Having been disillusioned by Game Freak shipping out Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with both lackluster graphics AND abysmal performance, I became more curious to check out fangames than the next title, beginning with the fangame that seemed so close to the genuine article Nintendo chucked a DMCA its way several years ago: Pokemon Uranium.
I think the existence of fan games, particularly ones on this level of scale, can be fascinating. When created out of love, they can feel like a fan’s attempt to get more of the specific product they really adore, but they also tend to represent what said fans believe the genuine article had been lacking so they can fill what they perceive as a hole the series left in their hearts themselves.
Anyone can write a fanfiction, but creating a full on GAME to contain that writing actually takes another level of skill, and yet another level beyond that to have said game design feel even slightly like an officially released product. There’s been plenty of horrendously misguided fan games over the years (such dreck as Hunt Down the Freeman and Sonic Omens spring to mind) but I think Pokemon Uranium, despite its amateurish execution in places, is an interesting case that shows how far passion can go when trying to fill a void.
It probably further helps that mainline Pokemon, for years, has been a series of very low-tech games holding the kind of longstanding legacy where game mechanic concepts are constantly being changed on a micro level despite the macro concept being a constant. Thus, Pokemon Uranium brings a Generation 4 overworld with Generation 5 battle UI and Generation 6 battle mechanics.
You know you’re getting into a fan game story very fast when just starting the game shows you the heartbreaking story of your character’s mother dying in a power plant explosion and their father, a Pokemon Ranger, became cold and distant from you. After this introduction though, things mellow out and a lot of what you would expect to be in working order falls right into place.
Most of Uranium plays as you would expect from a sprite based Pokemon game. Explore a region, battle trainers along the way by making eye contact, defeat 8 gym leaders to collect badges to challenge the League to become champion, use HMs to gradually explore the world they couldn’t before, basic stuff. But there’s an admirable level of commitment in many spots. The game has a full day/night cycle it tracks with your computer. There’s over 100 original “fakemons” in this, and while it does make the arbitrary amount of true Pokemon stick out like a sore thumb, a fair amount of the designs do veer close to the mix of cutesy charm and anime cool Ken Sugimori has really refined over the years, in particular with Pokemon like the starter trio, the many Bug type variants, Urayne as a box Legendary and especially Nucleon, which fits right in with the other Eeveelutions present. I like that Uranium decides to make Double Battles take occasional prominence after the main series has shunted them out for years; they offer a level of additional planning without the gimmickier styles tested in Generation 5. The Elite Four is structured more like the anime, where it’s arena battles between randomly pooled opponents in a tournament bracket where neither side can heal, and that was a very distinct addition. There’s a Game Corner, you can rematch numerous trainers if they call you, there’s a sidequest where if you complete it, you get free grinding spots which is extremely helpful, one of the towns has a berry trading economy in lieu of a shop which is another standout moment feature that fits, and Legen Town’s aesthetic of feeling like it takes place inside a medieval castle made it a pretty memorable town. There’s a minigame to raise IVs if you’re into that stuff, and as a game it will offer more of a challenge even in a standard run than any of the mainlines. The original music is quite impressive for a fangame. It can be very rocking at times, but it can also be quite cozy in other places, with the use of synthesizers working well to punctuate the game’s original creation in Nuclear Pokemon.
That being said, despite all these nice touches, there are other aspects that feel noticeably undercooked, or straight up unpolished to the level you’d expect if this was an actually released title. Sometimes, it’s an imperceptible feeling, like when it feels as though wild encounters happen just slightly more often than they should, or that moves with status effects activate slightly more often than they should. Other times, it’s the many lines of comically corny dialogue (which I’ll share at the end) or major inconsistencies in its presentation. Screen tearing is a constant, and it can feel like motion blur in a sprite-based game whenever your character is running or biking around the map. Even in Performance Mode I couldn’t find a way to stop it so look out for that or see if you can find a way around it. Battles also, while they try to emulate the style of Generation 5, aren’t quite there. It can feel very inconsistent on whether a Pokemon’s sprite moves when it’s in battle, as some of the sprites move while others are stuck still. Any attempts at backgrounds are shockingly poor; they try harder to be actual backgrounds than Generation 5, but they have the feeling of taking photographs of sprite art and blurring them before placing them on. As if they were halfway committing to something new but also not fully wanting to abandon the more abstract backgrounds from Gen 5.
I mentioned before that some of the Fakemon were well-designed for what they were but there’s plenty that doesn’t apply toward. Pajay just looks like budget Ho-Oh. Terlard’s battle sprite when using it just looks like two Charizard heads attached together. And the new evolutions feel jarringly at odds with the original visions. The Uranium developers couldn’t have known this at the time, but when Primeape and Dunsparce got new evolutions in Generation 9, they felt perfectly right with the vision and inspiration of the original designs. Dunseraph in Uranium feels completely disconnected from Dunsparce itself on a pure concept design level, which is something I can’t say for the new evolutions for old mons added in Generation 4.
HM moves were always just situational progression blockers, but Uranium doesn’t do as much as it could to take advantage of them. Strength and Surf work as you’d expect; there’s even a few Strength puzzles near the end of the game to have you think a bit, but Rock Smash loses any sort of relevance very quickly after breaking a progression blocker, Dive is used to pass through a single blocker in the main game and nothing else, while Fly, even beyond how late you get it, can only take you to one side of the region or another. Meaning you’ll either have to Surf a bit of distance to get to the other side or pay a bit of currency every time you want to come over. It feels like a clunky tech oversight, compared to mainline Pokemon organizing the entirety of a single region on one map.
For something with both pros and cons: Nuclear Pokemon! They essentially looked at the Shadow Pokemon from Pokemon XD and decided to turn them from tanks into glass cannons. Every Nuclear attack is super effective on every type except Nuclear and Steel, but they’re also weak to every type. It’s an interesting way of punishing you for using Dual Type mons in your team for more type coverage, as it’s likely a single Nuclear attack would do 4X the amount of damage. It’s interesting, and it does help with the game’s honestly rather questionable level curving in the second half, but it also entirely comes down to a speed advantage. If a Nuclear Pokemon goes first and has a high enough attack, it likely kills, but if it's too weak to one shot for any reason, it’ll likely die in a single turn. On your end, this limits their utility without enough grinding, but the game’s main villain, Apocalypse CURIE, has an entire team of these, and will likely hold major level advantages, and therefore speed, if you don’t extensively grind. Which brings up the story itself.
If there’s one constant among many Pokemon stories, it’s the sense of escalation; often you’re going from catching small rats and racoons to defeating entire organizations of domestic terrorists trying to tame the power of God and anime on their side. But in Pokemon Uranium it sort of feels like the heavier plot is tossed off to the side while you go about the standard Gym badge journey. It’s not like in say, Generation 4, where Team Galactic happened to be occupying buildings within and around the major towns. A lot of the key story moments boat you away from the world to power plant islands, two of which hold dungeons with some atmosphere to them, even as the second one puts you in a suit where you have to slowly walk and repels don’t work to stave away random encounters. Some of the only times the plot takes place within the core world itself involves a two-time subplot involving scheming scientists and Garlikid, a Pokemon that really shouldn’t be. The single corniest thing this game’s story does is in this subplot. They introduce a translator device that lets you hear what Pokemon are saying, since until the ending it mostly comes down to “annihilate, kill, kill, human injustice, why am I trapped in a tiny ball.” It’s not endearingly goofy like some of the NPC dialogue ends up being, it’s just cringe, flat out and reminds me why Game Freak wisely stayed away from having the pets communicate their own abuse.
Disconnection from the world aside though, the Apocalypse CURIE encounters are some of the game’s more memorable moments. The twist regarding them is perhaps the most obvious of all time in the history of anything, but their existence in the story with their 12-year-old edgelord dialogue leads into some climatic battles.
But I should asterisk this as another instance where decisions made regarding said encounters would in absolutely no way fly in an officially released product. The first battle with CURIE is behind a door with a timer where you have to reach them in time, or else. The game does warn you about something big being behind this door, but if you save past the door and your team isn’t prepared, the time limit actively prevents grinding, and your file is screwed. Then there’s another encounter at the very end of the game with a Level 85 Legendary to contend with, 15 levels higher than the Elite Four. Its Nuclear type would make it extra vulnerable if not for its insane level jump compared to what’s likely your party at the time giving it speed priority. Losing this battle gives you a non-standard ending without an instant Pokemon Center warp. Meaning, if you decided to save at any point passed the Elite Four entrance, and it’s impossible to win with your current team and item setup, your file is screwed, FOREVER. It’s possible in one way to do even with a lower-level team (Focus Sash + Thunder Wave= likely win) but still, I have no idea how that got through. If you can make it through, the ending itself is overall a pleasant enough way to close out, accompanied by a strong somber music track.
Pokemon Uranium is a mixed bag, some genuinely thoughtful game design inclusions and a decently amount of creativity hurt by technical inconsistencies and overly strenuous market unfriendly design at points, but it reflects the kind of passion fangame creators provide out of love and appreciation for the accomplishments of a series, even if it can be misguided. I’m curious to check out other full on fangames in the future to see if they’ve better balanced those sensibilities, but for now, I’ll leave off by sharing some of the absolutely incredible dialogue contained within this game:
“Okay, listen: How do you get 50 Pikachu on a bus? You poke’em on! Haha, geddit?”
“Mom just doesn’t understand why I hate sand. It’s coarse, and rough…and it gets everywhere!”
(yes they did just reference a prequel meme)
“I love playing video games. Pokemon’s a really fun one. Wanna play?”
“Hey n00b! Wanna see my 1337 skills? Let’s fight!”
“Lololol im a grrrrl gamer! Y aim a girl and I play video gamezzz! o3o.”
“KILL THE INTRUDER CRUSH DESTROY KILL” (from a Pokemon)
“You may know me as Cameron Caine, engineer, private contractor, and father. However, this is not the truth about who I am. My real name is Cameron Stormbringer.”
Thank Arceus! (used as a sub for Thank God because Pokemon god)
HOLY SHINX! (obvious expletive)
A sign saying “Wow, you found this place, good job.”
“I can’t believe it… you SAVED the day. I knew you could SAVE us. …Why am I shouting SAVE you ask? Well… I just think it’s a good idea to SAVE things!” (helpful but still goofy as heck)
“I’M JUST SO HAPPY TO SEE MY FAMILY AGAIN!! sniffle”
I think the existence of fan games, particularly ones on this level of scale, can be fascinating. When created out of love, they can feel like a fan’s attempt to get more of the specific product they really adore, but they also tend to represent what said fans believe the genuine article had been lacking so they can fill what they perceive as a hole the series left in their hearts themselves.
Anyone can write a fanfiction, but creating a full on GAME to contain that writing actually takes another level of skill, and yet another level beyond that to have said game design feel even slightly like an officially released product. There’s been plenty of horrendously misguided fan games over the years (such dreck as Hunt Down the Freeman and Sonic Omens spring to mind) but I think Pokemon Uranium, despite its amateurish execution in places, is an interesting case that shows how far passion can go when trying to fill a void.
It probably further helps that mainline Pokemon, for years, has been a series of very low-tech games holding the kind of longstanding legacy where game mechanic concepts are constantly being changed on a micro level despite the macro concept being a constant. Thus, Pokemon Uranium brings a Generation 4 overworld with Generation 5 battle UI and Generation 6 battle mechanics.
You know you’re getting into a fan game story very fast when just starting the game shows you the heartbreaking story of your character’s mother dying in a power plant explosion and their father, a Pokemon Ranger, became cold and distant from you. After this introduction though, things mellow out and a lot of what you would expect to be in working order falls right into place.
Most of Uranium plays as you would expect from a sprite based Pokemon game. Explore a region, battle trainers along the way by making eye contact, defeat 8 gym leaders to collect badges to challenge the League to become champion, use HMs to gradually explore the world they couldn’t before, basic stuff. But there’s an admirable level of commitment in many spots. The game has a full day/night cycle it tracks with your computer. There’s over 100 original “fakemons” in this, and while it does make the arbitrary amount of true Pokemon stick out like a sore thumb, a fair amount of the designs do veer close to the mix of cutesy charm and anime cool Ken Sugimori has really refined over the years, in particular with Pokemon like the starter trio, the many Bug type variants, Urayne as a box Legendary and especially Nucleon, which fits right in with the other Eeveelutions present. I like that Uranium decides to make Double Battles take occasional prominence after the main series has shunted them out for years; they offer a level of additional planning without the gimmickier styles tested in Generation 5. The Elite Four is structured more like the anime, where it’s arena battles between randomly pooled opponents in a tournament bracket where neither side can heal, and that was a very distinct addition. There’s a Game Corner, you can rematch numerous trainers if they call you, there’s a sidequest where if you complete it, you get free grinding spots which is extremely helpful, one of the towns has a berry trading economy in lieu of a shop which is another standout moment feature that fits, and Legen Town’s aesthetic of feeling like it takes place inside a medieval castle made it a pretty memorable town. There’s a minigame to raise IVs if you’re into that stuff, and as a game it will offer more of a challenge even in a standard run than any of the mainlines. The original music is quite impressive for a fangame. It can be very rocking at times, but it can also be quite cozy in other places, with the use of synthesizers working well to punctuate the game’s original creation in Nuclear Pokemon.
That being said, despite all these nice touches, there are other aspects that feel noticeably undercooked, or straight up unpolished to the level you’d expect if this was an actually released title. Sometimes, it’s an imperceptible feeling, like when it feels as though wild encounters happen just slightly more often than they should, or that moves with status effects activate slightly more often than they should. Other times, it’s the many lines of comically corny dialogue (which I’ll share at the end) or major inconsistencies in its presentation. Screen tearing is a constant, and it can feel like motion blur in a sprite-based game whenever your character is running or biking around the map. Even in Performance Mode I couldn’t find a way to stop it so look out for that or see if you can find a way around it. Battles also, while they try to emulate the style of Generation 5, aren’t quite there. It can feel very inconsistent on whether a Pokemon’s sprite moves when it’s in battle, as some of the sprites move while others are stuck still. Any attempts at backgrounds are shockingly poor; they try harder to be actual backgrounds than Generation 5, but they have the feeling of taking photographs of sprite art and blurring them before placing them on. As if they were halfway committing to something new but also not fully wanting to abandon the more abstract backgrounds from Gen 5.
I mentioned before that some of the Fakemon were well-designed for what they were but there’s plenty that doesn’t apply toward. Pajay just looks like budget Ho-Oh. Terlard’s battle sprite when using it just looks like two Charizard heads attached together. And the new evolutions feel jarringly at odds with the original visions. The Uranium developers couldn’t have known this at the time, but when Primeape and Dunsparce got new evolutions in Generation 9, they felt perfectly right with the vision and inspiration of the original designs. Dunseraph in Uranium feels completely disconnected from Dunsparce itself on a pure concept design level, which is something I can’t say for the new evolutions for old mons added in Generation 4.
HM moves were always just situational progression blockers, but Uranium doesn’t do as much as it could to take advantage of them. Strength and Surf work as you’d expect; there’s even a few Strength puzzles near the end of the game to have you think a bit, but Rock Smash loses any sort of relevance very quickly after breaking a progression blocker, Dive is used to pass through a single blocker in the main game and nothing else, while Fly, even beyond how late you get it, can only take you to one side of the region or another. Meaning you’ll either have to Surf a bit of distance to get to the other side or pay a bit of currency every time you want to come over. It feels like a clunky tech oversight, compared to mainline Pokemon organizing the entirety of a single region on one map.
For something with both pros and cons: Nuclear Pokemon! They essentially looked at the Shadow Pokemon from Pokemon XD and decided to turn them from tanks into glass cannons. Every Nuclear attack is super effective on every type except Nuclear and Steel, but they’re also weak to every type. It’s an interesting way of punishing you for using Dual Type mons in your team for more type coverage, as it’s likely a single Nuclear attack would do 4X the amount of damage. It’s interesting, and it does help with the game’s honestly rather questionable level curving in the second half, but it also entirely comes down to a speed advantage. If a Nuclear Pokemon goes first and has a high enough attack, it likely kills, but if it's too weak to one shot for any reason, it’ll likely die in a single turn. On your end, this limits their utility without enough grinding, but the game’s main villain, Apocalypse CURIE, has an entire team of these, and will likely hold major level advantages, and therefore speed, if you don’t extensively grind. Which brings up the story itself.
If there’s one constant among many Pokemon stories, it’s the sense of escalation; often you’re going from catching small rats and racoons to defeating entire organizations of domestic terrorists trying to tame the power of God and anime on their side. But in Pokemon Uranium it sort of feels like the heavier plot is tossed off to the side while you go about the standard Gym badge journey. It’s not like in say, Generation 4, where Team Galactic happened to be occupying buildings within and around the major towns. A lot of the key story moments boat you away from the world to power plant islands, two of which hold dungeons with some atmosphere to them, even as the second one puts you in a suit where you have to slowly walk and repels don’t work to stave away random encounters. Some of the only times the plot takes place within the core world itself involves a two-time subplot involving scheming scientists and Garlikid, a Pokemon that really shouldn’t be. The single corniest thing this game’s story does is in this subplot. They introduce a translator device that lets you hear what Pokemon are saying, since until the ending it mostly comes down to “annihilate, kill, kill, human injustice, why am I trapped in a tiny ball.” It’s not endearingly goofy like some of the NPC dialogue ends up being, it’s just cringe, flat out and reminds me why Game Freak wisely stayed away from having the pets communicate their own abuse.
Disconnection from the world aside though, the Apocalypse CURIE encounters are some of the game’s more memorable moments. The twist regarding them is perhaps the most obvious of all time in the history of anything, but their existence in the story with their 12-year-old edgelord dialogue leads into some climatic battles.
But I should asterisk this as another instance where decisions made regarding said encounters would in absolutely no way fly in an officially released product. The first battle with CURIE is behind a door with a timer where you have to reach them in time, or else. The game does warn you about something big being behind this door, but if you save past the door and your team isn’t prepared, the time limit actively prevents grinding, and your file is screwed. Then there’s another encounter at the very end of the game with a Level 85 Legendary to contend with, 15 levels higher than the Elite Four. Its Nuclear type would make it extra vulnerable if not for its insane level jump compared to what’s likely your party at the time giving it speed priority. Losing this battle gives you a non-standard ending without an instant Pokemon Center warp. Meaning, if you decided to save at any point passed the Elite Four entrance, and it’s impossible to win with your current team and item setup, your file is screwed, FOREVER. It’s possible in one way to do even with a lower-level team (Focus Sash + Thunder Wave= likely win) but still, I have no idea how that got through. If you can make it through, the ending itself is overall a pleasant enough way to close out, accompanied by a strong somber music track.
Pokemon Uranium is a mixed bag, some genuinely thoughtful game design inclusions and a decently amount of creativity hurt by technical inconsistencies and overly strenuous market unfriendly design at points, but it reflects the kind of passion fangame creators provide out of love and appreciation for the accomplishments of a series, even if it can be misguided. I’m curious to check out other full on fangames in the future to see if they’ve better balanced those sensibilities, but for now, I’ll leave off by sharing some of the absolutely incredible dialogue contained within this game:
“Okay, listen: How do you get 50 Pikachu on a bus? You poke’em on! Haha, geddit?”
“Mom just doesn’t understand why I hate sand. It’s coarse, and rough…and it gets everywhere!”
(yes they did just reference a prequel meme)
“I love playing video games. Pokemon’s a really fun one. Wanna play?”
“Hey n00b! Wanna see my 1337 skills? Let’s fight!”
“Lololol im a grrrrl gamer! Y aim a girl and I play video gamezzz! o3o.”
“KILL THE INTRUDER CRUSH DESTROY KILL” (from a Pokemon)
“You may know me as Cameron Caine, engineer, private contractor, and father. However, this is not the truth about who I am. My real name is Cameron Stormbringer.”
Thank Arceus! (used as a sub for Thank God because Pokemon god)
HOLY SHINX! (obvious expletive)
A sign saying “Wow, you found this place, good job.”
“I can’t believe it… you SAVED the day. I knew you could SAVE us. …Why am I shouting SAVE you ask? Well… I just think it’s a good idea to SAVE things!” (helpful but still goofy as heck)
“I’M JUST SO HAPPY TO SEE MY FAMILY AGAIN!! sniffle”