First-timer to Reborn- and I enjoyed it a lot

[Vitruvian]

-I tried to find the proper area for this, but this is the general thread for the Reborn Game converation as far as I could tell, so if this would go elsewhere, I apologize in advance!

 

-Hi! so, uhm, this might be sort of long! I'll try to keep it more succicnct though. I'll try to summarize up parts of it - this is basically a review - under readmores ("spoilers"). I'm pretty bad at categorizing things though, so please excuse me if something would fit better someplace else re: the categories! I'm also not very good at articulating things, so I apologize if anything's confusing; if  something is, just paste it at me in a spoiler and I'll correct it.

 

First off, I got into it, and started playing it a few days ago - I'm not sure when, time's hard for me to keep track of, particularly with my insomnia - but I kind of... Got... Super hooked? so I've been playing it nonstop, and I just finished the last chapter (no spoilers here, no worries, just mentioning). The most spoilers are re: an earlier chapter (where you meet Anna), which iirc is one of the first few chapters you play anyway, but if that's an issue, let me know and I'll edit out the spoilers and names and whatnot.

 

Writing

Spoiler

 

I really adore the writing - the characters are very lovable and fun to get to know, and even the villains - "assholes," as you would say - have character to them. Like, in the "I love to hate them" kind of way. I hate some of the characters, but it's in a good way if that makes sense; I like how strongly this game made me feel about even the villains or the Rival or such. And not to say nothing of of the plot hooks (oh my lord! all these chapters! I was just bingeing the hell out of them, I got that excited to see more)! The "good" characters are also great, and I really appreciated quite a few things about them.

 

Regardless of being based of real-life people (nonficitonal), as I'd read, the issues presented were very respectfully treated- especially the "mental hospital/asylum"-slash-orphanage. That one is one I've seen very cliched in a lot of horror movies (And I watch a lot of them!) so I'm very hyper-aware of how awful that sort of thing can be, so I was a little worried when I got to that area in the game, but I kept playing because I was curious, and I'm glad. It's one of the more postitive represntations of  a lot of mental illnesses I've seen, and they're not villanized for that. I really adored Anna, for example.

 

But the writing also drew me in a lot; I felt invested as a player, and I felt good about how a lot of story stuff went. It's a very well done story, and it may slip in some places - this is hearsay though; I certainly didn't notice that myself. It felt like Pokemon but more Mature, proper, and respectful of a lot of issues, and I really appreciated that; it felt sort of like the manga, but also... more fulfilling, since it was "me" (or your character, in general), moreso than the manga; it felt more personal and involved, and I really liked that.

 

Player Agency goes over this a bit as well.

 

 

Player Agency

Spoiler

 

I like the pokemon events - they make me feel pretty good about myself. I'm helping a lot of pokemon, or trying to catch them, and it opens a lot of character ""roleplaying"" potential (I say roleplaying in double quotations because i'm not actually roleplaying, it's more of just how I view my character being?).

 

The choices in the game also contribute a lot to this sort of feeling; like I'm actually the main character, with agency of my own, making choices, deciding what to do. I've seen people have issue that the other characters seem to do more than you - though to be fair, this is sourced mostly from reading the tvtropes page - but I didn't have that issue at all; it felt a lot more like I was integrated in it, actually being engaged, actually being a part of it - and I wasn't the only one, the only one who *could* do things. Other npcs were there to help, and that helped me form more bonds.

 

Choices with the npcs was a big part in contributing to this. There's a lot of trades, and things, you can do - this is kind of going into mechanics, but it's really nice that stuff changes sometimes depending on what you do and, sometimes, even what you don't do. There were a lot of surprises due to my agency, and I often found myself second-guessing my choices and if I wanted to go ahead with this choice... or not... It was a lot of fun, and I found myself saving very often before anytime I thought was a event at all, no matter how minor, so I could try and explore each bit. And I still missed a lot! I'm definitely going to go back and try and replay it again to experience things again.

 

 

Game Difficulty

Spoiler

 

This is one I had a bit of a harder time with; I'm a very casual player. I had a very hard time with battles, and I actually had to ask my friend who's very deep into competitive for ideas on teams to help beat things. Big thanks to the Sandbox mod for helping me out too, as I had only wanted to experience the story.

 

But it was also fun, despite the frustration - I felt an immense sense of pride even though I had used sandbox to help myself, because I was largely using pokemon I had gotten from other places; I just used sandbox to help ev train for the most part, and get movesets to help.

 

I started having issues very early on, and as said, I'm very casual, so that's more of an fault of me than on the game. The game itself, with mechanics, is very balanced - there's a way to beat everything. You just have to keep trying; it's *hard*, sure! but it's *possible* and it's not *cheating*. Thankfully, Reborn makes sure to avoid legendary battles for the most part, so that's a lot less aggravating than in some areas (thanks, battle tower, in most pokemon games.)

 

Some battles even had very fun themes or gimmicks that added a lot to the other categories, but I can't go very much in-depth on these without spoiling some.

 

 

Design & Visuals (And some Mechanics, too!)

Spoiler

 

A lot of areas are simply, to put it, breath-takingly gorgeous. Field effects add a lot of gorgeous scenery, and change things in the areas. I can't fathom how difficult that had to be to figure out how to code, moreless to make sure it all worked properly.

 

I enjoyed seeing everything, and I can't fathom how a lot of these events were to have to do! I've tried to peek into rpg maker oftentimes, but I always get daunted by the scripting (scripting is not my strong suit), so more props there to the devs.

 

The characters are fun designs, all are very easy to tell apart - which helps a lot in some cutscenes - and I enjoyed a lot of the cinematic work that went on. It seemed very well put together, and even mechanics involved, as mentioned before, helped.

 

I have a big place in my heart for visuals and designs , since that's an particular area of interest for me.

 

I liked a lot of the areas; they felt very new and fresh from the usual pokemon formula, and I was very surprised when I would walk into one place to find it was so... much different than I'd expected, and the field effects (mentioned again, oops), helped lend to that feeling of a lot of things. Even just little bits of writing helped sell the atmsophere of places ("there's a cihll in the air...", etc), and it added so much to the enjoyment of these areas. The area I found the most boring was the main town, and that's saying something, since I still found it a lot of fun to run around, especially with all of the different Wards, exploring and seeing everything and marveling at how well put together it was.

 

 

Final Note - not under an cut

 

-In summary, I really like pokemon reborn y'all.

 

I actually cried - a lot - playing it because it was just so gorgeous, and a lot of things hit me pretty hard, especially dealing with a lot of the issues that are addressed in it. Some crying was postivite, and some wasn't, but the matter of the fact is, Reborn made me feel emotions so deep, and i'm so glad I gave it a try.

 

It may be "edgy", and it may be "too dark" for some people - and that's fine; people have preferences, and some can't handle "dark" and "edgy", and that is entirely valid and respectable - but sometimes, it's also carthartic and helpful for other people, or more engaging.

 

Thank you to everyone who worked on this game, and who had some part in its creation in some way; it's only been a short time (120-140 hours logged for me) but i really enjoyed it and will continue to enjoy it.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Vitruvian

[Candy]

not a dev but as a fan of this game, I'm glad you liked it  tbh edginess is def there but Reborn also has some humour in it that makes it simple fun at times. given it's a fangame, it's crazy how much effort has been put into producing every episode.

Also, since you're a new member, welcome to the forums as well~

[Vitruvian]

@Candy (is that how you ping?? I'm new to forums with ping abilities)

 

Edginess is definitely there! Reborn is... mm, very edgy, I'd say - but not in a bad way - it's just, YMMV for lots of different people. different people like it, some don't, etc., it's all valid \o/

 

i'm jus personally a fan of hte kind of edginess it had, particularly how deep it got with the story and whatnot; it felt "tragic" in a lot of places and I tend to like tragic stories/characters/things like that so it was basically a perfect fit, especially since it was very respectful of a lot of things addressed, which's always nice.

 

The comedy also had me laughing hard, haha, I didn't go over that much in my review, but, I remember a few times my ribs hurt so bad a hour later from how hard I'd laughed; cain moments were some of the biggest ones for that, and Charlotte was great for that as well-- it was a really good balance imo, not sudden, non-gradual shifts from "oh you're sad now" to "haha funny!" to "oh you're sad again," it was more slow and sometimes tried to lighten moods with jokes like real people do, and it felt a lot more human and interesting in terms of the balance of mood (comedy versus darker moments) which I really appreciated.

 

Thank you for the welcome too! \o/ I actually made this just to post this review and thank people for the work they did on mods I had used to help myself play it, but I'm probably going to end up sticking around - at least, for a time - to try and hang out.

 

I've definitely already been poking around, and seeing others' experience of the game and reading their playthroughs has been really fun, and I only just started that too!

[Candy]

1 hour ago, Vitruvian said:

@Candy (is that how you ping?? I'm new to forums with ping abilities)

 

you're not wrong but me thinks you needed to look for me in the list that should pop up when you start typing a name after "@"

otherwise you can quote by either highlighting the text you want to quote and pressing "quote selection" pop up, or by quoting the whole post by pressing the "quote" button below.

 

yep my fave characters are Cain, Shelly, Florinia and Charlotte. tbh I don't know if I love or hate Terra xD Cain just makes every scene he's in a bit humorous with his lewd sense of humour.

personally I think some characters are more developed than others and feel more human than just caricatures with a few traits, but all in all I liked the story progression. now my only hope for E19 is that the story can be wrapped up beautifully, without becoming an info dump (cause E18 had a smell like that a bit).

 

anyhow yeah in Team Showcase you'll find tons of playthrus - some up to date with the latest release, others unfinished. some of us have taken a liking to story writing styled playthrus with self-inserts, other canon pokemon characters and what not, while others have gone the more go-to-the-grain route. me thinks we got entertainment for all members of the family~ or just whatever suits your tastes 

[kithas]

I like to say Reborn is very immersive. There is something with the atmosphere or the city and the characters that feels like you could actually be walking around some ward looking for the next quest. And I really dig that. 

[Vitruvian]

15 hours ago, Candy said:

otherwise you can quote by either highlighting the text you want to quote and pressing "quote selection" pop up, or by quoting the whole post by pressing the "quote" button below.

whoa that was really nice thank you. :OO I didn't know that was a thing, that's a neat coding thing going on.

 

I agree with you about the characters-- some feel more developed than others -- but I think that's largely due to the screen time they've had; Cain and charlotte for example, were all pretty early, but some others were kind of latergame and you have to find sidequests for them instead of meeting them in the story to find out about them as far as I can tell, so I think that explains some of it. Nevertheless, I was always pretty excited to find out more, even about the villains I detested, haha!

 

That kind of feeling of curiosity is just really good and that kept me playing it. Your favorites are good favorites!! I think my favorites are Shelley, Cain, Charlotte, Taka, and Laura. I liked a lot of them though, so it's actually incredibly hard to pick, especially if you factor in different reasons for liking them.

 

I took a look around Team Showcases (Thank you, btw! I wasn't sure if that was indeed where playthrus were!), and yeah, I'm definitely gonna have to spend a while reading some of these.

 

7 hours ago, kithas said:

I like to say Reborn is very immersive. There is something with the atmosphere or the city and the characters that feels like you could actually be walking around some ward looking for the next quest. And I really dig that. 

Absolutely! I have to say  I agree there too; that's the feeling I had, even when i had to look up where to go because I'd just plumb forgotten thanks to sleeping or such (which thankfully didn't happen much, weirdly). Quite a few areas - basically any new area - gave me that feeling, and even some events, with factoring in pronoun changes and stuff, helped a lot. It's really impressive how much work went into making even static things change a bit.

[Magus]

This game has kept me here for 6 years