One of the better romhacks with a fantastic pokedex and a ton of QoL features, Unbound is absolutely wonderful and a joy to play...when it shuts up and gives you time to play.

There are fun battle challenges, gimmick battles that change the way Pokémon types work, different difficulty settings, a character customizer, lots of optional side-quests that have worthwhile rewards, post-game content for legendaries, a new game plus mode, mega evolutions, dynamax raids, level-scaling trainer battles - all of which make Unbound feel fresh despite being one of a billion FireRed hacks out there now. All of the optional content also helps to make it as long or short as you'd like, which I appreciated, since in a lot of other games you finally get your team together just before the game ends. The New Game Plus feature helps with that as well.

However, holy crap the story is so overwrought and hackneyed to the point where my eyes were permanently stuck rolled into the back of my head anytime I had to do main quest missions that weren't gyms. Not only is the premise ridiculous, but the NPCs talk way too long. These two issues combined to drive me insane at parts.

My only other tiny issue is giving out pseudolegendaries for starters, which is a trend in romhacks that I personally really dislike.

That being said, everything else in the game oozes charm and I had an absolute blast playing Unbound.

Reviewed on Jan 18, 2023


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