VideoGame Total Headspin
When I first began playing Cutlerine's hack, I won't lie, any atmosphere of unique eeriness expected from a zombie apocalypse Pokemon game were almost immediately brushed away. The game speedily gave the impression that very little of the ensuing insanity should've been taken seriously. At least not seriously in the traditional sense. That said, I'll try to review this game while keeping note of marginally important factors.
VISUAL FACTOR:4/10 The graphics were sub-par, that's unquestionable. Though it may be worth noting that Cutlerine deliberately botched the visual component to show that a good hack needs way more than fancy screenshots and a few visually appealing sprites to be good. Granted, Lots of hacks DO suffer from an incredible lack of entertaining story (skipping dialogue takes away NOTHING at times), but that doesn't cover Cutlerine's lazy Visuals even if the Story engaged the player for much longer. ROM hacks aren't simply a text-based medium. That said...
STORYLINE:8/10 Though it may have been quite a wild ride filled to the brim with tons of certifiable insanity, Snakwood's story was quite possibly the most entertaining of all the hacks I've ever played. The fact of the matter is, to truly enjoy a story like snakewood, you have to be willing to sacrifice some logic in order to indulge in some pretty Absurd adventures. An incredible amount of the hack is filled to overflowing with references to, well... Almost every other work of fiction. The eventual point of snakewood seems to be to sit back, observe the universe in all its crazy glory, and chuckle a bit along the way.
TECHNICAL DESIGN:7/10 Many novel scripting ideas and... interesting elements (Madio Caves, anyone?) found their way into the hack. I won't list them all, since that'd eventually be pretty spoileriffic, but I do want to point out that many of the scripts are plainly impressive, especially in comparison to other hacks.
ALL IN ALL, Snakewood was an incredibly entertaining game, not without its faults. However, this troper feels that Cutlerine ought to stick to what he excels at: Fanfiction
VideoGame What a terrible night to play a crappy hack.
Pokemon Snakewood is shit. That's the first thing that needs to be said.
OK, let's get to the WHY of that statement. You play as a supposedly-amnesiac character who can unfortunately speak. However, they have zero personality, and their speaking is honestly a waste. Despite Cutlerine claiming he loves deep stories, this is anything but one. Besides the schizophrenic swapping between OMG THIS IS TEH SCARY and LOL GAIS IMMA FUNNY PERSON, very few characters have any real personality or motive, the "plot" keeps throwing in new and ridiculous things like dragons or the Horsemen of the Apocalypse when they're unnecessary, and there is zero resolution. Cutlerine claims that his shoddy attempt at ending the game is making a statement. I say he's a lazy, shitty writer.
The difficulty of this game is ridiculous, requiring massive grinding and incorporating broken fakemon even Baro wouldn't deign to put in his hack. One gym leader, with a horrible sprite (another of this game's failings), has a Dark/Ghost with Wonder Guard and a big stock of potions. Have fun with THAT. Oh, and the "puzzles" are often trial-and-error "screw you" fests that basically require you to look up the solution on the Pokecommunity thread.
The zombie apocalypse threat seems to be abandoned partway through, just to make an uberhard hack with inexplicably catchable security cameras and showcase the ten-member "Deadly Seven" who are intended to be funny but possess zero humor factor whatsoever. This game throws logic out the window in an attempt to be hilarious, but falls flat on its face every time. Sprites are bad, characters are terrible, plot is laughably bad and incomplete to boot, and Cutlerine is a massive douchebag who thinks he can make a game better than Gamefreak, and takes a few chances to sing his own praises at certain points of the game. 'Nuff said.
Incidentally, this hack somehow won an award on Pokecommunity. Individuals have done research revealing that it was the only hack even eligible at the time. This explains a lot. Basically, I can class this game in the same category as Pokemon Quartz: it's just plain bad. Don't play it unless you're looking for something pathetic you can laugh at.
VideoGame ... what?
It's been a good while since I last played Snakewood, but I still remember it clearly. Most particularly, for it being the first ROM Hack I've ever played. The game follows a Kitchen Sink Included formula, some things good, some things bad, but unfortunately Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup and leave a So Bad, It's Good game as a result.
Let's start with the good parts:
However, there are some really serious flaws in this:
But as I said, it's good in its eccentricities but it fails in some of the most basic things of a Pokemon hack. It's definetly unforgettable, though... well, unless a better ROM hack with the same theme comes out.