The PERFECT Gen 1 Remake? Yellow Legacy Review

yellow Legacy is a gen one rom hack created by Patrick Smith and the Smith plays team as a Yellow Version nerd I was excited to get a chance for a new spin on Kanto I wanted to find out is it still gen one does it still feel and play like the Yellow Version I've always known here's what I [Music] found for my first time through I picked as many of these new customizations as I could hard mode and the new green character there were also running shoes added an expanded bag a move reminder and a deleter and an experience bar in battle which I really like of course we start with Pikachu and it had a serious buff for this game it got 25 additional HP 55 attack which is normal an additional 20 defense up to 50 70 special now instead of 50 and 90 speed meaning it has a new base stat total of 325 it now also learns Thunder Punch and headbutt by level up I will be nicknaming all Pokemon after members starting with this video and so Pikachu will be named Kyle I immediately noticed in the lab battle that Eevee's tail whip was removed it was added as a level up move at level six instead meaning this battle is basically a guaranteed win an immediate and big change was Pokemon availability the creators were trying to give more options besides just the Kanto starters to keep players from only using the default team like Pikachu Charizard Venusaur Blastoise Snorlax and then some other filler like a flyer Etc because of this change I decided I could build an entire team before even battling a single trainer not counting the Lab Battle of course finding and catching new Pokemon is a necessity in base yellow since Pikachu can't really beat Brock unless it's a pretty high level normally this means catching a Mankey or something something like that maybe Butterfree but in Legacy when I get to the vidian Mart I can actually pick up the Old Rod as well as Oaks parcel here because of the new fisherman in the back corner of the Mark I do have to say it seems a little early for fishing at this point in the game it does give another option against Brock but maybe feels a little too easy I use the rod here in vidiian to reel in a polywog which I named p and I need a flyer of course but Pidgey seemed too basic on Route One plus I just can't get behind the new back Sprite it's just not my favorite I miss the old one actually instead on Route 22 I can catch a spearo this I named Patrick I do want a ground type for later in the game obviously and what's better than a needle King I mean I know I'm biased it's my favorite but it's still great I Nam this grizzly but look at the back Sprite it's adorable I love it there is one very strange addition to route two encounters and that's Vulpix Vulpix being found here is a little bit interesting since it's not good against Brock necessarily but it is a great fire type for later in the game so obviously I need to catch one now and this I can name Angel the Encounters in Vian Forest were completely changed in BAS you can only find Caterpie Metapod and Pidgey here with a 1% chance for a pidgeotto at level 9 but now there's weedles kakas and even an Oddish I need one of these for sure and I catch it and name it cow and that's a full team of six of very balanced types overall before I even fight the first bug catcher trainers are a staple in Pokemon games especially for Gen one you always know what to expect but what if everything you knew was just slightly wrong mixing up the teams makes it feel like a new experience and definitely kept me on my toes for most of these battles there's there's probably no big changes right like maybe a bug catcher has an extra Pokemon or there's a pincer in vidiian Forest that is a wild Pokemon to fight this early in the game the peer gym is pretty much the same the Lightyear trainer still has a Diglett and a sandrew and then Brock is basically the same kind of Onyx specifically saw the biggest stat Buffs in the entire rom hack it got an additional 40 HP up to 75 an additional 35 attack up to 80 the 160 defense is left alone it got 35 more special to 65 and 15 more speed to 85 meaning it has a stat total of 465 for Gen 1 it now has a higher base stat total than Arcanine Lapras and Tauros I don't mind the HP increase and even the attack was pretty warranted but a plus 35 special and even more speed that was shocking even with those increases plus bubble now being only 10 power instead of 20 it still gets two shot by polywog though so I don't quite understand why they made it so much stronger for water and grass types it's still not a problem but for like an electric type like Pikachu it's going to be absolutely devastating plus it makes me worry that some of the hikers in the later part of the game are just going to be too strong as I head out onto Route three I noticed a lot of trainers got team improvements the first bug catcher for example has a Butterfree now which actually is kind of nice it does make me curious if this changes the level curve and the training that you would want to do throughout the game because of a lot of new Pokemon and higher Evolutions just giving more experience a nice change is seeing Magnemite actually have thundershock in Mount moon this is really good because in the base game mag Magnemite and voltor both really are lacking electric moves and while that makes sense take a look at sandu's move set it gets scratch poison sting Fury swipes and sand attack on one hand it feels more complete but also the main thread of sandrew is sand attack learning more moves at earlier levels is a good thing but it does change how some of these Pokemon feel in battle there is a huge list of move changes for this rom hack some moves change type entirely for this version gust is now flying type cut is now bug type egg bomb is grass and karate chop is fighting I do agree with all four of these changes besides typing Smith plays made a massive list of changes to move power and accuracy on a positive note some moves like Fury swipes and rock throw are finally usable actually some types were buffed across the board like poison and Bug types which they desperately needed it is odd to me though that they seem to want most moves to be 100% accurate and this feels counter to gen 1's design philosophy granted some of the moves are terribly inaccurate but getting a Miss is literally ingrained in the base code and yes the one in 256 chance to miss does still exist at least at least in the hard mode for this game gen one was meant to fail like a game of chance there was a little bit of gamble when using moves but now it's much more strategic I'll provide a link to the details of the stat and move changes down in the description if you guys want to see more information about it not only are there more move options in trainer battles the opponents choose them differently one big change is that status moves were changed to use a separate typing entirely so that the AI doesn't get stuck using moves it shouldn't be using to do so they utilize the defunct bird type that was still left in remnants of the code this does mean that trainers will often prioritize setting up a status or dropping your stats rather than attacking at worst it changes very little but when the AI performs well it can be devastating this feels particularly brutal because there's no additional Mis chance for status moves in the original game all opponents had a 25% accuracy debuff for moves like sand attack and Thunder Wave so they couldn't hit them every single time and that change alone would make gen one incredibly difficult luckily the Rival in Cerulean doesn't have his normal sandrew that does use sand attack a lot I mean I do still get wiped on my first attempt which isn't great another changes all items were removed from Gym Leaders to make them more consistent so they attack every turn this does actually hurt Brock because his full heels actually were very helpful to him but otherwise for trainers like Serge or Blaine this is a very good thing Misty's strategy was completely changed she no longer sets up with X defense and Harden for her Staryu and star me which makes sense with her dialogue now in this game she uses a team of three ending with star me with an unrelenting set of attacks confusion bubble beam and Swift this makes her much more difficult and I take two more is here on a third attempt I finally can defeat her really powerful star me and start heading down to Vermillion City at this point I'm finding I have a problem I typically do have in Yellow Version or gen One games in general when using a full team there's just not enough experience in this game for six Pokemon at least not without a lot of training the experience share is now available without having to have a catch requirement for it which is a nice change especially when you have a full team by this point in the game I end up clearing entire areas of trainers just to stay afloat as I progress through the the game that even includes places like the SSN or Route 8 East of Vermilion where I don't usually have to train even after all of those trainers I'm still underleveled for surge he does have a much better set with his Raichu as well meaning he's actually a problem normally his Mega punches and kicks are inconsistent but now having body slam and surf is much better I only win by setting up the newly buffed leech seed and paralyzing Raichu it isn't necessarily a bad thing that I'm being forced to be more intelligent with using status conditions and controlling the battle but being under leveled already is very concerning and that's with larger teams and more evolved Pokémon throughout the game I do want to try this as a solo run now but I could see some Pokemon really struggling even with the bonus experience especially with Onyx but there's also just more psychic moves in the game like on the slowpokes in Rock Tunnel which is really bad for a lot of Pokémon I continue through the tunnel defeating every trainer I can to get as much experience as possible I exit the tunnel and make it to the mid game and now the path forward is a little more open gyms four to six now SK deal with game progression so Erica Koga and Sabrina could be done in different order depending on when you wanted to fight them but Blain is still set as gym s even though you can technically get to him and fight him as gym five in fact I often try to beat him before Sabrina so I can get the badge boost for Pokemon that are weak against her psychic types for now seladon is as usual hidden items seem unchanged which is nice for experienced players so you can kind of know where you need to go there is a flamethrower team now in the rocket Hideout which is lifechanging for many Pok Pokemon and that adds to the strange midgame power Spike that happens now this kind of already existed because of TMS like Ice Beam earthquake and psychic now being available when you get to this part but now it's even more dramatic since you get more Pokemon that need Stone Evolutions earlier in the game which you can get now but also flamethrower and new purchasable TMs in the Mart increases even further I just take my usual route and go back to Pokemon Tower only to find that the Rival has been buffed significantly all of his Pokémon were raised by about 10 levels which is good because you should need the sil scope before you go here anyway so that does make sense but I was not ready for that I barely beat him here even after fully evolving my Pokémon and teaching a bunch of new moves with the TMs Pokemon Tower does have a nice mix of types now in addition to the ghosts Pokemon like drowsy Vulpix and Ninetails were added just to help it feel a little bit more diverse and the poked doll skip does still work for Marowak which is great news for solo runs in a surprising call back to the anime Team Rocket actually has licky tongue here I return to seladon to fight Erica's gym clear all the trainers and battle her and in this battle Tanga immediately gets frozen this allows free setup for FOH with the new level up move sharpen interestingly freeze still works the same way as before with no way to thaw out in battle that is without intervention fire moves and healing items will obviously fix that but throughout all of the training and the extra battles I won I found a lot of the Gen one strategies are still left intact sleep is still broken as usual poison and leech seeds were actually increased to 1/8 damage instead of 116th which makes them actually viable the poison status moves are also more accurate too X accuracy should fix the oo moves to actually make them reliable as well so if you were playing on normal mode you could take advantage of that and of course setting up with special still works the same way and is totally broken trapping moves overall are just much less common and are learned at higher levels in general and they're just treated as actually powerful moves in fact bell sprout doesn't get wrap until Level 43 instead of using those trolling moves enemy teams are more focused on inflicting statuses and have better average accuracy for their attacking moves interestingly the mid to late game encounter are now fully evolved or are just the Pokemon with higher base stat totals which does help for balancing a little bit for catching Pokemon late in the game in fact the Safari Zone was changed to now allow easier catching and better encounter rates for a lot of rare Pokemon like Kangaskhan I accidentally threw a single Safari Ball and it caught it on a first try this is nice for nuzlock or Pokedex completion but doesn't have a lot of impact on a casual playthrough because you don't typically add more Pokemon to your team at this point in the game after beating all the bikers on Route 17 and completing the Safari Zone to get surf I usually head to Sil I immediately noticed that the Rockets were using better Pokemon at higher levels than I expected this is the point in the game that the difficulty does often ramp up a little bit but this seems more severe than normal I battle my way through all of the available trainers in silth this requires me to heal so many times cuz they're actually pretty strong plus I walk into Blue's Room by accident and have an early reset to him before I even plan to fight him here Blue's team has been raised by about five levels and he now leads with Electabuzz with Thunderbolt and psychic this battle is brutally punishing he has more competent move sets and a stronger team overall and he defeats me eight times before I just finally turn tail and give up here so instead I go to koga's gym and then I realize Sil is meant to be done after the gyms plus Janine is in koga's gym which is actually a really nice little Easter egg in fact koga's whole team is at lower levels than Blue's team but this makes the scaling for gyms 4 to six a bit strange to me I guess you could still skip Erica if you wanted Koga to be a little easier but Sabrina makes more sense after Koga anyway and sometimes after Blain and you might need the training so you'll probably just end up wanting to do Sil first anyway because of the gym scaling Kaa now has a Tang Ru on his team which is nice to see cuz it rounds out his typing a little bit but a strong drill Peck from FOH can finish the battle that gives me his badge boost for Speed which really helps against Blue and Sil he still has a good team but now he's at least beatable and that gives me to Giovani who now leads with a Kingler very different than his Nino his higher level also makes him pretty impressive once I beat him I can fly back to pwer I needed to heal so I walked to the house and look it's Mr mime now I can surf down to cinear since Sabrina is already at her Max difficulty I might as well clear the island before I fight her and if I can beat Blaine I get the special boost too besides Magmar now being available in yellow a much needed change the Mansion is basically as expected there is better fire type diversity in Blaine's gym including Charmeleon and Flareon Blaine himself though is fairly similar he does have a new Charizard and his Ace is now Magmar to round out his full team once I beat him I can head over to Sabrina and herim follows the same vision a better spread of types around the psychic and ghostly theme this powerful gym leader was already a threat in yellow but add a Mr mime in a hypnot Tor team and she becomes even stronger I think it's smart to just leave her for last before Giovani especially since my team was TR trailing far behind the level curve in fact Pikachu is only level 39 by comparison Giani is almost unchanged his moves are a little better but he has the same five team members the choice to change Persian moves and position in the team actually does make a huge difference electric and ground types already struggle here and not being able to mimic double team or set up on Persian could be devastating for them my underleveled team struggles here on my third attempt I get to his last Pokemon Ron but it knocks out everything but Pikachu it's still confused from Ninetails and Pikachu can set up with double team it makes it just long enough to hit two body slams and knock out the rocky dinosaur giving Pikachu the win over Giovani after facing the improved Gym Leaders Blue's final battle before the Elite 4 goes as expected it's tough but Blain Sabrina and Giovani were maybe even tougher once I defeat him I can head into Victory Road and I realize there's a lot of extra trainers here it does provide a lot of good training which I still do need before facing the Elite 4 so I'm just going to soak up all of it that I can get after I beat every available trainer in there all of my team is above level 45 at least except for Pikachu I go ahead and use my rare candies on him to get him boosted up to level 50 before lorai the ice Master only has one real change slow bro is out first instead of dong and it has earthquake to counter Pikachu which feels kind of mean this does open up the possibility to steal Amnesia with mimic on the first turn of the battle but I don't know if that's as easy as being able to set up on the Sleepy D gong psychic water and ice are some of the most powerful offensive moves so laurelai didn't need a lot of change she already stops most pokemon in their tracks if they have a weakness to her I do want to file a formal complaint though where's Blastoise where's my boy Erica had Ivysaur or Venusaur depending on which order you fought her in and Blaine had Charizard but Blastoise is not included on any major team in the entire main game I mean it does show up in some postgame battles but still besides the lack of Blastoise the Elite 4 feels pretty well balanced honestly Bruno gets a Poliwrath to provide some defense against some special attackers this doesn't fix his psychic type weakness but I expect he'll still be the butt of the joke in this case Agatha now has a Marowak to derail any ground or psychic Pokemon that are trying to sweep and this could be a real threat because Marowak saw a massive special boost up to 80 special literally almost as high as the starters Agatha does seem to prioritize hypnosis before Dream Eater for Gengar as well meaning it's less likely just to get by her with luck alone now for Lance he leads with a Dragonite instead of Gyarados but this could actually be beneficial to a lot of fire and ground or rock types that live in fear of the hydropump he also has a Charizard my boy Blastoise has truly been forgotten plus Charizard got a 10 special increase while Venusaur and Blastoise got nothing this does help Lance against ice types but since Fire doesn't resist ice it will still take super eff eff of damage so it might not be as good as he was hoping honestly Aerodactyl might be the biggest threat on Lance's team now with rock slide and earthquake I do really like what Smith plays did with the champion blue now has three different teams depending on which Evolution he picked this additional storytelling really helps with his progression in the game as well as adding a little bit of complexity to this final battle it does make blue feel like a worthy Champion plus giving him an Alakazam with Thunder Wave recover and psychic is just gross that's too good cloer blizzard gives me a reset on my first try but the power of sleep powder makes the second attempt much more consistent my poorly trained team can finally knock out his final Pokemon and get to the Hall of Fame and that's my first playthrough of Pokemon Yellow Legacy on a whole this rom hack is fascinating because it seems to sit in a very specific Niche Pokemon Yellow Legacy is just screaming for a Nuzlocke hard mode has some nuzlock features built in more diverse encounters and unexpected battles can give you more twists and turns and easier mve set editing and more available TMS gives you a lot more flexibility it is also primed to give much different solo Run results from any Pokémon than base yellow but the balance could be Way Off the Mark depending on what starter you pick I do want to give some credit for a game giving so much attention to Pikachu it didn't pull its punches for electric types this could have easily been too easy for Pikachu specifically but they really didn't hold back my question at the top of the video is is it still gen one and I have to say the game itself is very well done and for the most part feels the same the AI changes and back Sprites took me out of the experience a bit and I would almost call it gen one light I did enjoy it and I will for sure be back for more playthroughs but nothing quite beats or matches the lightning they captured with Yellow Version and that is it for now thank you so much for watching make sure to like And subscribe for more Pokemon content and until next time have a wonderful day

Channel: MTiberius

Views: 7,036

Keywords: pokemon, romhack, yellow legacy, smithplays, gameboy, retrogaming

Id: C_ckGXTij4M

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024