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Have
you ever wanted something similar to the games you’ve played, but not quite the
same? Have you ever found yourself longing for a story in a series that usually
prioritizes gameplay over story? Or do you just want something fresh from a
series that feels like it’s starting to stagnate?
Pokemon
Ruby Destiny is a series of hacks by someone named “destinedjagold”. The games
consist of: Reign of Legends, Rescue Rangers, and Life of Guardians. These
three games are set in new regions, with new stories and characters. They also
implement Pokemon introduced after Generation 3, as well as “Fakemon”, unique
fan-made Pokemon. This review will focus on Life of Guardians, the third game
in the series; it’s the only one I’ve beaten at the time of this review.
Story
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| Yay for Redundancy! |
Life
of Guardians (which I’ll refer to as LoG from now on) is set in a region called
Hevah. The player is a young boy or girl who wishes to become a Guardian
Trainer, but doesn’t know what one is, or how to become one. He/she and their
best friend Kevin find themselves caught up with the Dark Organization when
they try to steal a shaman’s Pokemon; it is from here that you choose your
starter and set out on a journey.
Though
the story is more interesting than in the official games, I can’t help but feel
it has a lot of missed potential. The two evil teams are the Dark Organization
and Team Earth. The former appears at first to be bent on taking control of
Hevah, while Team Earth is similar in concept to Team Plasma. Both are good in
concept, but could have been fleshed out a little more. More background and
buildup should have been given to all of these characters and their motives,
but they fall short.
The
game also introduces story-branching, which allows you to join the Pokemon
Rangers (basically the Hevah equivalent of cops), or Team Earth. There’s also a
neutral route that lets you ignore them both and collect the rest of the
Elemental Symbols… but the end of the game turns out the same no matter what route
you take! The only difference is that each route gets its own specific
legendary. Again, this is massive missed potential. Both the good and the evil
routes should have been longer, with more character development for the
protagonist (who is not completely silent and has occasional monologues). The
branch between plotlines should have also been smoothened a little; one of the
routes has the protagonist basically doing a 180 on their prior personality for
a little while. The ending also feels like it was rushed; the main villain
should have been given MUCH more exposition than what is presented in game. If
it’s one thing I can give the game credit for, however, it’s that the story is
certainly darker than typical Pokemon game. And don’t get me wrong, the story’s
still much better than what Nintendo can make nowadays… it’s just got unused
potential due to the concepts used.
Gameplay
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| Nice Dino-Dragon you got there. |
Like
I said earlier, the hack brings you to a new region with new characters and
more recent Pokemon implemented. Pokemon from Generations 4 and 5 have been
added, and work similarly to how they were in their respective games. However,
some Pokemon have been hampered by the fact that Generation 3 predated the
Physical/Special Split (in which the offensive stat used by an attack now
depended on the attack itself, rather than the type it was). Luxray in
particular was hit somewhat hard; its STAB attacks don’t utilize its stronger
Physical Attack stat because they’re Electric type.
Structurally,
the game is still very similar to the official games. You collect badges
(symbols in this game) and fight against the evil teams in the region. However,
due to plot reasons, you’re forced to backtrack. A LOT. And you don’t have
access to Fly until near the end of the game. The running around gets tedious
and adds unnecessary time to the game. The hacker of this game should have
reprogrammed the badge mechanics to allow you to use Fly earlier in the game to
cut out the backtracking. Fortunately, LoG implements these triangle-like
stones into the game that you can talk to get a hint as to where to go next;
you’ll rarely (if ever) get lost.
Also
new to this hack is the high difficulty curve. Because LoG was meant to be the
last game in the Ruby Destiny series (it’s not now that a new game by the name
of Broken Timelines is being developed), it was made much harder as a result.
Throughout the game, you’re given barely any money from trainer battles, so you
can’t use healing items for the early part of the game. All this encourages is
backtracking to Pokemon Centers since they’re free, or excessive grinding to
ensure you won’t need those healing items. On top of that, the levels of
trainer Pokemon are higher, and the AI is smarter. By smarter, I mean just
about everyone SPAMS Double Team. And once you’re floundering around helplessly
unable to hit your foe, they’ll buff themselves and sweep your team with
impunity. It’s annoying, and it’s not real difficulty. There are certainly ways
to make the game harder so players get more strategic… but Double Team spam and
sheer outleveling are not those ways.
Speaking
of the level curve, the jump at end of the game is RIDICULOUS. Your Pokemon
should, on average, be in the high 40’s to early 50’s. The final bosses? All
level 80. Unless you want to grind
for a good few hours, you better have something that can bypass this
“challenge” completely (coughcoughLaprascoughcough). This game also doesn’t use
the traditional Elite Four setup. Instead, you’re forced to fight 17 Masters,
one for each type. Their Pokemon are just as high-leveled, but thankfully,
you’re allowed to challenge them in any order and there’s a nurse in the center
of the area that will heal your Pokemon a maximum of 3 times.
While
the gameplay has its issues, the region is certainly more open ended and
encourages exploration. There’s also a lot of legendary Pokemon to catch, sidequests to take on, and if you're so inclined, seeing the alternate story paths is still interesting enough to warrant another playthrough. The post-game has its own storyline, which is
already far better than what the official titles have come up with.
Graphics
and other Technical Aspects
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| ...Ok...? Kinda freaky and cool at the same time. |
LoG
mainly uses assets from Ruby and Sapphire. While this is fine for the most
part, other hackers have gone out of their way to implement assets from future
games into their own hacks, making LoG look a little outdated. The sprites from
Gen 4 and 5 Pokemon were implemented quite well, and most of the Fakemon look
good.
The
hack also implemented features that weren’t in Ruby and Sapphire, which I find
quite impressive. There’s a part of the region with snow, and since it’s so
cold there, you’re forced to find a scarf to stay warm or else you’ll be
randomly frozen when you walk through patches of grass. The sidequests
implemented are simple, but were also something absent from mainline Pokemon
games.
On
the other hand, there are various grammatical errors throughout the game’s
script. While it’s something I can’t really fault the creators for since it’s a
hack and not an official Pokemon game, the errors still bother me a little.
Music
Most
of LoG’s soundtrack was taken from other games. Admittedly, they did a very
good job remixing some of the songs used into a GBA format. We have songs like
Simple and Clean from the Kingdom Hearts series, Lost Woods from Ocarina of
Time, and the victory theme from Chrono Cross.
Length
The
game’s length can vary quite a bit. I clocked in 30 hours by the end of the
game, but a good chunk of that time was spent grinding using the speed up
feature in VisualBoy Advance. There’s quite a bit to do, so it should still be
longer than an official Pokemon game either way.
Verdict:
7.8/10
Pros:
- Interesting concepts in the story
- Implements new Pokemon quite well
- Region is open ended and there are sidequests
- Story Branching is a unique idea, though more could have been done with how each route ended
- Music is pretty good
- There’s a lot to do in post-game
Cons:
- Uses cheap tactics to increase difficulty
- Story has a lot of wasted potential
- Grammatical errors present in text
- Too much backtracking
Overall,
LoG is still a very good hack worth checking out. However, it’s rough around
the edges. There are very neat ideas, but they weren’t executed as well as they
could have been. Hopefully, some of the concepts like story-branching return in
destinedjagold’s next installment with big improvements. Regardless of the
flaws though, I still had fun. And I think anyone wanting to get into hacks
should try this one out too.
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