One of the most classic openings to any Pokemon game. A charge through the grass, coming upon the scene of a Gengar and Nidorino dueling. Whether you've watched the anime, played the original games or only played the remakes, odds are you know how this scene goes.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Welcome to Pokemon Vega! This is a romhack of Pokemon Firered and widely regarded as one of the "hard" romhacks. It features its own region, characters, moves, and even Pokemon, alongside some familiar faces. Personally it's one of my favorites, and I'm thrilled to have a chance to share it.
Before we get started, this is largely going to focus on the gameplay, mostly because that's the most notable part. I won't completely neglect the story, but it's not outstanding and there's a lot of text I don't really want to get bogged down in.
Let's jump into it, shall we?
The game opens as normal, with the usual FRLG adventure tips screens, before we get into Oak's spiel.
This is Not!Oak. He claims his name is Holly but he's unimportant.
Oh hello you're a new face. We'll be seeing more of you later on in this post. This is one of my favorite fakemons Vega has, it's like an Ice type Ralts.
That'd be me! (Personally I like the female character design better but neither are bad like so often happens with romhack original designs)
He is the paperboy. He is also a ranger-wannabe, hence his jacket.
And after that we get to hop right into things, like you do in Pokemon.
And this would be the overworld sprite. Much like the detailed one, we are a Rad Dude so we wear our hat backwards. Heading downstairs Mom ambushes us, steals our shoes, and forces us into running shoes. Compared to vanilla Gen 3 this is rather nice.
Oh hey mom's not single although she certainly doesn't have a bed still. Eh, dad can wait, let's watch some TV.
[filled with water.]
Yes, this is a reference to Pokemon Heroes. Vega and its prequels have a lot of movie references.
After the movie, we head outside since we might as well see if we can get a Pokemon when we visit dad at the lab.
We get to that rock and then Not!Oak runs up, grabs us by the arm, and drags us to hisdungeon lab. We're apparently late or something since there's already quite a group there. PAPER's in and there's some dude in a very fancy hat.
So yeah Hoenn's gone or something. Rayquaza couldn't mega evolve because this was before Gen 6 came out so the meteors won. Not!Oak hands us a Pokedex and sends us forth to survey all the new Pokemon.
sure
He then heads out after Not!Oak gives PAPER a delivery mission and says that he'll give both of us Pokemon. Mosmero does not need a Pokemon, he will be fine.
As is tradition for rivals not named Hau, we get to pick our starter first.
So these are the three starters. Nimbleaf is a pure Grass who evolves to become a Grass/Flying type, Peyero is pure Fire who evolves to become Fire/Steel. and Liquiput is a pure Water who evolves to become Water/Poison.
Statwise Not!Oak isn't lying. Final stats for Nimbleaf are 76/91/75/103/75/115, Peyero becomes a 70/78/112/82/108/80, and Liquiput ends up as 100/80/85/110/90/60. They're all decent statwise honestly, especially considering Vega's move edits.
Liquiput is far and away the best starter and makes the game significantly easier. Peyero has a somewhat harder earlygame, but is still fairly good overall. Nimbleaf is the worst starter, as is tradition for Grass types. I asked Discord to choose one for me to use.
what a shock
PAPER grabs Peyero in response.
Name is suggested by Altissimo
Rash is a fairly good nature, Nimbleaf gets a bunch of special moves and has a good physical pool too. You might notice something... unusual on the second screen. That's not Overgrowth. All the starters have a chance at getting their second ability; Nimbleaf has Thick Fat, Liquiput has Liquid Ooze, and Peyero has Clear Body. I did, in fact, reset a couple times for this ability because it is very good and Vega can be unforgiving.
Nimbleaf's base stats: 42/53/40/63/40/70, comes with Scratch and Tail Whip.
It is Firered base after all.
He uses Peyero, who has 40/41/70/41/70/51 base stats, Tackle (which has been buffed to 40/100), and Leer. This makes this rather difficult. If PAPER hadn't gone for Leer instead of KOing Aisha then that'd be a level missed out on.
Afterwards we're on our way, ready to go out into the world with our little leaf lizard of doom.
This would be the world map. We're actually starting right in the middle of the region, rather than the usual distant corner. It's a nice change.
Incidentally, that island at the top right is not the League. The league's down in the bottom left.
Town's got three exits, North, South, and East.
South's a no-go for now.
North is no better, so East it is! Immediately there's some avoidable grass, a nice little house, and a trainer.
Because Not!Oak is a rude man, he did not give us free Pokeballs. This is where you get 5 free Pokeballs. Do not skip this house. You want those balls.
I then accidentally walk into the line of sight of the trainer directly to the east of the house and fight a dude with two Level 4 Taillow. At level 4 Taillow's got Growl and Peck.
Things go slightly better than expected. Back to mom for healing, and then maybe we can catch some stuff.
:D
This is Glachild. It's a pure Ice type, line is all female. Base stats are 45/30/35/65/50/55. Evolves at level 20 and then again at level 30. Alternate ability could be Clear Body, which is probably a little better but this is fine. It starts out with Pound, gets Charm at level 4, and Powder Snow at level 8.
And the other common encounter on Route 501, Taillow. It's got a couple new toys, and it's Taillow. It's good. We're going to do a little grinding here because there's something that I'd like another special attack for.
Perfect.
During the course of grinding, I encounter the rare encounter of Route 501, Pineco. I don't catch it because I'm out of balls, but I'm going to want at least one later.
We keep moving on, beating up the many trainers who are all around level 4ish, and learn a new move for Aisha.
Which is a good chance to bring up that Vega has a working Physical/Special split. Indicated in the first line of the description there, it's really nice because there's a lot of interesting new moves which offer really nice coverage.
Heading out of Route 501, we make an instant transition to Route 502, which has pretty much the same two mons as Route 501. Two notable things on this route.
This is the first, a random man offers Flash to us.
This would be the second. Yes, these both have Poison Point. It's rather unpleasant if you're going in blind because you're pretty far away from any way to heal that. Here it's no issue, Gust and Powder Snow take them out immediately.
This gate does not lead directly to the town. It is, however, important. Town's nearby, just right through that trainer and grass.
Oh boy here we are. There's a few points of interest here.
Roadblocks, a block of gold, and buying as many potions as I can carry. I'm gonna need em.
Not shown: a trade offer for the rare encounter on route 502 Togepi for his shiny Hoothoot. It's actually somewhat useful against the leader as long as you don't accidentally make it disobedient but I'm not going to go for it.
We've also got this boy with his Pikachu. I'm sure he's excited for his Raic-
oh
Anyways, as you might have seen from the girl blocking the gym, we've got to go back to that little gate on Route 502 and fight some trainers who are hanging out upstairs. We've been fighting level 6 at highest from trainers, so it shouldn't be too bad.
The instant we walk upstairs we're ambushed. Vega likes ambushes, this is just the first notable one of many.
Oh yeah and remember how I said that trainers were level 6 at most?
Each of them have multiple mons, and every single one of them have an Oran Berry and moves you can only get by breeding. Case in point:
(that's level 13 don't mind the yn prompt - I learned it ofc)
After beating up the three in immediate succession with no break, we're finally able to head back to the gym.
The gym has flowers that are actually warp tiles - step on em and you go flying. No matter which ones you step on though, none of them take you to the leader. It's very annoying.
This is never hinted at by anybody. You just have to know that this window has a button in it. And by pressing the button...
The teleport flowers will bring you to the leader.
I'm not going to fight her now because she'd absolutely destroy me - remember how we just had to fight some level 9 mons with Oran Berries which were vaguely difficult? Here's the set of the leader's ace.
Shuckle @ Sitrus Berry L15: Curse/Rock Tomb/Bulldoze/Big Yawn
Shuckle is Shuckle and Big Yawn is a 100 acc sleep inducing move. That's right. This is a Curse Shuckle with Spore. This is a 505 BST Pokemon with a setup move, pseudo edgequake coverage (Rock Tomb has 90 acc btw), and a Sitrus Berry.
We're gonna need to train a bit more, and take her on next update.
but a bit of a preview
Feel free to offer suggestions for team members or other comments.
This is Not!Oak. He claims his name is Holly but he's unimportant.
Oh hello you're a new face. We'll be seeing more of you later on in this post. This is one of my favorite fakemons Vega has, it's like an Ice type Ralts.
That'd be me! (Personally I like the female character design better but neither are bad like so often happens with romhack original designs)
He is the paperboy. He is also a ranger-wannabe, hence his jacket.
And after that we get to hop right into things, like you do in Pokemon.
And this would be the overworld sprite. Much like the detailed one, we are a Rad Dude so we wear our hat backwards. Heading downstairs Mom ambushes us, steals our shoes, and forces us into running shoes. Compared to vanilla Gen 3 this is rather nice.
Oh hey mom's not single although she certainly doesn't have a bed still. Eh, dad can wait, let's watch some TV.
[filled with water.]
Yes, this is a reference to Pokemon Heroes. Vega and its prequels have a lot of movie references.
After the movie, we head outside since we might as well see if we can get a Pokemon when we visit dad at the lab.
We get to that rock and then Not!Oak runs up, grabs us by the arm, and drags us to his
So yeah Hoenn's gone or something. Rayquaza couldn't mega evolve because this was before Gen 6 came out so the meteors won. Not!Oak hands us a Pokedex and sends us forth to survey all the new Pokemon.
sure
He then heads out after Not!Oak gives PAPER a delivery mission and says that he'll give both of us Pokemon. Mosmero does not need a Pokemon, he will be fine.
As is tradition for rivals not named Hau, we get to pick our starter first.
So these are the three starters. Nimbleaf is a pure Grass who evolves to become a Grass/Flying type, Peyero is pure Fire who evolves to become Fire/Steel. and Liquiput is a pure Water who evolves to become Water/Poison.
Statwise Not!Oak isn't lying. Final stats for Nimbleaf are 76/91/75/103/75/115, Peyero becomes a 70/78/112/82/108/80, and Liquiput ends up as 100/80/85/110/90/60. They're all decent statwise honestly, especially considering Vega's move edits.
Liquiput is far and away the best starter and makes the game significantly easier. Peyero has a somewhat harder earlygame, but is still fairly good overall. Nimbleaf is the worst starter, as is tradition for Grass types. I asked Discord to choose one for me to use.
what a shock
PAPER grabs Peyero in response.
Name is suggested by Altissimo
Rash is a fairly good nature, Nimbleaf gets a bunch of special moves and has a good physical pool too. You might notice something... unusual on the second screen. That's not Overgrowth. All the starters have a chance at getting their second ability; Nimbleaf has Thick Fat, Liquiput has Liquid Ooze, and Peyero has Clear Body. I did, in fact, reset a couple times for this ability because it is very good and Vega can be unforgiving.
Nimbleaf's base stats: 42/53/40/63/40/70, comes with Scratch and Tail Whip.
It is Firered base after all.
He uses Peyero, who has 40/41/70/41/70/51 base stats, Tackle (which has been buffed to 40/100), and Leer. This makes this rather difficult. If PAPER hadn't gone for Leer instead of KOing Aisha then that'd be a level missed out on.
Afterwards we're on our way, ready to go out into the world with our little leaf lizard of doom.
This would be the world map. We're actually starting right in the middle of the region, rather than the usual distant corner. It's a nice change.
Incidentally, that island at the top right is not the League. The league's down in the bottom left.
Town's got three exits, North, South, and East.
South's a no-go for now.
North is no better, so East it is! Immediately there's some avoidable grass, a nice little house, and a trainer.
Because Not!Oak is a rude man, he did not give us free Pokeballs. This is where you get 5 free Pokeballs. Do not skip this house. You want those balls.
I then accidentally walk into the line of sight of the trainer directly to the east of the house and fight a dude with two Level 4 Taillow. At level 4 Taillow's got Growl and Peck.
Things go slightly better than expected. Back to mom for healing, and then maybe we can catch some stuff.
:D
This is Glachild. It's a pure Ice type, line is all female. Base stats are 45/30/35/65/50/55. Evolves at level 20 and then again at level 30. Alternate ability could be Clear Body, which is probably a little better but this is fine. It starts out with Pound, gets Charm at level 4, and Powder Snow at level 8.
And the other common encounter on Route 501, Taillow. It's got a couple new toys, and it's Taillow. It's good. We're going to do a little grinding here because there's something that I'd like another special attack for.
Perfect.
During the course of grinding, I encounter the rare encounter of Route 501, Pineco. I don't catch it because I'm out of balls, but I'm going to want at least one later.
We keep moving on, beating up the many trainers who are all around level 4ish, and learn a new move for Aisha.
Which is a good chance to bring up that Vega has a working Physical/Special split. Indicated in the first line of the description there, it's really nice because there's a lot of interesting new moves which offer really nice coverage.
Heading out of Route 501, we make an instant transition to Route 502, which has pretty much the same two mons as Route 501. Two notable things on this route.
This is the first, a random man offers Flash to us.
This would be the second. Yes, these both have Poison Point. It's rather unpleasant if you're going in blind because you're pretty far away from any way to heal that. Here it's no issue, Gust and Powder Snow take them out immediately.
This gate does not lead directly to the town. It is, however, important. Town's nearby, just right through that trainer and grass.
Oh boy here we are. There's a few points of interest here.
Roadblocks, a block of gold, and buying as many potions as I can carry. I'm gonna need em.
Not shown: a trade offer for the rare encounter on route 502 Togepi for his shiny Hoothoot. It's actually somewhat useful against the leader as long as you don't accidentally make it disobedient but I'm not going to go for it.
We've also got this boy with his Pikachu. I'm sure he's excited for his Raic-
oh
Anyways, as you might have seen from the girl blocking the gym, we've got to go back to that little gate on Route 502 and fight some trainers who are hanging out upstairs. We've been fighting level 6 at highest from trainers, so it shouldn't be too bad.
The instant we walk upstairs we're ambushed. Vega likes ambushes, this is just the first notable one of many.
Oh yeah and remember how I said that trainers were level 6 at most?
Each of them have multiple mons, and every single one of them have an Oran Berry and moves you can only get by breeding. Case in point:
(that's level 13 don't mind the yn prompt - I learned it ofc)
After beating up the three in immediate succession with no break, we're finally able to head back to the gym.
The gym has flowers that are actually warp tiles - step on em and you go flying. No matter which ones you step on though, none of them take you to the leader. It's very annoying.
This is never hinted at by anybody. You just have to know that this window has a button in it. And by pressing the button...
The teleport flowers will bring you to the leader.
I'm not going to fight her now because she'd absolutely destroy me - remember how we just had to fight some level 9 mons with Oran Berries which were vaguely difficult? Here's the set of the leader's ace.
Shuckle @ Sitrus Berry L15: Curse/Rock Tomb/Bulldoze/Big Yawn
Shuckle is Shuckle and Big Yawn is a 100 acc sleep inducing move. That's right. This is a Curse Shuckle with Spore. This is a 505 BST Pokemon with a setup move, pseudo edgequake coverage (Rock Tomb has 90 acc btw), and a Sitrus Berry.
We're gonna need to train a bit more, and take her on next update.
but a bit of a preview
Feel free to offer suggestions for team members or other comments.
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