Welcome to the first part of GBAtemp's 2018 Game of the Year series. Soon, we'll be voting on what our lovely members think was the greatest video game of 2018. The past year has been an excellent showcase of some of the best gaming has to offer, with franchises such as Red Dead Redemption, God of War, Monster Hunter, Super Smash Bros., Mega Man, and more each getting a new game added to their ranks. Independent games also made a splash, with Celeste, Iconoclasts, Into the Breach, and Dead Cells all becoming beloved additions to many gamers' libraries. Plenty of innovative and new games also made their mark on 2018, with Dragon Ball FighterZ, Spider-Man, and Octopath Traveler leading the way.

You can expect the first issue of GBAtemp's GOTY voting to begin in early December, but for right now, we'll be discussing something entirely different. As you likely gleaned from the title, this thread is for our users to decide upon what fan-made game or romhack belongs in the top spot. Hundreds of fan-made games release each year, and it'll be up to you guys to choose which one you think was best.

There's many options to choose from; so long as an unofficial game was made, or had a significant release in 2018, it's fair game. A few examples will be listed below.

Fallout: New California

Starting work in 2011, and finishing in 2018, Fallout: New California is a modpack for Fallout: New Vegas that tells a brand new story, with new characters and locations to explore, taking place a few decades before New Vegas does. Over 100 fans banded together to offer help with coding, voice acting, and scripting for the game's 30 hour campaign. It was completed and released in October 2018.

Pokemon: Crystal Clear

To most, Pokemon follows a very basic pattern. Shockslayer's Pokemon: Crystal Clear decides to take that foundation, and massively shake things up. Using Pokemon Crystal as a base, Crystal Clear allows you to freely explore Kanto and Johto at your leisure and freedom. Thanks to level scaling, players can tackle any gym or trainer they want, in any order, helping make for a fresh, yet familiar experience.

Dio Vento's Pokemon Let's Go Mods

GBAtemp user Dio Vento has created some patches for the recent Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee games. Ranging from removing trade evolutions, making exclusive wild Pokemon appear regardless of version, and even an increased difficulty mod, all these additions allow players to add that little bit of customization to spice up their Let's Go playthrough.

Sonic Chaos 2018

Sonic Chaos was an overlooked title that released on the Sega Game Gear 15 years ago. While the game itself was enjoyed by fans, its portable 8-bit nature held it back from becoming a true classic like its Mega Drive/Genesis counterparts. Now, a team of renown Sonic fangame makers are taking on the challenge of re-creating Sonic Chaos as if it were a 16-bit game, with revamped visuals, physics, and design. Though it is not complete, a demo containing the first two acts has been released as of August 2018.
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These are just a handful of some of the most standout fangames/mods/hacks of 2018. If there's a fantastic entry that you want to see make its way to the top, be sure to nominate it in the comments below! The most popular choices will be included in a poll later next month.

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[shaunj66]

I nominate Sonic 3 A.I.R. - an emulation of sorts of the original Sonic 3 & Knuckles that adds widescreen, smooth rotation, time attack/ghost mode amongst a host of other new features.

It uses the original games code and assets so everything feels perfect but improves on so many things.

https://sonicfangameshq.com/forums/threads/sonic-3-a-i-r.221/

When it's completed it will likely be my preferred way to play my favourite game of all time.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Can I nominate one romhack of my own?

New MaternalBound

New MaternalBound IPS patch:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/55wy8xbey9z4aje/MaternalBound.ips?dl=0

New MaternalBound EBP patch:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qlnll6tg8xpy79v/MaternalBound.ebp?dl=0

Those are the latest beta IPS/EBP patches for it.
The original MaternalBound hack can be found here:
https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/WIP-MaternalBound-Uncensoring-Other-junk-hack/

Additional stuff included in this new version is MSU-1, New Controls (button remapping to something similar to other RPGs of the era, like FFVI), Unique overworld enemy sprites, completely rewritten script based on Tomato's Legends of Localization book, a lot of NPC text bugfixes, in-game bugfixes too, reworked enemy battle sprites, even more uncensoring, a fully functional title screen with NO glitches (no more "TH" in the middle like before), full localization of the Debug menus found in the game (ATM debug, Kirby Debug), and also a lot of bugfixes done to the Debug menus themselves, like a completely removed debug menu found in Mother 2 is now restored in the "Banana" option of the debug menu, the whole Kirby Y button menu is fully restored and localized, and also full button remapping for the Debug menu as well.

 

[RedoLane]

I nominate Among the Others - a Sonic romhack where you can play either as Sonic or as a Pepsi Can in a bizarre world of memes!
This romhack currently participating in the Sonic Hacking Contest, and I think it's one of the more original ideas for a sonic romhack!
for more information and download, look here:
http://www.sonichacking.org/entry/65

This is also my 2nd favorite romhack in the whole contest!

 

[ShadowOne333]

Just FYI guys about the Sonic hacks, there's already the Sonic Hacking Contest 2018 happening this very same week, you guys might want to instead support those hacks in there, otherwise it will all be full of Sonic hacks in here, when it already has a contest of its own

 

[The Catboy]

I am going with Crystal Clear for completely bias reasons.

 

[PalindromicBreadLoaf]

I would nominate Super Mario: Star World, but Skelux hasn’t released that yet. So Sonic Chaos it is then.

 

[Daisy]

I really like Sonic Adventure Blast, a fangame made to replicate the Adventure series.



It looks really nice, and runs incredibly well. Plays nicely too, but some of the stages are absolute trash.

 

[RedoLane]

I want to also nominate Sonic World - a 3D Sonic fangame with TONS of characters and levels from many different sonic games, comics, and other media.
Most characters have their own unique abilities, and some characters even have Super forms AND Hyper forms!
The fangame is currently on version R9, and can be downloaded on the official website(it's pretty big, so I hope you have good internet speed!):
https://sonicworldfangame.com/

 

[huma_dawii]

Where is that MK DS mod that basically turns it info Double Dash?

 

[ZachariasBarnham]

I nominate Pokémon XG: Next Gen. Made by StarsMmd.

It's a mod of Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. Have you ever wondered what the Gamecube Pokémon game would be like if it had some of the Gen 4-7 mechanics, instead of the clunky and outdated Gen 3 mechanics? Also, there are now 125 Shadow Pokémon and the three Poké Spots now have 25 Wild Pokémon each. Also, no more stupid-ass names, except for important people. Also, you get Bonsly for yourself.

Here's the link:
https://projectpokemon.org/home/forums/topic/37672-pokemon-xg-next-gen/

And a picture of Robo Groudon:

 

[PabloMK7]

@Chary I really think you should make two different categories, one for romhacks and another for fangames as they cannot be compared with each other.
In a fangame you made the whole game itself so you have complete control on the behaviour of your fangame. This is not the case of romhacks as you can only modify existing code or assets which limits all the things you can do.

In any case, I vote as a "romhack": The Binding Of Isaac: Antibirth

 

[RustInPeace]

Pokemon Gaia is better than Crystal Clear, but I'll vote CC for lack of a better option.

 

[Deleted User]

I nominate the Resident Evil 4 HD Project.

They plan to take each texture, scale it up to 8-16 times the original resolution and redrawing / remaking from there, improving the 3D models, lighting, effects including those for Separate Ways, Mercenaries and Assignment Ada.

 

[Vorde]

I nominate Sonic 3 A.I.R. - an emulation of sorts of the original Sonic 3 & Knuckles that adds widescreen, smooth rotation, time attack/ghost mode amongst a host of other new features.

It uses the original games code and assets so everything feels perfect but improves on so many things.

https://sonicfangameshq.com/forums/threads/sonic-3-a-i-r.221/

When it's completed it will likely be my preferred way to play my favourite game of all time.

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention I had no idea this existed.
I was very disappointed when Christian Whitehead had to stop working on Sonic 3 & Knuckles due to music liscensing issues, when he was porting it to iOS and Android.

 

[shaunj66]

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention I had no idea this existed.
I was very disappointed when Christian Whitehead had to stop working on Sonic 3 & Knuckles due to music liscensing issues, when he was porting it to iOS and Android.

It is fantastic You won't be disappointed. With it being native code the input latency feels even better than an emulator too

 

[AdenTheThird]

I nominate CTGP-7, an amazing Mariokart 7 hack by PabloMK7. With a wide variety of tracks, a clean interface, and regular updates, this is a hack I continuously enjoy.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/mario-kart-7-custom-track-grand-prix-7-ctgp-7.396936/

 

[Rabbid4240]

I nominate Mega Man Maker
https://megamanmaker.com
It's a Mega Man level creator with assets, enemies, and bosses from Mega Man 1-7

 

[marazzmatika]

I nominate SM64:Last Impact. It was pretty new game,and took a lot of effort to make.

https://www.google.ru/url?sa=t&sour...BMAB6BAgMEAU&usg=AOvVaw0ZCg0lSk4kgWUAQ2drnkow

 

[Maq47]

I nominate Pokemon Fire Ash: https://fire-ash.webnode.com/
It's a Pokemon fan-game made in RPG Maker XP using Pokemon Essentials v15, and is (very loosely) based on the anime (and I mean VERY LOOSELY). Over 95% of all Pokemon released to date can be obtained. The game is not completely finished, but still very playable. The end goal is to have every last Pokemon obtainable by the final release.