Alright, I’ve been giving Black version another shot. Kind of a lot to say / weird take ahead,
So just like I’m glad Violent and Scarlet failed technically, I’m glad they are low key also very interesting, according to lots of people playing it. I think being horrible technically also makes it more interesting.
That’s an aside,
I hacked a DSi for my buddy, and set up my own too. He wanted to play Pokemon White 2.
I somehow managed to hold on to my saves from my Cyclo DS Evolution flash cart from 10 years ago. I had a save from Pokemon White 1. I had played for 9 hours, all pokes level 20 before I bounced off the game, hard.
Now, I gave it another shot, started from the beginning. I stopped playing pokemon after putting 200 hours into Soul Silver back in 2010. That was the last game by the old team at Game Freak. Since Black 2 was apparently a new beginning for the series, and the start of something that’s regarded to be “interesting”, and because it’s also the last game to have 2D pokemon sprites, which are admittedly really cool and well animated, I’m giving it another shot.
Part of my issue with Black & White is that it only contains pokemon from Gen 5. If I’m going to project myself onto the player character, playing pokemon for the 100th time, I need to have the pokes I want. It seems like a waste to have animated all 600 of the pokemon 2D sprites to not watch my favorite fellas grow again. Many of them are very lovingly animated, I noticed, like rattata. Others, like gen two guys, aren’t animated as well as they were in crystal version though, like cyndaquil, who’s flame is always at max, which looks unnatural.
So I started my own system of hacking where, after I catch a Gen 5 pokemon, I replace it with the Gen ½/3 equivalent, since all of gen 5 basically has stand-ins for the same pokemon from a previous gen. Example: Woobat, lol.
Well this went great for a while. I’m now…. hours in, all pokes level 25.
and I’m bouncing off again for now, and what a coincidence, I’m nine hours and five minutes in, all pokemon level 25.
There is a difficulty ramp here, but that’s not exactly why I’m bouncing off.
My party consists of four guys from generation one, and two guys from generation five.
It should come as no surprise that Black & White are balanced for you to use the pokemon they give you, instead of the ones I’m hacking in.
The problem for me is that the growth of these earlier gen pokemon is pretty busted.
Gen 5 pokemon have stats that spike in one aspect, like this purple cat has 50 attack at level 25.
Meanwhile, my pikachu, also level 25, has only 16 defense, basically being 1-shot by everything in the game.
I raised an eevee from level 5 to an umbreon naturally and without cheating. I thought I would replace this purple cat.
It’s learnset in gen 5 is practically broken, look at these numbers
It gets fixed in Black 2.
Now, I’m already hacking the game, I could just hack in moves. But then I’m hacking so much… I expected to be able to hack in my guys when catching them, and then naturally level them up. It feels authentic in my brain.
Well anyways, it kind of comes down to the difficulty curve. I’ve already been grinding a fair bit, but in the case for pikachu, I don’t know if there’s any amount of grinding that would save him.
Maybe I can power through. I don’t feel like jumping ahead to White 2, and I’m not going to attempt to play this game normally, heavens no.
So yeah, I will probably just grind through this difficulty slope with gen 1 pokemon. For now I’m disgusted by the entire thing.
It feels good bashing all the zoomer gen 5 trainers with my gen 1 team. But for now these dumb stupid fish are 1-shotting my pikachu, and that’s not fun, haha. I realize I’m complaining that things aren’t working out naturally when I’m hacking the game and wrecking the balance… When I consider trying again using the gen 5 boys the game wants me to though…. well that ain’t happenin either. I’ll power through.
I recgonize a lot about this world that’s cool, like the birds flapping away when you open the front door in the starter village. The fact they change depending on Real Time Clock is super cool. But you know, when I see the woobats and pidoves, I can’t help but imagine them as pidgey and zubats, and think how much better it would have been if that’s what they were, lol. It’s like there’s a great game here, but it’s ruined by all these very non-pokemon, in my eyes.
I tried a hack called Pokemon Vintage White that replaces all pokemon with ones from gen1-3, and “adjusts” the learnsets and stats, but, in typical zoomer romhack fashion, it’s up to personal taste and the modder took wayyy too many liberties here. It does things like makes pidgey thunder-type, starting with thundershock. Plus, it crashes on hardware, so that’s out.
IDK if any of this makes sense or even matters to anybody, or is relatable at all, but there it is, my experience over the past week.
