The Pokémon franchise has been through so many different guises over the years that everyone will have their own particular favorites and highlights, whether it's the iconic Pokédex from the first couple of generations or the open-world formular adopted in the more recent games.
Though Game Freak has continued to pump out new games with impressive regularity, particularly compared to other AAA developers, not all of them have hit the mark with fans. At the same time, there's really only so much they can do, and there are inevitably long gaps between mainline official releases.
Fortunately, the dedicated community is there to fill in the gaps, whether that be via ROM hacks, or entirely original creations made in engines like RPG Maker. One great example of the former has just released a full 1.0 version, and it's considerably thematically darker than anything we've seen from the franchise so far.
Pokémon Phoenix Red is a ROM hack for the similarly titled Pokémon FireRed, which originally released back in 2004 as a remake of the original Pokémon Red, alongside Pokémon LeafGreen. They were brilliant re-imaginings of the games that started it all, and this latest fan-made effort builds on those successes...
