|
 Pokemon Uranium is a fanmade Pokemon game created in RPG Maker XP using the Pokemon Essentials script package. It features over 150 new pokemon, new moves and abilities, its own region to explore, and some good ideas bogged down by plenty of baffling decisions, bad design, and novelty for novelty's sake. It also has an antagonist who quotes Oppenheimer. But all in due time. So why am I here? Tie Tuesday did a run right after its release in August 2016, which some of my e-buddies watched, and they posted about some of its more bullshit moments, which got me curious. And the more I saw, the more curious I got. How far did I go? .png) Well, I decpryted the game, which not only gave me complete knowledge of its inner workings, but gave me the ability to edit it, meaning I could circumvent its most tedious aspects to get to the guts. At its core, Uranium is a very unbalanced game, and I wanted to show that to the world without the part where I'd have to grind on random encounters for hours just to stay on par with the enemies. And it gives me the ability to train and rotate a massive cast of goobers despite this game's insistence I never try anything new. So I've beaten the game. Completed the Pokedex. Fought bonus bosses. There is not a virtue or sin uncovered. Oh, by the way? The pokemon in that screenshot will do nothing but use Overheat until it runs out of PP or dies, and Overheat is a 140-power move so it hurts like the dickens. It has the ability Contrary meaning, rather than the normal cut to its special attack Overheat as a drawback, its already formidable 181 special attack is increased by 181 more each use, which is such a drastic increase that almost nothing can survive after one, much less two or three boosts. It has 249 speed due to the choice scarf, putting it ahead of nearly everything else without its own choice scarf at level 70. If you do not pack specific answers and deploy them at the exact right time, this thing will crush you. It's not even the most broken thing on the guy's team. Welcome to Uranium. I've already beaten the game, so any suggestions like use this guy or go there I can't act on. This LP won't exactly be new-to-pokemon-friendly, as a lot of what Uranium does wrong is on the technical side. I'll try to explain everything that's going on as best as I can but I'm still going to get really deep and will probably forget something along the way. I'll be mostly summarizing scenes and dialogue, if only to make this less tedious. Uranium is way too wordy of a game to transcribe its text. This is on version 1.1 so it has some features and bugfixes absent in earlier versions, and there may be new releases while this thread is ongoing I won't cover. SPOILER POLICY: Don't spoil one goddamn thing, even behind tags. With my big and beautiful backhoe I will dig up everything. UPDATES:                                      
Orange Fluffy Sheep fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Nov 8, 2017 |
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Dec 9, 2024 14:39 |
|
|
Fan Art, or Fart: Burger Flipper gives our protagonist Dick Solomon a fitting sprite:  The Ayshkerbundy gets Garlikid, man:  Then The Ayshkerbundy performed splicing experiments:  Dr. Fetus mourns the late PUSSYMASHER:  MissEchelon likes all chimeras.  MissEchelon does not like Garlikid.  Naggums likes the space creature.  Dinosaurmageddon asks how far down can Linkite go?  SpruceZeus's buddy makes Daikatuna's design suck it down.  SpruceZeus's buddy puts a spin on Dunsparce evolution ideas.  Burger Flipper gives Nuclear Arbok a better biohazard symbol.   MissEchelon draws My Fursona (it doesn't make much more sense in context).  Garlikid has witnessed Megane's true power!  Scarodactyl visits Lavent's burger joint on the ocean floor.  MissEchelon cannot handle a shrimp holding a gun.  The Ayshkerbundy knows people who are getting hit.  Scarodactyl polished up the top boy some.  Scarodactyl then gave it some weights to lift.  The Ayshkerbundy's favorite Uranium 'mon is Inflategetah.  The Ayshkerbundy correctly spoils Uranium's big plot twist!  PBJ has the sane reaction to the big plot twist! 
Orange Fluffy Sheep fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Nov 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:03
|
|
|
 The first thing after starting a new game is a prompt to play the game normally or play a weird variant difficulty mode that would demand even more dependence on grinding and RNG than normal. Welcome to Uranium.  It has a bog standard Pokemon intro. This project began in 2007 or so I've been told, which would've put it shortly after Diamond and Pearl. It kept up with game mechanics until its release, so this has features like Mega Evolution and the Fairy type.  Don't look too closely at his hand. Or at the sprite in general. The spritework in Uranium is passable at best and  disconcerting at worst. Is the professor wearing jorts I swear I will fu-  Uranium is a fan production and uses fan terminology and unofficial definitions. It's suddenly jarring to have the characters in the game use slang.  Uranium has 3 options for the player character's appearance. The male on the left, the female on the right, and an androgynous, gender-neutral option in the middle. This is a nice touch, giving players a variety besides all dude or all lady. The problem is the bad spritework continues here, and the other two options look really... off.  So I go with the male PC, because I am a misogynist and because it's the least-awful sprite. The name was provided by resident person Inthesto. The PC name has 12 slots. Great! If only Pokemon did too!  I need a foreshadowing filter.  Excellent.  As is standard for Pokemon games, it begins with exposition over a black screen. Wait, no, that's not how any of them go. Also it has what Uranium wants you to think is ominous and somber music. Nuclear Plant It's a remix of the Dark Cave theme from Pokemon Gold & Silver. Uranium has a lot of remixes in its OST. "O"ST.  One of the few times I can give a Bulbapedia link for a character. This game is Pokemon Ranger fanfic on some level. Also this makes the Uranium protagonist one of the few to have a known father.  Most characters are original for Uranium though. Uranium uses "their" and such for the protagonist's pronouns. It may be accommodating having a gender-neutral option, or it may be not wanting to program three separate versions of lines. I'm not sure how much of each it is. Also this makes the Uranium protagonist one of the few to have a named mother.  Oh great, what we needed, a tragic backstory.   You know what that means.  PANIC! MELTDOWN! DEVASTATION!  Everyone but mom evacuates.  This makes the Uranium protagonist one of the few to have a tragically dead mother.  You know that cheerful boy you played as in the second Pokemon Ranger game? Now he's bitter and buries his grief in his work.  This makes the Uranium protagonist one of the few to have a defined auntie.  After tragic backstory, we get control. First thing I do is check the PC item storage to get a potion, like in Red & Blue. This is the only time PC item storage is relevant as the player has infinite item capacity. I don't know why besides that it's a default part of the Pokemon Essentials script package.  Auntie is nice and supportive of us starting our Pokemon journey. Auntie is not a bad part of this game.  Auntie also gives the running shoes. Normally you'd have to hold a dedicated run button, but you can toggle always running on the menu. I of course always run.  Arbitrary Undertale references are a bad part of this game.  Arbitrary giant dog erotica is perhaps even worse!  34 of the 200 pokemon in the Tandor pokedex are from the official games. The rest are new. And furthermore, Uranium adds some new evolutions and mega evolutions to spice a few of them up.  On the way to the lab, we're stopped by someone shouting off screen!  It's our rival, Theo. He's young and brash and impulsive. How young, exactly? Dunno. Don't know how old Dick Solomon is either. He's at least 10 to have lost his mother 10 years ago, but how much older is unclear. Then again this is Pokemon, which started with a 10-year-old toppling criminal empires, so it's whatever.  Jorts, tiny shades that don't actually cover his eyes, forgetting Theo's name... Bamb'o (pronounced bam-boe) is kind of a douche, huh?  The ostensible reason we're getting a Pokemon and going on a journey is to be a research assistant for Bamb'o. This does not include wages, which I only mention because Uranium is very stingy with money. Theoretically the guy studies types but in the end he just gives you stuff for catching a lot of poo poo.  Rather than letting me look at the three goobers and picking one, Uranium is different for Reasons (a recurring element). He insists the starters have totally different styles and we gotta pick one that gels with our style, and we have to do a short questionaire.  Notice how they're color-coded? They correspond with the grass, fire, and water starters. So it's just roundabout for no reason.  I find it vaguely appropriate that button-mashing gets you the high-power low-durability starter. I'm aiming for the water-type starter, so I answer the blue option. This is true for me, though the poke ball in question is usually a quick ball so it starts and ends with the throw.  Truthfully it's Protect but that's because I'm a fool for doubles.  Gyarados would totally dunk the others but I have to rep the sheep that Ampharos theoretically is and also pick blue answers to get the water starter.  I guess "exploring the region" is the technical term for showing the metaphorical cracks in the pavement.  For teaching my Ampharos hidden power or whatever I get the blue starter.  Why was this so convoluted? Was "hey grab a tiny animal" too pedestrian?  I don't remember who picked most of the nicknames I used. Hell, I probably won't even remember the ones I picked myself.  Theo gets the starter weak to ours. So if we picked green answers to get the grass pokemon, he'd end up with the Eletux. That this way it's the one that actually fits his personality is incidental.  Of course, now that we both have starters we have to fight. It's iron law.  Theo has his own battle music. Theo Battle But one of the things with Uranium - or maybe RPG Maker XP or Pokemon Essentials in general - is that its music folder is completely out in the open. Just take a song you like, convert it to .ogg with a program like Audacity, take out the original song, then put in your .ogg and rename it to the song it's replacing. So instead of the default PU-TheoBattle.ogg you can have whatever tracks you can jam in. So Pokemon is technically cockfighting on some level, and my Eletux is apparently a horse of some kind. So, clearly... The Sounds of Animals Fighting - My Horse Must Lose  As you might be able to tell by its lightning bolt decal and name of Eletux, Zapmander is water/electric. Theo's Raptorch is fire/ground, and the third starter Orchynx is grass/steel. These secondary types don't form a second triangle like the X & Y starters' dark/psychic/fighting types do. Ground beats both Steel and Electric. But what it means in the here and now is Water Gun will strike for quadruple damage and obliterate the opponent. One thing I have to give Uranium is that its radial-looking menus are pretty slick all things considered.  Reprising a thing from my last attempt to LP a Pokemon game, here's a new, updated, and more colorful move info card. Water Gun is utterly unremarkable by most metrics but I appreciate starting with a water move.   Ember is on the level of Water Gun, besides that 10% burn chance popping up now and then (which it did in my test run amusingly enough). Zapmander tanks it handily.  Then dunks Raptorch instantly.  Theo starts crying because his first battle was a loss, and because his starter has the type disadvantage.  And he runs off crying. Theo is one of the more realistically-written children in a video game, in that he's a selfish little poo poo. That's probably not a good thing.  Our next goal is to comfort the crying child who feels his dreams have been crushed and learn how to abduct chipmunks. But before that, there's a town map in the lab, so let's check out the Tandor regio-  is that a place named anthell gently caress Tandor is ostensibly based on Brazil, I'm guessing the state of Pará by its geography, but that's just a guess. It doesn't do much with its Brazil-ness.  Uranium's Pokemon info shows IVs and EVs directly. This is a fair bit more complicated than I want to get into on the first update, so all you need to know for now is that it's both extremely helpful and extremely ominous that we get to look beyond the veil from the start completely unambiguously. Oh yeah, a few Uranium pokemon have animations. The starters front sprites do, for example. You can see Raptorch up there is in a few different frames. What about Zapmander?  Welcome to Uranium. Orange Fluffy Sheep fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Feb 16, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:04
|
|
|
Jesus loving Christ that's rude as poo poo. I've heard horror stories about this game's... difficulty curve, but oh man I don't think I knew just how deep that rabbit hole went.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:18
|
|
|
why does it have butt lights on second thought i dont think i want to know
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:22
|
|
|
I find it amazing how even the most detailed and feature-complete Pokemon fangame still manages to miss the mark so horribly. Looking forward to this. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:26
|
|
|
I know nothing about this game other than it is bad and made a variety of people playing it very sad. I'm in.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:28
|
|
|
I tried playing this and stopped very quickly after the first section. All I remember is that Theo is a very sad individual who writes self insert fan fiction about being the best trainer ever, and how his friend <insert player name here> totally respects him.
senrath fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Feb 15, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:42
|
|
|
I have one thing to complain about this game but I'm saving it when the starter evolves. Also Nuzlocke runs are garbage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 21:51
|
|
|
This looks... endearing? I guess I can understand all the hostility if they led people to expect "Pokemon, but we did it RIGHT not like those LOSERS at NinLAMEno," and instead put out Kaizomon, but as xtreme fanhacks go this one looks honestly kind of adorable.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:03
|
|
|
Once again I ask you, why are you doing this to yourself? Though I am curious on how deep the poor design rabbit hole goes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:04
|
|
|
Oh yes, I hope you go over what stuff was before you changed it and maybe even an attempt at it before it all goes horribly wrong? But editing the files to make the game slightly less obnoxious is a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:06
|
|
|
Explosions posted:This looks... endearing? I guess I can understand all the hostility if they led people to expect "Pokemon, but we did it RIGHT not like those LOSERS at NinLAMEno," and instead put out Kaizomon, but as xtreme fanhacks go this one looks honestly kind of adorable. You're in for some disappointment
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:15
|
|
|
Crosspeice posted:Oh yes, I hope you go over what stuff was before you changed it and maybe even an attempt at it before it all goes horribly wrong? All I did was edit the price of Rare Candies to $10 and made one shop sell them, and then at the end edit a random encounter table to fill out the pokedex with one-or-the-other type things like the starters I'd otherwise have to beg on the internet for. Everything except my Pokemon keeping up in levels is purestrain uranium.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:18
|
|
|
I love you for this and also I am very sorry you have to go through this
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:20
|
|
|
Good luck and God speed Sheep. I'm looking forward to this because I burnt out on watching Tie's playthrough. Jokes can't save this game in video form.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:42
|
|
|
Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:All I did was edit the price of Rare Candies to $10 and made one shop sell them, and then at the end edit a random encounter table to fill out the pokedex with one-or-the-other type things like the starters I'd otherwise have to beg on the internet for. That works even better and I pray for your success you mad mad fool.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:42
|
|
|
After watching Tie riff on this, I can't wait for your take. Please take this sucker apart piece by piece.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 22:43
|
|
|
I've heard stories about this. I can't wait to see how deep this garbage pit goes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 23:00
|
|
|
I only heard about this because some people got angry over Nintendo DMCA'ing this to death, so far it uh looks a little interesting but those Pokemon designs aren't giving me hope.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 23:11
|
|
|
Something that everyone should keep in mind as the LP goes on: this game has a dedicated Nuzlocke mode. This game won't end well.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 23:34
|
|
|
I know nothing about this, but considering the reaction so far, I am definitely intrigued and a bit concerned. At any rate, eager to see where this goes!
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 23:41
|
|
|
Explosions posted:This looks... endearing? I guess I can understand all the hostility if they led people to expect "Pokemon, but we did it RIGHT not like those LOSERS at NinLAMEno," and instead put out Kaizomon, but as xtreme fanhacks go this one looks honestly kind of adorable. If I remember, the creator didn't but a ton of people did after the DMCA. I saw a lot of people complaining Sun/Moon were too easy and that nintendo has no idea how to make games and it should be more like uranium The game with a scarfed contrary overheat special sweeper in the main game. For me it's that 5 years of effort went into it with nearly 0 of that being playtesting for balance apparently. I didn't play very far into Uranium but I have a lot I could say about the early game, especially since it's such an important part of any pokemon. It's the time before party balance can be blown wide open and you need to be careful with the wild encounters and enemy parties.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 00:06
|
|
|
Jeeze the start is already kinda rocky; this is going to turn into a flaming pile of garbage fast and it's going to be an amazing journey. Thanks OFS.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 00:14
|
|
|
Watched right the way through Tie's play of this trainwreck, was surprised how long it took him and his crew to break down and start cheating. This game is just... not fair, really looking forwards to this look through. I remember Tie and co floated around a theory that every 'mon in Uranium has ludicrously high or even maxed out EVs/IVs after watching wild encounters punch way above their weight class without fail. Since you're cracking open the game OFS, are you able to confirm or deny this?
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 00:30
|
|
|
Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:
Orange text on a yellow background next to a white background is a little hard on the eyes. So far, though, this all looks... fun? I'm always a fan of digging around game files.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 00:40
|
|
|
Explosions posted:This looks... endearing? I guess I can understand all the hostility if they led people to expect "Pokemon, but we did it RIGHT not like those LOSERS at NinLAMEno," and instead put out Kaizomon, but as xtreme fanhacks go this one looks honestly kind of adorable. Pretty much the same reaction here, the game doesn't look like a hacked-together mess or someone's first project. Clearly a lot of love went into this game. I do look forward to seeing how bad the whole production gets later.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 00:46
|
|
|
I'm happy to see from reading the responses in this thread that a lot of pokemon fans are as over hearing about people's nuzlocke runs as I am. Pokemon is a pretty interesting case study in game design because the mechanics of the game are pretty complicated but the main campaign tends to be so easy that you finish it having only really learned the type match up chart. Which is really only scratching the surface of what the games had going on under the hood. So I can understand and sympathize the desire to make pokemon more challenging, if only to create a deeper game experience by making all those other mechanics actually matter to a players success. But every attempt I have seen to create this challenge, from nuzlocke runs to romhacks to fangames like Uranium, seem to be based around this wrongheaded and sometimes utterly baffling understanding of what makes a videogame satisfyingly difficult. For the record I have some experience messing around with Uranium and I've never really found the creature designs and spritework to be objectionable at all. I totally get where all you guys saying you found what you saw so far charming. The plot is something else though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:01
|
|
|
Gharbad the Weak posted:Orange text on a yellow background next to a white background is a little hard on the eyes. Didn't think about that. How about a cascade of pleasing cool colors? 
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:05
|
|
|
Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Didn't think about that. How about a cascade of pleasing cool colors? I really love how the guy who made this thought adding NUCLEAR would be this cool edgy thing. I bet he adds split evoultion paths for some pokemans where they MUTATE too
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:19
|
|
|
Oh look Cancer Form Pikachu All it's hair has fallen out and it's grown massive painful lumps in its lungs!
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:20
|
|
|
I... didn't totally loathe this game? It was the first Pokemon game I've played since GBA Sapphire, so some of its design sins missed me completely. (Not all of them, though - the Anthell is one of a few truly egregious failures.) But I did use the Wiki while I played, and was consciously aware that the game wanted to be played with a competitive-Mon setup, rather than a casual style. I would have really resented that without having the Wiki to work with. The plot sure is a plot in a Pokemon game. TieTuesday, who started playing only a few days after the first unpatched release, went in blind to the game's nasty difficulty and unknowingly dealt with a near-gamebreaking bug for the entire game. Thankfully, his loss of sanity is our comedic gain! 
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:21
|
|
|
Nuclear type, Pokemon Uranium adds the Nuclear type. I shouldn't be surprised but I am. I mean not only is it entirely unnecessary, but they worked on this game for years and that's the best new type they could come up with?
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:23
|
|
|
Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Didn't think about that. How about a cascade of pleasing cool colors? Looks much bett-- why is the type listed as "Nuclear", that's a joke right? Surely this clusterfuck of a game wouldn't actually insert a new type? I mean yeah it's called "Uranium" and there was that dumb intro, but still. Is this buying into the whole "Pokemon is an alternate timeline and they're actually mutants from a war" or whatever?
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:25
|
|
|
Nuclear is a type introduced in this game. Yes, it's dumb.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:36
|
|
|
This reads like a 14-year-old's idea of what a hypothetical "grown-up" Pokémon game should be. I can't wait to see more.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 01:43
|
|
|
insanityv2 posted:For the record I have some experience messing around with Uranium and I've never really found the creature designs and spritework to be objectionable at all. I totally get where all you guys saying you found what you saw so far charming. The plot is something else though. Some of the designs are a bit funky but I'm fine with most of them. I really liked the fire-type starter, and they're all fine, they just feel like.. I dunno, they're missing a first evo or something? You'd get something smaller and cuter as a starter. The spritework is definitely better than a lot of fangames and romhacks out there though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 02:24
|
|
|
Vorpal Cat posted:Nuclear type, Pokemon Uranium adds the Nuclear type. I shouldn't be surprised but I am. I mean not only is it entirely unnecessary, but they worked on this game for years and that's the best new type they could come up with? Fan games seem to love adding new types for whatever reason. Brown, a pretty interesting gen 1 romhack, and it's sequel Prism, a crystal romhack which also made the rounds roughly the same time as uranium, added five of them. It decided to go granular rather than edgey, at least. Sound, Gas, Wind, "Abnormal" (which basically only existed for Porygon), and Wood (which no, did not replace Grass. Bellsprout became Grass/Wood). Also brought in fairy. e: woops rannum fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Feb 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 02:25
|
|
|
MachuPikacchu posted:This reads like a 14-year-old's idea of what a hypothetical "grown-up" Pokémon game should be. That is EVERY Pokemon Fan-game. I hate it so much, I only enjoy games like Uranium because now we have proof that, as it turns out, making a Pokemon Game that's good is not actually easy.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 02:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Dec 9, 2024 14:39 |
|
|
Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Didn't think about that. How about a cascade of pleasing cool colors? Significantly less painful. Thanks~
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2017 02:30
|
|