It is not everyday that we get to review a completed fangame! That’s right! In this fan game spotlight, we will be covering the newly released Pokémon Insurgence!

Pokémon Insurgence is a game made with Pokémon Essentials and set in the brand new Torren Region. Unlike your traditional fan game, you don’t fight an evil team, but several cults. With the Torren region being plagued by cults, there is a lot of trouble. There are two story lines based around this theme! Both are pretty self explanatory, with the lighter story being filled with less of the signature plot elements if you don’t want to play through them. The darker story retains these original story points though. Dialog also changes with these story lines too!

The region has a protector known as the Augur who fought hundreds of cults but he mysteriously disappeared when only four cults were left. However a man by the name of Jaern takes over and becomes known as the second Augur. From here you wake inside the base of one of the remaining cults, the Darkrai Cult. A voice warns you of how you don’t have much time and that they’ve sent someone to help you out. You awake to a Gengar trying to eat your dreams and draining your memories. With nothing more then your name and how you remember looking, Mew appears to help stop the Gengar. It succeeds and you learn of its mysterious power to use DNA to transform you.

Learning this information and being given a letter from Mew, you get an item to help do these transformations in the overworld. With this new feature of the game learned, you escape the base and end up meeting one of the characters who will become your rival, a young boy around your age by the name of Damian. You end up in Telnor Town and find out that the Augur is visiting and your rival recruits your help to help make the town look good for his arrival.

A tradition in the region has every townsfolk member give the Augur a gift, however Damian has forgot his gift and asks for you to help him find one in a cave near the town. You agree, but to move forward you must choose your starting Pokémon so you can make it through the cave. It’s here that another new feature of the game comes into play.

A huge new feature in Insurgence is the existence of Delta Pokémon! Much like Regional Variants, Deltas are forms for old Pokémon that give them a new look and typing. However these aren’t always caused by natural creation. As you progress on your journey you can also do many side quests like helping the Radio Broadcast tower in rare Pokémon hunting or joining scientists to help research Pokémon. These all give great rewards and are fun things to have as you progress through the game. Do enough of them and you may make some surprising discoveries! You may even find some Delta Pokémon hiding around! As mentioned before, the region is filled with them. You won’t find these rare Pokémon normally though. They are usually hiding very well in places so look carefully! Especially check out the Hidden Grottos featured in the game as well! If you don’t get a Delta there, you can get rare Pokémon and items. Not every Grotto will have a Delta however. You do get to receive a Delta early on though!

When you go to choose your starting Pokémon, you learn that the leader of another cult (the Perfection Cult), has dropped off three Delta Pokémon so that they didn’t die in the wild. The professor offers you a choice to take a Delta or the Eevee that she normally hands out. All four of the starter Pokémon have great advantages.

The first is a Delta Bulbasaur that is Psychic-Fairy, the second is a Delta Squirtle that is Dark-Fighting, and lastly the final Delta you can choose is Delta Charmander which is Ghost-Dragon. These typings and designs are unique and make the game even more fun to playthrough. If you want more of a challenge, you can try playing through the game with Eevee. Don’t worry though, as Eevee isn’t left out of something new. Of course that’s something worth playing to find out! After choosing your starter, you head to the cave and make it to the bottom. Here you see two cultists talking about how they plan to kill the Augur! Although this outcome can be different if you play through the lighter story instead of the darker story line.

Your rival and you set out to go warn the Augur. When you make it back, the cultists set forth to carry out their plan and to defend the Augur, Damian challenges them with you. Upon beating them, the Augur thanks the both of you and sends the members off to jail. From here you are encouraged to start a journey and so the journey begins! As you play through the game you’ll earn badges and engage in many more battles with the different cults of Torren as you try to uncover your memories and help save the region! Of course there’s also a Pokémon league. Due to the first Augur being the last gym leader and there being no replacement, not many trainers can make it to the league, and those that do have never won. Are you up to the challenge?

Pokémon Insurgence offers some tough fights throughout the whole game, but unlike other fan games or rom hacks, the level curve is balanced very well and you shouldn’t fall behind, thus making the game harder. With a fair level curve and many Pokémon you can find, there is a lot of ways you can win! The hard fights are fun and really stick out, and will likely have you thinking about strategies more often. While the fights all have top competitive items, don’t worry. The game makes get competitive battling items very easy and cheap too! Since you’ll see many uses of items like Life Orbs to boost damage, you can also get these as well as other useful items. With all the tools at your disposal, you can make some great team compositions to counter the themed teams you’ll see such as a fire and grass team based around Sunny Day.

You can even reset IVs and EV train very easily. These are both done through the Secret Base feature! Pokémon Insurgence has secret bases that allow you to buy functions like an EV or Level train that can help make your journey through Torren much easier. This is great for training of any kind as well as other things such as relearning moves (taught by using Heart Scales which can be obtained by breaking rocks) and reviving fossils. Bases are buyable early on and even have Friend Safaris that you can give the base code to other people! A small but neat feature to have in any fangame! Speaking of other features from main games, Insurgence has even added the DexNav! Working exactly like its counterpart in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you can chain for a shiny with relative ease. Rather than follow a shaking patch of grass, you just walk until the Pokémon you wanted appears.

As you progress more in the game you’ll find out more about what Mew can do and find even more new features/mini games. For example you gain access to a Gatcha machine that can make Pokémon shiny, change natures and give items. Be sure to test your luck! When you beat the game, you even get access to a very challenging but fun Battle Frontier!

The Frontier includes the Battle Tower, Battle Arena, Battle Factory, and Battle Pyramid all functioning as they did in their respective games. It adds two completely new facilities to Insurgence. The first being the Challenge Championship in which like the Pokémon World tournament from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, has trainers from around the world gather to battle! The second is called the Tube Challenge a facility in which you may also see some familiar faces as you battle 13 trainers each time. Another minigame you can try is Pokémon Racing later in the game. This is a quick race you can do with your Pokémon to earn some items and cash as you get higher ranked. If you ever need money, you can always use this feature as well.

Overall Pokémon Insurgence has plenty to offer! There’s a long, challenging, fun and twist filled story waiting for you as you try to uncover the secrets of the Torren region! Pokémon Insurgence is a great fangame filled with lots of content and love from the creators. It is a great fan game and most certainly worth playing through. It’s also one hundred percent complete, so enjoy the full story and its big post game! Insurgence will likely become a very popular addition to the many games created by fans. Be sure to give it a try after downloading it from the official website!

Edited by bobandbill, ddrox13, Rabinov.