Completed Pokémon Nightshade

That first line is so great, I love hooks like that.

Okay I feel like an ass opening up with "Thanks for letting me get through this game faster" but I always check for running shoes first in a game and then I start to think more broadly about player convenience in general lol. It's phenomenal how much is done on that field- running shoes, quicksave, PCs, fast travel, and healing spots everywhere, a daycare center with everything you need, it's fantastic! And I really love that you even went so far as to put those little guides in!

There's also a lot of really fun little touchups that would be great in any Pokemon game! The overworld balls being themed around the item's purpose, the TM vending machines and Pokemon Shops, the different text colors for characters, it's all really great!

I'm not quite sure how to articulate this, but I feel like "Pokemon Park Ranger", "exploring haunted forest", and "Trainer who's close with Ghost-types caring for them" are all three already really strong base concepts for a game, so I think it's really cool how Nightshade's core concept weaves them all together so well!

The Serenity Scope is such a delight to use, and I love that it never stops being relevant! I'm a big fan of those little eyes and messages floating outside the walls, I had a blast uncovering them! (Not to be like "Oh spooky woods just like Gravity Falls haha" but the message in Boss' room reminded me of the cryptogram "Stan is not what he seems" in that show!)

I really love the designs of all the maps! You have this way of getting so much use out of Gen 3's assets to where it feels purely like an art style, not a limitation, and it's always really neat to see!

The spirits of the park had some really neat designs! (The Buried Alive reference had me howling)

The story is really great, the characters and the world are so much fun to see in action! Interacting with every NPC is even more fun when it means getting to hear from Giselle and see her skill as a Ranger!

Some of these I suspect are due to time issues but I don't want to be an asshole and say "Oh I'm sure that was cut for time" on something that wasn't, so I'm going to pretend time doesn't exist. (Fitting because I'm writing this so very late in the morning)


While I love the title font, the initial font (the "Pokemon Essentials," "Created for the Winter Jam" stuff) feels a little too simplistic? I can't quite put my finger on why- maybe it's just too similar to Arial for my tastes?

I'm a huge fan of displaying evs, but the summary tab feels a little empty just displaying them and nothing else? The moves tab feels empty, too. (I suppose that's kind of more just feedback on the script you used for it, though)

I thought it was a shame that there was no flavor text on the Giratina statue! I know that's super minor, though, and there's the punk to speak with later in the game lol. I just like reading the descriptions on pretty statues!

It felt a little easy to have two quests that needed a Gastly so close to each other. (Phantasphobe and the boy inside the manor) Although, at the same time, having sidequests line up in their goals is such a satisfying feeling, so it's kind of nice to have lol.

With only a Normal move and a Ground move, poor Blackjack can get messed up real bad by a Gastly with Mean Look, which are common in the early stages of the game.

It's possible to earn points before the point system is even introduced to Giselle. Maybe the animation for giving the points could be turned off at the start, and then if Giselle earned some points before learning about them, she made some comment about "Oh, I'll give myself some points for this morning!) (but then, that raises the question of why she doesn't give herself points for everything before...)

I forgot the specific location I was directing someone to, but by the Waterfall, someone asks for directions. I'm pretty sure I wasn't able to cancel out to be able to check a map? (Although, I might have just not realized I could cancel, since all four displayed options are taken up by directions)

Also by the Waterfall, there's a NPC who gushes about Hearse. Giselle will comment on Hearse's lack of permits if you talk with them, even well into the game when you're already familiar with Hearse and his actions.

It kind of felt a bit odd to have Gen 4-style Pokemon sprites for battle when everything else is so heavily Gen 3-styled, down to even the bag and summary screen. I get why you chose that, though, since there's not really any packs out for later-gen Pokemon in the style, and you definitely get a lot more by expanding the amount of Pokemon in the game.

I don't really understand what the point of being able to give Badges to Pokemon is? (Unless that somehow plays into the life forc battery stuff mentioned at the end?)

I honestly had a miserable experience in the mine system. There's the normal reason of Pokemon encounters being dense, of course, so I'll spare you my laments about hearing the battle intro so many times, but there's a few extra things that make it a little harder:

• No Escape Rope means that if I run out of repels, I have to go through a couple floors. I know you want to save the Coil Badge for afterwards- so what if instead, you gave the player the option of buying some repels from Marty?
• I really don't see why the caves needed to be dark? Especially the tracks cave- nobody gets to see the cool minecart tracks they put together!
• The event encounters you couldn't flee from really grind my gears. At a certain point, they almost felt like a punishment for exploring- is there anything fun behind this generator? No, but there is a battle that you can't flee from, and they have at least one type immunity, and there's only two species to actually encounter so it's not like you can catch anything new. I really think the normal overworld encounters work just fine as obstacles while exploring.
• The end results of certain quests don't seem to be telegraphed very clearly.
  • The digging lady never mentions how many spots she wants dug up, or how deep in the cave she wants you to go. When she talked about the abandoned mines, I figured she just meant the mine the hiker had gone into, and thought I must have been missing something else in the main part of the cave. I only realized it was in the part where Giselle needs backup after I gave up and continued the story. I think including just a little line about "The abandoned mines? Not on my own, I'm not!" would help make it clear when the player will get those last spots.
  • Marty never mentions how many generators need to be turned on, or where they're located. I spent a lot of time wandering the dark rooms thinking I had missed a generator somewhere, and never thought to look behind me for the mine cart route until I went so far as to copy the data and graphics over to a vanilla Essentials copy to make sure I hadn't somehow broken the game by splitting up between generators. (I know the footprints were there, but up and to the left, the footprints lead to a dead end, and I didn't catch the entrance and thought it was the same story)
• Joltik are pretty common in the mines, and their Unnerve means an extra message to scroll through in a battle start.

I wrote this on my first time against Buried Alive-
In the fight against Buried Alive, Marty got taken out pretty quickly, and didn't have anyone other than Snorlax. While very in-character for him to make Giselle carry the fight, I wasn't able to send out a second Pokemon to replace him, making the fight 2 on 1.

But weirdly enough, after another playthrough (I forgot a mining spot and didn't want to trek back), he stayed in fine for the whole match. Just bad luck on my part, I guess?


I don't really follow with this line? It seems to read that people with less experience would have an easier time spotting Camo Kid?

Speaking of Camo Kid, there's no limits on how many guesses you get with him, so you can just spam every number until you get it right. Maybe he could have some kind of limit, or make the player wait for a period of time until he took another guess? (Although, it's not like letting the player spam to get like 5 Quick Balls is that big a deal anyways)

I love the Kricketune sidequest, but having to deposit the party one by one in the PC was kind of a drag. I don't know of any scripts that would let you just select one Pokemon to fight off the top of my head, though.

The Mining Maniac sidequests end without her ever finding the treasure?

If you don't do the Dismantle quest in the Memorial Garden right when you get it, it's kind of confusing where to go next. I thought that the idea was going to be catching the poacher before he set his next three traps in another building, and was spending time wandering in Cypress Resort and Nightshade Hospital trying to figure out where he might be. Maybe Giselle could say something about how he "couldn't have gone far from here" when she finds the last trap?

I think it'd be useful in the hospital mazes to make the player go one more tile forward when passing through walls- that way, they could just turn right back if they wanted to step back. (As it is now, they land on the footprint tile, so they have to step off and step back to pass back) That'd be a real nightmare to change with all the events in there, especially just to save the player one step so, uhhh don't do that. Leave it.

I admire the dedication to having a number lock, but it was a little awkward trying to remember a seven-digit number that, story-wise, I have right in my hands now. (I know Notepad's always an option, but it does feel weird opening up a separate program to write it down) Maybe you could have conditional branches that displayed the numbers if the player had the items in the bag?

Also, I got Slip B before Slip A and got thrown off a bit there, I thought the items auto-sorted and ended up putting them in backwards at first.

The music for fighting the dark shadows was sick, but it still closes out with the default victory theme, which kind of breaks the mood.

I love how the dialogue from the shadows found its way into innocuous conversations in the flashback, but I think some of them changed and didn't have the specific wording? Like, the table dialogue is "Broken... broke it...", but they never specifically said "broke" in Sal's flashback.

I think Exp Gain should be turned off for the battle between Sal and the professors. With the way things are set up, two of Sal's Pokemon will level up and be prompted to learn new moves, which kind of slows down the cutscene, especially when the player isn't keeping any of those Pokemon.

In Yew's lab, I think Giselle should say out loud when she has enough energy to turn on the healing machine- it's kind of unclear when that's the next step to get all her energy back.


Finally- I feel guilty about having criticisms about the story, because so much of the writing is so good! But there's a few parts at the end that stuck out to me-

I didn't really understand Dabria's role in the story. It felt at first that she was meant to be a foil to Giselle, being the scholarly student of Yew and not having much interest in the little details of the park. But after the tour, she just hangs out at the lake, and that's it? It also feels a bit odd for Yew to use her for his plans rather than just leading Giselle to the hospital himself. I think the story's better with her in it, but I feel like she's not used to her full potential.

I might just not be getting an Ashen Frost reference, though, I haven't caught up yet!

At the start of the story, it seems like Giselle feels discontent with being a Park Ranger and is considering other things- Boss offers the badges to make things fun, Giselle goes to the seminar and discusses the idea of being a researcher with Yew. But that inner conflict just gets resolved by merit of "Which career path wasn't put in front of me by a mad scientist", and it feels like Giselle more defaults to the idea of being Park Warden* than she actually chooses it. (She tells Yew she was never interested, but going out to a seminar and sticking around for the badge demonstration feels like a bit of interest to me?) I think sticking with it makes perfect sense for her character, but I also wish we had a bit of resolution to that- maybe there could be a cutscene or even just more NPC appearances where Hearse and Dabria make plans with Giselle for music/research, so it shows that even while she's sticking with the path laid out for her, she's still getting to explore things she takes interest in!
*On a similar note, I wish we had a bit more about why Boss switched career paths himself!

The scene of Boss' apology to Giselle felt a bit... fast? Like, in the buildup to it, things were honestly so intense- Boss yelling at Giselle and blaming her for not helping him fast enough, Marty threatening to run away- that I was honestly thinking that the story might be leading up to Giselle and Marty leaving Boss and the park behind. And I'm glad that it didn't go that way, I love the family's dynamic, and like I said earlier, I think it makes more sense to have Giselle stay in the park. But going from blaming Giselle for things totally out of her control like not rescuing Boss sooner and "Dad, if you don't treat her better, I'll take her and leave you behind" to an apology that seemed to just be "I've been expecting too much work from you, do whatever you want" felt like a fast de-escalation, like the more intense parts of the argument had already been resolved. (And after the bigger fight, "do whatever you want" feels more like apathy than a sort of "You can do whatever you want, I'll support you)
And it's really just that apology scene that bothered me in that way- every other scene with the family felt great, you felt their character and it felt like a natural progression of their relationships and the events that led up to these moments, it's just that last little bit of turmoil that bugged me.
(I kept looking through events trying to find the specific dialogue but I couldn't seem to find it, so if I misremembered a line that's on me)

Door SFX seemed to play too quickly as Marty left in the intro

I think the idea here was to make it where Giselle's hand can touch the handrails, but her leg kind of looks like she's stepping onto the rail


In the party menu, the male sign is green, but in battle and the summary screen, it's blue. I'm not sure which you intended?




The cursor in the shops seems a little too big- it goes into the borders


I think this is from the Quicksave script itself, but if you open a menu while the save graphics are fading, their ghosts will stick around.


And speaking of the Quest Log, the thread says that optional quests are in blue, but they display as green for me? Don't know if that's just a typo or if you wanted the quests to be blue. (Personally, I like the green more)


Several Pokemon have their battle sprites at weird heights-
I was gonna say I thought the issue was the Gen 3 style being made for one canvas size but encountering another, but I tried replacing some sprites, and that didn't fix it, so.


Some Pokemon are in the air, but don't seem to have shadows underneath them-


Nature Power became Tri Attack in the cave- I think the environment wasn't set?

While on my little trek through the data in the caves, I noticed a little playtesting event was left in!

(Takes the player back to the main cave if they interact on that tile)

Not a big deal- I doubt many people would stumble on it by accident- but it could probably mess with the game a bit if they did!

Some Pokemon names are a little too long for various UI


In the Memorial Garden, I could actually jump up this ledge, but only on this tile right here-

I think it might be the fountain affecting the passability?

Also in the Memorial Garden, I couldn't go right here-


Vivillion's menu sprite doesn't match its battle sprite.


This NPC will gave both her line about Driftblim and "the air is so fresh here!", one after the other.




This NPC at Cypress gets stuck mid-step when completing the quest. (I had to fix the exact same thing on TLNJ when you pointed it out! I think the issue that turning Stop Animation off doesn't necessarily let the NPC finish their walk cycle? But I think if you give them a command with Stop Animation Off it'll fix it! Maybe even just turning will work!)

Since there's no dialogue when interacting with Kricketot, the choices will display way in the upper left corner.




Interacting while standing on the rocket, Sal will comment on the shelf and the rocket, one after the other.


I don't really understand what this Banette is for? It doesn't turn around or anything so it's very dodgeable.

The Muk seem to only notice Giselle one tile in front of them, so they're pretty avoidable.

There's no SFX entering the morgue, and exiting the morgue door takes you through the "Out" door.

Checking the summary on Sal's Pokemon kind of pulls the curtain back a bit.

(You can actually edit the location on the memo with pkmn.obtainMap! It's really minor though, I'm probably the only one who noticed lol)

Talking to the dad here will have him turn to you as his daughter speaks.



Not sure how or why this happened, but I had this weird little scenario pop up-
-I'm near the end of the game, I have the miracle badge and I'm just trying to wrap up quests before I go to the manor.
-Wanted to find a Driftblim so I could breed a Drifloon, so I head to Emerald Bluffs. Everything's normal there.
-I go up to the lake, check the power station, then come back down to the bluffs.
-Now that I'm back, a bunch of Driftblim have appeared, like in the cutscene after confronting Hearse. Some NPCs are fighting them off.

I think this is an error- Yew says that "I told Dabria to visit the hospital, knowing full well that the ghosts might lock you inside.", but the ghosts don't lock Giselle inside, they trap Boss.

I'm not sure how this happened, but after completing the main story, I was looking around to see if I missed any quests, and I saw that Vivillion, a Pokemon I had definitely caught (still had it in my PC), wasn't showing the "Caught" symbol anymore if I encountered it in the wild. I think the issue might have been caused by the player's caught and seen arrays getting erased in the Sal flashback? It's not super important, since there's no PokeDex, anyways, but I was using that to keep track of what Pokemon I had/hadn't caught, so it caught my eye, haha.

I also noticed around this time that my Pokemon were getting boosted XP, and my trainer ID seemed to have switched!

I'm quite certain that I'm the only person who actually cares about these commas but I'll list em anyways lmfao

Mornin' Boss- comma after Mornin'
Heya' Boss- comma after Heya'
For Marty at least- comma after Marty
Yes Ma'am- comma after Yes (with the matchmaker gramma)
A basket ball, but no hoop!- basketball is one word, I think (although it's hardly that big a deal)
Hello Ranger Giselle!- comma after Hello (cable car station)
Here Giselle- comma after Here (diner)
the work of tearing it off, for me- no comma
Good job Giselle- comma after job

Becoming a researcher that is?- comma after researcher (with Yew in Hyacinth)

Yes he is, or at least- comma after Yes (with Dabria)
You're supposed to concentrate on your work, first!- no comma

I don't think "dunno" has the apostrophe at the end of it?

(around the end of the game)-
I literally just got here Giselle- comma after here
your little misadventure, yesterday- no comma
Boss and Marty weren't here, when Sal walked me back- no comma
never seen Boss look so awful, before- no comma
Impressive isn't it?- comma after Impressive
more of a pop quiz, than a test- no comma
Well that is the lesson- comma after well

What do you mean by giving the badges to the Pokémon? That doesn't do anything. Were you just handing them over like held items? Or are you referring to the lore bit about how they're supposed to draw on the power of a trainer and their Pokémon?

The two Gastly thing is intentional. I wanted to give the player an efficient way to rack up Park Points.

With the Camo Kid, I know from experience with seeing people play AF that people will spam, even if there isn't a penalty system. (And just soft reset every time they guess wrong.) Originally, I was considering adding a sort of sin counter, where the rewards would change based on your number of wrong guesses. The final Camo kid would also judge you based on how many times you guess wrong. But, time this, jam that, yada' yada'. It also still incentivizes soft resetting. I might try integrating it into a post-judging update, though.

Yes, the point with overworld Pokémon is to punish the player. There are no trainer battles in the mines. I can look into making their EXP gain be boosted, or something along those lines. I've done it with games in the past, I just wasn't sure if it would play nice with the other ways I've changed EXP gain.

The encounter rates in the game are actually set to be far lower than standard Pokémon. I can look into having Repels be sold around the mines, though.

The intention with the mining sidequest is to give the player the opportunity to find mining objects, not to make them track down every spot. But, I can look into changing the NPC's dialogue so the player doesn't feel as pressured, and they know how many more spots are left.

The animation should be turned off for all events before Park Points are introduced. What event showed them for you?

I was going to say that I'm pretty sure Marty states that there are three generators. But, when I went to check, there was a typo. (The instead of three, so that's on me.)

The reason the male gender signs on the party screen are green is because blue created visibility problems. I get comments whether it's blue or it's green. It's a loose-loose situation for me on that one. ;p

There is never a threat of Giselle considering to change careers, but the people around her keep misinterpreting that. She finds the work boring, but it doesn't mean she wants to leave. Right from the get-go with the badges, she is hasty to reassure Boss that she doesn't want to leave. Giselle went to the lecture because she was interested in the mysterious topic, not because she was interested in changing careers. Directly after the events of the demonstration, when Yew talks to her about school after the lecture, she refuses. Both Boss and Yew misjudge the situation, thinking that Giselle wants to leave. In the case of Boss, he's wound up by paranoia, given his past with Yew. Giselle can't reason with him as a result. Yew, meanwhile, is just a bad judge of character. He thinks he's a lot smarter and perceptive than he actually is.

Dabria is a nod to the protag's family in AF, yes. ;]

Ekat said:

What do you mean by giving the badges to the Pokémon? That doesn't do anything. Were you just handing them over like held items? Or are you referring to the lore bit about how they're supposed to draw on the power of a trainer and their Pokémon?

Click to expand...

Oh, no, it was definitely clear how to use the badges! I was just confused about why giving them like held items was an option- it feels a little weird to have "Give" and "Toss" be there if there's no real point to either of them.

Ekat said:

With the Camo Kid, I know from experience with seeing people play AF that people will spam, even if there isn't a penalty system. (And just soft reset every time they guess wrong.) Originally, I was considering adding a sort of sin counter, where the rewards would change based on your number of wrong guesses. The final Camo kid would also judge you based on how many times you guess wrong. But, time this, jam that, yada' yada'. It also still incentivizes soft resetting. I might try integrating it into a post-judging update, though.

Click to expand...

Ohh, yeah, I wasn't considering soft resets lol. Honestly I'd say just leave it then, sounds like working around that would be too much effort for a small sidequest like that.

Ekat said:

Yes, the point with overworld Pokémon is to punish the player. There are no trainer battles in the mines. I can look into making their EXP gain be boosted, or something along those lines. I've done it with games in the past, I just wasn't sure if it would play nice with the other ways I've changed EXP gain.

Click to expand...

Oh, I personally think you shouldn't bother- an XP boost would incentive the player to fight them, which feels at odds with the role of protecting the park, and contradicts your goal of wanting them to be there as punishment. Just leave me to sulk about it on my own, haha,

Ekat said:

The animation should be turned off for all events before Park Points are introduced. What event showed them for you?

Click to expand...

...You know, I just replayed the start and did every sidequest before the points, and it never did? I think I might have misremembered the "task complete" animation and thought they all gave points, haha.

Oh, wait, actually, I think I remember what put that idea in my head! Saving the game still displays how many points you have! So more of an interface spoiler than anything with the events. But even then, people should be saving with quicksave anyways, so it's kind of on me lol.

Ekat said:

There is never a threat of Giselle considering to change careers, but the people around her keep misinterpreting that. She finds the work boring, but it doesn't mean she wants to leave. Right from the get-go with the badges, she is hasty to reassure Boss that she doesn't want to leave. Giselle went to the lecture because she was interested in the mysterious topic, not because she was interested in changing careers. Directly after the events of the demonstration, when Yew talks to her about school after the lecture, she refuses. Both Boss and Yew misjudge the situation, thinking that Giselle wants to leave. In the case of Boss, he's wound up by paranoia, given his past with Yew. Giselle can't reason with him as a result. Yew, meanwhile, is just a bad judge of character. He thinks he's a lot smarter and perceptive than he actually is.

Click to expand...

Ohhhh, I see! (I think I'd been misinterpreting her promises that she doesn't want to leave as like, trying to placate Boss rather than being genuine about it?) I really like that, I appreciate stories where paths that are usually seen as "not using potential" like staying home/staying with a career path are seen as perfectly valid ways to live a fulfilling life! (Which might sound kind like I'm flipflopping on my earlier stance, haha, but that was only because I had misinterpreted Giselle's feelings about her current state of life)

The maps all looked really good and delivered together with the music a fitting mood for each map. You really did a great job there.
I have to say I really loved the map layouts in the park. Once I got to know where what is it is really easy to get everywhere pretty quickly without fast travel. It's pretty impressive given how much stuff there is.
The only nitpick I had was that I had a hard time seeing forest entrances. I used fast travel for the first quests because I hadn't noticed them.

I really liked the story. The pacing is great. I also think that the foreshadowing cutscenes you're doing really set a good expectation for what's to do next.
I had a bit of a delay with the egg pickup in Baccata Manor. The text said I don't have space but I didn't get that it ment in my party. At first I thought I was missing something like an incubator. Maybe adding the words "in your party" would make things clearer. But then again there's probably not many people who'd get stuck on that.
The puzzles you sprinkled into the main storyline were great. With the exception of the dark cave in my opinion. It was just way to long with too little guidance. Maybe having a light go on after activating the first generator or something would help.
In the hostpital mission where you go through the walls you activate those events once you step on the footprints. I think it would be better to have the event in the wall with a direction conditional so it only activates when the player walkes against the wall. That would fix the problems of the player not being able to go back into the previous room without first stepping off of the footprint and making it possible to go over those footprints without unintentionally beeing sucked through the wall.

Quicksave and quick heals are great. So are the fast travels. I found a bug with the quicksaves though. When I saved and continued to walk in the hospital I got attacked by a Pokémon and the quicksave animation paused during the battle. Meaning it froze on screen and then continued after the battle. If possible it would be better to just have it continue to play normally.
I really really liked how you included Serenity Scope. It's fun and versatile. And you use it all the time. The only thing I wish is that the timer would pause when doing a battle. Because it's pretty frustrating to activate the scope only to run into a wild Pokémon 2 steps later and having to reactivate it.
I also loved the currencies and hidden shops you included. It really brought the world to live.

When I battled the Voltorb right there:


Voltorb used Lightscreen. Then I used Brick Break and 1-Shot it with my Gurdurr. I don't know whether I got xp or not but after Voltorb fainted I got the following Error Message:

it might be an Essentials Error though ... haven't tried to reproduce it in either your game nor vanilla Essentials. Good thing is that the game doesn't crash because of that so I didn't lose any progress. Not that I would have lost much ... I save like every minute in fangames.

All in all, an incredibly beautiful game, like the flower it's named after! And while we're on that topic, can I commend you on the sheer genius of that name? I love the wordplay (Night Shade and nightshade), the amount of layers to it, the meaning behind the flower, and how every aspect ties so nicely into the main themes of your game.

Themes, story
There's a certain skillfulness (and beauty!) in the way this game is crafted, where the portrayal of "death" feels less like a horror movie and more like a peaceful sleep -- and yet, the unsettling undertones are still there. I think it's the way you make it feel grounded, from Giselle's view of Ghost-types as friends (the fact that Ghost-types are Pokémon like any other), to her mundane activities as Park Ranger, and her hilarious yet heartwarming interactions with her family and friends. Something that stood out to me was the usage of the crossword puzzle -- it's just a really creative way to reinforce certain important keywords without being too overtly in-the-face about it, and the image of Giselle and a girl in a lone classroom in a peaceful town completing a crossword is really sweet.

That being said, I do wish that the various sprinkles of foreshadowing can have a little more payoff, with Boss being the main culprit -- since the Serenity Scope shows that "he can't be trusted"; plus, there's the way he "crossed the line" at the very beginning of the game and there's supposed to be this terrible curse that's going to befall him because of that (that might or might not have something to do with Giratina). I'm glad he turned out to be just overprotective, because I've grown to love his character and I don't want him to be evil (or dead)... but something still feels a bit lacking. Of course, there's a high chance I'm misreading/misjudging things, and as the game progressed, it did become clearer to me that this is not a game with a too-convoluted plotline, despite the increase in tension (which I appreciate!)

Aesthetics
I've never seen such masterful use of Gen 3 tiles! I could rave all day about how beautiful the falling petals are, how clever those footprints are in leading the player to hidden dens, and how each area of the park transitions so naturally in the area next to it, but one thing that really stood out to me were the indoors. (Public) indoor tilesets are so hard to find, and there're only so many ways to map a room... was what I thought at until I played this game! It's amazing how each house has its own unique layout, and how a single gate can have so many layouts (Marty -- and you by extension -- flexing those interior design skills!) But most of all, I love the amount of detail in those places, like the toys in the hospital and the goods on the shelves; it really makes the buildings feel complete.

Gameplay
My final team, should you need it for research purposes:

There was this segment in the summary on IVs and EVs... somehow, it seems that the way EVs are calculated in the game is different from the usual? I'm curious how it works. ><

It was fun being a Park Ranger, using the Serenity Scope to find hidden stuff (and man, were there loads of hidden stuff!), and accruing points for those sweet badges! I especially liked the variety of things you get to do (birdcalls, picking honey, etc.), and the variety in battle formats as well. The Triple Battles were surprisingly satisfying to beat, with moves like Masquerain's Air Cutter and Lycanroc's Rock Slide (and the family team-up at the end had me smiling the entire time)! Like others have already pointed out, the mines were pretty difficult to get through, mainly because I'm just fumbling around in the dark, and the fact that I got through it feels like a stroke of luck rather than me actually knowing what I was doing or where I was going. Some illumination would honestly be nice in this part ^^

Spelling/grammatical errors


Dependent event not following behind the player (Power Station, to the right of where the wild grass is)

The short story about breaking the park rules is foreshadowing to the forbidden areas of the ghost bosses. Notice that all of them are humanoid in appearance? And, to enter all of their territories, you have to break the park rules. (Mines are off-limits, as is the old hydro plant, etc.) In doing so, you wind up fighting the bosses.

Boss is deliberately misconstrued to seem like the main villain. (Even if he's the main source of conflict, he's not outright evil.) The "he can't be trusted" message is a major red herring. (I'm glad people have found it, btw, ha.) However, the statement is not entirely untrue.

Boss technically can't be trusted for most of the game. He didn't tell Giselle about the true nature of how the badges worked, nor did he warn her about the things Yew had done in the past. Even if his attitude/actions come from a place of genuinely caring about Giselle, it isn't very healthy for the two.

A major part of the Boss/Giselle story is her pulling off the blinders, and eventually standing up for herself. Giselle, while a competent Ranger, starts off pretty naïve and loyal. She dismisses a lot of Boss's grumpiness/rudeness directed towards her as being deserved. (Which, again, isn't very healthy.) Gathering the badges gives Giselle more confidence. Whether it's because she's actually going mad with power, or the slow realization that she does a lot for the park is up to the player. ;] There's also a bit of natural teenage/growing up rebelliousness mixed in, too. Yew's presence, meanwhile, is a catalyst. He exacerbates a serious problem that already existed in the relationship between Boss and Giselle. Then, things eventually snap, yada' yada'...

At the end of the day, it is true that Boss can't be trusted. But, Giselle doesn't have to become paranoid like him to accomplish this. She grows up a little more, and stops treating his behaviour/orders like an absolute that she must obey. Boss, in turn, receives a reality check from a few different sources.