The 5-stars on this one is very genuine. No meme, no joke, no bullshit: I fully believe this game deserves the rating. Not only is it what I now consider to be my favourite Pokemon fangame, but also what I would say is the BEST Pokemon fangame. This game is honestly peak ROM hacking which I didn't expect from what is at the offset, and at it's core, a silly cringe-worthy 4Chan homage. But the word homage rings very true here, because despite mocking Pokemon itself and those who take it too seriously this is an honest love-letter to fans of the series with many a community reference and wonderfully balanced gameplay that provides a tough but fair challenge which reasonably scales along the journey.

But this game has a reputation which I cannot just ignore here, can I? As already mentioned, Pokemon Clover is a homage to 4Chan and was made by numerous anons from the /vp/ board across years of collective work. Starting life as a simple FireRed edit the game has developed over it's nearly 10 year lifecycle to become what it is today; I can't admit to having played any of these older versions of the game but I was aware of it for most of it's developmental lifespan. I never thought a whole lot of it back then as I had mainly come to know it as "the ROM made by a bunch of fans at once" which alone was a cool concept... but I guess I just never looked into it much more than that. A bit of a shame, but better late than never with this one.

Of course the one thing most people will bring up with this game is the 4Chan aspect, which is very well reflected in the game's tone. Both the creature designs and the humour of the game world. To start with the former, I understand that there are absolutely offensive designs here with many of their basis being abnormal, memes, itself offensive, or in-jokes. However, unlike most edgy/"offensive" ROM hacks I feel Clover does something incredibly well with the creature designs; making them work as actual Pokemon. Your typical edgy-era hack would just put in crudely draw genitals and nazi symbols as "creatures" and call it a day, but the Clover devs really ran with the concepts given and made creatures that- although obviously based on things that wouldn't be on the table for the official games -still look like believable Pokemon. I'm dead serious and I WILL die on this hill, because it's a very valid point. Yeah, names like Furnazi kinda spell out the reference for you but divorced from the name/basis it really does look like an official Pokemon; likewise for Finasoven, the thing it evolves into. Lizakbar and Vandash are perhaps too closely on-the-nose to be justifiably real but still work as creature designs despite that, rather than "let's put in an Osama Bin Laden PNG" or "let's draw blackface on an NPC sprite" which would've been the lazier and cheaper route to get shock factor in there. Then you get the unsubtle designs like Rainglock, Barbarkley, Motherfuck/Hofucno... and especially Kuklux/Kuklan. But dare I say these few unsubtle designs being the exception make them work? ...let me explain; the game builds itself up as having Pokemon based on various edgy/offensive/random concepts, only to then chuck out something like Motherfuck or Kuklux at you out of nowhere. The sudden appearance of these very blatant designs is what makes them humorous, offensive or otherwise. There are then Pokemon designs that aren't even offensive at all and are just genuinely cool ideas for creatures with amazing spritework to bring them to life: The Clovermon selection is a brilliant spread of cringy, offensive, straight-up cool, and everything in-between. It's absolutely wonderful and I loved discovering it throughout my playtime.

For the writing/game world, yeah. What the hell else would you expect from a game like this... basically nothing is off-the-table: If you exist, no doubt some part of your existence is going to be made fun of in this game. And here's the thing, here's my spicy hot-take. I don't mind it; I don't think it's as offensive as people make out; I don't think it existing is wrong, either. Yeah there absolutely are very dated and unfunny lines in this game, I cannot and won't deny that. The second city is a 'feminazi' dig after all, something that hasn't been relevant in years. But it's important to consider the timeline of this game's development, as well as how everyone gets made fun of here. I will emphasize again: EVERYONE gets made fun of here. There are lines of text that insult the game itself, for fuck's sake. I am part of one of the marginalized groups that is mocked in this game and yet I didn't take offense to it despite having received legit harassment before (face-to-face, in the real world, not someone sending petty online messages). Not all of it made me laugh, but there were points where it got me either because it was unexpected or because despite the over exaggerations it felt relatable in a sense. And that's something I think is important, being able to laugh at yourself. If this game was all "haha n-word" and saying gay people should die or whatever, yeah it'd absolutely cross the line from funny to plain offensive. This game not only makes fun of literally everyone, not only exaggerates things to an often unreal degree, but lampshades itself constantly. The neo-nazis for example are portrayed as being right because that's how they see themselves, yet are given trainer names that insult them for being obviously in the wrong. The merchants (no prize for guessing what these are reskinned to be) are constantly around tinfoil-hat NPCs who spout total bull pretty much every point in the game. The gym leader who is literally a nazi gets to have a spot of development by showing how his beliefs came from his bad upbringing and how he's considering a change for the obviously better. The overall writing in this game isn't top-tier or anything, but to write it all off as just being pointlessly offensive isn't exactly correct either. It's edgy, it's shameless, it takes no prisoners; Clover does make fun of people, absolutely. But it does more than just yell slurs at minorities. It goes after everyone, including itself, the people who made it, the people who are playing it, with hyperbolic humour. Whether or not this humour is for you is another question, and if it's not? More power to you. The game does warn you upfront though that the game is going to be edgy/offensive, if Googling it alone somehow didn't give you an idea of what to expect. It's not like it's tricking you into playing an offensive game.

So far all I've really done is defend what I see being the most attacked parts of the game. And honestly I will die on these hills, the game is obviously offensive but it's not promoting an agenda. Whether or not some of the hundreds of anonymous contributors held any kind of beliefs is not for us to know, but a few rotten eggs in this case wouldn't (or shouldn't) taint the entire product. Because it's quite obvious to me that the intent isn't to spread actual hatred; if anyone played this game and had their own sick thoughts "justified" from that, then they would've already been looking for that approval from literally anywhere else. The fault lies on the individual, not the game openly mocking people who believe such things. I digress, though... the serious talk is all well and good. But this is a game, not a political debate. How does the game part of this game hold up?

...well it's Pokemon, big surprise. But with a whole roster of brand-new monsters it really does feel like stepping into a new official release, albeit with this thing most of the main games don't know; challenge. Pokemon Clover features a really great difficulty curve that although starting off as your standard Pokemon fare will gradually turn into making use of EV-trained teams with idealistic moves and items, whilst never once leaving you feeling like you're lagging behind. The game especially takes advantage of this by having its first half not require any serious EV-training of your own, whilst heavily encouraging it in the second half. At the same time however the game makes training-up a competitive grade team incredibly easy very early into this portion of the game, with it being theoretically doable even before then if you're determined enough to max-out a certain Pokemon earlier on. Better still, this game is built around trial-and-error with you expected to lose most major fights at least once before acquiring a victory. Unlike most other difficulty ROM hacks, too, these eventual victories feel satisfying. Playing around with all the new Pokemon to find what works for specific matchups is incredibly fun, with training them up taking no time at all too it's easy to just pop on some background noise as you grind-up a new team member before setting back off into battle and see how your new crew matches-up. Most of this, for me, came during the first half of the game and primarily around the last three gym leaders who ended up exposing some bad type coverage in my team building. Yet all I did was try out a couple new members (two of whom ended up staying for the rest of this part of the game) and found success not long after, rather than being actually roadblocked for what felt like ages because the AI would cheat or have items/Pokemon obviously better than my own. The game actually tests you with engaging team designs, encouraging you to mess around with the options presented before you and using your brain for tactical play. It'll gradually ease you into the tougher battles whilst still giving a nice sprinkle of challenge earlier on without making you feel like you're losing due to bullshit, the game keeps you pretty much on-par with your opponents as much as it can.

For me the best part of this game's difficulty was felt in the second half of it all, where despite things being generally tougher than the first half of the game? I managed to pretty consistently stick with just one team of six that I bred-up. I'd argue few of the Pokemon on said team could be considered exceptionally great, too, especially my water of choice (Substarr). Yet I still got through the game's harshest battles using the team I liked best, because the game wasn't throwing dick moves or unstoppable mountains at me. The game is engaging, satisfying, and rewarding: But most importantly, it's FUN. Pokemon Clover is one of the most fun monster-taming RPGs I've played and ranks up as perhaps the most fun Pokemon experience so far, really only challenged by the Gamecube titles and Emerald Rogue. This is not to dismiss the other mainline Pokemon entries, but as far as games which are instantly memorable for their challenges and how I loved overcoming them? Colo/XD, Emerald Rogue, and now Clover rank as the cream of the crop for me. Of these... I would say Clover is most likely my favourite, considering by the end of the game I had half a box full of backup team members from how many I loved using and swapping-around. This game put a ton of effort into making so many of the Pokemon interesting with not just their (sometimes questionable) designs, but their kits; the type combos, moves both custom and canon, and likewise for abilities. My first team consisted of about eight or nine members swapped in-and-out, with a number of others used for early-/mid-game progression before being replaced, and my second team being more or less a consistent new six Pokemon that I'd caught, bred, and trained-up. This, however, says nothing of the number of Pokemon I wish I could've used and still want to use in future runs of the game. There are so many interesting ones I considered using but eventually settled on a group I became properly attached to, it's a really great feeling and does end up being reminiscent of an official Pokemon experience in that regard. Just exploring this big new world full of unique monsters, finding which ones are your favourites. I can't say enough how fun this game is, because fuck me sideways it's absolutely top-tier stuff.

Graphically this game is absolutely incredible considering this is a fan-project and running on the GBA hardware. I have seen some of the past sprites and despite looking far more rough once upon a time, the version of the game I played had basically nonstop graphical euphoria. Seriously, this is one of the most authentic looking fangames that I've ever seen. The trainer sprites and Pokemon sprites both fit the GBA style to an absolute T with the artists making the absolute most of the GBA's limited sprite sizes whilst still making visually distinct sprites with plenty of life and detail. I of course think of the dabbing youngster sprite whilst typing this sentence out, but in all fairness it is perhaps the best dabbing youngster sprite I've seen. For real though this game is graphically amazing from the creatures, to the trainers, to the backgrounds, tilesets, move effects, dialogue portraits... not everything is 100% original of course but the majority of this stuff obviously is. It's wonderful to see how much care was given to what really could've been a crappily-drawn meme game and it adds so much charm to the experience that I simply cannot gush about it enough.

Story is where this game both did and didn't surprise me. Going in, I didn't really have any story expectations considering this is a 4Chan game. The main villains being a Reddit expy was comically expectant though and I do like how they manage to be stupid goofballs whilst also somehow managing actual impact on the game's events, showing a level of competence despite making Team Star look like actual villains. Coming to a head with a boss showdown that manages to build itself up as something bigger, then get resolved right after with the kind of humour expected at this point in the game. But what did surprise me? How they managed to make these reddit wannabes into something far, far more interesting and a legitimate threat by the second half of the game. Not only that but calling attention to how nonsensical their actions were and describing them as such; it's a great surprise that layers on actual intrigue, especially since until now this is an evil team whose highlights include trying to steal something open-source and housing two weak fodder grunts that randomly shout a gamer word before battle. The fact that the game could make this same villain team into an actual threatening force but an interesting villainous presence, with the elites of this group serving as some of the most challenging, interesting, and fun fights in the entire game. How these guys get their story concluded is really nice as well, having a real-stakes final fight that itself is another fun challenging yet fun battle with incredible music behind it all. Yet despite this, the game never truly loses it's roots as being a primarily funny experience. It has genuine moments for sure but the most of this game- including the post-defeat speech of the main antagonist -carries a humorous tone that is primarily consistent. It takes a little to fully get into gear, but when it gets going it feels like one big enjoyable ride. Whether or not you find it funny is another story; objectively, though, it keeps the tone up really well despite wanting to tell more of an actual story during the latter portions of the playtime.

The soundtrack... yes the soundtrack here was (as far as I know) primarily made by some of the guys behind SiIvaGunner so meme remixes are rampant, and for the GBA they fit really really well. They are remixed pretty much flawlessly for the console limitations, without bastardizing any of them (the first gym battle music- Darude Sandstorm -is a perfect example). All of this despite me not really caring for the SiIvaGunner project; I do genuinely enjoy and appreciate their contributions here though. Not only are the remixes great, but so SO many original tracks are earworm material with how well composed and catchy they are. Always suiting the situation they're used for, being great to hum along with if that's your thing too. Battle themes are especially notable for this, with the Shadow Council theme being one I've gone back to so frequently despite hearing it five times in one sitting. Something like that is how you know you've struck gold, having a player wanting to obsessively listen to your soundtrack after they've already been hearing it for ours on end. Full props to everyone who contributed their musical talents, because there are very few songs I didn't care for. So many songs got me hyped-up, a lot of sudden meme remixes got actual laughs out of me when they appeared, and my work playlist got a fuckton bigger because of this game. Give it a listen... or play the game to hear it all in context. Either works.

I already said it at the start of this lengthy behemoth of a review. But this game is overall fantastic, easily what I consider the best Pokemon fangame and currently my favourite one too. The big fuss with this game is surrounding the content within it, but after having it hyped up I really was left asking "Is that it?" because all-in-all it wasn't anything outstandingly offensive. Maybe my unfortunate real-world exposures have left my senses simply fucked, but I really can't think of anything that genuinely made me go "Damn that's gonna hurt someone". It's a Pokemon game with embarrassing humour and designs that range from awesome to Kuklan, this is the kind of thing where you just have to embrace it and realize- as said -it IS just a game at the end of the day. If you're getting legitimately angry or offended over a game that openly advertises itself as having lowbrow humour, then quite frankly I don't think you have the right priorities in life. Feel free to have your own opinion of course: You can dislike this game, I have no issues there. But disliking it and being hurt or offended by it are completely different things.

I love this game so, so much. Far more than I ever expected to; I went in thinking it'd be just an alright but fun game with some stanky humour, but got one of the best Pokemon experiences to date. It is so shameless that I can't help but laugh along with the funny moments, or cringe-up at the shameful/edgy moments. And I do feel like that was at least half of the intent on part of the team behind this monolithic project, considering the origins behind it and all. If you're a fan of Pokemon and can tolerate, ignore, or enjoy this kind of humour then I 100% recommend this game to you. This is an absolute gem of a game that deserves to be known as more than just "the offensive 4Chan game", because it has so clearly gone above and beyond that original premise to become something truly special. It is absolutely packed with content, and I completed it all. Pokemon Clover is such a special piece of work, such an amazing video game experience, that for the first time in years I was compelled to complete the Pokedex all the way. This game is a golden nugget, a crown jewel, an absolute diamond of fangames. And as my log dates show, I did sit on this review for a while because I had so much to say and so much to think on. Even retrospectively, this game really sticks out as something truly great in my mind.

Despite going the completionist route, I still didn't want to put this one down when I was finished with it. One more time now... I fucking loved this game. Will absolutely be replaying it again in future, for many years to come. Godspeed, Clover devs. Thanks for all your hard work.

the references are dated
the humor is fucking embarrassing
the fakemon designs juvenile
the people behind it are questionable
the update releases are glacial
yet its still somehow the best pokemon game ever made

why do i have to be rude to my friends

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year and a half later edit (not really a proper review just organizing some thoughts i have about nitw and a similar game):
been thinking about this one a lot recently. not because i've really changed my opinion or love it now, but because it feels like such wasted potential. forgive me if this one is hard to read, my thoughts about this game are very tangled and laying them out in a way that makes sense is difficult

one of my favorite games of all time, echo (a free vn basically no one has played but i digress), has nearly all the same building blocks as night in the woods. you've got:
-vaguely a coming of age story
-about coming back to your rural dead-end hometown from college
-reuniting with your old friend group, hanging out & talking with them
-you get to choose who to hang out with & get different content based on who you pick
-a member of the friend group is gone, you progressively figure out what happened to them and why
-pretty gay and pretty "indie furry", in a way that deters a lot of the people not in the target demographic from ever trying it.

i could go on but i won't because that would land itself in spoiler territory for one or both, but if you've played both they should reveal themselves to be very similar in premise. there's enough differences to matter but my point is that they're 2 games that are so easy to compare to one another that one could do it with nothing but the first sentence of each game's product descriptions. so why do i love echo as much as i do, and not really care for nitw as much as i do? for me, the answer lies entirely within execution.

thought 1: i feel like the biggest sticking point for me is how nitw handles emotion, that being, it barely does. which for a game all about talking to people is pretty bad! often the most you'll get is a character narrowing or opening their eyes a bit more and dryly delivering an "oh my god" or a "no fucking way", but the character sprites barely emote, and there's no descriptive text that lets you fill in the details. echo at least has your standard neutral/happy/angry/etc visual novely sprites for each character, but where that game shines is in its text descriptions. the combination of these two does wonders for the believability of that game's world and its characters--it's really no wonder why so many games about talking to people opt for a visual novel format. contrast that to nitw, where every character talks like they're texting one another. people don't talk like this, they type like this, which is a very important distinction to be made, and i couldn't help but be pulled out of the experience any time i noticed it.

thought 2: night in the woods often emphasizes the fact that possum springs is a dead end town no one really wants to live in, but aside from the text there's really nothing backing it up. for a town as "shitty" as everyone thinks it is, it looks way too pleasant to exist within. night in the woods is simply too pretty for what it's going for. if you want to say that the game is actually about how this small town isn't actually that bad, might i point you to some plot beats that happen in the story that directly contradict that? contrast that to echo, which isnt nearly as wishy-washy about how it wants to present the town; it's oppressively hot, most of the houses are vacant or abandoned, everything is barren or messy or grimy or all of the above, the game goes the whole nine yards. the refuge from this is in the friendships the mc has formed, and when things go badly you can't just escape to "oh look at how pretty the game is", it's all laid bare in a way you can't ignore. night in the woods clearly wants to tug on your emotional strings, but it's missing any sort of bite, which leads me pretty cleanly to my next point...

thought 3: to me, night in the woods feels conflicted in what it wants to be. nitw is a cozy game where you hang out with your friends but it's also a game that delves into the troubles that can befall a freindship, particularly in bea's events (i will mention that i only played one or two of greggs when i played the game so i can't really comment on them). this is all good and fine, but the issue is that the game is too scared to let go of the "cozy" descriptor, so things happen that should have an effect on the dynamics of the friend group, but end up changing basically nothing. i'm not sure how much of a spoiler this is, but regardless of whether you choose to hang out with bea or gregg, the narrative converges towards the same point in the end as a plot starts to take center focus. this unintentionally kind of says that it doesn't really matter what you say to the people around you and if you never hang out with them, that they'll still be your friends, which feels... wrong? like that can't be what they're going for, right? mae is allowed to be at best a total klutz and at worst actively malicious towards the people around her and no one really minds all that much in the long run.

it all comes down to narrative goals; night in the woods tells the player "it's ok to be confused about life in your early 20s" but there's so many extraneous elements that this idea is often shoved to the wayside. once the plot gets going it's basically completely gone as a theme. contrast this with echo, which, to be vague as to not thematically spoil it, has an undercurrent of "trauma" that the game carries across large thematic and tonal shifts. almost nothing in echo feels like a convenient accident despite how wildly different some of the routes can be from one another, whereas night in the woods, to me, feels like a collage of a bunch of different ideas thrown together with little thought put into their cohesion.

for most people these issues are ignorable, for me they're not. had a hard time putting my finger on why exactly this game failed to resonate with me at all, but after i saw a game going for something kinda similar do it with flying colors, it's led me to thinking about it again. only real reason i wrote this is that i mostly just wanted to get my thoughts down about this game now that ive got a good grasp on them lol