What I like most about this fic is the world-building — how it takes all these little concepts from the games and the anime and whatnot and remakes them into a consistent, more serious/grounded world. The history of Pokemon and the League and all the gym leaders and the professors and everything is very well done, and almost make the fic worth reading alone. THAT is what I've been looking for in Pokemon.
What I don't like is how most of the main characters are cynical jackasses, and how dark it can be. I mean darkness is fine when it's properly placed and in the right amounts, but you've got a psychotic version of Pikachu blasting innocent Pokemon and Red commenting on how he likes to eat Venonat fetuses. I think the author is overcompensating for how light vanilla Pokemon often is and is borderline ashamed of the source material, and I feel that's unneeded.
If the author can make characters more likeable and tone it down, while keeping that effort put into world-building, I'd like it a lot more. As it is, I'd probably peg it around a 7.5/10.
FanficRecs Quick review
What I like most about this fic is the world-building — how it takes all these little concepts from the games and the anime and whatnot and remakes them into a consistent, more serious/grounded world. The history of Pokemon and the League and all the gym leaders and the professors and everything is very well done, and almost make the fic worth reading alone. THAT is what I've been looking for in Pokemon.
What I don't like is how most of the main characters are cynical jackasses, and how dark it can be. I mean darkness is fine when it's properly placed and in the right amounts, but you've got a psychotic version of Pikachu blasting innocent Pokemon and Red commenting on how he likes to eat Venonat fetuses. I think the author is overcompensating for how light vanilla Pokemon often is and is borderline ashamed of the source material, and I feel that's unneeded.
If the author can make characters more likeable and tone it down, while keeping that effort put into world-building, I'd like it a lot more. As it is, I'd probably peg it around a 7.5/10.