PokeRogue

 

Pokémon is an evergreen franchise that has been haunting the Nintendo consoles for nigh on twenty eight years now and to call it a classic of the gaming world isn't doing the thing justice. It's a staple of the gaming world rearing up time and time again in sometimes new, mostly the same, ways. Opinions on the franchise vary, I happen to think Scarlet and Violet was a messy but promising step towards a promising future, whilst many others call it the single worst game in the entire franchise- (because of that disaster they called a launch) but such passions need not be enflamed when we're starting to see genuine competition rise out of the din. Why fight over the scraps of the current Pokémon slate when you can take that same business elsewhere considering The Pokémon Company have pretty definitively not made a claim on Palworld?

But I'm not here to talk about Palworld or any of the other Pokémon clones that dot the landscape, not when we have ourselves something of an inbetween. A complete creative reworking of the foundations of Pokémon, that has unfortunately been executed using the Pokémon names and thus probably won't be long for this world once Pokémon get ahold of it. But until then, let me just gush for a moment about the browser based experience 'PokeRogue' and how it fulfils on a half-baked idea I think the Pokémon company half had and then full abandoned back in Generation 8. Yes, this is a rogue-lite with Pokémon elements and yes- it works incredibly smoothly.

Pokémon is such a full to bursting franchise of great monster designs and not-so-great monster designs, well refined battle mechanics and a comprehensive battle loop that is has managed to sustain itself on the same formula for closing in on thirty years now. And I have no doubt it'll neatly sail by that thirty milestone with just as much popularity as it currently has now. But I never really felt like the team have ever allowed themselves to go the distance of really pushing their gameplay to it's limits. Outside of the competitive circuit, the most anybody can really devote themselves to the minute of Pokémon battling is in a hobbyist sense or perhaps in the pursuit of Battle Towers which we get ever other game. The Undefeated promoted dens from Gen 9 were an interesting step in the right direction- but I yearned for something engrossing and full throttle.

So in comes PokeRogue- a game which strips down the Pokemon experience to it's absolute essentials. You are given a budget, a roster of unevolved Pokemon from every Dex in all generations (although at the beginning you can only select the starters. Which is a slightly questionable design choice since starters are some of the most broken 1st evolution Pokemon out of each generation), and are expected to build a fairly balanced team. From then on you are treated to battle after battle with wild Pokemon, Trainers and Boss Pokemon on a run to last as long as you can, making the genre-typical small improvements along the way so that your next run can be boosted with some of the advantages you were denied the last time around.

After every fight you get offered one of three items to choose from, ranging from a potion that is immediately applied, a revive, a stat boost item or maybe even a rare held item to slap on a 'mon in need. You might also get Pokeballs, which relate back to the most significant way this game tracks 'progress'. Using a slightly sped up formula you can attempt to catch wild Pokemon you might against that immediately become part of your party, but more significantly once you do catch them- these Pokemon become part of your starter selection for your next run. And compounding ontop of that, the IVs of your Pokemon are saved at their best value, meaning if you catch the same Pokemon twice, one with perfect speed and another with perfect attack, when you start your next run and select that Pokemon it will have perfect speed and attack- encouraging you to go Poke' hunting as regularly as possible!

Once you pass your first biome, by winning through ten fights including a trainer, the first battle with your rival and a boss encounter, you'll be gifted the EXP share item and then the real game will begin. We all know what it's like to have that one main being trailed by a group of secondaries that limp behind them, know they've turned that entire experience into a speedrun through a rougelite as you try and keep a fairly competitive team to roll with the big hitters down the line. Unfortunately all items are lost upon losing, including EXP share, (Would have been nice if that kept between runs) making the early game probably the most up-and-down part of the experience until you get a bit more diversity in your beginning roster of Mons. But just as with any Rougelite you'll get that perfect run, where the right Monsters spawn and you get the right TMs drop, that you become a crushing beast.

There's a lot of little charming features of the game that give a veteran fan like myself something to smile about. For one the game features the old-school 2d style of sprite Pokemon battling, although it goes all the way up to the modern gen which means we actually get to see some of the modern Pokemon in a form they've never actually been rendered in outside of their Pokebank image. Your rival features a smattering of snarky lines they can tout, whilst balancing the line of not being too horrifically hateable like some of the early Pokemon lads were. You get the occasional double battle, where any Pokemon expert will tell you the true strategies lie. It's just an expectational experience lacking even an ounce of fat, a trademark of truly talented designers.

PokeRogue can probably go down as one of the most exceptional Pokemon experiences in the modern age of these sorts of games for just how deftly all the core parts of the franchise are disseminated into the new genre. Unfortunately it's also free and not made by Gamefreak, so you can probably expect the powers that be to come falling down on it with the hammer of god like they always do. In fact, I suspect they're just powering up their lawsuit spirit bomb right now which is the only reason why the website is still up. But in these Halcyon few days before that chaos drops, we can lock shoulders and bask in the presence of a Pokemon title that finally feels like a true, refined, breath of fresh air for a franchise that has longed for it.