My opinion on Rejuvenation (Probably spoilers)

[Vhandrake]

Well, i'm pretty much done with the main story as for V9 version goes, and i felt like doing like a "review" if you will, that you may agree on or not... This doesn't need to be taken personally, just my own thoughts on my very first blind run on Rejuvenation... None of the stuff is meant to be aggressive nor negative, all of them are constructive... No harm intended whatsoever, allright, here we go:

 

Let's start with the "negative" stuff first:

 

Bugs: My main problem with this game was the amount of bugs, game crashing a from time to time, attacks not working properly, specially some of the 2 turns attack, events not starting as they should, etc.. That made me almost not play it, but some people said it was worth it, so i put that aside and kept going.

 

Battles: Most of the time i had no trouble whatsoever with battles, but a % of them (specially the main story ones) just felt unfair, not like Reborn where battles are tough and you have to pull your brains out in order to manage a solution... Some battles didn't feel tough, they felt unfair, like making it hard the wrong way, that being a weird combo that you just had to have luck in order to beat them, or legendary pokémon kinda early in the game.. I can be just as hard as it is right now in a "fair" way.

 

Dialogues and Character Development: Not alot to say about this, some dialogues felt really raw and forced, some twists (not all of them) felt REALLY forced (For example: "Oh, so they fixed my city instead of me, i'm going to join the bad guys") or some characters "betraying" their own personalities ("Character's mother just died, i'm sorry, oh well let's move foward" from Melia and some time later "The party is really insensitive, i just lost my father") And some other stuff here and there... Just that, sometimes i just knew what was going to happen even tho it was meant to be a surprise just cause the hints were too obvious.

 

That aside, let's talk about the good stuff now, as i said i'm practically done with the story-side, and really like this game, the bad stuff eventually is overwhelmed with the good stuff, that being the main story, the raw story, the idea of the game, that is awesome, some of the plot twists were really surprising, i know i said some of them were too obvious, but certainly not all of them.. Some characters are just awesome, the cities, the forests, the jungles, everyhing is just wonderful, my eyes are in love with this game, just amazing, i really loved some parts, to the point i almost felt in there, for example in the prision or in the haunted house... Really props for that.

 

 

So to conclude? I think it's a great game that needs a good amount of polish, when and if that is done, it can be one of the best Pokémon games out there, that's for sure.. Again, nothing of this was meant to be harmfull or anything negative, constructive opinion that may or may not help in the future, feel free to share your opinions with me and we can have a positive dialogue thanks for readying! 

 

 

 

[The Protagonist]

I agree with you for the most part regarding the battles being somewhat unfair at times. Visually, I think the game is very appealing. I was looking forward to Grand Dream City in V9, and I was not at all disappointed. The sidequests were enjoyable too.  

[Vhandrake]

15 minutes ago, The Protagonist said:

I agree with you for the most part regarding the battles being somewhat unfair at times. Visually, I think the game is very appealing. I was looking forward to Grand Dream City in V9, and I was not at all disappointed. The sidequests were enjoyable too.  

Yeah just some times.. Like it felt the game was trying too hard.. But maybe is just me!  

[Alex]

Well you'll be pleased to know the latest patch has fixed pretty much all of the bugs

[ShadeStrider]

Even if the Dialogue felt a bit forced at times, I still really liked the characters. Except for Ren. His Characterization and Development didn't really make sense.

[Drace]

I kinda like that the game is unfair at times. This is a game that plans to include all pokemon. So having an extremely difficult game to the point where all odds are practically against you really forces you to use every aspect of the game, whether it's new moves, items, or even pokemon you wouldn't normally use, to overcome challenges. I'm really hoping this trend of difficulty stays.

However, what I do hate is how certain stats in pokemon, like their abilities, are randomized per battle, even during trainer battles. I experienced this first hand when the Grass Gym Leader's Serperior had an amazing set up of Leaf Storm, speed IV/EV, and Contrary ability. Only to beat the it after resetting a few times to the point where that same Serperior didn't have contrary anymore, which totally killed its build. This means you can actually stack odds in your favor by simply soft resetting until the pokemon you're stuck fighting against has its stats randomized to the point where it's non-randomized move set becomes significantly weaker.

[Gh0stStark]

39 minutes ago, Drace said:

I kinda like that the game is unfair at times. This is a game that plans to include all pokemon. So having an extremely difficult game to the point where all odds are practically against you really forces you to use every aspect of the game, whether it's new moves, items, or even pokemon you wouldn't normally use, to overcome challenges. I'm really hoping this trend of difficulty stays.

 

I don't mean to sound rude to Jan or you, but reborn does just that without giving that feeling of trying way too hard that sometimes rejuvenation gives.

 

I agree that there are still some dialogues that could use some polishing, but I wouldn't worry about them since Jan shows solid improvements with each new version. I started with V7, then replayed the game when V8 came out and it felt like something else and V9 didn't disappoint, it was great in fact. The plot thickened, immersion was improved in certain segments, the story reworks were quite welcome and it has made a great job at getting the hype for v10 started.

TL;DR

Think of Rejuvenation as a growing kid.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Gh0stStark

[Yagami]

I honestly think the first run of Rejuvenation or reborn will always be hard for many people.In v9,the main reason for most of the bugs are recreating everything of early game and gen 7 content.I couldn't recognize anything until i went to goldenleaf town.V9 was better and quickly improving.Now that patch 10 is released,people will have almost no bugs in the game.You also mentioned a legendary pokemon shown early.I think it is a good thing.Madame X literally shows you how a evil leader is supposed to be.Way more stronger than a trainer with few badges.

About Ren,he honestly has no proper character development yet.Hopefully we will see some better things from him in future version.I would not worry about dialogue because it is constantly getting better with newer version.I really enjoyed v9 because of so many new characters and new questions.I recently started a new game from the beginning and enjoying the changes.

[Vhandrake]

6 hours ago, Yagami said:

I honestly think the first run of Rejuvenation or reborn will always be hard for many people.In v9,the main reason for most of the bugs are recreating everything of early game and gen 7 content.I couldn't recognize anything until i went to goldenleaf town.V9 was better and quickly improving.Now that patch 10 is released,people will have almost no bugs in the game.You also mentioned a legendary pokemon shown early.I think it is a good thing.Madame X literally shows you how a evil leader is supposed to be.Way more stronger than a trainer with few badges.

About Ren,he honestly has no proper character development yet.Hopefully we will see some better things from him in future version.I would not worry about dialogue because it is constantly getting better with newer version.I really enjoyed v9 because of so many new characters and new questions.I recently started a new game from the beginning and enjoying the changes.

I agree with the first time being hard, it shouldn't be really that much in my case since i've been playing Reborn for so long, and i don't really know how to explain it, but like i said before sometimes, just sometimes, Rejuvenation felt like it was trying too hard to be tough, as for the legendaries makes me kinda mad cause, for example, Groudon, this girl that has no chance against us could catch it no problem... Zero with Giratina, another dude who had no chance against us has a legendary, and what about us? 

And i just mentioned some of the stuff, there's more but like i said, the good stuff eventually overwhelms the bad stuff, so i don't remember them all, plus the game is long, next time i play it i'll take my time and play it slower, i may try to find a V9 guide just in case i don't miss anything, like i did with Reborn (First time blind, second time with a full guide).

[GuillerXD]

Well, you are right about Rejuvenation feeling more like unfair than hard in a different way than reborrn. Take Shelly and Charlotte gyn battle for example im comparison with Crawly and Amber, Shelly use a prankster's Ilumise (pretty clever by the way) to set up rain in the battlefield and Charlotthe use ninetales's drought, but in Rejuvenation Crawly and Amber field already have infinite rain and sun from the start, not mention the already existent field boost, Crawly can be even worse because he had a Golisopod and araquanid with liquidation boosted by rain to give even more damage, no matter how you see this it bend more to the "unfair" side than "hard".
But i think this feeling of unfairness is what Jan wanted the players to experience, this overwhelm sense of impotence in every Gyn battler, This mortifying injustice....
I freak love this! thats the fun of Rejuvenation IMO, every single gyn always have the upper hand over you, disadvantage is present all the times, but even with the odds against you, we still manage to win and this sense of accomplishment is awesome! a good trainer can win with fair odds, a excelent trainer can win even in a hard and tough odds, but only a true master can win with unfair odds ( this, and many peoples that played Rejuvenation came from reborn and are already used to this kind of challenger).
About the Rifts and Legendaries, i disagree about they being a issue because most of the cases the battles consist of only one pokemon, and if is just a single boss there's a bunch of ways to beat every one (sturdy, paralise, poison, prankster, destiny bound, perish sound, curse, reflect + light screem, accuracy shenaningan,etc), Rift gyaradus is the only battle that you don't have that many resources but you can go on with the plot even if you lose, is true that you fight giratina and Geara full team, but giratina moveset is a joke in both fights.
About the plot, yeah you are right about Ren, he does fell forced, i understand that he lose one of her best friends and her raison d'etre and this could made her grows bitter leading to join the bad guys, but the execution to get to this point really need polishing. About Melia i disagree, she does give the player some days to get their shit together before moving on with the plot, now the party happens right in the day that she loses her father man, i think is a bit insensitive too =/.
About the bugs, patch 10 already fixed almost all of then.

 

TL:DR : Rejuvenation really feel unfair but i think is intentional, disagree about the legendaries and rifts being hard or unfair if you have the right pokemon (and the right pokemon are many), agree that Ren sounded forced but Melia give the player time to grieve and the bugs are already fixeds.

 

Sorry for my bad english, thanks for reading