I Played Pokemon Fool's Gold

    I'm not really a Pokemon romhack connoisseur. The only ones I really have played are Fool's Gold and Emerald Rogue, and Fool's Gold for what specifically it offered me: Novelty.

    Sometimes I just crave novelty. At a certain level of “I know I'm going to play this” I just stop following coverage and previews on a video game. Usually this happens for Pokemon and Zelda games. I basically knew nothing about Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild before I bought them, and I still know very little about Tears of the Kingdom or Echoes of Wisdom. I saw a streamer play the first few hours of Pokemon Legends Arceus and then played it on my own knowing little else about the game.

    Fool's Gold is a hack for Crystal (maybe that's the fool's gold) that changes all the Pokemon, changing their types and giving everything a new sprite. I suspect that some base stats have been shuffled around in case the Pokemon's theme has changed.

    -manages to hit its enemy with the nunchuk on its head.

    -protrude from its back to protect itself.
    -tion in life is to fly. Its wings are hand-made.
    -ghost Pokemon at night, then death is near.
    made with @nex3's grid generator

    I find the new sprites do a good job at still looking like they belong in the era. In addition to being good. I like almost all the spritework and one of the things that drew me to giving this a try was seeing someone post about the start of the game and sharing the starters. Changing the starter elemental triangle to Fighting, Ice, and Flying while also flipping the direction of advantage got my attention. Also, Mareep. Because the Mareep line is one of my favorites and it's a cute sprite. Instead of trying to fit in Woolhelmina for a name in this game I went for BOOhelmina.

    But Fool's Gold really does not change all that much about Pokemon Crystal. There are a few new areas. Minor tweaks to dialog. But not many. Jasmine, for instance, still says the Steel type was recently discovered even though Bellsprout is Steel type in this game and still something you see early around the Bellsprout Tower. Maybe those monks just had a free weekend and built that fast so people forget that it's there. Or Jasmine is really sheltered.

    The overall experience is also still Crystal-like. It's not overall more difficult than a retail Pokemon game. The FAQ stresses that this is not a Kaizo hack, it is not insanely difficult, and players should feel free to use whichever Pokemon you want.

    Going in blind, I was delighted by every new design I encountered. But hewing so closely to the original Crystal meant the game had some familiarity still. A happy medium where I felt free to explore and experiment without the game pulling a fast one or cranking the difficulty up to “You should be a competitive player for this” levels.

    So, I really recommend Fool's Gold! Give it a shot. It's fun to see the new designs.