Hamster Haze
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Reborn Development Blog
Rejuvenation Development Blog
Starlight Divide Devblog
Desolation Dev Blog
Posts posted by Hamster Haze
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Ep 19 has been everything I wanted and more and genuinely exceeded my expectations. I still have to do a full replay of the game since beating the new content during the beta test but I'm very excited for it. I have a million other thoughts that I've went on and on about over the past few weeks- years (at this point) so ill just say this,, thank you. To Ame for committing to this endeavor and to all the devs that actually got this shit to work beautifully, reborn is truly one of a kind.
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E19 finna be a movie I swear, In really excited to see what everyone uses for their teams, good luck everyone!
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If the recently browsing shows THIS MANY users on the site, I can't fathom amount of accounts when e19 releases for community beta!
On an unrelated tangent, I remember years ago when the dev sidebar had a progresss bar, like what rejuvenation has. And I would check it every week just to see how much more progress the respective episode received and going "OH MY GOD THEY GOT 5% MORE DONE"! It's a weird feeling to not have that anymore because now the game is going to be here but I will always remember it fondly as my patience paying off for this moment
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3 years of my off time has been spent in this forum, on top of the 10 years that reborn has been in the back of my mind, guess it's actually coming to an end now ;-;
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7 hours ago, Vulnona said:
hot damn your art is insane, looking forward to what you make next
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46 minutes ago, Oscarus said:
He is also... what? Reserve Gym Leader? Undercover Meteor Agent? Alumni of Onyx Academy? Ame's assistant/sparing partner? ...or just a secret Jigglypuff fan that doesn't want to be ridiculed by the community?
yea
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4 hours ago, Oscarus said:
Ah.
So just random NPC, got it.
Bold of you to assume he's only a random npc, he's also -
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6 hours ago, Bananacake887 said:
It'll be Mrs. Craudberry
Santiago's return with his fucking jigglypuff
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26 minutes ago, Green Bean 501 said:
I checked tumbler for the passwords but i saw on the right side that the time for release has been more or less confirmed
she meant 20222*, but dont tell anyone i told you
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36 minutes ago, Bananacake887 said:
Yeah, from this post it seems that Solaris, Sirius, Zero, Aster and Eclipse(although her real name has been revealed; Caitlyn Fisher) are all using code names.
huh, interesting. I wonder if all the loose ends including names will be revealed for e19
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Would you count the "impossible" battles as part of the nuzlocke though, I wouldn't if I didn't have specific cheese counters for it
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15 hours ago, TheRK9 said:
It's not quite as black and white as you'd think. A lot of the grunts were forced into joining, or were lied to into thinking they were doing good, and that the end justified the means. Some were threatened or blackmailed, or worked in a part of Team Meteor that never let them find out about the consequences of their acts of terror.
This is something that the game makes very clear by developing characters that are a part of Team Meteor.
- Taka was forced to join by Solaris even though he doesn't believe or partake in Meteor's methods because he's been told his entire life that it's his duty as a descendant of those who citadel.
- Echlipse joined because they had been tricked into thinking Team Meteor for the better despite the cost. This is why Echlipse leaves (and dies for it) once she realised that it wasn't worth it to cause so much death and destruction to create a New World.
- Aster and Simon were also likely fooled into joining, and stayed moreso because all the people they knew and loved were through Team Meteor, and they both gave up on it when Echlipse and Tara respectively died.
- Eve and Lumi were blackmailed into joining Team Meteor after the Magnezone incident and had to help start the PULSE project to salvage any chance of returning to their own selves again.
- Cal joined in an attempt to match Blake, since he was constantly insecure about the way his brother treated and outshone him, and left once he realised his priorities were wrong after he caused Kiki's death.
- Corey was forced to join on the condition that he got to keep the Ruby Ring, seemingly the only thing he had in memory of his wife, who was killed by Sirius.
- Even Solaris, who founded the organisation, is gradually believing less and less in it with the influence that Lin has had, especially after he founds out about Taka's death. I would not be surprised if he turns on the organisation in the Reshiram Route in E19.
These are all fallible characters, some more than others, but they can also be sympathised with, or at the very least understood. It's not as simple as "meteor bad". While all of these characters can be criticised for joining or helping Meteor, they all had their reasons. People aren't perfect, and this is very apparent with both the protagonists and antagonists in this world. A lot of these people are still good people, but good people don't always do good things, but you can see how many characters left/turned on Team Meteor after truly realising what they've caused.
While this is a story in a video game, a lot of the concepts still translate. This is why it is just as important to judge people's intentions rather than actions.This is actually a great point I think a lot of people miss. The one person who we see the most in sabotaging Meteor is in fact Taka, the son of the leader of the whole organization. For someone who was born into something where he was borderline forced to join, he really breaks the cycle of hate in a way by becoming his own character, which is pretty neat. I think the reason Meteor has been shown to be so evil is because of people like Sirius and Lin poisoning the original group's intentions. As it's gathered in the Reshiram route, Meteor was originally a group of protectors.
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7 hours ago, HakuryuYukio said:
One thing i'm looking forward to is how the whole "Lin shatters" prophecy is gonna play out.
Remember in Shades Gym,
we had the four Visions of Corey, Kiki, Amaria and Lin. Shade told the player in the WTC that only two of those visions would lead to death. Corey and Kiki died and Amaria survived her Fall leaving only Lin.
My guess is that her real body is sealed inside the castle below the grand gates alongside the Baby Arceus, Terra was talking about in the glitch world. The Body we have seen so far "shatters" once her real self is unsealed alongside the Baby Arceus which is definetly grown up by now (Lord help us all).
Also another theory: The actual Lin that is sealed is still a child. Perhaps she made a deal with Arceus where she requested power but as a sacrifice would always remain a child. The adult Lin we have encountered so far is just an "imagination" of what Child Lin believes herself to look like as an Adult.
Perhaps the Adult Lin is just a Facade to hide her own immaturity and the Body shattering will be the equivalent of the facade coming off.
Also when i think of this theory i'm always reminded of one of my favourite quotes from Cowboy Bebop:
"There is nothing more pure and cruel as a child".
SpoilerI always thought Lin would accomplish her goal, and her shattering would be activating that thing she found in agate, whatever it may be. Remember that Shade's gym doesnt explicitly show deaths, when Amaria didnt end up dying
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1 hour ago, Vulnona said:
We should totally compile a timeline of Reborn.
That would make things soooo much easier.
(No, really. That may be a fun wiki project.)
EDIT: Aw hell.
An uncertain amount of years ago:
* Reborn was once a village around a meteor crater. The meteor is Arceus' birthplace and how it entered this world. It is enshrined by Solaris' and Taka's family/ancestors, who dedicate themselves and their culture to protect the meteor from outside "impurity". They build a citadel and lock up Arceus with four crystal keys. (Source: El's diary)* Solaris' and Taka's family are large and influential. (Source: Taka's Mirage Tower dialogue) They are close to another family that is less ancient and the members of which are meant to serve them. This is Elias' family. Elias' family serves Solaris' family for generations. (Source: El's diary).
* There is a person called "the slayer", who is said to have driven Giratina from Reborn because of its distortive influence on Arceus' creation. The slayer is implied to have used an Aegislash for this. (Source: see above)
* Over the years, the family fell into decline (Source: Taka's dialogue in Sugiline temple ruins)
At least 20 years before the story (judging that Solaris is probably between 40-50 years old):
* Solaris grows up in a small, religious and somehow idyllic community. He is provided a servant, Elias, who is ten years older than him and considered "defective" by his family because of his blindness. Because of that, Elias is prohibited from interacting with Solaris in his youth. But Solaris is unsatisfied with his family's tradition and wants nothing to do with it. He resents this religious tradition for "most of his life".
* An adult Elias meets Solaris for the first time. They become quick friends and spend time as "lordless, lawless men". Solaris questions "for many years" why the meteor needs to be locked up.
* At some point in his early adulthood, Solaris' parents are killed by an unknown assailant seeking the crystal keys. Solaris beats the assailant to death. Wishing he had believed his parents, he becomes a believer in Arceus and becomes paranoid of losing things from the past.
* Elias isn't a believer yet but still follows Solaris on his new, religious path. After a few years, Solaris confronts Elias about his lack of faith and gifts him the Emerald key, which cures his blindness.
* Solaris hires a woman to have a child with him - Taka. She then leaves.
After Solaris' parents' death:
* Reborn is in bad shape. Ame decides to build a new city on top of the old one's ruins. Solaris claims this happened specifically to hide the Citae Astrae citadel. This is considered "the ultimate insult" by Solaris' family.
* Radomus is tipped off by a mystery person that Team Meteor should not have the crystal keys - they are simply too dangerous for them. So, he steals the crystal keys and asked a friend to fashion them into jewellery. This friend is overwhelmed by the mighty keys. Radomus gifts him with the Emerald broach and seeks out particularly strong trainers for the other three so they would be protected. The Belrose family gets the Sapphire bracelets, Corey Molinar gets the Ruby ring to propose to his wife Elena, and Radomus' wife Zina gets the Amethyst pendant. Now a wealthy man, Radomus reinvents his name, personality, and history as a chess player, builds Vanhanen castle and lives happily with Zina for many years.
* Sirius is a hopeless romantic and loves to study history. However, something tragic changes his views completely and he becomes a cruel man with a "win by any change" mentality. He implies that stealing back the crystal keys will repair scars he carved (Source: Void).
12 years ago:
* Team Meteor, founded some time ago by Solaris, seeks to cleanse Reborn City and restore the citadel shrine. They are ruthless in doing so. (Source: Corey's diary)
* Sirius hunts down the Ruby Ring Corey gifted his wife and poisons Elena Molinar in the hospital, where she just gave birth to Heather. Corey stabs Sirius' left eye and swears revenge.
12-10 years ago:
* Sirius tracks down the Sapphire bracelets and burns down Belrose manse, killing the Belrose sisters' parents. Laura loses the Sapphire bracelets in the fire. They are later picked up by Titania, who gifts them to Amaria. (That would make Charlotte between 2 and 4 years old at this incident.)
* Zina Vanhanen has Guardevoir promise her that she would protect Radomus in her absence. Zina then vanishes/dies.
* Radomus fears that without Zina's presence, he wouldn't be able to protect his kids. He gives up his children and hides them under a different name. He bequeathes Anna the Amethyst pendant.
About ten years ago:
* Lin, a girl that regularly tormented Laura in the orphanage, is taken away one day and never seen again. (Was this really 10 years ago?)
* One day, the Grand Gates of Reborn close permanently. No one knows why.
* Adrienn, while inspecting the Grand Gates, falls down into the caves beneath the Grand Stairyway. Because she does not wear one of the four key talismans, she is frozen in time for the next ten years. She does, however, notice a girl climbing out of the caves.
* Elias and Solaris are still pals and Elias is very loyal to Solaris. Their kids, Taka and Luna, form a friendship. Somehow, Taka's existence as Solaris' son put Luna in a bad position so that she may have wanted to escape that reality.
Less than 10 years before the story:
* Eve engineers a way to harness Pokemon power to help her sick sister Lumi. Zero from Team Meteor becomes aware of this and threatens her to give Team Meteor all information on this project. During the Magnezone accident, they fuse and become one person, ZEL. (Source: Ametrine diary)
* Solaris orders ZEL to keep tabs on Taka during his childhood. Blake sometimes does as well. (Source: Taka's Tourmaline dialogue)
Some time before the story:
* Lin joins Team Meteor and rises through the ranks. Her presence is said to have changed Sirius' attitude/behaviour for the worse, even though he has always had a "history is written by the winners" mindset. (Source: Taka's Tourmaline dialogue, Eclipse's dialogue)
* Terra's parents adopt a girl named Lin. Terra and Lin become friends and Lin is said to have changed Terra: though she used to be a lonely child stuck in her room and playing video games, she is now determined to become a lion tamer at the circus.
* Corey joins Team Meteor to track down Sirius.
* Luna, advised by Shade, runs away from home and lives with Serra, Guardevoir and Bennett.
* Team Meteor destroys the mega-company Yureyu to cripple Reborn City's economics.
* Team Meteor poisons the Azurine lake and is responsible for Earthquakes and other environmental desasters. Their PULSE-Garbodor likely created or at least increased the Byxbision Wasteland.
When it comes to Solaris being less ruthless than Sirius or Lin, I think the dialogue covers that rather well. Nonetheless, the game isn't specific as to what exactly Solaris did to drive people away. We only have other characters' words for it, and all of these are, well, Meteor Members (Eclipse, Taka, uhm... that's it, I think).
Good argument!
This seems pretty accurate and as for anecdotal accounts from npcs, I don't think most of the characters have much of a reason to lie
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Ok I may have stand corrected then!
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Wait isn't it 1/1 cuz it was new years?
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Man idk about you guys but when I faced hardy every time I played through the game his win rate was 0.00%
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10 hours ago, wcv said:
Without Taka and people like him those people would never have been in danger in the first place.
Its an argument you could make for most enemy groups in any pokemon game, but in every case, those groups exist and at the moment of the players entry into the story, they're causing harm to the characters in universe. Taka is but a cog in a machine (being Lin's meteor) that he alone cannot stop, and as such has been doing his part as discreetly as he once was able to, sabotage a corrupted and change Meteor. Yes without Taka's involvement at all he wouldn't even be debated as being evil, but considering his circumstances and actions, he fights for what he truly believes in, which is what I believe Is a more noble goal than what Lin is currently utilizing the group for.
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Alright this is my take on it which I haven't seen a whole lot of people consider:
I doubt anyone would die if you make certain choices. I don't even think someone like Taka or Fern dies in either story primarily due to relationship points (which is a can of worms and might work differently in episode 19 as they don't have much of a use currently). I wonder if they plan on going through with some characters being killed off despite this mechanic as that nightclub might work outside of the game's universe and will only affect dialogue. For those who do know some characters paths end up in drastically different places depending on the route you take so perhaps we'll see more of that as this episode will be the climax of the entire thing. But I seriously doubt as things are now that anyone that has a check for points will be killed off.
^This being said I would be pleasantly surprised to see your actions having profound consequences no matter which route you take and the dialogue choices you choose. I'm excited to see how this whole thing will play out as we're getting ever so closer to Beta Testing and eventual release.
As for Fern he isn't even Evil, just someone that always wants be on the right side of history which hasn't worked out for him at all. I'm more than willing to bet he'll come around when he realizes Meteor is vulnerable. The only atrocities he's committed is being an asshole and a backstabber.
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4 hours ago, Dark Eclipse said:
Rejuvenation feels like a copy of reborn with the league and all
Well it is a game with a similar premise after all, They're pretty much in the same universe unofficially
I have yet to beat the game however, I should do that soon -
Honestly, we still don't know how much more of the game outside of legendaries, I believe the nightclub and other parts are complete but there's other parts that need to be completed. We'll just have to see after all the legendaries are coded in
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24 minutes ago, thisgameishard said:
Yea i agree and i think everyone would be happy to wait an extra few months if it meant less bugs.
If we can collectively wait for over 3 years, I think we can wait just a little longer for this to be worth the hype
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6 minutes ago, thisgameishard said:
That guy is quite gangsta. I also like how he is not some senseless villain who is bad because he's bad. He's personally one of my fav characters in the whole game.
I love his trench coat, its probably my favorite part about him since i personally love fashion
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3 hours ago, thisgameishard said:
Ayy i mean Solaris a badass so ill take it lmaooooo.
I feel like solaris purposely uses pokemon that look menacing but actually are threats, which is edgy af but solaris is a boss so its even cooler
Personal experience with Reborn, a reflection of the game a year after its release.
in Reborn City
Posted
Hello. I want to share my own ramblings on Reborn, as well as a bit of a review. I think there will be spoilers for some sections so just read at your own discretion, this is just me reflecting about the game. If you'll humor me, this is my own rambling of Reborn: A very special game to me :)
Context, Background, and a false Jwittz(?) memory:
My experience with this game all started a little over a decade ago. Being ten going eleven in 2012-2013, I was obsessed with Pokémon, starting with my first DS games with the BANGER storytellers Explorers of Sky and later, the gen 5 series of games. You can probably see why this game peaked my interest already, but how I was introduced to Reborn is lost to me now. For the longest time I thought the youtuber Jwittz talked about Reborn and other fan games in one of his videos, where I specifically remember gameplay video of the Obsidia Ward, the first vs cutscene with Fern and the ruined city as a whole. I don't know who made that video, or if the video even exists anymore, but I was aware of Reborn extremely early on, and I vowed to myself to play this "cool new fangame!" with the words "when they finish this."
(I'm convinced I doomed people into waiting ten years because of that, but anyways...)
With that seed of thought planted in the back of my mind, I went on with primary school, checking on the progress of Reborn, seeing the episodes release, watching Shofu's playthrough of the game and the funny evolution parts he did with Archer (rip that series btw what a tragedy ifykyk), and patiently waiting for this full game to be released. Eventually I got tired of waiting in 2015 and started my first playthrough of the game. I chose Oshawott, got to the Onyx ward and then dropped it because of my crappy attention span. I would pick it up every few months but never long enough to get whatever the current endpoint of the episode. This cycle continued until November 2018, The start of the longest wait of my life.
(Small tangent before continuing: Knowing that the story of Reborn was a tribute to a league that the characters participated in was to me really cool, just mainly due to the fact that I had participated in something similar with Pokémon Showdown Side Servers. People would run leagues, similar to Reborn's and it was a nice tight knit community. Nowadays leagues and PS Side Servers have died in favor of draft leagues, but that history with the traditional leagues struck a cord to me and it was a nice personal connection to have with the game. It's a massive can of worms that isn't related but it was nice to mention.. ANYWAY-)
Episode 18, and the longest wait of all time:
In November 2018, I decided to sit down and actually do a full playthrough of Reborn. I remember being a junior in highschool around this time, rediscovering this game for the hundredth time, and was compelled to start over. Choosing Torchic, I restarted my adventure, and played the game on and off for three weeks, slowly and painfully solving the puzzles, dealing with the horrifically strong gym leaders (Shelly, Aya, Samson, Serra, ...Charlotte) and getting to my favorite battle of the entire game (even till this day): the Agate City Solaris battle. What a hella good climax to end Episode 18 with... and then the wait happened.
I remember how hyped I was to play e19 and how naïve I was thinking that e19 would only take a few months to wrap up. While it tested my patience, I knew that in the end, no matter how long it took that the ending to the game and the postgame would be worth it.
For three years I cheeked the Devblog weekly to see that progress bar increase every so often, along with the blurbs and notes at the end of each of them, I still have a lot of screenshots of those Devblog notes too.
There was this anxiety however. You know it, I know it, everyone who was patiently waiting to play final episode knew it. That one small indie studio from Japan, one that shall not be named, but I think they made the games I mentioned above ^^, could have obliterated the development of this game at any moment, and there would have been no e19 to play. Thankfully that didn't happen, but that healthy fear of the big N was just a real mood killer.
I definitely think the dev team made the correct decision to release e19 as the postgame and ending just due to the risk of never being able to finish the game in it's entirety, but it just sucked in the moment that it made the wait a lot longer.
E19 itself:
I personally got to play episode 19 on April 1st, 2022, on a Friday night. I remember it extremely clearly, I had literally just came home from work at 9pm, with a morning shift at 8am the next day, and I get the notification that the game was available to download. (Back in 2018 I joked that I would've been in my last couple years of college when e19 came out, and I hit the nail on the head). Like any reasonable person in my situation, I immediately got to downloading e19, and played the game from 10pm till 3am.
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Coincidentally, spring break happened the week after, so I got to experience the game uninterrupted for an entire week, and having the relief of finally getting to experience new Reborn content was mind-blowing to me. I don't know if I'm also misremembering this event but I swear the discord went into a frenzy, there was a few outages when this thing dropped, there was nothing like it.
I completed the whole of E19 in a week of constant playing. Granted it was obsessive but It was worth it.
Thoughts:
For one, I just love this game if it wasn't obvious. I don't love everything about it, however its something extremely sentimental to me.
I think it's excellent for a less traditional fangame, mixing heavy story content with the gameplay, there are games that do this but I like how Reborn does it slightly more.
Field effects are probably some of my favorite in the game. Reborn doesn't have anything particularly unique with the Pokémon themselves, instead employing the tens of field effects that shake up the battles. I love how the gym leaders have full use over them, and the risk and reward system of some of them.
The amount of characters is both a positive and negative to me, I definitely think having all these unique characters means the world is a lot bigger than it may seem, with small tangents and plot points with some groups. However the characters I dislike in this game I really hate (Amaria...Fern...). I don't think this is to Reborn's detriment, but ye.
The puzzles in this game are actual puzzles, which both infuriate me (due to my own ineptitude for them) and I'm happy for. Shelly's gym puzzle and the victory road gem puzzles are the absolute worst I swear, and by god they really get on my nerves, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I think the main issue I have with Reborn are the two "Impossible" battles in the game that shift how the story is told. The first Solaris battle and El's Dittoceus. I refer specifically to how these battles interact with the hidden relationship point mechanic in the game and how not beating either of these completely change the ending to the game, and I personally just dislike that. I like that they exist but don't enjoy the outcomes at failing those battles because you're not really supposed to win in those scenarios.
Besides that, I don't have much negative criticisms outside of that, and this isn't the post for it anyway. I'm more here to celebrate a year since its release, and how it's changed my life. I truly love this game, and I'm very glad I managed to stick around till the end for it.
My teams: