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Dreary Version

September 9, 2022

Don't Want to Read?

A short story Pokemon game, like a little creepypasta ROM Hack with a unique story that moves you around Fire Red as you investigate the mysterious series of deaths across Kanto and your tendency to warp through time and space.
  • Short story creepypasta is a fun ROM Hack concept.
  • The ideas around the mysterious rain giving people headaches before they die interesting.
  • I find the healing restrictions interesting and the wide variety of available Pokemon despite the format interesting.
  • There are very, very long stretches of too much dialogue that isn't well-written enough to be worth how long it is.
  • It gets a bit too edgy and has the usual failings of creepypasta endings being a bit of a letdown and out of left field.
  • Difficulty a bit too high in a couple spots around Victory Road and the final area of the game.
2.5/5 Stars

Summary

Kanto is being evacuated due to an unending rain that causes headaches and death in those it affects. Journey through different parts of Kanto as you try to figure out what is going on as well as some mysteries about your presence in Pallet Town at the start.

Major Features

  • A focus on a short story
  • Acquire most of the original 150 Pokemon, some as gifts, many in the wild.
  • Pokemon centers are empty, you must find beds to sleep.
  • Losing a battle boots you back to the title screen.
  • AI improvements
  • Physical / Special Split, Pokemon stat updates from future generations, and modern Repel system.
  • Custom Soundtracks

Review

An Interesting creepypasta ROM Hack that I enjoyed going through, but it was still a bit too long and overrought plotwise towards the end. I enjoyed the mystery and the vibe of the constant rain, people complaining of headaches and disappearing, but the more answers I got about it the less interested I was.

Gameplay-wise it has some interesting constraints around rare access to PCs, no stores or Pokemon Centers, and instant reset on a battle loss that gives it a more unique feel and difficulty. The physical / special split  helps this along as well and I was surprised by how much team building was involved in actually playing through the hack.

If you feel like trying a kind of spooky short Pokemon game, give it a shot. But I'm going to go into the plot in some more detail now if you want to jump in without knowing more about it, go ahead and stop reading.

I'm not going to do a full plot rundown, but to discuss some of the later plot aspects that soured me on the experience. Having Dialga and Palkia talk to the players, particularly with the dialogue that is used (I feel like you shouldn't have a legendary Pokemon use slang), seemed like a misstep. Also the plot I think might have been a bit better if it were focused on Darkrai actually being responsible instead of a guy you meet at the last minute who is said to have killed multiple children (because it needs to be spooky and shocking).

All the human 'culprits' at the end feel out of left field and like the worst parts of creepypastas. Other creepypasta cliches includes Saffron City being filled with bone piles after everyone died with corpses visible for the first time in the game and very, very long backstories given to you by NPCs that make you want to shoot yourself when you hit a one time too many as they restart their dialogue. The ending being the villain 'Dreary' stabbing you in the back after a forced 'no no turn your back to me' choice and then just ending was not great either. I know the developer planned a sequel, but it was never complete.

Despite how much of a bad taste the plot towards the end put in my mouth, I did enjoy the early parts and the mystery there enough to say I had a good time playing it. If you're interested in it, I'd recommend playing up until you start to lose interest and don't force yourself through as my opinion was higher until I did that.