really want to share this. ive been playing this a fair bit in my spare time and have been having a blast. amazing overhaul of pokemon crystal. lot of QOL & overall changes but by far the biggest ones:
the game is open world - you choose your starting city & from 30 potential starters. go where you want, in what order you want.
the pokedex is perfect. just trust me.
trainer levels are dynamic and scale to match yours dependent on your total number of badges (but not wild pokemon) which is amazing because normal g/s/c sucks late on because of how weak everything is
you can catch all 251 pokemon from gen 2 (potentially before getting your first badge)
expanded & new lore-friendly areas of the map
player customization
and much more
https://discord.com/invite/tskaCr2 the welcome channel has all the information on where to get the release. highly recommended that you read the documentation because it's got much more and is useful to cross reference against.
it's got a built in nuzlocke mode which is what i've been playing and honestly the game feels purpose built for it. being able to go anywhere adds a whole different dimension to the game. i'll spare the hard details, but my run early on was in a spot that would essentially kill a run in a normal game. one of those "either restart now or later" type of moments. crap pokemon, gym type disad (a pidgey and butterfree against brock), route pokemon disad, couldn't catch anything to save my life. really rough sailing. the only option was to route through to new bark town and hope for the best from there. it ended up working and after many hours i'm in the end-game now.
it's moments like that and others that have added a different level of strategic thinking (moreso with nuzlocke restrictions) that modern pokemon games lack for me. no railed adventure through the region or contrived story you're forced to be part of. instead you're a trainer with 6 party slots and a dream. it's pure pokemon.
let me know what you think!