Outwitter

XD, maybe he was inspired by anime, manga, other video game series and so on? That could explain why he brought them back, even with 8 generations' worth of actual Pokémon available. I'm keeping my eyes on Sors and Voyager, and perhaps I'll reach out to both creators about doing walkthroughs for their games in the future. Voyager I would wait until the game is complete.

No problem!

I'm not too worried how successful it is, but I guess it'd be cool to see some playthroughs! Gen 4 decomps would be just as powerful as the gen 3 ones, though I think the best thing they'd bring is a way to fix the sluggish battles and menus! It'd be cool to have mega evolution and things like that in gen 4 too. Yeah it's good to see a lot of hacks are finally making the switch to decomps. I'm glad I did it early on, would've had to redesign half the game if I'd finished it in binary first.

No problem! On the GBA the first colour in a sprite palette is the transparent colour, which is usually the background. It won't appear when the sprite is shown in game, so it appears as if you can see through it. E.g. the pale green colour in my Milotic sprites is the "transparent" colour. You can also have generic images (as in everyday .png files) with transparency, which is usually called an alpha channel. It's the same concept as the GBA sprites; a solid colour that will be invisible when the image is shown on top of something else, making any pixels with that colour "transparent".

If I'm still ROM hacking after Emerald a custom region will probably be my next project! I'd likely use the Emerald hack as a base because it has so many useful features already, though I'd love to use the Platinum or HGSS decomps instead if they're ready by then.

Thanks, glad you like it! Yeah, extra fins or bigger fins were what I had in mind too.

I'll definitely do some more at some point. I use Graphics Gale, which is an image editor made just for pixel art. It's got useful features like grid overlays and makes working with palettes really easy. It can be a little janky sometimes (never use it with images that have transparency) but most of the time it's fantastic.

Especially in this "information age" that we're in now, it's really important to make sure that the information you get can be verified or is at least well sourced. I wonder how Malcolm X would feel if he was around during this period. Would he be among the people trying to get as much vital information out there as possible, working in the alternative independent media sphere...or would he swept up in all the mainstream hysteria about Covid or climate change or all the other day to day stuff they get caught up in?

Indeed, The Corbett Report is a very good example of an information source. Thoroughly sourced and researched, with help from many of the people who support James Corbett and his site. Not just sharing information but trying to find solutions to many of the problems we're facing. Are any of the major news sources doing that? I highly doubt it haha.


Gen 8 didn't offer either of those type combos? I know there is a Legendary Pokemon which is Normal/Ghost or Ghost/Normal....but it's in Pokemon Clover xD.


Haha Unbound is where I met a number of those ultra beasts for the very first time. Wow. They just made me think of Fakemon, that's how "un-Pokemon like" they looked! Guzzlord for example, the first time I saw it was in Red Chapter but at the time I thought it was one of the Orange Islands exclusives. I've just settled on the belief that maybe because they're "beasts" that they had to look so unconventional, almost like typical JRPG monsters from way back. You never played an original Pokemon game because of not having the games and consoles?


What's been going on as far as the Adventure Red project is concerned? Any news which has been coming out about that next release? Screenshots, trailers, etc? I'll try to check out as many games as I can during this break time that I am on :)

Oh definitely!

Thanks! I've always enjoyed sketching and painting so I figured I might as well design them myself. The designs are pretty simple as I'm still learning how to do pixel art and didn't want to make them too hard to sprite, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

And sure, here's my take on Mega Milotic:
[IMG]

I think the tail fins need to change in some way, but not sure what to do with them just yet.

I'm not sure how popular it is over here but it's among the news channels available in the satellite TV subscription that we pay for at home. Had no idea it's the better channel out the other ones you've got over there haha so I'll give it more viewing time. The other news channels are the expected lot: BBC, CNN, Sky News, Euro News, a Chinese news channel, Aljazeera and then Africa News plus a trio of South African news channels. That's what my parents are usually watching when mom isn't seeing one of the South African dramas xD. What about independent and alternative news channels, what do you have over there?


Haha, well if it helps to pass the time at the office then you might as well. Has there been any push to get all the employees vaccinated? It's happening elsewhere: places not letting any unvaccinated people enter, or if they don't get vaccinated they lose their jobs or can't access public services and so on. This is where we are now :/

Thanks for that, I had a lovely time playing Unbound. A lot of those features should become standard features for any new games so I hope many Rom hackers or even fan-game makers will have a look at Unbound and "study" it. How soon could that update come out though? I thought there wouldn't be an update until at least early next year (based on one comment I saw months ago from someone who was asking xD), but perhaps that was just to keep people guessing. If this update is coming out soon then no problem, I'll update the walkthrough much later because I'm taking a break now.


Maybe Normal has just served to be a "neutral" type, since a lot of Normal-types can still learn moves that are of other types. You would only need to worry about encountering strong Fighting-type opponents, otherwise as long as your Normal-type has good moves I think it can do well enough on a main team. The only Gen 8 legendary Pokemon I've noted are the Zacian and Zamazenta, plus the potential Legendary Eternatus. The ones which were introduced in the DLCs I've only read Bulbapedia entries about them and yes in terms of design they don't look legendary. Just enough to be rare or special Pokemon. Have you seen any Youtube playthroughs which cover the DLCs? I'm curious to know if they have any story content that picks up from where the main games ended.

Haha as long as there are still real world animals which have yet to be turned into Pokemon then Game Freak probably has some ideas left. But you do have a point, as the games have progressed they've been losing bits of charm which made early Pokemon so special. More Pokemon are introduced but on the features side and story wise...those departments have been poor. If they can use the time between Gen 8 and Gen 9 to get their act together, there is hope for them yet xD. Gen 7 was the last generation I played, I've only been exposed to Gen 8 via a Rom hack version of Sword/Shield but because the game is primarily in Portuguese I didn't go far and didn't have enough time to get to know the new Pokemon. If there's a better Gen 8 hack out available that could be my other chance, otherwise Gen 7 will remain my official final.


Hmm, so maybe it would be a good thing to avoid games which may require players to have specific Pokemon for missions or quests or to obtain special items and stuff because they might be Pokemon you usually don't care much for xD. Unbound had a couple of Missions like that.

I haven't decided yet what the next project will be, but I already know that whatever I play won't as packed as Unbound is haha so it will serve as "cool down" from that massive game. Nice way to recharge until the next major game, whether it'll be the following Unbound update or one of the newer titles.

And it's only eight months late! I'm looking forward to finally releasing it.

Yep I did! I'll probably redesign Flygon at some point as I struggled with that one. I can see why Sugimori had artist's block when he tried to create Mega Flygon, it's not an easy design to add to.

Haha, thanks! If all goes well I'm aiming for next weekend (plus however long it takes the thread to be approved), but if not it shouldn't take more than another week or two. There are a couple of little features left to do, which are mostly form change related, but luckily it's just the easy ones like Deoxys and Burmy; they'll be simple after dealing with Rotom and Furfrou!

That's fair enough if that's the kind of hack they want to make, definitely not my style though!

Yep, I'm calling it "Inclement Emerald". Seemed appropriate for the weather-themed story legendaries and the increased difficulty.

The days have their ups and their downs xD, it's great that I can work from home and only step out when I really need to but on the other hand some days just spill into one another and can feel like time lost. You turn on the TV and it's the same news across the channels day in and day out - Covid, American political drama, climate change, Covid, Olympics, Covid and so on. No change, nothing positive. There is an Indian news channel, NDTV, is that the main news channel over there or just like in the UK there's BBC and Sky News, NDTV is a 2nd major channel? I tune into it every now and again while surfing but I haven't seen any programmes yet that draw my focus. It's usually a panel of people discussing vaccination.

And how are things at your office lately? I ran out of data, just got some today hence the delay. The Unbound walkthrough is finally done and now available :) took a few months but with everything that the game has to offer, players might find themselves spending extra time with it: https://archive.org/details/pokemon-rom-hack-walkthroughs

How has your Unbound adventure been going so far?


As long as those fine folks in govt don't lose their heads making rash decisions like what they've been doing so far, then I think Zim could make it through. I'll need to check the numbers to see if we are anywhere near herd immunity levels now. The vaccination roll out has been going on without people being forced into it, one can hope that continues because after that speech by uncle Joe Biden this week we might have to brace ourselves for the ripple effects. The signs of desperation are high :/


I'm neutral when it comes to Arceus, because for years I had no idea it even existed xD. It's only in the Rom hack universe of games where I first encountered it some years ago, so not enough time to invest in it. But I'll admit that it's a bit strange that the creator of all Pokemon would be a Normal-type, same thing with Regigigas - I thought it would be a Ground-type or part Ground-type at least. Xerneas is the main reason why I chose to play X instead of Y, because it just looked like a big deal. Cool name too. Someday I will replay Gen 5 and spend some time with Reshiram, Zekrom and Kyurem. Didn't do that in my initial playthrough, even though I enjoyed Gen 5.


You have a point there haha, by the time the legendary and mythical Pokemon can be searched for we're done with most of the important aspects of the game. Also places like the Battle facilities don't allow for those Pokemon to be used by players (although the facility Trainers might have them in their teams! I experienced that while I was testing out Unbound's Battle Frontier). I guess they are just there for those players who simply want to complete their collections or show off that they captured those Pokemon in a particular game. The last time I was invested in chasing after legendary and mythical Pokemon might have been during my Gen 3 days. Searching for Latios, trying to reach Rayquaza at the top of the Sky Pillar, meeting the Regi trio and encountering Groudon/Kyogre. Good times. I'm thinking maybe the ones which are currently missing from Unbound will have major roles in the next update, I hope so, otherwise it'll be just more Pokemon for people to add to their collections with no story.


If it isn't a logistical nightmare for Rom hackers or fan-game makers at this point in time, I would be surprised because having all those Pokemon in the game could be one of the first ways to get people to be interested in your game before they look at the other features. I'm not picky when it comes to numbers, but I would have trouble when it comes to evolutions because I don't know the newer Pokemon well enough and also creators might change evolution methods for many Pokemon in their games. 20 to 30 sounds fair, you'll have your key team and maybe a B team as well by the time that Storage Box is full haha.

In Emerald you feed it lots and lots of blue poffins! The haircut method is how it's done in HGSS, and it takes forever with the daily limit. It's a very annoying method, so yeah there's a Prism Scale on the ground somewhere early and they can also be bought in a mart.

Oh it's all mons from gen 1-7 with gen 8 partly implemented; they're temporarily unobtainable until all the important gen 8 move and ability effects are done. Dragon/Fairy would be a terrifying typing with Multiscale! Will consider it when I'm designing Mega Dragonite.

Yeah I'm in Polar's Discord, it's early days yet but what Jaizu's got so far looks good!

There's a daily gift in the daycare that has a chance to be a Feebas egg, but otherwise it's not available until Route 119. The Feebas tiles work like the ORAS version though (minus the day/night location change), so it's much easier to find. Feebas usually evolves with high Beauty or trading with a Prism Scale. All trade evos have two options now ; either trade as usual or level up holding the required item. If they don't need an item then they'll evolve by happiness.

It's tempting to add megas for all the psuedo-legendaries just for the silly Dragonite mega stone (would it just be Dragonite? Dragonitite?).

At some point I'll try to add an extra page to the summary screen that will show IVs/EVs, and happiness. Shouldn't be too hard, but I'm also using this for in-game stats display so you can see base stats, abilities, evo methods, TM/HM compatibility, etc. for every Pokemon you've caught. It makes filling out the dex much more useful!

So far the only custom mega with a new typing is Milotic, which is Water/Fairy. The others are Butterfree, Lapras, Kingler, Machamp (which are all using their gigantamax designs), Kingdra and Flygon, which all keep their original types. No new ice/Ground mons yet but I will take suggestions for new megas at some point - I've left space for 14 more without any changes to save files, so maybe Mamoswine will get one later on.

Yeah I'm very slowly playing through Unbound right now, it's really good. A quest log is definitely possible, but I probably won't implement one as it's not really needed for this style of hack I think - it's too similar to the base game for it to be useful for most people. That reminds me though, I do need to look into registering multiple items and a better IV/EV display.

Hey!
Yeah it's been quite a while, hope you've been well! I'm good, still working on my Emerald hack, but it's pretty much done - I'm just adding in a few more custom megas (Flygon, Kingdra and some Gigantamax forms recycled into megas) finishing the documentation, and cleaning up any bugs I run into. That HM replacement feature is done - I went with a combination of pokerides and the old system, so you can still use your own Pokemon to clear obstacles, but you won't need to teach any HM moves unless you want to. You'll still need Pokemon that can learn Fly and Flash unfortunately, but they can use them without knowing the move.

Usually starts with some chores in the morning, then I work on the walkthrough or my other projects in the afternoon and the evening time is pretty much my down time where I watch series or dive into a book. If it's a production period then we'll be busy helping the old man prepare for his next round of manufacturing products, like right now he has acquired materials so I suspect this coming week or the next one will be the start of production. Nothing fancy haha what about your day?


Just as far as Covid is concerned since the two countries are next door neighbours, but Zim hasn't had the trouble with Covid that SA has experienced during this whole period. The high crime rate, protests etc that's been the result of these ridiculous decisions in response to Covid, the on/off lockdowns, shutting down of "nonessential businesses" and so on. But I think there are still plenty of people who will figure their way around and hopefully get back on their feet, because waiting for the same governments that got us in this mess to fix things is a waste of time.


If you are planning to get Arceus don't sell off those Shards, because that female Scientist at the Shipyard can convert Shards into Creation Plates and you need all the Creation Plates in order to trigger the event which leads to Arceus' location. But also you can find Plates by ADM mining too. Yes, one of the post-game Missions will reward you with a Larvesta Egg. It requires you to get all the Hidden Items in TOB. Thanks for the tip about Vega Minus, I'll check around for other guides or walkthroughs to see how they handled those puzzles.


Who would do the handpicking though? Because the number of Pokemon have varied from generation to generation, plus you have to account for evolutions (especially for Pokemon that got their evolution families expanded in later generations), different forms and so on. That could be why it's better to just select entire generations and leave out the ones that you either don't need or you can't work into the game, maybe that's what happened in Unbound as far as Gen 8 goes and also the Legendary/Mythical Pokemon that are currently absent. I wasn't a fan of them excluding both Latios and Latias, you only get one of them depending on the gender of your playable character. As for the Missions the variety in rewards helps, from rare/special Pokemon to key items, useful regular items, money or advancement in the story etc but the Missions themselves have to be all fun and interesting xD not this nonsense of making some of them that way and then the others are boring and tiresome.

No problem, I'll let you know once I'm on Discord. Is Soulstones a recent game or it's from some years ago but has been updated over time?


That's right VCP or VCR. I'd be impressed to find someone today who still has a functioning one haha, because it would be nice to watch VHS tapes again and remember the old days. Maybe making the newer console compatible with older games is something that gets more and more difficult to do because of hardware changes. I don't know if the PS5 is backwards compatible with PS1 and PS2 games, but if it is then that's incredible. In the case of the Switch, what would it be compatible with? Games from the Gameboy era? DS? 3DS? N64? Game Cube? The Wii consoles? So I can understand why it only works with Switch-specific games, or does it also play 3DS titles at least?

No worries, Zeraora is in Unbound from the video playthroughs I've seen. A Gen 7 Mythical, Electric-type. The ADM is needed for players to trigger the event which leads to it. I'll find out what it can do once I catch it, hopefully it knows some cool moves xD.

I'm counting good luck for our situation too, my family has gotten through this period just fine. Nobody has lost their cool or panicked unnecessarily and I think that has helped us stay focused on just living each day as it comes until this ends. Boring life is the theme for me too here haha, so you are among friends on that front and no judgement.


So far looks to be widespread compliance with regulations and lockdowns, probably out of fear of Covid, even though none of these regulations and lockdowns have offered any positives. We're currently in yet another lockdown, it started some weeks ago because of the situation in South Africa. If people have gotten fed up with all this, it's hard to tell. No noise on the streets in the form of protests or out in the neighbourhoods (I'd bet because of fear of the police or military). This has just been a giant test in compliance and sadly many people have failed in spectacular fashion.


Do you already have the ADM? Because the treasures scattered around TOB are what players are recommended to sell in order to make enough money to purchase it. Also the big prize at the end of TOB is a Magearna, maybe you're not interested in adding it to your collection haha. I was planning to play the original Altair/Sirius/Vega series but after finding out that their Minus versions do have some key improvements, I've decided to switch to the Minus versions.


I guess the creative team just wanted to avoid throwing in "non-canon" regional variant Pokemon on top of 7 generations' worth of official Pokemon. I didn't mind that Gen 8 is not in the game, what's already there is more than enough. Not all the Missions had great rewards, I agree, and I wondered why have such unnecessary content? Was it too much to make all the Missions fun and interesting with worthwhile (or at least somewhat clever) rewards?

I'd forgotten about Discord xD, I had planned to set up an account there earlier this year but then we went offline. After this Unbound walkthrough is done I'll get back to that plan. MOT and Stranded I know of but not Soulstones. Set in a new region? Any key features that help to make it stand out? And is it a completed fan game?


The player is still there, somewhere, but I don't know if it still works. It hasn't been used in well over a decade. Just one of the disadvantages of progressive technology, it's also because the products being made are given such short lifespans to force people to keep buying newer and newer stuff. I've also noticed that about new laptops, that's something to worry about because if you have been backing up your stuff on discs...where will you play them?

Zeraora is one of the new Gen 8 Legendary Pokemon from the DLCs? I immediately thought of Zoroark when I first read your message haha then read it again.

I appreciate that, nothing drastic happened to me (yet?) but at this point I've accepted that my on and off antics are a personal running joke for me haha, until we can finally sort out our internet situation. We are definitely living in uncertain times, however we must not let what's going on depress us. How have you been keeping so far, any positive news?


What's the situation in your area, there are police making regular patrols to keep people in compliance? Or things are relatively safe now, no trouble? I'm just grateful to be in a good place, maybe we've just been lucky xD you never know. My hope is the atmosphere remains peaceful right through this Covid situation and we can get back to some form of normality in the end.


The gang Missions were fun for sure. Having your own gang and taking part in that big battle in Antisis City, I enjoyed that even though we lost in the end haha. If I was playing Unbound for fun I wouldn't have minded the puzzles but good grief, doing some of those and then trying to interpret them in the walkthrough wasn't fun xD. The Victory Road ice puzzle wasn't as terrifying as I expected it to be though, not as bad as the Tomb of Borrius puzzles (the pixelating room and then the cracked floor room). I made good use of my emulator's save states, that's how I got through the ice puzzle and also to get the hidden items which are scattered around that room. The D-World puzzle...it was interesting to do but not fun to guide through. I'm just glad all the puzzles weren't super cryptic or required players to be versed in Western pop or internet cultures, because for someone like me whose internet situation isn't steady I would probably be stuck most of the time.


Maybe the Mission system is one of the major reasons why it was so linear, but that wasn't a bad thing because of all the stuff to be done in the game. For Adventure Red Chapter I wouldn't have known about a lot of those Bonus Chapters without Lunos' videos and the other videos I found on Youtube during the Exp Pass playthrough. Have you heard any news about when the next release for Adventure could come out? Since it's likely to be a fan-made game and all I haven't kept up with anything related to it since the Exp Pass walkthrough.


I'll check out those songs after this, thanks for sharing them. I watched Heroes as well but at this point I barely remember it. Definitely that was the last movie I was interested in since it came out during the Gen 3 era I believe? And by then it had been some years since I followed the main anime series, so no interest in the other movies which followed....and that's probably why I am not familiar with many of the Legendary/Mythical Pokemon that have appeared later xD because I never watched the movies centred around them! Anyway I found the VHS and took photos of the cover and back :) I would think it still holds up even now 20 years later haha.

Yes indeed, I was offline again 😂 hello hello. We have 25gb of data which is supposed to last the whole month....yeah, let's see how that goes haha. How have you been doing so far? I hope you're well.


Not much hope for us here either, even though there isn't a troublesome company like what you have. But as far as fair pricing and better services, that is not going to happen.


That really makes me wonder about how many people here are prepared to do just that, to fight for their rights and freedom if they are threatened and pushed enough. I've done my best to be patient during this Covid period, staying away from trouble and remaining at home unless I really have to step into town. Luckily where we live the neighbourhood is peaceful and you can walk around without worrying about being harassed by police or anyone for not wearing a mask. A little bit of freedom but still worth a lot.


Sad but true and this is not the time for people to be so divided. I don't know how the year will end but I definitely do not want to spend another year of this. 2020 was more than enough haha, 2021 is pretty much a unwanted sequel. No trilogy please!


I'm about 3 quarters done at this point, currently covering Missions which became available after completing the main game. I would rate Unbound very highly: it is one of the most technically sound games that I've played in the world of Romhacks. The features alone are incredible, my favourite being the unlimited capacity Cube/Bag. Being able to Reg. Select 6 items, the Dowsing Machine, the ADM, how Pokemon can use field moves that they don't even know or wouldn't even learn e.g. Dig. Incredible. My biggest worry is that I'm not going to look at other hacks the same way now because they probably won't be as impressive, especially older hacks that I've been interested in playing/replaying for fun or for walkthrough purposes. Adventures Red I'll give it credit for being packed with story-related content but as far as technical features go, Unbound is ahead....until a better hack comes along haha. The Missions system is fine, it really helps when you need to keep track of what to do next and gives people things to do besides the main story. But not all the Missions are cool and fun and interesting, which I really wish was the case after playing through some of the post-game Missions. Ranging from boring (e.g. catching 30 Magikarp) to tedious (hatching 100 Eggs or searching 100 trash cans or healing at the Pokemon Center 300 times or searching for Carbink in the KBT Expressway and so on). And on top of all that there are puzzles, so for those players who not fans of puzzles then this game is not going to be a fun run. The main Mission is the one I like, I'm trying to think of the other Missions but none of them would count as particular favourites. Some were fun, others were really not. What about for you?

As for the movies my favourite is still Pokemon 2000. It was the very first Pokemon movie I watched, the VHS tape is probably still there in the living room somewhere haha if I find it I'll take a photo and show you. Seeing Johto Pokemon before I saw the anime series which followed Gen 2 was cool, I was young enough to be amazed by those new Pokemon and then Lugia. It is why Lugia is my favourite Legendary and why I have a soft spot for Gen 2 (Silver version specifically) 20 years later. Gen 8 has DLC areas, but Gen 2 had two whole regions in a single game. Beat that :) what about you?

Over here, because internet access has become a necessity people will gladly throw their money at internet service providers, even when the prices are pretty much daylight robbery. Nobody's going to challenge the companies, they would rather just find ways to make enough money and pay those high prices. And because the companies continue to make so much money, why bother having fair prices?


Nothing will change until people decide that they've had enough of being forced to stay home. It's the same case here, a combination of people being afraid of the government and being afraid of Covid. So they would rather just do what they're told and hope for the best, but you turn on the TV or look online and see all the protests going on in other countries, people who are willing to fight against all this. You would think that would motivate others to act, but nope :/


I'm not surprised by how many companies, governments and so on have used this Covid period to their advantage, because it just added to the reasons why it has been so overblown. It's a pandemic but there's still room for things as trivial as elections, or what about online streaming companies making a lot of money because a lot of people have been stuck at home, so they'll watch more online content. Even the vaccines, some countries have resorted to hoarding their supplies haha seriously? I thought we were all in this together, so we should be helping each other in such a terrible time. There was going to be greed, corruption and so on, because things never change, even with a pandemic going on.

Things are just going to get worse, so you're right about the future looking bleak. Everything will be a reboot or a remake, and sure some reboots and remakes are well done and compliment the originals but others though... Even though we are getting older, I still value older stuff :) so I will hang onto that for as long as I can because it still holds up today.