Pokémon Context Switch (redux)

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, it’s a bit of a tradition of mine to go around just before and just after Review Blitz every year to give responses to fics that I don’t have plans to update further down the road. Review Blitz isn’t here for a few more days, but I figured it’d be as good a time as any to tidy things up on that front for this story:

@Joshthewriter

Spoiler

Long awaited and finally here, I’m finally finally reading again!

Apologies that it took so long, but I’m sure you’ve seen some of my IRL issues on the discord lately and it’s been a rough go. But, I’m here now and no more excuses!

Nah, no worries. And thanks for being a trooper and being patient with this response. ^^;

Chapter 1

I never really considered a story from the perspective of Game Freak in-universe. They exist in the games, literally as video game developers, and you pulled an entire story out of it.

It helps that my day job is semi-related to the ones that this story’s protags have. I literally got the idea based off of an ancient contest prompt on Serebii in the leadup to ORAS’ launch to write a one-shot about Hoenn, and I did. In multiple senses of the term, even if it didn’t quite make the submission deadline or land in a one-shot format.

I really like the sense of “this is a real and living world” that you instilled. Almost off the opening word I get the sense that there’s more than just the protagonist and their story going on in this world, something I really appreciate in smaller works like this.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for worldbuilding, so in general I try to make the worlds of my stories feel like they’re living and breathing. Glad to hear that it also came through for you here in this one.

I’m not a programmer and I have utterly no coding knowledge, so I’m probably going to miss out on some of the Easter eggs and references, but I do get some programmer humour jokes from general osmosis off of Reddit. Here’s hoping it doesn’t go over my head.

I mean, there’s a few things that will hit differently if you do have knowledge, but based off past feedback, the story is still enjoyable even if you don’t have any going into it, as you seemed to have gathered with your readthrough.

Ha! I like the Celadon Eevee reference. And the reference to the original rocky development path of the first two gens. Nice little touches.

Such is life when this story is one part meta gags and one part love letter to the franchise’s history, really. :V

This is absurdly polished tbh. It’s so buttery smooth and flows gorgeously. This is one of the reasons I love your writing, everything is so refined and polished that it’s always a smooth read (probably helps to be able to refine these stories over time lol).

I’m definitely glad to hear that one, since it validates my decision to go back and write a v2 of this story. The original version wasn’t quite as polished as the one that you read here, and left a few moments on the table, so it’s pleasant to hear that going back to spit shine and expand things landed well for you.

Chapter 2

I cannot imagine having to share a room with the project director. Talk about nerve wracking. It would be absolute torture for me lol.

I mean, I don’t think Keita imagined that happening to him either prior to it happening, especially as a new hire.

A corphish… does not seem the best choice for a programmer tbh. Though, I bet you’ll show why Keito has Bracket around before long. Just seems like a risk to keep a feisty water type around all those electronics.

I mean, just about every Pokémon would be a risk around delicate electronics. What’s a little water thrown into the mix? o<o

Yeah, Imma bet right now that Keito isn’t gonna be able to just let that lone tropius go. Your stories (and this protagonist tbh) have too much heart for that. One of the reasons I enjoy them so much, they really do capture the emotional moments amazingly.

Lol I called it. The very next scene, Keito’s taking in the tropius. I see you’ve gone with the game scale as well (or it’s just a very young tropius), cuz otherwise I don’t know how a tropius is fitting in the room lol.

She’s meant to be a young Tropius, yes, as the story’s banner art likely tipped you off. Though to be fair, aside from having trouble getting past the door, one would think that a 2m tall creature could fit fine in a hotel room.

Ah, and it ends as well as a “Dino in a hotel room” could be expected. Better than expected tbh, considering it was only a broken monitor. Mark my words, Keito’s getting that ball for the tropius by the end of the fic.

>by the end of the fic

More like by the start of the next chapter, but yeah. That was kinda unavoidable.

Chapter 3

Another coding name! I got that one!

I mean, it did feel like something that a programmer might name a Pokémon, so…

I do like the slowed down focus you’ve given to these programming sections. I don’t understand the intricacies of them, but it’s interesting nonetheless. More interesting than my attempts to learn how to code ever were. That’s a talent to make something so seemingly dry an integral part of the fic, and have it pay off!

Oh man, I don’t know programming (fuck thats a common refrain so far from me), but even I can tell that the issue you laid out is an enormous one. I vaguely remember hearing that this was a real issue for TPC, though I don’t entirely remember. Kudos for making this into a genuinely engaging story, I was not expecting it from the concept alone.

And I’m glad to hear that things hit their mark for a reader not heavily into programming. It was a bit of a balancing act trying to build a story around a niche subject, but glad to hear that you could still follow along with it.

Ah and now I remember! This was the reason for the Gen 3 removal of backwards compatibility.

I mean, it was probably a little different from this in reality, but yeah. That was indeed a reference to the loss of backwards compatibility going into RSE.

Hmmmmm… I wonder if the “take examples from our environment“ was a real occurence? You’ll have to shed some light on this for me, because I’m not up with the history of pokemon dev and it’s clear enough that you are lol.

It’s confirmed by the developers that they have done this for at least some games. Pokémon X/Y in particular had its world designed in the wake of an excursion like this, granted, most likely much earlier in development.

Either way, you’re doing a fantastic job at crafting an entertaining story out of a seemingly droll topic. I’m very very pleased!

And your review has been a blast to read thus far!

Chapter 4

(Note, this is where I took a break from writing this review for a month. Apologies again)

Oh man, this chapter was so fun. “Bump, wiggle, wiggle” lol, you got me chuckling good.

Yeah, I forget the specific meme that I took that from since it’s been over a decade, but it was hilarious then, and it’s still hilarious now, thus why I had to make a nod to it. :V

Hmmmmm. Was the 6 move limit actually a potential change that got nixed? (Googled and apparently it was). The right choice tbh, but I really do like the way you’re crafting the story of a game dev with clear cut events from irl.

It was indeed, yes. There is a lot of beta content that is nodded to over the course of this story (including the “Capsule Monster” designs, to boot!)

LOL the trumpet prank is glorious. You gotta tell me if that was a real thing (I’m gonna stop googling these or I’ll never finish this review).

Alas, that was a wholecloth creation for this story and to get in a few trumpets memes. Though it at least isn’t impossible that something like that happened in real life.

Chapter 5

Oh man, game dev sounds like hella frustrating work tbh. I’ve been there, chasing problems because you don’t know what the hell is causing it. Not a fun feeling, and a fantastic way to get me to relate to Keito.

Yeah, that’s just software development in general. There are some times when the project just needs to be done, even if it means pulling long or irregular hours. The game industry is particularly notorious for it since it happens a bit more often than among software developers in other fields.

I’ve said it before, you put so much heart and relateability into your fics and it’s always a treat. Keito exclaiming in joy and promising Paren whatever she wants is a fun treat too.

Guess that’s a sign that I did my job with characterization in this story, then. ^^

How in god’s name did Keito go 50 hours of no sleep while coding?!?! Fuck, I think thats the most impressive thing in this fic so far. I’d be absolutely dead.

The power of determination and comedic refuge in audacity. (My record from personal experience was somewhere between 35-40, and yes, you do indeed feel absolutely dead after such stretches.) :V

Chapter 6

I love the pokedex gag. Hilarious to be reminded how crappy the rewards for actually completing it are.

Yeeeeeah, they really should throw in something beyond the little diploma one of these games. Not that it didn’t make for bait for a funny gag here.

Ah you’re making me cry over Paren. Like I said, a ton of heart. Good banana Dino!

I am utterly amazed by this fic. It’s so wholesome and filled with unexpected humour and references to what I’m sure are mostly real events. I wonder, did you embellish anything for this story or was it pulled directly from IRL and given a pokemon skin?

A little of column A, a little of column B, with some PokéAni-esque vibes thrown in for the ride. Though glad to hear that

Chapter 7

Oh? An ORAS/XY epilogue? A nice treat!

I mean, it only took…

- checks notes -

Eight years after original publishing to come up with it, but it was the 20th anniversary of RS’ original release and gave me an opportunity to tie up some things that a few reviewers felt were loose ends of the original, so good enough, really.

I really like seeing how you meander through Lilycove with Keito as he gets nostalgic. Really parallels how a lot of players felt returning to Hoenn with ORAS. Probably a fair few of the devs as well.

One thing I really really like is just seeing the natural progression of time. It’s been a long time since these characters were here, and they’ve grown in that span. Yet, they’re still the same characters.

Glad to hear that dynamic came through for you. It was a bit of a balancing act for how to handle things for Keita’s Hoenn since throughout the franchise, the series has always had a “twenty minutes into the future” aesthetic, but hey. The original games had CRTs lying around while modern ones have holographic displays, so I figured that just leaning into how the depicted technology in the games changed would sell the idea of about a decade passing well enough.

As is usual for this fic, and you in general tbh, I adore the little references you slipped into the fic. This is part of how polished this fic is, but none of it seems forced. You aren’t screaming it at me, they’re just naturally there.

Yeah, I’m not sure how much of that is due to the premise and how much is from a dash of dumb luck, but I’m glad to hear that those nods felt organic to you. I suppose I also should be thankful to my beta readers since any of the clunkier moments got weeded out pretty fast after their feedback.

Chapter 8

Oh man, you absolutely CRANKED up the emotions for this second epilogue. It’s so clear how much passion you have for both pokemon and game dev in this one.

I mean, hey, I did say that I wrote this epilogue in part to resolve a loose end to the story. (For reference, they’re deliberately named in the style of the e-Reader card series for RS.) ^^

AWWWW YOU MAKE A SOFTY LIKE ME CRY

I know that I called Keito ending up catching the tropius. It’s still such a heartfelt and wholesome moment. You’re so good at capturing these, so good at filling your fics with emotional strength.

And I’m glad to hear that the second part of the epilogue had that effect, since that effect was indeed what I was aiming for.

Fantastic job with these two epilogues of tying up the story and ending on a high note. This is a great read and a truly engaging story.

Again, my apologies that this took so long to bang out. You did a great job here and you should be very proud!

And thanks again for the review! I’m glad to hear you had fun with this story, and will be looking forward to your reactions if you choose to poke around a few others of mine that I’ve got lying around.

Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed this story, and I’ll be looking forward to replying to some more of these as they roll in in the future. ^^

 

[ShiniGojira]

Hi! Hi! Was just checking out the promo thread and saw this little thing and it prompted my interest! So here's a little review from yours truly!

Chapter 1:

So the premise is pretty interesting and we start off with Keita and his Corphish, Bracket, arriving on Hoenn and heading off to his meeting. What interests me about this is that since he's supposed to be working for an in-universe Gamefreak, would that mean the company has reality bending powers that none of them realize until after the fact or are Red and Gold just an inspiration built on events that have already happened? Since I'm assuming the events of Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are gonna be happening as the story progresses.

So that would mean Gamefreak in-verse is either an accidental prophetic fortune teller or a reality altering entity. And I'm all for the existential crises that can occur once Keita figures things out.

Unless of course, I'm just looking into things too deeply and there is no mind-fuckery going on and this is just your typical average programmer fic.

Chapter 2:  

Okay, so guess it isn't a fic about a company accidentally manipulating reality. I'm fine with that.

So, we see Keita's day-to-day life as well as who his two roommates are. Absolutely adore the little gremlin known as Bracket, nipping everything and everyone he sees and unintentionally causing chaos in the process.

Then we see a Tropius outside and she's just cute. God, I just love the little weird flying dino. It's so disappointing that very few fics ever have one.

Also, characters. I like Satoshi, while we haven't seen much of what he's like yet. I love that what we do see of him shows just what kind of character he is. Same with the director. The amount of characterization in a single short (by my standards) chapter is amazing.

Chapter 3:

Every scene with Keita and his mons are my favourite. Their little interactions, the chemistry bouncing between them are just so gosh darn cute! Doubly so when Paren has absolutely no idea what her trainer is doing and yet, is still so interested because of the pretty and sparkly lights.

Leaving my gushing about a flying grass dino behind, what I do like about this fic is that despite all the programming talk and me having not a single clue about codes and such, I still understand the problems that they are facing due to how simple and easy the explanations are. They aren't overly detailed or complicated or anything like that. They're just fun and simple.

Chapter 4:

Ahem, I am shocked by how seamless and efficient the background description is. Short, simple and with enough characterization that makes it feel so alive. Like I can't get over how well the description of the routes were, holy jeez, I'm definitely gonna take some notes for my own background description.

Anyway, a little worldbuilding was found here and there. It's pretty cool seeing just how the team was getting inspiration and ideas from their surroundings, their interactions between each other was top notch once again and just makes them feel like actual bloody people. I can't get over how I've slept on your writing for so long! God damn, now I wanna see what your other stories are like if they are anything like this.

Chapter 5:

And so the final frontier arrives, the ticking clock comes down. Bugs are everywhere, people and Pokemon alike are fricking jinxing each other and unknowingly causing even more problems!

That aside, while I've mostly just ignored the *insert time remaining* the past few chapters. This chapter definitely made it feel more pronounced like it actually mattered. The underlying pressure of the ticking clock and the seemingly never-ending bugs is the chef's kiss to an amazing climax along with the final game-breaking bug solved by our favourite girl, Paren. It's just... ack! So good!

Chapter 6:

And so the end begins.

I love the Easter eggs and references that was sprinkled and by far, the first scene of this chapter is my absolute favourite. The way you've written the panic and how you incorporated the dialogue makes the scene both an amazing reference and a hilarious piece.

Then comes Paren's story and the end of it, her leaving and going back to her family is both wholesome and heartfelt and I hate you for stirring up emotions I've kept locked in a box.

Then finally Keita's ending and we see him reminisce about the past year and the bonds he made with both Paren, Bracket and his coworkers, and it's just so good and I can feel a bit of the happiness he's feeling and just–ah! You're so damn good at writing, it surprises me so.

Chapter 7 and 8, The Epilogue:

The two parter was a nice way to end the story. We get to see the growth and aftermath of Keita's and Bracket's story as well as reuniting with old friends. It was cool to see Bracket having evolved, likewise with seeing Keita reminiscing about his time working on the Hoenn games.

And the ending was just the pretty bow to wrap things up. Paren coming back, catching up with him and him catching her makes it so heartwarming and I really just love the way this story writes its characters and I really love how chill and low key this fic was.

Really makes it a nice little story to read after having read a massive half a mil story about war and stuff.

Well, onto the line-by-line stuff:

Spoiler: Line-by-line comments

Chapter 1:

The Corphish - named ‘Bracket’ by his trainer after one too many sleep-deprived nights -

So, I'm assuming Bracket is named that because his trainer's a programmer.

"Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome aboard to the dev team for the next generation of Capsule Monsters games."

Capsule Monsters? What, you gonna capture some Z-fighters to beat up gods or something?

"Surely you’ve heard the stories if you’re in this business. Why, the first games were glitchy messes that were prone to save corruption if you so much as surfed down the wrong patch of water!"

Yeah, ever heard of MissingNo? The incredibly famous glitch that has now basically become the mascot of glitches?

"And there was that whole flap about the localization office in Unova wanting to redraw all of the sprites to make them more 'audience appropriate'."

 Oh right, like that time America wanted to turn Pikachu into a hot furry tiger. That's pretty audience appropriate to me.

"If you can deliver on the concept and design work that has already been done for you and stick to the twelve-month timetable that the publisher has given us."

Almost immediately, there was an outcry from the other programmers in the room.

"Twelve months?!"

"Are you nuts?!"

Yeah! I can't even write a single chapter in twelve months! Let alone make a game that isn't a glitchy mess!

Do not make eye contact with SV. The glitches won't hurt you if you don't look at them!
Chapter 2:
 

Beyond the cosmetic imperfections, the fact that its owners still relied on metal keys to lock the rooms was just another sign the motel hadn’t been renovated recently.

Huh, so I'm guessing this means their tech is more updated than ours? 'cause that's kinda weird considering the fact that their games's quality are on-par with the Gen one and two games.

Why, your maestro of turning ink and paper concept sketches into sprites, of course. I'm Satoshi from the graphics design team," the roommate responded.

Hey, the hell is Ash freaking Ketchum doing in my game universe fic?!

Keita heard the door open again, and as he turned, Satoshi motioned over his shoulder and said, "It's the guy in charge of this entire project."

Dun dun dun! So that's why he was hearing boss music!

It was at that exact moment that the teal Pokémon in the background let out an abrupt cry. All eyes in the room turned to see Bracket playfully grabbing one of the Wynaut's arms with his pincers, and the teal Pokémon abruptly slamming the Corphish into a wall to break free.

As the stunned crustacean hastily retreated behind his owner, Keita became acutely aware that the Director was leveling a withering glare over towards him.

Welp, that was a great first impression. Hope your salary doesn't get deducted for that, Keita!

"So this is the block that handles how the callback for the menu works,” Keita explained. “I'm pretty sure that this logic is correct, but the error messages say that something's coming from here. Basically, every time that the game detects that there’s a menu event, it updates a global static variable with the new type of menu, and then it uses it to-"

... yup! I have absolutely zero ideas what you just said but I'm going to pretend I do by continuously nodding with a straight face.

"You didn't understand a word that I just said, did you?"

Ack, how do you know?!

As the graphics artist and his charge departed, Keita watched the Tropius for a little longer before returning to his post. After all, Satoshi was a senior coworker, and if he was convinced the matter would blow over, there was no sense in making waves over it.

Why does this make me feel like that Tropius is gonna somehow create a tsunami later?

"Well, I didn't know she was a wild Pokémon!” Keita protested. “And she's been really well behaved all this time!"

Well, you could've bloody asked! Seriously, how did none of you think of doing that?

Chapter 3:

In his field, programmers occasionally would sanity-check their work by explaining it aloud to an inanimate object like a rubber Psyduck, or in other cases to their Pokémon.

Oh right, that's a thing programmers do. Hm, wonder if that works for other careers instead of just programming?

"I suppose that I could help for a bit," Keita finally replied. "I mean, I think the problem that I'm encountering right now shouldn't be too hard to fix later…"

And... you just jinxed yourself. Fantastic. Let's hope you don't somehow get the universe destroyed because of one error.

"What if we took some notes from our surroundings? And then used that for the game's setting and campaign?"

Sooo, is this the part you pull the rug underneath me and say that there is some reality warping magic?

Chapter 4:

Not long after the fateful conference in which it was decided to scrap the existing campaign plans of Capsule Monsters AGB, Keita and his roommates found themselves far removed from their hotel room for trips out into the field about Hoenn in search of inspiration. Their journey that day had taken their assigned group to a barren waste of sand hemmed in by mountains north of Mauville City

Jeez, they sure are dedicated to their craft.

It's like a snowy landscape…" Keita mused. "Except it's hot and muggy and much worse for your lungs."

And trainers spend time in this place willingly!

"And the sky was dark and thundering, and the earth was shaking- And there were these red and blue Pokémon that were all 'Rawr, I'm gonna eat you!' and 'Bump wiggle wiggle' with each other!" he exclaimed. "And then this green sky gecko showed up and the two got bored and left."

Okay, so they are just taking inspiration from real life and aren't magical beings accidentally changing reality. Finally I got a confirmation... unless of course that's what you want us to think and they're just completing a time loop!

"I'm starting to understand why that news coverage of the big storm last year seemed like it was missing something," Satoshi murmured.

Wait, so Hoenn's residents have no idea about the GKR incident? How the hell did no one catch Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza's showdown on camera?

While his two subordinates bantered with each other over the outcome of the test battle, the Director rubbed at his chin and mused to himself. If expanding the games' movepool in a casual match could cause such a radical difference in outcome, it couldn't help but make him think that…

"Hrm… maybe it is a little unbalancing to be adding more moves to monsters."

As if Gamefreak ever cared all that much about things like balancing, look at the plethora of legends Gen 9 added and tell me they weren't high when making them. And don't get me started on Zacian and Mega Rayquaza and Z-moves

Eh? That's certainly different," the green-haired man said. "Isn't this supposed to be the starter that turns into that 'Latiiken' thing?"

Hey, I know that easter egg! Hey, I–

*insert Leonardo pointing at something meme here*

"I got a memo stating that the line needs to wind up turning into something that players should find cute and be taken aback as it evolves, so… we kinda binned everything and started from scratch."

Hey, Latiiken is totes the 'cute'. It's bloody awesome! Shame on them for not seeing the genius behind such a design!

Chapter 5:

"'Bus Fault'?"

Aaand there's the Jynx. Let see what this bus holds.

The Tropius and Corphish put their papery distractions aside and cheered for their trainer. After all, he was happy, meaning that surely his problems had come to a close?

Ah, guys, stop jinxing it! You're gonna ruin everything!

After getting the game’s build to compile again, it was time for Keita to join in with his coworkers on the oft-dreaded but ever unavoidable task of every practitioner of his craft, debugging. A time when one unforeseen problem after another would be discovered from the codebase, and would then have to somehow have their culprits teased out and fixed.

It was a sisyphean process, with bugfixes that would expose other components to erratic behaviour, or "improvements" that would spawn completely new bugs, all in the 48-hour race to the finish. And one particular nemesis had been particularly stubborn and time-consuming to put down - a weird stack overflow error that kept creeping up while adding game events to their corresponding listeners.

I'm feeling pain just from reading this! Argh, debugging an entire game in just two days, that's just impossible no matter how good or efficient you are!

Keita stared blankly at his monitor briefly, before taking a moment to remind himself that things could've been worse.

How the hell can it be worse? Unless you're working on Sonic 06, there is literally no way anything could be worse unless the company deliberately sabatoge you.

The Director had to abruptly duck out of Hoenn for much of the last sprint following the birth of a new child and only just recently been able to return after a tense period spent working remotely and relaying approvals over the phone - including from the waiting room of his wife's hospital.

Hey, at least he's not an absentee father.

Keita threw his arms around Paren, gratefully hugging and patting the Tropius for her help. The Grass-type squirmed initially from Keita’s surprise intimacy, before easing and nuzzling her trainer back with a small smile.

Woohoo! You did it, Paren! You're now promoted from best girl to bestest girl!

Chapter 6:

"I'm the graphic artist! Aren't the Pokémon of Hoenn interesting?" he hastily interjected, deftly kicking the cord loose and unplugging the projector to hide their notes from the girl's eyes. He hushedly turned to Keita and whispered, "Psst! Did the publisher give us any Eevee to work with?", desperately hoping for a distraction for the intruding girl

Ah, this is so mind-bending and trippy.

He quickly scribbled a congratulatory message onto it and thrust the paper into the girl's hand, cheerfully exclaiming, "Let me give you something in recognition for your feat!" before pushing her towards the door.

"Now, do go on," he insisted. “Be sure to show your trophy to your mom and dad!"

I just wanna say that this entire sequence made me laugh. You sir have somehow made the fourth wall breaks feel less like that and more like an actual in universe conversation, albeit by making them panic the heck out

"Oh… this is your mother, isn't she?", he murmured.

All this time, he'd assumed that Paren never would've found her herd again, and yet in spite of the odds here it was, along with a choice that neither of the two would have expected to have to make. Over the past nine months, he’d watched the scared and confused Tropius he and Satoshi found on the pool concrete grow, both physically and closer to him and Bracket. She’d been there through rain and shine, at multiple points when the project seemed lost, and was the reason why they were making their publisher’s timetable in the first place!

… could he really just let all of that go?

Oh... oh no... Don't go, Paren! We can't live without you!

Paren gave a bemused toss of her head as Bracket and his trainer waved her off and bade her farewell. She waited for the elder Tropius to jump up and take flight first, and paused to look back at her companions one last time. After a moment's hesitation, she took to the skies with her mother, disappearing into their herd as they headed off into the distance.

Ah... a wholesome yet sad end to Paren's journey. Bloody hell, you twisted my emotions from happy to sadness in just one scene...

Epilogue Part 1 and 2:

Putting those games together had been a saga in its own right, especially since a good chunk of development coincided with an attempted regional takeover whose effects wound up scuttling plans for the franchise’s first worldwide release.

So I'm assuming this means it took place in BW2 instead of BW1 right? Because the timeline's a bit weird if it's the latter

But it had caught up with time since then and found itself on the cutting edge of trends and technology… from about ten years ago.

Pft... well the more things change the more they stay the same, eh?

Even Bracket seemed to be taken aback, as the Crawdaunt turned to his trainer with a worried chitter. But strangely enough, Keita couldn’t help but smile. He was sure he’d wind up tearing at his hair on many a night a few months from now, perhaps even sooner than that… but somehow the news of this new deadline didn’t faze him.

Perhaps it was the place, or the way his colleagues were baying in protest… but the announcement felt like old times.

Ah, nostalgia is a dangerous yet pleasing drug

“Besides, it’s a new hardware generation. It’s not as if we’re going to be expected to stick to a yearly release schedule forever.”

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the games had a four or three years release? Unless of course it's because their tech is more advanced than ours.

Keita couldn’t help but quirk a brow at the comment. He supposed he’d seen wild Tropius come by this very pool firsthand in the past, but a shallow pool surrounded by concrete still felt like a peculiar choice for a stopover. Before the programmer could ask further, Satoshi caught himself briefly, before briefly raising his drink can and speaking up again.
“Or I guess it’s a Tropius that visits,” the graphics artist corrected himself. “They say there’s one in particular that always seems to come by here.”

Missing a space between these two paragraphs here

And that's that. I really enjoy reading this and I hope to see what else you have installed. Hope you have a nice day, ciao.

 

[Nekodatta]

Hi, as a story about programming Pokémon-like games in the Pokémon world, I just had to check out this story. I've read it all and will try to review at least a couple of chapters.

- Chapter 1-
Right from the start the fact that he named his Pokémon "Bracket" made me smile and tells a lot about our protagonist. Also the idea that Corphish are a headache for customs is quite funny to me, I guess it makes a lot of sense that they would keep an eye out on people bringing in certain species if they already proved problematic in the past. I loved all the little reference to the most strange things that the Pokémon merchandise machine has churned out (oh yeah, that musical was a thing), and even more how you referenced what Game Freaks as developers-npc were doing in past Pokémon games.
Or references to stuff like the sprites having to be reworked to make them more "audience friendly" (the Jynx case...)
I had a nice laugh at the horde of Eevee handed out to get people to leave in Celadon.

And Iwata reference!! Man really pulled off a miracle there.

I laughed at Corphish reacting to the "bugs to squish" sentence. In an office setting like this, I wondered more than one time during the story what Pokémon would think of human work like this. Just tapping buttons and making pretty lights on a screen move all day. Especially since they are a lot smarter than our animals.

And there it is, the infamous time crunch lol. I sure hope Gen III wasn't developed with that kind of deadline. The fact that Gen I took them 6 years and now they have to ship out Gen III in twelve months really puts things into perspective.

Anyway, I think it's a perfect first chapter: it's funny, full of nice little references and sets the tone (and the deadline) of the story quite nicely. Poor Keita has no idea what he got himself into.

-- Chapter 2 --
Right from the start the fact that we get the deadline at every scene change, down to the second, is both hilarious and slightly anxiety inducing. It really sells the idea of the time crunch they are working on (and Keita's mindset, probably, since I can see him being the one constantly glancing at the clock). Also his room mates being Satoshi and the Director himself made me chuckle. The Director's Pokemon being a Wynaut kept nagging at me for the whole fic, because I am sure it has to be a reference to something... maybe an interview where one Game Freak developer said it was his favourite? I kept having this nagging feeling that Wynaut in Gen III was special for SOMETHING, apart from being pretty much Gen III Togepi in the form of getting a random egg to hatch as a tutorial for the mechanic.
Anyway, I like how you sprinkled little scenes of the Pokémon here: these are guys with Work To Do that has nothing to do with Pokémon, so they can't keep their attention on them the whole time, so of course they would go off to entertain themselves on their own. It's realistic, and makes the world feel more alive because not every single aspect of life rotates around Pokémon, they are just part of the world. It does make the Pokémon themselves feel more... mundane? In a world with magical, incredibly smart creatures, you would think a franchise about OTHER magical fictional creatures would have no appeal, but I guess we can make the same parallel with real world animals and Pokémon...

I had to laugh again at Keita doing some good old rubber ducking to Bracket.

I felt bad for the poor Tropius left alone outside, but again, these guys have Stuff To Do and it's just realistic that they wouldn't and couldn't drop everything for her. It was still nice for Keita to approach her in the end, and I liked his surprise at knowing that yes, Tropius can FLY. I feel like a lot of people had a moment like that... especially seeing Tropius's Gen 6 model stuck in that awkward gliding pose...

-- Chapter 3 --
We're already halfway through the deadline. I really liked the little reference to the Minor Ball developed by Devon as being useful for "younger" Pokémon to reference it working on lower levels in the games. I found the different reaction of Paren and Bracket to Keita's work cute. Again, there's this sense of realism in how the Pokémon act here: they are not doing anything we would expect from an usual Pokémon fic, there's probably one mention of moves in the entire fic. They are just Keita's partners and want to take part in his daily life. We usually watch/play the role of people who devote their life to Pokémon, so this reversal feels refreshing in a sense. Also it's cute how Bracket wants to act interested and show enthusiasm for his sake ahah.

And there's the infamous backwards compatibility problem... I had no one to trade with until actually Gen III (or let's say none of us had a Link Cable) so the fact that you couldn't transfer Pokémon from Gen II to III never quite struck me... and when the fic mentioned that they counted on this to get the older monsters in to focus on new ones... that's right, compared to Gen II that has Rattata and Pidgey in the first couple routes along with new mons, Gen III DOES have a very low number of returning mons at the very start and in general... like we had to wait for Fire Red and Leaf Green's postgame to catch a LOT of missing Johto mons.

I had never quite realized this and it has blown my mind now, wow.

Back to the fic, I again love all the little game references. Yep, now we have IVs and EVs structured completely differently! And abilities! And contests! And I'm pretty sure they also changed how shiny Pokémon are rolled, based on the new IV values... and love how in the fic, the creator was inspired by his own Pokémon training.

I hoped that we would see more of Not-RS's story that ended up in Capsule Monsters and that was totally not inspired by Hoenn. Actually in general, seeing just a bit more of the fictional Not-Pokémon games would have proven funny I think, to see how they actually implemented those ideas.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, hitting up the next stop on the review response train. I’ll admit that I honestly wasn’t expecting multiple takers for this story this year, so this was a real treat to see.

Alright, onto the actual good stuff:

@ShiniGojira

Spoiler

Chapter 1:

So the premise is pretty interesting and we start off with Keita and his Corphish, Bracket, arriving on Hoenn and heading off to his meeting. What interests me about this is that since he's supposed to be working for an in-universe Gamefreak, would that mean the company has reality bending powers that none of them realize until after the fact or are Red and Gold just an inspiration built on events that have already happened? Since I'm assuming the events of Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are gonna be happening as the story progresses.

So that would mean Gamefreak in-verse is either an accidental prophetic fortune teller or a reality altering entity. And I'm all for the existential crises that can occur once Keita figures things out.

Unless of course, I'm just looking into things too deeply and there is no mind-fuckery going on and this is just your typical average programmer fic.

I think that you got your answer to this one later on in the story, but for reference, there actually is an in-universe Gamefreak canonically through the devroom cameos in the games. In this case, Keita is quite literally the “programmer” NPC you can talk to in the Cove Lily Motel, and takes after his depiction in RSE.

Chapter 2:  

Okay, so guess it isn't a fic about a company accidentally manipulating reality. I'm fine with that.

So, we see Keita's day-to-day life as well as who his two roommates are. Absolutely adore the little gremlin known as Bracket, nipping everything and everyone he sees and unintentionally causing chaos in the process.

Yeah, I don’t fully remember my thought process behind creating Bracket other than that he might have had shades of Ash’s Corphish from his earlier episodes, but I can’t say that I’m not satisfied with how he turned out. There’s a lot of funnier moments in this fic that wouldn’t have happened if he were more reserved and less of a troublemaker. :V

Then we see a Tropius outside and she's just cute. God, I just love the little weird flying dino. It's so disappointing that very few fics ever have one.

Might I also interest you in a story about Druddigon, my good sir?

But yeah, I suppose that I’ve always had a bit of a softer spot for following uncommon premises and casting uncommon characters. It didn’t hurt that I’d come off of experience with a PBP RP that had a fairly memorable Tropius character that Paren draws influence from.

Also, characters. I like Satoshi, while we haven't seen much of what he's like yet. I love that what we do see of him shows just what kind of character he is. Same with the director. The amount of characterization in a single short (by my standards) chapter is amazing.

I’m honestly really happy to hear that given that I more or less started with a blank slate for those three since they don’t have much in the way of canonical characterization. I figured that a “new hand”, an “old hand”, and “the boss” would make for a decent character dynamic, and just rolled with it.

Chapter 3:

Every scene with Keita and his mons are my favourite. Their little interactions, the chemistry bouncing between them are just so gosh darn cute! Doubly so when Paren has absolutely no idea what her trainer is doing and yet, is still so interested because of the pretty and sparkly lights.

Leaving my gushing about a flying grass dino behind, what I do like about this fic is that despite all the programming talk and me having not a single clue about codes and such, I still understand the problems that they are facing due to how simple and easy the explanations are. They aren't overly detailed or complicated or anything like that. They're just fun and simple.

Whelp, mission accomplished then, on both fronts. It was honestly a tricky balancing act to communicate a subject that normally takes quite a bit of study to get proficient at for an audience where I couldn’t take it for granted that readers would be familiar with it. Fortunately for me, rubber duck debugging is a legitimate thing among programmers in real life, so it provided a convenient mechanism to slow down and explain things to the audience where needed.

Chapter 4:

Ahem, I am shocked by how seamless and efficient the background description is. Short, simple and with enough characterization that makes it feel so alive. Like I can't get over how well the description of the routes were, holy jeez, I'm definitely gonna take some notes for my own background description.

Oh trust me, I’m still trying to nail that consistently in some of my other stories.

Though glad to hear that it hit its mark for you in this one.

Anyway, a little worldbuilding was found here and there. It's pretty cool seeing just how the team was getting inspiration and ideas from their surroundings, their interactions between each other was top notch once again and just makes them feel like actual bloody people. I can't get over how I've slept on your writing for so long! God damn, now I wanna see what your other stories are like if they are anything like this.

Well, you got to see what one of my other stories was like, even if it’ll be a little bit before I can get to your review there. Though for reference, the “taking inspiration from surroundings” bit is something that Game Freak has done in reality, with a dev team trip to France being a part of XY’s development process.

Chapter 5:

And so the final frontier arrives, the ticking clock comes down. Bugs are everywhere, people and Pokemon alike are fricking jinxing each other and unknowingly causing even more problems!

Just like real life~

That aside, while I've mostly just ignored the *insert time remaining* the past few chapters. This chapter definitely made it feel more pronounced like it actually mattered. The underlying pressure of the ticking clock and the seemingly never-ending bugs is the chef's kiss to an amazing climax along with the final game-breaking bug solved by our favourite girl, Paren. It's just... ack! So good!

Yeah, deadlines can be like that for a lot of things sometimes. Easy to ignore until they sneak up on you, and I wanted to show off the sort of chaos that accommodates every programming project that winds up having a “crunch” period, which is notoriously commonplace in video game development.

Chapter 6:

And so the end begins.

I love the Easter eggs and references that was sprinkled and by far, the first scene of this chapter is my absolute favourite. The way you've written the panic and how you incorporated the dialogue makes the scene both an amazing reference and a hilarious piece.

Yeah, this was the part where I got to reveal that Keita and the gang technically weren’t OCs all along, which as a story that was originally outlined for a writing contest themed around Hoenn, felt all the more appropriate.

Glad you had fun with that part, since I got a kick out of being able to poke fun at the obligatory underwhelming award that you get for completing the Pokédex in each game. :V

Then comes Paren's story and the end of it, her leaving and going back to her family is both wholesome and heartfelt and I hate you for stirring up emotions I've kept locked in a box.

Then finally Keita's ending and we see him reminisce about the past year and the bonds he made with both Paren, Bracket and his coworkers, and it's just so good and I can feel a bit of the happiness he's feeling and just–ah! You're so damn good at writing, it surprises me so.

Yeah, prior to the Epilogue chapters being written for the 20th anniversary of Ruby and Sapphire, this was just how the story ended. Glad to hear that it was an enjoyable read, though, since that’s what the story originally aimed for with that chapter.

Chapter 7 and 8, The Epilogue:

The two parter was a nice way to end the story. We get to see the growth and aftermath of Keita's and Bracket's story as well as reuniting with old friends. It was cool to see Bracket having evolved, likewise with seeing Keita reminiscing about his time working on the Hoenn games.

And the ending was just the pretty bow to wrap things up. Paren coming back, catching up with him and him catching her makes it so heartwarming and I really just love the way this story writes its characters and I really love how chill and low key this fic was.

Yeah, I’ll admit, that when I originally wrote up this Epilogue, I was a bit worried about how it was going to play with readers and whether or not it’d violate their suspension of disbelief or that they’d feel that it undid the original ending. But eh, there was always some segment of my readerbase for this story that was a bit disappointed that Paren didn’t stay with Keita, and with the franchise marching on a bit, I felt that it was a good enough excuse to both reflect those changes and bring things full circle.

Chapter 1:

So, I'm assuming Bracket is named that because his trainer's a programmer.

Ditto why ‘Paren’ has her name as well.

Capsule Monsters? What, you gonna capture some Z-fighters to beat up gods or something?

This is actually based on the name for Pokémon’s original concept before Red and Green went into six years of development hell. Since it felt weird to have a franchise called “Pokémon” in a world where everyday creatures are called that term, it was reused as the name for “Pokémon Games” in this setting.

Yeah, ever heard of MissingNo? The incredibly famous glitch that has now basically become the mascot of glitches?

Probably not, since these guys spent most of their life around the events of Gen 1 in some nondescript midrise in Celadon.

 Oh right, like that time America wanted to turn Pikachu into a hot furry tiger. That's pretty audience appropriate to me.

I mean, we wound up getting the (literally) hot furry tiger anyways about 20 years into the franchise, so…

Yeah! I can't even write a single chapter in twelve months! Let alone make a game that isn't a glitchy mess!

Do not make eye contact with SV. The glitches won't hurt you if you don't look at them!

I mean, neither can Game Freak, apparently, but at least they tried.

Chapter 2:
 
Huh, so I'm guessing this means their tech is more updated than ours? 'cause that's kinda weird considering the fact that their games's quality are on-par with the Gen one and two games.

More the opposite and that the Cove Lily Motel was hilariously backwards at a time when card readers were already the norm for hotel room keys.

Hey, the hell is Ash freaking Ketchum doing in my game universe fic?!

Technically that’d be bland-name Satoshi Ohta, so don’t worry. He won’t be winning many world championships anytime soon.

Dun dun dun! So that's why he was hearing boss music!

I snerked at this one.

Welp, that was a great first impression. Hope your salary doesn't get deducted for that, Keita!

Don’t worry, he got it deducted later in the chapter. >:V

... yup! I have absolutely zero ideas what you just said but I'm going to pretend I do by continuously nodding with a straight face.

[...]


Ack, how do you know?!

I mean, this story was written under the assumption that most of the readers wouldn’t know much about programming, so… ^^;

Why does this make me feel like that Tropius is gonna somehow create a tsunami later?

Fortunately, there was only so much water in that dinky little pool, so… ^^;

Well, you could've bloody asked! Seriously, how did none of you think of doing that?

They’re programmers and you lose track of these things in between busy workdays?

Chapter 3:

Oh right, that's a thing programmers do. Hm, wonder if that works for other careers instead of just programming?

I honestly wouldn’t be super shocked, since it is a handy way of checking your own logic and thought process behind an attempt at solving problems.

And... you just jinxed yourself. Fantastic. Let's hope you don't somehow get the universe destroyed because of one error.

I think that Keita would have to worry a bit more about destroying his bonus first. ^^;

Sooo, is this the part you pull the rug underneath me and say that there is some reality warping magic?

Chapter 4:


Jeez, they sure are dedicated to their craft.

Yeah, this is something that IRL Game Freak apparently has done on at least one occasion that we know of as part of developing the Gen VI games. Given that this story’s premise basically ripped off the tale of how Final Fantasy IX was developed in terms of an excuse to yeet the devs into Hoenn, I figured that taking some inspiration from reality was in the cards as an excuse to show off more of Hoenn.

And trainers spend time in this place willingly!

I mean, it helps that you can make cool flutes with said ash? Totally a good reason to go YOLO on your lungs, right? ^^;

Okay, so they are just taking inspiration from real life and aren't magical beings accidentally changing reality. Finally I got a confirmation... unless of course that's what you want us to think and they're just completing a time loop!

Fortunately for the cosmos, Game Freak in this story are just developers.

Wait, so Hoenn's residents have no idea about the GKR incident? How the hell did no one catch Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza's showdown on camera?

More like a limited idea, with out-of-regioners like the devteam minus that one guy in Part 1 being even more out of loop. Something something disrupted communications during the moment of truth, something something attempts at information blackouts afterwards to avoid freaking out the general public about how close Hoenn was to becoming an ex-region. Kinda like how the world was a couple minutes away from a nuclear exchange on Christmas 1995 but nobody really acknowledges that outside very particular circles.

As if Gamefreak ever cared all that much about things like balancing, look at the plethora of legends Gen 9 added and tell me they weren't high when making them. And don't get me started on Zacian and Mega Rayquaza and Z-moves

They apparently cared enough here, since this was an actual decision that was considered for the Hoenn games that got left on the cutting room floor.

Hey, I know that easter egg! Hey, I–

*insert Leonardo pointing at something meme here*

Yeah, there’s a few more of those floating around in this story. Essentially, the designs of various beta Pokémon got repurposed in Context Switch and other stories that share its setting as Capsule Monsters.

Hey, Latiiken is totes the 'cute'. It's bloody awesome! Shame on them for not seeing the genius behind such a design!

There was a chance it got a second life as whatever their equivalent to Mega Blaziken was? That counts for something, right? ^^

Chapter 5:

Aaand there's the Jynx. Let see what this bus holds.

Hours and hours of headaches debugging code.

Ah, guys, stop jinxing it! You're gonna ruin everything!

Paren: “*But we’re helping!*” ^^

I'm feeling pain just from reading this! Argh, debugging an entire game in just two days, that's just impossible no matter how good or efficient you are!

I mean, they did get a head start relative to those two days, but yeah. The glitches mentioned in the paragraph right after this one are based on actual glitches that you can encounter in RSE.

How the hell can it be worse? Unless you're working on Sonic 06, there is literally no way anything could be worse unless the company deliberately sabatoge you.

Oh, trust me, there’s almost always a way for things to get worse in software development even without self-sabotage. [copyber]

Hey, at least he's not an absentee father.

Yeah, this was actually edited in some months post-initial publishing after I found out that this actually happened to Masuda during the development of RS. Naturally, the Director as Not!Masuda in this story felt like a good way to nod to it. Jury’s out as to whether or not the Director also named some random NPC in the game after his kid.

Woohoo! You did it, Paren! You're now promoted from best girl to bestest girl!

And boy did she ever deserve it. ^^

Chapter 6:


Ah, this is so mind-bending and trippy.

[...]

I just wanna say that this entire sequence made me laugh. You sir have somehow made the fourth wall breaks feel less like that and more like an actual in universe conversation, albeit by making them panic the heck out

Yeah, it’s obviously expanded and given lulzier framing, but this is indeed based off that moment from RSE when you stop by the Cove Lily Motel. Complete with the underwhelming reward for a full Pokédex.

Oh... oh no... Don't go, Paren! We can't live without you!

I mean, we can, but it would make some of my readerbase sad. Which is a part of the reason why the epilogue was ultimately added to the story after I found a good meta excuse to write it.

Ah... a wholesome yet sad end to Paren's journey. Bloody hell, you twisted my emotions from happy to sadness in just one scene…

I mean, it was the end of Paren’s journey for most of this fic’s existence, but, that changed as of November 2022, as you saw later on.

Epilogue Part 1 and 2:

So I'm assuming this means it took place in BW2 instead of BW1 right? Because the timeline's a bit weird if it's the latter

Left open to audience interpretation. I personally envisioned it as BW1 since Game Freak are also in Unova in that game, but it certainly also fits an interpretation for that attempted takeover being BW2’s.

Pft... well the more things change the more they stay the same, eh?

Quite. :V

Ah, nostalgia is a dangerous yet pleasing drug

Well, yeah. Hence why they’re all there to try and make a buck off a flavor of said drug. o<o

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the games had a four or three years release? Unless of course it's because their tech is more advanced than ours.

Every generation lasts three to four years. In terms of major game releases, the Pokémon franchise is actually pretty crowded. Between 2006 and 2019, every year with the sole exception of 2015 had a game from the core series release either in Japan or in the US and Europe. That model has obviously changed to one focusing around DLC padding out an extra year, but it was very much alive and well in the 3DS era even if “put the A and B teams on different games” was starting to show its obvious limitations.

Missing a space between these two paragraphs here

Fixed, and thanks for pointing that out.

And that's that. I really enjoy reading this and I hope to see what else you have installed. Hope you have a nice day, ciao.

And thanks for the review! You’re actually one of two people who’s reviewed the story in its present full length, so it was particularly fun to see your commentary on everything, especially the added Epilogue. Hope to also see you around in a few of those other stories. ^^

@Nekodatta

Spoiler

Hi, as a story about programming Pokémon-like games in the Pokémon world, I just had to check out this story. I've read it all and will try to review at least a couple of chapters.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a rare bird as a premise. If you’re looking for another story cut from a similar mold (if not focused around video game development), give @Namohysip ’s In Beta a shot sometime. ^^

- Chapter 1-
Right from the start the fact that he named his Pokémon "Bracket" made me smile and tells a lot about our protagonist. Also the idea that Corphish are a headache for customs is quite funny to me, I guess it makes a lot of sense that they would keep an eye out on people bringing in certain species if they already proved problematic in the past. I loved all the little reference to the most strange things that the Pokémon merchandise machine has churned out (oh yeah, that musical was a thing), and even more how you referenced what Game Freaks as developers-npc were doing in past Pokémon games.
Or references to stuff like the sprites having to be reworked to make them more "audience friendly" (the Jynx case...)
I had a nice laugh at the horde of Eevee handed out to get people to leave in Celadon.

Yeah, such is life when you’re leaning into the premise of Pokémon being a fictional universe that’s a reflection of reality. There’s a lot of little nods to reality that can be shoved in without missing a beat, but also little things like the aforementioned free Eevees to add some fun/funnier divergences from it.

And Iwata reference!! Man really pulled off a miracle there.

Yeah, as much of a personality as he became for Nintendo towards the end of his tenure, he very much had a lot of accomplishments in the trenches, and Pokémon as a franchise would likely have been very different if he weren’t there in its early years.

I laughed at Corphish reacting to the "bugs to squish" sentence. In an office setting like this, I wondered more than one time during the story what Pokémon would think of human work like this. Just tapping buttons and making pretty lights on a screen move all day. Especially since they are a lot smarter than our animals.

You get to see an answer to that question throughout this story, really. I look forward to your reactions. :V

And there it is, the infamous time crunch lol. I sure hope Gen III wasn't developed with that kind of deadline. The fact that Gen I took them 6 years and now they have to ship out Gen III in twelve months really puts things into perspective.

Fortunately for IRL!Gamefreak, they had an extra two years to work with versus their fictional counterparts in this story. Since from the best anyone has been able to piece together, IRL Ruby and Sapphire started development in 1999 in parallel with Crystal and was still being actively debugged as late as September 2002.

But exaggeration and caricariturization sometimes makes for a funnier and more dramatic read also, I didn’t feel like redoing the chronology of the story. And by the devs’ own admission, the actual development process was apparently quite the stressful saga in its own right even with the extra time with their original plans for the games apparently being blown up at some point mid-development, which informed a few of the details that were squeezed into this tale.

Anyway, I think it's a perfect first chapter: it's funny, full of nice little references and sets the tone (and the deadline) of the story quite nicely. Poor Keita has no idea what he got himself into.

Yeah, no kidding. ^^

-- Chapter 2 --
Right from the start the fact that we get the deadline at every scene change, down to the second, is both hilarious and slightly anxiety inducing. It really sells the idea of the time crunch they are working on (and Keita's mindset, probably, since I can see him being the one constantly glancing at the clock). Also his room mates being Satoshi and the Director himself made me chuckle. The Director's Pokemon being a Wynaut kept nagging at me for the whole fic, because I am sure it has to be a reference to something... maybe an interview where one Game Freak developer said it was his favourite? I kept having this nagging feeling that Wynaut in Gen III was special for SOMETHING, apart from being pretty much Gen III Togepi in the form of getting a random egg to hatch as a tutorial for the mechanic.

Assuming that you're thinking of Masuda, that would be Psyduck you're thinking of there, which I suppose I wouldn't rule out the Director also having given that they're not exactly rare Pokémon and Masuda's BDSP cameo is depicted with one, even if we never get to see the Director's Pokémon beyond Wynaut in this story. I admittedly gave Not!Masuda a Wynaut mostly to play up the story's Hoenn theming and to tee up a certain joke / comedic moment towards the end of this story. You’ll know when you see it.

Anyway, I like how you sprinkled little scenes of the Pokémon here: these are guys with Work To Do that has nothing to do with Pokémon, so they can't keep their attention on them the whole time, so of course they would go off to entertain themselves on their own. It's realistic, and makes the world feel more alive because not every single aspect of life rotates around Pokémon, they are just part of the world. It does make the Pokémon themselves feel more... mundane? In a world with magical, incredibly smart creatures, you would think a franchise about OTHER magical fictional creatures would have no appeal, but I guess we can make the same parallel with real world animals and Pokémon…

But hear me out: if you just change the appearance of a good old-fashioned Raichu, tweak a few details, slap on a punny name, and say… give it an evolution with fangs and a pair of horns, you can totally rake in the merchandising dough! We already know quite well that it’s a winning formula in our world. :^)

I had to laugh again at Keita doing some good old rubber ducking to Bracket.

I mean, it also helped double as a convenient means to walk the audience through the code in this story snippets instead of just going “BAM, here’s some code, figure it out yourself”. ^^

I felt bad for the poor Tropius left alone outside, but again, these guys have Stuff To Do and it's just realistic that they wouldn't and couldn't drop everything for her. It was still nice for Keita to approach her in the end, and I liked his surprise at knowing that yes, Tropius can FLY. I feel like a lot of people had a moment like that... especially seeing Tropius's Gen 6 model stuck in that awkward gliding pose…

Yeah, you’d think it’d be less mysterious since they can learn Fly from all the way back in Gen 3, but I suppose the idea of a big bananasaur just casually soaring the skies would get just about anyone to do a double-take at first. :V

-- Chapter 3 --
We're already halfway through the deadline. I really liked the little reference to the Minor Ball developed by Devon as being useful for "younger" Pokémon to reference it working on lower levels in the games. I found the different reaction of Paren and Bracket to Keita's work cute. Again, there's this sense of realism in how the Pokémon act here: they are not doing anything we would expect from an usual Pokémon fic, there's probably one mention of moves in the entire fic. They are just Keita's partners and want to take part in his daily life. We usually watch/play the role of people who devote their life to Pokémon, so this reversal feels refreshing in a sense. Also it's cute how Bracket wants to act interested and show enthusiasm for his sake ahah.

Yeah, official media kinda imply that this isn’t all that rare in their world, but we don’t get to see a whole lot of it since it’d make for a kinda boring gameplay loop. I wouldn’t be too shocked if Game Freak’s employees had Pokémon battles on occasion while doing things like say... waiting on some of their bigger libraries to compile, but it wasn’t the focus of this story.

And there's the infamous backwards compatibility problem... I had no one to trade with until actually Gen III (or let's say none of us had a Link Cable) so the fact that you couldn't transfer Pokémon from Gen II to III never quite struck me... and when the fic mentioned that they counted on this to get the older monsters in to focus on new ones... that's right, compared to Gen II that has Rattata and Pidgey in the first couple routes along with new mons, Gen III DOES have a very low number of returning mons at the very start and in general... like we had to wait for Fire Red and Leaf Green's postgame to catch a LOT of missing Johto mons.

I had never quite realized this and it has blown my mind now, wow.

In reality, this is most likely due to the fact that RS was initially developed as a total reboot to the franchise with only new Pokémon before changing course mid-development and hastily patching parts of the old roster in. I actually didn’t know about that part of RS’ development history when writing this story, so “forced to improvise by old jank code not holding up to new demands” was the angle that I rolled with to try and guess why the infamous backwards compatibility issue was a thing.

Which, granted, could very well still have been a factor in things in reality. Not that we’re likely to ever get that confirmed in a dev interview one way or the other.

Back to the fic, I again love all the little game references. Yep, now we have IVs and EVs structured completely differently! And abilities! And contests! And I'm pretty sure they also changed how shiny Pokémon are rolled, based on the new IV values... and love how in the fic, the creator was inspired by his own Pokémon training.

I hoped that we would see more of Not-RS's story that ended up in Capsule Monsters and that was totally not inspired by Hoenn. Actually in general, seeing just a bit more of the fictional Not-Pokémon games would have proven funny I think, to see how they actually implemented those ideas.

Perhaps that’s a sign that you should come back to this story and read on, hm? Since those glimpses are definitely there in the parts where Capsule Monsters AGB starts getting a bit more complete. :P

Though thanks for the review! It was a blast reading it, and if you opt to come back for the rest, I’ll be looking forward to what you have to say about it. ^^

And back to rest this thread goes until the winter batch of review responses before RB6, or until the stars align and I rip off xkcd's compiling comic think of something worth adding a new update. Though thanks again for giving this story a shot, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing you two around again sometime. ^^