- 48
- Posts
- 5
- Years
- He/Him
- England
- Seen Mar 15, 2024
Hi again, so - I've beaten the game as far as it goes so far, and I've got quite a lot to say. I'm gonna split this into genuine criticisms, praise, bug reports and suggestions, for your own benefit. If you're already aware of any of these problems, please excuse me.
PRAISES:
CRITCISMS:
BUGS AND FAULTS:
SUGGESTIONS:
Overall, I've had a blast playing this and I can't wait to see what's next. This feels like a breath of fresh air in the metaphorical sub-genre of Kanto Remakes/Rehashes/etc., and I wish you the best of luck with this game's development going forward. If you'd like any suggestions on various novel things such as side quests, I'd be happy to help! That being said, I hope my criticisms help even a little, I apologise if I come off as harsh. Have a great day.
PRAISES:
Spoiler:
As I've previously said, to call this game beautiful would be an understatement. The vibrant colours, the smooth yet not unrealistic art, the only thing I don't really like is some of the characters' eyes, I've always felt that in this particular style they're better just being black. Besides that, there wasn't a moment in this game where I didn't find myself smiling at how gorgeous even the smallest of details looked.
I'm not sure where this game lies on the complication scale in terms of file capacity, but besides one particular route, this is one of the most buttery-smooth games I've ever played via RPG Maker! Despite the lack of a speed-up key, this made the game a joy to play consistently, and even the battles weren't particularly slow.
The changes made to movesets is greatly appreciated, as are the various other touches made to improve each Pokémon - it gives this game a little bit more personality on top of everything else.
I'm not entirely sure why Team Rocket was replaced with Team Astra, but these guys have a lot more personality than just stealing Pokémon for money, and that is a very welcome change, especially with the relevance and presence of legendary Pokémon throughout the story this time around!
Various routes have been changed to have better designs/layouts, in some places longer, some places smaller, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that, though the empty rooms in Mt. Moon did still confuse me. Maybe there's something I'm missing and my memory is poor. Still, I love the new layouts to pretty much everything!
The new rivals have their own distinct personalities and there's so much going on in each location, even when nothing important is happening, you've really managed to make this world feel lived in. I genuinely love talking to all of the NPCs and seeing what they have to say. ESPECIALLY the gym leaders!
The gift Pokémon and general random gifts are always appreciated! Exploration is heavily rewarded in this game and I absolutely love that.
As for side quests, so far, everything looks intriguing, and I would love to see many more in the future.
I'm not sure where this game lies on the complication scale in terms of file capacity, but besides one particular route, this is one of the most buttery-smooth games I've ever played via RPG Maker! Despite the lack of a speed-up key, this made the game a joy to play consistently, and even the battles weren't particularly slow.
The changes made to movesets is greatly appreciated, as are the various other touches made to improve each Pokémon - it gives this game a little bit more personality on top of everything else.
I'm not entirely sure why Team Rocket was replaced with Team Astra, but these guys have a lot more personality than just stealing Pokémon for money, and that is a very welcome change, especially with the relevance and presence of legendary Pokémon throughout the story this time around!
Various routes have been changed to have better designs/layouts, in some places longer, some places smaller, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that, though the empty rooms in Mt. Moon did still confuse me. Maybe there's something I'm missing and my memory is poor. Still, I love the new layouts to pretty much everything!
The new rivals have their own distinct personalities and there's so much going on in each location, even when nothing important is happening, you've really managed to make this world feel lived in. I genuinely love talking to all of the NPCs and seeing what they have to say. ESPECIALLY the gym leaders!
The gift Pokémon and general random gifts are always appreciated! Exploration is heavily rewarded in this game and I absolutely love that.
As for side quests, so far, everything looks intriguing, and I would love to see many more in the future.
CRITCISMS:
Spoiler:
As much as I enjoy the redesigns of pretty much everything, I can't help but find the Pokémon Centres and Pokémarts to be a little jarring, now that the only notable difference between them and other buildings is really the colours, there isn't even a little logo on the side, so if possible, adding a little more detail to those would be cool.
One of my biggest criticisms is that a lot of the indoor areas are so compact that it honestly feels rather claustrophobic at times. I know it's not drastically less than how they are in the official games, but in some locations it feels like I barely have any space to explore.
Sora is cool, but she randomly showed up at the Nugget Bridge and then disappeared again, despite clearly going in the same direction I was meant to go, so I'm not sure what's happening with her, but it's kinda hard to keep her in mind when she's barely shown up at all so far.
A little more direction in particular places (such as the Meltan Quest like I already said) would be appreciated.
One of my biggest criticisms is that a lot of the indoor areas are so compact that it honestly feels rather claustrophobic at times. I know it's not drastically less than how they are in the official games, but in some locations it feels like I barely have any space to explore.
Sora is cool, but she randomly showed up at the Nugget Bridge and then disappeared again, despite clearly going in the same direction I was meant to go, so I'm not sure what's happening with her, but it's kinda hard to keep her in mind when she's barely shown up at all so far.
A little more direction in particular places (such as the Meltan Quest like I already said) would be appreciated.
BUGS AND FAULTS:
Spoiler:
Collision on certain objects is very wonky. I can't walk up to fridges, or alongside beds. Not sure if that was done on purpose. In the Green Roof House in Pewter City, you can walk right onto the sink as well.
As soon as I get my starter, I can walk down from Pallet Town into the section break thing, and even go further down into Route 21(?). On top of that, a random NPC gifts me all three starters from the new region with no further explanation or importance. I'm not sure why these starters are already in here when we barely even know anything about them, but regardless, perhaps this area should be blocked off until the later game..? I can't see any reason why it'd be open, especially considering that we can't get Pokémon strong enough to face encounters on that route as of yet.
Defeating Team Astra Grunts in Diglett Cave resets the music back to the overworld route track rather than the cave track that played beforehand.
Despite the rest of the game being perfectly smooth, walking around on Route 4 has MAJOR lag for no apparent reason, and it immediately goes away as soon as I move into Cerulean.
Acquiring the berries from the Old Man in Cerulean City crashes the game after the Petaya Berries are given.
And the worst bug of all (I hope it's a bug, because if not, it's a very bad feature), is that after beating the water gym I get completely soft-locked in an infinite loop of the "Thank you for playing" speech that just continues after a few seconds or after I press any button. I can't pause, move, or anything, only hit enter to progress the text each time. It won't even let me save my game.
The rest of these faults are grammar mistakes. This isn't every single mistake in the game, just the ones I noticed and had enough time to process before writing down. A lot of the mistakes I don't point out here can be found in Mt. Moon, Route 25 and the lighthouse.
- The first trainer in Route 2 has a spelling error in their text, "i'm" rather than "I'm".
- Xander, the gym leader, says "The names Xander" rather than "The name's Xander".
- Two Astra Grunts say "Your a long way from a Pokémon Center!", rather than "You're".
- The Astra Grunts you face in a double battle in Route 2 both say the same line.
- Andy calls the grunts "wierdos" outside Mt. Moon, rather than "weirdos".
- There are some spacing errors in Looker's dialogue upon arriving at Cerulean.
- One of the trainers in the water gym say "Don0t" instead of "Don't".
The following NPCs all finish sentences in their text without a period:
> (IN THE PEWTER CITY MUSEUM) The boyfriend, the kid who complains about the teacher talking too much, and the blonde guy near the top right corner.
> Brock, "Welcome Trainer".
> The cop initially blocking Mt. Moon, "Maybe come back later".
> The yellow guy outside the Mt. Moon Fossil Lab.
> The biker by the daycare.
As soon as I get my starter, I can walk down from Pallet Town into the section break thing, and even go further down into Route 21(?). On top of that, a random NPC gifts me all three starters from the new region with no further explanation or importance. I'm not sure why these starters are already in here when we barely even know anything about them, but regardless, perhaps this area should be blocked off until the later game..? I can't see any reason why it'd be open, especially considering that we can't get Pokémon strong enough to face encounters on that route as of yet.
Defeating Team Astra Grunts in Diglett Cave resets the music back to the overworld route track rather than the cave track that played beforehand.
Despite the rest of the game being perfectly smooth, walking around on Route 4 has MAJOR lag for no apparent reason, and it immediately goes away as soon as I move into Cerulean.
Acquiring the berries from the Old Man in Cerulean City crashes the game after the Petaya Berries are given.
And the worst bug of all (I hope it's a bug, because if not, it's a very bad feature), is that after beating the water gym I get completely soft-locked in an infinite loop of the "Thank you for playing" speech that just continues after a few seconds or after I press any button. I can't pause, move, or anything, only hit enter to progress the text each time. It won't even let me save my game.
The rest of these faults are grammar mistakes. This isn't every single mistake in the game, just the ones I noticed and had enough time to process before writing down. A lot of the mistakes I don't point out here can be found in Mt. Moon, Route 25 and the lighthouse.
- The first trainer in Route 2 has a spelling error in their text, "i'm" rather than "I'm".
- Xander, the gym leader, says "The names Xander" rather than "The name's Xander".
- Two Astra Grunts say "Your a long way from a Pokémon Center!", rather than "You're".
- The Astra Grunts you face in a double battle in Route 2 both say the same line.
- Andy calls the grunts "wierdos" outside Mt. Moon, rather than "weirdos".
- There are some spacing errors in Looker's dialogue upon arriving at Cerulean.
- One of the trainers in the water gym say "Don0t" instead of "Don't".
The following NPCs all finish sentences in their text without a period:
> (IN THE PEWTER CITY MUSEUM) The boyfriend, the kid who complains about the teacher talking too much, and the blonde guy near the top right corner.
> Brock, "Welcome Trainer".
> The cop initially blocking Mt. Moon, "Maybe come back later".
> The yellow guy outside the Mt. Moon Fossil Lab.
> The biker by the daycare.
SUGGESTIONS:
Spoiler:
To reiterate my suggestion regarding the Meltan Quest, I think that, if we're going by the Pokémon GO Mechanics, after acquiring 400 candies from 40 total Meltan encounters, an NPC or a building should open up where-in you can trade in all 400 candies for a special item, which can then be given to a Meltan to evolve it into Melmetal. Having 40 copies of the same mythical Pokémon would be ridiculous, but this side quest would certainly be worth it. The candies should be given out for defeating or catching each Meltan, and if there will be one that respawns eventually, then there's no reason not to remove the item drops from running away from the encounters.
I'm not sure what your intentions are for making overworld encounters drop so many items and EXP candies, but at the very least, I strongly suggest you stop the encounters from dropping said items after fleeing from those fights, because otherwise people can pretty much infinitely grind candies and various other items without putting any effort in. Tedious, sure, but it could potentially break the game.
On the topic of side quests, I feel like one per city/town would be cool, maybe, or maybe a little more than that if you can. It depends on what you can do, really, but if I understand what you've already said correctly, then you like the idea of including more side quests, so I feel like having at least one per major location would be good enough as a goal. Perhaps for Viridian City, there could be a side quest involving the Trainer School, for example?
A speed-up key would be cool. The game is more than smooth enough, so it doesn't necessarily NEED it, but at least giving the player the ability to make things faster for the slower points, especially during battles, is always a positive.
It'd be nice to see the female character get an upgraded look to blend with the surroundings, alongside the male character. She feels kind-of out of place and shoved aside.
I'm not sure what your intentions are for making overworld encounters drop so many items and EXP candies, but at the very least, I strongly suggest you stop the encounters from dropping said items after fleeing from those fights, because otherwise people can pretty much infinitely grind candies and various other items without putting any effort in. Tedious, sure, but it could potentially break the game.
On the topic of side quests, I feel like one per city/town would be cool, maybe, or maybe a little more than that if you can. It depends on what you can do, really, but if I understand what you've already said correctly, then you like the idea of including more side quests, so I feel like having at least one per major location would be good enough as a goal. Perhaps for Viridian City, there could be a side quest involving the Trainer School, for example?
A speed-up key would be cool. The game is more than smooth enough, so it doesn't necessarily NEED it, but at least giving the player the ability to make things faster for the slower points, especially during battles, is always a positive.
It'd be nice to see the female character get an upgraded look to blend with the surroundings, alongside the male character. She feels kind-of out of place and shoved aside.
Overall, I've had a blast playing this and I can't wait to see what's next. This feels like a breath of fresh air in the metaphorical sub-genre of Kanto Remakes/Rehashes/etc., and I wish you the best of luck with this game's development going forward. If you'd like any suggestions on various novel things such as side quests, I'd be happy to help! That being said, I hope my criticisms help even a little, I apologise if I come off as harsh. Have a great day.
Last edited:
