If you’re not ready to say goodbye to Ash Ketchum and the crew as the 10-year-old’s 25-year journey through the Pokémon anime comes to an end, there’s a cool way to continue the adventure: Pokémon Fire Ash (opens in a new tab), a fan game that aims to recreate all the history of the anime.
I say “aim”, but Fire Ash already covers the story across the Alola League, updating it with all but the most recent seasons of the Pokemon anime. The game doesn’t completely recreate all the dialogue from the series or anything, but within the first few minutes you’ll be waking up late to the day of “getting your first Pokemon”, taking on a grumpy Pikachu as your partner, battling Spearows on your way to the ground. in Viridian City and find Team Rocket in the first Pokémon Center.
@moopstentv (opens in a new tab) ♬ original sound – moopsten (opens in a new tab)
The map is similar to the design of the original games, though modified to include notable elements from the anime, such as the pen behind Professor Oak’s lab. Of course, since this covers the complete anime, it also includes over 50 Gyms and over 800 Pokémon in a single package, and includes areas like the Orange Islands that were never seen in the original RPGs.
Pokemon Fire Ash is built with RPG Maker, a line of long-standing game creation engines that lets you create games in the mold of classic Japanese RPGs. The easy-to-use nature of RPG Maker makes it a popular tool for fanatical game developers, and a specific set of assets called Pokemon Essentials replicates creatures and game systems from throughout the series’ history in Gen-style. 3GBAs. There are plenty of other fan games built with Pokemon Essentials – Fire Ash happens to be one of the most impressive.
The developers are planning another big update to introduce the game to the Galar region and catch up with the latest anime episodes featuring Ash, and this update is expected to arrive around May or June of this year. From there, the project draws to a close, both because Ash’s story is coming to an end and because the game is reaching the upper limit of how many maps an RPG Maker title can support. .
We may need to revise our classification of best pokemon games…