Alilatias

Not for a very, very long time. The creator is studying at university now, so the game is more or less on hiatus indefinitely until the creator finds time to work on the game again. Still, though, the fact that this thread has remained extremely active during the past year and a half since the last update is a testament to how strong this game's narrative and design is.

@Feng Lei If you haven't already, I would recommend catching up on all of the possible sidequests as well. Some are long-running alongside the main plot (particularly the Ranger story and the photo-taking pilgrimage). As someone who is assisting Caz with designing the pilgrimage, it's meant to span almost the whole game, and there's already several size-able rewards for keeping up with it. Though I gotta carefully figure out where the sidequest goes from here, since it's been about 2-3 years since this whole concept started.

Quick PSA, DO NOT UPDATE to the latest version (0.1.3) yet. There's a bug that will render the game unplayable for the time being. It's best to use the Phoenix Rising discord for updates on the situation. I have a temporary link here: https://discord.gg/Apymhm

Eevee: Rare encounter in Route 2 night. Can also be obtained from an egg in the forest grotto (although there are many other possibilities, such as Larvitar). Can be evolved into Leafeon near the mossy rock in the same forest. Currently can't be evolved into Glaceon. Relic Skiddo: Requires choosing Staryu as a starter. Mandatory capture. Grass/Rock type. (Petlili results in Relic Koffing, and Growlithe results in Relic Tentacool.) Note that the grotto is currently bugged as of the latest patch, it now only contains Leftovers no matter what.

My team before ending the demo was Staryu, Murkrow, Cutiefly, Gastly, and Relic Skiddo. I'm restarting the game and aiming for Staryu, Eevee (eventual Glaceon), Litwick, Relic Roselia, Relic Skiddo, and Joltik.

I ended up hitting the end of the demo way earlier than the estimated 7-10 hour time frame. Like around 3-4 hours. I think I've done everything possible besides catching all available Pokemon too. I have a feeling the developers accounted for most players picking Growlithe, so they put in TM Grass Knot, Energy Ball, and Scald very early in the game to boost the other two starters. Although note that Energy Ball is currently miss-able if you choose to leave the mountain after clearing the events there before finding it. In fact, a few interesting things are miss-able if you leave the mountain immediately instead of climbing back up to see what the festival-goers left behind. EDIT: You can fast travel back to the mountain, actually.

I found a Shroomish on the mountain as well. Seems it only appears at night. I ended up running into a far more interesting grass type that appears to be a mandatory capture, but unfortunately it appears to be bugged to crash the game if you attempt using it in battle at the moment. Such a shame too.

If you're lagging, restarting the game (as in, closing the window and rebooting it) works as a temporary solution. Anyone found a Shroomish yet? One of the pre-release screenshots seems to hint that you can find one early on. Also, I found a Mimikyu in the abandoned factory. Seems to have an ultra low encounter rate, as it was the only one I found while exploring the place.

Oh wow, this snuck up out of nowhere. Between LotA and Phoenix Rising, this is quite the year for projects thought to have stalled. I'm going to have a really difficult time picking a starter. All three of them are incredibly interesting in their own right. My heart tells me Staryu, but the tactician in me says Petlili.

It's good to see that you're still with us. Well, like I said last time, we'll wait however long it takes. @Pluto Credit shop, yes. I don't recall 100%, but I think there's one or two you can find outside of the shop too, but late game. Might have fangames mixed up.

This wouldn't be so concerning if it weren't for the fact that he hasn't at least logged in since January. I'm actually legitimately worried about his well being right now.

Of the ones I've played... - Reborn: The original of the 'Field Effect Trio'. It has a more grounded plot than the other two (Rejuvenation and Desolation), and IMO, it's the most meticulously balanced of all three fangames. Sometimes, the game's plot feels like it really drags on, though. - Rejuvenation: You've already played this, so no comment. - Desolation: This game has rather superb writing compared to the other two Field Effect games, and it's my favorite of the three. It's also notably shorter due to being the newest game and having received less updates since its creation. Indeed, the project might have stalled/might be dead, but it's still worth playing if only to see why people want the project to continue so badly. Fair bit of warning though, the game's a bit less balanced than the other two. Indeed, this game is a lot less shy about giving you higher-tier Pokemon and TMs earlier on, if you put in the effort to explore and find them - but at the same time, the first three gyms are among the hardest of all the gyms across all three fangames. - Insurgence: This game has a lot of quality of life features (particularly HM abilities being usable through other means) along with coming up with Aloan variants (called 'Delta Pokemon') before gen 7 even existed. It also has the most well built online functionality out of all fangames that exist thus far. But as a single player game, the plot isn't anything to write home about, and the environments/music are rather copy/pastey. - Full Moon: Average at best, IMO. It does have a few neat things, but difficulty doesn't really exist considering the game hands you master balls and legendaries left and right. The story is rather amusing, though. The game features a talking female protagonist, rather unique in that aspect. - Zeta/Omicron: Sort of the prequel to Insurgence. I would give this a hard pass, as Insurgence is better in virtually every way (which wasn't really a high bar). The game did not age well at all. A recommendation or two of fangames that you didn't mention here: Legends of the Arena. Worth playing alone just for the writing and story. It is by far the best written fangame of all thus far (which is quite a feat for a fangame that more or less replaced gyms for a regional tournament and isn't very dark at all), with Postscriptum being rather close. LotA doesn't have much for difficulty and operates on gen 5 mechanics (with Pokemon up to gen 4), but it has the feeling of a fangame that shows what the main Pokemon games could be like with drastically improved pacing and overall writing quality. Also notable for having an actual talking protagonist. It is also unique in that this fangame has serious cutscene direction, rather than being an afterthought like with most fangames. Speaking of Postscriptum, it's a fair bit darker than Legends of the Arena, and features a fakemon as a starter (Deliby, a Delibird pre-evo). It has a rather unique protagonist and setting (an explicitly adult protagonist that talks, and is more or less a mailman), and leans heavily into philosophical and personal topics that are rarely ever asked (Why are we so dependent on Pokemon? What are the purpose of gyms and their badges?). The overall design of the fangame is also very different from any other fangame thus far - you can't freely capture Pokemon just yet for plot reasons, you pretty much have to find and earn their trust - and as such, any Pokemon you have are treated as actual party members rather than fodder. Thus, you're expected to lose quite a fair bit, and the game feels more like a traditional RPG rather than an actual Pokemon game.

There's a daycare and move relearner available around where the 4th gym is. The game really opens up from this point on, everyone gets a lot more options after the 2nd/3rd gym. I believe you can find Surskit somewhere before the 3rd gym, not too sure as it's been about a year since I played the game last. I think you can find Dwebble and Durant somewhere after the 3rd gym, and again, Joltik around where the 4th gym is. The hilarious part is while the early gyms may be giving you a beating, you'll probably trash the actual antagonists, since many of them have an emphasis on dark/psychic types.

IIRC the sky field powers up Chatter but also removes the confusion effect. Otherwise it'd be way too overpowered. Next gym should be much easier for you to take down with conventional tactics. Even though the team's full of nukes, it looks like your bug team is made up of tanks, which most people don't invest in at that point in the game. There's maybe only one or two Pokemon that might give you some problems. Someone already told you that his ace is Mega Lopunny, and IIRC it doesn't have any SE moves against bug types (unless it has Aerial Ace and I forgot about it), and your bugs can easily tank its fighting moves. Also IIRC you can get a Joltik before the 4th gym, but it's going to require a lot of soft resetting for it. It's, uh, kind of like that lottery thing that Rejuvenation had at the start of the game if you wanted a Ralts/Eevee/Axew starter. I don't remember any other notable bugs, even though the area around the 3rd gym should introduce quite a lot of new ones.

Yeah, Desolation's difficulty is currently very front-loaded, especially for your Bug mono-type run. People consider the third gym to be the hardest, but it might be an easier fight for your Bug monotype considering what his ace is. Also no sand cloak seems like an oversight brought upon by the fact that you're probably the first player to even consider using one.

It is the autumn town theme for Pokken Tournament, but not exactly the same. It appears to be a modified faster version of it. Maybe 1.3x speed or something, possibly along with certain instruments being emphasized to be louder than in the original version. Also, you can listen to any of the background music any time by going into the Audio -> BGM folder. This can be done with most, if not all Pokemon fangames.

Yeah, I'm just responsible for pitching ideas for sidequests, particularly the Boss sidequest and the photo taking one. I don't actually help with anything major like actual programming.

Yeah, I don't believe anyone's heard from Caz since last year. Wouldn't hold your breath, if I were you. Life happens, but one draws experiences from said life. The quality of Episode 4 was extremely high as a result of the hiatus beforehand. An eventual Episode 5 would probably have a similar level of quality.

@Damien LotA: It's a very unique fangame, in that it's largely focused entirely on the writing compared to most other Pokemon fangames out there. It doesn't try to be dark, it's a mostly light-hearted adventure with incredibly strong writing and world-building. Although the latest episode veers into somewhat dark territory, the overall writing is so strong that towards late game, the game doesn't need to waste your time telling you that shit has hit the fan - it just needs to SHOW you. I'd provide examples, but the game's story has built up into something so good that I really shouldn't - and I honestly rank LotA to be on the same level as Reborn/Rejuvenation/Desolation because of it, despite lacking the focus on battling that the field effect trinity has. It's also using Gen IV mechanics and below, and is the only fangame I know of so far that has actually buffed HMs to be viable competitively rather than to replace them outright. Really, it's worth playing purely for the writing and the rather unique things the creator has managed to pull off with the overworld at times (LotA's Route 15 is the most impressive thing I've ever seen in a Pokemon fangame from a technical standpoint). There's no other fangame quite like it (except maybe Postscriptum). Desolation: I consider it to be part of the holy trinity of Field Effect fangames, to the point where it should have gotten its own forum section just like Rejuvenation did long ago. That said, the first gym leader really is rather imbalanced (although the same could probably be said of any game that has the first gym leader be of the Fire type, since most Fire-type strategies come swinging with nukes right off the bat).

It's been a few days. Let's talk plot.

I reached the end of the demo. Went through the Cave of Time and Route 15. Jeez. Never doubt the power of a fangame purely fueled by incredible writing and visual/sound direction. Route 15 brought tears to my eyes. (I wonder what happens if you move forward from Route 15 without doing what I assume was the optional sidequest in the area? Alas, we won't find out, for now.)

Yeah. In my version he was like... If there's any real difference for winning that battle, it's likely going to be in the very long term. The levels of enemy Pokemon ramping up so high so quickly is starting to mildly frustrate me. My team is only in the level 63-66 range, and at this point I'm just using raw tactics to get through. I may have to sit down and grind, but the problem is, there's no readily available grind area near the last tournament location (since you can't fly back to the area just before the Elliptic Forest, meaning you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK THROUGH THE ICE TUNNEL if you want to revisit the area, which is quite the questionable design decision).

I was able to beat him, but only because it appears that there's a bug with Light Screen. A very old bug, to be exact. Using Light Screen makes your opponent skip their turns as long as it's up. Bah, I returned to the Elliptic Forest in an attempt to find that healing station again, but I can't find it anymore. I guess parts of the forest are locked out once you're done with the events in the area. Now that I think about it, that healing station was most likely a hallucination of some sort.

To be honest, when I went through elliptic forest, I tried to explore it thoroughly, and found a Pokemon healing station in the forest before I turned around (assuming I found the exit) to explore some more. And then I ended up stumbling upon... Yeah. So, I assume whatever was beyond that healing station was important - and optional.

I want to ask you, how did you get past the frozen tunnels? I've been stuck wandering around in there for an hour. The only path I haven't explored yet is the sliding puzzle room with a certain Pokemon in it, but I've been unable to reach it at all. EDIT: Nevermind, I found the way through.