You've summed up my thoughts towards this hack in 4+ paragraphs. It seemed promising then it went to shit real fast.
Snakewood has a few interesting ideas, such as the puzzles involving New Mauville, Ditto and Thundershock, and the battle with the Troll, as well as an ok start (Oh, and A Monster, but on a random trainer?), but that's it.
However... there were too many brutal 'boss' battles (Like the Battlezombie in the Necropolis, which I only beat due to Weezing's Will-o-Wisp); some fakemon have next to no balance whatsoever (An example you did not mention is the Fighting/Flying one with Speed Boost that also hits like a truck) while most designs were bad. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Sewers were way too big and frustrating.
On the other hand, the story. By the time I got into Fallarbor I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the story - it constantly added villains, switched roles and added characters that if you managed to keep with the 'plot' in even late-game, you deserve a prize. Just by midgame it's a mashup of everything that ever got into Cutlerine's head, or at least that's what it seemed to me.
Okay, Snakewood's not good, but it has a few salvageable concepts that, on a much better hack, they would be nice.
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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.