So, I'm ready to do my write up about Pokemon Gale of Darkness ROMhack known as Pokemon XG: NeXt Gen. First of all, here are a few posts to refer to while reading this one:
An addendum since I completed Mt. Battle:
*Game has a post game quest hidden behind doing at least one round of Orre Colosseum. In Gale of Darkness, that quest gave you a Lucky Egg, here it gives you TM21: Zen Headbutt. I needed it for my Metang, who was still running Psychic at the time.
*Battles here use 6 Pokemon rather than 4 and you can set the format to be Singles or Doubles(Doubles only in Gale of Darkness, no difference to Pokemon sets you just select which format you like)
*Teams seem to be based off which Pokemon the NPCs had in Single Player, which are all changed compared to Gale of Darkness. Other than that, the AI is smarter than in the base game and uses the Stadium/Battle Spot/Battle Tower ruleset with no usable items like Potions, just like in Gale of Darkness
I didn't actually complete even one full set of Orre Colosseum as my Pokemon aren't evenly leveled, and the closest I had to being all the same level(the game doesn't auto level you like in later gens) had an unfortunate lack of effectiveness and synergy against the trainers I had to fight.
It's clear that this is going to take some time and I will need a proper team to tackle a competitive facility, so I am leaving this part of the game for later. Thankfully, I didn't need TM21 as I found something else:
*Mt. Battle is a bit different here than it is in Grand Colosseum: In that game, the first 6 Areas were pure EV training grounds, where the enemy Pokemon could not attack. This would also net you a ton of EXP at the cost of not earning any money. The last 3 areas were the toughest fights in the game, including Legendary Pokemon.
*In XG, Areas 1-9 are pseudo Gyms: Every 5 trainers have the same type specialization, with the final one having a full set of 6 Pokemon like a Gym Leader would(10 trainers per Area means two full type "Gyms" per Area). This goes on until Area 10, which has the toughest 10 battles in the game with Legendary Pokemon. EV training in XG is fulfilled in Pyrite City's Duel Square, while in Grand Colosseum the Colosseum challenges themselves act as "Gyms" with specialized typing, with later Colosseums having two type trainers.
*While Pokemon in XG Mt. Battle always fight back, they start out really weak at Lv 20, with every Area increasing the number by 5(Up to 60 in Area 9 and jumping to Lv 70 in Area 10). This means that this is a viable training ground since the early portions of the game, especially since...
*...Mt. Battle has a Move Relearner that teaches any move that a Pokemon can learn, including ones that it is not leveled enough to know yet(like in later games). I didn't know about this as this NPC only teaches Mew moves exclusively in Gale of Darkness. This is a very useful utility that you will want as soon as you can, and I did indeed teach Metang a different Physical Psychic move(Psycho Cut) over Zen Headbutt via TM. This is why I decided to abandon Orre Colosseum until I can get a more professional team together.
Move Relearner only uses the unique currency Mt. Battle has(basically this game's BP), but he takes so little of it per move that once you get thru the first 10 trainers(one Area) then you're set for the entire game. This is why you should not do what I did and ignore Mt. Battle until the end, it should be an integral part of your playthru if you play along.
Speaking of which, I completed the first run of Mt. battle 100 battle challenge in one sitting and with one team of Pokemon, which nets me one of the three Mythical Pokemon(Mew/Celebi/Jiraichi). The enemy teams remain static, unlike in Battle Tower where they are randomized, so I have to do this 2 more times, with two different teams of Pokemon to give them unique Ribbons, in order to "finish" the game completely(minus Orre Colosseum that I am saving for later).
In case anyone is curious, the run took me 9 hours with breaks(but the game was on the whole time), and I was able to get past even the last Area filled with Legendary Pokemon without a single loss, with most of my Pokemon being slightly underlevelled. That team was: Sharpedo, Lanturn, Cloyster, Mr. Mime, Arcanine and Metang(see my .txt document in the first post for more info) if you're curious about what kind of team building is required. As you can see you don't need a Smogon team of supermen here, altho I should add I did sweat a little during the last few battles. I used far fewer healing items than I was planning to(which you should pack just in case, obviously), but your mileage may vary depending on which team you bring in.
And with that I am actually (almost) done with the game. I have to repeat the challenge twice more technically, which will take at least 18 more hours(plus grinding) but since the trainers won't change there it will be less eventful than it was now, almost an excuse to play the GC era games a little bit longer before I jump to the GBA era titles. I hope my posts were able to properly summarize my experience and help (You) decide if this is a ROMhack that's worth your time. If you're going to take anything from this post specifically, it's that you shouldn't be a dumbass like me and ignore Mt. Battle until the end, trust me. Would have saved a whole lot of trouble if I knew I could teach Metang a Physical STAB Psychic move half a game ago.
Edit: I can still make changes to this post, for whatever reason, so I'm going to include a screenshot I forgot to attach when I was going thru the Mt. Battle challenge. This was pretty cute when it happened.
. Had he posted about just how fucking ugly some of these designs are, he likely would've opened a door and moved the window for people.
