Alilatias

I'm pretty sure you don't find it until around the 5th tournament bout. Which is about 60-70% of the way through the game. Either that, or it was the Thunder TM. The dev changed TMs to be infinite use now, when they were finite before. I know eeveeloutions had their learnset adjusted for very obvious reasons, and IIRC believe Jolteon upgrades to Shock Wave around level 25 or so.

Mild spoilers regarding another HM in this game: Strength was buffed to 100 base power. Have fun! (I was hoping it'd be changed to a Rock type move instead, but a 100 BP STAB attack for Normal types is pretty hilarious too. Although chances are they'd already be using Return instead...)

Wacky originally said that this update was going to be the last one, but it appears those plans have changed. Seems we have quite a bit more to look forward to. And yeah, it was about 2.5 years since the last update. August 14th 2015 to be exact.

*INTERNAL FANGIRL SCREAMING* Finally! ;_;

Those are definitely the most easily missable ones, so you're pretty much in the clear. I can't think of any reputation points afterwards that aren't placed in mandatory sequences.

Hello, Caz! It's almost February. Got any status updates for all these eager fans? (I -still- need to rethink what the next step of the dagger quest should be. A year does a lot to you.)

@Damien I would recommend Desolation, since it's fairly close to Reborn or Rejuvenation. It does a few things better (more compelling world design IMO) and worse (inconsistent difficulty curve), but it's more than earned the right to stand among the other two mentioned fangames.

So I recently came across a newer fangame called Postscriptum. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=404291 It's a very interesting fangame, mainly due to how -different- its premise is compared to literally every other fangame out there. It seems to focus heavily on issues such as how one views themselves personally, as well as wealth inequality and corruption on a societal level. Just be aware though, expect to lose. A lot. You'll understand why, considering the setting and premise. The game probably has the most interesting fakemon starter I've ever seen, a Delibird pre-evo called Deliby, which seems to function as a physical glass cannon, but it appears you can also build it as a spikes/hail staller, though I wouldn't recommend the latter at the start. I'm about 3-4 hours in and I still haven't found a way to acquire another Pokemon. Also, go to the courier branch and do your first mission ASAP, there's no point to exploring the city before you acquire your first Pokemon. Also, head to the abandoned university ASAP once you're done with your first mission, the progression appears to assume that you're going there first in order to grind against wild Pokemon/obtain a ton of potions/full heals. The game also has some of the most hilarious writing I've ever seen, which is great for balancing out the overall tone of the game. EDIT: I've gotten a lot further into the game, and I have to say... This fangame definitely ranks up there as among the best, IMO. And it's barely starting! The narrative is incredibly powerful. The quality of the writing is comparable to Legends of the Arena, if LotA had a darker setting.

I'm sorry, someone has to say this. The design of the gym is problematic at best and horribly, horribly time wasting at worst.

You're not the only one. I started a new file and ran into the exact same issue, except I can't get the event to trigger period. I'm going to drop this off at the reddit.

@Yagami I find this fangame forces the player to think differently compared to most others. - It rewards exploration, but at the same time, you have to make sure you have the supplies to last the journey into unknown territory. This is probably the only Pokemon fangame thus far that has managed to elicit that sort of feeling for me. - Because you spend so long at the Lv. 20 cap, you're encouraged to sneak past most trainer battles in order to conserve your supplies, and come back to demolish them/level grind after you get the cap raised to Lv. 30. I feel it is deliberately designed to be this way, because the vast majority of trainer battles are avoidable. This is also why the game throws the Amulet Coin at you very early, if you can find it. - And also because you spend so long at certain level caps, the game DOES throw presumably powerful Uber-tier Pokemon at you for you to catch early on, except for the fact that the vast majority of such Pokemon start out extremely weak and don't really bloom into powerful fighters until level 40+. This is a fairly good balancing act, I find - a Lv. 20 Beautifly for instance is going to be a MUCH better fighter than a Lv. 20 Larvitar. The fangame is indeed a harder one, but I find it's more strategic rather than actually difficult. (As for the route with the cave, there's a healing spring fairly early on inside the cave. It's pretty much the first side room you'll come across, with a trainer standing near the entrance to that room, I think. Also, I assume you reached the desert town, judging by your statement about having to spend money to heal. There IS a free heal in that town, but you have to have beaten a recurring trainer standing in front of a lake in the previous route - of which the fight was bugged. I assume it's been fixed now.) --- I'm still fairly early into the latest chapter, but it pulled off a gameplay twist that I haven't seen another fangame attempt thus far. It's for that reason that this fangame has suddenly rocketed to one of my all-time favorites. I won't spoil what it is just yet, but I'm sure everyone will know exactly what I'm talking about when they reach it, and it's probably something many other fangames will try to emulate if they figure out how to pull it off. I hope it becomes a major recurring feature of this fangame from here on out.

Bumping this to notify everyone that the next chapter is out as of two days ago. Enjoy!

Eh, it's actually a rather short game currently. Booting up my save file yields that playtime is at 14 hours at the end of the latest release. Pretty short compared to most other fangames that aren't even near completion. To sum up the story thus far:

I see you're a fellow Trails series fan too. The series is chock full of good writing. Cold Steel arc, not as much, I'm about ready for that arc to finally end so we can move away from the whole school setting and Most Uninteresting Overpowered Protagonist/Generic Katana User (compared to 'Girl With a Big Stick that Doesn't Give a Damn', 'Priest/Archer Support Archetype Actually Being a Main Character For Once', and 'Basically a FBI Agent with Tonfas'). Anyway, I finally picked up Insurgence again, and there is one thing I've realized with that game. Even though the story is pretty barebones compared to many fangames, it's well written and doesn't overstay its welcome with unnecessary exposition. It also helps that its route design is fairly minimalist and you can skip most trainer battles if you want to progress. Intentional or not, it makes the game rather charming, and it also gives the impression that other fangames really, REALLY bloat their game time with puzzles that are more annoying rather than fun or challenging to deal with alongside the unavoidable trainer encounter montages. --- Back to the original topic, yeah, I agree that balance is going to be an issue. At this point, if I ever get around to making that fangame idea that I've been playing around with for two years, I'm probably going to focus less on balancing and more on making sure the gameplay is solid throughout. I don't intend on making puzzles that causes 30%+ of the playerbase to go consult an online guide at the end of the day, because I'd consider such a thing to be a total failure of game design. Rejuvenation understood that last point very well (dear god Rejuvenation's early puzzles before the game was completely overhauled drove a lot of people insane). Oh, another point. Music. These days, so many fangames use GlitchxCity's music to the point where it's almost generic now. I'd suggest branching out a bit. I know that for my own personal fangame, I'd probably load it full of music from Falcom games and FFXIV.

So I haven't played this game since the very last patch that was released, uh... I think it was 2 years ago? Now I'm so hilariously lost that I might as well restart. I hope that mystery gift Mareep is still there though, but I imagine it's not.

Good thread. This is actually why I haven't had much patience with fangames lately, when a year ago, I was starved to find new ones (because Reborn/Rejuvenation/Desolation were all simultaneously entering a massive development period for their next chapters). I can't even bring myself to pick up Insurgence even though it just had a massive update after like two years. I've considered trying to create a new fangame on my own last year, but I know virtually nothing about coding, and thus it's nowhere past the concept stage. I haven't even decided on a name yet. The main things that WOULD set it apart from the rest are the following: - Most battles are in 2v2 format, except for major boss battles - You manage two teams of up to 5 Pokemon, hence the 2v2 format. - Due to the setting, there are no Pokeballs to capture new Pokemon with. Instead, it's done via events and post-battle RNG recruitment. - There's no shops, you find/craft new items instead. - Likewise, TMs/HMs don't exist, they're taught via move tutors. I've been kicking around the idea of changing up the amount of moves each Pokemon can have too. Right now, my current idea is to expand the amount moves to 5, but they have a 'slot' system. - 2 offensive moves - 1 debilitation (defined as stat down, status effects, and moves such as Spikes) - 1 support (defined as stat up, weather changing, moves such as armoatherapy and reflect, and so on) - 1 move of any category At the same time, I've also been tinkering with an idea to have lower-BP moves be upgradeable in some way to warrant strategic use of them in late-game, especially for bulky non-sweepers to sort of circumvent the move restrictions (as the above 5-move system would greatly benefit sweepers more than any other type of Pokemon, while tanks and walls would be gimped otherwise). Examples... - Ember Lv. 1: The usual Ember that we all know. - Ember Lv. 2: Burn chance increased to 30%. 50% VS Pokemon that take super-effective damage. - Ember Lv. 3: BP increased to 50, burn chance increased to 50%. 100% VS Pokemon that take super-effective damage. - Vine Whip Lv. 1: The usual. - Vine Whip Lv. 2: Now has a 20% chance to flinch the targeted Pokemon. 40% VS Pokemon that take super-effective damage. - Vine Whip Lv. 3: BP increased to 50, flinch chance increased to 30%. 60% VS Pokemon that take super-effective damage. - Peck Lv. 1: The usual. - Peck Lv. 2: BP increased to 45, and additionally ignores 20% of the target's Defense stat. - Peck Lv. 3: BP increased to 60, and now ignores 40% of the target's Defense stat. - Wing Attack Lv. 1: The usual. - Wing Attack Lv. 2: Now deals additional damage based on the user's Speed stat relative to the target, gaining +5 BP per 15 speed higher than the target, up to a maximum bonus of 75 Speed/+25 BP. (Wing Attack is only upgradeable once since it starts out as a 60 BP move already.) Now that I think about it, this particular concept has more in common with Dragon Quest (particularly the 7th and 8th entries) and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon than anything else. --- On another thought, you may want to give Legends of the Arena a try. While it's a fairly dated fangame now (it has Gen 4 mechanics and before) and still in development, that game's claim to fame is ditching the gym format for a regional tournament, and having a non-mute protagonist (which leads to fairly superb writing to back it up).

A friend of mine recently discovered the various Pokemon fangames, but appears to be disappointed that Mystery Dungeon ones don't really exist. They want to try programming one, but we don't even know where to begin? Does anyone have any advice, particularly which tools we should try using? I assume Essentials likely won't cut it for a Mystery Dungeon game.

Well, that's a testament to the quality of the game you've made, isn't it, Caz? The world building in this game is second to none among the Pokemon fangames. (As for the other plans we've discussed, I may need to rethink the entire thing. A lot changes in half a year.)

Yeah, you have plenty of time to go back and get it once you regain access to the area. You won't be able to get back to it for a long while. You'll know when you're past the point of no return. Yet unfortunately, you're likely to save after that point before realizing that it's a point of no return.

Graveler has low special defense, which Vulpix eats up immediately. To be honest, Vulpix is probably the biggest threat on his team overall, as far as I remember. You may want to consider getting a Biabarel. Rollout wrecks his team, though you may need to set up a Defense Curl or two to make it easier to tank physical attacks from faster Pokemon on Connor's team. Biabarel's water typing means that the AI will actively avoid using Fire moves in most cases, meaning that Connor won't immediately transform the field into Blazing with certain fire moves, which is when things get REALLY bad for you. You can find Bidoof in the Keneph Caves, or at least the small corners that are still accessible. You can also consider getting a Lombre and grinding it to Lv. 20 to learn Water Sport. Water Sport used in the field lowers accuracy of all Pokemon each time it is used, IIRC. This can let you RNG screw your way to switching in a Pokemon that needs the setup time to sweep, like Biabarel. (Most are in agreement that Connor's difficulty is problematic, though we're not quite sure how to tackle this later on. I imagine the creator, when he returns from his extended vacation, will likely introduce more water/ground/fire types into the early phase of the game.)

aghkaldfjlka WHY Oh well, I'll just KO them all and be on my way. If there's one thing this game is making me appreciate, it's the fact that it's forcing me to realize I'm never going to use most of the legendaries that the game forces you to fight throughout the story anyway, and that I shouldn't really bother trying to catch the ones I'm not even remotely interested in if I'm running low on Master Balls. >_>

I should warn you about something too, something that might potentially break your game. Later on, there's a part where you are assigned one of three tasks of your choice. Stay with your assigned task. Or, explore, but don't save if you notice anything weird going on. I ventured out of my task area, ignored the plot characters standing in the way, and went towards one of the other two areas. By mining a specific rock in the other area, the game suddenly had me initiate dialogue with a different character that wasn't supposed to be with me. I thought my game broke afterwards, but then I left the area through a different entrance that is normally walled off, and the game proceeded as if I had chosen that specific task instead of the one I actually chose. I don't know if similar glitches are present in the other two paths, but I wouldn't risk it at all. EDIT: I've advanced a bit more and now it's looking as if my save file is broken because of the above now. I've gone everywhere I could have possibly gone and the major NPCs are nowhere to be found, meaning I'm stuck. The only thing I can do is go capture the legendaries in the area, which I'm fairly sure is optional. There's a gated area that looks like where I'm supposed to go, but it won't open, likely because of the sequence breaking bug from above. I'll have to restart the game.

The thing with Arcanine is that it'll show up in mandatory cutscenes no matter what. However, there's one event Pokemon where you MUST have Arcanine in your party to obtain. Also, I'm just going to mention this now before you get caught off-guard: Prepare for Pokemon that use moves that they normally shouldn't, period. Acrobatics Gyarados, anyone?

I'm actually past you now, and I have to say, I'm finding this game more hilarious by the day. Consider what you've been getting from gyms lately (and will get from the next one soon). It's like the developers realized 'oh shit we gave away way too many powerful Pokemon and TMs, we need to scale back, HARD'. Indeed, the obtainable TMs later in the game are way, WAY weaker than those given out towards the start. Also, the writing has reached completely nonsensical levels. They had something good going on early on, but now the plot feels completely disjointed. The whole 'everyone is convienently ignoring that the Security Station/Team Lightning are exactly the same' thing was only the beginning. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

IIRC there's a name rater in the desert-themed construction town with that tower. Also, if there's one major criticism I have of the game so far, beyond the awkward writing and the fact that it literally throws broken Pokemon at you (which I find oddly charming), it's that I feel that the AI cheats more often the further you get in the game. A lot. Like the AI seems to act based on player inputs and has already calculated RNG from your action that turn when deciding what to do against you. For instance, one of my attacks that would have KO'd the enemy under normal circumstances misses when the enemy is at below half HP, and the AI just picks a move to use as usual. Yet when I use the same attack again the next turn and it hits, the AI will suddenly use a recovery item that turn to stop their Pokemon from being KO'd (when regular AI would have already used it in the previous turn or not at all). Another example is that I switch my Pokemon and the AI responds with an attack that's super effective against the Pokemon I'm switching in, when the attack would have been ineffective against my previous Pokemon. Then there's the AI using a not very effective attack but it ALWAYS inflicts a status effect (like Scald on a dragon type and it inflicts burn). It's happened too many times for it to be sheer coincidence, and I've never noted the AI having such behavior in other fangames. EDIT: Also, I like how different our teams are, mostly. I'm at the volcano and my team consists of... - Arcanine (starter) - Latias (mandatory capture) - Breloom - Lapras (considering benching if I run into a more interesting ice or water type, like maybe a Glaceon) - Rotom (considering benching in favor of a ground type, hopefully a Golurk is available soon? Or I'll just use the mandatory capture Mudkip...) - Archeops I haven't read through most of the LP to avoid spoiling myself on this hilarious train ride of a plot, but is there a move relearner and something like ability capsules somewhere soon? I'm thinking of benching Archeops in favor of Togekiss (which is also a mandatory capture now that I think about it), but I won't use Togekiss unless I can get Air Slash.