Phoenix Rising Discussion

[GenEric]

27 minutes ago, Alilatias said:

If you're lagging, restarting the game (as in, closing the window and rebooting it) works as a temporary solution.

 

Anyone found a Shroomish yet? One of the pre-release screenshots seems to hint that you can find one early on.

 

Also, I found a Mimikyu in the abandoned factory. Seems to have an ultra low encounter rate, as it was the only one I found while exploring the place.

shroomish is in the swamp forest where the bridge collapses

[Alilatias]

I found a Shroomish on the mountain as well. Seems it only appears at night. I ended up running into a far more interesting grass type that appears to be a mandatory capture, but unfortunately it appears to be bugged to crash the game if you attempt using it in battle at the moment. Such a shame too.

[GenEric]

does anyone know where the fourth note is?

 

[Filthy Casual]

@Archeric

Spoiler

The fourth note is found in the Pokemon Center in the swamp village. You have to refuse the nurse.

 

The above spoiler does lead into my one problem with this game, however. Since I'm a Mac player, there are some sound files (some .wav files) that won't play. It's strange, because it works with some .wav files and both others. However, that's less the games fault and more me trying to play the game on a system it wasn't intended for. It's still incredibly fun!

[Alilatias]

I ended up hitting the end of the demo way earlier than the estimated 7-10 hour time frame. Like around 3-4 hours. I think I've done everything possible besides catching all available Pokemon too.

 

I have a feeling the developers accounted for most players picking Growlithe, so they put in TM Grass Knot, Energy Ball, and Scald very early in the game to boost the other two starters. Although note that Energy Ball is currently miss-able if you choose to leave the mountain after clearing the events there before finding it. In fact, a few interesting things are miss-able if you leave the mountain immediately instead of climbing back up to see what the festival-goers left behind.

 

EDIT: You can fast travel back to the mountain, actually.

[Enigma Shot U]

What Pokémon are you guys using? So far, I’ve got Staryu, Riolu and Leafeon.

[seki108]

.......I'm going to have to (re)start this instead of trying to farm in Duel Links if I want to avoid what few spoilers there might be.  Couldn't start back after I left during tea fetching and haven't started back after downloading the patched version.

[Filthy Casual]

3 hours ago, Enigma Shot U said:

What Pokémon are you guys using? So far, I’ve got Staryu, Riolu and Leafeon.

My team is Growlithe, Lucario, Haunter, Tropius, Relic Tentacool, and Relic Budew named Relic Ame

[Enigma Shot U]

10 minutes ago, Filthy Casual said:

My team is Growlithe, Lucario, Haunter, Tropius, Relic Tentacool, and Relic Budew named Relic Ame

How long did it take to get lucario?

[Filthy Casual]

5 minutes ago, Enigma Shot U said:

How long did it take to get lucario?

It evolved at level 19. I gave it the Soothe Bell, as well as never let it faint.

[D3ltaDragon117]

Spoiler

So i'm not sure if i will get banned on here for talking about it here but anyone know what that DAMN kyogre is??

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by D3ltaDragon117
someone asked me to put a spoiler tag in

[GenEric]

Spoiler

kyogre?

also put a spoiler tab in your previous comment

[Wolfox]

not sure if this was answered here before, but does anyone know how I can reduce the lag? it's barely playable for me

[Commander]

9 hours ago, Alilatias said:

I ended up hitting the end of the demo way earlier than the estimated 7-10 hour time frame. Like around 3-4 hours. I think I've done everything possible besides catching all available Pokemon too.

I'm not saying this was intentional but sometimes devs to stretch what the actual play time is to make it at least look more impressive than it really is. I know Xenosaga's first game gave a little statement that it was like a 40 hour experience when people normally beat it in 10-20 hours.

 

So I decided to give this demo a little try just to see what it is and if it's any good. So for a fan-game that they've been working on for I think it's 6 years (basically Reborn's lifespan) I can honestly say it's both an impressive and unimpressive piece of work at the same time due to that. I just want to throw that elephant in the room as massive world RPGs like Xenoblade take around 4 years to create with a team and we all know that mumbo jumbo. I mean if it takes them another two years for another release...that'd make it 8 years working on a single game. Maybe they have the system right or close. I'm not really following it that much. It's just a strange thing and I'm worried it'll be their own demise. I'll probably no longer be party of Pokemon community by then so I probably won't even know what happens to it by then. I guess I'm saying don't expect releases very soon since they clearly have high standards for themselves.

 

So let's talk about the big things first:

 

Graphics: I gurantee every single Poke tuber is going to play this game and are going to say it's one of the best purely due to the graphics. And so many people are going to rave about and I guess that's fair as the graphics in the game are way beyond anything any other fan-game has presented. I do see I think it's gen IV trainer sprites but it's a fan-game and that's to be expected. If you've known me for a long time, you know very few games wow me with their graphics. I'm not going to say much on the art style since I haven't gotten far but it's more or less just Gen IV styled mapping except the graphics are 4 times better than that was. The animated sprites in the overworld are absolutely solid though. They did a solid job there as any animation looked crisp and the sliding screens kind of was surreal. Though on the overworld, I didn't notice a single jarring tile which also says something.

 

Though that does come to like my only real big complaint. So the battle screen looks pretty good and you'll probably notice how the fronts of many sprites are custom made but...I'm not sure if they've done the backsprites are any of those Pokemon. It's kind of apparent and sticks out. Not really my complaint as from the few wild battle Pokemon...the animations are kind of a letdown. For a series all about the flashy battles, it's probably a good idea to spend more time on that over anything else. It just brought back memories of Raptor Ex and the lacking of them. I mean it's kind of jarring going from a game that is visually fluent into a battle where foresight and growl sound like a tackle. Don't really take too much hate from what I'm saying as I'm just not a fan of the art style, which caters to the majority who'd love this art style over something like Reborn's.

 

Dialogue: Honestly, this is the only reason I'd even argue picking up and trying this game early despite it being in the early stages. It's honestly pretty well written. I can't really say it's all that memorable, but it's not bad and definitely interesting enough to read...but I'm still confused on the player's mom and dad relationship since I was kind of light reading it. I think they are divorced or something but the game had a strange way of going around on it. Like your mom is chill on the subject. It's the intro to a story so it's not going to be too interesting so I'm not going to judge it on that. The thing I absolutely love about this game is all the small details. Every single clickable thing in the first town has unique dialogue. The TVs, the sinks, and even the trash cans. I was honestly more interested in that over whatever the NPCs were saying. Nobody is talking about all those little pieces of dialogue as they are such good screencaps to get people interested in like this one:

 

Spoiler

 

Slowness/Lag: So I hear a lot of people complaining about how slow it is. I kind of agree the walk speed is a little slow but the player's running shoes help remediate that. It's really not that slow of a game but since everyone is on about turbo mode and the space bar, it probably does. I will warn you that this game does take more processing power than Reborn as my CPU spikes up to 50% compared to Reborn hitting 30% with on average. If you have an old computer, it might run really, really slow. The first town had some small jolts of lag but honestly it's really not that bad. It'd probably run awful on my old computer. It's a minor issue. There's also the slow moving quest captions for each quest. I'm sure they'll edit it in future releases to move faster if they can. That or they could just edit it so the player could move around when that animation is going on. They'll probably do something about it.

 

Sound/Music: I uhhh...kind of forgot all the tracks. They are good custom tracks, but my mind is drawing a blank. I do like how the music changes when it cycles to night and I remember the really cool effect of hearing owl noises which really added to the feeling. It's really charming and it fits.

 

Errors: So far I have not experienced a crash or game breaking error. I'd say the current release is rather stable in the first area but they make notes to save often...though I don't know if they have a quicksave or autosave function implemented...which probably would've been a good idea. Of course, I'm not trying to break the game.

 

Other miscellaneous details:

 

-While the game supports controllers, it doesn't support dualshock 4 controllers so you'd need a program to convert it (I believe Dualshock 3 controllers can work)

-For my controller, it seems to flip out a little bit in the quest menu and I believe the start menu as well. Could just be Dualshock 4 though

-You can do the two beginning main quests in any order, but I don't believe it changes the dialogue for either from the looks of it

-I'm starting to think one of those devs played Trails in the Sky due to the similar feel of the Quest Book to the Bracer Book (that's not a bad thing)

-Only one pop culture reference so far kind of surprised me as I though there'd be more

 

I'm not going to play any further since this game is merely a small demo and I like to wait for a game to at least reach past its halfway point before trying. I will say though it has a lot of charm and it could turn out to be something really impressive. I could definitely see why I lot of people would love the game and want to follow it though. I'm just in the meh train...which his ADHD kicked in when running around the first town.

[D3ltaDragon117]

@Archeric

Spoiler

I mean it's not really a spoiler more of a bug but by interacting with a tile somewhere in the game it gives you a free level 30 kyogre but the devs have managed to keep everyone who found it quiet

[Tomek]

where did you find eevee and other relic mons? also where does the beta finish?

[Alilatias]

11 hours ago, Enigma Shot U said:

What Pokémon are you guys using? So far, I’ve got Staryu, Riolu and Leafeon.

My team before ending the demo was Staryu, Murkrow, Cutiefly, Gastly, and Relic Skiddo.

 

I'm restarting the game and aiming for Staryu, Eevee (eventual Glaceon), Litwick, Relic Roselia, Relic Skiddo, and Joltik.

[Tomek]

guys where do you find eevee and relic skiddo? I havent come across any of them. also where do you evolve eevee into leafeon/glaceon?

[Alilatias]

Eevee: Rare encounter in Route 2 night. Can also be obtained from an egg in the forest grotto (although there are many other possibilities, such as Larvitar). Can be evolved into Leafeon near the mossy rock in the same forest. Currently can't be evolved into Glaceon.

Relic Skiddo: Requires choosing Staryu as a starter. Mandatory capture. Grass/Rock type.

 

(Petlili results in Relic Koffing, and Growlithe results in Relic Tentacool.)

 

Note that the grotto is currently bugged as of the latest patch, it now only contains Leftovers no matter what.

[Tomek]

Ohhh okay thanks, I got tentacool and budew, and leftovers  btw does tentacool evolve also? havent leveled it up a lot

[YouGotLittUp]

I agree that there's no way anyone would take 10 hours to complete this (unless you want to catch every single pokemon and have super bad luck with the encounters, I guess). It took me about 4 to do everything, and that was taking my time and leveling loads of pokemon up.

 

Overall, the graphics and the music are very nice, and there are a lot of nifty details, like every bookcase, bin and TV saying something different when you interact with them. There are a few bugs, though, and even more so for mac users. I got around those by using parallels for mac for playing it, since the bugs on mac were pretty gamebreaking. 

 

I'd be thrilled if* this were just a demo for a run-of-the-mill fan game that's been in development for a year or two, but apparently it's been in development for 9 years, so it's a bit underwhelming. Especially when you compare it to reborn, rejuvenation, desolation, etc., which are huge games with a ton of features and hours of gameplay. Maybe the dev team hyped the game too much, but I was a bit disappointed that that's all there was.

 

It's fun to play if you've got a lazy afternoon with nothing else to do, but since the next episode of the game will probably take a couple of years I'll probably delete it now that I've played through the demo. I'd still recommend people try it out if they've got nothing better to do, mainly because the graphics are quite nice, but don't set your expectations too high.

 

Tldr; Pretty, but nothing to write home about.

 

Edit: I'm also not a big fan of the time in the game not matching your computer's, especially when there are pokemon that evolve at a certain time of day, but that's just a small gripe.

Edited May 27, 2018 by YouGotLittUp

[JoStarNight]

I've finished playing up to the end of the demo which wasn't very long; It took me round about 4-5 hours to finish it.

 

The graphics that got people into this fan game in the first place does live up to its expectations; admittedly, they are excellent including the Pokemon sprites and trainer sprites which are clean and crisp as well as some cool animations in the overworld.

 

Strangely enough, the graphics were not the aspect that caught my eye; If there is one aspect Phoenix Rising excels at is having a flexible, customizable interface (i.e, menu and battle interface). In battle, there are items that are automated and can be selected by the touch of a key such as when your Pokemon is poisoned and you have a Pecha Berry, a key will show up and allow you to press it if you want to heal your Pokemon of poison, or if you want to capture a Pokemon a key will always be there, so you don't have to select the Bag and go into it every time when you want to use an item. Speaking of catching Pokemon, you can choose whether you want to keep it in your party or send it to the Box. This level of interface is something I haven't seen in other fan games, so I'll give the developers credit in their understanding of user interfaces.

 

The dialogue is fine; everything has some form of interesting quirk it wants to say, making exploring worthwhile and as for the story...its nice, I guess? The story is a traditional adventure similar to the first Pokemon game (Red and Blue) going around the Hawthorne Region where the player does quests in towns and villages while slowly learning about the region's history. I can't exactly say much in terms of the story since this demo is just setting it up. However, what I can say is that you have control and choice over your adventure during the story; you can choose to keep your Pokemon in their Poke Balls or let them walk around with you. During quests, you can choose to help the bad guys or choose to report something to either of two parties, or you could even do some of the quests in whatever order you want. As for the characters...they are also nice, but somewhat lackluster.

 

I've never liked hype; Its this psychological train of thought that raises your expectations but when they are not met, you are left disappointed. I usually go into anything with zero expectations so that I don't disappoint myself. Phoenix Rising does somewhat live up to its hype but at the same time it doesn't; apparently, it took 6-9 years for this demo to finally be released and I don't believe it will be worth waiting another 6-9 years for the second demo (then again, who am I to complain since I was waiting for the latest Legends of the Arena demo to be released).

 

So currently overall, Pokemon Phoenix Rising is a pure, elegant and traditional fan game where you have control over your adventure throughout the Hawthorne Region despite its short length (in the current demo) and, while seemingly promising, short chunk of story and characters. Its worth playing and recommending to play through for the completely customizable interface and having control over your adventure, even though its story and characters is nothing to write home about and you'll end up wanting them to have more meat on their bones.

Edited May 27, 2018 by JoStarNight

[guidy]

18 hours ago, Filthy Casual said:

It evolved at level 19. I gave it the Soothe Bell, as well as never let it faint.

Where did you find the soothe bell?

[Filthy Casual]

2 minutes ago, guidy said:

Where did you find the soothe bell?

It should be between the town past route 2 and the swamp in that passageway. There's a woman selling some goods. She also happens to give you the Thunderstone.

[Sunbean]

Generally I agree with all of the issues presented. But I have a problem with some of the comments made here.

 

I think people assume a lot when they hear 9 years of development means a lot for an independent developer. This is a hobby for the team, and those 9 years doesn't mean there was 9 years of constant development of the game. Things are constantly changed, scrapped, and redone. People take breaks for months and even years. I just don't see how someone can think "9 years for THIS?" when the game is just a fun little project for the devs. It's kind of insulting to assume the game is worth less because it tooks so long to come out. 

 

As someone who has followed the game for years, that development for the game as it is now hasn't really kicked off until 2014 or so. Before that was a comepletely different game with a completely different name, graphics, engine, etc. Just following Gav's work on deviantart, you can see that development changed drastically over the years. Development of a game isn't just getting from point A to point B. So many things happen along the way. 

 

This is also speaking as someone who has been working on a game since 2013. Despite technically developing it since then, I've restarted so many times and took breaks for so long. I would be really upset if I released the game and someone was disappointed in the quality purely because of how long it took me to release it.

 

Basically, don't ever fault a project, especially, one done casually, as not being "worth" the time it took to produce. It's awful.