Over the past month, I've gone down the ROM hack rabbit hole, playing over a dozen fan-made titles in order to curate a list of some of the most fascinating Pokémon games I've ever played - official or otherwise. Some don't even attempt authenticity, favoring puerile humor, violence or frequent nudity instead. Some are exceptional recreations of a true, full Pokémon experience. Some are loaded onto actual Game Boy Advance cartridges, and bootlegged to unwitting consumers. Dozens, if not hundreds, of these games can be found online for free. Since the early 2000s, fans with the knowhow, software and artistic ability to do so have been creating unofficial Pokémon games in the form of ROM hacks. To even attempt high-level competitive play requires hundreds of hours of breeding, battling and pure, dumb luck.ĭespite the truly gargantuan amount of time demanded by the core series, there are fans who demand more - and fans who create more. To fully complete a PokeDex in Pokémon X and Y, you have to collect over 700 discrete monsters, either through catching, trading, evolving, transferring from previous installments or obtaining from timed Wi-Fi or real-world events. That tenacity is built into the franchise's very nature. The Pokémon-playing community has proven to be one of the most industrious groups of fans this industry has ever seen. One to keep an eye on.Not only have you not caught them all - you haven't even played them all. There's nothing on how it will really play, and there have been countless attempts at the Pokémon formula in the past. You also seem to be able to float around using umbrellas, and swing around as if you were Spider-Man.
There's a long stretch of gameplay set in a city, but also snatches of a snowy mountainside and rocky beaches showing more variety to DokeV's world. It's also unclear exactly how battles will work - they look real-time, with items and weaponry seemingly summoned out of thin air. I'm less impressed by its monsters - a collection of oddball creatures which in turn look like animals, robots or piñatas. It's difficult not to be impressed by the visual flair and ambition on-screen, as characters run, ride, glide and drive around its beautiful world. ORIGINAL STORY 25/8/21: Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss has shown more of DokeV, its upcoming and extremely eye-catching monster collection MMO, as part of Gamescom's Opening Night Live.