What makes a hack good? What makes it bad?

[Danny0317]

Like the thread says, what makes a hack good, and what makes a hack bad?

As of now, I've asked some people and here is what we have.
What makes a hack good:

• Good grammar
• Give events "Impact"
• Good scripting
• Good mapping
• Solid plot
• Good presentation
• Healthy sense of humor
• Variety of Pokemon in the beginning
• Reasonable level curve
• Legendaries related to the region
• Unique
• In-depth Gameplay
• Custom made music
• Side Quests
• New Graphics

And what makes a hack bad:

• A lot of bugs
• Evil team with no build up, just there to be there
• Creator refuses/ignores criticism
• Opposite of everything listed in the good section
• Stupid/Perverted NPC text
• Reusing scripts from the games with only text edits (unless it's something like a random NPC)
• The use of A-Starter in starter scenes
• Too many legendaries
• NPCs repeating text
• Beginning of the game too hard
• Too many free things
• Repetitiveness
• Cheap difficulty
• Bad Fakemon
• Overused plot
• Tile errors
• No incorporation of music
• Bad pallets

So people, feel free to come in and say what you think makes a hack good/bad, and this post will eventually get updated =)

 

[Christos]

How many legendaries is too many though? Personally, I'd be disappointed if a hack had too few legendaries, I find post-game legendary hunting very fun.

 

[Varion Bluefire]

To me it's all about presentation.

How things are presented in the hack, to the player, whether it be, Graphics, Story, or Gameplay.
As long as it fits, and is presented in a good manner, it's all good in my eyes.

 

[Danny0317]

How many legendaries is too many though? Personally, I'd be disappointed if a hack had too few legendaries, I find post-game legendary hunting very fun.

I'd say Light Platinum amount of legends. Not saying that LP was bad, it's just that it had waay too many legendaries.

 

[Project Battlekin]

Well one thing is in LP, in the begginning all of the trainers had six pokemon. It's just weird.. and annoying. I dont know about anything other than the first gym cuz i was too bored and never finished it. Plus the text of the people keep getting reused, the people need to be uniqueish. That Also too many free pokemon, too many team battles at beginning, and like all the gym leaders need to be 'found' first. Too much repeating stuffs.

 

[JosefigGaming]

Well, there are many things that make a good hack.
I hate it when people force the existence of an evil team, without a purpose. Sometimes they don't even do bad things, they're just rude, and that's no reason for the hero to own them out of the region.
Also, it's very important that you have variety in wil pokemon, at the beggining. Of course a forest wont have fire Pokemon, but it'd be cool if you found a way of giving the hero different Pokes at the beggining
The graphical appeal, of course, which don't need to explain and mapping.
This one is not talked much, but you must give events "impact". Mainly if you're fighting an evil team's leader or something like that. A music change and a few movements to the characters interacted go really well. I'm not sure if I'm making my point with this one, but meh....
I honestly don't mind typos that much, as long as I'm able to understand what it means.
About legendaries, I can't help it but too agree with DarkSneasel. Because if there is indeed too many legendarys, what will happen is that after you finish the game, you'll just go and a hunt of puting pokemon paralyzed, down to 1hp and spam ultra balls

 

[Mana1]

On the topic of legendaries, they should be relevant to the region. Plonking legends in just for the sake of it is bad game-making IMO - they should either have relevance to the main story or have lore hidden in side-quests NPC. Make them relevant to the world you're creating!

One thing I feel makes a good hack, and something I always aim for, is a 'unique' kick off to the story. Something that says 'this isn't just another FireRed'.

 

[cmtthws92]

What makes a good hack IMO are good graphics and in-depth gameplay, which includes stories that add a lot of drama and custom made music (as much as I am a major Generation 3 fan, I do get tired of hearing the same music). I believe a hack should also stray away from being a average Pokemon game. When I played Life of Guardians, it felt more than just a typical Pokemon game. The stories were dark (suicides and human sacrifices), gameplay was hard, and the music tracks set the tone for all the stories. So I believe hacks should be more creative.

Besides the bugs/glitches, what makes a bad hack IMO is repetitiveness and no end-credits. Going to Light Platinum, most of the trainers were identical; same dialogue, same Pokemon with same levels, etc.. Copying and pasting is sometimes not a good thing at all. Going into the topic of no-end credits, some games had no end-credits and instead the game went right back to the player's room. Having no end-credits takes away that victory feeling after beating the Pokemon League.

 

[Danny0317]

What makes a good hack IMO are good graphics and in-depth gameplay, which includes stories that add a lot of drama and custom made music (as much as I am a major Generation 3 fan, I do get tired of hearing the same music). I believe a hack should also stray away from being a average Pokemon game. When I played Life of Guardians, it felt more than just a typical Pokemon game. The stories were dark (suicides and human sacrifices), gameplay was hard, and the music tracks set the tone for all the stories. So I believe hacks should be more creative.

Besides the bugs/glitches, what makes a bad hack IMO is repetitiveness and no end-credits. Going to Light Platinum, most of the trainers were identical; same dialogue, same Pokemon with same levels, etc.. Copying and pasting is sometimes not a good thing at all. Going into the topic of no-end credits, some games had no end-credits and instead the game went right back to the player's room. Having no end-credits takes away that victory feeling after beating the Pokemon League.

I believe some hacks do the no credits due to the fact that some emulators can't save. But those things you listed were good, gonna update the post.

 

[CosmicBlazer]

Having side quests makes a haxk good IMO.

Also with the legendaries, would having a hack where 7 good people get a legendary on there side and then other 7 bad people get a legendary on there side. Meaning that there are some Legendary that look/ seem to be evil but then there are other legendaries that are good. I'm going to post my hack soon so maybe it will be clearer there.

Just reading some of these comments had me question current story I had planned.

 

[BLACKOUT]

You know me... New graphics are a must! Not the tiles that always came with the game. They're old :(

 

[Chronosplit]

Bad or "blatant fanfiction" plot reeeeeally brings a hack down. Let's face it: either way it's still in the RPG genre and I expect at least something servicable on that end because of it. Even if it's just a well done excuse to keep going (this IS still Pokemon after all. Didn't stop some commercial games from being good either.)

On the gameplay end... artificial or cheap difficulty. What is an example you may ask? Big gym leader/team boss uses really annoying, overleveled, or legendary Pokemon as opposed to fighting the trainer around his/her current level with strategic movesets. It realy cheapens things, and only encourages me to pull out my own broken strategies which aren't terribly fun.

 

[Bill Cipher]

It won't throw me off if it doesn't have it.

But if it's got inserted music, then I'll play it just to listen. c: ~

 

[Codename Peace]

What makes a hack good is uniqueness, you know, like doing a mini-game and sidequests.
What makes a hack bad is, as listed, bugs, bad graphics, and bad grammars.

 

[CosmicBlazer]

I think having some humor in a hack is pretty good to have as well IMO

 

[Le pug]

I think bad fakemon graphics, bad grammar, tile errors, no incorporation of sound effects, typical "you're 10 here's your first Pokemon" plot, and horribly chosen map palettes ruin the game for me the most.
Pretty much I agree with your list darksneasel

 

[Divemissle]

I'm not really sure what makes a hack good anymore. I only play Rom hacks because I have a strange sense of humor. Most Rom hacks (usually the very popular ones) are bad, in my opinion.

 

[Splash]

Great storyline for a hack is always a plus but it really is great when out of the box features are presented in hacks..

 

[looneyman1]

The script writing killed one particular ROM Hack for me. I played the Septo Conquest hack but I couldn't bear it after the first boss. The story of that hack had promise but jesus christ the dialogue was TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean the diologue was like the first resident evil's dialogue from the original playstation, but even that game's dialogue ended up being actually funny! The maker of Septo Conquest had the sense of humor of a ten year old CoD fanboy, nothing but gay jokes, child abuse jokes (epecially given the main character's mom is a drunk), the "hero" (if you can call him that) is by far the most detestable protagonist I had seen in any game! The game might as well be called Septic Conquest because it appears to be the dialogue was drained from the sewer.....

A story doesn't have to be like The Odyssey but really, a good hack must have a good script. Something that'd get at least a B in a 5th grade essay assignment.