Pokémon: A Grand Day Out is one of those weird little GBA romhacks that feels like stumbling into a secret side quest nobody told you about. You start off in this oddly cozy town where the professor hands you a totally random starter—mine was a Pikachu with way too much attitude. The routes are packed with wild Pokémon you don’t usually see early in games, like a Houndour just chilling in the tall grass.

The map’s smaller than your usual Pokémon adventure, but it’s got this weird charm—like someone took a normal game and shrunk it down into a weekend road trip. There’s even this bizarre side area where you can battle trainers with joke teams (I got wrecked by a guy using six Magikarp). It’s janky in places, but that’s part of the fun. You’ll probably finish it in an afternoon if you don’t get distracted trying to catch everything.