Finally finished my Revelation Emerald playthru. Here is my writeup on my previous Romhack(and the ones I played before that), which was written...holy crap, nearly a year ago? I guess that's what I get for trying to triple dip with Dead Rising, Fallout and other games on top of Pokemon.
So, I'm ready to do my write up about Pokemon Gale of Darkness ROMhack known as Pokemon XG: NeXt Gen. First of all, here are a few posts to refer to while reading this one:
As usual, I attached a .txt file with my team I used if you're into build autism. The long and short of is that I over-prepared, there were not nearly enough decent trainers that used various strategies or Double Battles to make use of them, could have easily swapped a few of these Pokemon for simple attackers in types I ended up missing this run.
Anyway, I will try to keep it short, I got way too overexcited in my NeXt Gen writeup.
Where do I begin? Well, actually, the author managed to summarize the biggest changes within the mod itself in his description
Unlike my previous romhacks I covered, this one is a QoL hack that changes very little within the story or moment to moment gameplay. It is a collection of bug fixes, patches, improvements, tweaks and mashup of all the features that Gen 3 is capable of with Physical/Special split being a nice cherry on top. I originally wanted to play a much more ambitious romhack, one that introduced new Pokemon and Fairy typing, but alas that one was not compatible with Trigger's PC. This is much more important to me, I plan on playing a romhack of FireRed next so I will have to make sure it is Trigger's PC compatible as well before starting.
I figure everyone here already played Emerald, so I won't waste too much time going in-depth about the features introduced. I will say that this romhack makes the original Emerald obsolete since playing without these changes is an objective downgrade. Even if you are a weirdo and prefer the old mechanics, pre-Physical/Special split, there is a toggle in the menu for Revelation Emerald if you want to play the entire game using that playstyle with the new improvements.
Anyways, here are some Pros and Cons that I found impacted my gameplay the most. There is hundreds of new tweaks and additions, so if you want a full list, read the link provided or download the romhack and read the documentation, it lists (almost) everything.
Pros:
+Visible gameplay optimization: Running Shoes from the start and able to run almost everywhere, game tweaked to run faster including less clicking thru textboxes, most bugs fixed ect.
+Ability to choose the Ruby/Sapphire outfit or keep the Emerald one. This changes not just your overworld sprite but also the front/back and even the Credits scene since the resources are already in the game, just unused. Rival will always use their Emerald look.
+All 386 Pokemon available, be it starters/cross generation wild Pokemon/Legendaries or Mythicals, they are all here. You can even trade-evo right from the game thanks to a trainer whose Gameboy Advance link cable is "broken", so the trade never goes thru. All Pokemon theoretically bankable, including Mythicals/Legendaries, altho I haven't personally tested this. Safari Zone gets a massive expansion with pretty much all of the Kanto Safari Zone Pokemon in the post game, Swarms give rare unobtainable Pokemon in the post game as well. Much like with the outfits, you not only get brand new Trade Pokemon from Emerald but all of the ones from Ruby/Sapphire, original names and Trainer OTs included. Post-Game also stocks the previously useless Game Corner with prize Pokemon like the Kanto and Johto Game Corner.
+New events and rewards for previously useless events make them worth going thru. This mostly has to do with Starters/Legendaries/Mythicals, but there is new misc events here and there. Good use of assets from FRLG and RS that are still in the game but technically unused in the original Emerald.
+Physical/Special split toggle in menu, changes how the whole game plays for the better. Menu now has many, many more selections and therefore much more useful overall.
+Day/Night cycle, different Pokemon appear at different point in the day(Zigzagoons during the day, Poochyenas during the night). Berries will now never wither and die as well no matter how long you leave them unattended.
+You get both Acro and Mach bike at the same time, you can also access a quick-use bar with assigned key items like Fishing Rods, Item Finder ect to avoid going into the menu
+Infinite items in bag, PC items completely removed so you always keep everything with you like in the later games
+QoL changes from later games, like infinite use TMs, natures highlighting the weak or strong aspect of your stats or EXP given for catching Pokemon. After a certain point, you will be able to see the IV potential of your Pokemon in their preview menu.
+Need for HMs almost completely removed, if you don't have a Pokemon with a certain move then a helper Pokemon will immediately be used like in Sun/Moon. Notable exceptions come during the Regi questline and with HM Flash.
+Perfect compatibility with Trigger's PC
+Breeding changes that modernize the mechanic
+Much lower BPs needed for tutor moves in the Battle Frontier. Nightmare and Sky Attack now added to the move tutors from XD.
Cons:
-No visible change during Day/Night, as the engine apparently not capable of it or the dev was lazy. Game never gets dark, so if you set up the internal clock as anything but your current time, you will have to guess if it's actually day or night in-game
-Regi sidequest uses puzzles from Ruby/Sapphire, not Emerald. Unless you know Braille, you will think it is bugged, make sure to check Bulbapedia for the steps
-More QoL changes could be added, for example being able to buy more than one Soda Pop/Lemonade at a time
-No Fairy Typing, could have been a menu toggle like Physical/Special split
-Some moves still have archaic secondary effects even with Physical/Special split toggle, for example Crunch reduces SPECIAL DEFENSE instead of Physical Defense.
As you can see, most changes are minute, but add them all together and you have a great romhack. My cons are mostly nitpicks, I didn't encounter anything gamebreaking or any more serious bugs than what the vanilla game had, in fact most of them have been fixed with this mod. In case it wasn't obvious, I heavily recommend you give it a shot, even if you played Emerald before with a more ambitious romhack. This was the closest I got to playing Emerald for the first time, again. If there would have been a fourth release back in the day that aimed to improve and build upon Emerald, this is what it would look like.
As for FireRed, my last Gen 3 romhack, I will see what I am going to play once I confirm it works well with Trigger's PC. If everything goes according to plan, I will play a very similar QoL 386 Pokemon romhack, albeit with a twist. Looking forward to it, I haven't played FRLG in a dog's age, closet I got to that was playing Yellow on Virtual Console rather recently.
