A great idea: taking what is one of the best Pokemon games, and opening it up. So many quality of life improvements, character customization, on top of a solid foundation. To top it all off, you can also use these Pokemon to complete Stadium 2 or transfer up to Generation 7 and beyond. Will probably be my preferred way to return to Generation 2.
Blessed.
Just needs the phys and special split.
Just needs the phys and special split.
Needs an endless supply of Rare Candies labeled "IN CASE OF GEN II LEVEL SCALING" but this is an absolutely brilliant hack otherwise.
what a fabulous romhack, making gen 2 open world is absolutely inspired. i loved every minute of this game
one of the best open world games i've ever played
Why can't Gen 3 rom hacks be as high quality as this
The only romhack worth a damn, because it finally delivered the open world Pokemon experience you've been aching for.
fantastic
The part where the entire elite four got replaced with the developer’s friends was really embarrassing
Very cool to see some ROM hacks on here. Crystal Clear is an accomplishment, one that I've played through a couple times and plan to return to as more is added.
Esto es un BICHARRACO de hackrom. Pokémon Cristal como no habíamos visto nunca: estructura totalmente abierta, entrenadores cuyo poder escala con tus medallas, una Pokédex mejoradísima, opciones de customización, ¡el poder sacar a tu Pokémon de la Poké Ball para que te siga por ahí! Una bestialidad que recomiendo encarecidamente a todos los amantes de la segunda generación.
played this a couple of years ago and it was neat
Best pokemon, you can even use vulpix aka best pokemon as a starter play it now
Pokemon Crystal Clear is an ambitious fan-made ROM hack of Pokemon Crystal, transforming it into the ultimate Johto experience. It seamlessly combines the best of both Johto and Kanto regions, offers expanded trainer rosters, and cleverly reworks the world map for deeper exploration. Fans of the originals will revel in quality-of-life improvements, new challenges, and an open-world approach that gives them true freedom to tackle any gym in any order. If you love the Game Boy Color Pokemon era, Crystal Clear is a must-play.
really good romhack for boomers who refuse to play romhacks on principle
I don't really care for level scaling in open world rpgs, and this has a serious problem with not giving you enough trainers to level up before the next gym. I know you can refight gyms to grind but that's bleh. Still it's an easy recommend to anyone interested in replaying crystal in a new way, it's pretty well done and throws the whole game on its head in an interesting way.
Pokémon League defeated, 16/16 Badges, Pokédex: 251/251, All extra bosses defeated.
I think there's a lot of flaws in CC's attempt to make an open world pokemon but it does succeed in that, and I think there's just a lot of fun in exploring the formula through this new structure.
Su mayor feature es que es mundo abierto, y a mí es la que más me suda la polla. Pienso que no está muy bien hecho porque rompe un poco el juego, pero quitando eso, es un Pokemon de 2a gen con muchísima QoL que ofrece una experiencia que te cagas. Recomendadísimo.
even if i don't think the indigo league ever had a particularly interesting set of trainers for the elite 4 in either iteration (lance is unironically one of the least interesting type specialists in the series), there is nothing i hate more in a rom hack than the developers and their friends inserting themselves as characters, and it's especially bad when they ruin one of the biggest parts of any pokemon game for it. one of the most fun pokemon experiences otherwise
Despite how weird it can be at times. I had way too much fun with this one. 101%d it and all. Love me a Pokémon game where I can get every single Pokémon in some form.
A technological feat AND I'M NOT KIDDING.
Really hard to rate this one. I don't think it was very enjoyable, but I appreciate some aspects of it and the games it built upon to the point where I guess everything is evened out. There's definitely a lot of work to appreciate, but it's bogged down quite a bit.
Unfortunately, to me this wound up seeming like a strict downgrade of an experience compared to the original GSC. It accomplishes its base concept decently well at times but there are... bouts of amateur Pokémon romhacker energy that appear at times and it's never endearing. Also funnily enough, the horrid level scaling of the originals is barely fixed here, as the devs instead flipped it so the scaling became too intense between gyms. With universal fast travel being unlocked very early on, the hack gives almost zero incentive to go outside of gym cities since even grinding is arguably most efficient inside of gyms.
Replacing the final bosses with the dev team was hilariously dumb and having no tangible plot and path in the game (not even something moderately hands-off like the original) made it feel a lot more like an empty slog through JRPG battles wherein the RNG is constantly stacked against you. In a sense, this style made it feel as monotonous and boring as gen 1 but without any of the sauce and charm of those games' weird writing and glitchiness.
Because of all this, you have next to no reason to explore anything outside the cities once you have your final team, and the extra areas wind up feeling tacked on considering how empty and useless they often are. The game winds up just becoming an uncompelling loop of fight gym -> grind if you lose, then repeat. There's no sense of progression outside of just having your numbers go up (and unlocking rebuyable TMs), and for me that wasn't close to enough to make this a particularly good experience. It got extremely tedious as it went on to the point where I had to force myself to get through the last 1/3 of my run just because I love the general gen 2 aesthetic a lot.
All that said, this being a Pokémon gen 2 hack meant that it already had a pretty solid base, and the quality of life features present in this hack were impressive and cool to have. I'm glad trainer teams were beefed up in terms of composition. Related to that, giving gym leaders legendaries in the lategame was not a decision I agree with but it was still cool to see. The closest thing to this game retaining my interest was seeing just how ridiculous and varied the teams could get for reworked original trainers (didn't really care about the OCs). I also enjoyed the wider starter array, though personally I'd much rather have made the nonstandard starters become unlockable options for a new game plus, especially the babies/"hard" ones.
In summation, this hack is a competent and well put-together gen 2 battle simulator, but barely anything more. It doesn't invalidate the original games even slightly, and if anything it just makes me want to go back and play GSC or HGSS more instead. Crystal Clear in general is much more of an example of what fans can make in terms of sheer QOL and trainer design than an actual fun complete package of a hack. I'm sure tons of people would enjoy this considering it's a lot of fans' collective wet dream. However, to me it was a collection of missed marks and mild disappointment that just happened to be well constructed upon a game I already love. It reminded me that nonlinearity is not an inherently good way to design a game and should not be put up on a pedestal as much as it is in the current day.
Unfortunately, to me this wound up seeming like a strict downgrade of an experience compared to the original GSC. It accomplishes its base concept decently well at times but there are... bouts of amateur Pokémon romhacker energy that appear at times and it's never endearing. Also funnily enough, the horrid level scaling of the originals is barely fixed here, as the devs instead flipped it so the scaling became too intense between gyms. With universal fast travel being unlocked very early on, the hack gives almost zero incentive to go outside of gym cities since even grinding is arguably most efficient inside of gyms.
Replacing the final bosses with the dev team was hilariously dumb and having no tangible plot and path in the game (not even something moderately hands-off like the original) made it feel a lot more like an empty slog through JRPG battles wherein the RNG is constantly stacked against you. In a sense, this style made it feel as monotonous and boring as gen 1 but without any of the sauce and charm of those games' weird writing and glitchiness.
Because of all this, you have next to no reason to explore anything outside the cities once you have your final team, and the extra areas wind up feeling tacked on considering how empty and useless they often are. The game winds up just becoming an uncompelling loop of fight gym -> grind if you lose, then repeat. There's no sense of progression outside of just having your numbers go up (and unlocking rebuyable TMs), and for me that wasn't close to enough to make this a particularly good experience. It got extremely tedious as it went on to the point where I had to force myself to get through the last 1/3 of my run just because I love the general gen 2 aesthetic a lot.
All that said, this being a Pokémon gen 2 hack meant that it already had a pretty solid base, and the quality of life features present in this hack were impressive and cool to have. I'm glad trainer teams were beefed up in terms of composition. Related to that, giving gym leaders legendaries in the lategame was not a decision I agree with but it was still cool to see. The closest thing to this game retaining my interest was seeing just how ridiculous and varied the teams could get for reworked original trainers (didn't really care about the OCs). I also enjoyed the wider starter array, though personally I'd much rather have made the nonstandard starters become unlockable options for a new game plus, especially the babies/"hard" ones.
In summation, this hack is a competent and well put-together gen 2 battle simulator, but barely anything more. It doesn't invalidate the original games even slightly, and if anything it just makes me want to go back and play GSC or HGSS more instead. Crystal Clear in general is much more of an example of what fans can make in terms of sheer QOL and trainer design than an actual fun complete package of a hack. I'm sure tons of people would enjoy this considering it's a lot of fans' collective wet dream. However, to me it was a collection of missed marks and mild disappointment that just happened to be well constructed upon a game I already love. It reminded me that nonlinearity is not an inherently good way to design a game and should not be put up on a pedestal as much as it is in the current day.
Feels like a proper Pokemon game with its own kind of humor. Very well-done.
The definitive way to experience Gen 2 imo.