Pokémon Vega is one of those fan-made ROM hacks that actually feels like a proper, polished game—just with way weirder Pokémon. The sprites are all custom, and some of these designs are... let's just say you'll either love them or stare at your GBA screen wondering what the artist was thinking. But hey, at least it's not another lazy reskin.

It starts like any Pokémon game—pick your starter (good luck choosing, they're all bizarre), then dive into a region packed with new creatures and some brutal difficulty spikes. Trainers actually use strategy here, and wild Pokémon hit harder than you'd expect. I wiped to the first gym leader twice before realizing I couldn't just brute-force it.

The English patch makes it playable if you don't read Japanese, though you'll still run into the occasional awkward translation. Worth it for a fresh, challenging twist on the old formula. Just don't go in expecting another vanilla FireRed clone.