Fair enough! Yep, the ending is totally a fullstop on the momentum, however the primary point was to show how authoritarian and driven Dreary was as a person. Typically in Pokemon games, you're able to discourage villains just by beating them in a battle. Although, if you're confronting a literal tyrant who's passion is killing people for the sake of realizing his dreams, it wouldn't make much sense to dismantle their plans based on "who's got the better mons." You mentioned creating this ending simply for being "realistic," and yeah that was pretty much the case! xD After all, the point of the game was just to showcase a short series of daydreams that I had a while back for some reason. I also tried to weave the ending text so that it was open to a sequel in the future, if that would ever happen. :)
Hmm I haven't heard those comments on Unknown Tower yet. I didn't feel the need to grind that much in the Tower (maybe 3-4 levels overall), so I'll keep that in mind. The Mew was Aphrodite's mon, and is a little underleveled in order to compensate for fighting the team of five beforehand without being able to heal. Do you think it would be better to adjust that final battle?
Thanks for the fast reply! I suppose I can understand what you wanted to do with Dreary, but I think he could be greatly improved simply with more build up for him. To me he was suddenly inserted into the end. It didn't feel shocking/surprising when it was revealed that Darkrai wasn't the one in charge, mainly because it was just told to me by an admin. Sure I hadn't guessed it before, but the reveal didn't cause a reaction of any sort. Maybe if he got a name drop or appearance earlier it could help. It's harder to do with a shorter game like this, but I think it could happen.
I do agree that it shouldn't simply end by "My mons are better than yours" as usual, although that could be rationalized as well since even one enemy Pokemon left could present a massive threat to an unarmed human(?) like Dreary. If the main character knocks all of the bad guy's Pokemon unconscious but still has mons left themselves, it's not like the bad guy could really fight back anymore against monsters probably capable of killing him in a flash.
The main issue is that at this point the main character has a team of mons that are probably fully evolved, and they just get killed suddenly because I guess they were too stupid and turned their back to him? If a "who's got the better mons" ending is disappointing, then the main character suddenly getting offed by some guy is just as bad.
That isn't to say I didn't enjoy the game. For something with such a small runtime, I was genuinely intrigued by it all, and I especially liked the start. However unfortunately I felt that near the end, the quality started to dip considerably.
As for the Unknown Tower:
I hate to say it, but yeah, it was pretty dull. I think the grinding could be improved if there were simply more trainers to fight along the way, not just a few grunts on the bottom floor and a few small boss fights back to back. One thing that I value in a Pokemon game/ROM hack is when grinding your main mons is pretty much not a factor. The challenges and trainers along the way should be enough to get me almost there without being over leveled, rather than fighting the same grindable npc over and over again or running through grass for 30 minutes to an hour. New mons that I have to get on par with everyone else is different, but I don't think I should really need to put too much grind time into my earliest mons if I've been appropriately dividing up battle time against trainers.
Hell, put more content in before the final area that gets you up to that level range if you need to.
I know you've already said that this isn't exactly supposed to be the most visually impressive game out there, but this is supposed to be THE final boss stronghold, and yet it pretty much amounts to a lone simple tower without much innovative design to it. The first floor is basic with a few grunts to fight, a nurse, and a grunt meant for repetitive grinding. The rest are the exact same floor repeated a bunch, a big empty room with an elevator, and a pretty much pitch black room. (There's also the research lab but I forgot about that pretty much as soon as I was out since i wasn't really allowed to explore at all.)
Since this game doesn't have anything like the elite four/champion to end off the game, the usual spectacle of the main games is your ending. Spectacles like Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza at the end of gen 3, Spear Pillar and the Distortion World from gen 4, N's Castle from gen 5, etc.
Obviously you don't have some massive production team behind you like gamefreak, but when the final boss stronghold is comparatively unimpressive compared to areas we've already been like the Silph building, it's an issue. I left there feeling underwhelmed, and that's pretty much it. I'd suggest a bigger building with more trainers, a lot more area variation, and more physical puzzles rather than just choosing numbers until you get it. I don't think anyone would mind you taking the time to make it impressive and interesting, because it would improve the quality many times over.
The Final Battle:
I don't think there was too much of an issue with the final team itself, but when you send out a level 25(?) Mew as the last thing the player ever battles in the game, it just feels kinda lame. Any tension or feeling of challenge gets washed away by that. I understand not wanting to make it too hard, but I think most people got out of the Darkrai fight in a good enough condition to fight a decently high level Mew. Maybe not on level with their team, but at least enough to prevent me from two-shotting it with ease.
The Exposition Dumps:
As an aspiring writer, I get how hard it is to tell a lot of story with limited chances while still keeping everything interesting, and that's even harder for you since you can basically only communicate it through dialogue text boxes. But the thing that killed every shred of my enthusiasm about the game was the seemingly endless streams of text boxes after text boxes telling me an in-depth explanation of the backstory of everything. I found myself holding down the speedup button as hard as I possibly could just to get through all of it faster, and I legitimately even skipped some of it because I just couldn't take it.
Since you really have limited options in the ways you can tell the story, I would suggest trying to spread it out more throughout the game instead of trying to shove it down the throat of the player at the very end. Don't be afraid to introduce bits and pieces of it all earlier, I assure you it won't drag anything down. I think that could greatly improve the actual interest and hype for the end.
Sorry about the pretty massive reply, I guess I had more to say than I thought.
