enmity's hideout

I think to sum up my opinion of Pokemon Quarantine Crystal, it's that it's a game that makes you want to replay the whole thing the moment you reach your definition of what a 'milestone' it is for the game. It's quite a creative project, with every single 'mon replaced by completely original fakemon with distinct designs and great spritework.

It's a challenging game, definitely harder than vanilla Crystal, but (assuming you're playing on the default settings, which I don't) its difficulty curve, in my opinion, is based around every NPC boss having a certain strategy that, with some trial and error, can be blown apart without necessarily having to completely rework your entire team in the process like a good amount of dedicated difficulty hacks would. Which brings me to the next point (or maybe the first point) - every fakemon line is viable and good. The game has been extensively tested to ensure you can put whatever you want in your party for any reason ('the design looks cool' / 'I like the colours' / 'their typing in interesting') and not suffer too badly for it, even when you're carrying that early game squad all the way to the League.

The boss battles in this game are fun. They're hard, but they reward trial and error and formulating strategies when you're at a disadvantage in able to overcome it. Yet another reason that I feel like I never want the Johto gym challenge to end whenever I play the game.

Although the game's focus isn't on difficulty, there are a few enhancements and quality of life elements incorporated, like eggs spawning faster in the day-care and eggs containing a shiny pokemon being shaded purple in the party menu instead of the usual brown. Mostly the QoL changes are just stuff that make your life a little easier, such as HMs being reworked to be less obstrusive, and nothing much more drastic than that.

Another thing I need to say about Qdex - the most important thing, actually - is that it's a game that rewards patience, exploration, talking to NPCs for flavour text or otherwise, and liberal use of the dowsing machine. So play the game on your own pace, the way you probably would have played when you were younger and got hold of one of the older games and had no sort of manual (or the speedup button) to cling to whatsoever, making you discover things all on your own, sometimes by diligent backtracking or pure absurd luck.

I would share some screenshots here (...just my team tbh), but in the official sites I linked above there should be many screenshots showing off what the game has to offer. I definitely recommend this hack.

Meanwhile it's been 2 years since I played Final Fantasy Tactics. I played the regular version before; loved it. Can probably find a ton of writeups about its strengths and weaknesses and analysis of its plot and themes without having to throw a rock any farther than arms' length. But after I decided I was finished with the vanilla game I played it again, immediately, but this time a romhack of it where all the classes and items have been completely changed with FUN being put over balancing and viability - which I totally was on board for. It's very amusing and charming to make your recruited troops have classes like "maid" or "butler" ... who kill vampires as a side job (subclass). And many other ridiculously charming ideas.

You can find all the information you need to play Celdia's Complete Patch here.