More of an excuse for me to avoid finishing Unbound? One could see it that way, but... no, I honestly just had a glimmer of nostalgia that I wanted to satisfy (helped by this game getting a big cameo in Clover). Because hoo fucking boy is Snakewood something surprisingly nostalgic for me. Not only that but the game is infamously popular within the community and for good reason. As well as bad reason. Snakewood, as far as I can recall, is one of the first ROM hacks to majorly change the Pokémon format up; which is to say, focusing more on new story directions and generally ignoring the "beat up gym leaders and become winner" plot beats that the series is known for. So it's a bit of a small landmark in that regard? It feels weird to admit and I could be totally misremembering, but as far as I'm aware... this thing right here was once one of the more 'advanced' hacks you could pick up, stepping out of line to do more. I feel like it's become popular for this alone, for daring to try something different and- at the time -being a shakeup from shit like Chaos Black and Quartz. Other hacks from around this time like AshGray would have a similar idea, with similar popularity too. But nowadays, how do they hold up? ...sorry, 'it'. Snakewood is the only game I'm looking at here.
Snakewood is based on Pokémon Ruby and unlike basically ever single modern hack ever squirted onto the internet, was born at a time where the physical/special split was either nonexistent or a niche idea. I'm actually OK with this conceptually, although mainly for nostalgia factor because by the time Gen.3 rolled around the phys/spec typing system was really showing its primitive nature. The Pokémon you get in Snakewood, though, usually make good use of the system even if unfortunate carryovers like Absol still exist. So whilst the gameplay at its core is untouched, why dedicate a section to it? It's certainly not the "disease" type, because that's just a renamed "???" type... no I give mention to the gameplay because it's also housing what is Snakewood's most infamous aspect, the absolutely ABSURD difficulty. This is felt as early as Petalburg Woods where the first roadblock crops up in an instant, having to fight fairly high-level Houndour and Murkrow ("zombie" versions of them but they have the same stats so whatever) that are definitely going to sweep the unknowing and unprepared; this being the start of the game, too, leaves you with fairly limited team options. And the starters at your disposal, though very unique choices, don't help a ton: Koffing, Baltoy, and Paras. Paras in particular is basically playing this game on hard mode, in a game that is already hard mode by default. And again, keep in mind this is an encounter within just the opening hours of the game. Not long after you're facing the glassiest of glass cannons in a battle against a Deoxys expy... followed by an endurance round against a number of Anorith (not usually a tough Pokémon, but in the early game with limited type options it becomes a bit of a wall)... soon after you're fighting some reskinned Charizards, which itself is shortly followed by a gym fight with an awfully infamous gimmick 'mon that you have to stall out. Again, cleaning unprepared/unknowing players with ease. These encounters are clumped in the early game too, remember: All of these examples are just the early game. And they get followed in the near future against a fight involving Raikou, in what could barely be considered the mid game. Gym leaders will later pull legendaries right out of nowhere in a certain back-to-back fight, other legendaries- real and Fakémon -will begin appearing with surprising frequency later down the line... and even if teams aren't crushingly overpowered, the sheer volume of trainers you may have to fight in any given area makes the balancing super dumb. Especially when trainers average about 3 or so Pokémon per team, it makes the game tedious to play a lot of the time; stack-up on items as much as possible, because holy shit you'll need them. Thankfully you can exploit an infinite free potions script at the start of the game, but is that any way to play the game? Being lame like that?
But if its not the battles that rustle people's jimmies, it is absolutely and understandably the overworld chicanery. To give an idea of how badly balanced some of this is, there are SIX puzzle guides given by the creator on the Pokécommunity page for the game. This not counting other grievous areas such as the various doorways on the inquisition island that make traversing things a nightmare, including a warp that sends you right back to do it all over again. Or a trap tile in a later dungeon that sees you forced into an unwinnable fight against a legendary Fakémon, leading you to have to do everything over again if you didn't know that could happen. Really I could keep going but a lot of these boil down to "if you didn't know it was coming, you're getting sent back to the start" and nobody enjoys a game that fucks with them that way. If you claim you do, you're just actually lying; there are clever and fun ways to have your game mess with the player, but cryptic puzzles and/or traps that leave you having to do the same room all over again just because you were playing the game blind... it's not fun. And even as someone running the game for the sixth time now (told you I have nostalgia for this one) I can identify it as unfun, unbalanced, and just pure tedium of game design. The idea of adding harder puzzles isn't a bad one, and heck the Magnemite/Ditto puzzles are great in concept. But they fall flat in execution because of how cryptic they get, especially the former considering it has to be specifically Magnemite... so having a Magneton or Magnezone ain't gonna work, just leading to frustration for players. Overall; the puzzles are too cryptic and unfun for their own good, and the battle balancing is all out of wack aside from the mid game (which also has the best pacing imo) and end game (where everything is at least close enough on-par in terms of strength by then). Why keep going? Because honestly, when you're not stuck in Shaderu hell the game can feel satisfying to beat. Yes, I hate when fangames use legendary Pokémon as an excuse for challenge, but it's thankfully not quite Radical Red levels where everyone and their mom stumbled upon mythics and legends and pseudos. This doesn't excuse the abundance of super strong Pokémon before you'd be adequately equipped to face them, for sure, but it's at least not every trainer. You get me? They pull SOME punches, most trainers who have Uber-tiers make enough sense having them. But these battles should've been spaced better imo, saved for later on in the game. Because Snakewood adds plenty of threatening and cool new Fakémon even without legendaries, seeing those get used more frequently would've been great. Because as it is, a lot of the zombie Pokémon are either repeated over and over (Graveill line, Moulder line, Houndsour line...) or used in maybe only one or two areas in the entire game (Stitcher and Shinigami are especially guilty of this). Although I will admit, the limited use of the Telefang monsters (yes I'm serious) makes sense considering they're only involved for a smaller part of the story. I rambled longer than I meant to... game balance is stinky, that's the point I wanted to make.
However, Snakewood prides itself on story! So how is the story? ...well the creator admitted to losing interest in it partway through making the game, so that's a brilliant notion to dive in with. But I digress. I honestly didn't really guess as such until reading it outright, because the plot... is confused and messy, but for this game it makes just enough sense. Now this is NOT a good story, hell I can only just about bring myself to call it passable, but Snakewood is so unhinged and off-the-wall that by its own standards it somehow works. Barely. Now there is a huge caveat to this, and that is the game starting off with a more bleak tone that becomes dropped in favour of something more parodic around halfway through; this makes the later push back towards a serious narrative feel weird, because by then it feels like the game had stopped dealing with the darker aspects initially setup. As said in my Pokémon Wack review I don't mind a game that wants to try both tones! It can be done well when pulled off correctly. But in here, it really feels forced; mainly with how the Deadly Seven just, out of nowhere, go from lmao funny action guys spouting nonsense to starkly seriously martial art warriors. If there were more telltale signs that there was more to them than meets the eye, this twist would be pretty enjoyabe. But it comes off as "damn I made the game too silly, how is this apocalypse plot going to be taken seriously now?" and a sharp turn into reverse to try and save-face. Amazingly the car doesn't crash in this scenario, but definitely suffers damage regardless. What also doesn't help is a lot of characters and plot beats from the first half of the game get scrapped or rushed into a rewritten form because, by the creator's own admission, he was bored with the original idea. This especially stings with the horsemen plot, as it ends up going basically nowhere. A lot of fluff comes up once or twice only, usually just to be filler... and this game unfortunately predates Wack by having a "voice of god" moment where creator-kun admits that nothing that has happened matters, or will matter. Thankfully this is an optional scene (at least I believe it is...) and doesn't come with the game ending, but it's still bizarre to have the player character just. Accept that nothing in the world matters, and continue onwards despite that. It's also very immersion breaking, as also mentioned in my Wack critique, granted this game was already very loosely dangling the immersion threads by that point in the story.
So... the gameplay is messily balanced, the story is unfocused and goes off-rail too much to be taken fully seriously, the zombie Pokémon are barely even usable for yourself. Why isn't this a 1-star game? Because it does do a complete and unique journey, for better or worse. Snakewood may not necessarily excel at anything it sets out to do, but it still has plenty of good and fun ideas that function for the most part. Consider as well the timeframe in which this was released. To have played it on launch must've been something else, because even as someone a little later to the party (I first played it in early 2012) seeing everything unique the game had set out to do was a lot of fun. Nowadays it's nothing more than a relic of the past: An embarrassing mess of ideas that unfortunately rarely works out or results in anything cohesive. This game is hard to call good or even OK... but it's such a mess that it becomes enjoyable in a twisted way. "So bad it's good" if you will. The main issue is how first-time players will be stuck, lost, and undoubtedly frustrated because of everything that is so cryptic about it. Especially if they've come off of playing newer, better hacks that respect your time and are just generally well put-together. But for an oldie in the ROM hack scene like myself, this one doesn't get as much scorn from me as it would others. Fuck, as mentioned earlier this was my sixth playthrough of the game! I'm amazed at myself for being able to stomach it even half that many times, because wow... I really wouldn't blame anyone dropping this partway through, or ignoring it outright.
The story doesn't know what it wants to do, the main draw of zombie Pokémon is unfortunately undercooked, the attempts at humour reek of 2010s lolrandom internet, the balancing is all over the place, there are a number of glitches ranging from harmless to save-destroying (including right at the end of the game yikes), there's a handful of Pokémon with unfinished sprites, there are sprites that are comedically unpolished ("Gigawolf" is fucking funny)... yet I just still enjoy this one. It's a mess, but it's a beautiful mess. I really do miss this age of Pokémon ROM hacking, before decomp hacks became standard and people instead had to carefully articulate every sprite and script change as to not fuck-up everything. Snakewood pales compared to most ROM hacks, saying nothing of how its heavily outclassed by decomp projects, but it's so bad it's good. I feel this game encompasses the "if you know, you know" phrase; people who've played this in the past will get a sick sense of enjoyment out of it. But if you're not nostalgic for this game or the era it comes from, it is a very VERY difficult recommendation to make... and not one I think I could suggest, even if it would be your first Pokémon ROM hack.
Snakewood is a relic. It's a relic covered in grime and dirt that'll be worth 50 cents on the second-hand market, but it's still a relic that has fond memories associated with it. Just like a gunky relic, you know it's shit and not worth much of anything, but you want to hold onto it for that sentimental value; for being "of its time". It's not good, but I enjoy it. And that's OK.
Snakewood is based on Pokémon Ruby and unlike basically ever single modern hack ever squirted onto the internet, was born at a time where the physical/special split was either nonexistent or a niche idea. I'm actually OK with this conceptually, although mainly for nostalgia factor because by the time Gen.3 rolled around the phys/spec typing system was really showing its primitive nature. The Pokémon you get in Snakewood, though, usually make good use of the system even if unfortunate carryovers like Absol still exist. So whilst the gameplay at its core is untouched, why dedicate a section to it? It's certainly not the "disease" type, because that's just a renamed "???" type... no I give mention to the gameplay because it's also housing what is Snakewood's most infamous aspect, the absolutely ABSURD difficulty. This is felt as early as Petalburg Woods where the first roadblock crops up in an instant, having to fight fairly high-level Houndour and Murkrow ("zombie" versions of them but they have the same stats so whatever) that are definitely going to sweep the unknowing and unprepared; this being the start of the game, too, leaves you with fairly limited team options. And the starters at your disposal, though very unique choices, don't help a ton: Koffing, Baltoy, and Paras. Paras in particular is basically playing this game on hard mode, in a game that is already hard mode by default. And again, keep in mind this is an encounter within just the opening hours of the game. Not long after you're facing the glassiest of glass cannons in a battle against a Deoxys expy... followed by an endurance round against a number of Anorith (not usually a tough Pokémon, but in the early game with limited type options it becomes a bit of a wall)... soon after you're fighting some reskinned Charizards, which itself is shortly followed by a gym fight with an awfully infamous gimmick 'mon that you have to stall out. Again, cleaning unprepared/unknowing players with ease. These encounters are clumped in the early game too, remember: All of these examples are just the early game. And they get followed in the near future against a fight involving Raikou, in what could barely be considered the mid game. Gym leaders will later pull legendaries right out of nowhere in a certain back-to-back fight, other legendaries- real and Fakémon -will begin appearing with surprising frequency later down the line... and even if teams aren't crushingly overpowered, the sheer volume of trainers you may have to fight in any given area makes the balancing super dumb. Especially when trainers average about 3 or so Pokémon per team, it makes the game tedious to play a lot of the time; stack-up on items as much as possible, because holy shit you'll need them. Thankfully you can exploit an infinite free potions script at the start of the game, but is that any way to play the game? Being lame like that?
But if its not the battles that rustle people's jimmies, it is absolutely and understandably the overworld chicanery. To give an idea of how badly balanced some of this is, there are SIX puzzle guides given by the creator on the Pokécommunity page for the game. This not counting other grievous areas such as the various doorways on the inquisition island that make traversing things a nightmare, including a warp that sends you right back to do it all over again. Or a trap tile in a later dungeon that sees you forced into an unwinnable fight against a legendary Fakémon, leading you to have to do everything over again if you didn't know that could happen. Really I could keep going but a lot of these boil down to "if you didn't know it was coming, you're getting sent back to the start" and nobody enjoys a game that fucks with them that way. If you claim you do, you're just actually lying; there are clever and fun ways to have your game mess with the player, but cryptic puzzles and/or traps that leave you having to do the same room all over again just because you were playing the game blind... it's not fun. And even as someone running the game for the sixth time now (told you I have nostalgia for this one) I can identify it as unfun, unbalanced, and just pure tedium of game design. The idea of adding harder puzzles isn't a bad one, and heck the Magnemite/Ditto puzzles are great in concept. But they fall flat in execution because of how cryptic they get, especially the former considering it has to be specifically Magnemite... so having a Magneton or Magnezone ain't gonna work, just leading to frustration for players. Overall; the puzzles are too cryptic and unfun for their own good, and the battle balancing is all out of wack aside from the mid game (which also has the best pacing imo) and end game (where everything is at least close enough on-par in terms of strength by then). Why keep going? Because honestly, when you're not stuck in Shaderu hell the game can feel satisfying to beat. Yes, I hate when fangames use legendary Pokémon as an excuse for challenge, but it's thankfully not quite Radical Red levels where everyone and their mom stumbled upon mythics and legends and pseudos. This doesn't excuse the abundance of super strong Pokémon before you'd be adequately equipped to face them, for sure, but it's at least not every trainer. You get me? They pull SOME punches, most trainers who have Uber-tiers make enough sense having them. But these battles should've been spaced better imo, saved for later on in the game. Because Snakewood adds plenty of threatening and cool new Fakémon even without legendaries, seeing those get used more frequently would've been great. Because as it is, a lot of the zombie Pokémon are either repeated over and over (Graveill line, Moulder line, Houndsour line...) or used in maybe only one or two areas in the entire game (Stitcher and Shinigami are especially guilty of this). Although I will admit, the limited use of the Telefang monsters (yes I'm serious) makes sense considering they're only involved for a smaller part of the story. I rambled longer than I meant to... game balance is stinky, that's the point I wanted to make.
However, Snakewood prides itself on story! So how is the story? ...well the creator admitted to losing interest in it partway through making the game, so that's a brilliant notion to dive in with. But I digress. I honestly didn't really guess as such until reading it outright, because the plot... is confused and messy, but for this game it makes just enough sense. Now this is NOT a good story, hell I can only just about bring myself to call it passable, but Snakewood is so unhinged and off-the-wall that by its own standards it somehow works. Barely. Now there is a huge caveat to this, and that is the game starting off with a more bleak tone that becomes dropped in favour of something more parodic around halfway through; this makes the later push back towards a serious narrative feel weird, because by then it feels like the game had stopped dealing with the darker aspects initially setup. As said in my Pokémon Wack review I don't mind a game that wants to try both tones! It can be done well when pulled off correctly. But in here, it really feels forced; mainly with how the Deadly Seven just, out of nowhere, go from lmao funny action guys spouting nonsense to starkly seriously martial art warriors. If there were more telltale signs that there was more to them than meets the eye, this twist would be pretty enjoyabe. But it comes off as "damn I made the game too silly, how is this apocalypse plot going to be taken seriously now?" and a sharp turn into reverse to try and save-face. Amazingly the car doesn't crash in this scenario, but definitely suffers damage regardless. What also doesn't help is a lot of characters and plot beats from the first half of the game get scrapped or rushed into a rewritten form because, by the creator's own admission, he was bored with the original idea. This especially stings with the horsemen plot, as it ends up going basically nowhere. A lot of fluff comes up once or twice only, usually just to be filler... and this game unfortunately predates Wack by having a "voice of god" moment where creator-kun admits that nothing that has happened matters, or will matter. Thankfully this is an optional scene (at least I believe it is...) and doesn't come with the game ending, but it's still bizarre to have the player character just. Accept that nothing in the world matters, and continue onwards despite that. It's also very immersion breaking, as also mentioned in my Wack critique, granted this game was already very loosely dangling the immersion threads by that point in the story.
So... the gameplay is messily balanced, the story is unfocused and goes off-rail too much to be taken fully seriously, the zombie Pokémon are barely even usable for yourself. Why isn't this a 1-star game? Because it does do a complete and unique journey, for better or worse. Snakewood may not necessarily excel at anything it sets out to do, but it still has plenty of good and fun ideas that function for the most part. Consider as well the timeframe in which this was released. To have played it on launch must've been something else, because even as someone a little later to the party (I first played it in early 2012) seeing everything unique the game had set out to do was a lot of fun. Nowadays it's nothing more than a relic of the past: An embarrassing mess of ideas that unfortunately rarely works out or results in anything cohesive. This game is hard to call good or even OK... but it's such a mess that it becomes enjoyable in a twisted way. "So bad it's good" if you will. The main issue is how first-time players will be stuck, lost, and undoubtedly frustrated because of everything that is so cryptic about it. Especially if they've come off of playing newer, better hacks that respect your time and are just generally well put-together. But for an oldie in the ROM hack scene like myself, this one doesn't get as much scorn from me as it would others. Fuck, as mentioned earlier this was my sixth playthrough of the game! I'm amazed at myself for being able to stomach it even half that many times, because wow... I really wouldn't blame anyone dropping this partway through, or ignoring it outright.
The story doesn't know what it wants to do, the main draw of zombie Pokémon is unfortunately undercooked, the attempts at humour reek of 2010s lolrandom internet, the balancing is all over the place, there are a number of glitches ranging from harmless to save-destroying (including right at the end of the game yikes), there's a handful of Pokémon with unfinished sprites, there are sprites that are comedically unpolished ("Gigawolf" is fucking funny)... yet I just still enjoy this one. It's a mess, but it's a beautiful mess. I really do miss this age of Pokémon ROM hacking, before decomp hacks became standard and people instead had to carefully articulate every sprite and script change as to not fuck-up everything. Snakewood pales compared to most ROM hacks, saying nothing of how its heavily outclassed by decomp projects, but it's so bad it's good. I feel this game encompasses the "if you know, you know" phrase; people who've played this in the past will get a sick sense of enjoyment out of it. But if you're not nostalgic for this game or the era it comes from, it is a very VERY difficult recommendation to make... and not one I think I could suggest, even if it would be your first Pokémon ROM hack.
Snakewood is a relic. It's a relic covered in grime and dirt that'll be worth 50 cents on the second-hand market, but it's still a relic that has fond memories associated with it. Just like a gunky relic, you know it's shit and not worth much of anything, but you want to hold onto it for that sentimental value; for being "of its time". It's not good, but I enjoy it. And that's OK.