The Gaming Den

Note: there is no skateboarding or mountain dew or any other kind of XTREEEEEEME going on, it's just really good.

Something particularly impressive about this one is that English is the creator's second language and the game is fully in English (okay sorry, I think there are two or three lines untranslated somewhere, also one new attack is in Spanish (I think it translates to Ice Burn, it's Flamethrower except Ice type, including the Burn thing). And one pokemon - Type Null is Codigo 0.

This has a pokedex length of 386, and gives you the National Dex right at the start. Also it gives you Running Shoes right at the start because fucking hell, someone at Gamefreak either had early onset dementia or late onset Downs'. Also you can run indoors. It has the Special-Physical split and let's be honest: I will not tell you a game is good if it doesn't have that. It also has the Fairy type and Steel doesn't resist Dark or Ghost. Also if any pokemon has an Alolan form, that's the one this game uses. So rainbow Muk etc.

So this pokedex is not specific to any given thing, I think it's just a bunch of the creator's favourites. It even has a bunch of the Ultra Beasts, because Digimon are the Champions. They're not mixed into the actual Ultra Beast lore of Sun/Moon, they're just like every other "this legendary is wandering out in the wild here". Of which there are a LOT. On the downside, there are a lot of things with very low catch rates, so you probably want to save scum an awful lot. On the plus side, you get several Master Balls through the story, and then in the postgame (Cerulean Cave) you can just get an infinite supply of them.

Now, this doesn't add any new Abilities, which is a bit sad. But it has a lot of interesting things: a unique "alternate region form" Charmander that is white and blue and is Ice type (it ends up being Flying/Ice Charizard, learning the Ice Burn move mentioned above). A Grass/Fire Celebi (Flame Body). A Steel/Fairy Jirachi (Serene Grace). Psychic/Water Deoxys (Drizzle). Things like Zygarde and the fusion Dragon from 5th? gen can simply swap forms by evolving back and forth via stones. Oh and there are no trade evolutions - you can get everything in the one game by yourself, as Arceus intended.

It has Ekans, in case you are secretly Jim Sterling.
I think it has all the starters from every generation, out in the wild to catch.
And I think TMs are all infinite use?

Finally, it has Mega Evolution. You can bug the game out in Double Battles by trying to Mega Evolve two pokemon at the same time, so don't do that. But other than that, you have the fancy glowing button and the fancy glowing animation, and the sprite change and type and stats change - and while the Ability might be different depending on what it is, some of them require you to swap out then in - Alakazam won't get Trace then instantly trace the foe's Ability, and if Good Doge Megas up to get Intimidate, it won't actually activate because it wasn't swapped in.

Icy Charizard has its own Mega Evolution which is basically Charizardite Y, so it's a pure Special sweeper with Snow Warning. The Gen 2 starters all get Mega Evolutions (Feraligator: Water/Poison with Poison Point. Typhlosion: Fire/Dark with Flame Body. Meganium: Grass/Dragon with Effect Spore). Lapras gets a Mega (Water/Ice with Water Absorb, boosts all stats - even HP).

Basically, this one gives you a lot of stuff to *do*. It has quite a large post game with a bunch of places to go and things to find - it's based on Fire Red, so the Seven Islands are there still, and Cerulean Cave and all that. And some more Team Rocket stuff that might have been in FR post-game but I honestly can't remember. But outside of some legendaries and alternate forms, it doesn't play with the formula much and give you new battle styles to explore.

For the record, the creator is also making Omega Red, which is a fantastic name, or dare I say it, a Marvel-ous name. Omega Red is basically Extreme Red 2.0, now with even more pokemon. I don't know if new abilities are making their way in, I played one of the betas and the main thing was that the graphics style had been changed to something different, there are a lot of pokemon sprites just wandering about in the wild (not as encounters, just decoration) and every zone has a million different species to catch while still limiting you to the same money and balls (ie prioritise getting some Pick Up artists). Which is obviously a problem with a huge dex, and why it probably is better to either have a lot of zones with smaller variety per zone, or do the actual post-game National Dex thing where you go through a second time. But it's probably worth checking out.

This one might be the best in terms of gameplay. So you have the National Dex from the start, running indoors, shoes from the start, Physical/Special Split, day/night cycle, more of the berries from later games (and other hold items too, like Red Card, Weakness Policy, Snowball, Battery, Balloon, Terrain Extender, Fist Pads etc), Fairy Type and the weakened Steel. Also, Ground takes a bit less special damage (or damage generally? I forget) in sandstorms, and Poison types take only 75% damage from poisoned opponents, which is pretty rad. Poison doesn't hurt you in the overworld, but it has a patch to change that back if you want. It also has a number of other optional patches: Ice is Immune to Water (something the creator toyed with originally before deciding against, but left the option there), "These pokemon get different types" (like Sunflora being Fire/Grass and TreeCo. being Grass/Dragon) and "tongue-in-cheek pokedex entries" (Rhyperior: oh hey I didn't know this game had Digimon. Zigzagoon: this species is distinct for its existence as an HM slave. Has a few dick jokes so maybe don't apply that one if kids are playing it?)

Only has one Mega Evolution, and that is Dunsparce, when it uses Dragon Ascent, no really, it learns that. But some of the stuff for other Mega Evolutions is there in the code presumably "for a later build maybe". Note: the dev seems to have vanished, but others are now taking over, making a patch for your patch so you can mod while you mod.

Warning: there are two items that are bugged, depending on the original file you use to patch. For some it will continue working fine. For others, if you view Safety Goggles or... Assault Vest? in the Item menu then it freezes the game. This is something the new crew are trying to fix.

Other Warning: there is a swear. There is one room where one NPC shouts "Fuck! This game isn't PG-13 any more!" although even that might actually just be in an older version that was reverted (I played an older build on my PC so a lot of stuff I remember has been changed back for the current version on my tablet). I would check but my tablet is three metres away.

Teams Aqua and Skull double-down on being eco-terrorists trying to do the right thing through wrong methods (but fucking it up because they don't stop and think). Also they pay some lip service to being communists fighting against capitalism but that's not actually a real theme in the game. It's still very much about them trying to prevent man-made climate change by countering it with special pokemon-made climate change, that gets wildly out of hand. Pretty sure "summoning a magic whale to squirt eternal rain across the country" is part of the Australian government's current climate plan so what can I say?

So let's get into more detail on what makes it rad: the pokedex consists of every pokemon from gen 1-3, as well as any pokemon "linked" to any of those - so Mismagius (a gen 4 evolution of Misdreavous from gen 2), the gen 4 and 6 Eeveelutions, the Magmar and Electabuzz families, and the three Reggies are joined by Gigas. Oh also MissingNo. because naturally.

And almost every pokemon (the exceptions basically being a handful that were already really good and competetive) is changed - Abilities, movesets, occasionally stat lines. Here are some favourites:
-Parasect: GHOST/Grass (when they started on this hack, this was a unique combo), massive Special Defence, still has Effect Spore or Dry Skin, and can learn Dark Void (the good version not the shitty altered one) and Nightmare. Because obviously brain parasites cause nightmares.
-Gengar: Bad Dreams ability (which is less awesome than Levitate, but a lot cooler conceptually), and can learn Dark Void and Nightmare.
-Misdreavous/Mismagius: low HP, very good defences, Pain Split (works a treat with low base HP) and the renamed Multiscale that one of the gen 7? legendaries has (which reactivates if you heal up with Pain Split)
-Poli line: can all have Innards Out. Have fun with that
-Tentacruel: Water Bubble or Tangle (Tangling Hair), on something that has a lot of special bulk
-Ariados: Spinarak starts with Substitute and this is a solid option for its whole life, but its area of expertise is using Baneful Bunker and a boosted Toxic Thread (now causes Toxic and also lowers Speed) to cause Toxic, benefit from the reduced damage because the foe is poisoned, then use Venom Drench to cripple them before swapping in.
-Beedrill: Merciless (so against poisoned foes that's reduced incoming damage but every outgoing attack is a critical hit), and yes it has Fell Stinger
-Victreebel: Corrosion
-Swalot: gets a unique move Super Spit Up, which is like Spit Up except Poison type and 200 base power per Stockpile (so after STAB, that's 300-900 power, so after Stockpiling that equates to 150-225 power per turn)
-Pidgeot: Delta Stream or No Guard, has a better Special Attack and can learn all the powerful, wildly inaccurate moves (note: Machamp can also learn things like Zap Cannon just to take advantage of No Guard)
-Mightyena can have Dark Aura and Mawile can have Fairy Aura
-Granbull and Mawile have a special bite move just for them, Sugar Snap: it's a physical Fairy move they learn a lot earlier than Play Rough, relatively low power but 100% accurate, and has a chance to raise both Speed and Attack
-Slaking: Defeatist instead of Truant
-There are pokemon that have the Terrain Surge abilities, and there are the berries that boost your stats on those terrains.

There are many more cool things to play with there. Plenty of options for Theme Teams. Sadly there isn't much of a post-game, although the new team are working on some things for that, mainly just adding some places where you can go and have daily battles with tougher trainers, particularly double battles to take advantage of the moves and abilities that use those. You can re-battle gym leaders which is something.

Oh and there's a guy in one town who will just swap your lead pokemon's Ability for free if you want (as in, if you can have Hyper Cutter or Battle Armour, it swaps between those. Not "I want to swap Defeatist out for Pure Power"). And when you go to the Battle Frontier in the post-game (most of the places there still work if you care about that), there's a lady who will perfect your IVs (including choice of 0 or 31 in Speed) for a fee.

If you're less interested in the exploration and capturing aspects (although there is still plenty of exploration with new places like the haunted mansion and a canyon and stuff) and more in battling and experimenting with the mechanics behind those, then this is absolutely the one you want.