OK. This is epic.
As a fan of the roguelike genre, this one was a pleasant surprise to come across (thanks HoodlumCallum) and is just as pleasant to experience. Not that it matters much but for the record I chose to port this hack onto my 3DS as a custom install Virtual Console inject, rather than playing it on an emulator. But without further ado... Emerald Rogue. This hack is excellent, let's get that out of the way right now. Not only is it excellent but it's genuinely a top-tier Pokemon hack; with how it blends the original gameplay systems and quirks of Pokemon with roguelike elements so seamlessly is honestly surprising. I wasn't expecting a bad hack by any means, but the quality is far above and beyond what I had envisioned prior to playing. The way the format is streamlined helps a lot too with the game being an easy pick-up and play on the go, you're easily able to hop in and do a couple routes and then come back to your current run later on. Experiencing routes in bigger bursts of playtime is of course a ton of fun, but it's good to have the option of taking breaks mid-run at all as it doesn't gatekeep the gameplay to just the toughest-of-tough players and makes the genre very accessible. Not every hack has to be accessible, but when you're making dramatic changes to core systems like this I feel it's a very appreciated touch. I may also have a bit of bias as the 3DS has limited charge, heh...
Adding to the accessibility is the sheer amount of options given to you when going into new runs. Modifying the quantity of items you'll find, whether or not all your Pokemon gain EXP., the chance of encountering powerful legendary Pokemon, how strong enemy teams are and their competence in using said teams, a number of challenge 'curse' options... and this is just out of the box! When you complete a run for the first time, you gain access to a ton of extra goodies to mess around with: The Pokedex expanding from the first three generations to the first EIGHT, with options to also play by pre-set regional Pokedexes instead if you prefer. The variety of boss trainers also expands to encompass those beyond the Hoenn games, throwing iconic Kanto and Johto bosses to the mix. But if you don't like these guys or just want a different roster to come up against, you can also toggle which regional bosses appear too! You can also enable Megas and/or Z-Moves at this point too, adding to teambuilding options for you and the AI opponents. There's so much potential variety here, and that's without going into side-quest content and the ever-expanding hub world that comes with it... this game is just jam-packed with content and variance on such a simple premise, it's NUTS and I absolute love it. Just about the only thing can't be changed is the permadeath mechanic, but for the format this game is presented in? The permadeath is perfect. Genuinely, one of the best additions this hack could've made. I'm a Fire Emblem fan so I'm no stranger to loving some good permadeath implementation and this game does it in such an excellent and natural way that encourages variety in team-building, especially pushing you to use Pokemon you might not have wanted to or considered before simply because it's all you can get your hands on. It adds a lot of sentiment to the temporary teams too, I've certainly had moments of screaming "NO" when losing a Pokemon I got attached to...
Alas. I have some problems here. Some of the regional Pokedex options seem a little borked in what they give the AI trainers, which I especially noticed with the Galar regional option; there are 400 Pokemon in that Pokedex but a lot of encounters were samey, both with wilds and trainers. There were two consecutive boss battles with Dhelmise in the enemy party for example... I suppose this is inevitable when you have a lot of game to fill and only so many logical places things can go. But also I can walk around in grass and find Magikarp so I don't know what to expect anymore. On a similar note I also wish we could individually toggle generations of Pokemon we want to have appear; as it is, you can select a limit for what gens appear... if that makes sense. To give an example: You can make it so Gen.1 through Gen.5 Pokemon will appear, but you wouldn't be able to add only Gen.8 Pokemon to that mix and would have to make EVERY Pokemon from Gen.1 to Gen.8 available all at once. It's a simple change, I'm sure, and one that would add even more variety to this already very spicy trail-mix of a video game. I'd absolutely adore this as a feature and hope it gets added at some point!
I do have one other flaw, and it's most likely just me being slightly nitpicky. Slight spoilers but after the champion battle, the game isn't over and you instead get a final route to complete along with a true final boss fight at the end. Now, this sounds awesome, and admittedly I liked it a lot on my second run... but on my first? It felt like a slap to the face. Maybe I'm the stupid one as I decided to sell a lot of items before the "final" battle to buy more shit for my team, only to lose a Pokemon and be left unable to replace them with one last team member since I sold all my Pokeballs at the prior rest stop. With no way to buy more because the randomly genned route only put rest stops after all the encounters... I still managed the true final boss perfectly well with only five team members, but hopefully some of you kind of get what I mean. The addition of a true final boss is exciting and fun; on my subsequent run I loved it a lot! But for that first time you're lead into believing that there's no more game after the champion fight, except yes there is. Maybe I'm just salty I sold all my "useless junk", I don't know. Maybe this isn't a problem with the game but a problem with me. Who knows... but it's my review and so I'm pointing it out anyways.
On the whole, this game is brilliant. It's excellent. Top-notch Pokemon ROM hacking. I've only completed two runs thus far (my initial run and one with the updated Pokemon roster) but attempted many more, which I feel gives me enough playtime to justify making a review now. In spite of this though I'm absolutely going to keep playing for a lot longer, this game has me by my nonexistent balls and won't let go. A very high recommendation if you love Pokemon, roguelikes, or both! It's a great slice of something different that can be accessed by everyone thanks to the options you can mess around with. Top-three ROM hack for me.
As a fan of the roguelike genre, this one was a pleasant surprise to come across (thanks HoodlumCallum) and is just as pleasant to experience. Not that it matters much but for the record I chose to port this hack onto my 3DS as a custom install Virtual Console inject, rather than playing it on an emulator. But without further ado... Emerald Rogue. This hack is excellent, let's get that out of the way right now. Not only is it excellent but it's genuinely a top-tier Pokemon hack; with how it blends the original gameplay systems and quirks of Pokemon with roguelike elements so seamlessly is honestly surprising. I wasn't expecting a bad hack by any means, but the quality is far above and beyond what I had envisioned prior to playing. The way the format is streamlined helps a lot too with the game being an easy pick-up and play on the go, you're easily able to hop in and do a couple routes and then come back to your current run later on. Experiencing routes in bigger bursts of playtime is of course a ton of fun, but it's good to have the option of taking breaks mid-run at all as it doesn't gatekeep the gameplay to just the toughest-of-tough players and makes the genre very accessible. Not every hack has to be accessible, but when you're making dramatic changes to core systems like this I feel it's a very appreciated touch. I may also have a bit of bias as the 3DS has limited charge, heh...
Adding to the accessibility is the sheer amount of options given to you when going into new runs. Modifying the quantity of items you'll find, whether or not all your Pokemon gain EXP., the chance of encountering powerful legendary Pokemon, how strong enemy teams are and their competence in using said teams, a number of challenge 'curse' options... and this is just out of the box! When you complete a run for the first time, you gain access to a ton of extra goodies to mess around with: The Pokedex expanding from the first three generations to the first EIGHT, with options to also play by pre-set regional Pokedexes instead if you prefer. The variety of boss trainers also expands to encompass those beyond the Hoenn games, throwing iconic Kanto and Johto bosses to the mix. But if you don't like these guys or just want a different roster to come up against, you can also toggle which regional bosses appear too! You can also enable Megas and/or Z-Moves at this point too, adding to teambuilding options for you and the AI opponents. There's so much potential variety here, and that's without going into side-quest content and the ever-expanding hub world that comes with it... this game is just jam-packed with content and variance on such a simple premise, it's NUTS and I absolute love it. Just about the only thing can't be changed is the permadeath mechanic, but for the format this game is presented in? The permadeath is perfect. Genuinely, one of the best additions this hack could've made. I'm a Fire Emblem fan so I'm no stranger to loving some good permadeath implementation and this game does it in such an excellent and natural way that encourages variety in team-building, especially pushing you to use Pokemon you might not have wanted to or considered before simply because it's all you can get your hands on. It adds a lot of sentiment to the temporary teams too, I've certainly had moments of screaming "NO" when losing a Pokemon I got attached to...
Alas. I have some problems here. Some of the regional Pokedex options seem a little borked in what they give the AI trainers, which I especially noticed with the Galar regional option; there are 400 Pokemon in that Pokedex but a lot of encounters were samey, both with wilds and trainers. There were two consecutive boss battles with Dhelmise in the enemy party for example... I suppose this is inevitable when you have a lot of game to fill and only so many logical places things can go. But also I can walk around in grass and find Magikarp so I don't know what to expect anymore. On a similar note I also wish we could individually toggle generations of Pokemon we want to have appear; as it is, you can select a limit for what gens appear... if that makes sense. To give an example: You can make it so Gen.1 through Gen.5 Pokemon will appear, but you wouldn't be able to add only Gen.8 Pokemon to that mix and would have to make EVERY Pokemon from Gen.1 to Gen.8 available all at once. It's a simple change, I'm sure, and one that would add even more variety to this already very spicy trail-mix of a video game. I'd absolutely adore this as a feature and hope it gets added at some point!
I do have one other flaw, and it's most likely just me being slightly nitpicky. Slight spoilers but after the champion battle, the game isn't over and you instead get a final route to complete along with a true final boss fight at the end. Now, this sounds awesome, and admittedly I liked it a lot on my second run... but on my first? It felt like a slap to the face. Maybe I'm the stupid one as I decided to sell a lot of items before the "final" battle to buy more shit for my team, only to lose a Pokemon and be left unable to replace them with one last team member since I sold all my Pokeballs at the prior rest stop. With no way to buy more because the randomly genned route only put rest stops after all the encounters... I still managed the true final boss perfectly well with only five team members, but hopefully some of you kind of get what I mean. The addition of a true final boss is exciting and fun; on my subsequent run I loved it a lot! But for that first time you're lead into believing that there's no more game after the champion fight, except yes there is. Maybe I'm just salty I sold all my "useless junk", I don't know. Maybe this isn't a problem with the game but a problem with me. Who knows... but it's my review and so I'm pointing it out anyways.
On the whole, this game is brilliant. It's excellent. Top-notch Pokemon ROM hacking. I've only completed two runs thus far (my initial run and one with the updated Pokemon roster) but attempted many more, which I feel gives me enough playtime to justify making a review now. In spite of this though I'm absolutely going to keep playing for a lot longer, this game has me by my nonexistent balls and won't let go. A very high recommendation if you love Pokemon, roguelikes, or both! It's a great slice of something different that can be accessed by everyone thanks to the options you can mess around with. Top-three ROM hack for me.