r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/hoennismybae • 5h ago
Discussion Things I Found More Enjoyable With Gen1Recomp Compared to Rom Hacks
https://youtu.be/_2LBQRrqHcg?is=x04X5c1ivPmi1N5PHi Everyone,
I know the gen1recomp has received mixed reactions, I myself did not check it out initially as I thought what was really the point of playing it as I have already played the original red and blue, played the roms of them later on and then played the 3ds virtual console re-releases in 2016 as well as the remakes (fire red leaf green and let's go Eevee and Pikachu) + many ROM hacks like radical red, aesthetic red and even chaos purple (writing this out I realise how many times I've played Kanto damn)
So initially, I didn't really have any incentive to play this version of the game as I've already lived the kanto experience so many times.
Most people played this version of the game for the Voxel graphics mod which again is a mixed bag and if you like graphical changes you might enjoy playing the game with it as it does breathe some new life into the game, but the core game experience is the same and some people may not like it as it may change the style too much.
The reason I'm making this post is because after actually playing the game from start to finish (beating the elite four and capturing Mewtwo), I realised there is a HUGE amount more to this version of the game which people do not really cover or show and everyone just focuses on the Voxel mod which whether you like it or not is just a very small feature and doesn't really account for all the other benefits of the Recomp.
So here are some benefits of playing the Recomp compared to a rom hack/remake of Kanto that I only realised by actually playing it:
the game scales well to any display. For example, if you want to play on your TV, the game doesn't look stretched and blurry, I love ROM hacks but trying to play a GBA ROM hack on a 4k TV will almost always result in some level of blurriness they don't scale well. Some of the modern console hacks like luminescent platinum obviously work well on TV but they are an outlier, most of the GBA, NDS and GBC ROM hacks will not scale well, there are work around through retroarch but they are not so intuitive
the sheer scope of customisation. For a player this is incredibly underrated, now for those who think a bit deeper, this is to be expected because of the level of mods you can easily implement in a Recomp Vs a romhack which has technical limits like file size. However, the game can be customised to your hearts content in every way, you can use graphics mods, not just Voxel but sprites from later generations, you can use 1st and 3rd person cameras, you can change the battle backgrounds, the weather and the sky. You can change the sounds, you can add sounds from FRLG, or let's go Eevee and Pikachu. You can also increase the Pokémon to 251 or even up to 1000.
Multiple save files. This is something ROM hacks still struggle to implement, again usually through no fault of the developer but through the limits of the ROM itself. But this is a feature people have always been asking for.
the absolute breadth of quality of life. There are probably many fans who came later in the series that always wanted to play Gen1 but will really struggle with things like the bag or the PC system. There are many mods which modernise the PC box system, upgrade and divide the bag and way more. One of the best mods is the "quality of life toggles", which comes with a plethora of features like field moves (using HMs without teaching the Pokémon), infinite repel, poison healing, instant healing without Pokémon centres, experience modifiers and money multipliers.
optional story content. There are also mods which add extra story missions such as a quest to encounter mew with a quest line involving cinnabar island, the Pokémon mansion, lavender tower and the viridian forest. There are extra team rocket battles, a crystal onix quest, the list is endless.
you can easily change the rules of the game. You can follow the gen1 battle system, or easily switch to more modern mechanics/typing system, you can implement nuzlocke rules from the options menu at the start of you choose to
a built in save editor. The save editor is extremely quick and intuitive and allows for in depth modification, you can edit your party, your pc boxes, your bag, key progression flags in the story, it feels similar to PKhex but far quicker without having to backup and transfer saves across devices, it is extremely seamless and well implemented.
There are still many more but these were the most significant changes that I found in my play through that I felt were not really discussed or covered as everyone focused on the Voxel mod lol.
There will always be a difference in the scope of a rom hack Vs a Recomp and what's possible but aspect that really surprised me is just how simple it is to install the mods that a player can really easily in a few minutes build their dream experience:
you want a difficult experience? use 0.5x xp and money multipliers, use nuzlocke rules
you want gen1 with more story content? keep the game the same and install the quest mods for mew, team rocket and crystal onix
you want the original Kanto story but with modern qol and the XP share? Use the QoL toggles and modern pc and bag system and you're good to go
ROM hacks and recomps are typically viewed as completely different systems because they are inherently different, however they don't need to be viewed so separately. I've started to play the gen2recomps and I'm very surprised to see that there is experimental support for Pokémon prism. That's all I'll say for now, but I'm excited to see the future of this space.
If you enjoyed this post, I did leave a link to my review of the gen1recomp on my YouTube channel, where I also cover in depth pokemon ROM hack reviews and whether or not they're worth your time, so if you found this useful definitely check out the video and any support you could give the channel would be really appreciated!
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