Title: Regret
Author: Crukix
Fandome: Pokemon
Rating: M
Pairings: None
Chapters: 60
Words: 520,045
Updated: October 29, 2011
Published: March 11, 2010
Status: Complete
Link: Here
Summary: A world destroyed by war. A world where deadly creatures known as Pokemon stalked the earth. I grew up in that world. By some ill-fated miracle I got the chance to stop the destruction. Only, I found out I caused it all. This is how I destroyed the world.


Like The Sun Soul, this one is set in an apocalyptic setting initially, which is rewound 80 years back to the more familiar setting. Gets pretty intense and bloody real quick and the protagonist doesn't have any of the overpowered pokemon although in two of the three pokemon he has (so far as I've read) their bloodthirstiness and murderous hobbies make up for it in spades. The personalities and foibles of each of his current team are well written and aren't written in a way that they're locked into those traits. The author has The Sun Soul in their favourites and some of the central ideas and themes reflect that without going near plagiarism, which is always great.

Only gripe so far is that he's 4/4 in capture rate as of chapter 20, 2 of them on full HP with simple pokeballs. Not enough of a gripe to not give this a solid 5/5.

Oh yes, for you twisted nutjobs who whack off to pokeporn, you'll never consider Gardevoir again.


Checked by Minion, May 12, 2013

 

I'm about halfway through right now, and I'm enjoying it. The author builds the world for it extremely well, and writes half-decent action scenes too. It could be a lot worse, but it's not. At this point, I'm giving it about a 4/5 because it's good, but not excellent yet.

 

This fic is awesome.

 

I give it a 4/5.

 

So here goes my review:

This fic is a breath of fresh air in a fandom that is being kept afloat by only a few decent fics.

From the beginning, we get presented with a character who's struggling. He's struggling to achieve his mission, to get a competent team of Pokemon with him, to survive all the crazy shit that life throws his way and he's doing it rather well.

His character development is slow but steady, which I think makes it all the more realistic, and the interaction with the Pokemon is done very well. Now, as a 151'er, I don't know most of the Pokemon mentioned, but he does a decent job of explaining them and developing their bonds with the trainer as well.

Now, some of the secondary characters are weird. Aydran and that girl with the stantler are a bit kooky at times and not in a good way. It's not something in the writing, but more of a feeling, imo.

The whole Champion/Elite 4 descents into crazy shit was fucked up. I have no idea what purpose either one has served so far besides breaking the main character a little bit more and heightening suspicion. So I guess I'll wait and see.

Overall, this isn't a compete review, but I'd give it a 4/5

 

Over all, I was rather impressed with this story. It reminds me a lot of the Sun Soul, but the author has a better handle on dialogue and slightly less epic action sequences. I have to say I do prefer the way Crukix handles pokemon, as it seems slightly closer to canon, and I love the idea of a serial killer pokemon. I'm really not sold on the whole adaptation thing. It seems too... awkward or maybe a little grafted on. I've not kept up with pokemon after Gold and Silver, so I had to actively search out what the monsters mentioned actually look like, which was a little disappointing. On an unrelated note, the quality of art and the designs for the creatures have plummeted from their already dubious origin.

I would rate this a solid 4/5.

 

I'd give it a 4/5.
It has solid action sequences, but they're not as well done as the "Sun Soul'" battles are. Other than that minor quibble the fic is pretty good.
A word of caution: the progression of his pokemon seems overly slow. In the Sun Soul pokemon grew at pace that wasn't too quick or too slow, but just right. I understand that the world he's created has a pacing that's different than the Sun Soul, but I just wish he'd hurry up the speed of progression.

Also, the Gardevoir scene is probably more disturbing than most of the stuff I've read on DLP. Just a warning.

 

I must have played pokemon emerald about a dozen times. On every one of those playthroughs I would always catch a Ralts and level it up to about 60/70 before I couldnt be arsed any more.

So anyway fuck this fic and you azrael for reccing it because that was fucking creepy on a level that belongs to 7ate9 and 7ate9 alone.

5/5 for everything else though.

 

I live to serve

no i don't really

 

The gardevoir stuff was overdone, imo. I can understand disliking a Pokemon because of how everyone in the fandom faps to it, but devoting at least 5k words to describing how horrific the main character finds them, before having a horrible run-in with them, is silly. It would be like inserting the rabid Ginny-hate of a few years back into Heartland or something to that effect.

Apart from that, I rate this 5/5. The adaptation thing is actually something I've seen (similarly, at least) in two of the other three great Pokemon stories I've read, so I assume it has a little basis in canon or something. The pace of the Pokemon growing is actually something I find to be happening fast; most stories will have at most a few changes, and then the full-out bright white evolution, while this one has most of the physical changes done as growth, and then the body morphing as the final bit. This story also one of three of the Pokemon stories I read that has a stronger, older friend who has a tragic bit of past haunting them. Coincidence?

I think the stronger pokeballs is something that would be realistic. Throwing twenty capsules at a tauros, for example, wouldn't be a healthy thing to do, and any company that could make a pokeball catch better than the competition would instantly be rich.

The light mystery, as well as the looming plot, really drive this story.

 

No, I don't think it's the same thing. Outside of the first post here that features azrael's own opinion, there's nothing that suggests the writer has a Ginny-esque hate-on for Gardevoir - he simply built them up as a threat and followed through with the hints in the most horrible of ways, and I thought it was awesome. The excessive angst afterwards I could've maybe done without, but it served its purpose and helped further some things along - killing the champion, getting a little more trust from Lacey, alienating him from Ayd for a bit... All good.

This story is fantastic, easily my favourite current Pokemon fic, especially now that Pokemon Zero ended like it did. I'll always love Sun Soul, but Regret just appeals to me more and manages to create a Pokemon world (Both pre and post apocalyptic) that's very immersive while keeping a strong character base. The Pokemon characters are just as good as, if not better than, the human characters, and I'm one of those ones who usually likes my Pokemon stories to be about human conflict and characters in a Pokemon world.

Nope. The Pokemon here feel like a fresh take on the Pokemon in Hoenn, and it's succeeded in turning some of the scrappies from my least favourite region into fully-fledged awesome beasts. Seriously, I'll never look at Lotad/Lombre, Sableye, Nuzleaf, Shedinja, Sceptile, Gardevoir et cetera the same way again. Awesome fic.

Library This Bitch/5.

 

I'm going to revise my comments after reading the story again.
It deserves a 5/5. I noticed some things I hadn't before: the quotes at the beginning of the chapters, the writing style and the POV.
Plus, I read it the night before a test so I was rushing and missing a lot of things the first time through.

The POV is one of my favorite features of the fic; the voice of the narrator really meshes with the dark tone of the work, and the horror and trauma that the main character experiences really work better in the First-Person.

Seriously, the only complaint now is seemingly impossible-to-cross gap between the main character and elite trainers. The story is pretty long already, and without a time-skip of some sorts (or obtaining a really strong pokemon from somewhere), I don't see how the protagonist will ever reach the levels of the Elite 4, or even Ayd's level.

 

So far the writing is great.

It's a bit annoying that the narrator is so fatalistic and predicting the main character's failure so much though...

 

Updated.

I actually prefer this to The Sun Soul. Maybe because the way Crukix devotes a lot of detail into the Pokemon traits, personality, etc.

The whole Gardevior thing left a bad taste in my mouth, and the way he dealt with the Champion but overall, library this in my opinion.

 

The new chapter was amazing. Best one yet, IMHO.

 

Updated

Moves along nicely from the previous chapter, a bit of humour to lighten up the mood and

Spoiler

Picks himself up a psychic with a rigid sense of honour that seems less likely to rape and dismember him and in the case it did want to, he'd let you know

 

Good update.

Spoiler

He should abaondon the Magnemite for the Gallade imo.

 

Roflmao did you not read the rest of the fic?

 

Spoiler

My money is on Lacey being the catalyst for the fucked up future, fully in the know of the present/future situation and working as part of a cabal to fuck Celebi's shit up. Points that way from the story description and Lacey's communique via the Gallade

 

This.

5/5 and only because it's only the second novel-length Pokemon fanfiction I've read that actually makes the Pokemon particularly brutal. And the story is actually readable.

I left him a review pointing the way here.