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Pokemon Fool's Gold

August 14, 2022

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Gen 2, but every pokemon has a unique variant similar to regional variants. Also the Sevii Islands are a third region. Also there are regional variants of the regional variants. And the Physical Special split. And it's my favorite ROM Hack I've played so far.
  • Amazing concept, it's great seeing creative takes on existing pokemon. So you get the variety and difference of playing a full fakemon game, but with pokemon concepts you're already familiar with.
  • Incredibly creative designs, some are a bit silly and jokey, but there were very few I didn't like and I was excited to see more every time I was in a new area.
  • A third region serving as a true final challenge to cap off the game, with some creative hidden secrets that are reminiscent of the playground rumors from the original games.
  • In addition to common romhack features such as the physical/special split, features I've not seen before including regional evolution variants added to gen 2.
  • A creepypasta-inspired area and a bit of edginess in the Sevii region may not be to everyone's taste.
5/5 Stars

Summary

Pokemon Crystal, but with every single pokemon up to and including gen III and future gen evolutions for those pokemon including gen VIII regional evolutions being a unique, alternate form known as a "Fool form." So every pokemon is a regional variant with a different design and typing. Your starters are now an ice cyndaquil, flying totodile and a fighting chikorita. Not just the typings, but large aspects of design and lore are changed. Porygon is still an artificial pokemon, but is now Normal/Water and is a rubber floaty made to explore the seas.

In addition, the physical/special split is imported, a few new areas in Johto expand it a bit, and there is a harder third region in the Sevii islands added to the game. Sevii features trainers with pokemon that are level 100 in some areas and a version of the shrine challenges from Sun and Moon.

Major Features

  • Every Pokemon replaced with a unique, new version
  • Physical/Special Split
  • Tileset updates across the game.
  • More common shinies
  • Infinite-use TMs
  • Moves from future games as well as new, unique moves to help flesh out the unique Pokemon designs.
  • New, third region the Sevii islands with gen III pokemon
  • Kanto and Sevii regional variants for some pokemon

Review

This is one of the most unique and fun ROM hacks I've seen. It's already my favorite one and it's amazing how much work was put into this. Redesigning the existing pokemon into new typings and lore is a really interesting way to do a fakemon game while still keeping some familiarity. Some designs are similar to the originals, but others are almost unrecognizable at first, such as the legendary birds being ultra beast invaders from another world. I was always excited to go to a new area and catch all the Pokemon I could, seeing what the differences are and trying to build up a good team.

The addition of the regional forms on top of this adds interesting variants to already interesting variants. I kept my Quilava from evolving until I reached Kanto so that I could get the Psychic/Ice Kantonian Typhlosion and I laughed the first time I saw a Kantonian Pidgeotto in the wild. Not every pokemon design is perfect, but I would say all are at least interesting. Some are sillier such as the pidgey and snorlax lines being goofy fighting type, some end up looking a bid odd such as Grimer (I'm not sure what they were going for with that one), and some look like they need a bit more polishing such as Feraligator.

It does feel like there are a bit too many ghost and dragon types throughout the game, but it is interesting to see a bit of an inverse in the type selection forcing you to think about team composition a bit differently. The physical/special split along with the type and minor stat changes makes a lot of Pokemon much more viable. My Electric/Bug Ledian was sweeping later parts of the game.

The new areas in the game are interesting and fun as well. Notably a couple towns in the north-east corner of Johto adding a creepypasta-inspired short dungeon, a cave of a certain non-pokemon that hasn't been seen since gen 1, and the Sevii Islands changing up some of the design to accommodate its new, bigger role with a complete set of trials/gyms. I do wish they had buffed some of the HM moves or made them less necessary as I had to run everything including Flash and even Rock Smash to fully explore sevii and some of the new areas, but this seems like an intentional choice on their part. I was sad to need to have 3/4ths of my Porygon-Z's moves be water HMs though.

The Sevii Islands were added in the last update and are a big addition both in terms of content and pokemon, but in difficulty. The Sevii islands are home to Gen III pokemon and are balanced for play after everything else in the game. Bosses have level 100 (or higher) pokemon, the wild pokemon are at least level 60, and the shrine challenges have challenge modes on top of this. I had some initial difficulty with this and could not manage to beat the shrine challenges at first, but I swapped to exploring each island and locating each shrine then moving onto the next one instead of attempting the challenge. By the time I had done a circuit of the island chain, I was leveled up enough for it.

However, there are two pokemon I always had to specifically plan for when they came up in a fight that I found a bit overpowered. Tyranitar (now a dark/ghost with no weaknesses) and Sirfetched needed to be taken out quickly and carefully before their buffs would enable them to wipe out my entire team before I could even whittle them down to half health.

The other Sevii content is also some of the most interesting in the game. I enjoyed them adding a new finale to your rival by way of giving him some more backstory and a final fight/scene, and a new sevii-only rival to fight through the islands, but the shiny hunt is the most interesting to me. Each island has a special shiny overworld encounter on it that is often hidden in strange ways that are reminiscent of old playground rumors. I managed to find all but one (I think it's based on day of the week), but some I literally stumbled into and thought I had found a glitch in the game at first. I gave up on the Regi puzzles which I'm sure someone could solve but I was not getting anywhere with it.

Some of the dialogue gets a bit edgy (for a Pokemon game) towards the end of the Sevii region, but I overall enjoyed all the new content. Go play this ROMhack, it's incredibly unique and a wonderful concept. I'll be playing it again sometime as the game opens with a password prompt when you start it with certain passwords changing up parts of the game. As you accomplish things throughout the game you unlock some, so I'll be interested in trying some of those out to see what I can do differently.