I have, and I have a lot to say. I want to preface by saying, I have no shame for how anybody wants to design a ROM hack/Mod etc, however, I myself have always found the act of changing a game too much to be very contentious, because at the end of the day you are playing a form of art and considering the mindset people have when it comes to game design, I am just not a fan of making an entirely different thing over the skeleton. That being said, I really like the mindset Smith has in wanting to stick to the vision of the game, as not only is it a nice way to distinguish from other ROM hacks, but if done right you can create whatever potential or content you found lacking. And this is from someone who loves Mods and ROMs, just not the vision people have nowadays, given this there are issues with things he says I don't agree with that are also just issues I find with modern game criticism in general. Namely the "I don't like it so it needs to be gone" mindset, where if players find something, they don't like they rather spend their time complaining or make video after video doing the same thing about the issue but don't really ever discuss how the issue should be addressed, they just rather complain about something inconveniencing them. I get and understand that you want to value all the time you have, but I feel people take it too literally nowadays, to the point they treat small things as if they are personally offended, and often times this "hurry up" mindset causes a lot of problems when it comes to world interactivity and progression. There's actively hindering progress/experience, and then there's blowing up an inconvenience.
My big issue with these videos (alongside every single Gen 2 video) is that they treat these problems as if they are exclusive to Gen 2, when they are an overarching problem. Which makes these videos seem dishonest in many cases. (Its also just annoying to see the same video over and over again repeat the same thing with nothing to add) Not counting the poor handling of certain Johto mons and level curves, issues like movepool, story, and balancing are problems other games have too, like I mentioned before it is funny and a bit baffling to me that they bash Johto for this, when Hoenn has a lot of the same problems, as far as a subpar regional dex, power spike on superbosses and movesets.
He complains about a lack of move options, yet these were also a problem in Gen 1, just because the player may have had more convenient TMs doesn't change this fact, because to me it leads to other issues and clashes poorly with the team building, since so many Gen 1 Pokemon rely on TMs in gen where getting more than one of the same TM was scarce. Outside of options people aren't going to use outside of Hyper Beam. I also think he puts WAY too much emphasis on STAB. Many of the movepools were borrowed over from Gen 1 with the caveat being that their best attacks are gated by Egg moves, likely GF's way to implement their breeding mechanic, which yeah could have been executed much better. But for me, it is SO hard to say Gen 1 is a better game like everyone suddenly sees to now when problems stem beyond glitches (as a side note I HATE this stigma people have where they must complain about a popular game to no end, but then act as if the problems of an overcriticzed game are what is specifically stated as the main problem, completely ignoring the overarching problem)
While still a problem, Gen 2 is more tolerable when it comes to its overworld progression by means of two things "bag space and menu hopping" which is a constant problem in Gen 1, alongside gameplay issues such as Sleep and the fact so many NPCs cause status or spam trapping moves, namely Wrap.
When it comes to STAB, I feel this is something people grossly overexaggerate about the first three Gens, like this apparent notion that if a Pokemon has no STAB they are bad, when you look at formats for certain Pokemon on competitive teams in early Gens, not all of them had to run STAB to be successful, the mechanics actually built around the fact that you could run a mon that didn't have to have STAB coverage, compared how they would be designed to today. They treat this as if it is a design flaw, when if people can appreciate Gen 1 for its mechanics like Speed = Critical hits, then this is virtually no different, its just a different design with its own rules For me, the biggest offenders in his videos were Starmie, Gengar and the whole Dark/Ghost type thing. With Starmie I found him ranting about lacking Psychic in its learnset to be a very weird and out-there criticism, when literally in no other game including modern ones does Starmie ever learn Psychic by level up, so why does he specifically treat this as a Gen 2 only thing? Again that came off as so disingenuous, not only that, does Starmie really need Psychic that bad? Starmie can literally sweep most of the game with BoltBeam coverage, and what's even odder is he removed Gengar and Alakazam's options to use all elemental punches because of "too powerful again bosses" yet he just did thhat with Starmie. With Surf, Psychic, Plus BoltBeam it can literally solo sweep the bosses in the game. With the only moment of slow down being Karen's Umbreon. With Gengar, this is a Pokemon who in Gens 2 and 3 didn't even need to run Shadow Ball because it had a movepool it could use in compensation, there's nothing this would add to its gameplan because Psychic types weren't even common or that good. So just giving Gengar that REALLY limtits Gars versatiliity because it now has a mandatory slot, and even desgn speaking when i say face a mon that's a Water type, am I really just going to STAB or am I going to use T Bolt? That's where I'm coming from here. His Starmie rant really came off as just reaching!
There was this excellent video by Jimothy Cool, who very well explains and defends the non-P/S split era, and why Pokemon don't need STAB, if you want to hear more elaborate thoughts, just watch this video
, his thoughts mimic my own regarding this design mindset. Additionally, the whole Ghost/Dark thing extends more than just "it doesn't make sense", Ghost and Dark cover the exact same thing, and like the point I made about a lack of STAB, why does it matter if say Sneasel doesn't have STAB dark type moves when IF it was designed where it could use those options it would be weaker than if it just used Shadow Ball to cover the same options. Since not only does SB cover the same things, it also outclasses very Dark moves other than Crunch, and considering he just boosted Sneasel's SP Attack by a measly 20, it's still going to have the same problem. Only now a less powerful option, as even with STAB it would be weaker than if it just used Shadow Ball to cover the same thing. This same logic applies to every Pre-Gen 4 Dark type not named Tyranitar or Houndoom. And he did this just because Gengar could run Shadow Ball? Like Gengar needed to run it to be good, when it was only done to "make sense" not everything needs to be perfectly balanced or symmetrical in a surface-level way of thinking, which tbh this completely contradicts his design of "staying true to Crystal" since you just changed a design element of the game drastically that it now functions differently.
This same thing applies to his fixing of Bug types. While I understand wanting to give these Pokemon a Bug STAB move, it's so bizarre to see Twineedle (a move about stabbing an enemy twice with a spike) on Pokemon that don't have spikes, like Yanma. Leech Life on Butterfree is a little weird for similar reasons. If a Pokemon doesn't notably have a body part that it needs for a move, it shouldn't be able to use the move.
Wasn't the goal to "balance Gen 2, but if someone who knows the game plays it, it still feels like Gen 2"? These challenges, while balancing, are changing the game completely. Let's take cut for example. We all know that cut sucks, so we won't consider using it. But now, unless I have prior knowledge from the videos/changelogs, this move now is something completely different. Same thing with the secondary effects. Blind playing, people will just be confused by stuff like sludge bomb not poisoning NEARY as often. Therefore, he changed how the game works!
Then there's also his changes to the character's teams. Like many others, he thinks Karen should have a Tyranitar. Karen losing Team Members thematically defeats the point of her theme, she's using her favorites, it's better to keep her with her favorites. If anything, it would've been better to either give her an additional team member or give all of her Pokemon extra tools to get the job done. Vileplume could've functioned as a Support Wall Like Umbreon does, with the difference being that Umbreon loses to fighters while Vileplume can sit on them all day, which gives Vileplume a breath of life into that teamslot. It also can't be understated that Vileplume also does cover a weakness of hers, which Tyranitar actually makes even more obvious, Rock/Ground Types. Murkrow and Houndoom loses to the Rocks while Houndoom and Gengar, her 2 heavy hitters btw, lose to ground types, Vileplume, on the other hand, says hello to both and can scare them away with ease. Sludge Bomb and Giga Drain are all you need for attacks for this, the other 2 moves can be support oriented to help her team after the fact, such as Sleep Powder for Gengar. Tyranitar doesn't offer that. Giving her a Tyranitar thematically ruins the whole point of using Pokémon she likes. He bascally contradicted the entire point of her character line, the point is that Karen is proving that you don't need powerhouses to do well, you just need more than power. A theme of Karen's team is focusing on utility to overwhelm her opponents on top of that, Murkrow should have kept Pursuit instead of Faint Attack. Even with its buffed stats, it makes sense to make Murkrow be an underhanded fighter that'll make people think twice about switching out to another Pokémon.
The idea of her team consisting of her favorites while also being oriented to help each other is a great idea for her thematically as it fits with the original idea, and the idea of her being an Elite Four Member because she knows how to switch her Pokemon around to gain an advantage would make her a more intriguing member than simply padding her with a Tyranitar. Tyranitar would fit Lance more than it would Karen.
As for Lance, man, giving him Zapdos seems really headcanon-y, and, I think, moves away from a "fixing problems" romhack that this project has been. Not a huge fan of just about everything having 100% accuracy. Maybe it's a hot take. I think the games should try to ground themselves a bit and not assume that every attack will always hit. I tick 85-90% accuracy should be the norm and 100 should be a little rarer. I also think 10 pp for all the powerful moves is WAY too much. I don't want the rom to hold your hand too much or help nuzlockers too much. I say, **** them at 7 and make PP UPs twice as common. Or even three times as common. this would also just make the elemental beams pointless since you'd just use their stronger alternatives all the time. Wasn't the goal to "balance Gen 2, but if someone who knows the game plays it, it still feels like Gen 2"? I feel he's hypocritical in a lot of ways.
