Pokemon Fangame - 'Pokemon Reborn' Review 2 - Unfair and frustrating (English)

A few weeks ago, I wrote an outright overeuphoric review
about the Pokemon Fang Reborn, which was actually my entry into the Pokehack community and promptly declared it to be one of the best after a short while. It felt like it had what the main series never could or wanted to give me - a serious, comprehensible world and story, and a heavy difficulty level that never becomes frustrating or unfair, but requires strategy and investment. I was thrilled.
 
I have to take that back for now, and I haven’t even reached the third gym leader. According to my current mood, Reborn is very, very poorly balanced and unfortunately not only difficult, but at important points of the action just plain unfair and sheer ridiculous-bullying towards the player. It may be a typical moment for Reborn veterans when an overambitioned newbie has really gotten into the game and really has to get used to it - an initial outcry, if you will - that later dies of and becomes a hymn of praise. Perhaps. But from what I hear from other players, unlikely.

While the positive points dominated clearly over the negative ones in the first report, it is now the other way around. I was close to quitting the game a few times because I can spend my time on enough other things, but I did not, just because the concept fascinates me so much. But one thing is for sure, I've put games for much less in the trash.




Where do I begin? I introduced Reborn in detail at the last time, so I want to get to essence relatively quickly. After the first gym leader there is a new district and a few minor story scenes to discover, then you are relatively quickly forced to the second gym by the storyline. The leader Florinia, with whom you have already fought against Team Meteor and which was much more pleasant as a comrade than as an opponent, was my first big problem with Reborn. But eventually I solved it, as I will probably solve many problems in the future - Grinding. If you have ocercome this torture, you get almost without detours directly to the next boss and after him into a new, destroyed by apocalyptic plants city section. Bare minutes after entering this area, it holds its next, extremely tough opponent ready for you - Needless to say, that he with wiped the floor with me several times. I have not yet defeated him because it was just enough for me after my fifth attempt last night. 

Before I go into a longer, honestly frustrated explanation about my problems with Reborn's battles, here’s the short and fresh list known from the first review containing pro and contra in Pokemon Reborn.

PRO:
+ With the alt key you can switch to a speed mode that speeds things up a bit. Especially useful for grinding
+ Theoretically, you do not have to catch a single Pokemon, because you get many from NPCs
+ The lively and memorable characters are great and likeable written
+ The academy is very unusual and interesting as a setting for the second gym, I liked the diaries of the gym leader girls quite much, especially that of Amelie, which subtly opens the topic of depression and suicidal thoughts
+ shortcuts

Not too much, but for the people who look for excess, you will find it written in red, and thereby the undeniable truth:

CONTRA:
- The Sweet Kiss puzzle was unnecessarily hard and frustrating, especially if, like me, you have no idea what the final product should look like - despite the Pokemon sign on the shop door. After 20 minutes I gave up and asked Youtube. The prize was a dumb Pokemon. 
Thank you, Reborn.
- The levelcap in its present form is pure bullying
- The second gym overdoes it a bit with the number of (forced) trainers AND a mini-boss. Normally that would be a positive point, but considering that there is a level cap on which each one of them continues to push me, that was counterproductive.
- I'm not a fan of riddles for progress. Googled all of them.
- The second gym leader is incredibly hard and overpowered, considering everything that came before and around her
- You still need TMs for VM skills
- There are no special effects for actions like the disappearance of cut- trees, they just pop away, a weak notch for a game that's so polished. Puts you out of immersion all the time.
- The atmosphere in poke centers like the one in the ruined forest city could be better, for example through adapted dialogues from nurse Joy.
- The Meteor-Admin Taka-battle is again to a silly extend in his favour, and there is again almost no way to defeat him by solely by strategy
- I have to listen to his hollow babble every time he has defeated me and I had to run all the way back to him
- The map is terrible confusing, way too small and absolutely no help. I had no idea where to go a few times



The contrast to review one... should be clear. And the heart of my frustration as well: The game is just too hard. No, it's not difficult - it's unfair. Yes, I said it.
The balancing is awful.


No, I do not want to take away from your poor son the pokemon he found and loves - What the hell ?!

The Levelcap
There is a Levelcap connected to the badges. So you can control your Pokemon only until level 25 before the second gym, before the third only to 35, etc. While this hardly matters in the main games because the opponents are so easy,here it is a painful crux - because grinding is all too often simply the ONLY possibility to bring an insurmountable opponent at least to an approximate beatable level. If you reach the level cap, you can spare yourself the fight, because every wasted move by a disobedient pokemon is a death sentence. So what are you forced to do? Using so-called 'common candies', which lower the level of your own Pokemon, effectively forcing you to abandon the grinding time and EXP that you have raised.

The Bosses - Gym Leader Two & Team Meteor



The problem with Florinias fight : You have to go through about two dozen trainers to get to her. Also through a mini boss, her twin brother. With all these fights one can only hope that level 25 of your team does not get exceeded - otherwise you have to lower their level and thus sacrifice your work. But then you get to Florinia who is very happy about my water pokemon as a plant trainer - Wait a minute, I see a pattern. First electro, now plant. What's the next gym leader, Flying? The game obviously wants to tell me: if you choose the water starter at the beginning, you might just as well reset immediately. But thats not the worst part. Florinias Sandfield strengthens each of her attacks which are already effectively against me and weakens the few with whom I could damage her. She has super potions that I as a player have no access to!! Not only can her Cradily heal itself by synthesis an almost indefinitely, but it can also strengthens its defense and special defense with horter three times. Nothing that I have is even remotely effective. Her Pokemon are not hurt by sandstorms, mine are. And so I get destroyed. What do I have ? Small potions and a team that can not continue to level. No way in this everywhere dead-ended plotline-world to find other means to win. Only solution? Add more Pokemon and GRIND. As nice players of the Reborn community have told me in the meantime, you can do that in the starting Pokecenter - but only up to the level cap of course.

But I do not want that. I have always put together a specific, selected permanent team because I WANTED it and then went on through the whole journey with exactly this team. Yes, normally I would never have Goldeen or Butterfree in my team, but I still had the free choice to catch them here. My friend, who brought me to Reborn, said you have switch between more pokemon in Reborn to get through. No, I do not want that. I do not want to use Pokemon like tools against single, unfair trainers to get ahead before I throw them away. But I MUST. There is no other way. So I caught Pam-Pam and a (shiny) woobat and grinded them in the Pokecenter to level 25. It was not enough, I got more defeats, had to use Common Candies and threw away level. I spent all my money on potions and ended up with a Synthesis Attack Synthesis attack-duel with the cradily until I was lucky and my Pam-Pam did a direct hit. Victory. Happiness? None. I'm just glad it's over. And I feel dirty because my Pokemon are no longer my team. They are tools. Too melodramatic? Maybe, but for me thats a part of the Pokemon fascination.

And this is supposed to be a fair fight? The game forced me to grind, but limited this effectively, favors an already superior gym leader with the field effects and super potions that the player does not have and still forces me to abandon hard-earned level to compete at all.

The soon following fight against Meteor-Admin Taka and the previous fight against Meteor-Admin ZEL works similarly - the first try his Chatot threw each of my six Pokemon with a single 'chatter’ on the floor. But when I eventually beat it, there was a second, mutated Tangrowth that, like the first one of ZEL, annoyes through its excessively high defense and HP-bar that gets damaged by almost nothing, not even by super effective attacks. Super Potions, Giga drains that one-hits mine and cures his pokemon, its strength-enhancing growth attack, and - of course - a field effect that strengthens its attacks and weakens mine.

No Reborn, you're not unfair. It's just about the strategy. Alright. And no, I still do not have any super potions and yes, the level cap still exists.

Sorry dear Reborn community, but this is not a challenging competitive game for true men. This is unfair, pesky and, frankly, poor balancing. It's like a soldier in Titan armor and Mammoth tanks with a helicopter feature and additional Atomic explosives + repair will give me a half-loaded revolver and challenge me. In a tank garage, surrounded by other tanks. And every shot at me cures him. But hey - I can get more revolvers! A little strategy, then I'll pack that!

I dont know. Currently I have no fun. I do not have the faintest idea how to beat Taka. Oh, that's not true - Theres GRINDING. And then I drop the level before the third gym leader again, you know, the one with the fyling type pokemon, the cloud field and 99x top recovery, and spend my always short money for drugs.

A game for the whole family. Since the review should end on a positive note - Funny screenshots.



Could I marry her in the game, I would do it. But she probably does not like a loft-soft mimosa like me.

Here is my current team:


We'll read us in a few weeks, when the fun trip through Reborn has continued and I’m wishing to be able to develop myself back into an embryo with common candies.


- Yoraiko