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pkmn-fangamer · 5 years ago

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Pokémon Uranium Review

Intro:

Enjoy the region of Tandor, with over 150 new original species of Pokémon, complex characters, and many secrets to discover. Become Champion, complete the Pokédex, and beat the many challenge modes available; it’s time to prove your worth as a trainer! Pokémon Uranium, at its core, is a homage to the original Pokémon games, which have been in the hearts of many of us since childhood. Coupled with a serious storyline and slightly harder gameplay, this fangame is aimed towards a slightly older audience: one that often remembers Pokémon with nostalgia.

How to Play:

Go to Pokemon Uranium’s Reddit here, which gives several download options and further instructions.

Story:

-Light spoilers below-

The story of this game is unique and interesting. For the most part it is strongest at the beginning and the end of the game, though it’s not particularly weak in the middle. There is a cut scene at the beginning of the game in which your mother is working as a scientist at a nuclear power plant, where she disappears during an accidental nuclear meltdown. Your dad, Ranger Kellyn, originally from the Almia region, is struck with grief, and becomes obsessed with his work as a ranger. You, the main character, are forced to live with your elderly Aunt, and later become a Pokemon trainer and assistant to the local professor to financially relieve her.

If you find the above summary of your first fifteen minutes of game play intriguing, you’ll probably enjoy the plot of Pokemon Uranium immensely. I certainly did- the game’s story mostly took itself seriously, getting dark in a few places without getting too edgy.

The biggest difference between main series games’ plot and Uranium is the lack of your average evil team. The enemy in this game is both physical and philosophical. I’ll only get into it partially, so I don’t spoil it too badly. The main enemy are Nuclear-type Pokemon, and whoever/whatever is causing the meltdowns of nuclear plants across the region. But these plants were obviously created by humans, and in turn Nuclear-type Pokemon are also in way man-made. Nuclear Pokemon may be the obvious enemy in this game, but the human perspective is also lightly explored, and for this I was glad.

This is also the first fan game I’ve played through in a while with genuinely interesting characters. Your rival is a bratty child at first but matures and develops as a person by the end, for example. Additionally, your absentee father may seem distant and uninvolved in your life at first, but eventually you grow closer to him too, as you battle Nuclear Pokemon alongside each other. Many of the gym leaders are also interesting past their gimmick, and are encountered not just in their gyms, but are also present in another part of the game that you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Score: 9/10

Pokemon:

The Pokedex of this game contains exactly 200 Pokemon, about 150 of which are original Fakemon, the rest being Pokemon selected from various regions. At first, I was puzzled as to why some real Pokemon were included, but then I later realized that many of these Pokemon were either given new evolutions or mega evolutions, which in the main series are sorely needed. The best example of this is Dunsparce’s new evolution, Dunseraph, making it a strong Dragon/Flying type Pokemon. However, a there are a few main series Pokemon that are included without any improvements being made to them, so their appearance does confuse me a bit, though I’m not totally against their presence.

The Fakemon in this game are overall likeable. The starters are all well designed, and in my opinion are some of the best Pokemon in the game. They are unique because they’re only two stage Pokemon, with all main series starters being 3 stage Pokemon. I picked Orchynx, which is a Grass/Steel cat Pokemon, and there was never a point where I regretted my choice. The rest of the Fakemon are pretty good- there are some designs I’m not the biggest fan of, but this can be said about many official Pokemon too. The Fakemon range widely in abilities, types, and movepools- which brings me to my next topic.

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest gimmicks of the game is the new Nuclear-type. Nuclear Pokemon are weak against every type except themselves, but their new Nuclear-type moves are super-effective against every type but Nuclear and Steel-types, and doubly so against Pokemon with more than one type. This makes these Pokemon super interesting to use- the strongest of their types can be the ultimate glass cannon in battle if used correctly.

There are both Nuclear versions of main-series Pokemon and some original Nuclear Pokemon present in the game. The former are much more numerous than the latter, and I wish there were a few more original Nuclear types, but I understand coming up with new Pokemon for a new type must be time consuming and difficult.

Score: 9/10

Gameplay:

The gameplay of Uranium is great overall. While the game is contained in a single region, there is an East and West segment that makes it almost seem like there are two different regions in the game. The West half that you begin on is land-based, and the East half is water-based, on an archipelago of islands. The wealth of different cities, areas of interest, and routes are sure to give the player more than enough to take in and explore.

For those of you curious, I would put the difficulty of Uranium at a bit above the average main series game. It’s not horrifically hard, and not much grinding is necessary until towards the end of the game. A balanced team will help you get far, and I’d say it’s rather important to have a Steel-type, Nuclear-type, or both on your team to help you get through battles with Nuclear Pokemon. However, if you’re looking to bump up the difficulty level in playing, having neither of those types will definitely help challenge you.

HMs are present in this game, but there are items that you can receive later to replace them. It is nice that these items become available later in the game, but I wonder why HMs exist at all in the game if the creators were willing to replace the HMs with items. I would have preferred receiving these items rather than HMs from the get-go, but it is pleasant at least that you don’t need HMs eventually. My biggest gripe about HMs is how late you receive HM Fly in the game- not until winning your 8th badge. Luckily, there are various methods of transportation available, like subway and boat, but paying for these services and coordinating which methods work in what town is a little tedious.

In general, the gameplay of Uranium is very polished. There are so many tiny features that make this game more playable than even main series game, still without making the game too easy. One such feature is the Pokepod, your main technological device. In it, there is a Jukebox used to listen to any in-game track, your region map, and a phone to call the regional professor, and store numbers of trainers looking for rematches. A Pokeball is present next to trainers who want rematches, and best of all, your opponent’s rematch team has levels that are scaled to be equivalent to yours. This makes grinding much easier and more enjoyable.

Score: 8.5/10

Art/Music:

The overworld art resembles Gen 4 graphics in a way that is creative and original- I can barely find a tile that was imported directly from Gen 4, aside from some overworld character sprites. The landscapes are varied and nice to look at, many of them being based on the country Brazil. My favorite city is Venesi City, which is a beautiful port city based on Venice, Italy.

The in-battle art and animation are fantastic as well, based on Gen 5, with your Pokemon and your opponent’s actually moving around a bit. There are also many moves with great animations. However, there is also a fair number of moves lacking any animation. This bothered me a little, but perhaps it could have been a glitch? Either way, the battle scene is very polished- almost every new area has new background art accurate to whatever time of day it currently is. With how much time is spent battling in this game, I appreciate the effort put in to make it look as nice as it does.

The music in Uranium is about a 50/50 split of well-composed original OSTs and re-orchestrated versions of tracks from other generations. Since these re-orchestrations are well made and contribute well to the game’s atmosphere, I don’t mind the lack of original music in these spots. I especially enjoyed that the diving theme was a slower, more beautiful version of the in-game surf music.

There is one more important thing of note before I move on, and that is the ability to choose a well-designed, non-binary player character. Gamefreak should really pay attention and implement that feature (but I know they won’t). Fantastic job on inclusivity in this area, and I especially loved the proper usage of pronouns depending on which appearance you choose.

Score: 9.5/10

Misc:

If you play Pokemon fan games, or have even heard of them at all, then you probably know at least a little bit about the incredible rise and forced decline of Pokemon Uranium. I urge you to read about what really happened here, according to one of the creators, @oripoke. I don’t have much more to say about this topic without getting heated about it, so I suggest checking out the provided link here if you’re at all interested.

Because of the cease-and-desist order from Nintendo, the community for this game is a little more hidden than it would be for a famous fan game. However, you can find an extremely helpful wiki here, and the main discord here.

Overall:

I’ll begin my conclusion by saying that this is the third time I’ve attempted to finish Pokemon Uranium, and boy am I upset that I didn’t stick to following through with this gem of a game earlier. Uranium truly does have just about everything fans could want- a game with a slightly deeper storyline than main series games, with nearly all new Pokemon (and even some old ones, if you prefer), a new region to explore, and even a new type to spice things up.

I would gladly recommend this game to Pokemon fans new and old. This is a polished, pretty product, and you won’t find many other fan games as complete and polished as this one. There are almost no glitches- the only one that I experienced was the music cutting out occasionally, but the game can easily be saved and rebooted to fix this.

Usually I have more to say in this ending section, but I think that’s all for my final thoughts. This game really is just a work of art, and because of its interesting plot and gameplay, I can see myself picking Uranium up and playing it through again in a few years, possibly even more than once.

Final Score: 9/10

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