*NOTE: The first post was just a site welcome post.
One of the games/series I am most passionate about despite any opinions of current quality or age is the Pokémon series. It’s something I grew up with, but never really grew out of. I tend to hide that fact because it’s something I have noticed in social situations that oddly enough defines you differently than merely saying you play games (despite the normie rush to GO in 2016- may rant about that on a later day). Anyways, one of the most solid generations arguably to replay with the right amount of Quality of Life improvements while still retaining that older GameFreak style design (read: pre-3DS era) is the 4th and 5th generations of games. While they don’t have the best features in terms of training, many fans still hold them dear on account of the fact that they were from a different era of the series yet they are still playable on one of the more recent consoles. While I personally am more of a gen 3 fan through and through, I cannot deny that the DS era Pokémon games really went above and beyond in the amount of features they managed to pack into each, while still letting each one (mostly) have its own identity in each way.
One of the biggest things that came with a networked enabled console was the fact that it could connect to the Internet. Gone were the days where if you wanted to trade with someone, you’d have to have a Link Cable and be in the same room. If anyone reading was playing the series during that time, they may have good memories about checking out the GTS for the first time or being able to battle with family miles away. These are game features that eventually got lost to time and could no longer be accessed due to the shutdown of what was known as Nintendo WFC at the time. This was something understandable, as most companies have to eventually shut down services that are being replaced by bigger, better services. The 3DS had released months prior and the WiiU was the next big release to come out.
Extremely shortly after Nintendo WFC connection shut down (and I mean EXTREMELY shortly after), wiimmfi came into existence with its sole focus being to keep Mario Kart Wii servers running. This isn’t a post on them, so I’m not going to delve into much of the details. Wiimmfi eventually replaced many online games, but the Pokémon series needed a bit more than what was being offered to really make it work.
Enter pkmnclassic.net. This is by far the number one recommendation that I can give someone to check out when they are replaying any of the gen 4 or gen 5 games. This service restores services to both generations’ Global Trading Station, Battle Video system, WiFi clubs and a lot of other niche things that only hardcore fans would care about. My personal favorite has to be the fact that Trainer Rankings in gen 4 actually work. These admittedly add nothing much to the game, but it’s something that shows the effort of the admins and devs- it’s a full commitment to giving a player the intended experience that the original devs had in mind, years after release.
There are a few flaws. The state of the games and their hack checking client-side are not great, so Pokémon with impossible moves sometimes make it into the Battle Tower/Subway, rendering it absolutely dreadful to play. At some point, I wanted to get a whole bunch of people in my local group to pick one Tower code from 01 to 50 to play and see how far we could all go and what teams we could make, but it seems moot when the bar is high for entry and bare minimum is having something like a Gengar with Destiny Bond for the sole purpose of surviving a No Guard Machamp due to a glitch that allows any Pokemon to have any move. Also, if you care about legitimacy, it seems a lot of the Pokémon that specifically get traded to you can be hacked. I remember getting a Exeggutor once that that moves it could not learn, and had its stats invested in the least beneficial way possible. For gen 5, Global Link and the Dream World do not work- but this is understandable, I wouldn’t expect anyone to try and recreate a browser game that essentially equated to baby’s first point-and-click adventure game mixed with berry growing (seriously, that thing was lame and I felt embarrassed even when I was playing it in the privacy of my own home).
Other than that though, it’s a literal experience booster. You can get any released event without having to even mod your DS or get an Action Replay- something that the original games didn’t even do on release. This means that you can access any of the Pokéwalker stages in HGSS or get some myticals you may have missed out back in their limited release schedules. The website for pkmnclassic.net also allows you to check the GTS at any time for something you may be looking for- this is nice for dex completion or if you want breeding rejects.
Eventually I would like to host a gen 4 competition using the service while being able to use the Battle Video service to commentate/view battles in said tournament. Down the line I may post more details on that, so stay tuned!