky; its feathers rained down to the people below and blessed the earth. Similar legends of the winged saviour are told in many cultures; however, the people of Hawthorne have traditionally believed that Ho-oh would one day be resurrected to fight alongside a powerful Trainer and unite their nation once more. This is the legend of the Phoenix Rising. Although the memory of this tale has slipped from the public eye, it is in times of strife that these memories recapture the imagination of a people.

Choice & Consequence

As the hero, your mission will require you to make tough choices. Rarely will you be required to make a decision which has simple choices between good and evil. In a morally ambiguous world; your choices can affect the fate of others in different ways. Phoenix Rising features multiple endings that result from the choices you make throughout the game. Your decisions have an impact on how this war wages and who remains on top. With three penultimate epilogues and various end-world states Phoenix Rising offers much replayability.

University

Only the best and the brightest receive acceptance to Trinita University, the Hawthorne region's premier establishment of education. The School offers several disciplines focusing on Pokémon Battling, Pokémon Breeding, and all-around knowledgeable adventuring. As a newly enrolled student, you will choose what you study, your choice affects your gameplay. The discipline you choose will affect your skill tree and the perks you can obtain in the game. Trinita University will serve as a new home for you during your journey. A place to return to for new quests, to stock up or just to chat with characters you've met along the way.

STORY

In a war-torn nation, you'll take on your most important call -- to unite the Oracles against a force greater than the world has ever seen.

Screenshots

Characters

Just some of the characters you'll meet in Episode One of Phoenix Rising.

Perrin

A new friend you meet along your journey, Perrin is a drifter, with a love for exploring and self-experience. They are stifled by polite society or traditional education, and they feel most comfortable outdoors, while surrounded by unfamiliar flora and fauna. Travelling is a joy to them, cooking their own meals and setting up camp, and travelling is easiest for them without company. Perrin puts much weight on their independence from society.

Lin

Another character you meet along your journey through Hawthorne. Lin is an inhabitant of Sonata Town living alone, she is still affected by the tragic loss of her sister some years past. When the player first meets Lin, they have an interesting encounter that sets the pace for a friendship that never borders upon rivalry. As a reoccurring character, Lin brings some fun stories and new angles to various events which make the player's journey much more wholesome.

Regan

Regan is a member of the Council of Hawthorne, an Oracle of great strength. She wields Dragon-type Pokémon with enormous efficacy. Regan grew up in Cornell City, a town which now idolizes their former citizen. Having grown up surrounded by mountains and rough terrain, Regan has developed a sense of location and a survivalist streak. She feels a kinship with powerful, misunderstood Pokémon, as something of a loner herself.

Features

Choice Determined Gameplay

The decisions you make during the main quest and side-quests will have various outcomes. Rarely is it ever a simple choice between good and bad - in a morally grey world there is never an easy answer.

Character Customisation

Change your outfit and your skin tone to resemble the hero you want to play as. Unlock new outfits as you play, and mix and match clothing! You're the hero, express your individuality.

Skill Trees

Skills trees allow you to unlock "talents". You achieve talent points as you play. You can spend them on new perks to suit your play style. Trinita University will help you unlock more skills!

Quest System

You will encounter people who are in need of your help. They may not be on the path of your main adventure but each one holds a story. Track quests using your journal and choose to help them - or not!

Multiple Save Files

Whether you're making different decisions in this playthrough or simply want to choose a different starter Pokémon this time around - you'll be able to do so without deleting your previous saves!

PokéStrap

The PokéStrap is a key item you receive during your adventure. Packed with useful applications and utilities - it should surely help you during your adventure. You can always toggle it on or off if you wish to!

New Mega Evolutions & Formes

Let's Play Mode

Something we always wanted to deliver for Phoenix Rising is a full PC game experience. As a team, we've all played fan games and loved them. However there was a common theme throughout, and that was a small screen that takes up a small amount of your monitor. So this is our answer, a whole new full-screen option we name the "Let's Play Mode"!

The mode was inspired by Let's Players who take advantage of the entire screen with elements such as current Pokémon in their party, current location, and so on. We decided we would do something similar. The Let's Play Mode or "LP Mode" for short, has several features. In the centre, you have your game screen. So the action is always right in front of you. To each side of your game screen, there are multiple GUI elements that aid you in your game, you can see your Party and their current health and status, your registered items and what button each of them is mapped to, your region map and where you're currently located, and plenty more.

Relic Forms

Interwoven in the tension between Oracles, the Royal Family, and indeed the inhabitants of Hawthorne, is the mysterious appearance of these alternative Pokémon forms. Even stranger is that so-called "Relic Pokémon" are quite rare compared to their more well-documented base forms which are still found in the wild.

Having only appeared recently, nobody seems sure where they have come from or why. There are whispers that link them back to Ho-oh, and the war that ravaged Hawthorne so many years past...

Check out this video for even more information on Relic Forms

Pokémon © The Pokémon Company | Original work - 2019 © The Phoenix Rising Team & Credits
All visuals & features are subject to change

mathiasjrg · Oct 9, 2019

F

FAQ

Q: When will Episode 2 be released?

We currently do not have a set date for the release of Episode 2. However, we are aiming towards releasing a bug-fixing update in the near future. Subsequent releases will be announced at a future date. Read more about why this fan game takes time.

Q: I encountered bug/the game crashes and gives me _ error message, what do I do?

It is very unfortunate to hear you have encountered a bug/crash!
A lot of common crashes can be resolved by reading our troubleshooting guide here!
If this does not resolve your problem, you can join our Discord server and ask for help in the #community-tech-support channel.
Likewise, known bugs are listed in #known-issues, and new bugs can be reported in #bug-reports on the very same server!
You can join the Phoenix Rising Discord server here!

Q: Why has the game not been updated since June 2018?

At the end of May, we announced on our Discord server that most of the team - for their own reasons - are either taking a prolonged time away from the project or completely walking away. This was of their own decision, and we hope everyone can respect that more than anything else.

During these past months, we have begun assembling a new team and have already resumed progress on Phoenix Rising.

Q: Why is a bug-fixing update first scheduled for 2020?

When the new team was handed over the project from the old Phoenix Rising team, we were left with a game programmed in RGSS3 that was halfway to being ported to RGSS1. This meant that when we first received the files simple stuff such as battles, your party, checking the Pokédex and encryption was not functioning. On top of this, the game itself had the same amount of progress made as was available in demo 0.1.5.1. This means that no new areas or functions were available to us. With all of this in mind, the new team was left with a version that was much worse than the official demo 0.1.5.1, both content-wise and functionality wise.

For this reason, we can not release a new version of Phoenix Rising, before the game has been restored to its original state. We are already hard at work, and issues like Pokémon battling and checking your party has already been fixed; there is, however, still a long way to go.

Q: If there is a new team working on this, is it even still Phoenix Rising?

Yes!

Our current team of about 20 people, still includes a few members of the original team. The new co-producers are also engaged in active dialogue with gav the old director and creator of Phoenix Rising, and a couple of other old team members. The team also utilises a lot of old design documents in conjunction with consulting with the old team, in order to assure that we can upkeep and continue Phoenix Rising's legacy.

Q: What will Phoenix Rising be playable on?

We are officially developing for PC, and working on a native port for Mac users also. Further down the line, we will be considering ports to other devices, however, we are not ready to confirm whether or not other systems will be possible.

Q: Will there be other languages?

We are focusing on English for now, but we will do our best to translate to as many languages as possible.

Q: Do you need translators?

Not just yet, but when we do we'll be sure to let you know!

Q: What is this game being developed with?

We are creating Phoenix Rising using the RPG Maker XP program, which uses RGSS as a scripting language. We use a multitude of programs to create our assets such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, After Effects, Premiere Pro, GIMP and more. We are also using the Pokémon Essentials engine upgraded to RGSS and heavily modified by our team.

Q: Can I join the team?

We are always looking for talented help to volunteer with us. Pixel Artists, Concept Artists, Musicians - whatever your skill, shoot us an e-mail at [email protected] with proof of your ability and we might just have a spot for you.

We are currently very interested in tile artists and metagame specialists, as well as writers and composers.

Q: How much is the game going to be?

The game is *absolutely free* and always will be. If someone is asking you to pay for it *you are being scammed*. At no point will we ever ask you to pay for Phoenix Rising. We are also not accepting donations.

Q: Will there be Fan-Made Pokémon?

We will be including new Mega Evolutions and other forms that we design ourselves, however, we will not be adding brand new Pokémon aside from that. You can read more about our decision here.

Q: Will you please add Mega _____?

While we appreciate your feedback, ideas and input - we are not taking "requests" for new Mega evolutions. Once the game is fully released, we will add even more if we can.

Q: Where can I download Episode 1 of this game?

A free download link is available at the top of the page!

Q: How many Pokémon will there be?

Initially, there will be over 200 in the main game. We are hoping to add many more with further expansions to the game. These expansions, however, rely on the main game itself being a hit, if you guys enjoy it, we'll add more!

Q: Will there be online features?

Previously we have announced online features, however since games have been taken down by Nintendo and online functions have been one of their issues with those games - we are curbing our plans on those for now.

Q: In terms of the possibility of Nintendo shutting the project down, what is your response if they try to do so?

Admittedly, we would be extremely disappointed and bewildered if that were to be the case. The project is created because we love Pokémon, and as fans of the franchise we are simply expressing our admiration for it. We are using the brand to learn how to develop games and deliver a free, fun, game for people to play. Nothing malicious is intended and we completely respect that the Copyrights and IP that Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Game Freak hold over their work. However, we have zero interest in stepping on any toes and if a compromise can be made we will do our best to do so. We are doing our best to keep to the Fair Use policy, and are doing our best to use as little assets from the official Pokémon games and franchise as possible.

We also have a strategy to avoid a "C&D" which includes:

Not taking donations
Removing the trademark "Pokémon" from our branding and name
Removing online functions from the game
Being less present on social media where possible
Not having a website which can be contrived as seeking hidden revenue

As per our research, we have taken into account what issues with previously taken down games have been and are attempting to respond to that as best we can.

Q: Will there be a competitive element to the game?

Yes, as much as we can feasibly add in terms of a competitive and balanced experience we will be adding. We are adding difficulty settings and will be adhering to competitive standards put forward by Smogon and other metagames as best we can. We love competitive battling, so we hope that we can show that love in Phoenix Rising for those who want it. This does not imply that we're adding an online battling functionality however due to reasons mentioned below.

Q: Can I play as a boy or a girl?

We have two base characters to choose from when creating your character at the beginning of the game: Alto & Aria. We're not defining them as any gender. They are simply two styles to choose from initially which you can customise equally. You can wear the same outfits regardless of what your base character looks like. That is our goal.

Q: Is there a Discord Server?

Yes! You can join it here.

Q: Is there a mailing list

No, unfortunately, we have discontinued the previous mailing list. Follow our other social media or join our Discord Server for updates on new features and releases!

Thank you for reading, please put forward any questions you have below!

juliorain · Oct 10, 2019

approved

Shawn Heatherly · Oct 10, 2019

Well, this is surprising.

darkmar3 · Oct 13, 2019

Hi, how many hours is playable ? how much % of this game is complete ?
Thanks

The Man Called M · Oct 16, 2019

Found an annoying glitch where you are forced to buy only one item at a time in shops (At least the one in Tranquillo town).

EDIT: It's also in the second town, but for some reason, the gate shop works like normal.

Rakugan · Oct 16, 2019

Script ' -Gamepad Input' line 220: RuntimeError occurred.

LoadLibrary: Input.dll

^^
This keeps appearing every time I try to run the game. I'm pretty sure I extracted it correctly so I'm not sure what's wrong.

mathiasjrg · Oct 16, 2019

Rakugan said:
Script ' -Gamepad Input' line 220: RuntimeError occurred.

LoadLibrary: Input.dll

^^
This keeps appearing every time I try to run the game. I'm pretty sure I extracted it correctly so I'm not sure what's wrong.

This is probably the most common problem encountered. I've added a troubleshooting/bug-reporting bullet to the FAQ, which includes a link to our troubleshooting document.
However, the simple fix is just to ensure that there aren't any special characters in the file path e.g. 'é' in 'Pokémon' or other characters such as ø, æ, å, ö, ä, ë, õ, etc.

The Man Called M said:
Found an annoying glitch where you are forced to buy only one item at a time in shops (At least the one in Tranquillo town).

EDIT: It's also in the second town, but for some reason, the gate shop works like normal.

This is a common bug. It has been fixed in the dev version and will be available in the next bug-fixing update (0.1.6).

darkmar3 said:
Hi, how many hours is playable ? how much % of this game is complete ?
Thanks

Game time varies with playstyle. A common YouTube playthrough takes from 4-6 hours on average. However, I've spent 13 hours and 20 minutes in my personal save file a year ago.

WolfPP · Oct 16, 2019

Yeah xD I have my Shiny Adamant Growlithe and trying to get Shiny Riolu. Looking forward for Episode 2!

KiiroiSenko · Oct 25, 2019

Excellent start. Hope you get your team assembled and get the ball rolling again.

MySummerJob · Oct 26, 2019

I tried copy and pasting your discord link to join the server, but it doesn't work for me.

Also I want to add for the idea of 'Let's Play mode' it would be great to also have a 'streamer mode' so it acts like 'LP' mode, but we can view chat. Not sure how that would work, but hopefully it's possible. Would be great to have some Twitch integration like that.

Tyv · Oct 27, 2019

Wasn't initially planning on it but I wanted to make an account just to say that me and my girlfriend enjoy the game very much and wanted to say thank you and the team and good luck in the making of this game, it's amazing so far!

willisbetter · Nov 10, 2019

i love this game, i just made it to onde city, my only complaint is that after about thirty minutes i start having some serious frame rate issues which doesnt render the game unplayable, just really annoying to play sometimes, and i dont think its something wrong with my computer either because both pokemon insurgence and rejuvenation run fine on my computer

Valisilwen · Nov 17, 2019

Just started playing this today, and it's pretty neat. I did notice something odd though: I selected "Normal" difficulty (or rather, didn't touch the difficulty button at all), yet when I go to save, it tells me that I'm playing on "Hard" difficulty. I haven't noticed anything particularly difficult just yet, so it may just be an odd visual bug, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Also, is there any way to shrink the game window? The full screen with all of its blank space is rather annoying. (It may fill up later, I have only just reached the Farm so far.)

Edit: I want to second the comment above me. While running around the first major town (Tranquillo), I occasionally seem to experience major frame rate drops. This continues to occur throughout the game, not just in Tranquillo. It seems especially bad in places with a lot of stuff going on, like the rainy forest and the swamp town before it with all the will-o-wisp-looking things hanging about.

Additionally, I found a really nasty/annoying glitch with the Poke mart in the same town: I can't buy Poke Balls in bulk any longer. I press the arrow key to increase my total desired purchase by 10 balls and it displays a negative number, with an appropriately negative cost. Attempting to buy these "nega balls" does nothing. It neither gives me Poke Balls/money nor takes them away, so that's good at least. I can still buy them one at a time, but who really wants to sit there for 5 minutes buying 7000 P worth of Poke Balls? (Eevee are a royal pain to catch. Just one of them ate like...10 Poke Balls.)

Edit 2: The aforementioned negative items glitch appears to affect every item that the mart is selling, not just Poke Balls. This also only began occurring after I did a lot of save scumming in the farm to work out how best to defeat the swindler guy. Not sure if that's relevant, but every detail helps, I'm sure.

Edit 3: The glitch in question only seems to occur at Tranquillo Town. Buying items in bulk appears to work fine in the next town over.

Edit 4: Scratch that. It returned again.

Edit 5: In the Arietta (sp?) Forest, just to the south of the swamp town, capturing Pokemon seems to cause some sort of odd glitch. I captured a Wooper and it skipped over the Pokedex entry bit and went straight back to the overworld. I caught a Grubbin and it didn't even ask for a nickname or whether to box it or not. This one didn't even register the battle as over until I hit the 'run' button. Thankfully the Pokemon still counted as captured and (presumably) went on to the PC box, but still.

stewiemw · Nov 22, 2019

can't play

Crazyninjaguy · Nov 22, 2019

This looks like the most exciting Fan Game i've seen for a while. Definitely going to give it a try this weekend!

raguna427 · Nov 23, 2019

Are there going to be pokemon from sword and shield?

suphaninjap221 · Nov 23, 2019

Possibly, but not now, not even for a few years, they are barely developing the next chapter bit by bit, so it may take a while...

SunflowerLady · Dec 29, 2019

Where can I find a goomy?

OneKi · Apr 3, 2020

This looks absolutely amazing. Thank you for the Demo and I can't wait for the next episode!