~A Short Review of TheRexion's POKEMON TRINITY~

NOTE: I played v0.2b, and as of now, v0.3b is available.
My internet cap is nearly reached, so I probably won’t be downloading that yet. Some bugs may be fixed though.

So, it seems this is a Pokémon fan game... made in RM2K3. So if this works well, im going to be pretty impressed. Think of all the eventing!

Anyway, I downloaded v0.3. And that put me on some random map with nobody talking to me (How rude). Talking to some guy opened the PC, which seemed to work quite well. Except moving the curser also moved the player. And why was the player visible?
After a while, I figure something is wrong, went back and found that v0.3 doesn’t work. So give me a few minutes while v0.2b downloads.

3 minutes later and im back, and have a working version. Hopefully. Anyway, to the title screen!


Rated T, apparently

So, it says v2b on the download, but in game it shows v0.31? Eh, whatever.

So, i started a new game, and it asked me what time it is. And it does that by asking "how many hours?" ...How many hours since when? Midnight maybe? I entered 90, and it said no, so let’s go with 1 shall we? 1 Hour since midnight.

And then... A mew? And an incredibly sarcastic mew no less. Seriously, if I wasn't as extremely manly as I am, I would have cried from the mean things it said.

The mew is a tutorial it seems. After you’ve watched it, you are thrown into the world, and five minutes later, get yourself a Pokémon. I chose Charmander, and named it Steve.
I love Steve, he will be my lifelong companion.


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Now to the meat of the review.

--GAMEPLAY--

You wander the land, searching far and wide! To be a Pokémon master, it’s your destiny! Battles are nicely done, looking very realistic (Pokémon realistic. Not real life realistic). You have HP and PP, and moves use different amount of PP, except struggle which uses no PP.

Although, from what I played, you can only have a single Pokemon with you at once. When I got a pidgey, it was sent to my PC box, but I didn't seem to have access to the PC. I might have gotten access later I suppose, but i never bothered, since I was just going to be using Steve anyway.

For the start of the game, i only had 2 moves (Struggle and Scratch), so battles wern't overly interesting. PP was however, extremly scarce, and i found my self burning though my PP replenishing items rather fast.

Early routes were extremely linear, but started to open out after the first GYM, with side paths and items to find. Areas are populated by both wild pokemon (Seemingly uncatchable sadly) and trainers. Trainers weren't much more difficult then the wild Pokemon though.

Movement speed is pretty slow, which is annoying. Running shoes would be nice.

Difficulty wise, I did die a few times, but mainly because im very stingy with my potions. You can't afford to be stingy with ethers though. Maybe I used Scratch/Ember too often...
Running out of HP doesn’t cause a game over, instead you are transported to a Pokémon center.


--STORY AND WRITING

The game is set in 1999 (I think), in the magical world of Pokémon.

The story starts with team NEON (weird looking guys in randomly coloured clothes) up to no good, Searching for something in town, and driving everyone out. Then, they kidnap professor something or other, and it’s up to you and your friend May to get her back! However, to get her back you must be stronger, so here’s a good excuse to take the Pokémon league challenge.


The plot itself is kind of weak (Although still better then most Pokemon games), but the writing is very nice, with little bits of humour. There seemed to be a little bit of text cut-off and grammar issues in one or two places, but nothing major.

However, in some places (like when reading the book at the start), the game doesn’t use the entire text box, just a little bit of it, making things a little hard to keep track of. Like here:



Every page of the book was like that, and it was really annoying.

--GRAPHICS--

The tile sets are Pokémon rips (Fire Red/Leaf Green I believe), and they are used quite well. I don't like how you can walk right to the edge of many maps, but that might be personal preference. (I prefer some sort of actual barrier stopping you)

Your Pokemon follows you wherever you go, as a caterpillar type system. However, it often would walk over solid objects in order to follow me.



Battles look a lot like an official pokemon game.


Summary:

Although it has a few bugs, it is enjoyable to play, with solid mapping, and a slightly different battle system then the norm. I liked it.


Score: Above Average


BUGS:

After I beat team NEON for the first time, and was supposed to take the league challenge, I went back to my house, and may was near it, and it replayed the first battle against her again... >.> Oh, and then when I reloaded my save, it wouldn’t let me leave that map. So I had to open it in the editor and add a teleport.

Also, while trying to leave the town where the first GYM is located, it teleported me into a tree.