AGJ Critics' Choice Pokémon Round Edition: The Redux

[SpartaLazor]

April Game Jam 2019 Critics' Choice

Pokémon Round Edition was a submission for the April Game Jam 2019 and was chosen as the favourite game by the critics!
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Introduction

Have you ever wanted to play a Pokémon game that featured only the Pokémon that were round-ish in shape? Yeah, me neither. But too bad! You're getting that game anyway! And now it's the Redux!

Pokémon Round Edition is a short game made with RPG Maker XP and Pokémon Essentials that takes you on a small adventure around the extremely circular Roundius region on an epic fetch quest that just doesn't seem to end! You'll meet tons of mostly round Pokémon - along with the occasional rock monster and dragon - battle many Trainers and ultimately face against the evil Team O, whose evilness is debatable. It's super exciting! Well, maybe...

Features

• 
  The Game has been re-worked and re-released with more polish.
  A somewhat decent roster of roundish Pokémon!
  A nice custom battle UI that took me way too long to do!
  Increased Shiny Odds (1/128-ish) for those who like sparkly things!

Download
https://mega.nz/file/YkhQ3L4Y#0wYvf6HU8p74BklKy8YbSa4Fuz05KJROdqhOoKWl3DQ

Screenshots!

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Development Team

SpartaLazor - Developer

Moral Support

Abrahan

Credits

Made with Pokemon Essentials by
-Poccil, FlameGuru, and Maruno

-JoeyKobalt = RSE Shiny Animation Graphics (https://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/pokemonrubysapphire/sheet/96766/)
-Brylark = Mega Glalie Sprites (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-sprite-project-read-1st-post-release-v1-1-on-post-3240.3486712/)
-Layell = Mega Tyranitar Sprites (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-sprite-project-read-1st-post-release-v1-1-on-post-3240.3486712/)
-Ploaj = Gen VI Item Icons (https://www.spriters-resource.com/3ds/pokemonomegarubyalphasapphire/sheet/64167/)
-NxKun = Gen VI Item Icons

 

[suphaninjap221]

can't wait to play this!!!

 

[Marin]

I was a critic during the April Game Jam 2019, and here's my personal review of the game.

Mapping

Almost every single map felt unique and was fun to navigate. Aside from the first cave, I never really thought there were too many wild Pokémon or trainers.


Gameplay

Although you get a Mega Glalie very early on, it's not actually overpowered in major battles. I even managed to black out to the self-insert Sparta trainer, but beyond that there were some quite challenging battles that gave you a run for your money. Despite the difficulty, it didn't take away from the experience of traveling the region.
A particularly fascinating mechanic was the card game. I believe it's a stock game in Pokémon Essentials, but I've never seen it used before and it was really awesome to see it in this game. While normally it might be out of place, this game itself went for a laid-back not-so-serious approach and I think this was a worthy addition.


Story

The main plot was a fun nod to the original games, where you have to fetch an item for the professor and bring it back to him. Only this time, someone else got there first and took it with them throughout the whole region with all the consequences. It made for a fun and unique adventure through a region that was small but not too small to bore you.


Inclusion of theme

There were a lot of references to both the circular theme and the fangame community/game development itself. Although they were rather intrusive, they were pretty fun to come across.

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Thank you for participating in the April Game Jam 2019! We enjoyed playing your game and hope that you had equal fun creating it!

 

[Vendily]

I was a Critic during the April Fan Game Jam 2019, and this is my personal review.

Mapping
This game really hits that Gen 3 mapping style. Each map is compact enough that you generally can't stand in place and not see any landmarks or the like you can travel to.

Gameplay
This game plays just like a main series game really, not that that's a bad thing.
I found some of the battles to be pretty easy, and most trainers only have one or two Pokémon. The difficulty might be skewed a bit though as the other games have much harder battles generally.

Story
One thing to point out is that this game lampshades itself quite a bit. Our task is to go to the next town to pick up some Pokéballs from the next town for the professor, Dr. Professor. This task turns into a wild goose chase, as it turns out that the package had always managed to end up in the next town over. I don't really have much to say about the story, it stands up for itself, and NPCs will explicitly remind you of the next plot related task, which is great if you need to put the game down and come back to it at a later time.

Inclusion of theme
Round Edition really goes far with the theme as every element of the game ties into it one way or another. Every obtainable Pokémon is round in shape, and the region itself, Roundius, is a circle. The game make you travel in a circle to get through the whole of the plot, even the Team O grunts, Kassy and Kenny, introduce themselves with circular reasoning (They're bad guys because they do bad stuff, and they do bad stuff because they are bad guys).

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Thanks for participating in the April Fan Game Jam 2019! We enjoyed playing your game and hope you had fun making it!

 

[juliorain]

I was a critic during the April Game Jam 2019, and here's my personal review of the game.

Pokemon Round

Plot

The whole in-game universe of Pokemon Round was that of lethargy, anticlimax, irony, and breaking the fourth wall.

It's the slice of life misadventure where you go on an epic journey only to be thwarted by a big "meh" at the end.

While on the surface is annoying and characters would comment on other characters, the comedy on it is great! It spins the stereotypical grand-adventure plot on its head. At times the comedy drags or doesn't really work with the context, like in the graveyard but really hits good moments like the rooftop scene where you fight the leader of team O. It parodies bad map design and bad game plots because the entire plot is a fetch quest-turned-regionwide misadventure. You do help people along the way, in albeit banal ways, like the challenge the Jim leader or deliver mail. All while of giving some level of realism that is fairly taboo in a mainseries or fangame like the extremely banal recreation room, or kitchen at the Team O HQ in a standard office building, and not some nefarious, futuristic, scifi citadel.

Mapping

Routes were a little sloppy. While I like the overall routes had a lot of diverging paths with one direct route the huge amount of grass made going to get those items tedious. Since pokemon were so high level it really was a gamble about what you might encounter. All were defeatible but it still was tedious to go through so much grass.

Caves were well done. They gave a sense of mystery and I like that. They were a little long but weren't too long that I feared whiting out.

Cities were done well, except for the town with the mailman. The cave randomly placed there reminded me of a misplaced Fallarboar despite it not being in a mountainous context.

The graveyard had a lot of issues with, namely the huge, and seemingly infinite waterfalls that distracted from the scene and made everything feel as though I was about to get washed away. Since I didn't have surf I was glad that there weren't any water routes in the game.

Gameplay

The game plays like a normal fangame. There are pokemon available to capture, items and trainers are readily available.

Nothing is too hard. You get some interesting pokemon on the first route. I was a little confused how my Starter Azumarill had different moves than the wild Marill/Azumarill but, I'm guessing that was a benefit of starting with a fully evolved pokemon?

At any rate, the Jim battle wasn't too awful and got mega glalie (which I wound up rarely using). Got trade stones which is nice. I was a little confused why there weren't any leaf stones for my gloom or why it had such atrocious moves, and instead I had to give it an eviolite. There were a lot of healers at major checkpoints, but they were distanced far enough away I wound up backtracking through the routes anyway. Midway through the game, the region started to look the same: large patches of grass, trainers funneling your way.

I think at that point I was completing the game because I felt obligated to from the competition and not exactly curious about where the game was heading, especially since the fetch quest was a meme at that point.

Relevance to the theme:
The game featured a lot of literal elements: round pokemon, a circular map, and Team O, etc.

 

[AquaNinja99]

This game was really good. It was worth my time. Plus the ending really warmed my heart. Thank you to whoever made this fan game.