[Completed] The First Journey & Red's Journey West v.10

[AenaonDusky]

Just freaking amazing game great job you did there

Gotta say, the game is awesome. That's the true story of professor Oak XD

Thank you both, glad you enjoyed the game.

Hello everyone, please note that a pretty significant update incorporating a lot of feedback, adding areas, refining certain parts of the game, and updating the ending, is coming out soon. If you are a new player, it is advised that you wait for the new version. Old link is still up for those who can't wait.

 

[AenaonDusky]

Hello everyone, Version 4 is here!

This is a pretty big update. Here is a short list of the most important stuff:

- 13 new Quests "League/Personal Missions"
- New dungeons
- A revamped ending
- Text overhaul
- Better cutscene flow
- Better pacing
- Quality of life changes
- New music
- Speedup fixed
- Crashing bug fixed
- All gym leaders except for Sam's friends are available for rematch
- A unique story event encounter
- Two optional areas north of Cerulean Cape
- All cutscenes are now proper cutscenes (no more black screens except for 2 short cases)
- New Graphics
- NPC reaction to certain events and changes
- New Tamer Leader OWs and Trainer sprites
- Optional secret Boss
- Level and Tamer teams rebalance
- Backtracking improved, various options to assist overworld movement implemented
- Random encounter disabler item added
- Bicycle speed increased
- Pidgeot Taxi available in Pallet too
- Unlimited pokeballs available after establishment of Silph
- More expressive NPC movement during cutscenes
- More healing spots and chances to heal
- Better respawn handling
- Added EXP ALL
- Date discrepancies fixed
- Unavailable mons like Nidoran now available

We hope you enjoy this new update!
Play all the way till the end and get a glimpse of things to come!

Have fun!

 

[Ditto_Overlords]

A scarily well-done game that

Spoiler:

made me want want to cut Sam's limbs off and leave him in the volcano, Anakin/Vader style!

If a future update could indicate which event leads to the "point of no return," that would be awesome, I accidentally locked myself out of the optional secret boss by saving at the wrong moment! 😅
On a somewhat related note, it was funny to see

Spoiler:

Sam use the Tauros after I stopped using that way back when it was level 14!

After taking a look at the warning feature list of the other title, I think I'll be putting off any returns to this world until/if Unraveled Paths gets updated, thank you for putting this together!

 

[AenaonDusky]

A scarily well-done game

Thanks a lot for your review!

If a future update could indicate which event leads to the "point of no return," that would be awesome, I accidentally locked myself out of the optional secret boss by saving at the wrong moment! 😅
On a somewhat related note, it was funny to see

Oh, sorry to hear that, I thought the indication was explicit enough in the form of Sam's words and how the events had built up. Any suggestions?

After taking a look at the warning feature list of the other title

Haha, hopefully you will have a pleasant experience shortly!

 

[Ditto_Overlords]

Figuring out which was the "definitely final dungeon" option was tricky for me because it felt like Fuji was being built up as the last opponent to face, with the notebooks and close call at the docks.

Having Sam briefly lean on the fourth wall before "the point of no return," would be one suggestion. With the particular character he demonstrates, Sam could express anticipation at being one step shy of bringing the world into a new era, should he literally and metaphorically continue down the route he is traveling.

In a similar vein, an alternate prompt could be to have Sam muse on whether to spend effort on confronting Fuji, with how close Sam is to achieving his goal at that point.

Thanks again for the game!

 

[AenaonDusky]

Figuring out which was the "definitely final dungeon" option was tricky for me because it felt like Fuji was being built up as the last opponent to face, with the notebooks and close call at the docks.

Having Sam briefly lean on the fourth wall before "the point of no return," would be one suggestion. With the particular character he demonstrates, Sam could express anticipation at being one step shy of bringing the world into a new era, should he literally and metaphorically continue down the route he is traveling.

In a similar vein, an alternate prompt could be to have Sam muse on whether to spend effort on confronting Fuji, with how close Sam is to achieving his goal at that point.

Thanks again for the game!

Got it, I will get around to implementing suggestion no2 after the main game's first episode has dropped.

 

[Ditto_Overlords]

Got it, I will get around to implementing suggestion no2 after the main game's first episode has dropped.

Neat!

Thanks again for making the game in the first place!

 

[AenaonDusky]

Version 4.4 is now out. This is the last version before the postgame comes out, assuming no major bug suddenly appears or something.
This version fully supports the ending mod by RadarsPJ, the link to which can be found in the thread.
Changelog:

Spoiler:

- Made the game fully compatible with PJs alternate ending mod, now the game WONT autosave at the ending.
- corrected a few typos
- Fixed Oak's late-game classroom sprite
- Sam now warns the player that past a certain point, there's no return (also comments on seeking out Fuji if he hasnt been found yet)
- Put a warning up before the ending to avoid saving, but player is prompted to manually save now instead
- Ending music replaced, and is therefore YT and stream friendly now.
- Credits music too
- Shortened credits roll, big list gave people crashes
- as per request, made all event Pokemon encounters PROMPT to save after battle, rather than autosave

 

[JoePikaFireGreen]

Now I'll be trying this with the mod. Tonight I am playing the game again, and since I came across the mod, I'll try it too. 😍😍

Already played a version of the game, although I forgot most of the gameplay, I will be witnessing the fixes and changes to the game. 😍

Thanks. 😉

"Does Samuel Oak remember Ash Ketchum? he met him as a child(Sam) in the Pokémon 4Celebi movie."

 

[.hack]

Looks incredible, keep up the great work! :))

 

[JoePikaFireGreen]

This version of Agatha reminds me of ABBA's Agnetha... They looks a bit alike.

 

[AenaonDusky]

Now I'll be trying this with the mod. Tonight I am playing the game again, and since I came across the mod, I'll try it too. 😍😍

Already played a version of the game, although I forgot most of the gameplay, I will be witnessing the fixes and changes to the game. 😍

Thanks. 😉

"Does Samuel Oak remember Ash Ketchum? he met him as a child(Sam) in the Pokémon 4Celebi movie."

Have fun! You'll like it for sure. Since the games almost always ignore anime canon, there is no consideration for the movie here. This game mostly draws from beta and gen 1-2 game elements.

Looks incredible, keep up the great work! :))

Thank you, postgame is coming soon :O

 

[JoePikaFireGreen]

Yes I know that, also Oak of the animé doesn't look evil 😂 I don't know why I stated that random sentence here.

Genius storyline. I finished the game, few minutes ago, that was my second gameplay after a long time. I am excited for the postgame shown in the end of the game.
Now after TFJ, try and convince me that Team Rocket are evil. 😂
If that was to be made by Game Freak, a lot of things in the Pokémon core games would make sense suddenly.

 

[FL]

When I received an e-mail, I can't find the sender in Viridian. I don't know if is on Villa or Forest, so I searched on both.

A: Evolution: Levelup only,

I strongly recommend you to change this text, maybe adding an example. When I initially read this, I thought that Graveler can't evolve, so I avoid buying a Geodude. In fact, they can evolve, but at higher level.

 

[AenaonDusky]

When I received an e-mail, I can't find the sender in Viridian. I don't know if is on Villa or Forest, so I searched on both.


I strongly recommend you to change this text, maybe adding an example. When I initially read this, I thought that Graveler can't evolve, so I avoid buying a Geodude. In fact, they can evolve, but at higher level.

Hey FL, thanks for playing (also thanks for your resource contributions over the years)
As it pertains to the e-mail, it's the small abandoned house where you need to surf to, on the left-hand side, right before Route 22.
Keep in mind these abandoned houses you might have stumbled upon before, for the next set of locations.

Got it, I will change the text to make it clear that all mons evolve by leveling up.

The postgame that features the entire Johto Region and follows Red's journey to the West will be out around next month if all goes well, so keep your savefile once you've gotten to the end!

 

[MastaKlr]

finished the game, and I feel kinda bad for a certain girl

 

[FL]

Hey FL, thanks for playing (also thanks for your resource contributions over the years)
As it pertains to the e-mail, it's the small abandoned house where you need to surf to, on the left-hand side, right before Route 22.
Keep in mind these abandoned houses you might have stumbled upon before, for the next set of locations.

Got it, I will change the text to make it clear that all mons evolve by leveling up.

The postgame that features the entire Johto Region and follows Red's journey to the West will be out around next month if all goes well, so keep your savefile once you've gotten to the end!

Thanks! I didn't notice the notebook! I probably guessed that this object was something I already checked before the e-mail.

I found some bugs, especially tile errors. I gonna make a bigger post soon.

 

[FL]

I completed the game. Overall was a good game, but it can be a great one if you fix some problems.

GOOD POINTS

The story was the best story that I had seen on a Pokémon fangames, congratulations! The creation of several things are explained, to big details like the legendary birds to even the smaller ones, like the fences on route 13. The characterization was very good! Oaks sounds a lot like a very strategic academic. The new (or old!?) personalities on existing characters are very neat. The end sequence was awesome. It reminds me Medabots (reversed in a point).

The music remixes are very good! My favorites are the gang leader theme, the bicycle theme and Silph theme.


POINTS TO IMPROVE

Few healing points. Until late game, there are very few parts that you can heal for free. At start, before Lavender, there is no healing point. I didn't know and I spend good part of my items/hp training/catching wild pokémon, letting me with a hard time at this. I almost gave up playing this game at this point. And even after, I reset/battle versus Eizo 6 times at minimum! I know that you want to demonstrate how the things are hard in the old times, but I don't think that this way (finite money gain and (almost) only expensive healing points) work well in a game with hours of duration, where the player need a party with differents types (and money for Apricorn Balls) when he doesn't know how many enemies are ahead. At least makes someone healing for $10-50 on first cities, specially because money is scarce at beginning (and repels eventually end). I can't say if the game is also too easy on the first bosses.

Too many backtracking blocks until late game. I can't undestand some invisible barriers like the one on north of Route 12+Mt Moon when the ferry at south is ready. This, combined with autosave makes me hesitant to proceed several times. Talking about autosave, sometimes the game ask for save, other times there is an autosave, this is strange.

The lack of TMs/Move Tutors. There is even a sidequest about TMs. Before this, why not make some Move Tutors in the cities? Or at least make a Surf HM, so I didn't need to keep the Lapras in my party!

The lack of item balls in the maps. There are very few herbs on ground, but nothing on caves. This makes the exploration a little boring. A little more herbs on ground and something for caves (maybe mushrooms/pearls/stardust) should helps here.

The enemies parties on route 17 are too much reused.

When a mission ask to go to route X, I need to check on web pages where the route is. A map should solve this.

Why I can't heal in the PokéCenter after the sidequest?

I can't use bicycle on caves and gates for some reason.

If you want to player doen't catch the legendary pokémon, just block player using a ball, not deflecting balls. This makes me wasting a Ball =/

No cry for pidgeot in Saffron?

No joke when I try to use bicycle indoors?


BUGS:

• On Route 8 the game freeze when a pokémon appears (right after the message "A Rattata appears") three times in a row. I saved, loaded and everything goes back to normal. This happened again in route 24 after I picked the apricorn and a wild pokémon appears, and in various points. It happened to me at least 15 times. I guess that this has some relation with fast-forward and saving/picking items or using Surf and canceling (back to ground). This bug is dangerous: A player may give up, I suggest tracking and fixing this.
• A similar bug happened when I enter on route 23 from Viridian. Both musics became playing (I guess) and when I talked to apricorn tree, the game freeze.
• One time, when wild battle transition started, the game just crashed. I was on route 23
• Text is a bit misaligned on "Game Info" window
• Ether in battle gives me an error message
• The fishinging sprites are outpositioned
• I can't enter on Fuchsia GYM.
• I can't surf/exit surf from up/down on some Route 12 tiles. I need to do this as left/right
• AI sometimes insist on using Last Resort, even when it isn't available (Jolteon by example).
• Move relearner talks with blue text on one dialog.
• Images:

Spoiler:

About my script Unreal Time: On Essentials v17 the tone update was changed to refresh only after every 30 seconds. This change doesn't work well on my script, so the tone update wasn't smooth. In the new Unreal Time version, the tone change was updated to be smooth again. I suggest updating.

My party before the last battle:

After the superboss (15:17 playtime):

 

[AenaonDusky]

I completed the game. Overall was a good game, but it can be a great one if you fix some problems.


After the superboss (15:17 playtime):

WOW, thanks so much for your detailed and thorough review!

Very glad you found the story (and the music) so good! It's an honor!

You will definitely like the -postgame that is actually a new game- if you liked what you've seen so far.

Onto your other points;

Spoiler:

I am going to address most of these in the next version, but please consider the reasons for some of them staying as is, first.

1) Most of the players who tested TFJ are familiar with item scarcity as a concept since they had played the sequel first, but I can see how it might not have been taken into consideration from the perspective of a new player. That said, I had assumed one would take the scarcity as granted, given the setting.

The problem with feedback on this issue is that I don't have a lot of player data – many players cheesed the game with graveler and just spawnhealing, others solo'd with Tauros, and until I get the bigger picture as far as the majority of the playerbase's playstyle is concerned, I'm not sure how to proceed.

Adding a healer in very early game whose price goes up on subsequent healing (and after story points) to cover for lategame cheese healing is something I will do, though! Thanks.


2) I can't remember why I used story roadblocks during those points exactly, I remember having progression reasons. I will revisit these and remove them assuming they aren't interfering with something. Could you elaborate on why you would want to backtrack, though? Regarding the autosave, the game autosaves pre and post cutscene, but for event encounters, I was asked to enable save prompt (fainting the mon would autosave, for instance, leading the player to miss the event mon). Some people might also want to do that for shinyness/iv/nature, although those are set for most event mons.


3) It wouldn't make sense for move tutors to exist before Sam establishes the related conventions (especially when Kantonias are presented as totally unaware of what mons are in the first place). The game doesn't really demand a lot in terms of battling difficulty, so I never expected it'd be needed. However, Sam himself being able to teach mons their level-up moves would be a great idea. There is a v20 script that supports tutoring and relearning from menu, but it's incompatible with v18.1. I think making the tutor scene triggerable from the party UI would't be too much of a hassle… but there is another problem:

Tutoring requires the TM pbs to include all the learnable moves, but I simply erased that (because it took 5 secs more to compile and I just couldn't stand it :P ) but there is also the fact that the TM pbs references the Pokemon pbs, which in TFJ doesn't include the non-kanto and non-johto mons – and I can't really include only the kanto mons, because each move references all the mons that can learn it. The only way to limit it to the Kanto mons would mean writing each entry for each mon specific to TFJ from the start (or deleting all the gen3 plus mons from ALL the move entries)… which is a gruesome process I can't afford to do.

Regarding surf- obviously, Lapras is the only mon that can ferry a bunch of people (like sam's party) at the same time, so for Sam to use another mon wouldn't make sense.


4) Well, yes, the item balls do not exist yet, exactly because Sam introduced them – hence the bareness. Also, from a story perspective, since you are playing as Sam, going off the beaten track to explore wouldn't be in-character (and in some sense I doubted veteran players would be interested in exploring Kanto again and again), but from a gameplay perspective I can see your point. That said, the mushroom/pearl idea is good, I think adding them would be neat! It could also help with the economy a bit. I'll make a small event scene for it too, if I find enough time, for the postgame release.


5) Whoops, will fix that, thanks!


6) Yeah, I think I went overboard with my expectations about most players already knowing which route is which, I am definitely including a map for postgame release, if I have the time.


7) It has been established, but it's not yet functional. The nursing school hasn't been opened yet, anyway (considering nurses would have to have been trained). But since its location is next to the endgame routes, I can see it having some gameplay importance – but do consider that by the time the player has gotten to endgame routes, spawnhealing would have done the job instead much faster, anyway.


8) You want to ride a motorcycle inside a cave ? (same for the checkpoints) XD just think of how much noise that would make! I think non-exterior maps have the bike off by default, I always use speedup and running during those segments so checking it never crossed my mind.


9) To be frank I had this ball-waste setting carried over from the sequel where there are 0 pokeballs, so I never gave it a look, lol. But I'm surprised that you thought about catching them in the first place, since Sam clearly said what he wanted to do with them!


10) I knew I should have included something there… I will if I can.

Now, about the bugs, here's a significant problem that ties into the majority of the bugs you have reported:

Spoiler:

1,2, and 3, all have to do with a mysterious memory leak, and perhaps fmod dll bug, that I cannot solve. This might be related to v18.1 not removing stuff from memory. Example: If you see a lot of portrait dialogue, the game might crash assuming you dont close it and reopen again. Graphics updates might sometime crash the game. If you go back and forth quickly between routes that have different music, the game will crash. I contacted the dev of the Fmod extension, and their current link had an older version of the dll, which I replaced, but I see that it still persists (at least on the audio side). All of the above have one thing in common: they don't happen at specific points. And all are alleviated if the game is closed, and reopend. As you can tell this is most likely a memory issue. I read 20.1 changelog included "memory leak fixes" (as well as map rendering fixes, to bugs which would cause major issues with connected maps – on 18.1 I've had the PBS for connections change on its own!!! and connect random routes together, hence concurrent BGM playing) and I put up a thread in Relic Castle asking where those changes happened, so I could retrofit them, but I haven't received a reply yet. This bug has been tormenting me for a while.

Also, it doesn't seem to happen to people with beefier PCs… so that probably adds to the memory theory...
If you hear anything, please let me know.

4. Oh, I tried to align it properly but nothing worked

5. I haven't touched the in-battle item scripts at all, so this is probably something vanilla v18 related. I probably won't have time to fix this

6. Got it, will look into it

7. Yeah, some changes were made to Fuchsia inbetween versions that I forgot to take into account, derp

8. I used a band-aid "solution" to my aversion to changing the bridge terrain tag from the debug editor :P , I now used an (easier) band-aid solution for postgame's.

9. Vanilla AI, will probably just remove Last Resort from the mon movepools

10. ah, the joys of copypasting

11. thank you so much for these, the only non-typo text is what the gangster in R8 says (because he just speaks weirdly).

Lapras swimming between the rock and the island (last image on the right) is normal since Lapras' collision is 1 tile anyway, and there is a gap (unless I've missed something? This is on the Articuno island, right?)
Text alignment on computer mission menu, is something I cannot get to align properly, sadly.

Finally, the cave entrance appearing above Sam if you are 1 tile below, happens because that's an event with a tile set to appear after a variable has been set to a certain number. In RMXP, there is no way to set events to always appear "below" (but you can set them to appear above) the character. As far as I know, you can't do that with Essentials script commands either.

Regarding your tone settings – are you talking about the smoothness of the transition, or the frequency of the update of the tint? If the latter, in order to not stress the engine (and due to the other weird memory bugs) I simply reduced the update to lower than what your script originally had.


Again, massive thanks for your playthrough and the time you took to get all those bugs reported! I am very grateful.

The postgame - that isn't exactly a postgame because it is an entire new game starring Red - releases next week, if all goes well. You will definitely like it, (especially the Stadium 1 + Stadium 2 + Colosseum + HGSS remixes), so I hope you'll get to play that too!

If you know someone who might be able to help me with the big issue, please drop me a dm. I was suspecting the portrait script itself at first, but it doesn't seem to be the problem.

 

[isahbellah]

this looks so cool, cant wait to play it!! personally one of the things that interests me the most is to find out what happened to agatha...

she seems so different from the old agatha we already know lol