What bugs you in a ROM Hack?

[vilepixel]

Personally I hate,

#1 ) It's the same game, just changed sprites and names of the Pokemon.

#2 ) Poorly done sprites. We're looking at you Pokemon Quartz...

#3 ) When overworld sprites are from a GBA game and the character is a different game sprite such as DPP

That's about it for me.

 

[Vendily]

Although this doesn't have to do with the hack itself, I'll immediately stop reading the Hack's thread if they used a tiny font or colors that I can barely see. Sucks when I see a good hack but can't bring myself to read about it due to this.

 

[esperance]

You know what, I too judged HoTY 2014 and there were two things that really bugged me: bad dialog and mismatched graphics.

By bad dialog, I mean the dialog is riddled with grammar errors and spelling mistakes. Especially if the hacker is a native English speaker. This usually makes the whole hack come off as a rushed and/or sloppy job, and it shows that the author didn't really care enough to create a thought out dialog.

As for mismatched (and poorly done) graphics, I mean graphics that are poorly drawn/colored, or ones that clearly don't fit the style of the rest of the graphics. An example that I see all too often is the hacker replacing the trees and grass with those really nice BW-style tiles, but they leave the buildings the same. Let me tell you, this does not look good.

 

[CelticsPhan]

Smogoned-to-heck difficulty "improvements" that kill the joy of a ROM hack to me. I wish hackers kept a balance between challenge and casual enjoyment. I understand if one is able to play a ROM hack then they're not a beginner, so of course difficulty is encouraged.

This is a borderline rant, but I just get tired of the same old overpowered character inserts that hackers throw in for their own enjoyment. You have to beat trainer Chad and his super team of dragons and a legendary to move on to the next Gym Leader equipped with 32/32/32/32/32 Pokemon with Egg Moves and competitive movesets.

I want to have fun with a hack and pour an acceptable amount of time into a hacker's body of work, and yes, these guys pour an unhealthy amount of time into their games for our sake.

Let's keep the necessity to superbreed and grind to an acceptable norm!

 

[xcv2009]

• Non-varied grass (especially in LGFR) [I wonder how many people actually know what I mean?]
• Poorly designed Fakemon [which is most]

 

[Megan]

- Lack of maintainance
If you put something new into your game, it's your job to make sure that it works as it should and not the player's to avoid the bugs it causes

- Fakemon/custom sprites
Especially when you use them alongside other sprites from someone else. If you make a game, make sure, you stick with only one style. Everything else just feels awkward

- horrible balancing
Goes without saying; making opponents higher in levels, just to make the game more difficult, is stupid. All it does is make most people grind their team and grinding isn't fun and engaging. Also, you have to keep in mind, that most people are just too used to the cheese, the main series is known for, so a lot of people can't come up with a clever solution for a given battling problem. :P

- horrible level design
Some of the areas just look incredibly ugly and give off a feeling, that the person who designed them, just wanted to throw out a quick runthrough map.

- lack of atmosphere
It's nice and all if you want to give your game a somewhat dark feeling, but then don't use the default upbeat happyhappy battle themes. Same with all the locations.

- lack of worldbuilding
Bugged me the hell out of Insurgence (I know, it's not a ROM hack, however both ROM hacks and Essentials games suck in this regard, equally). You start off in a hidden Darkrai cultist HQ and make your escape to a nearby town. However, the NPCs didn't seem to care about the cultists at all and instead just repeatedly told you how cool it is, that you get an Eevee as a starter and how to open your menu. Like seriously, there's this giant evil HQ right there, where people die. Why not talk about people vanishing, or people having nightmares (which btw. fits perfectly well with the Darkrai theme, as it causes nightmares), instead of basic gameplay mechanics? Worldbuilding is important, especially when you want to make the game plot driven.

- NPCs explaining basic gameplay mechanics
It works in the main series, because they always try to get new people to the series. Fangames, however, are mostly played by people, who already played at least one main Pokemon game. So, they already know how the games work and you don't need to explain it to them. Even if it's new stuff, they should be able to figure it out on their own.

- multi region features, for the sake of having multiple regions
If the other regions don't expand the game plot as a whole and just serve as a giant bonus runthrough map, then you're better off using only one region and expanding it a little bit for more content.

 

[scotchkorean27]

I get really annoyed with ROM hacks that have poorly implemented or poorly communicated gameplay changes.

Difficulty scaling: I have no fundamental problem with level scaling. If it's to help mitigate overleveling or the fact that the AI just isn't a mind reader, I think it's perfectly fine. I dislike it when it's done wholesale. Fullscale level scaling tends to get weird if not done carefully, pokemon's level and difficulty curve just isn't linear. I also kind of dislike it when trainers have teams that are just completely impossible at the current level. Route 1 trainers should have Route 1 pokemon. They don't have to be the same Route 1 pokemon all the time, I welcome variety, but they should be in line with the expectations of a Route 1 trainer.

Random changes to preexisting pokemon and moves. A lot of this tends to be undocumented, and it always catches me by surprise. Even if it seems like an intuitive change, it tends to be kind of jarring, and is just generally uncomfortable. Of course, when it's not intuitive, it's just so much worse.

Fakemon. This is really a personal preference thing. I dislike it for the same reason I dislike type changes to Pokemon. It's oftentimes confusing, and the Fakemon don't always mesh super well with what's already in play, either because it's just too aesthetically different or the balance is just all over the place.

 

[Dr. Seuss]

I hate only three things

• When people play hackroms only to criticize and tear the author and don't do a mention of the positive things of the hack.

• When the people mixes the graphical styles, ok, if you wanna use a FR Graphic style, Don't insert any NDS graphics! looks horrible, take a look of Pokemon Gaia, Life and Eclipse, uses a single graphic style and looks good

• 10 year old storylines

 

[wolfboyft]

Time travel anywhere in the hack, be it story or even gameplay.

With me, time travel is an instant 100% chance for me to dislike something.

But that's just me.

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• 10 year old storylines

Be that stories made by 10-year-olds, or stories made 10 years ago?

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People who are too lazy to use the proper `é` for Pokémon in their hacks, or people who don't even bother to mention their mistake/inability, and just say (this is at the beginning of a new sentence in a text box, I guess:)

"pokemon are our fri3ndz.. yayy....i am prof, oak"

 

[OliDSi]

• Crazy Difficulty - I'm ok with challenges, but some ROM hacks have brutal difficulty
- Pokemon trainers have too many Pokemon
- Long roads
- Pokemon trainers have very high levelled Pokemon, but the grass Pokemon are very low levelled
- Pokemon trainers have Pokemon which poison and paralyze your Pokemon early on
This is fake difficulty and kills the game balance.
• Not being able to buy Potions and Poke Balls, but having Max Potions and Ultra Balls instead
• All Pokemon, Regions, Rivals etc.
• NCPs give too many Pokemon. What happened to catching them all?
• Including many legendaries in the main story.
• The main character talks - there's a reason why our character is a silent one in every main Pokemon created and that is because it represents us and it should always be that way.

 

[JesteR]

- Crazy level jumps. That's just a way to force the player into thinking the game is harder.
- Lots of grammar and spelling mistakes. I get that many ROM Hackers don't speak English as their first language, but those who do should proofread.
- Modified Pokémon based on the Hackers preference. I just can't stand when someone is like "I think that [Pokémon] should be like this" without any rhyme or reason.
- Mixed graphics styles. I know somebody already mentioned this, but it bugs me a lot. The only exception to this is when it's a gameplay thing, such as flashbacks or something. (I believe there's a hack that mixes old and new graphics very well.)

 

[Nakasu]

-Ridiculous Difficulty Spikes (Dark Rising, Life Of Guardians)
-Grammar Issues
-"Unfix-able Glitches" Warn you about the endless amount of glitches and how to avoid them when playing.
-NDS Tiles
-Typical, and foreseeable plot.
What I mean is light light platinum for example. The same thing happens every time you encountered Team Steam, You beat up some grunts, beat up an admin, 2 Legendaries are fighting then Arceus stops them every time. nice plot. I think the only time that didn't happen was on the final encounter when they used Kyurem.
-Bad Mapping
-Anime based games that don't follow the Anime atleast 80% (Orange Island Hacks)
-NDS Player Sprites
-Too many Pokemon early game: This stops people from wanting to try and catch other Pokemon later on found. it's like...what's the use for adding all these Pokemon across the game then?
-Bad music inserting
-Time Travel
-An Absurd amount of rivals
-Making your hack canon to the main timeline or another hacks timeline

Copycats: (Notice how these hacks are never completed)
-Copying the plot of a known hack
-Similar names to another hack
-Stealing ideas, and tiles from another hack without permission or credit
-Plot from another series
-Similar Mapping

What bugs me some Rom Hackers is the fact that some can't take constructive criticism on their Mapping, story and bugs they need to fix. They say the maps are good and they had talented mappers check it, even though the maps presented look terrible. Or that having 20+ different Pokemon in the first route makes it similar to the Anime.

 

[Grifstar]

- Fakemon
- Speaking Protagonist
- New typing to old Pokemon (aside from Fairy). I have become a little more lenient of minor tweaks such as small base stat changes or adding a new move here or there, just to make some Pokemon a little more worthwhile, but it depends on the hack. I still prefer having hacks as close to current gen as possible(and sometimes liberties need to be taken just because of limitations).
- References to the anime

I actually like the ALL Pokemon feature since they make for great hard/softcore nuzlocke or monotype challenges, but without it does have plenty of its problems. I'm really torn, I like the randomness but I don't like the ADD of eventually having to choose what team I should stick with. Or leveling turns into hell because there's so many pokemon on a route and not a consistent exp gain.

 

[Al3x]

Pokemon that don't have matching cries.

Honestly that's all I can think of that hasn't already been said on this thread. It might of already been said, I only had a quick look through.

 

[Squeetz]

Pokemon that don't have matching cries.

Honestly that's all I can think of that hasn't already been said on this thread. It might of already been said, I only had a quick look through.

Yes. This is a major one that bugs me too, especially since nowadays it's really easy to insert cries.
As well as simple mapping mistakes that didn't get fixed, such as movement permissions being wrong, badly made tiles, etc.
Poor scripting and grammar is another big one for me.
I don't have anything against fakemon, as long as they're well made.

 

[Al3x]

Yes. This is a major one that bugs me too, especially since nowadays it's really easy to insert cries.

Ah that reminds me. Hacks without the physical and special attack splits bug me. Hacks almost always include it nowadays since it improves the battle system.

 

[Dragon type king]

Hmmmmmmmm im not really picky but i dislike Broken English (no offence if its not your native language), Incomplete maps, and random Pokemon in routes in areas the don't belong like a Charmander in route 1. I wish u luck i look forward to playing your hack!!!!!!

 

[Quantum Thief]

I stopped playing Glazed because I just couldn't jive with the main character talking. For that matter, too much talking in general feels sort of self-indulgent. Brevity is the soul of wit, after all.

 

[machomuu]

• The main character talks - there's a reason why our character is a silent one in every main Pokemon created and that is because it represents us and it should always be that way.

There's already a thread about the main character talking so I won't go into detail about that, but the bolded bit's not always true.

It's true (well, kinda) with the main games, but there are a number of hacks where you're clearly playing someone with clearly defined traits and/or intentions because it either makes them more interesting or because "plot demands it". This makes sense, because in general hacks, regardless of whether they follow the formula or not, are generally more plot-oriented, and it's kind of off-putting when something sad or tragic happens in a game and there are no animations, pictures, or words to portray emotion. Just the stoney, unchanging face of the sprite.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Bad level curves. On both spectrums.
Either the wild mons are too weak to be useful, which favors the early game mons even more than usual (Crystal. Yes, Johto is ridiculous.) or the "Difficulty" hacks consisting of mindless grinding to face teams with competitive movesets and ludicrous level advantages. It's called a Level Curve, if you're making a Level Plateau, you're messing up.

Poor writing. Grammar is important, of course, but bad plot simply stops a hack in its tracks. Sure, the gameplay formula restricts somethings, you do have to beat 8 Gym Leaders, but you can make the road interesting and the badges useful.

Hackers that can't take criticism. "There's a spelling mistake in that NPC's dialogue." "F*** off you grammer nazi. I did that s*** on purpose. its muh plot" or "Warp X is glitched." "Better avoid it then Motherf*****"
That is just not acceptable. Don't know if there's a bug? Beta test. Don't know how to fix a bug in the beta? Ask for help. Unless you're not hacking Gen III, someone should have at least a vague clue about what to do.

And going back to bad writing. Unnecessary swearing. Some swearing in some situations are acceptable, sometimes even necessary. Youngster Joey dropping a Cluster F-Bomb after you take down his Top-Percentage Rattata? No, not necessary. At all.

Just out of curiosity, what is the general opinion about remakes? I've seen some serious bashing towards remakes in the past, but not so much anymore.