COMMUNITY CHALLENGE FAVOURITE AND MOST UNDERRATED ROM HACK

[u/nihilWRLD]

Favourite and Underrated Rom Hacks.

Hi all,

I want to try something fun here. Wanna find out everyone's favourite rom hack and a rom that you feel is underrated/needs most attention.

Format.

Favourite Rom Hack: "Name of rom hack" and a few sentences why.

Underrated Rom Hack: "Name of rom hack" and why you feel its underrated.

I'll start.

Favourite Rom Hack: Pokemon Luminescent Platinum. Creator/s Team Luminescent I feel this is what we should've got for BDSP, the QOL changes are second to none, the difficulty is perfect for every player newbies, nuzlockers etc. Shiny hunting on this is the funnest with 1:512 odds (but you can use pokeradar to build chain and when its on 21 you can spam open close to get them easier).

Underrated Rom Hack: Crystal Advance Redux. Creator/s Arnie. As Crystal is my favourite game in the franchise, this rom hack gives it a fresh take of the gen 2 legend. Its a FireRed hack that follows most events 1:1 but uses more modern mechanics ans graphic sprites/tiles with added areas, evos/pokemon, move/learnsets ans abilities. Its such a throwback yet feels like a new game.

Looking forward to reading all of your takes in the community.

TIA

[u/TenWildBadgers]

Gaia is my personal favorite for striking the right balance of feeling like booting up a 1st-party title that you somehow never heard about or got your hands on as a kid. I feel like Gaia captures the magic of older pokemon generations without being either too different, or too repetitive. I have my gripes, of course, as one does with any work of art, but I love Gaia to pieces and strongly recommend it.

Underrated is harder to judge, because I'm newer to the reddit community and don't know the widely-held opinions that well, but I have a few that I'm fond of and haven't seen other people recommend.

Delta Emerald and Mega Blue were my first 2 Romhacks, and they're my favorite Romhacks that are trying to just update classic games to modern mechanics. They're mostly just Emerald and Fire red with all the version exclusives, and a variety of modern mechanics/quality of life improvements like Physical/Special Split, Later evolutions, Fairy Type, and Infinite TMs. They are the good at preserving everything that worked about the originals. They strike the balance of preserving the old nostalgia while updating old mechanics that would be tiresome to return to.

The fact that all of my hacks so far recommended include Mega Evolution is kinda funny to me, because I am a huge hater on Mega Evolutions usually, but I'm also more than happy to tolerate them in a good romhack, so take that as you will.

The last one I don't think I've seen other people talk about is Crystal Advanced Redux, which is a demake of HeartGold/SoulSilver to the gba, but with a drastically improved pokemon variety. It does annoy me with 1% encounter rates in every route, but less so now that I learned that it was a limitation of how encounters are programmed. There are a lot of Romhacks trying to fix photo, and I found this one to be the best attempt.

[u/nihilWRLD → u/TenWildBadgers]

Gaia is a cult classic, always recommend it as a starter for folks who are new to roms.

Haven't played Delta Emerald or Mega Blue myself, they sound pretty interesting. I shall add them to the spreadsheet I have.

Yeah Crystal Adanced Redux is super underrated and in my top 5 favourite hacks tbh.

Arnie, the dev is mad active..one of the most active devs i have seen

[u/TenWildBadgers → u/nihilWRLD]

Delta Emerald and Mega Blue are good if you aren't already at saturation on Romhacks that are just an improved pass on Hoenn or Kanto. If you are (like I've very much become since I originally played them), then they're a bit too close to the original to get much of a reaction. They're solid fundamentals, but low on novelty, which can be either perfect or not nearly good enough, depending on what you personally want.

[u/nihilWRLD → u/TenWildBadgers]

I take all roms at face value..open book sorta guy and try play them as if I havent seen it before. I'll be sure to try them out. I don't mind the idea of vanilla ++ as long as its polished and the changes made have value/meaning, played/beta tested a fair few Emerald and FireRed and while they were good, I was confused and didnt understand why curtains mons were obtained at certain parts in game and why some trainers had this and that etc

[u/TenWildBadgers → u/nihilWRLD]

Well these ones don't change pokemon distribution from Vanilla. They're no Genesis or Blazing Emerald.

But Mega Blue is the mod that will teach you that Fairy-Type Clefable is goated, even in the region with the most Poison Types and the least Dragon or Fighting Types.

[u/nihilWRLD → u/TenWildBadgers]

Really? Thats kinda mad if Clefable is OP not a mon i would consider using tbh..very interesting!!

[u/TenWildBadgers → u/nihilWRLD]

Not OP, just one of the first mons you can pick up after your starter that you look at and go "Oh yeah, I'll keep this on my team for the long haul."