Missy's Game Shelf

There are few Rom Hacks that I question whether they are deserving of their reputation. Pokemon Unbound is one of the best, Gaia is a close second and so on. Light Platinum makes some of these lists too my question is why? It is a terrible Rom Hack of Fire Red first there are so many early gift Pokemon and while this isn’t so bad you can get a Growlithe, Elekid, and Milotic within the first few minutes, next it takes so long to get Running Shoes I tried to use speedup, but after I did it crashed, lastly everything is at a snails pace in this hack pacing both movement wise and story take so long to get going. The game also has a bad habit of stopping the game pretty much to explain things any Pokemon fan could tell you. It stops you just to give you the Headbutt TM and explain how it works then uses it as an excuse to introduce Red. I get that not many would be aware to use Headbutt for hidden items or Pokemon, but every Pokemon Fan knows Red (the hardest and secret boss fight in the Gen 2 games and protagonist of the first games). You also meet Diamond who becomes your rival. While there is no grinding it is so slow to do anything I barely reached the first town before giving up on this game because of its pace. Now, none of what I mentioned is enough to give up on the game and call it the worst there are far worse Rom Hacks. So why did I call it the worst simple I am sure the creator of this hack is aware of its issues yet is still remaking it with the same issues and no changes that is what made me label it as the worst. Not any of its previous issues the fact someone believes so much in this game and still not add quality of life changes to essentially make the same game twice without any improvement.

One of it not the best Pokemon Rom Hack. Pokemon Unbound comes with a new region, updated features including an exp all, multiple difficulties, and a new story. It looks and plays like something Nintendo would make. It has a good story and good difficulty curve. If you do get stuck you can open a mission log at anytime to see where to go and what to do. Gyms usually have additional challenges on top of battles and this is something I really like. The first gym is filled with fog so the player needs to figure out how to deal with it, another gym has Pokemon that aren’t dark type take damage at the end of every turn so you either bring healing items or take the opponent out quickly. For the record I don’t like difficulty hacks or Fakemon roms so Unbound is good as it isn’t trying to make things hard or add unbalanced Pokemon. It feels unique I don’t like hacks that just make things harder there are about 20 emerald hacks that just retell the story, but make things significantly harder and as for fakemon I just don’t like them. You can tell a lot went into this game from custom maps, added side quests and new challenges it is all around an amazing game to play and gets you excited for what Skelli and their team are making or if they continue to make things.

Fantasy Life i The Girl Who Steals Time finally released and it is okay. There are things I like and things I hate. Moves are now unlocked in a skill tree and points are given out by what you are doing as opposed to learning them when you rank up. One thing I liked was when you rank up in the original characters dialogue would change depending on your current rank it was small, but it was charming. The map is confusing the original had simple short maps that focused on the challenges and a more fixed camera here the maps it takes some getting used to. The original also only had one level up for the game, in this game for some reason it splits your level among the Lives. I hate this change because it means that when facing a difficult challenge I can’t just do something else until I’m an appropriate level this introduces a grind that wasn’t there before. While I do think that some of these systems are carried from the mobile game they had it feels clunky for a full release. I plan to play the game a little more and provide a full review, but even with it’s flaws there are things I like and I hope the good can outweigh the bad, but at least for now I still prefer the original game over this.

We are going to do something different today and talk about games that aren’t part of their series. While some developers love these like Scott Cawthan others like Nintendo hate these. Oddly, I’ve only heard of Nintendo attacking straight ports or when people attempt to make money off these. For example, Pokemon Unbound and Mario Kaizo are likely known by Nintendo, but neither make money and are completely free. Whereas games on specific websites making money off advertising or people charging for their properties that gets banned quickly. There is a lot to love and hate about Fan Games for one a lot of the time talented people in these communities tend to be first time programmers and developers experimenting and some even go on to make their own games. Let’s not forget Earthbound Halloween Hack was technically Toby Fox’s first game available to the public and multiple developers of Sonic Fan Games now work for SEGA directly. Also, some of these add more as well as can be exactly what the fans are looking for something familiar yet sometimes completely it’s own. Now the things I hate Fan Games that add nothing but increased difficulty while this isn’t a large problem for Fan Games I think it is a problem depending on the game. While telling the same story is fine, but increased difficulty can break the balance and if I already played through that same story before I will get bored. Fortunately, just as many Roms exist telling their own stories and having their own mechanics. Further Fan games also can be a way of keeping a franchise alive if games get dull or boring and some can even surpass what the original games. It is a double edged sword you don’t know what you’re getting with these sometimes it’s amazing and feels like an actual project other times it just isn’t balanced, a bad game, or just boring grind fest. If you do have legitimate copies of these games I recommend giving a few fan games a chance and who knows you may be playing something that helps them create their own game in the future. I mean no one predicted a Rom Hack of Earthbound would one day help someone create Undertale or that a few fan games for Sonic would lead to the creation of Sonic Mania. So it is clear talented fans can create great things off of their passion and talent alone and I want to encourage more fan game devs to try and make their own products and see what they can really do without fear of being taken down by large companies.

Normally, I avoid reviewing a mobile game simply because most of the time they are just grind fests, riddled with Microtransactions, or some idle game. Evo Creo and its now sequel aren’t great still can’t tell if the $5 was worth it or not. Evo Creo is a creature capture RPG similar to Pokemon, Nexomon, and Coromon. That does not make this game good. For the first half of the game it is rather standard and doesn’t spike in difficulty too much, but the second half is a grind fest and not exactly fun. The game is pretty stingy on exp too level up is slow at that point. I would forgive this, but the original game made the same mistake and I’d argue that one did it worse simply due to having a level cap. Further, there are little to no new monsters in this sequel game. I’m not saying having a large amount of monsters returning is a bad thing, but it shows little effort if most of the monsters are repeats. Don’t misunderstand returning monsters happen all the time in these games, but Nexomon and Pokemon often have them only available in Post Game or just a small amount of them.

Combat is largely type based certain types do more or less damage depending on the move. The meter stamina is full at the start of each battle and every move has a slot number from 1-3 and the player has a maximum of 6 slots for moves. There are four types of moves, Elite, Special, Basic, and Recovery. Elite moves use the most Stamina and will mostly drain your stamina in exchange for a powerful move most of the time with a debuff, Recovery also drains your stamina, but you get a large amount of health, Special are less powerful than Elite, but also drain less energy, and Basic are the least powerful but don’t drain as much stamina and can be used if you are waiting for the meter to fill.

Level design isn’t fun either often rather confusing many areas have a labrynth with several dead ends. puzzles are pretty straightforward and not worth thinking about, and the amount of confusion just to get from one place to another is horrible.

Next side quests often force you to wait till you get to the next town or the end of the game this makes these pointless. Side quests often help the player get things to make upcoming fights easier but since you often have to wait before even completing one it is a horrible system if the immidiate targets and quests can’t be completed. Also, several quests have special abilities tied to them think of these abilities as this games HM system but worse. HM’s can at least be taught anywhere on the map in Evo Creo 2 you need to find specific tutors and only after completing their side quests do you get the abilities this means should you need an ability there is a good chance you need to make a trip to a house in some town halfway across the map. an early quest has someone who needs help finding his gloves only to reveal he lost them in a end game area that you are far too weak to get them and he teaches the abaility to destroy rocks.

I find this game pretty boring, from the lack of exp, to bosses that need to be grinded for or the use of tons of healing items. As well as a lack of new monsters makes this more of a struggle than it needs to be.

4/10 Lack of imagination, too grindy

If it wasn’t obvious by now I can’t afford $80 games and a nearly $600 system so this year will close any kind of disscussion on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. My last game for Switch will likely be the Switch version of Pokemon Legends ZA. After that I will be playing more XBOX and Steam games starting with Sea of Stars. By that time the latest Digimon Story game will likely have a release for most platforms. Now this won’t be an immediate change, I still plan on reviewing Fantasy Life i which finally had a price drop likely due to backlash, Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma, and the Switch version of Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar remake game. So after this announcement I will be reviewing Evo Creo 2 later, but expect more variety and more games on different systems later this year.

Evo Creo was an okay creature capture game for mobile. Unlike Nexomon and Cronomon never went on to make port games to other platforms. Which is weird due to the fact the original is a fairly average game. I’d actually say this sequel is worse. Strange that both these games are $5 and the first one was better. First, the game trades straightforward level design for a more labryinth approach these areas are full of dead ends with at most a item in it and tend to drag on, second while there are new monsters this games dex is filled with monsters from the previous game meaning the monsters I fought in the first few hours I already knew how to fight from playing the first game as they share type, moveset, and stats. I get bringing in familiar monsters from a previous game Nexomon Extiction did it too, but that was a free update and they were exclusive to an island as well as new legendaries during the post game as a reward. Lastly, I really think the star system is just padding to get the best monsters can be hours of grinding other games do have their own system too Chronomons potential system comes to mind, but while that added buffs you really never rely on it through regular gameplay while in Evo Creo and its sequel you do. There are microtransations, but the game has no ads and the pay to win stuff is more treated as a few exp boosts so completely optional.

This isn’t a bad game just not one I was expecting I have only played for a few hours and the mechanics of the original are still there, but take getting used to. Maybe more time to tell. It hits the mark of overly grindy mobile game for $5.