Have you ever made it halfway through your bimonthly playthrough of Pokemon Yellow and stopped just short of Koga to think, “wouldn’t this be better with Cramorant?” Me neither. But someone has thought that, and decided to make an alternate version of Yellow with Cramorant instead of Pikachu. No, I don’t know why.

By this point, most Pokemon fans know that Pokemon Pink was planned to be a companion to Yellow, with Jigglypuff (not Clefairy) as Pikachu’s foil. I believe that I’m a sage of some sort, because I named my childhood character Pink in my canon playthrough of Silver (along the lines of Red, Blue, and Silver, who you faced in the game), and my trusty Typhlosion was called Pkmn Pink. I wasn’t an imaginative child – my rival was named ???, although that was an honest mistake rather than a lack of imagination.

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A Cramorant foil to Pokemon Yellow would have had to have been called Pokemon Bluetwo or something. Pokemon Sea Blue? Pokemon Blue, Yellow, And A Little Bit Of White? That’s probably why the creator of this new ROM hack has plumped for Pokemon Cramorant.

I’ve gotten over my hatred of Cramorant after being let in on a secret Pokemon trading club set up by YouTuber Austin John Plays, which helped me catch the final monster I needed for my Kitakami Pokedex. I recognise that it’s a funny Pokemon to have as a mascot for a game, and the pixel art animations capture the, for want of a better word, derpiness of Cramorant’s design beautifully.

It works perfectly in the Gen 1 setting, and acts as the ideal counterpart to Yellow’s Pikachu. It’s helped by the fact that it’s an unfortunately forgettable ‘mon, but isn’t too bland. It’s quirky but nothing wild, I doubt it’s anyone’s favourite Pokemon. And it eats Pikachu.

The game isn’t just about Cramorant, though. As with many ROM hacks, Pokemon Cramorant adds more than just the titular bird. There are more Pokemon, different trainers, a slightly higher difficulty (despite the fact that Yellow is already one of the trickier Pokemon games), more events, and new items. I’m sold by the fact that you can get Gengar without trading; the Link Cable costs a mere 3,000 PokeDollars and lets you evolve a trade evo. Perfect.

The comments on the reveal trailer on YouTube are incredibly positive, with far more Cramorant love than I expected. “Cramorant is literally my favourite Pokemon,” writes one person, “I'm beyond happy this actually exists.” I guess I take back my earlier comment about the fact that Cramorant is nobody’s favourite Pokemon.

ROM hacks are consistently the most creative Pokemon games, adding new mechanics or difficulty settings that the official games are in dire need of. Pokemon Cramorant doesn’t go as far as Uranium or Kaizo, but it’s good fun, and someone has worked incredibly hard on the adorable pixel art Cramorant animations that deserve a whole game built around them. Instead of jumping back into Scarlet & Violet, I’m going to head back to Gen 1, and I never thought I’d say that after so many adventures in Kanto.

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