MOONTRIPS
2023
This review contains spoilers
pretty good! not the best, but pretty good. it took a while to really win me over, but I quite like this game.
I used the boss invincibility cheat because I have no patience for learning boss patterns n shit tbh ngl. so I have some unfairly earned P ranks but whateverrrrrrrrr!
I wasn't super fond of WAR, but other than that the levels were fine. I know Bloodsauce Dungeon, namely the escape, gave me some trouble... but nothing else really did. I have no interest in becoming anything remotely close to a perfectionist, but the good thing is that you can play the game normally without any real issue. I heard you can only miss a few Toppins, and that did have me worried initially but when I got to the end... I literally only had to go back to one level and get one that I missed. so, not bad at all.
anything else I could mention is really a non-issue, such as my struggles with maintaining speed. unless going for a high score/good rank, the game is so, so forgiving. I did have a few escapes where I barely made it, but I did make it. while it was annoying how often I'd be stuck to a wall when meaning to jump off, it wasn't like, an actual issue that affected completing the game.
the game looks... good. gross sometimes, but it works and is good. and it sounds good. music is bangers. Yeehaw Deliveryboy is stuck to me, and I am stuck to it. there is no escape. I love, when Peppino do a scream. very good.
idk. as much as I like the game, I don't feel like I've got much to say about it. is good.
BUT WHY WAS PIZZAFACE IN THE SHOWER PIZZA DOESN'T NEED TO SHOWER WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT NONSENSE
I used the boss invincibility cheat because I have no patience for learning boss patterns n shit tbh ngl. so I have some unfairly earned P ranks but whateverrrrrrrrr!
I wasn't super fond of WAR, but other than that the levels were fine. I know Bloodsauce Dungeon, namely the escape, gave me some trouble... but nothing else really did. I have no interest in becoming anything remotely close to a perfectionist, but the good thing is that you can play the game normally without any real issue. I heard you can only miss a few Toppins, and that did have me worried initially but when I got to the end... I literally only had to go back to one level and get one that I missed. so, not bad at all.
anything else I could mention is really a non-issue, such as my struggles with maintaining speed. unless going for a high score/good rank, the game is so, so forgiving. I did have a few escapes where I barely made it, but I did make it. while it was annoying how often I'd be stuck to a wall when meaning to jump off, it wasn't like, an actual issue that affected completing the game.
the game looks... good. gross sometimes, but it works and is good. and it sounds good. music is bangers. Yeehaw Deliveryboy is stuck to me, and I am stuck to it. there is no escape. I love, when Peppino do a scream. very good.
idk. as much as I like the game, I don't feel like I've got much to say about it. is good.
BUT WHY WAS PIZZAFACE IN THE SHOWER PIZZA DOESN'T NEED TO SHOWER WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT NONSENSE
this game broke on my wedding day, the cutscene wouldn't load. and I'm still pissed off about that. as a result of such, I do not recommend this game to anyone.
apparently this is fixable if you remove the DLC, but this issue can happen with other parts of the game. heard of it happening with the egg festival, and also happening in the mines. also, what if you wanted to marry a DLC character? bullshit. as a result of such an issue, I say this game kind of sucks ass, and is really not worth your time/money. even if you're prepared for the possibility of a cutscene not loading and being unable to progress, I still don't really recommend it. there are better games you can play that don't have this issue.
aside from that big issue, this game is okay. it leans into being a Stardew Valley-like, but that was unnecessary. as a result, I will bring up SDV a few times here. this game feels like a successor to Story of Seasons 3DS in particular. but that's better and more worth playing.
material management and crafting are obnoxious. while ore needs to be processed into bars in Stardew Valley, it's the single most used material you need to process. less relevant, there's also cloth, but it's much simpler, and processing it is one step, from wool to cloth. in Pioneers of Olive Town, you need to process basically everything. this means you end up with a big accumulation of lots of different stuff. wool gets turned into yarn, which gets turned into cloth. there's 3 types of these things. logs have to be processed into planks. there are like, 4 types of logs. coal needs to be processed for some things. clay has to be processed into bricks. the list goes on. it is very excessive, and with the limited amounts storage boxes hold, everything for crafting ends up taking up a massive amount of space. makers only doing stacks of 10 at a time sucks too. I heard they could only initially do one item at a time. for all you have to manage, that sounds like hell. I'm glad they changed it, but they should have made it a stack of 99 or something instead.
also much like Stardew Valley, there is limited animal food storage in this game. except it manages to be much worse here. you will eventually unlock a second food storage, and with one silo and one silage, you can store about 300 fodder total. the silage converts fodder into Deluxe Fodder. these buildings also take up a fair amount of space. letting animals outside doesn't require anything, they just graze on the nothing that's out there. so fodder only ends up consumed on rainy/stormy/snowy days. a bit less bad, but the annoyances persist.
gameplay is standard fare and perfectly fine outside of the material management and crafting. this game has sprinklers. later you get access to ponds, which are mostly a waste of space. I really don't know what they're exactly useful for. maybe you can fish at them for something special? I don't know. honestly, of all the things, the one I barely did was fish. mining kind of sucks. there are 3 whole separate mines. there didn't need to be. you do have to use all 3 of them to get all of the ores and such. the mines add these moles that become an incredibly annoying obstacle. it starts easy enough, but the biggest mine has so many moles and there's shockwaves to dodge and it just sucks. orichalcum is ridiculously hard to get a hold of, even via using the safe mining area you unlock, it's going to take you a while to get what you need. if you ship one, you can then buy it from the store, but it's expensive. you can also unlock it from the sprite shop, but it's still expensive there too, and getting the coins is a slow process.
I played on seedling mode. seeds were still pretty expensive, some being 400G per bag. and it's one bag per one tilled square. eventually you'll be making so much money that it hardly matters, but in the beginning it's kind of an obstacle. an odd choice overall.
this game felt way too easy to "finish." I was basically done by the end of the first year. the single thing I hadn't done was get married, but I could have if I'd made the decision on who to marry sooner. I also kinda kept forgetting to give Reina gifts...
in terms of how this game looks, I am really not a fan. there's a weird smooth and matte look to everything that I really dislike. and everyone has massive heads. once you see it, you cannot unsee it. I actually thought it was only the player model, honestly, but I see upon looking at screenshots that it extends to most NPCs as well. it's bad.
I know people say the characters in this game have... no character, but personally I disagree. I won't say they're not bland... most of them are, at least the marriage candidates. but I feel like it's standard fare for these games for the most part. eh. and it's not much, but I do appreciate that they can say more than one thing in a day. yes the dialogue gets repetitive, but all games like this have repeated dialogue like that.
there's a lot of interactions between different characters, and that's one of the things I really liked about this game. and those interactions are not solely related to the characters you can marry. and if you don't like it, all the cutscenes are skippable. this is the one aspect that other games should take notes from. it makes the world feel more... like a world. more interaction outside of cutscenes would be great... someday we'll get there.
the sprites are weird little creatures in this game, and I kind of love them. I would, of course, choose the little elf-like sprites any day, but I do love the weird little critters in this game. I wish the spirit lady was better. more interesting? something. there's so little interaction with her, it's a bummer. you cannot befriend her and she has way less dialogue than anyone else. side note, her voice clips are also way louder than anyone else's.
related, I am not so keen on the voice clips. thankfully this game lets you turn them off, the player ones in particular got really grating.
apparently this is fixable if you remove the DLC, but this issue can happen with other parts of the game. heard of it happening with the egg festival, and also happening in the mines. also, what if you wanted to marry a DLC character? bullshit. as a result of such an issue, I say this game kind of sucks ass, and is really not worth your time/money. even if you're prepared for the possibility of a cutscene not loading and being unable to progress, I still don't really recommend it. there are better games you can play that don't have this issue.
aside from that big issue, this game is okay. it leans into being a Stardew Valley-like, but that was unnecessary. as a result, I will bring up SDV a few times here. this game feels like a successor to Story of Seasons 3DS in particular. but that's better and more worth playing.
material management and crafting are obnoxious. while ore needs to be processed into bars in Stardew Valley, it's the single most used material you need to process. less relevant, there's also cloth, but it's much simpler, and processing it is one step, from wool to cloth. in Pioneers of Olive Town, you need to process basically everything. this means you end up with a big accumulation of lots of different stuff. wool gets turned into yarn, which gets turned into cloth. there's 3 types of these things. logs have to be processed into planks. there are like, 4 types of logs. coal needs to be processed for some things. clay has to be processed into bricks. the list goes on. it is very excessive, and with the limited amounts storage boxes hold, everything for crafting ends up taking up a massive amount of space. makers only doing stacks of 10 at a time sucks too. I heard they could only initially do one item at a time. for all you have to manage, that sounds like hell. I'm glad they changed it, but they should have made it a stack of 99 or something instead.
also much like Stardew Valley, there is limited animal food storage in this game. except it manages to be much worse here. you will eventually unlock a second food storage, and with one silo and one silage, you can store about 300 fodder total. the silage converts fodder into Deluxe Fodder. these buildings also take up a fair amount of space. letting animals outside doesn't require anything, they just graze on the nothing that's out there. so fodder only ends up consumed on rainy/stormy/snowy days. a bit less bad, but the annoyances persist.
gameplay is standard fare and perfectly fine outside of the material management and crafting. this game has sprinklers. later you get access to ponds, which are mostly a waste of space. I really don't know what they're exactly useful for. maybe you can fish at them for something special? I don't know. honestly, of all the things, the one I barely did was fish. mining kind of sucks. there are 3 whole separate mines. there didn't need to be. you do have to use all 3 of them to get all of the ores and such. the mines add these moles that become an incredibly annoying obstacle. it starts easy enough, but the biggest mine has so many moles and there's shockwaves to dodge and it just sucks. orichalcum is ridiculously hard to get a hold of, even via using the safe mining area you unlock, it's going to take you a while to get what you need. if you ship one, you can then buy it from the store, but it's expensive. you can also unlock it from the sprite shop, but it's still expensive there too, and getting the coins is a slow process.
I played on seedling mode. seeds were still pretty expensive, some being 400G per bag. and it's one bag per one tilled square. eventually you'll be making so much money that it hardly matters, but in the beginning it's kind of an obstacle. an odd choice overall.
this game felt way too easy to "finish." I was basically done by the end of the first year. the single thing I hadn't done was get married, but I could have if I'd made the decision on who to marry sooner. I also kinda kept forgetting to give Reina gifts...
in terms of how this game looks, I am really not a fan. there's a weird smooth and matte look to everything that I really dislike. and everyone has massive heads. once you see it, you cannot unsee it. I actually thought it was only the player model, honestly, but I see upon looking at screenshots that it extends to most NPCs as well. it's bad.
I know people say the characters in this game have... no character, but personally I disagree. I won't say they're not bland... most of them are, at least the marriage candidates. but I feel like it's standard fare for these games for the most part. eh. and it's not much, but I do appreciate that they can say more than one thing in a day. yes the dialogue gets repetitive, but all games like this have repeated dialogue like that.
there's a lot of interactions between different characters, and that's one of the things I really liked about this game. and those interactions are not solely related to the characters you can marry. and if you don't like it, all the cutscenes are skippable. this is the one aspect that other games should take notes from. it makes the world feel more... like a world. more interaction outside of cutscenes would be great... someday we'll get there.
the sprites are weird little creatures in this game, and I kind of love them. I would, of course, choose the little elf-like sprites any day, but I do love the weird little critters in this game. I wish the spirit lady was better. more interesting? something. there's so little interaction with her, it's a bummer. you cannot befriend her and she has way less dialogue than anyone else. side note, her voice clips are also way louder than anyone else's.
related, I am not so keen on the voice clips. thankfully this game lets you turn them off, the player ones in particular got really grating.
as someone who doesn't have a good way to play RH DS and wasn't sure they had interest in playing the original(I do maybe kinda but didn't when I played this last summer), I loved this. I do think it's a shame the real sequel games of Fillbots and Shoot-'em-Up 2 are absent. also I wish it had more DS content(wish Munchy Monk 2 was in!!!!!!!) and extra games being locked behind getting perfects is annoying to me because of the limit of tries and then the subsequent effort of getting another chance at perfect... thankfully most of them are just from Fever, which I've also played, but stilllllll. but I really really enjoyed my time with this and had a ton of fun. the polish in graphics for all of the older games is really nice too, imo. that said, there's not enough new for series enthusiasts that played all 3 other games. otherwise, this is 100% worth your time. so much fun. also for all the fuss about Lockstep's difficulty, I didn't find it that bad. no way I'll ever get Superb on it tho lol
2017
as much as I like this game, it felt like a chore to play more after saving Peach. the big issue is that there's a bit too much to do, and not much reason to do it all. sure there's literally hundreds of moons but who cares when you don't need most of them? idk. I always thought that was a weird thing. I also never got into doing the wacky tricks you can do in this game... I know that's a major source of enjoyment for other players, and that's awesome, but it's not for me.
it's fine. not the best, but it's fine. I've never been a super big AC fan... and not sure I could see myself going back to past titles after playing this one. the graphics alone are incredibly nice in this game. there are upsides and downsides regardless of which one you're playing. but this game does have a lot of issues. item durability is nonsense. the lack of QoL is ridiculous. a friend of mine is super into this game right now and ended up... sort of getting me interested again? who knows how long that'll last. but it's been long enough that I forgot how slow things are. terraforming is neat, but it's so fucking slow. even slower if you're not standing exactly perfectly while doing it! while you can certainly change your whole island, it takes a lot of time and effort to do. the fact that you can move only one building per day... unless you time travel, holy shit, it'll take you ages if you're like me and decided you needed to move half the buildings on the island. yikes.
and then this game was ditched way too quickly. it's a real shame. I know, I know, pandemic. sure. it's an excuse, and a perfectly valid one. but I think that just makes it all the more depressing. perhaps the game shouldn't have released when it did, as perfect as that timing was.
and then this game was ditched way too quickly. it's a real shame. I know, I know, pandemic. sure. it's an excuse, and a perfectly valid one. but I think that just makes it all the more depressing. perhaps the game shouldn't have released when it did, as perfect as that timing was.
2006
I expected this to be bad, but not as bad as it is. phew. played for maybe 10 minutes just to try it, for the heck of it. not even worth, tbh.
2009
not so bad! took a little time to win me over. I'm unsure how I feel about the transformation gimmick... mostly, I'm not sure it was needed. fever still exists here too. it's only used once in the story mode, but it's there.
story mode is... fine. nothing really special. the sort of thing one should expect from these games. I dunno. but this was a fun little romp. I'm glad I played it.
story mode is... fine. nothing really special. the sort of thing one should expect from these games. I dunno. but this was a fun little romp. I'm glad I played it.
2019
probably won't ever finish this one. not that it ever actually ends anyway. it's cute, and chill, and hard to hate... but it's also not that great. you are honestly better off playing Stardew Valley or any Animal Crossing title. there's a fair amount of rng involved with most in-game items, and a lot of grinds that end up leading to very little.
this game is cute, but requires some ridiculous grinding and gathering of materials. I may consider coming back to this... someday, but I'm doubtful on that. a shame, I do very much like it otherwise. the fact that I'm dropping it without even making it out of Ga-Koro is depressing tbh ngl
this was my third playthrough. I chose to do it on hard mode, because I'm wacky. but uh, I dropped it because it's unironically too difficult for me. I might have fucked myself by also having random medals be part of this playthrough, but I'm not all too sure non-random medals would make a difference. the fact that hard mode was originally the game's intended difficulty is so wild to me. this shit sucks. every regular battle is ridiculously difficult. I know how to play this game. I'm not doing anything wrong. every regular enemy in chapter 2 can just kick my ass. I don't comprehend how this is so hard for me. I'm not new to this game at all.
not recommended on hard mode, unless you're one of those people that is good at like, Paper Mario TTYD challenge runs.
not recommended on hard mode, unless you're one of those people that is good at like, Paper Mario TTYD challenge runs.
2014
finally, finally finished this one. glad to have it done. I'm finally free. pretty much everything I said about the first game applies here too. it's not a bad game, but it's not really my sort of thing. I purchased this before my interest in Bayonetta faded away. but I wasn't pulled in and had a lot of various struggles that led to me constantly putting off playing this. my interest in the character herself has faded, but I had to finish this anyway. I'm not keen on when the gameplay changes, those parts are the worst and most unfun.
at least the final boss in this game wasn't as much of an annoyance to me.
at least the final boss in this game wasn't as much of an annoyance to me.
I never had a GBA growing up. I tried playing the GBA More Friends of Mineral Town emulated a long time ago, but found it to be anything but enjoyable. the GBA being limited to so few buttons, the very small amount of backpack space, and so on made it really painful to play. I know there's the basket item, but that's honestly just another nuisance. my first Harvest Moon experience was Another Wonderful Life, which has no inventory limit, and way more buttons to work with. hearing that Friends of Mineral Town was so good, I totally didn't get it, honestly. it was cute, but... eh.
after hearing about how this remake improved things, I decided to just buy it. and playing it, it finally... kind of clicked. kind of. this game still isn't that great. but it's not actually bad, either. just, compared to others old and new, it's... dare I say... mid. sorry! I married Huang and played until some time after my character had the baby. so, I did put a lot of time into it. and I'm sure I'll play it again someday, it's a chill time. can't hate that.
this game has a lot of content that requires putting in a lot of time and effort. but it's not even anything really worth having. there's the town villa which requires 10 million G, there's the mountain cottage which requires you to play the game for 50 in-game years... there's also a beach cottage, but that one only requires giving the harvest goddess 150 presents. won't take you as long as those other two things, anyway.
anyway, then there's all the stuff in the mines. there's a lot of stuff in the mines. both mines. you can unlock elevators for these mines, but it does require giving the harvest goddess 100 gifts. and even then, it only takes you to certain levels. so unless you've made it to at least floor 50 in either mine, it's not going to be of any use. so that really sucks tbh. there's lots of stuff in the mines. none of it is really needed. but it's there!
basic gameplay is like... well, pretty much any other farming sim. as this is a remake, there's a lot of QoL here compared to the original, but it's just fixing problems of the original. the really nice thing about this game, for a Harvest Moon title, is you can marry whoever you wish regardless of the player character gender you choose. it's a shame I am... personally not a fan of most of them. wasn't in the original, either. I do like the newly added ones, Jennifer and Brandon... especially Jennifer. Huang is cute and great once you marry him, but that's about it.
the other special candidates besides Huang require ridiculous amounts of time and effort to make it happen. I like, half get it... and half don't. even worse, they don't live at your house or anything. I don't get it, really. even as a "just for the heck of it" thing, for all the effort, it's a shame. I know that is just how the original games had it but I think that makes it even worse somehow. but that's just what I think, soooooooo
the graphics... well, they work. nothing special. some of the chibi models look terrible. the redesigns of characters is something I'm mixed on. some of them are very cute. some of them are... uhhhhhhh.(Duke and Harris.......) I'm not sure why some of them were changed as much as they were, namely Jeff. I dunno, just feels weird. music is ok. as with many remasters/remakes, the vibes of the new music are not the same. but in this instance, it's closer than what other games manage.
overall, underwhelming, but not an actually bad experience.
after hearing about how this remake improved things, I decided to just buy it. and playing it, it finally... kind of clicked. kind of. this game still isn't that great. but it's not actually bad, either. just, compared to others old and new, it's... dare I say... mid. sorry! I married Huang and played until some time after my character had the baby. so, I did put a lot of time into it. and I'm sure I'll play it again someday, it's a chill time. can't hate that.
this game has a lot of content that requires putting in a lot of time and effort. but it's not even anything really worth having. there's the town villa which requires 10 million G, there's the mountain cottage which requires you to play the game for 50 in-game years... there's also a beach cottage, but that one only requires giving the harvest goddess 150 presents. won't take you as long as those other two things, anyway.
anyway, then there's all the stuff in the mines. there's a lot of stuff in the mines. both mines. you can unlock elevators for these mines, but it does require giving the harvest goddess 100 gifts. and even then, it only takes you to certain levels. so unless you've made it to at least floor 50 in either mine, it's not going to be of any use. so that really sucks tbh. there's lots of stuff in the mines. none of it is really needed. but it's there!
basic gameplay is like... well, pretty much any other farming sim. as this is a remake, there's a lot of QoL here compared to the original, but it's just fixing problems of the original. the really nice thing about this game, for a Harvest Moon title, is you can marry whoever you wish regardless of the player character gender you choose. it's a shame I am... personally not a fan of most of them. wasn't in the original, either. I do like the newly added ones, Jennifer and Brandon... especially Jennifer. Huang is cute and great once you marry him, but that's about it.
the other special candidates besides Huang require ridiculous amounts of time and effort to make it happen. I like, half get it... and half don't. even worse, they don't live at your house or anything. I don't get it, really. even as a "just for the heck of it" thing, for all the effort, it's a shame. I know that is just how the original games had it but I think that makes it even worse somehow. but that's just what I think, soooooooo
the graphics... well, they work. nothing special. some of the chibi models look terrible. the redesigns of characters is something I'm mixed on. some of them are very cute. some of them are... uhhhhhhh.(Duke and Harris.......) I'm not sure why some of them were changed as much as they were, namely Jeff. I dunno, just feels weird. music is ok. as with many remasters/remakes, the vibes of the new music are not the same. but in this instance, it's closer than what other games manage.
overall, underwhelming, but not an actually bad experience.
for a game that had been hyped up to me for years... it was, uhhhhhhh, just ok. not bad. not bad at all. but... I dunno, I hesitate to say it's like, really good. it does what it was supposed to, and it does that well. it's not a bad remake. but many problems from original gen 2 still persist. problems from gen 4 are now added to the mix. I'm not going to go over all of that, lots of reviews already have. requiring Rock Climb for Mt. Silver was a mistake. absolute nonsense. wasn't required for anything else. why that one thing?
the biggest problem imo, is that the whole Team Rocket segment is still ridiculously long. maybe it feels even longer. it's been long enough since I've experienced gen 2 in any form, but that segment is the low point of the game because it's so excessive. breaking it up like how the gen 3 Evil Team stuff was broken up may have helped, but I dunno.
my personal experience can be summed up with one word: underwhelmed. I think the reason this game is beloved by many is largely a nostalgia thing. I was unable to get one of these remakes at release. just never had the money, sadly. growing up poor af as a gamer sucked, lemme tell you. I had to play this emulated because I wasn't going to pay the price for a physical copy, and my old 3DS is pretty junky now. even so, it wouldn't have compared to having it back then with the Pokewalker and perhaps people to really share the joy with.
I am not 100% sure how the reception for the gen 3 remakes was, but I know the gen 4 ones were... pretty bad. so I get why people would cling onto this, because it's really good in comparison. it just suffers most of the flaws of the originals.
I used a pretty weird team. Feraligatr(K. Rool), Houndoom(BlackShuck), Forretress(Nokama), Porygon(Dunsparce), and Gligar(Bitcrush). I did have a 6th Pokemon, a Nidoking(The Guy), solely for the sake of learning HMs so my Feraligatr didn't have to have 3 HM moves. and to keep others free of them. 3/5 of my Pokemon were... not particularly great at anything. Forretress and Gligar suffered the most in this aspect. a shame, really. perhaps I should have cheated in TMs to maybe make them better. ah well. I did things the hard way, and it never really paid off. I loved my team regardless. but I did struggle a lot. pretty constantly. I used a 2x exp cheat and had my Pokemon holding lucky eggs that were cheated in, to mitigate/avoid real grinding. about halfway through Kanto, I also decided I was done fighting every trainer because fighting them just took so much time.
at Mt. Silver, I chose to use cheated in rare candies to level my Pokemon to 70. should have gotten them to 75, probably, but it's ok. the struggle against Red was what it should be, and that's not a terrible thing.
the game looks great... I was giddy at so many things. I wish Pokemon games still had more unique sprites, or I guess models now... trainer types should have a couple of variations. even if they were just recolors with maybe very slight changes. but the NPCs in this game having more distinct overworld sprites than in the original made me happier than it should have. lol
the music, uhhhhhhh. well. it gets better in Kanto. I was not a fan of much of what you hear in Johto. I dunno why remakes/remasters mostly seem to ruin the vibes with the new music. anyway, while the vibes with the Kanto music are different, it works in that case. though overall, it's a bummer that most of the pep of the original non-battle tracks is gone. I know the GB sounds thing exists, but it doesn't work quite right because the DS can't play chiptunes correctly.
I am happy that a decent chunk of the reduction of Kanto was undone, Viridian Forest being an Actual Place again was so nice. I didn't expect it. I didn't really check it out because honestly I wasn't very interested but at least there was something to check out.
the amount of extra content in this game is a lot... I didn't bother with any of it because I personally don't care and it doesn't particularly add much to the experience imo. still, it's very cool, and definitely not something that'd happen in a more modern Pokemon remake.
gen 2 is my favorite, but playing this remake left me wondering why. perhaps it's just some immense nostalgia tied solely to the originals, I dunno. my lack of love for gen 4 is likely related to why I didn't enjoy this remake as much, honestly. something I could try to unpack at some point but not sure I really care to
the biggest problem imo, is that the whole Team Rocket segment is still ridiculously long. maybe it feels even longer. it's been long enough since I've experienced gen 2 in any form, but that segment is the low point of the game because it's so excessive. breaking it up like how the gen 3 Evil Team stuff was broken up may have helped, but I dunno.
my personal experience can be summed up with one word: underwhelmed. I think the reason this game is beloved by many is largely a nostalgia thing. I was unable to get one of these remakes at release. just never had the money, sadly. growing up poor af as a gamer sucked, lemme tell you. I had to play this emulated because I wasn't going to pay the price for a physical copy, and my old 3DS is pretty junky now. even so, it wouldn't have compared to having it back then with the Pokewalker and perhaps people to really share the joy with.
I am not 100% sure how the reception for the gen 3 remakes was, but I know the gen 4 ones were... pretty bad. so I get why people would cling onto this, because it's really good in comparison. it just suffers most of the flaws of the originals.
I used a pretty weird team. Feraligatr(K. Rool), Houndoom(BlackShuck), Forretress(Nokama), Porygon(Dunsparce), and Gligar(Bitcrush). I did have a 6th Pokemon, a Nidoking(The Guy), solely for the sake of learning HMs so my Feraligatr didn't have to have 3 HM moves. and to keep others free of them. 3/5 of my Pokemon were... not particularly great at anything. Forretress and Gligar suffered the most in this aspect. a shame, really. perhaps I should have cheated in TMs to maybe make them better. ah well. I did things the hard way, and it never really paid off. I loved my team regardless. but I did struggle a lot. pretty constantly. I used a 2x exp cheat and had my Pokemon holding lucky eggs that were cheated in, to mitigate/avoid real grinding. about halfway through Kanto, I also decided I was done fighting every trainer because fighting them just took so much time.
at Mt. Silver, I chose to use cheated in rare candies to level my Pokemon to 70. should have gotten them to 75, probably, but it's ok. the struggle against Red was what it should be, and that's not a terrible thing.
the game looks great... I was giddy at so many things. I wish Pokemon games still had more unique sprites, or I guess models now... trainer types should have a couple of variations. even if they were just recolors with maybe very slight changes. but the NPCs in this game having more distinct overworld sprites than in the original made me happier than it should have. lol
the music, uhhhhhhh. well. it gets better in Kanto. I was not a fan of much of what you hear in Johto. I dunno why remakes/remasters mostly seem to ruin the vibes with the new music. anyway, while the vibes with the Kanto music are different, it works in that case. though overall, it's a bummer that most of the pep of the original non-battle tracks is gone. I know the GB sounds thing exists, but it doesn't work quite right because the DS can't play chiptunes correctly.
I am happy that a decent chunk of the reduction of Kanto was undone, Viridian Forest being an Actual Place again was so nice. I didn't expect it. I didn't really check it out because honestly I wasn't very interested but at least there was something to check out.
the amount of extra content in this game is a lot... I didn't bother with any of it because I personally don't care and it doesn't particularly add much to the experience imo. still, it's very cool, and definitely not something that'd happen in a more modern Pokemon remake.
gen 2 is my favorite, but playing this remake left me wondering why. perhaps it's just some immense nostalgia tied solely to the originals, I dunno. my lack of love for gen 4 is likely related to why I didn't enjoy this remake as much, honestly. something I could try to unpack at some point but not sure I really care to
2001
holy FUCK I forgot how brutal this game is. haven't played it in a long time, but picked it up because a friend was playing and I just kinda... got into it and played it pretty quick.
FUCK Emperor Bulblax and whatever the hell he stands for. oh my GOD. such a shitty and ridiculous final boss. he jumps way too much and it gets ridiculously difficult as a result, because time is being wasted watching him jump. unless I was doing something wrong? I dunno tho. either way, wow, that pissed me off.
Pikmin, even flower Pikmin, are incredibly slow in all aspects. they are also incredibly susceptible to being knocked over. oh my god. it just kept happening. they kept getting crushed and eaten because they would not get up and run away. I was whistling, I was pushing on the stick, but it just kept happening. RIP all those Pikmin. I had over 500 Pikmin deaths. I'm sure I've done better in the past... though now that I think about it, I do wonder how. questions I don't have answers to. anyway.
still a pretty solid game but it is so fucking hard with only Olimar. the areas are huge and so you're trying to do many things at a time but it's very hard to manage that. it took me 21 days to get all the parts, and I know I've done it faster before, but I am out of practice and struggled a lot. not sure I'm interested in getting better at this game again, but playing it once again was ok.
FUCK Emperor Bulblax and whatever the hell he stands for. oh my GOD. such a shitty and ridiculous final boss. he jumps way too much and it gets ridiculously difficult as a result, because time is being wasted watching him jump. unless I was doing something wrong? I dunno tho. either way, wow, that pissed me off.
Pikmin, even flower Pikmin, are incredibly slow in all aspects. they are also incredibly susceptible to being knocked over. oh my god. it just kept happening. they kept getting crushed and eaten because they would not get up and run away. I was whistling, I was pushing on the stick, but it just kept happening. RIP all those Pikmin. I had over 500 Pikmin deaths. I'm sure I've done better in the past... though now that I think about it, I do wonder how. questions I don't have answers to. anyway.
still a pretty solid game but it is so fucking hard with only Olimar. the areas are huge and so you're trying to do many things at a time but it's very hard to manage that. it took me 21 days to get all the parts, and I know I've done it faster before, but I am out of practice and struggled a lot. not sure I'm interested in getting better at this game again, but playing it once again was ok.
1999
I love this game so, so much. totally got the rose-tinted goggles on regarding this one. will not hesitate to admit that. but also, I don't care. I am so sad that Mario Golf got less and less fun as the installments kept coming. this game is the most fun. I will admit the unlocking characters is garbage and that they're OP af when you go up against them. it's true. it's really all true. but I like Peach and Plum the most anyway so uhhhhhhhhh. whoops. Maple too, but she's the easy unlock that exists, so... well. :)
never owned this one, just rented it a lot, and then have emulated it a number of times. so much fun. I have done the research and realized that Toadstool Tour has most of the same content this game did. huh. the only game mode here that is not there is mini golf. while the mini golf courses are bland(and visually glitchy via N64 emulation), I don't care, I love doing the mini golf. it is a real shame they've never done it again.
never owned this one, just rented it a lot, and then have emulated it a number of times. so much fun. I have done the research and realized that Toadstool Tour has most of the same content this game did. huh. the only game mode here that is not there is mini golf. while the mini golf courses are bland(and visually glitchy via N64 emulation), I don't care, I love doing the mini golf. it is a real shame they've never done it again.