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I strongly prefer romhacks that go out of their way to maintain some sort of vanilla compatibility. I haven't really caught up with the new wave of pokeemerald decomp hacks because they all use the same bloated base and are filled with design-diluting crap.
Of the pokered and pokecrystal hacks, I have found Shin Red and Sour Crystal to be by far the best. Shin Red in particular is an impressive project that still *feels* like gen 1, but becomes much more interesting to play and built-in toggles let you customize your playstyle in interesting ways.
Sour Crystal adds in a larger Kanto, small distribution changes, and a Pokeride system that are just all positives, too.
I don't fuck with too many custom regions or pokedex hacks, because I haven't had great experiences with them.
