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Thanks so much for making this game. It has easily been the most fun I've had completing a Pokémon hack. The variety of teams and Pokémon, the diverse quests and rewards, modern mechanics, and quality of life features really make Hoenn feel especially enjoyable. It feels like there's dozens of answers to each challenge, so I'm already excited for a second playthrough with a more unique team. Excellent work.
Here are a few things that stood out to me while playing that could potentially be adjusted.
Difficulty Curve
The game overall feels heavily frontloaded when it comes to difficulty. I think I spent around the same amount of time getting from the beginning to 3 badges as I did going from badge 3 to beating Steven. Early on, each major battle felt dangerous and required me to get creative with my mons and movesets and decisions. One unlucky crit or a misclick could lead to a wipe. Mid- to late-game, it was much easier to stick to one balanced team and cruise through most battles as long as I was a little careful with my decisions. I found myself imposing restrictions upon myself to add to the difficulty, banning Z-moves, gems, mega evolutions, and 600+ base stat mons (with the exception of bringing Dragapult to the E4).
Additionally, a few specific battles felt particularly easy for their place in the game, namely Norman, Juan, and Wallace. Even blind, Norman nearly gets swept by Lucario with a decent held item. Juan and Wallace fall victim to a problem already inherent in Emerald, that being the abundance of Water trainers. Short of changing their typing, there may not be a fix to this one. However, Roserade was able to Petal Dance her way through several grunts, admin, and Archie battles with a little coverage to assist her. It may just have been my particular team and luck, but these are the battles that stuck out to me as being pushovers. I'll re-evaluate after my second playthrough with a different team.
Another factor that contributed to the difficulty waning was the amount of money available to the player. In the first few routes, I was doing a Professor Oak's challenge and found myself abusing Pickup mons to sell items to be able to afford enough Pokéballs. Money felt like it was at a premium. After the first few gyms and quests, I never thought about money again even though I utilized the grinder quite frequently.
Additional QOL Features
Without sounding too greedy, here is my personal wishlist for future features:
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PC in grinder house to make leveling up multiple Pokémon faster
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More box space for mons. I know this has been mentioned and may be impossible due to memory restrictions, but I thought I'd include it anyway since I filled my PC to the brim. Catching all sorts of new mons that I had no experience with as a Gen 3 pleb was a big part of the fun.
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The ability to register multiple key items. This is a feature I've enjoyed in other hacks that I think could benefit this one tremendously. Having to go into the menu and tab over just to get on and off the bike feels clunky in an otherwise incredibly streamlined experience.
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More informative battle display. Again, this is coming from someone whose experience really is limited to the first three generations. I found myself opening countless PokemonDB tabs just to figure out mons' types, abilities' effects, and moves' categories. Even just an unobtrusive type icon by the HP meter of each mon (á la Radical Red) would go a long way towards helping oldheads feel less lost. Also a physical/special/status icon by moves' types when selecting a move would be super helpful.
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Documentation. Again, mentioned and addressed, but it is the thing I found myself wanting the most throughout the playthrough. In fact, I ended up making pretty detailed documentation for each major trainer the best that I could discern.
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More item tabs in inventory. With all the added held items, crystals, mega stones, and evolution items, scrolling through a hundred items just to find the Life Orb can get tedious really quickly. Even just separating out Held Items would be amazing, though having a separate tab for stones & crystals and medicines would be incredible.
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Shiny gem changes. I am probably in the minority on this, but the Shiny Gem makes the shiny rate far too high in my opinion. By the end of the playthrough, I had three full boxes of shiny Pokémon, which made encountering them feel much less special. Honestly, it just felt like work when going through any encounter-heavy area, as I would feel obligated to catch the shiny before proceeding. Looking back, if I had known I would receive this item as the reward for a battle, I would have skipped it. I didn't like the way it permanently affected my relationship with collecting Pokémon. Even just an option to turn off the gem or reduce its rate would be appreciated.
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Fewer running/biking restrictions, i.e. being able to ride the bike or at least run indoors, on Fortree bridges, in Pacifidlog, etc.
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Having both bikes at once. One bike, switch between Acro and Mach with the L button. Happiness.
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Reusable repellent item. This one represents more of a major design change, but a welcome one in my opinion. Needing to frequently return to purchase more stacks of Super Repels feels like more of a weight than anything added to the difficulty or challenge of the game.
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Flying to any location. This one is admittedly the laziest of the bunch, but going back and forth to Meteor Falls and areas in the sea gets pretty taxing.
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Missing items? It's entirely possible that I missed them, but there were a few items that I never came across in documentation or as any quest reward. One notable one was the Wide Lens.
Graphical Glitches
Throughout the playthrough, I noticed a few small graphical and sprite related bugs. The ones that I remember:
- Illumise's sprite in the PC seems to be missing a tile in the top left
- The bottom left and right of Mirage tower overlap the player when you walk through their tile
- Spirit Shackle seems to glitch out a bit, with it's right side missing the chain graphic while it flashes
These all come from a genuine place of respect and appreciation for your work. I can already tell this is a game I am bound to play a dozen more times from start to finish, and only want a game I enjoy so much to be even better. Even if none of these changes were made, it would still be 11/10.
Thanks so much again for all your effort. :D