What’s interesting is that dark was supposed to be another counter to psychic cause it was so overpowered in gen 1 so it’s weird how underpowered all the dark types were
Kinda like how in Gen 1 Psychic was only weak to Bug and Ghost types... but they made all the easily available bug and ghost types part poison, so they still took super effective damage against psychic moves themselves. There is also that bug in Gen 1 where bug types were actually WEAK to psychic, making beedrill, the only bug type pokemon that learned any attacking bug type moves with more then 20 Base Power... also weak to psychic type. TL;DR if you want to use a psychic counter in gen 1. Just use Pin Missile Jolteon.
@@truefox1259 This part poison that's so common in gen 1 made me believe that psychic attacks were super effective against grass since the only grass types that aren't part poison are Tangela, Exeggcute line and Paras line which I've never used.
And psychic was so powerful because of special being one stat. With dark being special when going against Alakazam (biggest offender) it's hitting its much higher S.Def. Making dark physical would actually go a longer way to fixing psychic being OP than anything else.
Instead of having them both only learn Thunder Punch, perhaps Alakazam can learn Thunder Punch and Gengar can keep Ice Punch, given how its Pokedex entries talk about how it lowers the temperature of its surroundings. In regards to the other Pokemon that learn all three, I'd say that most of the Normal and Fighting type Pokemon should keep them, since most of them don't have the Special Attack for elemental punches to make them busted. Likewise, Hypno also has a surprisingly mediocre Special Attack for a Psychic Type, so letting it keep all three might help it not seem like a poor man's Alakazam.
I agree with this, especially since having bonkers good coverage was always kind of Gengar's thing in the first 3 gens. It's one of the Pokemon I feel has been significantly less interesting since the Gen 4 split. The Thunderbolt and Ice Punch combo has just sort of always been it's identity in both Gen 2 and Gen 3 while Alakazam usually had other things to do, and if that combo is too good against Lance just give him a better team. Toss a Kangaskhan with Earthquake on or something; it looks kaiju-ish it'll fit well enough.
okay but on the topic of elemental punches: i have a suggestion: you only get to pick one. maybe a move tutor, who caps you after you've learned one? or perhaps they let you rotate them out, but it requires you to remove one, that way this change can apply to all elemental punchers, and allows more versatility in movesets
@@Kino_the_Crusty I feel like that might be to extensive a rework to realistically apply to this romhack. They are stuck with Crystal's codebase at the end of the day.
Yea, i agree that Genar should get Ice punch. I would only say at that point, Gengar should lose access to thunderbolt. I think the point of allowing it thunder punch was to not allow it access to the boltbeam combo. But totally agree that Gengar gets Ice punch, alakazam gets thunder punch, and normal/fighting tyes and hypno get all 3.
I think that the metal coat would be a really cool first time reward for the bug catching contest if you won with a scyther. The contest guy could say “we don’t know why but scythers tend to go out of their way to fight wild magnemites to look for these, unfortunately for them these are exceedingly rare”
I think it would be cool if you could choose a reward from a list. The only two items that come to mind are the Metal Coat, and Sun Stone. I can't immediately recall if there are other items like these two that would make sense to add.
That would be cool. There are two pokemons that evolve by sun stone and two pokemons that evolve by metal coat. I think the company wants the metal coat to be harder to get.
I think it would also make sense to put the Metal Coat somewhere in Olivine, since Jasmine is the Steel gym leader, like the Lighthouse. It could even be a secondary gym reward, with Jasmine wanting more people to use Steel-types.
I personally think Gengar should have ice moves instead of electric, it just makes more sense for a ghost in my mind (like that stereotypical cold chill that goes through a room with a ghost)
It seems so weird to me that Gengar gets Ice Punch but not Ice Beam. Is it really that difficult to take that power and use it in a beam? Though by that logic it should also know Flamethrower. Which I can see happening with how the Haunter and Gengar in the anime were using gag weapons and props.
You could simply swap Gyarados' special stats and it would hit similarly with its special moves as it did in gen 1 while still keeping the same BST and making it more fragile to balance out it being able to hit harder.
The 4x weakness to Electric mostly invalidates surviving its direct counters anyway, so the Sp. Def mostly goes unused and is a bit counter to its aggressive persona anyway. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, since with level capping it's basically only Thunder or Thunderbolt with STAB that are reliable, so the bulk is pretty useful, but still, might be reasonable for a pre damage split game. ...Although, maybe instead swap Sp. Atk to Def and then Sp. Atk to Sp. Def, so: 60 Def, 100 Sp. Atk, and 79 Sp. Def?
Damn, from all these buffs the variation of teams is going to be wild. I have played these games a bunch over the years and it is hard to get a variety of teams. Now with this true version we can do that and have multiple playthroughs. Super excited.
I think that's the main goal of this Rom Hack. Making small changes here and there to make under appreciated Mons usable and also making Gym leaders slightly harder and more interesting.
I absolutely love these changes, especially the trade evo changes. I always wanted to use kadabra but played the game late so never had anyone to trade with. Getting to use Machamp and Alakazam especially will be like a childhood dream come true. AND Flareon too!
Looking great man. Im so glad you didnt get too crazy and change Gyarados, Togetic, Kingler, and a few others. Not every pokemon had to be perfectly optimized, its part of the fun. Swapping ghost/dark being physical/special is a great idea
Gen 6 is the one that always comes to mind for me, give the enemies 4 moves and a mega evolution from when you get your first mega onwards. Its ridiculous that they didn't give the elite 4 megas
I think one thing to note about the evolutionary stones to me is how hard they are to find in the original game, maybe one of the changes could be that theyre sold at the goldenrod department store so you can actually use the gen 1 eeveelutions + other stone evos without having to rely on a random chance that a trainer will call you and tell you they have a stone, ive never enjoyed that element of the johto games
@@Mrlonefighter oh that's great, should have remembered that detail since I've seen the other videos, Hella looking forward to this hack. Along with the drayano hgss remake hack this year has a lot of johto love to look forward to in the Pokémon Rom hacking community
@@cusionmon6652 Been a lot of things, so easy to miss that detail. For sure, excited to try it out! I've only played the the first 3 Generations and Fire Red, is Hgss worth checking out if I've never tried gen 4 and onwards? Currently playing through Emerald
@@Mrlonefighter heartgold and soulsilver never really fixed the biggest problems with johto so it's definitely the DS era Pokémon game that I feel most needs reworking, otherwise I'd say check out the gen 5 games those are my favourites. They're a bit more linear than previous games but I think they're really good
I like these changes, although I'm suspicious that Murkrow's attack is a touch too high. With the evolution items, rather than a random npc handing them out, one option is to make them available as overworld items in appropriate places. Kings Rock seems like it should be underground in the slowpoke well. Upgrade could be in the rocket hideout and the metal coat could be in the tin tower (as tin is a metal) or somewhere in the big smoke of goldenrod (underground, or in the department store basement). One thing I loved about gen 2 is the amount of optional dungeons and side locations, and more reason to explore those is something I always think is a good thing. I love the dragon scale change. I'd also increase the item drop rates from those wild encounters to like 5-10% rather than 2% so that you jave a repeatable way to get more without being that much of a pain. I think you could also apply this to the elemental stones. I like how theyre scarce but gen 2 made them too scarce. Why not hide a water stone or two in some watery dungeons (whirl islands, mt mortar), fire stone in the burned tower and leaf stone in ilex forest or national park, or in some HM-locked bits of routes/cities e.g. there was a surf-locked bit of Violet City where I remember you could find some items. They could even be rewards for doing the Alph puzzles. Then make them purchasable post game in Celadon Dept store so that post game you can evolve as your heart is content. I have a similar thought process to TMs where I like their scarcity, but I think they should be freely available in the post game.
"I'd also increase the item drop rates from those wild encounters to like 5-10% rather than 2%" He said on one of the streams that he wanted to do it, but it was too hard to do.
@@robertlupa8273 fair enough. If you get yourself a pokemon with thief it's not too bad in the end anyway. Might take you half an hour to get the item.
While I don't disagree with making optional dungeons more rewarding, I will correct you on the current plan being to have the evo items handed out, as I'm pretty sure he was taking about having the used to be trade held items sold in the Mahogany town gift shop's updated inventory after clearing out Team Rocket. ...Oh, wait, were you talking about that typical base game GameFreak thing where you'll often meet npcs on the critical game path that hand out stones?
Thank you so much for reuploading and fixing the visual issues. It's definitely appreciated and I think it really shows your dedication to your fans and your commitment to making a truly great romhack ❤
You did it! Kingler changes are excellent now, seeing as the Crit rework was a nerf to Kingler in gen 2 making his signature move more accurate and a bit stronger goes a good way to offsetting this.
Might not be enough leeway in the way the game is coded to do that. Pretty sure if or not a move is physical or special is hard-coded into referencing which type it is, and there's probably also no way to make a move that starts as one type and switches to another for damage calculation. No loop-holes to go through. Remember, this isn't a hack of Gen 4 HeartGold and SoulSilver to make an upgrade of Crystal, this is Gen 2 Crystal being modified directly.
Man, gen 2 & 3 really screwed over many Pokémon in stats, movepools or both. Phanpy, Ledian, and Sneasel are premier examples of this & I love how you corrected many of these obviously bad ideas that were executed.
If it's speed was raised to 80 too I wouldn't see it as much of an issue, but if you're getting outsped and not hitting hard in return, plus having a very poor defensive typing, it's quite a nerf
For the trade evolutions, an idea I always had was to make an item that you can use on them to evolve them, the Link Cable. It's tongue in cheek and it isn't like Gen 2 is lacking free item slots. That way they can be evolved at your leisure like they could before. Just an idea, you don't need to use it.
I still think Ledian's buffed attack stat and move pool isn't really enough to make it usable, even in a supporting role. It just has too many weaknesses, too bad defense and HP stats and, even with the attack buffed to 55, too poor of an offense. I remember using this thing in later generations and even with the enhanced move pool including a variety of fighting and psychic moves it's still terrible. I think a base 65 or even 75 attack stat is reasonable for it, the terrible physical defense and lacking HP I think warrant more than a base 55 attack stat, which is equal to Pikachu's.
@@L-Thatcher Ledian fails in being decent because it really only has two stats that matter and it doesn't lean well into either of them. To be good offensively or defensively you need two complimentary stats. If your going to be defensive, you need at least one good defensive stat then either a solid HP and opposing defensive stat or you need a high HP or a high matching defensive stat. This can be seen in Snorlax with High HP and Special Defense, Dusclops has high Defense AND Special Defense, this is what makes them good defensively. If Ledian wants to be a Specially Defensive tank it needs a higher HP stat, otherwise it's still too frail to survive serious threats. At the same time the low offensive stats mean that even if it survives it cant effectively do anything if it survives hits. In what world do I want to have a Pokemon for the sole purpose of setting screens when its going to die if it manages to set both up anyway, possibly even before. It doesn't work as a fast support Pokemon even with Baton Pass added on, it doesn't work as a good screen setter because there are Pokemon that fulfill this role better and it cant do anything offensively. In my opinion if you gave Ledian a good HP stat and kept the high Spdef then it would be a much better Pokemon defensively, and if you instead gave it a decent attack stat it has the ability to actually be useful since it learns bug moves now, being able to wall Psychic types and effectively counter them. But all this is a pipe dream until it gets proper stat changes.
I'm all for giving Yanma better moves, but everybody who complains "wah, why doesn't the _dragonfly_ have Dragon type moves/evolutions" is convieniently forgetting that Pokemon are generally created in Japanese first, and *Japanese and English are different languages.* The Japanese word for "dragonfly" is とんぼ (tombo)- there is no "dragon" in it.
That Piloswine "buff" is a nerf. 80 in both attacks is not good, and it already has one of the lowest attack of a fully evolved ground type so this adds insult to injury
In terms of trade evolution's, if I wanted to play a Vanilla play through of any of the older pokemon games I would run the rom through the Universal Pokemon Randomizer, and not tick any other option but the "Change impossible evos" option. I like the idea of well... not having to do that, but if anyone wants ideas for any other pokemon games. There ya go. I also like the idea that Pokemon Legends: Arceus did where they added a "Link cable" item, but not sure if adding in items would be considered part of the "Too different from the vanilla version" idea.
When I look back at it, I really think GameFreak wanted certain Pokemon to be available late so players could integrate them into Pokemo. Stadium 2. I remember making multiple parties so I could play the different cups in the game
Imo the issue is that we always interpret Kanto as post game, whereas I think the game designers just thought of it as the 2nd half the game, so you might want to still pick up more mons for your team. They didn't really consider that nobody wants to train up a level 15 Pokemon to fight level 50 gym leaders.
@@yaziyo I always thought that they wanted you to breed mons and buy pokemon stadium or trade with another cartridge so you can start a fresh run with your fav team.
I'm not sure about some of these. Leach life being 50 power and being given at levels 6 and 9 feels like a "bit" much for Gen 2 that would give these two a life-draining attack stronger than Mega Drain, and only slightly weaker than Giga Drain, 20 - 30 levels earlier than other drainers. At levels 6 and 9 they should have a move on the power of absorb. For Sudowoodo, I do not necessarily think that adding a rock Pokemon that can actually take damage from Water and Grass is a bad idea, but Sudowoodo is the wrong pick for the role. Seeing as the game specifically draws attention to the fact that while it looks like a tree it is actually heavily damaged by water. Isn't level 36 a bit low for Kadabra, Gengar, Machamp and Golem to evolve? Starter Pokemon are already usually strong enough to outright overpower anything the game throws at you until late in the game, and these 4 trade evolutions are even stronger than the starters. Feels like having them evolve as early as 36 will invalidate a lot of other buffs from this video - as why would you choose to raise a weaker pokemon when much stronger option is fairly easy to get. Writing as I watch, may edit the post with more things I am not sure of
I agree with this, especially the Leech Life and Trade Evolves For Leech Life, while I like the idea of buffing it, (because let's face it, bug types had nothing until Gen 4) it definitely comes too early for its power For trade evolutions, I think level 40 might be more appropriate, since they are more powerful than the starters
Agree on the evolution levels, they should definitely be higher. This also shafts all the second forms because you get less time using those forms. I think you should do it somewhere between 40-50, 45 would work for me
Classic leech life already has 20 base power, same as absorb. A good solution might be to make an exclusive upgrade for bug types between 40 and 75 bp taught at appropriate levels.
@@Paws42 For my personal project I conceptualised Leech Life as a Physical Bug type equivalent to the Absorb line with both having 40, 60, and 80 power for each, so Absorb (which I renamed Energy Drain), Mega Drain, and Giga Drain, and Life Leech, Mega Leech, and Giga Leech. No idea if something like this would actually be good, even if it's possible to implement.
Perhaps some of the pokemon that get Leech Life early (like Zubat) could get Absorb instead; thematically similar. Then get Leech LIfe at a more appropriate level later on. Could even use the modern 80 power Leech Life if you really wanted to. I'm not opposed to most of the modern move buffs, tbh.
Joining the discord and getting involved has been a BLAST! This romhack is going to make my most favorite pkmn game even BETTER (while still keeping the original concepts and ideas completely intact) thank you so much for this romhack!!!! Can't wait to play it :D!
Maybe Jasmine could give you a Metal Coat after getting the medicine for Amphy, or someone in Olivine can give it to you after beating her? And also for the King's Rock, you could either find a static one in Slowpoke Well, or Kurt could give you one after defeating Team Rocket? Also, I was thinking for the Dragon Scale the Elder in the Dragon's Den could give it to you after passing the test (along with Dratini ofc), but having that as the item you look for in the first place works.
I like how the changes you made are logical from a would-be developers standpoint, instead of an end-users " I like this mon let me give it unrealistic stats" standpoint. All these make sense and are in line with balancing.
Loving all of these videos and super excited for your version to play! One thing I would love to see is for Ariados to learn a strong poison move, Ledian to learn a flying move! I love bug Pokémon but they're impossible to use until gen 5 or even later
“We raised its base special to 55 so it isn’t completely wasted” Base 55 is still REALLY bad 😂 ain’t no one using Sneasel if it’s ice moves can’t hit hard. I’d also consider getting rid of the friendship mechanic for Espeon and Umbreon specifically, it’s other evolutions evolve with stones, and it would make perfect sense to get Espeon and Umbreon with the sun stone and moon stone respectively
This project is so exciting! I'm doing some rom hacking on my own (I'm working on a SoulSilver hack and a lot of changes I've made are very similar to some of this project), but I always felt gen 2 games are too difficult to manipulate. One of my favorite changes so far is the swap of the physical/special category of Ghost and Dark. I've always felt it should be this way around. It makes way more sense too.
TBH, it's fun to have physical/special split and I didn't even played gen 2 before 4 years ago but you gotta love playing fire punch on alakazam and shadow ball on physical pokemons lmao
All these common sense buffs you're making are perfect. Silver was the first Pokemon game I ever played so gen 2 is my favorite gen despite all it's flaws. These new spawns, learnsets, and buffed gym leaders will make this version of Crystal so good
One rom hack I've seen that handled trade evolutions well had it so that you use the teleporter at Bill's house. This solution seemed like a logical step but also made trade evolutions relatively easy like they would be in a real game. Maybe for this you have the time machine replaced with a teleporter. Maybe once you see Bill in Ecruteak you are given an early peak by given opportunity for 1 teleport. Then unlocking full potential after badge 8? Or something along those lines.
To me it feels more thematic to leave Ice Punch over thunder Punch for Gengar- like the Ic ey Touch of a ghost. I mean can't Gengar still earn icebeam?
Yeah, but Gengar can learn Thunderbolt so it won't be short on type coverage. While it makes sense, it's moreso a balance thing. Fire is also a better attacking type in Gen 2 due to the existence of Steel types and no longer having redundant type coverage with Ice.
I'd suggest changing Delibird's Present attack into a repeatable version of Fling (idea comes from Pokemaniacal's Top Ten Worst Pokemon blog) that tosses whatever it's holding repeatedly for different effects, or even random items from the bag, I'm not sure if you'd need to mess with the game's base code to do it, but it seems like a fun way to show off the item holding mechanic and emphasize the Santa Claus influences in Delibird's design. What do you think? And if anything, I'd let Gengar learn Icy Wind by level-up instead of keeping Thunderpunch; you know, for that ghostly chill (watched way too much Danny Phantom as a kid).
Oh, the Icy Wind idea is pretty great. The mediocre power would still be handy, but unlikely to one-shot without over-leveling. Maybe could still throw it a bone with only learning Fire Punch instead, so that still a learnable punching move, but the coverage from Fire is less critically useful for the Elite Four and Champion. Honestly, though, I'm okay with more Kanto Pokemon being postgame exclusive in favor of the Johto Pokemon all being main game accessible, so maybe Morty is the only one that gets to use a Gengar? ...Guess with only two ghost lines in the whole game, not the best candidate for restricting, though. Oh well.
@@Shalakor Thanks! And yeah, since Gengar can learn Will-O-Wisp, keeping Fire Punch wouldn't be too big a stretch, thematically speaking. I think I'd still be okay with an Elite Four member like Karen having a Gengar (especially if there weren't enough Dark types or thematically appropriate Pokemon for her team). The Gen 2 Elite Four hail from both Johto and Kanto, so it makes sense to see some Kanto Pokemon on their teams. But yeah, you take what you can get.
In my first playthrough back in the early 2000s i used furret as an elemental puncher and he was the main pokemon to defeat Lance xD this little pokemon was with me from the verry first encounter on the verry first road
I'd love it if something could be done with the Jumpluff line. They learn 2 attacks, Tackle at level 10, and Mega Drain at 30 (even later if you evolve them normally). It's not completely unusable, but dear lord I'd never consider using one unless it was part of a challenge.
Commenting for the algo, thanks for reuploading this one, the new version is way better! Just gotta say I really admire your approach to this, being able to say a hard no to things and keep a clear idea of the vision is make or break with stuff like this, good job!
TBH I think only buffing Ledian to 55 Atk is still nowhere close to enough to make it a worthwhile pokemon. It's still pathetically weak, and doesn't have the support learnset or defensive typing to make its *slightly* better defensive stats worthwhile. Buff it to 75 Atk, and reduce its SpAtk to 35. 75 Atk still isn't good.
I think the big 4 kanto trade evos should evolve by level up at 40 if not 42 like Rhyhorn does. They are supposed to be tough Pokémon to raise for the better trainers so having them be a little harder to train than the starters makes more sense to me.
As a Yanma/Yanmega fan, I'm sad that you nerfed Yanma's special attack, especially since Yanmega is a special attacker anyway. I know you wanted to give it the chance to shine with Twin-Needle and Wing Attack, which is certainly appreciated, but now it won't be able to hit as hard with the newly-gifted Twister (and I also like giving it Giga Drain for coverage and heal potential). The buffs made to those two special moves might make up for Yanma's nerf, but *still* 😅😂 I'm definitely gonna play this hack and use Yanma regardless! You're doing *fantastic* work here and I'm so excited to see how this turns out as an experience!
Love this tightened up version of the video and keeping some of the Pokemon leaned towards attacking stats that don't perfectly match with their typing for better variety, relying even more on move and moveset tweaking. But, I'd actually say level 36 is a little too low for the big 4 Kanto trade evo Pokemon. Feel like these kinds of evos that should be later than the Starters. As far as a single level that feels fair for all of them, for some reason the number 41 is what jumped out at me immediately. Like, thinking in the context of assuming you were making this kind of change here sorta canon to Gen 1 as well, that'd fit right in with the scaling of Sabrina and Blue using Alakazam and such. Making them very a bit between highest 30s and lowest 40s (like 39-43 range?) for each line might be nice, though, relative to their first evo level. I also agree with people saying out of the way optional dungeon areas can always use more rewards, so those are good locations to place findable evo items, rarer Pokemon (especially Kanto ones in favor of more Johto 'mons being placed along the critical path for the main story), interesting held items, and other such things.
Made me so happy to see Misdreavus become accessible pre post game… but what about some of the other johto Pokémon exclusive to kanto like murkrow, slugma and larvitar? I know we want to keep very similar to the originals but not being able to use johto Pokémon like blissey in the johto region always made very upset.
Okay i would like to give some input ito these ideas. Overall i love it but you could consider a few of the next points: - Including the Gen 4 evolutions. Yes i know you want to recreate an experience as close to the original as possible but in my opinion it would not affect that feeling since they do not feel out of place. In my opinion Gen 2 actually feels a bit incomplete without these. Honestly they do not even look like final stage at all by themselves. -The same could be said about the Kanto region. It feels very empty and underleveled and its mostly duo to hardware limitations of the time so i think it would be okay to populate Kanto a little more without ruining the experience. -If the new evolutions are a deal breaker i would suggest pumping the stats a little bit. I saw that you tried to keep the stats between 420-450 but i would suggest something like 440-480. The reason for this is that even with those buffs they will feel very underpowered since most final stage gen 1 pokemons are between 490-530 so by raising it a little bit more it would be easier to choose the slightly weaker pokemon just to use the new cool ones. -Lastly it would be great to see the new locations for the pokemon. I think the stronger ones should be rewarded for exploration for example in the slowpoke well and the first cave of the games that unlock new areas after you get HMs and players could be rewarded for backtracking and exploring those places with pokemon like Missdreavous, Murkrow and even Larvitar and Dratini. -Talking about Larvitar and Dratini i would maybe slightly raise the stats of the middle evolutions or at least make them evolve at around 45 instead of 55 or else they are barely unusable until you get to Red. -Maybe adding a new attack for clearly underpowered types like bug with x-scizor at 70 or 80 power and grass with energy ball. Those types barely have any offensive presence since the strongest moves they have are like Razor leaf at 55. Megahorn and Solar Beam have heavy restrictions and Giga Drain has a decent power but 5 pp... Just some thoughts that may make you consider xD The updated move sets are a god given ahah so great job on that.
I will mention that he has gone over his changes to the Gym Leaders, and lemme just say, the Level Curve is/will no longer be a scuffed mess. I'd wait until he makes a video detailing the move changes before rendering judgement there, since he did mention having buffed Twineedle without saying how much power he gave it
For the elemental punch discussion, i was thinking about having the 'trade' evos each have one of the punches and lose access to the other two types, including other tm's. That could leave Hitmonchan with the niché of being the only one to learn all three. Example: Gengar keeps ice punch (ghosts are comminly associated with chills in the air) but loses access to thunderbolt. Alakazam keeps thunder punch (brain functions on electricity) but loses access to fire and ice moves. Machamp and Golem can keep fire punch as coverage for their poor match-ups against grass types (physical attack = muscles, burning calories = heat).
PLEASEEEE make Eevee a lvl 5 gift Pokémon. When Bill gives you one in Goldenrod at Lvl 20, it’s already at too high of a level to learn Umbreon or Espeon’s special moves.
To this day I'm still convinced Dark was meant to be physical and making it special was an oversight. By the time they realized their mistake it was probably too late to properly correct it without spending more time and resources.
I noticed that Magcargo was completely ignored; poor unloved fire snail. I think these changes are all pretty interesting. except I think Flareon should be re-spec into a quick mix attacker. It's stats should be: HP: 65, Att: 110, Def: 60, SpA: 130, SpD: 65, Sp: 95 Regular Flareon's HP stat is too low for it to make use of its high special defense. And it's low speed just means it's going to die to a faster Water-type.
If I had to choose one elemental punch for Alakazam to keep, I would pick Fire Punch. It's fun to relate it to the lore of the Psychic type's weaknesses, as the natural eleMENTAL defensive choice: Bug: The flames of rage incinerate the creeping menace. Ghost: The flames' warmth holds the chill of the grave at bay. Dark: The radiant light of fire burns away and purifies the darkness. Maybe I'm being dramatic but this sounds cool af to me.
I think for the trade evolutions you should have their final evo level up be somewhere in the 40-45 range instead of 36. That way you get a little more time with the middle evolutions and it doesn’t make the 5th-7th gyms really easy.
I could see a case made for Alakazam/Gengar considering how broken they can be. Even if I hard disagree with anything past 40 but Machamp and Golem...those two are very solid but are not THAT strong to justify level 40+. though yeah Machop and, to a lesser extent geodude would need to evolve a bit earlier
Umbreon should evolve with the moon stone and espeon with the sun stone. This gives them the same flavor as later evolutions. I think in later generations sylveon should be the only friendship evolution
I like all these buffs for gen 2 pokemon. Loved Gold Silver Crystal so nice to some work put into the weaker gen 2 pokemon. I love that trade pokemon are no swapped to level up or items used as stones. Not everyone has the access to trades in the original games.
I was already considering this when it comes out, but fixing the trade evolutions sold me. I've always wanted to use Kingdra but never had the opportunity to trade with people
a thought occurs i'm unsure if claire checks whether you have the dragon's fang in your inventory or if you have obtained the item at some point, but if it's the former, there's potential for either a softlock or a way to cheat the trial if the player goes to dragon's den and gets the dragon scale, but then immediately uses it to evolve a seadra, claire's inventory check would fail if the player can pick this softlock by simply obtaining a dragon scale from wild pokemon though, they could cheat the trial entirely from the beginning
Well, the game could check if you interracted with the overworld Dragon Scale item in the Dragon's Den. If it's still there, Clair denies you, but if you've picked it up, Clair gives you the badge.
With my own Crystal ROM Hack my boyfriend and I are working on together, we found Sunflora needed its dreadful base 30 Speed raised over its SpA. It's hard to make use of that damage potential when the pokemon might as well be lugging an anchor around in battle. Granted, our goal is to somewhat compress the overall power tiers between pokemon by buffing many of the weaker pokemon or those commonly seen as "bad/useless."
I haven't liked how GF treated bug types for the first few generations. Yes they're the evolution mechanic early tutorial, but it's an official type and shouldn't be kneecapped purposely because of it.
one thing that i would like to add in regards to the evolutions... a whole bunch of pokemon, specifically the available gen 1 pokemon, are stuck in first or second stage limbo because you can only get the elemental evolution stones in Kanto (and even then it's complicated); so growlithe, eevee, vulpix, shellder, pikachu, poliwhirl, exegcute, gloom, weepinbell and some others are basically unable to evolve conventionally before the post game. I don't know if you've addressed this but making the evolution stones available in Johto would help a ton
I do not know how I feel about Yanma having twin needle, personally. On one hand, there just aren't any other bug moves to give it in gen 2, but I do not like the idea of a stinging move specifically on a dragonfly. It's like the *one* bug thing that irl dragonflies do not do.
I never realized how many Gen II Pokemon later got evolutions. Togetic, Aipom, Yanma, Murkrow, Misdreavus, Girafarig, Dunsparce, Gligar, Qwilfish, Scizor, Sneasel, Ursaring, Piloswine, Corsola, Porygon2 and Stantler all got evolutions.
As I mentioned in the original upload I think Kingler should get a slight decrease of 5 points in both its Attack and Defense, and a 20 point increase in Special Attack. This will allow its BST to go from 475 to 485 so it's not too large of an increase, while increasing its Special Attack enough to make Surf and Crabhammer usable options
So happy with the new changes added! They're great and creative, not enough to make them top tier mons but at least fun set pieces that could fit teams and if nuzlocking (which I plan to do eventually after fully enjoying the game) they'll be fun mons to use, which on top of adding difficulty by being weaker, allow you/force to be creative with how you use their unique tools. I hate how in the games so many Pokemon are simply worse versions of the top tiers, in a game with so many great designs, its delightful to be able to finally use your favorites. Also, I'm so happy with the baby mons that get evos down the line to now be viable, they're so iconic for a reason and even in gen 4 with their evolutions, they're not the same for me, I don't like them for the same reason, so this is simply the best. For example, I was wondering who I could use as my water type in this game between some options that will now be more available or more viable, and now that ledian can be a fun supportive Mon with agility baton pass, I'm inclining more on octilery, a super fun mon that I've never been able to run for a reason or another. I'm soo excited for this project and it's many great ideas, can't wait to play it and replay it over and over again, I love gen 2 but it's problems always stop from replaying it too often, specially the team building options. Also, I'm loving the videos and streams so take your time to enjoy it, you're doing something great for everyone that's also a passion project.
Thats why i absolutely love the changes PMD series did since all of the Pokemon can cause damage, even Magikarp if you increase the stats, and moves are generally more usable there.
For evolution items you can make them a 35% on certain pokemon metal coat magnemite, d-scale on horsea, and you can place an upgrade in the rocket hideout
For the record, I actually think the process of grinding for the trade items should remain. It makes the process of obtaining the evolution feel really rewarding in a way that's unique to a handful of pokemon. It's kinda like finally getting your milotic in gen 3; makes you feel the extra bit of attachment to the mon and like you're actually putting in work and effort to get something rare. Adds some immersion that I think the franchise could do with more of.
...so about the trade evos. TECHNICALLY, you can use them, but to do so, you need to: 1. Have the mon you want to evolve in the save game itself 2. Have a second save file for Pokémon (can be RBY or GSC) 3. Have an N64 emulator with Stadium 1 or 2 (or both, in my case) 4. Go to Oak's Lab and trade away! (Note that for the Metal Coat evos you will need to not only hand them the item, but if you're trading with RBY, you'll need to severely limit yourself with your movesets, AND you'll need to trade them over then trade them back, as Scizor and Steelix didn't exist in Gen 1) I know this is one hell of a tangent, and not EVERYONE has (or can even get) an N64 emulator, but still. Just wanted to throw it out there
I always thought a cool feature of the game was the radio show where they give you points for tuning in and then going to the tower with the password. Maybe one of the prizes they offer is the metal coat rather than ultra balls and rare candy?
I respect the decision to take a couple of elemental punches from Gengar and Alakazam, but I think maybe Gengar should have Ice Punch instead of Thunder. It’s a Ghost, right? It’s like, a “chilling” presence or something. Just makes more sense thematically imo.
What’s interesting is that dark was supposed to be another counter to psychic cause it was so overpowered in gen 1 so it’s weird how underpowered all the dark types were
Compare that to when they added fairy to counter dragon
Kinda like how in Gen 1 Psychic was only weak to Bug and Ghost types... but they made all the easily available bug and ghost types part poison, so they still took super effective damage against psychic moves themselves. There is also that bug in Gen 1 where bug types were actually WEAK to psychic, making beedrill, the only bug type pokemon that learned any attacking bug type moves with more then 20 Base Power... also weak to psychic type. TL;DR if you want to use a psychic counter in gen 1. Just use Pin Missile Jolteon.
@@truefox1259 just use chansey
FTFY
P.s. preferably lvl85 chansey so they cant even heal
@@truefox1259 This part poison that's so common in gen 1 made me believe that psychic attacks were super effective against grass since the only grass types that aren't part poison are Tangela, Exeggcute line and Paras line which I've never used.
And psychic was so powerful because of special being one stat. With dark being special when going against Alakazam (biggest offender) it's hitting its much higher S.Def.
Making dark physical would actually go a longer way to fixing psychic being OP than anything else.
Instead of having them both only learn Thunder Punch, perhaps Alakazam can learn Thunder Punch and Gengar can keep Ice Punch, given how its Pokedex entries talk about how it lowers the temperature of its surroundings.
In regards to the other Pokemon that learn all three, I'd say that most of the Normal and Fighting type Pokemon should keep them, since most of them don't have the Special Attack for elemental punches to make them busted. Likewise, Hypno also has a surprisingly mediocre Special Attack for a Psychic Type, so letting it keep all three might help it not seem like a poor man's Alakazam.
I agree with this, especially since having bonkers good coverage was always kind of Gengar's thing in the first 3 gens. It's one of the Pokemon I feel has been significantly less interesting since the Gen 4 split.
The Thunderbolt and Ice Punch combo has just sort of always been it's identity in both Gen 2 and Gen 3 while Alakazam usually had other things to do, and if that combo is too good against Lance just give him a better team. Toss a Kangaskhan with Earthquake on or something; it looks kaiju-ish it'll fit well enough.
okay but on the topic of elemental punches: i have a suggestion: you only get to pick one.
maybe a move tutor, who caps you after you've learned one?
or perhaps they let you rotate them out, but it requires you to remove one, that way this change can apply to all elemental punchers, and allows more versatility in movesets
@@Kino_the_Crusty I feel like that might be to extensive a rework to realistically apply to this romhack. They are stuck with Crystal's codebase at the end of the day.
I agree. Keep Hypno's coverage to make it special against other psychics.
Yea, i agree that Genar should get Ice punch. I would only say at that point, Gengar should lose access to thunderbolt. I think the point of allowing it thunder punch was to not allow it access to the boltbeam combo.
But totally agree that Gengar gets Ice punch, alakazam gets thunder punch, and normal/fighting tyes and hypno get all 3.
I think that the metal coat would be a really cool first time reward for the bug catching contest if you won with a scyther. The contest guy could say “we don’t know why but scythers tend to go out of their way to fight wild magnemites to look for these, unfortunately for them these are exceedingly rare”
Genius idea
I think it would be cool if you could choose a reward from a list. The only two items that come to mind are the Metal Coat, and Sun Stone. I can't immediately recall if there are other items like these two that would make sense to add.
That would be cool. There are two pokemons that evolve by sun stone and two pokemons that evolve by metal coat. I think the company wants the metal coat to be harder to get.
I honestly can’t wait for this romhack to come out, it’s been lookin great so far
Me too
This is gonna be awesome. And johto was just released in pokemmo. Soo much johto this summer to look forward to
have you heard of our lord and savior pokemon polished crystal?
@@cellP8 or crystal clear?
"Pokemon GSC but the move pool, leveling and availability isn't complete dog shit"
I think it would also make sense to put the Metal Coat somewhere in Olivine, since Jasmine is the Steel gym leader, like the Lighthouse. It could even be a secondary gym reward, with Jasmine wanting more people to use Steel-types.
Jasmine could give it as a reward for bringing her the SecretPotion
@@infinitesheldon5710 Super smooth idea, i'm down with it. The second one should still be obtainable in the postgame tho, or buyable with coins.
me too. Like maybe in the lighthouse
I personally think Gengar should have ice moves instead of electric, it just makes more sense for a ghost in my mind (like that stereotypical cold chill that goes through a room with a ghost)
The Pokedex literally says that if the room you're in suddenly gets colder it's because a Gengar is around
It seems so weird to me that Gengar gets Ice Punch but not Ice Beam. Is it really that difficult to take that power and use it in a beam? Though by that logic it should also know Flamethrower. Which I can see happening with how the Haunter and Gengar in the anime were using gag weapons and props.
Gengar can be taught Icy Wind.
You could simply swap Gyarados' special stats and it would hit similarly with its special moves as it did in gen 1 while still keeping the same BST and making it more fragile to balance out it being able to hit harder.
The 4x weakness to Electric mostly invalidates surviving its direct counters anyway, so the Sp. Def mostly goes unused and is a bit counter to its aggressive persona anyway. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, since with level capping it's basically only Thunder or Thunderbolt with STAB that are reliable, so the bulk is pretty useful, but still, might be reasonable for a pre damage split game. ...Although, maybe instead swap Sp. Atk to Def and then Sp. Atk to Sp. Def, so: 60 Def, 100 Sp. Atk, and 79 Sp. Def?
Damn, from all these buffs the variation of teams is going to be wild. I have played these games a bunch over the years and it is hard to get a variety of teams. Now with this true version we can do that and have multiple playthroughs. Super excited.
I think that's the main goal of this Rom Hack. Making small changes here and there to make under appreciated Mons usable and also making Gym leaders slightly harder and more interesting.
I absolutely love these changes, especially the trade evo changes. I always wanted to use kadabra but played the game late so never had anyone to trade with. Getting to use Machamp and Alakazam especially will be like a childhood dream come true. AND Flareon too!
Looking great man. Im so glad you didnt get too crazy and change Gyarados, Togetic, Kingler, and a few others. Not every pokemon had to be perfectly optimized, its part of the fun. Swapping ghost/dark being physical/special is a great idea
I think the concept of "fixing" the original games is fantastic. You should consider doing this with other pokemon games
Gen 6 is the one that always comes to mind for me, give the enemies 4 moves and a mega evolution from when you get your first mega onwards. Its ridiculous that they didn't give the elite 4 megas
Absolutely, Kalos has so much potential but the game itself feels like easy mode. Upgraded gen 6 has so much potential
Already been done
there's lots of amazing romhacks that fix a lot of issues and raise the difficulty of older games!!
Here we are!
I think one thing to note about the evolutionary stones to me is how hard they are to find in the original game, maybe one of the changes could be that theyre sold at the goldenrod department store so you can actually use the gen 1 eeveelutions + other stone evos without having to rely on a random chance that a trainer will call you and tell you they have a stone, ive never enjoyed that element of the johto games
He mentioned this very thing in another video. They will be sold in Goldenrod, but at the same cost as Vitamins 9800 I believe
@@Mrlonefighter oh that's great, should have remembered that detail since I've seen the other videos, Hella looking forward to this hack. Along with the drayano hgss remake hack this year has a lot of johto love to look forward to in the Pokémon Rom hacking community
@@cusionmon6652 Been a lot of things, so easy to miss that detail. For sure, excited to try it out! I've only played the the first 3 Generations and Fire Red, is Hgss worth checking out if I've never tried gen 4 and onwards? Currently playing through Emerald
@@Mrlonefighter heartgold and soulsilver never really fixed the biggest problems with johto so it's definitely the DS era Pokémon game that I feel most needs reworking, otherwise I'd say check out the gen 5 games those are my favourites. They're a bit more linear than previous games but I think they're really good
@@cusionmon6652 Thanks for the info, I appreciate it :)
I like these changes, although I'm suspicious that Murkrow's attack is a touch too high.
With the evolution items, rather than a random npc handing them out, one option is to make them available as overworld items in appropriate places.
Kings Rock seems like it should be underground in the slowpoke well. Upgrade could be in the rocket hideout and the metal coat could be in the tin tower (as tin is a metal) or somewhere in the big smoke of goldenrod (underground, or in the department store basement). One thing I loved about gen 2 is the amount of optional dungeons and side locations, and more reason to explore those is something I always think is a good thing. I love the dragon scale change. I'd also increase the item drop rates from those wild encounters to like 5-10% rather than 2% so that you jave a repeatable way to get more without being that much of a pain.
I think you could also apply this to the elemental stones. I like how theyre scarce but gen 2 made them too scarce. Why not hide a water stone or two in some watery dungeons (whirl islands, mt mortar), fire stone in the burned tower and leaf stone in ilex forest or national park, or in some HM-locked bits of routes/cities e.g. there was a surf-locked bit of Violet City where I remember you could find some items. They could even be rewards for doing the Alph puzzles. Then make them purchasable post game in Celadon Dept store so that post game you can evolve as your heart is content. I have a similar thought process to TMs where I like their scarcity, but I think they should be freely available in the post game.
"I'd also increase the item drop rates from those wild encounters to like 5-10% rather than 2%"
He said on one of the streams that he wanted to do it, but it was too hard to do.
@@robertlupa8273 fair enough. If you get yourself a pokemon with thief it's not too bad in the end anyway. Might take you half an hour to get the item.
While I don't disagree with making optional dungeons more rewarding, I will correct you on the current plan being to have the evo items handed out, as I'm pretty sure he was taking about having the used to be trade held items sold in the Mahogany town gift shop's updated inventory after clearing out Team Rocket. ...Oh, wait, were you talking about that typical base game GameFreak thing where you'll often meet npcs on the critical game path that hand out stones?
Kings rock is already in slowpoke well
Thank you so much for reuploading and fixing the visual issues. It's definitely appreciated and I think it really shows your dedication to your fans and your commitment to making a truly great romhack ❤
You did it! Kingler changes are excellent now, seeing as the Crit rework was a nerf to Kingler in gen 2 making his signature move more accurate and a bit stronger goes a good way to offsetting this.
You should make Crabhammer use physical attack instead of special, like an inverted Psyshock
Might not be enough leeway in the way the game is coded to do that. Pretty sure if or not a move is physical or special is hard-coded into referencing which type it is, and there's probably also no way to make a move that starts as one type and switches to another for damage calculation. No loop-holes to go through. Remember, this isn't a hack of Gen 4 HeartGold and SoulSilver to make an upgrade of Crystal, this is Gen 2 Crystal being modified directly.
@@Shalakor it's very possible. There are tons of gen 2 and gen 3 hacks that have the physical/special split.
Man, gen 2 & 3 really screwed over many Pokémon in stats, movepools or both. Phanpy, Ledian, and Sneasel are premier examples of this & I love how you corrected many of these obviously bad ideas that were executed.
I'm so ready for this romhack. I have such good memories of *playing* the Gen2 games but not the games themselves. I can't wait for the Ledian buff!
the atk reduction to 80 from 100 makes piloswine a far worse overall pokemon.
If it's speed was raised to 80 too I wouldn't see it as much of an issue, but if you're getting outsped and not hitting hard in return, plus having a very poor defensive typing, it's quite a nerf
For the trade evolutions, an idea I always had was to make an item that you can use on them to evolve them, the Link Cable. It's tongue in cheek and it isn't like Gen 2 is lacking free item slots. That way they can be evolved at your leisure like they could before. Just an idea, you don't need to use it.
Or what Crystal Clear does, putting a Tradeback NPC in the Dept. Stores that simulates a trade by trading you the exact same pokemon you give him.
I still think Ledian's buffed attack stat and move pool isn't really enough to make it usable, even in a supporting role. It just has too many weaknesses, too bad defense and HP stats and, even with the attack buffed to 55, too poor of an offense. I remember using this thing in later generations and even with the enhanced move pool including a variety of fighting and psychic moves it's still terrible. I think a base 65 or even 75 attack stat is reasonable for it, the terrible physical defense and lacking HP I think warrant more than a base 55 attack stat, which is equal to Pikachu's.
I'd lower it's weirdly high special defence and put those points into attack.
@@L-Thatcher Ledian fails in being decent because it really only has two stats that matter and it doesn't lean well into either of them. To be good offensively or defensively you need two complimentary stats. If your going to be defensive, you need at least one good defensive stat then either a solid HP and opposing defensive stat or you need a high HP or a high matching defensive stat. This can be seen in Snorlax with High HP and Special Defense, Dusclops has high Defense AND Special Defense, this is what makes them good defensively. If Ledian wants to be a Specially Defensive tank it needs a higher HP stat, otherwise it's still too frail to survive serious threats. At the same time the low offensive stats mean that even if it survives it cant effectively do anything if it survives hits. In what world do I want to have a Pokemon for the sole purpose of setting screens when its going to die if it manages to set both up anyway, possibly even before. It doesn't work as a fast support Pokemon even with Baton Pass added on, it doesn't work as a good screen setter because there are Pokemon that fulfill this role better and it cant do anything offensively. In my opinion if you gave Ledian a good HP stat and kept the high Spdef then it would be a much better Pokemon defensively, and if you instead gave it a decent attack stat it has the ability to actually be useful since it learns bug moves now, being able to wall Psychic types and effectively counter them. But all this is a pipe dream until it gets proper stat changes.
@@jackthetimberlog7023 Well said.
Yeah I agree. If beedrill, a Pokémon that evolves at level 10 can have 90 attack, so can ledian.
Nice video. And yes, it should have always been;
Ghost = Special
Dark = Physical
I'm all for giving Yanma better moves, but everybody who complains "wah, why doesn't the _dragonfly_ have Dragon type moves/evolutions" is convieniently forgetting that Pokemon are generally created in Japanese first, and *Japanese and English are different languages.* The Japanese word for "dragonfly" is とんぼ (tombo)- there is no "dragon" in it.
That Piloswine "buff" is a nerf. 80 in both attacks is not good, and it already has one of the lowest attack of a fully evolved ground type so this adds insult to injury
Love the series with your Crystal Rom hack :D The reupload really helped to see what changes you made so I am glad you went back to fix it
In terms of trade evolution's, if I wanted to play a Vanilla play through of any of the older pokemon games I would run the rom through the Universal Pokemon Randomizer, and not tick any other option but the "Change impossible evos" option. I like the idea of well... not having to do that, but if anyone wants ideas for any other pokemon games. There ya go. I also like the idea that Pokemon Legends: Arceus did where they added a "Link cable" item, but not sure if adding in items would be considered part of the "Too different from the vanilla version" idea.
Enjoyed your playthrough of the rom hack the other day mate. Love from the UK. Keep up the great work.
When I look back at it, I really think GameFreak wanted certain Pokemon to be available late so players could integrate them into Pokemo. Stadium 2. I remember making multiple parties so I could play the different cups in the game
Imo the issue is that we always interpret Kanto as post game, whereas I think the game designers just thought of it as the 2nd half the game, so you might want to still pick up more mons for your team. They didn't really consider that nobody wants to train up a level 15 Pokemon to fight level 50 gym leaders.
@@yaziyo I always thought that they wanted you to breed mons and buy pokemon stadium or trade with another cartridge so you can start a fresh run with your fav team.
Looking forward to a continuation of the play through!
I'm not sure about some of these.
Leach life being 50 power and being given at levels 6 and 9 feels like a "bit" much for Gen 2 that would give these two a life-draining attack stronger than Mega Drain, and only slightly weaker than Giga Drain, 20 - 30 levels earlier than other drainers. At levels 6 and 9 they should have a move on the power of absorb.
For Sudowoodo, I do not necessarily think that adding a rock Pokemon that can actually take damage from Water and Grass is a bad idea, but Sudowoodo is the wrong pick for the role. Seeing as the game specifically draws attention to the fact that while it looks like a tree it is actually heavily damaged by water.
Isn't level 36 a bit low for Kadabra, Gengar, Machamp and Golem to evolve? Starter Pokemon are already usually strong enough to outright overpower anything the game throws at you until late in the game, and these 4 trade evolutions are even stronger than the starters. Feels like having them evolve as early as 36 will invalidate a lot of other buffs from this video - as why would you choose to raise a weaker pokemon when much stronger option is fairly easy to get.
Writing as I watch, may edit the post with more things I am not sure of
I agree with this, especially the Leech Life and Trade Evolves
For Leech Life, while I like the idea of buffing it, (because let's face it, bug types had nothing until Gen 4) it definitely comes too early for its power
For trade evolutions, I think level 40 might be more appropriate, since they are more powerful than the starters
Agree on the evolution levels, they should definitely be higher. This also shafts all the second forms because you get less time using those forms. I think you should do it somewhere between 40-50, 45 would work for me
Classic leech life already has 20 base power, same as absorb. A good solution might be to make an exclusive upgrade for bug types between 40 and 75 bp taught at appropriate levels.
@@Paws42 For my personal project I conceptualised Leech Life as a Physical Bug type equivalent to the Absorb line with both having 40, 60, and 80 power for each, so Absorb (which I renamed Energy Drain), Mega Drain, and Giga Drain, and Life Leech, Mega Leech, and Giga Leech. No idea if something like this would actually be good, even if it's possible to implement.
Perhaps some of the pokemon that get Leech Life early (like Zubat) could get Absorb instead; thematically similar. Then get Leech LIfe at a more appropriate level later on.
Could even use the modern 80 power Leech Life if you really wanted to. I'm not opposed to most of the modern move buffs, tbh.
Joining the discord and getting involved has been a BLAST! This romhack is going to make my most favorite pkmn game even BETTER (while still keeping the original concepts and ideas completely intact) thank you so much for this romhack!!!! Can't wait to play it :D!
Maybe Jasmine could give you a Metal Coat after getting the medicine for Amphy, or someone in Olivine can give it to you after beating her? And also for the King's Rock, you could either find a static one in Slowpoke Well, or Kurt could give you one after defeating Team Rocket? Also, I was thinking for the Dragon Scale the Elder in the Dragon's Den could give it to you after passing the test (along with Dratini ofc), but having that as the item you look for in the first place works.
I started looking into making my own Johto remake in order to have something just like this. So excited to play this!
I like how the changes you made are logical from a would-be developers standpoint, instead of an end-users " I like this mon let me give it unrealistic stats" standpoint. All these make sense and are in line with balancing.
Loving all of these videos and super excited for your version to play! One thing I would love to see is for Ariados to learn a strong poison move, Ledian to learn a flying move! I love bug Pokémon but they're impossible to use until gen 5 or even later
“We raised its base special to 55 so it isn’t completely wasted”
Base 55 is still REALLY bad 😂 ain’t no one using Sneasel if it’s ice moves can’t hit hard.
I’d also consider getting rid of the friendship mechanic for Espeon and Umbreon specifically, it’s other evolutions evolve with stones, and it would make perfect sense to get Espeon and Umbreon with the sun stone and moon stone respectively
This project is so exciting! I'm doing some rom hacking on my own (I'm working on a SoulSilver hack and a lot of changes I've made are very similar to some of this project), but I always felt gen 2 games are too difficult to manipulate. One of my favorite changes so far is the swap of the physical/special category of Ghost and Dark. I've always felt it should be this way around. It makes way more sense too.
TBH, it's fun to have physical/special split
and I didn't even played gen 2 before 4 years ago
but you gotta love playing fire punch on alakazam and shadow ball on physical pokemons lmao
All these common sense buffs you're making are perfect. Silver was the first Pokemon game I ever played so gen 2 is my favorite gen despite all it's flaws. These new spawns, learnsets, and buffed gym leaders will make this version of Crystal so good
Thanks for re-uploading! Great video!
One rom hack I've seen that handled trade evolutions well had it so that you use the teleporter at Bill's house. This solution seemed like a logical step but also made trade evolutions relatively easy like they would be in a real game. Maybe for this you have the time machine replaced with a teleporter. Maybe once you see Bill in Ecruteak you are given an early peak by given opportunity for 1 teleport. Then unlocking full potential after badge 8? Or something along those lines.
To me it feels more thematic to leave Ice Punch over thunder Punch for Gengar- like the Ic ey Touch of a ghost. I mean can't Gengar still earn icebeam?
Yeah, but Gengar can learn Thunderbolt so it won't be short on type coverage. While it makes sense, it's moreso a balance thing. Fire is also a better attacking type in Gen 2 due to the existence of Steel types and no longer having redundant type coverage with Ice.
@@ShiningJudgment666 Can take away the Thunderbolt then.
I'd suggest changing Delibird's Present attack into a repeatable version of Fling (idea comes from Pokemaniacal's Top Ten Worst Pokemon blog) that tosses whatever it's holding repeatedly for different effects, or even random items from the bag, I'm not sure if you'd need to mess with the game's base code to do it, but it seems like a fun way to show off the item holding mechanic and emphasize the Santa Claus influences in Delibird's design. What do you think?
And if anything, I'd let Gengar learn Icy Wind by level-up instead of keeping Thunderpunch; you know, for that ghostly chill (watched way too much Danny Phantom as a kid).
Oh, the Icy Wind idea is pretty great. The mediocre power would still be handy, but unlikely to one-shot without over-leveling.
Maybe could still throw it a bone with only learning Fire Punch instead, so that still a learnable punching move, but the coverage from Fire is less critically useful for the Elite Four and Champion.
Honestly, though, I'm okay with more Kanto Pokemon being postgame exclusive in favor of the Johto Pokemon all being main game accessible, so maybe Morty is the only one that gets to use a Gengar? ...Guess with only two ghost lines in the whole game, not the best candidate for restricting, though. Oh well.
@@Shalakor Thanks! And yeah, since Gengar can learn Will-O-Wisp, keeping Fire Punch wouldn't be too big a stretch, thematically speaking.
I think I'd still be okay with an Elite Four member like Karen having a Gengar (especially if there weren't enough Dark types or thematically appropriate Pokemon for her team). The Gen 2 Elite Four hail from both Johto and Kanto, so it makes sense to see some Kanto Pokemon on their teams. But yeah, you take what you can get.
In my first playthrough back in the early 2000s i used furret as an elemental puncher and he was the main pokemon to defeat Lance xD this little pokemon was with me from the verry first encounter on the verry first road
I'd love it if something could be done with the Jumpluff line. They learn 2 attacks, Tackle at level 10, and Mega Drain at 30 (even later if you evolve them normally). It's not completely unusable, but dear lord I'd never consider using one unless it was part of a challenge.
Commenting for the algo, thanks for reuploading this one, the new version is way better!
Just gotta say I really admire your approach to this, being able to say a hard no to things and keep a clear idea of the vision is make or break with stuff like this, good job!
Hot take: Johto wasn't even worth your time untill the remakes came out
TBH I think only buffing Ledian to 55 Atk is still nowhere close to enough to make it a worthwhile pokemon. It's still pathetically weak, and doesn't have the support learnset or defensive typing to make its *slightly* better defensive stats worthwhile. Buff it to 75 Atk, and reduce its SpAtk to 35. 75 Atk still isn't good.
I think the big 4 kanto trade evos should evolve by level up at 40 if not 42 like Rhyhorn does. They are supposed to be tough Pokémon to raise for the better trainers so having them be a little harder to train than the starters makes more sense to me.
Commenting for the algorithm! And also Nerd you should call this Inspired Crystal, you used inspired as an adjective in a previous video!
This is so good! Keep up the good work. Excited for more.
As a Yanma/Yanmega fan, I'm sad that you nerfed Yanma's special attack, especially since Yanmega is a special attacker anyway. I know you wanted to give it the chance to shine with Twin-Needle and Wing Attack, which is certainly appreciated, but now it won't be able to hit as hard with the newly-gifted Twister (and I also like giving it Giga Drain for coverage and heal potential). The buffs made to those two special moves might make up for Yanma's nerf, but *still* 😅😂
I'm definitely gonna play this hack and use Yanma regardless! You're doing *fantastic* work here and I'm so excited to see how this turns out as an experience!
Probably to do with the fact its STAB typings are physical.
Love this tightened up version of the video and keeping some of the Pokemon leaned towards attacking stats that don't perfectly match with their typing for better variety, relying even more on move and moveset tweaking.
But, I'd actually say level 36 is a little too low for the big 4 Kanto trade evo Pokemon. Feel like these kinds of evos that should be later than the Starters. As far as a single level that feels fair for all of them, for some reason the number 41 is what jumped out at me immediately. Like, thinking in the context of assuming you were making this kind of change here sorta canon to Gen 1 as well, that'd fit right in with the scaling of Sabrina and Blue using Alakazam and such. Making them very a bit between highest 30s and lowest 40s (like 39-43 range?) for each line might be nice, though, relative to their first evo level.
I also agree with people saying out of the way optional dungeon areas can always use more rewards, so those are good locations to place findable evo items, rarer Pokemon (especially Kanto ones in favor of more Johto 'mons being placed along the critical path for the main story), interesting held items, and other such things.
Don't take the elemental punches from Hypno to make it an actual competitor against Alakazam
Made me so happy to see Misdreavus become accessible pre post game… but what about some of the other johto Pokémon exclusive to kanto like murkrow, slugma and larvitar? I know we want to keep very similar to the originals but not being able to use johto Pokémon like blissey in the johto region always made very upset.
Gligar is still sad that it can't learn mudslap :).
Okay i would like to give some input ito these ideas. Overall i love it but you could consider a few of the next points:
- Including the Gen 4 evolutions. Yes i know you want to recreate an experience as close to the original as possible but in my opinion it would not affect that feeling since they do not feel out of place. In my opinion Gen 2 actually feels a bit incomplete without these. Honestly they do not even look like final stage at all by themselves.
-The same could be said about the Kanto region. It feels very empty and underleveled and its mostly duo to hardware limitations of the time so i think it would be okay to populate Kanto a little more without ruining the experience.
-If the new evolutions are a deal breaker i would suggest pumping the stats a little bit. I saw that you tried to keep the stats between 420-450 but i would suggest something like 440-480. The reason for this is that even with those buffs they will feel very underpowered since most final stage gen 1 pokemons are between 490-530 so by raising it a little bit more it would be easier to choose the slightly weaker pokemon just to use the new cool ones.
-Lastly it would be great to see the new locations for the pokemon. I think the stronger ones should be rewarded for exploration for example in the slowpoke well and the first cave of the games that unlock new areas after you get HMs and players could be rewarded for backtracking and exploring those places with pokemon like Missdreavous, Murkrow and even Larvitar and Dratini.
-Talking about Larvitar and Dratini i would maybe slightly raise the stats of the middle evolutions or at least make them evolve at around 45 instead of 55 or else they are barely unusable until you get to Red.
-Maybe adding a new attack for clearly underpowered types like bug with x-scizor at 70 or 80 power and grass with energy ball. Those types barely have any offensive presence since the strongest moves they have are like Razor leaf at 55. Megahorn and Solar Beam have heavy restrictions and Giga Drain has a decent power but 5 pp...
Just some thoughts that may make you consider xD The updated move sets are a god given ahah so great job on that.
I will mention that he has gone over his changes to the Gym Leaders, and lemme just say, the Level Curve is/will no longer be a scuffed mess.
I'd wait until he makes a video detailing the move changes before rendering judgement there, since he did mention having buffed Twineedle without saying how much power he gave it
For the elemental punch discussion, i was thinking about having the 'trade' evos each have one of the punches and lose access to the other two types, including other tm's. That could leave Hitmonchan with the niché of being the only one to learn all three.
Example: Gengar keeps ice punch (ghosts are comminly associated with chills in the air) but loses access to thunderbolt. Alakazam keeps thunder punch (brain functions on electricity) but loses access to fire and ice moves. Machamp and Golem can keep fire punch as coverage for their poor match-ups against grass types (physical attack = muscles, burning calories = heat).
PLEASEEEE make Eevee a lvl 5 gift Pokémon. When Bill gives you one in Goldenrod at Lvl 20, it’s already at too high of a level to learn Umbreon or Espeon’s special moves.
To this day I'm still convinced Dark was meant to be physical and making it special was an oversight. By the time they realized their mistake it was probably too late to properly correct it without spending more time and resources.
Screw the quirky nostalgia bs. Physical/special split is required to properly fix gen 2. The graphics are where the nostalgia is.
I noticed that Magcargo was completely ignored; poor unloved fire snail.
I think these changes are all pretty interesting. except I think Flareon should be re-spec into a quick mix attacker. It's stats should be: HP: 65, Att: 110, Def: 60, SpA: 130, SpD: 65, Sp: 95
Regular Flareon's HP stat is too low for it to make use of its high special defense. And it's low speed just means it's going to die to a faster Water-type.
Wait: it’s been ignored?
If I had to choose one elemental punch for Alakazam to keep, I would pick Fire Punch. It's fun to relate it to the lore of the Psychic type's weaknesses, as the natural eleMENTAL defensive choice:
Bug: The flames of rage incinerate the creeping menace.
Ghost: The flames' warmth holds the chill of the grave at bay.
Dark: The radiant light of fire burns away and purifies the darkness.
Maybe I'm being dramatic but this sounds cool af to me.
Espeon and umbreon could evolve with the Sun stone and moon stone. That would match the gen 1 originals.
My boi Yanma gettimg the love! I will make a physical copy to play on my gameboy and just pretend its offical
I think for the trade evolutions you should have their final evo level up be somewhere in the 40-45 range instead of 36. That way you get a little more time with the middle evolutions and it doesn’t make the 5th-7th gyms really easy.
I could see a case made for Alakazam/Gengar considering how broken they can be. Even if I hard disagree with anything past 40
but Machamp and Golem...those two are very solid but are not THAT strong to justify level 40+. though yeah Machop and, to a lesser extent geodude would need to evolve a bit earlier
Umbreon should evolve with the moon stone and espeon with the sun stone. This gives them the same flavor as later evolutions. I think in later generations sylveon should be the only friendship evolution
I’m so happy you fixed the friendship Pokémon I needed confusion for espeon
I like all these buffs for gen 2 pokemon. Loved Gold Silver Crystal so nice to some work put into the weaker gen 2 pokemon.
I love that trade pokemon are no swapped to level up or items used as stones. Not everyone has the access to trades in the original games.
Upgrade could perhaps come from Bill as a tech guy, or one of his relatives in his house if that would give him too much to do.
I love how this video is just explaining how Gen 2 was dogwater and then fixing it
Considering how laughably strong new pokemon were in gen 5, think the stat buffs here could have gone even harder.
I was already considering this when it comes out, but fixing the trade evolutions sold me. I've always wanted to use Kingdra but never had the opportunity to trade with people
a thought occurs
i'm unsure if claire checks whether you have the dragon's fang in your inventory or if you have obtained the item at some point, but if it's the former, there's potential for either a softlock or a way to cheat the trial
if the player goes to dragon's den and gets the dragon scale, but then immediately uses it to evolve a seadra, claire's inventory check would fail
if the player can pick this softlock by simply obtaining a dragon scale from wild pokemon though, they could cheat the trial entirely from the beginning
Well, the game could check if you interracted with the overworld Dragon Scale item in the Dragon's Den.
If it's still there, Clair denies you, but if you've picked it up, Clair gives you the badge.
In Crystal you don't need the Dragon Fang, that is in Gold and Silver only. In Crystal you have to do the quiz in the Dragon Den
With my own Crystal ROM Hack my boyfriend and I are working on together, we found Sunflora needed its dreadful base 30 Speed raised over its SpA. It's hard to make use of that damage potential when the pokemon might as well be lugging an anchor around in battle.
Granted, our goal is to somewhat compress the overall power tiers between pokemon by buffing many of the weaker pokemon or those commonly seen as "bad/useless."
Team building in gen 2 be like:
-Starter
-Ampharos
-Gen 1 pokemon
-Gen 1 pokemon
-Gen 1 pokemon
-Gen 1 pokemon.
Yanma learns wing attack and leech life as egg moves. Or leveling it up.
I haven't liked how GF treated bug types for the first few generations. Yes they're the evolution mechanic early tutorial, but it's an official type and shouldn't be kneecapped purposely because of it.
I think Alakazam and Gengar should get different elemental punches from each other, just to differentiate them a bit more.
Also, I'd _really_ like it if Gengar could get Ice Punch, or at least Icy Wind. It would give it better coverage with Thunderbolt.
one thing that i would like to add in regards to the evolutions... a whole bunch of pokemon, specifically the available gen 1 pokemon, are stuck in first or second stage limbo because you can only get the elemental evolution stones in Kanto (and even then it's complicated); so growlithe, eevee, vulpix, shellder, pikachu, poliwhirl, exegcute, gloom, weepinbell and some others are basically unable to evolve conventionally before the post game. I don't know if you've addressed this but making the evolution stones available in Johto would help a ton
I do not know how I feel about Yanma having twin needle, personally. On one hand, there just aren't any other bug moves to give it in gen 2, but I do not like the idea of a stinging move specifically on a dragonfly. It's like the *one* bug thing that irl dragonflies do not do.
Now I understand why Aipom was man handling me the other day in CL
I never realized how many Gen II Pokemon later got evolutions. Togetic, Aipom, Yanma, Murkrow, Misdreavus, Girafarig, Dunsparce, Gligar, Qwilfish, Scizor, Sneasel, Ursaring, Piloswine, Corsola, Porygon2 and Stantler all got evolutions.
Ghost being physical never made sense.
As I mentioned in the original upload I think Kingler should get a slight decrease of 5 points in both its Attack and Defense, and a 20 point increase in Special Attack. This will allow its BST to go from 475 to 485 so it's not too large of an increase, while increasing its Special Attack enough to make Surf and Crabhammer usable options
I had very diferent buff concept for many of those pokemon, but yours are also pretty creative alternatives
it wouldve even be fine if the trade evolutions would evolve at 42, very good late game mons
I think Graveler, Machoke, and Haunter should evolve at Lv.40. gives more time for their middle stages to be, y’know.
So happy with the new changes added! They're great and creative, not enough to make them top tier mons but at least fun set pieces that could fit teams and if nuzlocking (which I plan to do eventually after fully enjoying the game) they'll be fun mons to use, which on top of adding difficulty by being weaker, allow you/force to be creative with how you use their unique tools.
I hate how in the games so many Pokemon are simply worse versions of the top tiers, in a game with so many great designs, its delightful to be able to finally use your favorites.
Also, I'm so happy with the baby mons that get evos down the line to now be viable, they're so iconic for a reason and even in gen 4 with their evolutions, they're not the same for me, I don't like them for the same reason, so this is simply the best.
For example, I was wondering who I could use as my water type in this game between some options that will now be more available or more viable, and now that ledian can be a fun supportive Mon with agility baton pass, I'm inclining more on octilery, a super fun mon that I've never been able to run for a reason or another.
I'm soo excited for this project and it's many great ideas, can't wait to play it and replay it over and over again, I love gen 2 but it's problems always stop from replaying it too often, specially the team building options.
Also, I'm loving the videos and streams so take your time to enjoy it, you're doing something great for everyone that's also a passion project.
Thats why i absolutely love the changes PMD series did since all of the Pokemon can cause damage, even Magikarp if you increase the stats, and moves are generally more usable there.
Quagsire: _gets buffed_
SmallAnt: *seething in the corner*
Would be cool if Qwilfish got Twineedle
Jan with the burger king crown is perfect. Chefs kiss.
Certainly nothing to SNEASEL at
For evolution items you can make them a 35% on certain pokemon metal coat magnemite, d-scale on horsea, and you can place an upgrade in the rocket hideout
All I will say is GOD THANK YOU FOR GOOD FLAREON!! ITS MY FAV EEVEELUTION AND NOW MY BOY’S GETTING LOVE
For the record, I actually think the process of grinding for the trade items should remain. It makes the process of obtaining the evolution feel really rewarding in a way that's unique to a handful of pokemon. It's kinda like finally getting your milotic in gen 3; makes you feel the extra bit of attachment to the mon and like you're actually putting in work and effort to get something rare. Adds some immersion that I think the franchise could do with more of.
...so about the trade evos.
TECHNICALLY, you can use them, but to do so, you need to:
1. Have the mon you want to evolve in the save game itself
2. Have a second save file for Pokémon (can be RBY or GSC)
3. Have an N64 emulator with Stadium 1 or 2 (or both, in my case)
4. Go to Oak's Lab and trade away! (Note that for the Metal Coat evos you will need to not only hand them the item, but if you're trading with RBY, you'll need to severely limit yourself with your movesets, AND you'll need to trade them over then trade them back, as Scizor and Steelix didn't exist in Gen 1)
I know this is one hell of a tangent, and not EVERYONE has (or can even get) an N64 emulator, but still. Just wanted to throw it out there
This is the romhack I've always dreamed of.. It looks absolutely perfect so far. Way too excited for this!
I always thought a cool feature of the game was the radio show where they give you points for tuning in and then going to the tower with the password. Maybe one of the prizes they offer is the metal coat rather than ultra balls and rare candy?
I respect the decision to take a couple of elemental punches from Gengar and Alakazam, but I think maybe Gengar should have Ice Punch instead of Thunder. It’s a Ghost, right? It’s like, a “chilling” presence or something. Just makes more sense thematically imo.