Pokemon ROM Hack Review #3: Rijon Adventures
NuMetalManiak And so I finally conclude my trek through Koolboyman's rom hacks with Rijon Adventures, a ROM hack for Fire Red, like Prism it was cut short due to a cease and desist but brought back in an unfinished state due to a leak. Essentially speaking it's pretty much like how Fire Red is to Red, Rijon Adventures is pretty much a recreation of Brown in Gen-3 style.So the premise is the same, except different, but STILL same. The classic "get starters, battle 8 gym leaders while catching Pokemon, defeat League" thing is in effect, and players who've played Brown will know what to expect overall. Since it's apparently a "generational" game in more ways than one, we'll be controlling the son/daughter of the previous protagonist (who for some reason is Red and not Brown). Meanwhile the main professor is a female named Jen, who's technically an assistant to Professor Tim from Brown (Tim is in Goldenrod City here working on some large router that has no functionality in game). Jen is also the aunt of the game's rival, who's the son of Green (this is supposed to be the son of Mura, who was a rival you couldn't name in Brown, also in Pokemon canon Green was a FEMALE).
There's really not a whole lot of differences from Brown to note. It's a Gen-3 game, so it will have any and all Pokemon from that Gen and previous ones, but nothing from newer gens (no Leafeon or Glaceon or other evolutions available). All of Fire Red's HMs and TMs are in effect, as well as all moves that originated in Gen-3 and backwards. Sadly no Trade Stone can be acquired at all. The in-game music is mostly similar to Emerald's. Many of the gym leader and Elite Four models in this game are recycled from Fire Red's (and a few from R/S/E). Notably a guy named Ronan is the eighth gym leader, replacing Giovanni, while Sparky has a son named Scott who's the third gym leader and Joe has a last name, Reed, a dead wife named Evelyn, and a son named Edward Reed who's the seventh gym leader. Only Karpman seems to be the only unique character model. There is a very small plot involving Team Rocket, but it's fairly marginal and the team never had any sort of prevalence in Brown anyways. Finally there's barely any post-game content, as it is in an unfinished state. You're supposed to go to South Rijon with a National Pass but it's considered invalid sadly.
So overall Rijon Adventures isn't as good as Brown, since I really was looking forward to mostly new features and such, in the end we got a mostly basic Gen-3 ROM hack that has a few interesting things but basically follows the same formula as its predecessor. Sure, you can catch way more mons than in Fire Red, but eh. Grade: C+
My endgame team: Vaporeon, Umbreon, Espeon, Ampharos, Typhlosion, Primeape