#I'll probably do some more intricate fan art sometime soon

[millieduboisart]

A few lil scribbles as I rewatch Sailor Moon season one with my sister, @sailormoonsub

[doubleddenden]

Rather than sleep, I'm gonna talk about a Pokémon fan game I recently beat:

Realidea System

Like Opalo, it's another Spanish fan game, this one focusing more on aesthetics and mechanics with a little less under the hood in terms of new Pokémon, but still having a lot to offer story wise and game wise.

Spoiler, 8/10 for the good stuff, but a point docked off for incomplete translations and just a tad too many mini game issues.

More under the cut

So Realidea System came out around September I think, and the main you'll see right away is a gorgeous art style with bright colors and very intricate tiles. Every location looks cozy af or scary where appropriate, and it has a ton of different aesthetics that it works very well with for each.

Also, unlike most fan games, there's talk portraits for the story that help convey who is talking and the emotion conveyed- this is actually very pleasant tbh, and there's a lot of good designs you can better appreciate due to it. Tbh I have issues reading, and sometimes it's hard to tell who is talking via text alone. This actually helped me a lot more than the creator probably intended, but it's something I'm still thankful for.

The sprite work, what's made for the game anyway, also looks very good and has a unique but simplistic style with eye catching shading and colors. I'm actually pretty jealous of it and sort of taking notes from it, because there's not a lot of the same style of shading as the gen 5 or 4 sprites, but the style still works in its own way. I'd almost compare it to a 2d cell shading style, but idk if that's accurate? I like it, I'll say that. Not to mention that there's a lot of fun Overworld sprites that convey just as much if not a tad more emotion than the portraits.

The sprite work also extends to fakemon. Now I am a little bit disappointed that there were so little new Pokémon to experiment with, I'm not gonna lie. There's the starters, a legendary, and... about 5 or 6 variants. That's it. However, obviously they went with Quality over Quantity, which I can respect. Each of these are really well designed and excellently sprited, and most importantly fun to use! I chose the water starter, and it's ability and 2 signature moves are really fun in a fight and can potentially let it sweep.

Continuing off of this, to make up for the lack of new Pokémon, there's obviously a huge variety of old Pokémon to choose from, including lots of starters such as Chikorita and Rowlett. Megas also make a return, and some regional variants appear too.

Now on the technical aspect, there's a lot of cool shit under the hood, mainly the Realidea System that is the heart of the game's story. What this does is replace the HM mechanics (hallelujah), such as the Fly mechanic, which is now Teleport (although it functions exactly like Fly), and Surf, which now just happens as soon as you touch the water without any prompt needed.

The RS also comes with a couple extras that require certain points attained from using items on your pokemon or just generally bonding with them. Some of these include a repel system that repels as many steps as you use, a heal system that basically functions as a Pokémon Center, and an automatic level up feature that functions as a Rare Candy. The last two were actually very helpful for my journey and filling out the dex.

Outside of the RS there's codes you can put in at the Pokémon Center to sort of help with grinding, which can exist if you want or just completely bypass it by changing the levels of any Pokémon in your party up to the highest level in your team (be mindful that this will not trigger evolution, the Level Up feature will tho). Honestly, it feels dirty, but I actually do like this feature just so I can keep everyone around the same level. The EXP all works in conjunction with this btw, about like the Switch games function without making the game too easy. Basically all of this is to ensure you can just catch a new little guy and bam, he's already caught up, and grinding just isn't a thing anymore, so you can just be on your happy little way.

You can also remember moves on your own from the party menu, which honestly is just very helpful and makes it so you don't miss any by using the level up trick. If you're so inclined, you can also change the nature's of your pokemon via 3 heart scales from the party menu.

Basically a lot of tedious bs is completely ironed out, letting the game be fun without too many hold ups beyond a puzzle.

But speaking of puzzles... good lord there's a lot of mini games. Mind you they're doable, but a lot are kind of trial and error, especially the ones that require the ability to read and understand Spanish. You may think "oh just Google translate," and you'd be correct in assuming that does help with a good portion. But I'm not lying when I say that there's a section dedicated entirely to PUNS. It was fucking hilarious just trying to guess what's going on, but also frustrating. Even without the Spanish though, the rhythm games kill me.

The translation is also just not complete. I'd say 70% complete, because you still get bits of Spanish in normal gameplay and a good many puzzles are only instructed in Spanish. Not to mention the journals are ALL Spanish, so i had to have some friends help me read it. What is finished is about 95% decent though, with only a small handfuls of grammatical errors or odd translations, so kudos for that.

Now, characters and story. The story is about standard fair for a normal Pokémon game, but there are some interesting twists here and there. In cooperation with gorgeous visuals and art, the story is told pretty well and is really immersive. The characters too are also very entertaining and hilarious, and also have a fair bit of depth. I have to say I found myself attached to Elliot, Owen, and Alba, which is very strange since I'm usually not one for rivals or Lilly type characters. There are some groan worthy moments, cliche bits, or some not so ideal things done, but I do think it's a passion project someone put a lot of heart and soul put in.

Oh, and this game is hilarious. Check everything that looks interactive and you'll see what I mean.

Oh oh, there's also a very well managed side quest system. Tons of side Quests pop up and are easily found in the overworld, so that's a bonus if you're like me and hate having to hunt a specific NPC.

Lastly, the music: i believe the music is mostly original, which is amazing because every town and route sound magical in some way, and the original trainer themes are very, very good. When I say prepare yourself for the champion, I mean that in so many ways but ESPECIALLY the music. My one grief is yet again the reuse of the BW gym theme. I think it's okay, but I was really hoping for something original. But what is here is awesome.

Overall it's a fun time and a lot of effort went into this. There's a lot of fun poked at the series (especially towards Kanto) and the entire game feels like a fun adventure. I hope to see another project by this dev, maybe with more fakemon? Please? That's my favorite part of playing fan games.

Anyway, 8/10