Released Pokémon Starrise (v0.1)

Pokémon Starrise is a fangame being made in RPG Maker XP/Pokémon Essentials v21.1. I've been working on it in my spare time as a one-man team for over a year now.

DOWNLOADS: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WMnsomGKlrHoo-2gXNwF3jhYn-yJWB4c?usp=sharing

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/9wCNzNPQtS

PLOT:
You wake up in a laboratory hidden in a cave, and are almost immediately handed a Pokémon and thrust out the door on an adventure with very little explanation. Your adventure, that of qualifying to challenge the region's eight Gyms and the Elite 4 to become the new Champion seems standard enough at first, but it quickly becomes apparent that not all is as it seems. Who are these people attacking you, and why? What happened to that abandoned island? What's the deal with those laboratories? What is the secret to the champion's strength? All this- and perhaps more- will be revealed, in time.

Spoiler: Screenshots

This game primarily aims to be a new story set in an interesting world, with gameplay designed for Pokémon fans who want a challenge a bit tougher than the vanilla games usually offer, but not so tough that they can't play with their favorites.

FEATURES (CURRENTLY IN THE GAME):
-A wide selection of Pokémon from all 9 generations
-Generation 9 battle mechanics
-Several Pokémon with custom regional variants (and even a handful with custom convergent evolutions)
-An in-game way to look up the stats, abilities, and evolution requirements of custom variants
-Several custom moves (some being custom TMs, others being signature moves of custom variants)
-A few custom abilities I've tried to keep balanced (all on custom variants)
-Two challenging gyms, each with their own in-battle gimmicks (ex: permanent Grassy Terrain)
-A Move Reminder in every Pokémon Center
-Time-based evolutions are no longer time-based, and can be done whenever
-Trade evolutions made possible in-game
-All Egg Moves now learnable through Move Reminder (some only after evolving though)
-An option to switch between Single and Double Battles
-An option to switch between Classic and Modern EXP Share
-HM Items
-Sidequests
-A sort of "superboss-lite" (Me!) with new teams after each gym who gives permanent buffs to shiny odds for each team beaten

FEATURES (UNIMPLIMENTED BUT PLANNED):
-The other six gyms, Elite 4, Champion, the rest of the plot, etc.
-Regional variants for all 27 fully-evolved starters (already made, just not obtainable yet)
-A difficulty setting
-A post-game dungeon reminiscent of the Paper Mario games' Pit of 100 Trials
-A functioning Union Room for trading and PVP, if that's even possible

Spoiler: CREDITS:

Generation 9 Resource Pack (Too many names to list so here's a link: https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/generation-9-resource-pack-v21-1.527398/)*
Gen 8 Animation Project (StCooler, DarrylBD99, WolfPP, ardicoozer, riddlemeree)
Gen 9 Animation Project (KRLW890, Nut0066, Toxillian, QuahogTheCreator, Lcorp, Shashu-Greninja)
Pokémon Sound Effects Pack (BellBlitzKing)
Gen 4&5 Trainer Sprites & PBS (Mr. Gela/theo#7722, Moliblazer)
A ton of NPC overworld sprites (Mr. Gela/theo#7722, Moliblazer, Delta231, Mimi, M.vit, Kimoras, Aveontrainer, Kalarie, MrDollSteak, Spherical Ice)
ENL'S Pre-Looped Music Library
Essentials Selection (FL-)
Berrypots (Caruban)
Mid Battle Dialogue (Golisopod User, Luka SJ, Grogro)
Modern Quest System (ThatWelshOne_,mej71,derFischae,Marin)
"Pokémon Essentials" was created by:
Poccil (Peter O.)
Maruno
Inspired by work by Flameguru

With contributions from:
AvatarMonkeyKirby, Boushy, Brother1440, FL., Genzai Kawakami,
Golisopod User, help-14, IceGod64, Jacob O. Wobbrock, KitsuneKouta,
Lisa Anthony, Luka S.J., Marin, MiDas Mike, Near Fantastica,
PinkMan, Popper, Rataime, Savordez, SoundSpawn,
the__end, Venom12, Wachunga
and everyone else who helped out
v21.1 Hotfixes (Maruno)
SOS Battles (thatonekriegerwriter, Vendily (For Original Script), SoloReprise)**

*The sprites of some of the custom variants are edits I made to sprites from the Smogon Sprite Project, which was done with permission, as evidenced here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/x-y-sprite-project.3486712/post-10280379
**I'm not even using this plugin at the moment. I'm just scared to delete it because I don't remember why it's here. But whatever the reason, it is here, so I'm still crediting it.

 

[Jona1]

ooo this fangame looks cool too i cant wait to play this fangame yay!! i love the fakemons and the charathers we play as!!

 

[Folk]

What i like so far is the character design is really good and i mean all characters design and i love the new Pokémon design. What I feel conflicted is the map because it can use more costume tileset seeing normal default fire red feel boring for me because I see it many time when i play the original. Weakness that i feel on this game is the beginning of the story and i don't know why i feel almost all the characters is quite harsh toward the player.

Thank you for the game and stay healthy

 

[pengie9290]

What i like so far is the character design is really good and i mean all characters design and i love the new Pokémon design. What I feel conflicted is the map because it can use more costume tileset seeing normal default fire red feel boring for me because I see it many time when i play the original. Weakness that i feel on this game is the beginning of the story and i don't know why i feel almost all the characters is quite harsh toward the player.

Thank you for the game and stay healthy

Thanks for the feedback!

I decided to use a largely vanilla tileset because I wanted to try and capture the feeling of playing the vanilla games. Experiencing something new is always awesome, but I feel in pursuit of their own unique charms, fangames sometimes lose some of the charm the vanilla games already have. (I actually do have a fair number of custom tiles, like the phone booths and a lot of Nightwell City, but I've designed most of them to try and replicate the vanilla style as much as possible.) I can definitely see why that might make the game less visually interesting to someone, though.

Also, I'm a bit surprised you find the characters to be harsh. Dr. Thorne is supposed to be incredibly harsh, but just about everyone else is generally supposed to be pretty friendly. If possible, could you tell me what made the (non-Thorne) characters come off as harsh? If I'm not doing as good a job writing them as I thought, I'd like to fix their dialogue to better get the right feel across.