What's your "must-have" feature when choosing a hack to play?

[_pheebee]

Consistency.

If your tiles are Gen 3, please use Gen 3 overworlds.
If your tiles are Gen 4, then use some gen 4 overworlds.

Please don't mix and match, it's not cool. Or amazing.
To me, it's a huuge eye sore, and I will more than likely not have an interest in your game/hack.

 

[Pyxal]

Consistency.

If your tiles are Gen 3, please use Gen 3 overworlds.
If your tiles are Gen 4, then use some gen 4 overworlds.

EXTREMELY true. It just hurts to look at.

 

[KataphraktoiUntaken]

1. Physical\Special split. Its very painful going back to gen3 mechanics or earlier, and I even started with GSC

2. If a fan game, it must have a speed up\turbo or I just wont play it

 

[Jaeger12]

Physical/special split + way to grind xp/money easier than in the original game
Improvement of IA and level cap

 

[Mani001]

1: CFRU.
2: Deffaut difficulty or a little high.
3: all catchable Pokémon
4: physical and special separation.
5: 24 boxes (I like to capture a lot of Pokémon).
6: Pokémon of all generations.
7:New Events

 

[AquaNinja99]

I am really picky when it comes to ROM hacks and fangames, so warning, this maybe a long list.

A must have:
- A new region. I don't like playing through the same region since it feels boring, I explored almost all spots and went through all routes in Kanto and Hoenn. I want a new region since I don't want a lazy hack or fangame.
- More Pokèmon. I just want more Pokémon since there are unique typings like Steel/Ground or Ground/Dark or even Electric/Poison which either are new type combinations or another Pokémon of a rare type combination.
- A good story while maintaining the usual collecting gym badges to defeat the E4/ join the Pokémon League tournament. ROM hacks and fangames like Pokémon Unbound and Sunday either throws you into the story immediately or makes the story progress later in the game.
- Difficulty modes.
- QoL features such as a new HM system, buyable Ethers and Heart Scales, or even the Legendite which scales the BST of ANY POKÉMON TO 600, and even a Route specifically for grinding and EV training.
- A good post-game.
- Many more that I can't think of right now.

 

[Shin'en]

Well A New Story and Region would be Nice and Better NPCs . I just want to Have the thrill of excitement , I do not like playing games that I have Played Before it bores me and I want to Strategise while playing Not just OverLevel One pokemon and Kill everyone with it

 

[SuperSpyroDragon64]

Proper Pokemon distribution is a necessity.

You know all those romhacks and fangames that cram 800+ Pokemon into a region designed for 120ish wild Pokemon, maybe 180ish at maximum capacity? And because they don't want to add extra floors to cave or grass to towns and routes that originally lacked encounters, some Pokemon can end up with a tiny encounter chance on just one random route? (Or worse, maybe it has 1% encounter rate on THREE nearby routes)

Talk to your playtesters, listen to their feedback when they tell you of their experience trying to 100% complete your game.

 

[Corveone]

Must have:

-P/S split
-Pokémon up to at least gen 4. Can't go back to the stone age when Pokémon like Murkrow, Sneasel, Piloswine, Roselia, and Magneton were final evolutions :D
-Good variety of mons across different gens: not necessarily all of them because I never cared about catching them all, just a wide range of options to build my team, with all the types properly represented.
-Properly balanced game progression and level curve.
-If it's a difficulty focused game: Add Muking QoL and proper team building features, so that finding/raising new mons, and making changes to your team doesn't become a grindy chore. I ended up abandoning a couple of rom hacks/fan games because the majority of tools to properly build a team were either absent or locked into the post-game.
-No fakemon, or at least as few and hidden as possible. This also applies to fanmade Megas.

Big plus, but not necessarily must have:

-New region
-As few legendaries as possible. And no legendary spamming, giving late game trainers full or almost full legendary rosters for the sake of making the game harder is so cheap.
-A plot that doesn't overstay its welcome and doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a Pokémon game, nobody wants to read (skip) through constant endless wall of texts, lots of edgyness, curse words and deep melodrama. Keep it interesting but simple.
-Not too many and not too big edits to Pokémon typings and stats. I prefer it more faithful to the vanilla experience.

 

[Prof_Oatfield]

Love this discussion. Keep it going, I would like to write down ideas on what to do for future ROM hacks. :)

I do not think there are must-haves for me, but a few things I look for are:

- Recent mechanics in older games (Red++ was very nice to play).
- QoL improvements.
- Some kind of novelty in the game's mechanics (Crystal Clear's open world, for example).
- Clever ways to make the game more challenging (Pyrite's rebalanced XP and learnsets were good, but felt repetitive towards the end).

Things I do not like

- Trying to be funny, especially with childish/outdated humour.
- Spamming legendaries.
- Excessive grinding.

Also, this is not something I have personally seen, but I would love to hear your thoughts on alternative level-up, learnset and battle mechanics.
Do you like ROMs that, for example, fix every battle at level 50 and then find alternative methods to increase difficulty?

 

[ThomasWinwood]

Screw all y'all, HMs themselves are fine, especially in games which borrow Sword/Shield's always-available PC box so even the "waaah I hate having to switch an HM mule into my party all the time" objection doesn't hold. I blame in part their removal for the more recent games feeling lifeless and dull - in a game about using and working with your Pokemon you want to remove one of the main ways you use and work with your Pokemon? Ride Pokemon especially are a stupid idea - of course, use a Tauros someone else lent me for the express purpose of breaking some rocks, why would I ever want to catch my own Tauros?

What I don't like are lame HMs, where you use them half a dozen times and then never need them again. Unfortunately that's most of them - I count Cut, Strength, Flash, Whirlpool, Waterfall, Rock Smash and Defog. (Dive is an edge case - it does give you new movement options which remain theoretically relevant like Fly and Surf, but in practice I don't know how often you actually need to explore the undersea areas.)

 

[Samtendo09]

That's a good question, let's see…

(Applies to both fangames and ROM hacks)

Must-Haves

• Physical / Special split, it's an obvious one.
• Have cross-gen evos included witnin the lines. No one wants to use Tangela unevolved beyond early game unless you want to seriously challenge yourself.
• Each major trainer's team have a theme to it, i.e. Stall-oriented, or a team with a lategame cleaner.
• Reasonable level curve.
• Several QoL features, be it those already in main games or even whole new ones, as long as it makes it useful.
• If there were an evil team, make them more distinct than Team Rocket. Regardless if it is Team Rocket again or not, please give us a bit more variety than a spam of Zubat and early route critters!
• The base-game already have plenty of luck-based aspects as is. Adding more is a big no-no.
• Gym Leaders and Elite Fours being more than obstacles, being actual characters. Same goes for replacements.
• Reusable TMs. TRs are optional but cool if we want to keep stronger moves in check.
• Exploration, without the lame-ass HMs being enforced every single time unless portable PC is an option.

Would-Likes

• A big Pokédex (around 400 would be reasonable for base game, about 100-150 more for post-game) with plenty of Type variety in various routes, encouraging replayability.
• Ice-type Pokémon available not just in late-game. Is it too much to ask?
• Well done Fakémon, not just in design but also stat-wise and other things.
• Well done cross-gen Fakémon, as in fan evolutions for pre-existing Pokémon, especially those that needs a buff but had to stay vanilla-like. New pre-evolution for stronger Pokémon is also welcome for earlier obtention.
• Rebalanced type chart, provided that it is also directly provided for the players so that they can figure out what is changed.
• Making capturing Pokémon not so much of a shore with an additional multiplier or even modified multiplier from vanilla. Even make Legendary only capturable upon defeat and is guaranteed to be captured after second / third defeat, kind of like in Dynamax Adventures.
• For official Pokémon, a variety of generations for one new region is largely welcomed. If you have a lot Fakémon, put focus on them first and foremost!
• Have Mega Evolution, preferably rebalanced.
• Regional variants. Regional evolutions are optional, but a big nice bonus.
• Randomizer option, preferably at start.

Unwanted

• A region with only Fakémon at all and copies too much of what we have already seen in official Pokémon games in term of species, particularly if they aren't even well-made. I'd forgive if the game is overall well-made but I prefer a good mix of old and new.
• Spamming few species for an evil team. There is a reason why vanilla Gen 2 / HGSS Team Rocket and Gen 3 RSE got a bad name.
• Battles "strategies" that just spam luck-based mechanics like Evasion for major trainers. Keep it sparse and on minor trainers, and then we talk.
• The opposite side, "strategies" by major or even minor NPC that spams Legendary / Mythical Pokémon or braindead sweeping with almost no reliable answers.
• Severely unbalanced games. That's all I say. Unless it's caused by randomizer option which I can expect and forgive due to sheer chaos it can cause!

 

[SuperSpyroDragon64]

In fact, I feel so strongly about the importance of catch rate multipliers, I'm going to tell everyone here how to do it.

Step one, go to your Pokemon PBS file and set EVERY Pokemon's rarity to 255. This makes them easier to catch. Legendaries with a 0.0000001% chance to be caught are not fun.

Secondly, open your project file, open its scripts, shift-ctrl-F for the MASTERBALL, and apply the Master Ball's effects to every other ball you feel should have a guaranteed success rate.

Then shift-ctrl-F for ULTRABALL and scroll around, you'll see Catch Rate Multipliers for the ordinary pokeball, Great Ball, and Ultra Ball. Increase those numbers up. You've gotta get those numbers up from their default rookie vanilla values if you don't want to force your player to carry a dedicated Sleep+False Swipe pokemon around.

 

[Figure]

If the Rom doesn't have the physical/special split I don't play it. It is what makes Gens 1-3 unplayable for me and I won't bother with a shitty Rom that doesn't implement it.

 

[Escther]

I like hacks with an original plot and/or fakemons, rather than the original games with the mechanics slightly modified. Just something really cool about seeing how other people weave Pokemon into totally different storylines

 

[imTsuku]

physical/special split
exp share

 

[Stompmaxwell]

There are two types of games I like:

One with a good story such as Team Rocket Edition, or another with good QOL improvements like Radical Red or Inclement Emerald.

For its features, I need the Physical/Special Split as well as updated move sets up to at least Gen 6, as well as wide variety of Pokemon available early without crowding of routes.

Improved evolution methods such as removal of trade evolutions is also a must.

HMs should either be forgettable or replaced while TMs should be infinite.
No Flash please.

Gen 6 EXP Share is preferred but not necessary. Battle items like Choice Specs or Life Orb should be obtainable before the Elite Four as late game items.

QOL includes running indoors, no text spam whenever using Surf or Cut etc, ability to change natures/IVs/Evs without massive grinding.

I love Mega Evolution but it usually is overpowered and imbalanced in a romhack so I prefer not having it.

I do not Catch 'Em All but would prefer to have all the Pokemon in the Pokedex available in a single playthrough.

Also difficulty wise should be way above the original Pokemon games but slightly below that of Radical Red.

Thanks for listening to my TED Talk, I enjoyed writing this.

PS I really want a sequel to Team Rocket Edition set in Johto.

 

[Big Snort]

Oh it has to be 100% absolutely the addition of fakemon for me- especially even "weird" or "bad" ones!

It's so fun to see what others will create with their own ideas of pokemon / creature design. Not only that, it's also a whole new world of surprises to discover! I love exploring a unique world of strange creatures that someone else made- it's like taking a step into their own mind!

 

[BlueMew1512]

I actually have a soft spot for from hacks with Fakemons, mainly because I like seeing the crazy ideas that the community can come up in. Other than that, ummm... good documentation and easy grinding. I don't have a lot of patience for grinding.

 

[Maplekiwi]

I agree with the majority here.
I really like the variety of Pokemon and different stories in my ROM hacks/fangames, I certainly appreciate being able to choose a gender/style for the MC, and mandatory HMs are annoying.

The only major request I have is that...
Please don't make a story exceptionally edgy (like... Deaths and bad things happening left, right, and centre just because the creator wanted a 'more mature story').
I came here to have fun with a Pokemon in tow, not to realize how miserable life can get.

I'm sorry, but after playing edgy fangames back to back to back to back, it's just draining.