The Sony Spiderman Universe

I know that I haven't finished/posted my rant about the Marvel Studios MCU series yet, but I wanted to get out what I have to say about Sony's The Amazing Spiderman movie series and it's developing universe. Also, potential SPOILERS included, read at your own risk if you haven't seen the movies.

Continued after the jump.

Gotta Catch 'Em All

So, it's no surprise that as a 90's kid, pokemon was a big part of my life growing up, especially since I had very few friends and most of the ones that I did have were also pretty into it. I'm talking the trading cards, gameboy games (original Blue version, REPRESENT), TV show, the whole shebang. 

Anyways, I digress, as the point of this post is more or less about a cool app that I found about a month ago: GBA4iOS. It's a side-loadable iOS app that allows one to DL and play Gameboy, Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance games on a device like an iPhone, iPod or iPad. It's actually pretty dang legit. Unfortunately as the powers that be would have it, Nintendo got it taken down (GBA4iOS.com is no longer active, developer Riley Testut posted the copyright takedown notice from Github). So boo Nintendo, launching copyright complaints over games that you don't even manufacture or sell the games or devices for anymore.

EDIT 5/27/2014 - GBA4iOS is now available again, visit http://gba4ios.angelxwind.net/ on your mobile device for the direct sideloading app download.

Anyways, I digress again, as this post is ultimately about the GBA games that I wanted to talk about, and as you've probably guessed by now, I'm talking about pokemon games. Oh yes, the good old nostalgia train is kicking in right about now for about 72% of my readers. I've always had a soft spot for those games through the years, having played playthroughs of various ROMs over the past couple years on computers, but it was only until recently discovering GBA4iOS and watching the Twitch Plays Pokemon run throughs back in April that I wanted to play through some myself. If you didn't see the whole crowd-controlled pokemon Red and Gold playthroughs on Twitch Plays Pokemon, then you missed some of the best entertainment of the year (they spent 24 hours trying to navigate the warp pad maze in the Team Rocket Game Corner Base).

Now I'll always be a fan of the orignal Red/Blue and Gold/Silver/Crystal stories, and the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald games were pretty good too, but after that is where new pokemon kinda fell off the face of the earth for me (I don't consider anything after Gen III to be "real" pokemon. So naturally, when I found GBA4iOS, I started out with a FireRed playthrough, cause 'dat original storyline and 'dose graphics tho. It brought the nostalgia back pretty quickly. But it wasn't enough. I went into the ROM archive to find a new game after beating FireRed, and what did I discover?

The glorious thing known as Pokemon ROM hack games.

A hack game is one that has been, well, hacked, to have new features, graphics, gameplay, etc. There's even a flew out there that are entirely new games (for example, the Pokemon Flora Sky version is based off of FireRed's graphics and engine but has an entirely new map, storyline, and pokemon all the way through Gen VI). Basically, I've now played through 2 of the 3 hacks that I plan on playing through, and this is what I've been trying to ultimately get at.

1. Pokemon AshGray:

This hack ROM has been redesigned as a Kanto playthrough with an entirely redesigned map, new features such as no HMs, and the entire storyline is that of Ash's story from the first season of the TV show. There are overworld events such as pikachu not listening, finding bulbasaur/squirtle/charmander in their respective situations, letting butterfree go, etc. It's was probably the best ROM playthrough experience that I've had since playing a new game on an actual gameboy as a kid. 

Jake's rating: 9/10

2. Pokemon Emerald Dreams:

This hack ROM is a remake of Emerald with FireRed's engine and graphics. Although I haven't played through this one, it's very well received and supposedly serves as the prequel to the Pokemon Liquid Crystal.

3. Pokemon Liquid Crystal:

This hack ROM is a remake of the original Crystal version with FireRed's engine, with like 5x the gameplay. No lie, I've logged 100 hours of gameplay (25 in real time since I fast forward it to 4x speed). Not only does it have the original Crystal story, it has a a variety of added dungeon locations including an undersea cavern system connecting all of Kanto/Johto, Gen I/II/III pokemon capable of completing the Gen III national pokedex, a whole new villainous team (Team Saturn) with their own events, new Team Rocket events, new rivals, and a whole new Orange Islands map area and event structure. I haven't even made it all the way through the Orange Islands events and I'm still over 100 hours of logged gameplay. It has a few bugs, but nothing that detracts from the overall experience. It is an excellently pieced together hack and I've thoroughly enjoyed playing it and discovering all the new features, not to mention that you can get every legendary from Gens I-III.

Jake's rating: 9.9/10

If any of my readers want me to send them a side-loadable copy of GBA4iOS 2.0, just send me a message and I'll send you the file and instructions on how to install it on your device.

Well that's enough geeking out for me for one post.