Came for the gameplay, stayed for the world and characters.

Ever get that feeling that a game never truly ends? That, whenever you think you're almost done, the game surprises you with hidden areas and quests? Curse Crackers is that kind of game. I would most closely compare it to Super Mario World, which blew my mind as a kid with all its secrets scattered through the world map. Curse Crackers takes it one step beyond with its lovable cast of characters and storylines.

I really grew to love most if not all characters, and I became genuinely invested in the lore and mysteries laid throughout. There's still some loose threads at the ends, so hopefuly Colorgrave will make a sequel some day.

8/10 for mere concept and thorough execution. This gimmick makes so much sense, it feels like pokemon was designed to be played like this. Pokemon has always suffered from misguided goals. "Beat the pokemon league", "catch 'em all", "Be the very best". What some pokemon hacks fail to realize is those goals are easy when you're given unlimited combat options and unlimited documentation. On top of that how god damn tedious their game is because pokemon was designed to be an absolute slog to play.

Pokemon Emerald Rogue narrows your focus and limits your options. It bridges the gap between using (basically) unlimited combat items + pokemon to cheese the game and playing on set mode with self-imposed nuzlocke rules.

Lots of things in pokemon are up to chance, and it makes more sense that way. Having a chance to find a legendary or permanent buff instead of always getting that every single playthrough keeps things fair and forces you to try new things. Most people only use what they have always used because why would you not choose the most powerful option? Why would you not make an unbeatable team? If you don't, you're just gonna have to grind your life away to make another.

It all becomes very monotonous. This hack plays to pokemon's own strengths. You have hundreds of pokemon to choose from who are all very interesting with their own mechanics, randomize the pokemon to prevent them from using the same party. This also helps you become familiar with each pokemon's traits so when you face a pokemon you've already used, you don't need to look it up or guess. Force the player to adapt instead of feeding them the same experience over and over is what pokemon has been missing and what people ultimately chase for when playing vanilla pokemon. You have to go through all these hoops to make the game you want to play. This one just did all the work for you and said "be free".

On top of that, this adds all the features you could ever want without all the logistics. "Where do I get that mega stone? oh great now I have to use these 3 HMs." Or "How do I evolve this pokemon again? Oh great I have to wait for nighttime." Or "I don't want to play gen 3 pokemon, I love gen 4 too much." Or "Great now I have to walk cause I haven't learned fly yet". This is not why people play the game, they play it for the strategy! Strategy is not looking something up and spending hours to get what you want to win, strategy is not having what you need and dealing with it.

And then putting an extra RNG twist so that when you lose, you can just blame it on the game and that keeps you playing because now you avoided the responsibility that you just misplayed it. You keep playing and naturally get better.

The only thing this is really missing is great graphics (like gen 4 or 5) and traversal mechanics that aren't teleporting you to a new map. Something extra to make it make sense, some story, stage design, unique character interactions. Although, as you introduce that, you have to be careful. Making a roguelite means you want to keep repeated interaction to a minimum.

While I'm sad that this game will most likely never reach its fullest potential, what's already here is honestly fantastic

Phenomenal main cast of characters, fun and interesting mysteries, and a bunch of things both big and small that warm my Ace Attorney-obsessed heart

It may be rough around the edges, but it's also incredibly sincere, and its love for the series that inspired it is clear to see

I will protect Tyrion and Celeste with my life.

Played as part of CONQUERING MY CHILDHOOD

Today marks the 23rd birthday of Majesty, a single drop in the flooded sea of the early RTS market; a sea that would eventually dry out for any game not named Age of Empires or StarCraft. This era of games is incredibly intriguing to me as someone who grew up playing RTSes, but these weird off-brand ones in particular. Those that come to mind include Battle Realms, Impossible Creatures, and, of course, Majesty.

Majesty departs from typical RTS mechanics, and in doing so ends up becoming part RTS, part city-builder, part god-game and part Peter Molyneux fever dream. In lieu of typical RTS mechanics, Majesty does not give you direct control over your units; instead, it tasks you with building a kingdom that functions fairly autonomously. Your only resource is gold, and building a strong economy involves balancing the creation of a kingdom that produces enough taxable income with building enough defenses to where your kingdom doesn't crumble to the slightest ratman invasion. Marketplaces and Trading Posts bring in passive income, but your heroes can provide a boost by spending their hard-plundered gold on gear and consumables, if you give them the means to do so.

These heroes replace the typical units you'd find in most other RTSes, and act more as DnD heroes than foot soldiers. Each type of hero not only has their own set of stats and skills, but their own behaviours as well. Rangers spend their free times exploring the map, Cultists run around charming beasts and planting poison mushrooms, Warriors of Discord slowly and aimlessly wander around the map, attacking pretty much everything they see. They also react differently to bounties - gold rewards you can put on the map or on enemies to actually get your heroes to do what you want. The most notable example is how Rogues will chase after much smaller bounties than any other heroes, but are also some of the first to run away if they see it as remotely dangerous. It's all really sophisticated!

The game doesn't have a straightforward structured campaign, instead it gives you a world map with a bunch of individual missions on it. Each mission gets to explore a different, weird idea. It's not all about making a strong band of heroes and going out and killing all the baddies. I've played tower defense missions, missions about earning enough money in a set time, even one where I had to gamble in order to beat it. Sometimes the weirdness can feel a little gimmicky, but that's much preferred to the alternative - falling into the RTS campaign curse where you're just doing the same thing over and over and it gets boring. Majesty manages to avoid that!

This is all backed by some of my favourite presentation of any game from around this time. From an audio-visual perspective it's very similar to Age of Empires 2, with these 2D isometric graphics that aged really well backed by a soundtrack that has no reason being as good as it is. Seriously, just listen to this! But it also has some of the best voice acting I've ever heard?? It's all incredibly hammy and over the top but not in a "so bad it's good" way that you might expect from a 2000s computer game. It's just good!

This game really surprised me with how sophisticated and engaging it is, especially considering its premise of "RTS but you can't actually control anything". A must-play for anyone into these weird old RTSes, or anyone interested in more strange and inspired games as a whole.