History VideoGame / PokemonUnbound

* FreeRangeChildren: A staple for the franchise, although it's downplayed in the Player's case: the Player's mother is for the most part unaware of the danger since Professor Log keeps telling her that you're on run-of-the-mill Gym Challenge, to hide your involvement with the fight against the Shadows. Ace is a more traditional example, as he can't wait to get away from Log and go find his parents.

** On Insane difficulty, [[spoiler:when Jax battles you for the title of Champion, half of his party have Effort Values OVER the 510 you would normally be allowed per Pokémon (most likely to compensate for the fact that his battle carries no special field effect or gimmick). To be exact, his Swampert, Hitmontop, and Mega Rayquaza have '''FOUR''' stats with 252 Effort Values each]].

* GuideDangIt: The Egg Lady at Magnolia Town Café won't give the Player any Eggs that will hatch into Froakie until the Post-Game. There's no indication, other than the lack of Froakie, that this is the case, since it's still possible to get Chespin and Fennekin from her, an nothing in-game indicates this restriction is in place, and so the Player may spend hours soft resetting before realising it can't be done.

** Fling is reworked so that if you Fling a Snowball, you guarantee a Freeze. This is notable since this is the ''only'' method of guaranteeing the Freeze status effect, even if it's once per battle, whereas otherwise you just have to rely on the rare chance from a move like Ice Beam or Blizzard to do so.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ubtitle.PNG]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Welcome to the Borrius region!]]

*** A Macho Brace can be acquired right away, and a Black Belt in Blizzard City will upgrade it for you at the cost of Everstones, increasing its effectiveness to a max of 10x.

* TheMedic: Several Chansey are scattered around Borrius (a Cube Corp idea to provide relief for the weary Trainer), who will heal your Pokémon for free...unless you're playing on Insane Mode, in which case they won't be inclined to help someone crazy enough to deliberately make things hard for themselves.

On December 19th 2021, a new update for the game was released. This new version, Unbound 2.0, offers a completely new storyline, involving a mysterious organisation known as the Science Society working with the Shadows, more AntiFrustrationFeatures, more Post-Game Missions and activities, and a lot more besides.

* {{Superboss}}: This game has no shortage of powerful trainers to fight.

** There are Mega Trainers all throughout Borrius who are optional boss fights that yield you Mega Stones. Some of them won't even fight you until you've fought everyone else on the route.
** Various side missions will also have boss fights against trainers or Dynamaxed Pokémon as part of their quest line. Examples include the boss fights against the various biker gang leaders throughout Borrius, or against a Dynamax'd Magearna as part of the Tomb of Borrius quest.
** There are also just a few bosses the player can challenge in the overworld, such as a Pokémon Breeder with a full team by the Day Care, or a pair of Experts called the Devil Duo who you can only fight once you've fought every other trainer.
** [[CreatorCameo The devs]] of Pokémon Unbound themselves can also be fought in Dehara City after becoming the Champion.
** Champion Cynthia from Sinnoh shows up at Magnolia Café for you to battle after you become the Champion.

** Like the ''Alola'' games, defeating the Elite Four has you defend your Champion title against various trainers who arrive to challenge you. These challengers include Ace, Jax, Youngster Solenk, Poké Kid Milo, [[spoiler:Zeph]], and [[spoiler:Marlon]].

* BonusBoss: This game has no shortage of powerful trainers to fight.
** All of the Gym Leaders can be rematched in the Battleground of Seaport City in the postgame, still with the same rules from their battles, but with ''way'' more competent and dangerous team compositions.
** There are Mega Trainers all throughout Borrius who are optional boss fights that yield you Mega Stones. Some of them won't even fight you until you've fought everyone else on the route.
** Various side missions will also have boss fights against trainers or Dynamax'd Pokémon as part of their quest line. Examples include the boss fights against the various biker gang leaders throughout Borrius, or against a Dynamax'd Magearna as part of the Tomb of Borrius quest.
** There are also just a few bosses the player can challenge in the overworld, such as a Pokémon Breeder with a full team by the Day Care, or a pair of Experts called the Devil Duo who you can only fight once you've fought every other trainer.
** [[CreatorCameo The devs]] of Pokémon Unbound themselves can also be fought in Dehara City after becoming the Champion.
** Champion Cynthia from Sinnoh shows up at Magnolia Café for you to battle after you become the Champion.
** Red can be fought randomly on the SS Marine during the postgame.
** Like the ''Alola'' games, defeating the Elite Four has you defend your Champion title against various trainers who arrive to challenge you. These challengers include Ace, Jax, Youngster Solenk, Poké Kid Milo, [[spoiler:Zeph]], and [[spoiler:Marlon]].

* BrutalBonusLevel: The Battle Frontier is accessed via Seaport City in the postgame, and is full of facilities that test your mastery of Pokémon team building. They all have their own rules and mechanics, each have a [[BonusBoss Frontier Brain]] to fight, and each of them also have [[HouseRules specific rulesets]] that you can play under to diversify your team building.

** Gym Leader Candice from Sinnoh appears in Blizzard City as an [[BonusBoss optional boss fight]].
** Champions Red and Cynthia from Kanto and Sinnoh respectively appear in Magnolia Town on certain days. You can trade with Red to receive two Pikachu and his outfit, while Cynthia can be challenged to a battle. Red also shows up as a possible Raid Den partner and a possible BonusBoss aboard the SS Marine.
** Giovanni, the former leader of Team Rocket and former Viridian Gym Leader, shows up as a possible BonusBoss in the Battle Frontier. Oddly, despite having his own battle theme, he uses the Terror Granbull theme instead.

* RecycledSoundtrack: Despite its almost entirely original soundtrack, there are some recycled themes: Gym Leaders down to their last Pokémon play the near victory theme from [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black and White]], and some BonusBoss characters retain their old battle themes (except Candice, who receives a remix to her Gym Battle theme, however). Nearly every Legendary and Mythical Pokémon also either have their original themes when you encounter them, or for tracks from the later generations, remixes that match the soundfont of the game. The only exception is Hoopa, which gets its own encounter and battle theme, being the star of this game.

** A Hiker in Frost Mountain claims that there's twenty floors to climb before reaching the end. There's actually only three. His friend on the floor above doesn;t know why he persists in this lie, though.

* FinalBoss: Similarly to the ''Alola'' games, you become the Champion after beating the Elite Four, and the FinalBoss is a trainer who challenges you for the title. [[spoiler:Your final opponent is Jax]].

** Prior to Version 2.0, some characters just resembled existing trainer classes but just with a different colour. Jax used to just look like a Camper trainer for instance, and Successor Maxima was just a Lady trainer with red hair.

* WakeUpCallBoss: The third Gym Leader, Alice, is the first Gym Leader to use Mega Evolution [[note]]Unless you're playing on Insane, in which it's Véga with his Mega Absol[[/note]], as she has a Mega Pinsir. She also has permanent Tailwind active for her Flying types, which doubles their Speed, turning her Pokémon into [[LightningBruiser speed demons]], as they're all fully evolved (while you might still be using Pokémon that have not fully evolved yet) and can hit hard with good coverage. She also leads with a tanky Pokémon that can set up Stealth Rock (Minior normally, Skarmory on Insane). All of this tests you on how well you can take hits from hard hitting Pokémon, how well you can deal with a speed disadvantage, and how well you can deal with Stealth Rock, and on Insane, how well you can also deal with Delta Stream, as that removes the Flying type weaknesses of her team. Despite being a Flying type specialist living near a route and forest full of Ice types, Alice is more than prepared with her speed, power, and coverage moves.

** On higher difficulties, the Gym Leaders and Elite Four will have field effects that work in their favor permanently active, such as the negative emotions in Véga's gym, which hurts all except Dark- and Ghost- types, and the Electric Terrain in Galavan's gym that also protects his Pokémon from Ground attacks. On Insane, Big Mo takes this UpToEleven, as not only does he ban moves that are super effective against his specialty type, but he ''also'' has a permanent Trick Room up, turning his {{Mighty Glacier}}s into {{Lightning Bruiser}}s.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: There's actually a Mission where an NPC claims that every time you turn off the game without saving first, it results in the entire world being destroyed. It's just that no-one notices because an alternate world is created whenever you reload. The Mission is of course to not destroy the world by manually saving regularly.

* PostEndGameContent: Several new Missions are unlocked after becoming the Champion. As well as unlocking several Legendary and Mythical Pokémon for capture, the Player can also explore Dive Spots (once they get the ADM) which contain Pokémon that couldn't be caught before Post-Game, such as Mareanie/Toxapex. Redwood Village and Cube Corp. also become available for visiting, which contains several more Post-Game Pokémon.

* LostWoods: The Redwood Forest is a maze that's easy to get lost in, but it's the only way to find and catch a Zoroark, as well as obtain the Kangaskhanite. It's also one of two paths that lead to Cube Corp.