Maybe a weird question, but if I were to make a Gen II ROM hack and put actual time and effort into it, would people really want to play it? I'm talking something on the scale of pic related that overhauls major elements of the game into something practically new.

Back in 2012-2014, I made what I'd consider a fairly impressive start to a Gen II hack. I learned how to use the hacking tools, hex editors, I even figured out how to write Z80 assembly code and get the game to run it. I learned how the Gen II music engine works, wrote some original tracks, and they actually played in-game. I made custom tilesets that took better advantage of the GBC's graphical capabilities. I was proud of what I had accomplished. Sadly, I never finished it. This was in high school, when I had a lot of free time. College and work took over my life shortly after, and eventually the whole thing got pushed to the back of my mind. I kept everything I had made, though.

These days I have more free time and I've been thinking maybe it would be cool to pick up where I left off. At the same time, I don't want to put time and effort into something and have it immediately fall into obscurity. It has nothing to do with clout or popularity, it would just be disappointing to have my passion project go unnoticed or brushed off as some low-effort trash. A decade ago the Pokemon ROM hacking community was very active and supportive, but I've been away for so long, I have no idea what state it's in now.

If I were to start work on it again, I have some ideas in my head that I think you all might find really cool. I also have an Everdrive now, so it would be a priority to have it fully playable on a real GBC, not just emulators.