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Comments
In this hack, there are a number of changes to the vanilla game that go beyond opening up the world and allowing capturing all 251 and various quality-of-life improvements -- no changes to the species themselves and moves available, but some changes to the endgame trainers (replacing them with the main dev's self-insert and various people who helped him with it), and the music, as well as a number of smaller features (e.g. NPC event lines). Specifically, I won't be able to use the names Yunica and Kishgal anymore, specifically because there won't be a rival anymore, far as I can tell.
I won't be restarting this liveblog anytime soon yet, but at this point I'm debating (albeit on the back-burner) which of the following to do:
* just go straight into Crystal Clear.
* play a more conservative 251 hack, such as Emu Edition or Perfect Crystal (which is a 251 hack and restores Cerulean Cave but I can't see anything about it restoring Safari Zone or Viridian Forest).
* play through vanilla Crystal first only to beating the game then go to Crystal Clear.
* wait for Crystal Clear to be definitively finished and see what else it does.
Oh hey, there's a 2020 update to Pokémon Perfect Crystal
In 2027?
No mention of Viridian Forest restoration either way.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4935/
Furthermore, someone created Patched Crystal, which is yet another different thing.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5104/
This one has infinite-use TMs.
Emu Edition - apparently the most vanilla; just puts the missing mons back in. Semi-restores Safari Zone. There are some in-game trades that will get you the legendaries (which seems a bit odd but I guess they're basically like trophies which can also become easy-mode crutches, but not like I'm gonna use them anyway since I'll be too busy grinding out evolutions)
Patched Crystal - fixes various bugs, tweaks time system, infinite use TMs, changes Dark to physical and Ghost to special, gymleaders rematchable
Perfect Crystal - fixes various bugs, Mystery Gift/unobtainable decoration items now available, reusable TMs, final boss now level 100, increased opponent levels to match HGSS, gymleaders rematchable, restores Cerulean Cave, adjustable time.
Perfect Crystal (2020) - same as above, except makes some ridiculously low encounter rates less low, final boss reverted to vanilla.
Crystal Clear - open-world edit of Crystal, gymleaders refightable with scaling levels, and and IIRC there were a variety of other changes.
TPP Anniversary Crystal - fixes bugs, new Kanto quests, physical/special split, fairy type, move re-learner. optional advanced AI.
In contrast to Emu Edition, it restores Cerulean Cave rather than Safari Zone, it seems. I've actually been to Safari Zone in RBY and while it's interesting I can't say it's particularly fun. OTOH I've actually never been in Cerulean Cave before.
There's another hack I didn't mention called Polished Crystal, which does restore Safari Zone, Viridian Forest, Pewter Museum, and other locations, but it also changes...a lot of other things. It does update game mechanics to Gen VI apparently, which could be nice (making Lick do more than piddly damage is definitely appreciated), but I'm not sure if I need that.
Anyway...
TPP Anniversary Crystal has too much extra stuff and feels irrelevant to me. Crystal Clear isn't just open-world but also gets rid of the rival, which is a feature I want.
Patched Crystal does a better job documenting its bugfixes in the readme than Perfect Crystal, and it's more vanilla than Perfect. It does swap special/physical associations for Dark and Ghost, which feels welcome. But it doesn't restore any areas. It also tweaks the time system, to make morning less stuck in the actual morning, but I don't know how I feel about that. I was going to use it as an excuse to get up earlier lol. Also there's no convenient time change function.
So in summary, for Patched vs. Perfect 2020:
Patched:
* more vanilla
* adjusted time system
* swap special/physical for Dark and Ghost
* GS Ball event just works; no other note attached. Presumably this works immediately when available, basically like in Emu Edition, where I ended up
Perfect 2020:
* restored Cerulean Cave
* convenient clock setting mechanism
* (most?) decorations/Mystery Gift items now available in the regular game
* hold B to run
* restored previously-censored sprites (n.b. I don't care about this)
* GS Ball event only after Mt. Silver
* level increases for trainers to match HeartGold/SoulSilver. generally applies to late Johto/Kanto
Both:
* bugfixes
* reusable TMs
* refightable gymleaders
* all 251 mons catchable (and many are in similar places too)
* Kanto legendaries --
I need to decide two things:
* which hack to play
* whether to play it on my computer or on my phone. If I play it on my phone, it's more like a genuine Pokémon experience, on-the-go and playable anytime, but also means I can't as easily share screenshots with you.
testing
testing again
That space in the middle was Totodile, in case you're unfamiliar.
Anyway:
caught: Totodile
seen: Pidgey, Sentret, Hoppip, Caterpie, Weedle, Chikorita, Geodude
murkrow 38
gilgar 45
magnemite 39
jigglypuff 35
sentret 29
hoppip 32
vulpix 36
weedle 31
geodude 46
caterpie 30
miltank 39
meowth 39
growlithe 35
poliwhirl 44
weepinbell 44
donphan 45
And I have good news and bad news.
The bad news is that Lemuroid doesn't seem to manage the game's Real Time Clock properly.
The good news is that Pokémon Perfect Crystal doesn't require inputting the password to reset the time.
But I might want a better emulator.
Meanwhile I should also dig up my physical copy of Crystal just so I can read the original game manual. There's something satisfying about the physicality of it, even if I'm not playing the actual game cartridge.
That thing on the top right is a cyndaquil, one of the starter pokémon. Normally, the other starters can't be caught in the wild and you have to trade with another player/game to get their pokédex entries.
It also has an obnoxiously low catch rate, meaning that it is way harder to capture than anything else up to this point in the regular game. I must have thrown like twenty pokéballs at it, counting savestate scumming.
Anyway, I'm up to 17 caught, 18 seen (Kishgal has a chikorita which I have yet to find wild).
Nothing like beating Joey with a better rattata than his.
also I heard this on the radio:
What do the numbers next to those 'mon names mean?
Also, this was on my draft, I'm pretty sure it's a breakdown on teams during my first runs through each game (including the Touhou hack), and something about Magnitude that probably made sense at the time:
Professor Oak's Pokémon Talk is a radio show wherein Prof. Oak and DJ Mary talk about various pokémon, one species at a time, with Oak indicating where it can be found and DJ Mary making some comment about it (which is actually a randomly-generated combination of descriptions).
Totodile (starter)
Rattata
Spearow
Geodude
Pidgey
Sentret
Caterpie
Weedle
Hoppip
Hoothoot
Poliwag
Zubat
Gastly
Spinarak
Bellsprout
Cyndaquil (actually my second starter when I started emulating one of the gen 2 games years ago, I think it was Crystal but it may have been Gold)
Dunsparce (a pokémon I've actually encountered for the first time in-game in my life, i.e. this isn't retreading Pokédex entries I've had before)
Ledyba
Vulpix
seen:
Chikorita (actually my very first starter when I started playing Gold version on cart even more years ago)
This makes me feel like when I pull out my carts I shouldn't just pull out Crystal but both Crystal and Gold, just so I can see how the two manuals differ.
Anyhow, as for the real-time clock problem, what I've started doing is that I just end up re-setting the clock every time I play.
There is a minor perk that results from this, which is that every time I reset the clock the fruit trees reset, which means I have a bunch of berries.
i didn't look at the gender of each mon before catching it; i typically just caught the first one i could find
though i do have the even more amusing thing where my geodude is female
I have been having a different problem now
so the past couple times I played, I just did some running around, level grinding
the first time, i didn't save
the second tine i am pretty sure I did
both times, when I came back to my phone hours later my progress was gone and I had to start from a previous point where I'd left off
I think I need to back up the srm here asap; this emulator is weird
why isn't it reading properly?
And they're less awesome than the manual for Blue. Its was designed to imitate the look of a leather-bound notebook, and it also had a pokédex section that you could fill out. It has a type advantage chart; the Crystal/Gold manuals lack even this!
> bellsprout only knows Vine Whip which is not very effective against Weedle
> Weedle has enough HP to survive because Vine Whip just does 1 damage every turn
> beautiful big bag of XP for my level 4 weedle
> gen 2 stars counting PP for enemies
> Vine Whip has only 10 PP
> bellsprout runs out of PP
> bellsprout used STRUGGLE
> oops
My first pokédex entry via evolution.
Also the first instance of a pokémon that flees.
21st entry (no catch): Kakuna
22nd catch: Unown B
23rd catch: Unown F
seen: Unown E, Unown C, Unown D, Unown I, Unown G, Unown H
There are 14 boxes, each of which can hold 20 pokémon. I think I'm at 17/20 on one box or so.
I forgot how I did it last time.
IIRC it was done something like this: box 1 for stuff to just pile in there on capture, then one box for each of the following:
* two-stage evolutions
* three-stage evolutions
* two-stage stone evolutions
* three-stage stone evolutions
* Unown A-T
* Unown U-Z
* shinies
* completed evolutionary chains (multiple boxes)