Okay. What I say is going to be harsh, but I'm not doing this to be mean, or to dampen your spirit. Some of the ideas you have are genuinely creative, and I think that if you really focus on them and put in a lot of hard work, this game can be saved.
But as it is now...I'm sorry I have to say this, but your beta is so deeply flawed as to be rendered not just rather bland and uninspired, but
almost unplayable.
First, I'll address things relating to the information you present in the thread rather than in the beta, starting with those ideas that I like. :) The concept of there being parts of a region we've never gotten to explore before is really, really interesting - the concept of this northern area of Kanto, as well as the Sinjoh area (which we've only seen briefly) is really fun. What would be similar, what would be different? There's a lot of potential there for exploration and discovery, and I think that if you did more with this idea, you could have a pretty solid foundation for a hack on your hands. Also, the concept of journeying becasue you want to be a Gym Leader is pretty cool. What if there are certain things future Gym Leaders have to do that would help make your character's journey stand out from that of a typical Trainer? There's real potential to explore some unique avenues if you let your imagination wander, and in future betas I look forward to see what sort of concepts you come up with :)
My thoughts on the starters: The idea of a weaker Pokemon that evolves into a Legendary has been done before, and while it's not a concept I like particularly, it's certainly serviceable. What I find a bit iffy about this trio is that they're all in the exact same pose and have identical body shapes, which doesn't make them feel very individual. Even Plusle and Minun, who have identical body shapes and differ even
less visibly than your starter trio, have their own poses that distinguish them from each other and let their individual personalities shine trough. With them all standing in the exact same way with the exact same expressions, Ampidgey feels just like Moltucan, who feels just like Artitucan. The designs don't seem bad, but I think they'd stand out more as pokemon if they each had a pose to call their own, even if their body shape didn't really change.
Like others have said, the map's not that attractive; but since I assume it's a mock-up to give us a rough idea and
not something that's actually in the game, it serves its purpose well in showing us what to expect :)
The rival's name options can be changed quickly and easily with A-Text (there are other methods, but this is easiest). Just search for GREEN, than GARY, and so on, and enter in the replacement text. Easy as :)
Now, to critique the beta:
When I play a ROM hack, one of the very first things I do is to take a walk around the first map and talk to the NPCs. This is a way for me to gauge the amount of effort that was put into the project - if I can recognize parts of the map as originally belonging to Pallet Town/Littleroot Town/whatever; or if the NPCs give me a serious case of deja vu in terms of their dialogue and/or actions (in terms of those with scripts), the thought that occurs to me is "this hacker is lazy." Although these sorts of things may not
seem to be important in the grand scheme of your game's plot, they actually are quite essential facets of world-building. How distracting would it be if you were playing a hack supposedly set in a foreign region (or the far flung northern area of a known region, as is the case here), and the town's local fat man parrots the same lines about technology being incredible we've heard in Red/Blue and FR/LG? Or if we find ourselves in what is supposedly a brand new town; only to find the lab is in the exact same place, and Oak's script works in exactly the same way (minus parts of is dialogue)? It's distracting and doesn't really allow us to get immersed in your world; or to really experience it the way you'd probably like us to. By not changing these things, not only are you presenting an image of "lazy hacker" to anyone who happens to play your game (which might not always be justified, of course, but it won't stop the thoughts from coming), but you're undermining the player's ability to connect to the Sinjoh region in any meaningful way. Instead, we just get the vibe that your region is a bland retread of places we've been before; and feel little impetus to journey further into your world.
Anyway, to move on from a general complaint to more specific issues - there were some repeated errors I kept noticing as I played your beta. I took screen-shots of the first instances I saw of these, but these images are by no means the only manifestations of these errors. I'll discuss them in rough order of their severity; with the game-breaking script and flag errors saved for last.
Of course, the first thing I noticed was your title screen. Title screens don't have to be beautiful - we're not all skilled with tilemaps/palette editing/all that good stuff that goes into making the most beautiful title screens - but even the most basic of edits should look clean and presentable; to give your hack the best possible face it can put towards the world. And I wouldn't have any complaints with this one here, were it not for the garbled bit of pixel mess in the lower third or so of your screen. It takes away from the visual appeal of your title screen, and looks a little unprofessional, but it's a very minor error and whether you fix it or not can be your decision.
I'm not sure why this happened, but after I named my rival, I was presented with this image, where the sprite's colors had gone a bit wonky (Oak's granddaughter has one hell of a rash, it seems!). I'm guessing this is some sort of palette error, but I have no experience hacking Fire Red, so I can't be positive. This probably should be fixed, but if you can't find a solution it's not the end of the world if it's left alone.
"PROF. OAK is in NEWPORT TOWN.
To get there, just take the
tunnel in the north of town!"
Grammar and spelling errors. These are the sorts of things that may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of your hack, but just like leaving NPCs to spout the same lines they've been saying for a good decade now, bad spelling and grammar makes your hack look unfinished and unpolished. I can deal with this issue if it's complemented by great proficiency in other areas (such as scripting, mapping, etc), as with many of the best Spanish hacks; but in a hack that doesn't have those to fall back on, making sure your game's dialogue is proofread - either by Microsoft Word or a similar program (or even better, a beta tester with a good grasp of the English language) - will gave your game a professional sheen :) This is something that
should be dealt with; but once again, if you improve enough in other areas I can overlook it.
Tile errors. There were a myriad of these scattered about the maps I played on - this was just the first one I happened to encounter. What a tile error is, exactly, is when the wrong tile is used in the wrong area. For example, in this image, we have a cliff that starts to turn right next to where my character is standing. But rather than continuing the outline to fit the contours of your cliff,you've just let it end abruptly. It looks unfinished and unnatural - the clifftop tiles aren't meant to be used in that way; there should always be a cliff edge between them and the grass. Look at some official Pokemon maps and see how the cliffs, grass, sand, tree and other tiles are placed and arranged. What tile is used on corners? What tiles are used when one type of ground segues into another? By observing and studying your source material, you can get a better feel for the tiles and how they work, and both repair these errors and hopefully prevent them in the future :)
Continuity errors. By walking into the gatehouse on the right, I somehow exited through the gatehouse on the left. How is this possible? How can I go from grass and greenery and what is obviously a rainy area, to ice and snow and cold; without any natural, gradual shift in the landscape? If you want to imply this gatehouse takes you quite a distance, it would be better to make it longer; like the Underground Path in the original game. Otherwise, we're left with...well...this. Also, another major error of t his type I noticed was with you cave in the northern area of this town - you enter through a cave tunnel, but spawn on top of a ladder. How does this happen? (Also, how does what look like an enclosed cave turn out to be a grassy path when you actually spawn into it?) This might not seem like a big deal, but it is - it hampers your world-building, and makes Northern Kanto and Sinjoh look random, slapped together, and like little thought was put into how it works as a viable, realistic landmass. An important part of world-building is to make us believe in this place - and with crazy leaps of logic like this, we really can't.
Gamebreaking Errors:
Here's were things get really serious, alas. The first town, for some reason, has grass in it - grass I can walk into, explore, and...find wild pokemon in. Pokemon I can't battle
because I don't have a pokemon. Also, we're able to waltz right through the reality warping gatehouse and unto the snowy route without a pokemon; where walking on the snowy ground will spawn battles we can't do a thing about. Broken bridges are obnoxious, admittedly, but if you want to keep grass and a gatehouse to an area where monsters spawn right there in the first town, you need to put SOMETHING there to keep us from getting to them.
Flag/script errors. There's a Pokemart in the first town. By walking in there and talking to the clerk, he handed me Oak's Parcel, despite my not having a Pokemon and having never even seen Oak in the first place. Once I got to Newport Town and triggered the "Oak comes and takes me to his lab" script, things proceeded just like they do in Fire Red . But because I had Oak's Parcel...when I spoke to him once he was done speaking and before I picked a Pokemon, the Oak's Parcel and Pokedex script started up. Rival (who may as well be Blue, considering she speaks all his lines and has no personality of her own) walks offscreen and still talks to me, Oak tells me my new pokemon is enjoying being with me (WHAT new pokemon?), and gives me a Pokedex. When I walk over to his table to pick my Pokemon....I get told "That's OAK's last POKeMON!"
...Because all these scripts were left in/because I was able to get Oak's Parcel so early, I was forever kept from picking a Starter. This is where I quit playing because I hadn't saved and I was just too frustrated ^^'
Now, I know I've bombarded you with a lot of text and a lot to think about, but I once again want to repeat that I did not do this to be mean: this is constructive criticism, which I took the time and effort to type out because you have some promise and I want to help you out :) Although your beta needs a lot of work as it is right now, you've got a good idea at its heart and I think that if you put a bit more thought and elbow grease into your game, your next beta could be something special :) I hope you don't give up and keep working at this project, and I look forward to your next update ^^ Show you're not a "lazy hacker" and knock my socks off! :)
