@PokemonShinySilver: A friend of mine looked into that problem for me, and he said pretty much what you did - it's part of the introduction routine. Getting rid of it, on the other hand...I don't even know where to
find that information in the ROM; as my brain goes into shutdown mode the moment it's faced with endless rows of numbers. ^^' As for your map battle idea; that's pretty much what I was trying to do with the Mini-Dungeons - little maps to gather items in, and each one has a mandatory battle within. :)
I come bearing screenshots! But before I get to them, I wanted to briefly discuss a unique little gimmick regarding one of the characters in the game, to give you a taste of things to come. :)
A few times in this thread, I've referred to someone named Aspen, aka "the First." He's a Pikachu (the mascot pokemon, who for many of us, myself included, was the
first one we met) who has been in a pokeball for 700 years, prior to being released by one of the bad guy's flunkies, a Kadabra named Ozymandias. Devoid of memory - forgetting even his own name - he is groomed to perform acts of evil by those who freed him; his heart clouded by wicked ways. His ultimate goal? To eliminate that miserable little Pichu...
So, what makes him so unique? Well...at one point in the game, a character proclaims she can see Aspen's aura; and asks if you, too, can take note of its color. Is it a brilliant crimson; so like the blood that stains his blade and the passion that once drove his spirit? Or is it a tarnished grey; a pathetic reminder of better times and lost promise? Or do you take the third option and admit you simply cannot see his aura? Each of the three options leads to a different outcome in terms of the character's backstory; and while the game ends the same no matter what you pick; Aspen's motivations for his actions (which are conveyed through internal monologue and/or flashback; as he never speaks, UNLESS...but I don't want to spoil what makes that so special!) in the final act vary greatly depending on what you decide he once was. In short - Aspen is replay value and a complicated deconstruction all rolled up in one =D (You'll see what I mean later on...)
Anyway, it's screenshot time!
The flower and leaf graphics (other than the large leaf immediately to the player's right) are credit to Zein and WesleyFG. ^^
Yes, I know that I already posted a virtually identical screenshot to this one...so why am I posting it again? Flowers, dear boys, flowers. :) The large pink blossom is also an animated tile. The flowers/leaves were added in to help make the maps a little more lively and a little less empty; which is a big problem they had previously.
Water tiles by Kagenosensei. Pond grass and lilypad are by Don Patch :)
Your first encounter with water in the game! This little pond is in the first dungeon.
Here, we see our very first dungeon puzzle - a hole! What's it doing there? Damned if I know. How do you get past it? Well...it's not a terrifically difficult puzzle; though it might take a minute or so to get the trick :)
And sadly, the HGSS grass seen in earlier screenshots had to be taken out :( The problem with it is that I've edited all five of the default palettes to fit with all the other tiles we see; and not a single one of these palettes has the range of green shades needed to make HGSS style grass actually look halfway decent. I gave it my best shot and tried several different grass tiles, but it just all looked...really, really ugly ^^' People told me as much back in the day and rather than try and get that type of grass to work, I just went back to the tired and true that Ruby came with. If it ain't broke...