Reborn – Pinkie's Paradise

The Biggest Pokémon Fan Game Pinkie Ever Played: Pokémon Rejuvenation

Hello again my sweet island guests! Yes this will be my second post of the day! As we will do that now!.. Not always but I am for it! While I try to do an animini each day I will also try to keep up my regular content…with the option to more freely skip one of my bigger posts here and there! So strangely one to two posts a day is most likely going to be less work! Those hours saved I can invest in this Pokémon Fan Game I have been playing! Pokémon Rejuvenation.

Pokémon What?!

Pokémon Rejuvenation is a HUUUGE pokémon fan game from the creators of Pokémon Reborn.. that Pokémon game with hookers, suicides, murders and pokémon being tossed into acid. While I loved the game for it’s dark tones, in hindsight Pokémon Reborn might have been a bit needlessly Edgy. Having a criminal team member cut a gym leader in half is fine and all.. but tossing her pokémon in the volcano and forcing her bisected upper half to watch her pokémon melt.. was a bit much. Seeing a gym leader lose it all after alianating his daughter is fine.. and then him commting suicide ..does bring awareness that these are actual humans sure… but having his corpse plummet into the room of his daughters best friend, who then goes catatonic and put into an Asylum where she recieves Electroshock therapy by electric pokemon torturting her… might be overdoing it a bit.

Rejuvenation gives us the pleasure of having a slightly more “contained” story. There still are deaths….but they are more so implied. The game brings some elements of magic to the story. People using the power of Arceus for themselves, people finding abilities through ancient spells to compete with pokémon a bit and people utilizing the more advanced technology and pokemon powers more into their everyday lives. Thus this game becomes more like a classical Pokémon story but made for an adult demographic. You play a main character that is significantly older than 10 years old as well and more in 16 year old to young adult range. In this game your mother gets kidnapped by a cult and the ship you are on gets sunk by the evil Team Xen. This attack seems to tie into you or your mother.. but you have no idea why! There is also a connection to a sacrificial and apocalyptic cult that sends people to Arceus..for this world is certainly doomed. A young girl is trapped to relive this cycle of being sacrificed over and over again…but maybe in your generation she fights back.

Like in Reborn you can choose your own prefix and He/Him, She/Her, They/Them , separately from your avatar. This is always nice, though only important characters will really address you as the correct gender. Most characters will address you Gender neutral… which is still better than the endless being called him of other fan games. The game also has another big advantage over it’s older brother and that is… EASY mode. Yes I know. .. that sounds like a babies way out but if you ever played Reborn and like me do not want to have to IV and EV train everything and carry 18 different teams and level them up.. this is a godsent.. and while the game indeed is easy compared to Reborn, next to the official Pokémon games easy mode still provides more than a challenge. With many special field types like in reborn affecting your attacks.. it still provides plenty of chances to be tactical for you and your enemies. With some confidence I can say that this is THE Pokémon Fan game for Adults…maybe next to Pokémon Fire Red Rocket Edition.

The Trainers

That is a lot of praise for me to give to a game I haven’t even completed yet. However after spending over 60 hours in the game, and probably over 70 by the time you read this, I have a fairly good impression what this game is about. one of its major strengths are it’s characters. During your journey you encounter a lot of trainers that seem to be based on the archetypal pokémon characters. For example there is one boy who really wants to be the very best.. like no one ever was… but he doesn’t really have the skill to back it up. As a result he gets into a lot of trouble and is disillusioned and somewhat bitter. We encounter him a few times and we have to make choices…at one point we face a Gymleader of a xenophobic town.. she staged a play to show that outsiders can be powerful and inspiring.. right before the battle we face and defeat him and get a choice whether or not to let him face the gym leader before us. However there is too much at stake.. an entire town might never trust outsiders if we let the boy go first. So we have to step on his dreams.

Then there is the poison gym leader called Venam. She is a brash girl living with her mother..but she is extremely loud and a bit Tsundere, we see how in a way she is similar to the character of Misty but instead of being an anime character we do get a lot of exposition on why she is the way she is. We get motivations that interest us in her as an adult. She tries to break free of her mold.. but that results in her mother kicking her out. She has to deal with things like an adult.. like how is she going to survive and pay for food. All of it contributes to her character. We also have a battle girl whose father works for the criminal team. We see her believes being shaken and see her go on a journey that fits someone who is on such a journey…much more than just doing the gym challenge she is doing her journey as a little soul search. Then there is you as the character. While you do not have THAT much development the way your journey across the gyms is being done is great. You are facing an evil organisation..of tremendous power.. you do not take the Pokémon Journey to be the champ.. no you use that journey as a measuring stick for your abilities. To see if you are good enough to face those who wronged you!

The game offers you a few moral choices which influence the world around you to an extent. Most of it is by experiencing the story but the game also offers you a subquest system. For example you have to deliver a love letter from one guy to another.. and include medicine.. However if you are like me and are too poor to do the quest at that time you end up seeing them becoming friends rather than lovers. A psychic girl who has powers akin to those of trainers in the main games.. can’t help but abuse her powers, they corrupt her to an extent.. not into a bad person.. but into a different one all the same. Each location you visit and all important people you encounter have logic behind them. A city close to the woods is built from Lumber, a city worshipping Giratina over Arceus has found themselves being the subject of religious persecution in the past.. however while the rest of the world grew up.. and grew past their old bosses these people never could. We really get a WORLD we treat trough.. not just a map! We even get Shadow Pokémon you can snag and purify! So it just about brings everything Pokémon ever offered in a single cohesive world as well.

The Pokemon

This game uses the classical pokémon up to generation VII , so no Galar Pokémon… right now.. the game is still being updated so who knows they might arrive soon! Some Galar music already made it into the game. Much like Reborn the game introduces some new Mega Evolutions and their own variety for story events called Breach Pokémon. These are pokémon from a different Dimension that function like boss encounters throughout the game. Movesets of Pokémon have been slightly altered to be less “broken” and not give you access to anything overpowered early game. Sometimes enemies get their own signature moves. For the most part though they do remain the same. This does mean that to an extend you can use Serebii to help you build a team to encounter some obstacles. However that is not the way I like to play it.. because this game also has custom shinies. These are VERY well done shinies and almost all are unique and vibrant.. you’ll WANT to see a shiny and you can.. because shiny encounter rates are at almost 1/100.. compared to 1/8192. So I play this game using only shines.. I only hunt the first I find per route and then I have to move on.. easy mode allows me to play this way and I am having a blast discovering these new forms.

Trade evolutions have been fixed and as you go along pokémon get increasingly higher base stat totals. Which means that if you have a new shiny.. you’ll most likely want to put it on your team and some of your old one end up phasing out. With the exception of a few statics here and there ..(which are pokémon you can see in the overworld and can only encounter once) you slowly upgrade your team, your flying bug type vivillon gets traded in for the flying fire type Talonflame. Your Ambipom gets traded in for a Traveller and so on. You are constantly upgrading your team and even though this game features a lot of mandatory grinding the high shiny encounter rate and the fact that you are always upgrading keeps the game fun. With the difficulty on easy you can still use Pokémon you really like..as long as it isn’t Shuckle or Dunsparce ,yet you are very much encouraged to have a team larger than six. You swap out your pokémon, and to facilitate this there are pokémon switching stations everywhere! To help you train new team members or give you a more tactical advantage.

Grinding is made very doable by giving you access to a speed up mode, and high level wild encounters. In fact most wild encounters have higher levels than the trainers you encounter. The trainers however use more solid strategies. Each gym caps your level at a certain point after which in easy you can’t progress and on higher difficulties makes your Pokémon rebel against you…which you can undo by feeding them reverse candy. So you can not over-level either way.While it is pretty doable to level your main team with story content, if you need a specific pokemon or encounter an upgrade to your team you can grind those up within a few minutes. You get the Exp Share early and grass encounters give plenty of XP so the creatures in this world really fit and facilitate the game. Habitats also make sense if you know the pokémon. For example inside cities you will encounter doves, cats and trash eating pokemon, while the wooden cottage type of village has plenty of bugs. It does do better with this logic than the actual games so hey good on them! And if you don’t like hunting Pokémon.. there are a fair few achievements you can hunt to buy battle items for your Pokémon.

The Atmosphere

So this game provides a great and vibrant world,that feels much more like a living pokémon world than most officially produced worlds, with exception for stuff like Twilight Wings for example, and they offer the perfect biological diversity in that world to be exactly the game they want to be. This is Pokémon for adults. This is also reflected in just about everything else. The music is stellar, recomposed tracks from all the other games, but those rethreads are amazing and SO atmospheric. The controls are the standard RPG maker controls that are used for just about every other fan game I ever played, with a few extra conveniences such as a soft reset button and up to four registered items being assigned to the F-Keys. The game expects a certain type of player, someone who is passionate about pokémon and geekdom in general and it facilitates towards that rather than offering full on accesibility. Which is great… this is a fan game.. out on the internet for free.

My Graveler’s shiny pattern for example is based on Steven’s Universe, other shinies refer to some other products geeks will likely have seen or at least heard of. There is a museum in the game and the art on the walls are Gen I sprites of Pokémon. Dialogue has subtle references to movies , anime or other geeky matters without being too obnoxious and in your face. Everything this game does oozes that is is made for people like me. It takes a heavy pro LBGTQ stance with you encountering many gay or bisexual characters and it being made a non issue. We get no Big Gay Al, or a gay couple getting better treatment in the story than other characters.. they are just a part of the world. It all has a great atmosphere, almost as if you are at a convention.. as a geek you understand all these characters, either from a cosplayers perspective or deeper down.

The game manages to use technology in a much more sensible manner than the regular pokemon games. Spinny panels are a thing.. but they exist not as a puzzle in this world they exist as a security measure.. they send you over an electric surface that will paralyse you if you do not know the password to turn it off.. or an alarm tile.. will not just send a pokemon towards you..it will get you captured. Gameplay and atmosphere are interwoven in this game. A puzzle never is there just for the puzzle’s sake. If a pokemon traps you in their lair and you have to do a jump puzzle.. it’s not just doing a jump puzzle.. it’s the collapsed area of an old passage that said pokémon have turned into a place for them to play it’s layout exisits for a reason in game as well. Often the game answers these things right about as questions pop in your head, this game knows the kind of person you are and uses that to deliver a potent package.

The Negatives

The game isn’t perfect, there are a few minor issues such as the fact that during a puzzle with some followers you are able to trap yourself.. if you save it then and there you might have to restart the game. I also experienced slowdown during my shiny hunts if I was watching a youtube video alongside it.. so while it’s not a big issue.. this game really wants you to shiny hunt and not being able to have something to distract you can be tedious with longer encounter strings. The game doesn’t always play fair some bosses see, to use gen I like AI that chose moves based on your input. Gym Leaders often have custom moves that can at times be brokenly OP if you do not have an encounter. Yet these are all very minor issues.

One bigger issue I have though is the lack of a journal. Where regular games are mostly a track from A to B and then to C and so on… this game has a lot of “Did you hear that Venam was training with a new move” kind of hints. Oftenly these lines are only ushered once so if you come out from a battle with speed up on and you miss an important line of dialogue there is NO way to retrieve it and find out where you need to go next. This would be fine if you did not have to backtrack as much as you do. You do visit old cities on a regular basis and thus your next step can be anywhere around the HUGE world map. So it’s best to keep a little notepad lying around if you do not play regularly. Nothing would suck as bad as forgetting you have to speak to this person two towns back next time you play.. and then a week later you forget.

Another issue I did encounter more then once is that some NPC’s are placed in front of objects you need to interact with. I am not sure if this is a part of the puzzle because if you look REALLY well you can just barely make out a few strange pixels behind said character but it would be quite a stretch to call it noticable. There game has a forum where you can search or ask for answers but the player base isn’t THAT big, you could be stuck for a while. Some characters require materials like Shards as payment like the difficulty adjusting guy you can meet in the first town..however it’s not made very clear that he needs shards. He says he can give you a free difficulty change the first time.. so if you think Easy is to simple you can switch..but if you are like me and then realise that Normal is so much harder to a point it’s not as fun for me… you can not change it back until you obtain shards after the fifth gym. Luckily I had not saved since changing .. .but the game can be obnoxiously vague!

The Score

I still think the Rom Hack of Pokémon Rocket Edition is better for the hardcore pokémon fan, the little insights in the official story is much more appealing to everyone, this is much more a do your own thing kind of situation where they basically create a whole new alternative world with pokémon. I do very much enjoy that myself but it is a bit “novel”-like there is a lot to read and not a lot of reading you can skip either. Since these people talk like normal humans they will not neatly end with the line where to go next. They will say bye.. or thanks for helping out last… which will be the line on repeat so prepare to read!

The flaws it has though in no way hold a candle to the great atmosphere it has, the briljant way everything seems to be connected and the almost flawless pokémon/world design.. I mean Pokémon design as in.. who lives where. This is definitely a treat to play for both inexperienced as well as experienced trainers IF you at least manage to comprehend the typing chart a little bit. This game treats you like a gamer.. like someone who is capable of forming a strategy and using their obtained knowledge of pokemon in a meaningful manner. This is a pokémon game for me… and I can even play a girly trainer with pink hair!
This is THE game for me! This is Pokémon for adults… playing it does feel rejuvenating.

I Love The Darkness: Pokémon Reborn

When we think of Pokémon we think of a colourful world full of creatures to befriend. We think of lighthearted stories or in the case of Sword and Shield.. barely any story at all. We think of happy clefairies dancing and lickitung sushi eating minigames. Yet what if we look at pokémon in a different way? What if we go darker? This is what the amazing Rom Hack, Pokémon Reborn is about.

Terrorists and Hookers

The game begins rather uniquely. You can choose a gender, including non-binary and up to six avatars regardless of what gender you choose to identify with. A nice touch, now you can play as whatever avatar you like best. After that we get a wholesome train scene. Some guy talks to you about the Reborn region and the gym challenge there. Then it starts. A mysterious incident happens on the train.. and while you drive into the train station of reborn city, the train explodes. Terrorists have struck! While you arrive at the station you encounter a happy and bubbly girl, who was fascinated by the explosions.. she claims to be the first gym leader and tells you to meet her soon. At this moment you get control and you can walk around. Normally there is this guy who tells you that science is amazing explaining new features of the game. That guy is also walking around here! I decided to talk to him. “You were on that train?” He asks me? “So was my wife”. We all know what happened here and it hit me like a truck!

When we exit the screen we get a cut away scene, to a policeman who captured the terrorist responsible. The terrorist is tied in a small room, cuffed to a metal chair. When he refuses to talk the policeman takes out his torkoal and tells it to super heat the chair. With the screams of the terrorist we are told we aren’t playing any random pokémon game. We are playing Pokémon Reborn. We get taken to a building where we get one of 21 starters. All the pokémon up to gen 7 are in this game and you can choose each starter. I chose Piplup a choice I came to deeply regret. As soon as we leave the pokémon lab we can battle a few trainers. These are all hoodlums or hookers. The hoodlums use your standard Team Rocket Esque pokémon while the hookers named Doxies, use baby pokémon who use charm and attract. When you win.. you win 3 or 4 pokédollars…because these people don’t have any money. After a few battles I encounter a group of ruffians who are bullying a zigzagoon (but it can be a bidoof as well if I am not mistaking) they are scaring it and threatening to toss it off a bridge. I call out Piplup to school them! Piplup has a bad nature ..(for now) and I end up losing the fight. When I return to them to save Ziggy.. it is gone. It was tossed off the bridge. I then find out the water is acidic in Reborn City, and the zigzagoon died. I can’t live with myself and reset the game.

A real Gym Challenge

It is time for a new run, I choose my main boy Bulbasaur instead. This game is hard and I will need it’s bulk! Zigzagoon is alive again! Unfortunately .. the wife of the technology guy… is still dead. This time I know what’s ahead and I grind a bit, I even manage to catch a bidoof to assist me. We win. When healing up I see someone selling pokémon for 500 bucks! Sure I will allow myself to be Magikarp scammed! I’ll use a Gyarados! Unfortunately this is not Pokémon..this is Pokémon Reborn.. I basically get robbed of my money and end up without a pocket monster! However I’d advise anyone to buy that pokemon as it will grant you a side quest that will encompass a fair few hours as you get revenge and go find your promised pokémon. After exploring the first ward in the city I got a hand full of okay pokémon. Bidoof already evolved to Bibarel and I think this is the perfect time to take on the first gym. I was dearly mistaken.

**This is like a** ***Pokemon Game where all leaders are Whitney!***

Pokémon Reborn treats gym leaders like actual competent people. Every single gym leader (which includes gyms for each type) uses a full team of six Pokemon. Not only that each gym leader uses actual tactics. The explosion loving girl is the electricity type gym leader, and while you can not really find any ground type Pokemon to counter her.. her move sets are made to compensate any flaws in her team. Bulbasaur can take electricity fairly well… so virtually every single Pokemon on her team has a move that can hurt it normally. Not only does this apply to the gyms it also seems to apply to wild monsters to an extent. It seems as if Pokémon in this world have developed better defenses against this hostile environment.

To distinguish gym battles from regular battles though, all gyms are hosted on special fields. These are like the terrains in Pokémon Main Games but more complex. For example during the steel type gym fight, the entire room is covered by mirrors. Every beam type attack is powered up. Every special attack.. when missed is reflected off the wall and has a second chance to hit..if they dodge that.. you need to dodge as well. If you miss with a physical attacks some of the mirrors shatter and those who miss take damage of glass shrapnel. The Dark type gym is shrouded in darkness.. which empowers dark type moves..but by using electric moves you can turn on the lights weakening dark moves instead. Using electricity again will power up your electric move but short circuit everything out going back into darkness again. Those are some deep strategies! Now this is a challenge.

Suffering and Sorrow can be great!

Now you might think you can just grind levels and overpower your enemies one by one.. but no you can not. You see in Reborn pokemon and human are further apart, so when something is overleveled it stops obeying you regardless if it is traded or not. Essentially this means the Gym Leaders ace is always the strongest pokémon and you can NOT outlevel it.
Now your monsters can still gain xp and it would be a shame to lose your pokémon because it because unresponsive so the makers made a clever new item. The common candy, an item that brings your pokémon down a level. This way you can still always focus on your team. The fact that I do use these things a lot is a testament of how easy it is to actually level .. and that is a good thing.. because you might have already figured this out if you read between the lines… the gym leaders use a full team of six that can benefit from their fields. Essentially this means that you have to have a solid team to face them each gym. You can’t just pick Bulbasaur and hope to steam waltz through everything.. you can not waste a slot on Bulbasaur in a psychic or fire type gym. You are going to need a team made for your next challenge. Gone are the days of coasting you need to work to be a master in this game.

The difficulty can be somewhat relentless at times, you are constantly fighting a battle against the unknown. The evil organisation in this world is experimenting with forced mega evolution and augmenting or mutating pokémon, which means you never fully know what to expect. Fairly soon in after the game I encountered a street that was fully torn up.. huge rifts torn in the streets.. a girl crying as her boyfriend just fell to his death by this event… the reason for this is a giant weaponised tangrowth who the evil team is using to tear the ground asunder to unearth something they want to find. You have to navigate across these chasms by bursting through gang territory, by raiding warehouses and saving a popplio from dissolving in acid. The game while difficult encapsules that atmosphere.. you are not meant to make this in one go. You need to push as far as you can.. retreat to a pokémon center and lick your wounds. You need to adapt.. say goodbye to the pokémon you want to use.. and take that one that offers you an advantage. We are not in Agatha’s ideal world… the stakes are real this time. At times it can feel “not fun” it can feel like you are struggling and suffering..but that in a way is the point. In Reborn you shall not feel powerful.. in Reborn you make due.. and try to get by the skin of your teeth.

Hey no fair!

Reborn is one of my favorite pokémon fan games ever, even if I have yet to complete it. (Updates are brought episodic and I am not sure it is fully finished yet, but at least there are 18 gyms already so safe to say you are good for a solid while). The feeling of this world is so unique and gut punching real that it is truly a sight to behold. We all wonder why people alway play by the rules in pokémon right?! Well in this world they don’t. At one point you challenge a sick fighting master. Yet the evil team is on her trail. She battles with the leader and when she is putting up a good fight, the team leader uses his garchomp, not to attack her pokémon but to cut her in half. Her distraught pokémon promptly tossed in the volcano and dies as well. People use pokémon as weapons in this world not as friends and somehow it manages to balance it’s difficulty to reflect that. While I loved my Pokémon during my runs of the game, I had a team of about 20 that I had to use. So I did not bond as much to that one pokémon in my party.. as in this game you should really not do that.

***Cause Bulbasaur can’t do *censor peep* against huge Steelix!***

This world feels cold.. and sometimes victories can feel hollow. For example a certain gym leader upon his defeat will get so depressed by his defeat that he ends up committing suicide by taking jumping of a bridge. One of the next gym leaders, his daughters best friend witnesses this event as she lives right next to the place where he landed. The sprite of her house even shows stains indicating where he landed. As a result this girl is traumatised and put up in a mental ward. Which uses Electabuzz to experiment with electroshock therapy on children. You have to rescue her from these experiments which leads to an even bigger story line that will have you flee reborn city for a while. Trying to keep this vulnerable kids safe. Never do you feel in control though. Never do you feel like the champion, you feel like you are being chased and as such this game gets a bit of survivor horror genre vibes. Which resources do you use.. do you stay there and gather or do you try to push on. Which battles have consequences and which reset you? Pokémon Reborn doesn’t feel fair.. it’s not about winning, it is about surviving.

Amazing design

Obviously a game with this tone can not really use the original soundtrack assets from pokémon. It would not fit theme wise..so the soundtrack has been very overhauled and it is truly amazing. The songs in this game feel broody and dark, dystopian. Gym battle themes feel like you are facing someone truly powerful and boy are they powerful. I managed to beat about 7 gyms so far (like official badges..not including any invalidated ones) and while they changed it up a bit in the more recent updates I can say nothing but praise for this soundtrack. Each area is so memorable. Simple decisions can be super effective. One gym leader..who feels barely human has the gym leader theme others have played backwards, causing you to feel very uncomfortable. The sound mixes so well with the theme of this game that I would think this is an official product. Very little about this feels ..fangame to me!

While it uses GBA style graphics and to an extend borrows from the original pokémon tilesets it goes completely it’s own way. From the water that is a rusty disgusting brown to all the derelict graffiti covered buildings. From the ash covered beaches of a volcanic island to a toxic wasteland that has it’s grass turn into a sickly purplish shade due to all the chemicals leaking into the ground. This is pokémon like we have never seen before. The boss pokémon look a bit less official with some sloppy sprite work here and there but they do feel properly twisted for this story. The game also features increased shiny rates and many shinies have received customisations that look absolutely stunning. On one of my attempts, I managed to get a Golem (you can get an item to get trade evolutions) whose core had a magma-ish glow while it’s rock have been darkened I squealed in excitement. Shinies in this game look absolutely amazing and with the higher encounter raid they made the much needed grind quite a bit more exciting.

Not Pokémon

This game is definitely not going to be for everyone. There is a steep learning curve, and I mean steeeeeeeep, but for those who like a challenge this game is truly excellent. The writing feels somber but not needlessly edgy..well maybe a bit..but at least it’s consistent to the entire world so never feels out of place. There are plenty of lighthearted bits as well to make it all tolerable and digestible! It has a pretty great story that does feel like it respects what pocket monsters can truly do. It respects the power that inside. Yet at the same time this did not completely feel like a Pokemon game to me. It feels like a JPRG more akin to Final Fantasy VII or Nier. It feels as if the pokémon are a mechanic .. in a non franchise game.
I’d say they more take on a role more similar to the concept of “magic”. A mage in one game is not persé like a mage in the next. These creatures are not your pets.. and there is no one to evaluate your pokédex and give you shoulder pads. These are your shoulders and together you fight to survive.

Pokémon Reborn is free to play and is fully made in RPG maker. It features online trading and online battling (though I would not expect to much out of that) and to any gamer who likes darker RPG’s I say definitely check this one out. At a certain point it even gave me Chrono Trigger Vibes (especially in the future bit) . There are a handful of colourful locations as well but to the pokémon fans who are in love with Pokémon Go and Let’s Go, I’d say.. this is not like that at all. Puzzles are as hard as the battles and require you to actually require you to read some dialogue. However unlike in other fan games where you can get quizzes that need you to look up stats of pokémon or so on the internet.. or know them by heart ..this game does offer you all the right tools. While hard and grindy it never really asks you to EV train.. or breed… like some of the more hardcore fangames do. This one is all about strategy … and surviving… and I love it dearly for that.

For those interested you click here to get Pokémon Reborn yourself!
Let me know if you decide to play! Remember I love you all! Keep Smiling and Stay Positive! Even darkness can be amazing!

XO
Pinkie

Top 5: Pokémon Fan Games

As a princess I deserve some quality entertainment and though my court jester Aipom occasionally provides some good antics for me to laugh at as well as your silly mistakes in Pokémon games this princess is not that easily satisfied. Pokémon is our passion and even though the official Pokémon games are quite entertaining.. I deserve to be rich and have as much games as I want. Luckily we have some slav…. uhm ‘fellow fans’ who develop their own take on games for us and their results can be quite amazing. Oftenly giving us more of a challenge, something a bit different. Today I will show you such content as I show you five gems of my treasury.
My top 5 favorite fangames.

Fangame Number 5: Pokémon Clover

Pokémon Clover is also known as Pokemon V.. or Pokémon 4chan. Now to answer your first question… yes that is exactly as stupid as it sounds. Instead of pokémon based on dogs snakes or plants, we get pokémon based on cum, dicks and poo. We get a pink horse named Geigh it’s pokédex says it pushes the gay agenda. Instead of diglett tunnel we have a cave leading across the border where a bunch of lazy sombrero working people are trying to cross the border if you help them, they offer you the poo flute. Which can wake up the Cacademon pokemon. This game feels like 4chan in every single way. Not spending a lot of time myself on such things to me it kinda felt like Seth McFarlane’s version of pokémon… or Family guy pokémon if you managed to miss Seth created it. I started this game as a female.. but I quickly restarted into being a male.. because the female rival is amazing. While you are playing a female.. you get a very dopey but fun looking avatar and a fairly normal rival who is somewhat douchey.. but also bland and generic. Similar to how Brandon was a rival in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.. you barely remember him. If you start as a male.. your rival is KEKsandra, a girl who speaks in memes and L33T.. a whirlwind of jokes and fun.

The game is set in the Fochun region (clever right?) and you get invited by professor Stump to take one of the three following pokémon. Grasshole the butt pokémon. Arabomb.. who is a bomb wearing a turban and Ejacasmn one of the many sperm pokémon in the game.
Grasshole evolves into Analgae and Rectreem respectively, the last one being a big ass with an entire tree growing out of it. Arabomb evolves into IguAllah and Lizackbar respectively.. the last one being a lizard wearing an explosive belt and arabian headwear. Ejacasm evolves into Hosajack and Condoom with the final evolution representing a filled blue condom.. being a water and poison type. It barely gets any better from there.

Gym Leaders battles have a mysterious musical theme and if it plays seven times the final gym leader will appear. Gym leaders you will face are people like Brock, Tumblrita , the hologram of Freddie Mercury, a random neonazi and of course Kanye West who is suffering from Ebola. Trainer classes you can encounter are Neckbeards, Weebs, Feminists, Trannies, Immigrants Meth cookers (Walt and Jess) Memers and Midgets. The game is unfair and seeks to offend you or anyone else all the time.

At the end of the final dungeon.. victory road (which takes about 15 minutes just to navigate through) you encounter Fuckin L Jackson who has a team of 6 extremely overleveled Pokémon called Motherfuck. They only know one move.. explosion with the ability shadow tag.

If you dont have a ghost pokémon or revive on hand (which is likely cause your at dungeons end and ghost types are rare and not that good..by design) you will lose and be send back at least 15 minutes. There is a plot about team Karma and their leader Kymmi (KnowYourMeme) who is trying to find the legendary pokémon but yeah, this isn’t a game you are playing for the amazing story. This game is nothing but silliness. Eventually somewhere the game will make the ultimate your mom joke.. after which you battle her. Her ace pokémon is a box of dragondildos. For how silly the game is, it’s set up pretty well.. besides the screw the player moments the game is easy enough to breeze through coming closest to the actual pokémon experience of all the games on this list. With plenty of support and A LOT of custom pokemon to catch this game is as fun to play as it can be offensive. You better learn the konami code to beat Anonymous though. There are references here for everyone to enjoy.

if you know nothing about pokémon you can still play this game. For example what dual typing would Gym Leader Snoop prefer? That’s right Grass and Fire! If you want to have a silly fun time with pokémon and dont take their insulting your beliefs to serious this can game can be your lucky charm. P.S. Don’t use cheat engine in this game.. you will get the bad ending.

Fangame Number 4: Pokémon Uranium

A fakemon game like clover but less silly. I personally enjoyed playing through clover more but Uranium is more inviting for a replay edging it out in the number 4 position. In Pokémon Uranium you travel across the Tandor Region. You have lost your mother in a nuclear incident and now throughout the region these problems seem to play out once again with your custom made starter you once more travel to gather all 8 gym badges so you can travel across the world and prevent disasters from happening. Would I judge a game soley it’s qualities Pokémon Mega Adventure would have taken this spot, but the latter is a bit to much of a classical adventure making it harder to reckoment. It does everything Uranium does somewhat better… but arguably so do the original games and Mega Adventures is like a bigger version of those. Uranium gives you something unique. Their Fakemon are the best I have ever seen.

Not only their completely own mons they also gave a few classic ones a brand new evolution including Dunsparce and primeape, which I am really happy about. In fact some of their designs are so good that I actually confuse them for the real ones. My Baashaaf for example was beloved and I quite oftenly namedrop it when naming sheep pokemon. Not every mon is that well designed and unfortunately I am not a big fan of the starters. Those have that bootleg feel to me, being somewhat over designed in their first form and underdesigned in their second form. They seem like something from a freemium imitation. I do respect them for making your starter only evolve once and adding a mega evolution to that as an alternative though. That is something new.

Tandor is a fun region to explore with pretty beaches, deep jungles and creepy crawly caves, each location feels unique yet everything feels like it’s own region as well. It’s quite impressive what they managed to squeeze out the generation 4 tilesets. Their biggest gimmick is the new typing. Radiation Pokémon. This typing does not work like any other typing and doesn’t rebalance the type system… which is a good call. Radiation pokémon work more like Shadow Pokémon , from the gamecube games. They are effective against all non Radiation types.. but everything non radiation is also super effective against them. More powerful than the regular versions they take some damage every turn and can on occasion not listen to you. They are basicly just alternate versions of regular pokemon but all n jet black and green giving them a very sleek look.. that is kind of too edgy for me.

I ended up not using them at all due to it all yet they had an impact on the story and I was happy they were there.. it could be quite a challenge to fight some of them. Like raising radiation pokemon the game can be a bit tedious though. There are so many secrets and reasons to revisit a location you never really get the feeling you can really explore it. Each cave has several layers which you can backtrack to crack after you received more hm’s and stuff alike. Yet this was done so often that I never felt really in control. Tracking back is also nearly always optional.. so it’s not like a metroidvania..it’s just you spending an hour more to get a lackluster move or item. The most inventive game on this list by a mile, but one you have to put a lot of work and effort into.

Fangame Number 3: Pokémon Insurgence

This game begins with you about to be sacrificed in the name of Darkrai. A evil cult is planning to make you a blood offer to make the legendary appear. You are saved by Mew and begin a truly epic journey across a huge map and deep and complex story filled with renewed pokémon and extra mechanics. After escaping you use mew for a very short while.. before reaching the starter town.Professor Sylvan has a problem with Bulbasaur Squirtle and Charmander and asks you to take one of them off their hands. Now Bulbasaur is the best starter ever.. but these are not regular Bulbasaur Squirtle and Charmander.. these are so called Delta species.. in the land of Tellor these are strange mutations that have been showing up more and more. Charmander is now dead.. and is a dry bones like ghost dragon type. Our former water type is now a Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtle.. literally. being a dark and fighting type. So these look insanely cool! Bulbasaur is a pink fairy with a magic flower on it’s back. I am so happy I could vomit rainbows. Not only is Bulbasaur PINK , my favorite typing and kawaii as fizzlesticks it’s also strong against both others.. though charmander can still hit it like a truck.

Pokémon Insurgence had such a cool idea with the Delta Species and the amount of time I’ve spent on getting myself a Delta Ralts was ridiculous.. it kept dying on me. In the end.. an electric Ice type wasn’t even THAT good. Now I do need to replay this game sometime because on my initial playthrough I wasn’t able to finish it.. this game is HARD. Not in the way the next entry will be .. but as in… you better grind girl.. kinda heart. I even cheated in a bunch of rare candies to skip one particular part of grinding yet a few minutes later my team was underleveled again. Maybe I used to much pokémon? I will find out next time I play through it. This game shines in it’s story though.. with complex character political betrayal and a story of children chosen by destiny.. and legendaries this game feels special throughout. So do you.. for the first time in a Pokémon game you matter you aren’t just a nobody. There is not just one evil team.. there’s several cults and even some other bad guys beside that giving off the feeling that it’s you against the world. This raises the stakes and the tension for this higher difficulty.

With a lot of custom features like armoured evolutions, brand new skills you are granted from other trainers legendaries and a truly beautiful journey to partake on its such a shame that this game is bogged down by the grind. A few puzzles are also necessary to further the plot, I think a few of those slider puzzles as well taking the wind a bit from under this games wing but with a darker and complex story, cute and cool new pokémon forms and a whole lot extras like trainer customization it’s no surprise that this game has gathered a cult following.

Fangame Number 2: Pokémon Reborn

You start this game on a train on your way to reborn city when terrorists attack the train causing it to explode just as it drives into the station. As your trainer walks outside they can see the devastated station. A cheery girl comes excited about the explosion saying cute stuff.Everything seems kind of like pokémon so far.. but with a stronger start. Than you see the standard “technology is great guy’ .. (a npc which brags about what new features there are in games found in every game) you talk to him. He doesn’t brag about technology.. he looks at you and asks.’You were on that train’ . a white text box reveals an awkward silence before the third one says.. so was my wife. Then you realise this is not going to be your regular kind of pokémon game. As you exit the screen, we cut away to the police having arrested a terrorist. He is strapped to a metal chair as the policeman summons a torkoal to heat up the chair. We cut to the reborn logo. Pokémon Reborn does not play around, you know this from the get go!

After you have chosen from all 21 current starters you are off on your journey throughout this new region. There is no route 1. You start out in the slums of Reborn city. On the first bridge you see , you encounter some vagrants beating one of the typical route 1 rodents to shit.. they want to toss it over the bridge inside the canals of reborn city which have turned acidous by years of pollution.These trainers challenge you to a battle.. my piplup was underleveled and lost, there was no rematch when I restarted at the pokemon center and went back to them they had murdered Bidoof. I restarted the game and choose Charmander as a more potent starter.. was I gonna need it. I trained Coal the fire lizard and Rusty the Bidoof up in the slums. Instead of young kids I fought doxies , punkers and other trash. Doxies is a nice word for… certain types of women who make money buy doing certain things which usually involve movement while sparingly dressed. They use pokémon that spam moves to make you fall in love. Implying they use it to find John’s.

No matter how many doxies and hobo’s I beat though.. I am not making money.. these people don’t have anything. Terrorists attack the power plant and I stop them before advancing to the gym.. Rusty and Coal are ready.. and wait .. why does the first leader have six pokémon?! We wipe… every gym leader in reborn uses six pokémon because of course they would .. they are gym leaders they have to properly test you. Pokémon in the wild usually have weakness recovery.. because it makes sense that an animal in a hostile environment learns to defend itself against its greater foes. Reborns theme is survival, survival of the fittest and survival against the odds. Reborn is different.. from the get go you can choose any sprite for your character.. you can use the “token female” who identifies as a male. There are even non binary sprites and it’s selectable as a gender as well.
Our journey is not one to be the very best it’s one not to die or see the world end. After defeating the first gym we can access the second ward of reborn city.. the evil team has build a machine to mutate a tangrowth into a monster .it’s roots have caused use cracks and is splitting the city apart. A few npc’s talk about how they can see their dead friends down in the pit or how their child got consumed by the rifts. On the journey that follows we amongst other things see, children unrightfully prisoned into an asylum getting electroshock therapy from electric pokémon. We see a gym leader commiting suicide and dropping inside a 12 year old gym leaders room where he splatters in front of her eyes.. causing her to land in said asylum where you have to rescue her.

We have gym leaders being bisected and their pokémon being tossed and melted to death by a volcano. Reality shattering, brainwashing lies deceit and a whole lot of murder. Pokémon manages to create a pokémon world that for the first time feels .. close to our world.. close to modern.. the other worlds are all very utopian and this is the other side of the spectrum. With custom shinies and them appearing more frequently the game makes collecting pokémon fun and tactics come into play like nothing before.

Each gym and some dungeons have special fields.. which react under circumstances. For example there is a lights on/lights off type field. Electrical attacks can switch on and off the lights while Dark attacks get stronger or weaker depending on the current state. There is a field made of mirrors, where missing a physical attack causes the mirrors to cause some shattering bleed damage.. and missing a special attack allows it to be reflected back towards your target once more.. if they dodge once more however the attack is coming towards you. The field also enhances the power of beams. I played the game while it was not fully finished but while I played there were about 10 gyms to conquer.. with 4 more i’d say to come? Yet in truth is there are more. You find out that once a gym leader dies.. their badge is invalidated. Gym Leader death does happen several times during your story. Grinding in this game is easy enough.. which is good because you need to do it a lot. You do not run a team if 6 pokémon.. because of how gym leaders work your team will be closer to 12 or even more pokémon. Unlike other pokémon games EVERY pokémon who is overleveled starts to disobey.. that means you can not use one single team against all the gym leaders. You have to have teams for each and every one of them.. not only paying attention to their types but also to their fields. The team I build against the first poison gym leader could not work in the field against the second so I had to switch them up.

Even more difficult than Insurgence.. this feels right.. this is a challenge I like to face. The level cap is a lot harsher and I hit it quite oftenly… it’s even so common they introduced items for it.. called common candy, unlike a rare candy that levels you up.. this one levels you down. I ended up using them a lot and I love that I had too. This game pushes you to build teams.. to switch movesets and to think about your items and supplies. Money is limited but quest lines are plenty. Right in the beginning you can buy a magikarp..it looks like the classic magikarp scam from pokemon Red, I did cause I wanted gyarados..leveling is easy… but no this is reborn city.. the magikarp scam .. is a scam.. not only overpriced.. this time you flat out get robbed. As you progress you can keep pursuing this quest for revenge like a 16bit Liam Neeson. You can play a bit of Westwide story with remnants of team aqua and magma, you can take a plotline to rescue the real daycare center people. Reborn is brimming with content. Every evolution is fixed for offline play, shinies have been made much more awesome .. and they created a few custom evolutions. Whether you are saving a popplio from death by poison or trying to find the abundance pokémon of that gym leader who commited suicide everything has a purpose in Reborn. It just takes a lot of wiping and a lot of work. This definitely isn’t a game to play for a week this one will take you hundreds of hours. On a game like this I do not mind wasting that many hours because each time I play it I feel reborn.
Unlike that one gymleader that jumped of a bridge.

Fangame Number 1 : Pokémon Infinite Fusion

This one will be short … well not really I am just referring you to my review of this game for all the details. This game takes the number 1 spot because it’s just a lot more completable than the other 2.. unless you count the 90.000 + pokédex of this one. Easier so more accessible, while still keeping that uniqueness towards it. It’s side quest system being quite rewarding. It simply does not require the grind and the motions needed to play Reborn and Insurgence. With as story that complex you can not just drop Reborn or Insurgence either, this one you can leave alone to a while and come back to without any trouble. Especially when you use the subreddit for custom sprites like me … this one really feels like a build your own pokémon game. You can go broken as fizzlesticks in creating combinations.
Like I once more will tell you in my review this game is infinitely fun!

Now my loyal subjects I do realise these game sound way to fun for your price range, but I can assure you all six games mentioned are completely free to play. Perhaps not quite legal to make, you are well within your rights to play and procure them. Because I do wish to keep this post relevant I shall not place direct links to the games as these sites might change or become unsafe , they are easy to find with our friend google. Among the six of them (Mega Adventure being mentioned in number 4 being the sixth one) I am sure there is one to your liking. I will most likely revisit insurgence or reborn soon though there is a particular rom hack I might get to first… but more on that next week. Until then let me know what game you think you’d like in the comments and remember

I am not weird.. I am a princess!
Until we read again

Your Highness
Princess Pinkie