for the first 6 or so badges altered is basically just firered with a bunch of excellently designed type swaps, and i was prepared to recommend it as a simple, fun concept, but it’s that last quarter of the game that really tanked my enjoyment.
after badge 6, the game has several rapid level spikes and starts giving the enemies a complete excess of items, making this simple firered reskin unnecessarily long and grueling. it culminates in the victory road from hell where every random trainer has 5 pokemon and healing items and the final trainers in the route jump from ~54 straight to a level 60 6 pokemon double battle with numerous healing items. this is then only a taste of the elite 4 and champion who have yet another level jump and ridiculous stalling strategies where i was just begging for the game to finally be over. the game has an official hard mode in a separate hack so i question why this completely out of place spike in tedium is here when to even reach this point i’ve already long since opted out of a “hard” mode. if this was changed to just be a good old firered with a new dex and some map changes, easy 3.5-4/5 experience but as is i cannot recommend this game beyond just looking at the sprites online