Crystal's Overlong Rambling

[CrystalStar]

...on how much he loves this game.

Get ready for rambly and by arceus i will NOT use spoilers to section shit, ur getting this shit raw af.

this is by NO means a review, i am not a reviewer, and i am extremely biased so

yeah, just me rambling

Let's start with the when, where and how.

4th July, 2020. 12 year old Crystal is bored the fuck out of his mind (thanks lockdown!!!! fuck you :3) and he sees that Pokeman Rebron James has finished downloading and so decides to play this fangame.

What the me at that time DIDN'T expect was to get sucked into this wonderful game for hours on end, like my original save has 235 hours. 

Albeit that was before when fangames recorded the actual time and not sped-up time. Which I'd play on almost constantly.

Even then!!!! speed up makes the game go 3 times as zoom so

235/3 is nearly 78.

78 hours. 

and this was just entirely e18!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

for reference, my current save which finished two days ago, totals to 80 hours.

I finished the entire game from start to finish in almost the same time period that i took to finish -just- e18

granted the original run was also completely blind so like.

i spent hours just exploring. and grinding. I grinded a lot. especially on indra. I racked up a total of 257 shards just from fighting him.

i was so engrossed in gaming this i dont think i have spent this much time on a fangame, the closest competitors are uh rejuv with 55 and my recent deso run being close to 40

rebornverse games sure love being long, huh? 

i still remember the pains of grinding a popplio, vulpix, and sandile iirc from 1-90 just to beat the glass gauntlet

archaic methods of grinding and too much free time my beloved.

but anyway

let's start with the actual reborn thoughts section, huh? [E19 SPOILERS]

Part 1: The First and Foremost Reason I Fell In Love With This Game:

This game, excels at just about everything you might want from a pokemon game.

Exploration? check

Battles? check even moreso

Story? not needed but checked anyways.

Amazing dialogue? me lov

Graphics? e18's are relatively lower quality than e19's. but they are still nothing to be laughed at.

Over experience? check check check check

there was not a single area where i thought reborn was lacking at. 

of course as i learnt more about fangames there obviously some aspects that reborn lacked in. the major part being overall qol. e19 fixed that and a lot more.

Part 2: Why exploration matters

I don't think that anyone would disagree with me when I say that Reborn has the best fucking map design and overall world design in general. I remember back when I started reborn upon seeing the map my first thought was

"Huh, the region's kinda tiny looking."

Hoo boy was I wrong.

In retrospect, Reborn has been one of the most expansive games that I have ever played. Because even tho there dont seem to be many areas at a first glance. There's just so many areas that simply cant be shown on the overworld map. 

the other day i was in tanzan mountain looking for the new world door there. because i was in postgame.

and i stumbled upon a map i completely didnt know the fuck about. it wasn't even hidden properly. it was just there and i never thought of going back to the depths once the steelix plotline was over. i just didn't have a reason to.

and if you apply that mentality to literally everything in the game. the "the story event here is over, why would i need to visit this". you miss out on a fuckton of amazing exploration. and i love that aspect of the game.

during maingame, you absolutely arent required to visit, beryl cave, explore rhodocrine, visit teknite, run through the three mountains, literally even glance at byxbysion, do the stupid fucking beldum quest. 

postgame is better about it in the sense that you are forced to visit some areas which were previously skippable(literally all side content in the desert is required to do if you wanna finish the postgame)

but i loved that aspect of

"do it if you want to" 

you dont HAVE to visit any of those aforementioned areas. but once you do, you find the fun in exploration. in my eyes, reborn takes exploration to a whole another level. and the more you explore, the more you realise just how interconnected the region is. some notable examples are:

you being able to access a part of the teknite ridge from beryl cave

literally the entrances to all of the three mountains scattered where it makes the most sense 

you being able to get to route 2 from ametrine 

route 4 to agate, and so much more. 

these interconnections make the region and the world feel a lot more alive. it feels fun and satisfying to find these little connections.

and the maps themselves are extremely well made and pretty

the new world areas are waaaa pwetty.........

its always fun getting lost in ametrine and shit.

a rapid fire round of my fav maps in the game

Aegir Cave, Iolia Valley, Cauldron of the Future, Teknite Ridge, Mirage Tower?(especially ho-oh), Neoteric Isle, Elias' E4 room, Route 3, Citae Prisma/Astra

in general i feel like map design improved a fuckton in e19. experience does that to people 

Part 2.5: A Pragmatic Plethora of Perplexing Puzzles

Reborn has some pretty good puzzles. Which are also bullshit. But they are good nonetheless. The puzzles are in no means badly designed. Each puzzle in the game is unique and creative to every degree. I am genuinely so impressed by the shit that happens in the puzzles of this game(saphira, hardy, gem logic, magic square, to name a few)

One might argue that Reborn has too many puzzles. I disagree. Reborn doesn't have too many or too little puzzles. It only feels like too many because Reborn is  Pokeman game. And pokeman gamers just want to do hot battle shit. Which, fair tbh

the puzzles are nonetheless extremely well crafted. I loved every single one of them (except the victini gem logic, go to hell) 

What I love the most about the puzzles is how intricately connected they are. No puzzle in the game (except magic square and to a certain extent perhaps gem logic) feels out of place. All of them have something to do with the location. And hats off to whoever designs and events these puzzles because i imagine the eventing part aint easy.

Part 3: A Story of Hope

Before I start with story, I will say that 

The lore of the Vanhanens has managed to confuse me more than anything rejuv has ever thrown at me.

This, I think speaks volumes lol.

Anyways,

Reborn's plot might not be the greatest, but it is a plot I hold dear. Stringing an actually cohesive and interesting plot out of nothing but a League RP is a big feat. 

Reborn manages to stay simple yet intricately detailed. 

I don't really know what to say here, tbh

Despite its vast amount of lore points, Reborn stays focused on one final goal

In maingame it is the fight against meteor

in postgame its anomaly hunting

but even more than that, if you look deeper

Reborn, at its core, is a story about hope.

Think about it, we meet citizens of Reborn City, who keep living in the city despite it's numerous problems, all because of a hope to see a better Reborn, a dream which Adrienn realises for them. 

The main cast hopes to see a better tomorrow by fighting the elements which prevent a better tomorrow.

Anna hopes for everyone to be just safe

Lin hopes for just a bit of fun.

Everyone hopes for something, and isn't that the main driving cause behind everything in this region?

Solaris hopes that one day, the region would learn its past and honour it

and everyone has their own individual hopes,

...at the end, isn't the hope to see a better tomorrow is what keeps us going?

...

Part 3.5: A Colourful Cast of Characters

Reborn's characters are well written (except Paul Clark, poor guy), I think it's a testament to the game's great writing that somehow every single character in this game, with the exception of one(and even he has the tragic backstory of being named Paul Clark) is fleshed out well. Whatever gripes I had with the writing in e18(particularly waterfall) were removed in e19. And now here are my top favourite characters and why i love them. Spoiler Alert, I love characters with trauma so...

 

Euphie/Shade: I loved him even before e19's revelations. Something about his willingness to sacrifice himself to save the world speaks volumes to me. Even though that willingness may have been born out of hatred for his own physical body. And hey, who doesn't love an otherworldly ghostly entity? 

Luna: Maid girl with amazing dialogue, what is there to not love? But yeah, I like Luna mainly for her whimsical dialogue. Other than that I just think she's neat tbh.

Adrienn: Reborn Resto. That's literally why i love xem. Adrienn is someone who was frozen in time for a decade. 10 years. And in those ten years so much has changed that the Reborn City xey knew and the Reborn City of the present are so different that it feels like they have become two separate cities. But Adrienn doesn't let the current state of the City depress xem. No. Instead of despairing, xey rise up the challenge. The challenge of restoring Reborn City to its former magnificient glory. Instead of sitting around and waiting for someone to do something, xey take the initiative. And I think, it teaches us a lot. Change won't come by just sitting around waiting for miracles to happen. They won't. If we truly want change to happen, we need to take the mantle ourselves. Adrienn also teaches us to move on. As xey rightfully said after Devonyx, 

             

After all, dwelling on the past never works. All we can do is look forward and move ahead, no?

T3RR4: Meteor gal Terra. Funny clown who felt depressed because she had a perfectly normal life. How fun. I mean, to some extent, I agree with her. Too many times I have thought about the point of it all. I... don't really know how to extrapolate on my thoughts for her. I am sorry.

There are still many more characters but these four?

I feel they taught me something.

Whether I learnt from them or not, that remains to be seen.

 

Part 4: Aesthetics

By aesthetics I mean overall graphics and general ambience. I think Reborn does an excellent job in the graphics department. The sprites for both trainers and PULSE mons are so very wonderful. (shoutout to Dr. Sigmund for horrifying the shit out of me, great job on the sprite Crim.) The E19 PULSEs were all on another level of unsettling. Extremely impressive spritework. (shoutout to the entire Art team tbh)

Soundtrack wise Reborn is pretty good. I mean, Reborn doesnt really have much of an OST. But Glitch's tracks are really perfect for Reborn's setting. 

But what Reborn DOES have for OST, it destroys all competition. The E4 theme has been my absolute favourite of tracks in ever. I never get tired of listening to it. 

 

Part 5: Misc stuff

Ok, rapid fire round time.

Shoutout to everyone who has worked on the scripts and made the game experience so much smoother. One of Reborn's greatest strength lies in how smooth it runs.

Field Effects are great. They add an extra layer of fresh tactics without touching canon in any way. I feel Reborn has really excelled in the Field Effects department. Definitely my favourite part of the game battlewise.

The dialogue in Reborn is ama-fucking-zing. I genuinely can't get over how well written the dialogues are. 

And the shit ton of new QOL in e19.

 

Part 6: A Personal Note

Ok, I said I won't use spoiler tags but this part is really not connected to the game.

Spoiler

I joined the Reborn, Evolved Discord Server in August of 2020. At the time? I didn't really expect much. I expected to drop in, have someone help me with the Glass Gauntlet, and dip. Fast forward to 2021 and suddenly I have entire friend groups. I participate actively in chat, and am considered a friend by many. It was... surreal, I suppose. I had an extremely fun time socialising in lobby. It was an extremely welcoming place back in '21. 

During Covid, I was sort of in a bad mental state. Not depressed exactly, but I did have this immense sadness in me seeing the state of the world. Chatting helped me overcome those feelings. I was feeling more and more dread day by day. Chatting helped me forget those feelings. I felt happy then.

I have made so many amazing friends. You magnificient bastards. love y'all.

 

2022 happened, covid lessened a bit. Things started to somewhat return to normal. The world finally started to heal, if ever so slightly. I always expected activity to die down a bit, seeing as people had actual jobs and real life responsibilities to return to. I myself had to return to school. 

But that didn't happen. It seemed as if lobby will always continue to be the active ball of chaos it always was.

Then, the situation with 'T' happened.

I don't want to reopen old wounds. But this part is important to me.

The situation destroyed the lobby group. The most active part of the server. It could be argued that it's only one group that was destroyed. And I know many people who hadn't even known about the situation.

But to me, it hurt. It sucked so fucking much seeing all these people fight over extremely petty shit. It felt as if the adults had all regressed to children. Every day, there'd be drama. 

Until it culminated in January with the whole Twitter situation.

That affected me like nothing else. I literally couldn't focus on anything. I felt as if a part of me had broken. This was stupid, they were just online people. I shouldn't be this upset. But I was. I had allowed myself to get attached. Having front row seats was not a fun experience. And... slowly but surely, things broke apart. People shifted to their own private friend groups. I myself am in such groups. And in the process, I lost contact with a lot of people i liked. Sure, I have them added as a 'Friend' on Discord. But that's just a meaningless title. We don't talk, ever.

 

I am not sure why I am putting this here. But this whole experience has left me with one very important lesson.

Nothing lasts forever. I had believed that lobby would never die, and look where we are. 

But this goes both ways. Good and the bad.

Even though lobby is altogether broken, I have faith that it will heal. It took a year for it to break apart. It will come back, better than ever. 

Perhaps it's just a naive hope. But as Adrienn taught me, looking at the past never works. All we can do is move to the future, using our past experiences as a lesson.

 

But this whole thing would've never occurred if Reborn didn't exist, no? That's why I wrote this here

 

Closing Thoughts

i am sorry if I have been incoherent at any point. This post was very much me just rambling on how much I love this game.

Shoutout to everyone who has been part of making this game in any way, shape or form. You have been part of a truly wonderful game. 

There's still so much I want to say, but I think it's time to stop.

 

On 20th of March, 2023, I finished Reborn. The run was started on October 4, 2022. a journey of half a year, and many memories.

 

All the best to Chasing Selene and their future endeavors. Can't wait to see what other games y'all dish out.

 

Yours gamingly

CrystalStar

(a nerd who really got too attached to this game and community)

 

PS: I recorded my run on yt, go watch it ty