PokeSync [Soul Bonds, Realistic, Heavy World Building]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Note:I combine the core games, side games, manga, anime, TCG, and every other media to make the most realistic and complete image of the Pokemon world I can, which is my main goal, and might be overwhelming to some people. Learn about Rhea and her journey through the Pokemon World. You will meet many people and see how a realistic Pokemon experience might be. Rhea may be the main protagonist of our story, but to fully understand this world, we will be diving into various other PoV along the way, but never straying too far from our main three girls! Artwork available for free dl on my Patreon Patreon Master Index

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2020
Author: Scott Edwards

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 1,069
Views: 699,787

Chapters(230 total)

What readers say about PokeSync [Soul Bonds, Realistic, Heavy World Building]

“TL;DR - The setting is deep, the characters are great, but the pace is gacial. This is one of the most in-depth Pokemon mechanics dives I've seen. Seriously, the settings details from the story alone (not even counting the things that must be in the autor's…”
lishmaelRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“I wrote a review on the unhyperlinked version, most is a copy and paste, as they are the same novel. However the fact he has both shows a lot of loyalty to fans. I am up to chapter 17 on patreon, so some things reflect that. SME has produced a very good int…”
MechaHeartRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

lishmaelRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
TL;DR - The setting is deep, the characters are great, but the pace is gacial.
This is one of the most in-depth Pokemon mechanics dives I've seen. Seriously, the settings details from the story alone (not even counting the things that must be in the autor's head) would be enough to make Pokemon: The (T)RPG game and have thousands enjoy it. Solid work right here.
The world-building is on point. The events from games all have meaning and new take on them. The great mystery of non-aging Ash is solved. The world feels alive and real. We have reasons for why Pokemon would want to have trainers. We have reasons for why only six Pokemon are with you. Why teenagers beat seasoned veterans in Gyms. Legendaries. Pokemon sentinence. You name it, it's there - Pokemon world made realistic without loosing it's canonical charms.
If you are a Pokemon fan, here come your favorite characters from mutliple games, interacting with each other and living together. Great job on that.
With that brilliance comes the pacing... issue? Not really an issue for me, but for a lot of people, it could be. The story is character driven. And there are a lot of characters. They all feel alive and real, but that feeling comes with a cost. Exposition through dialog. Talking. Memory recounting. Social media dives. Socializing with Pokemon, teammates, relatives. Ultimate slice-of-life, and while the adventure and the mystery are there, they are slow paced and not a main focus - just a part of young trainer's life (we are at day 26 at 2.1k pages, just to put it into perspective)
MechaHeartRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I wrote a review on the unhyperlinked version, most is a copy and paste, as they are the same novel. However the fact he has both shows a lot of loyalty to fans.
I am up to chapter 17 on patreon, so some things reflect that.
SME has produced a very good interpretation of Pokémon, one I am keen to spend more time in. If anyone has played, watched or had any interest in Pokémon, this is worth checking out. If not, check it out anyway, SME is a great writer, and you may discover you like his other serials more.
Individual scores as follows:
Style: 5/5. Yes, there is already a prebuilt world, but that makes it a lot easier for SME to build his creation. Set 10 years past Sun/Moon (potentially, haven't played them) he has incorporated lots of changes to the world. He has also fleshed out the way pokemon trainers, battles, travel, technology, power scales and more work. Truly a unique creation, even if grounded in another work.
Story 3/5. This is lower at the moment as the serial has just started. As it is a Pokémon work, it has begun with the beginning journey, and as anyone who has played one of the games knows, you don't have any story until like the 2nd or 3rd gym anyway. I honestly expect this to go to a 4.5 at least once that becomes more clear. That being said, SME does tend to leave fairly open ended goals which can make it difficult to see the direction, I have it on his authority though that he has a good map!
Grammar 5/5. SME has patreons combing through all his works, by the time they've reached the public they are close to flawless.
Character score 4.5/5. Some very good characters, haven't had a lot of time to get too deep, but the bases and twists are there.
Ponas NiekasRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm not a Pokemon fan but I have played gen1 game boy game and saw few eps of anime while it was airing on tv as a kid, so while I know what Pokemon is I don't really know any characters or plot.
But for me the strong point of this novel is Main character and her friends, they are original characters and we get some of their backstory, they feel like real and you care for them.
Massive character/Pokemon references does put off a bit sometimes but hyperlinks helps a little to see how they look and quick info about them even if I ignore most of that.
CircusPonyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So far, so good. I like how the dynamics of the battling has been shown, and the true difference between certain levels of trainers. Good grammar and flow, nothing to really bump or jar a reader out of the story. Only a few chapters in, but I look forward to more!
AuroraOfEmberRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
To begin with, I would like to say that I like the story. However, I would not recomend it. As I said in the title, the story stabs itself and runs at full blast. At some point, it runs out of blood and it is hard to keep reading. Allow me to explain:
Scott Edwards as an author focuses heavily on characters. That is how he writes. His characters always feel like they could be actual people. The problem with this is that after like 20 chapters I always end up thinking something along the lines of 'get on with it.' Wonderful writing keeps you reading for a while, but when the story itself feels like it has slowed down to a crawl it is difficult to keep reading. As I meant with my analogy, it runs out of steam.
The plot is exceptionaly ambitious. So ambitious in fact, that I can get the point aacross without actualy refferencing an event that takes place within the story itself. To begin with, it takes all the mechanics from the games to make the system for the pokemon world 'magic' (I do not know how else to call it) and then all the lore from official sources to create a number of characters and the general backstory for the world. Do be warned that last bit comes from what I found on the wiki that is linked here the most. For the first several chapters I spent more time on the wiki to understand what is going on and I will readily admit that I know more about pokemon from that than anything else.
There are many characters. And when I say many, I mean it. I would guestimate that there are around 50 characters that take an active part in the story (not seen once and never apear again). This is my biggest gripe with the story. There are so many characters I need to spend a moment to realise who just spoke in order to get a mental image of who they are. And this is a problem I find with characters that speak basically every chapter. As I said about the author's style, all of them have their own distinct persomalities, but there are so many of them I lose track instantly
Phil276Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I really like this fiction. The style is very good, the grammar basically flawless. Has at times problems with "show, don't tell" but some of the technical aspects also make that difficult.
I especially like how the author has translated all the different strains of the pokemon franchise into one coherent framework while simultaneously adding his own very interesting twists and explanations for things.
Another feature that has stood out is the links. For someone like me that stopped playing in Gen 5 and, never watched the anime, and only recently started learning the English Pokemon names (German here), this is truly a godsend.
My only critiques would be the aforementioned info dumps and the introduction of too many new characters. I honestly had no idea who was who (of the kids) in the last chapter. Maybe you could add some descriptions when referring to them (the party girl said, the young musician said, etc.)
200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words 200 words
mind2Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This is a rly wholesome and interesting Pokemon fanfic
the characters are going through a lot of progress on their journey and you can feel with them
the Pokemon itself have a interesting development and personalities as well
the personal changes to the world made from the author are a good addition to this theme
ThousandOdysseysRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I really love this story.
The characters are 3 dimentional and interesting. The world is vibrant and complex. As far as I am aware it is a unique take on the Pokémon universe that truly brings to life its complexity, making it seem like it might be an actual real place.
The story itself is also riveting, and I really feel connected to the MC.
The only issue I cannot get away from is this authors troubling obsession with these 17 year old teenage girls bodies.
We can bearly get through one chapter without a body affiming session where everyone praises everyone else to the discomfort of whoever it is that is being praised in that moment. Indeed, at first I simply thought "Oh that's nice, the author wants to promote body positivity". However as the chapters went by, the detailed descriptions of the characters clothes, and the shapes of their bodies rolled in. Along with the incessant insistence of the MC saying over and over and over again, that she just naturally doesn't need to eat as much as anyone else.
It's just getting to me. Every time. Almost every chapter. I will be pulled out of the reading because of these quite frankly uncomfortable renditions of these minors (fictional though they are) bodies.
JFrog55Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The author has done an amazing job of integrating storylines, ideas, and powers from all the various media around the pokemon franchise. I'm genuinely in awe. The passion for pokemon is self-evident, and the interweaving of the characters and their own stories is excellent. For this alone I highly recommend giving the first book a read, because it's quite impressive.
The two parts I have issues with bot hrevolve around the main characters. There is an uncomfortable amount of attention placed on the looks and appearances of underage teenagers, and while that may not be inappropriate for a teenage coming-of-age story, it feels weird for this site.
The other aspect of the main characters that feels wrong is how cringey they are as teenagers, particularly in the latest book. It feels like every chapter, and sometimes more often, the characters are referring to each other by new, ever more cringey nicknames with little explanation or context. On top of that, a lot of the interactions between the younger characters feel like they've been written by somebody who hasn't interacted with a modern teenager more than once a week in the last decade. It falls into the uncanny valley where some things are surprisngly accurate to how teenagers act and are, but other aspects are just overly cringey and wrong.
Overally I really enjoyed this tory until it fell more into a teenage romcom than any of its other tags. It's very well written (besides the above cribbing) and incredibly well thought out as a fanfic, and for that alone it's worth a read.
Tharsis42Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Stopped at 15 for now.
I liked the world building and was impressed with all the pokefacts but some of the chapters had huge info dumps. An earlier chapter contained a breakdown of how all levels of tournament play are organized that I just skimmed. The story will not get to that level of battle for a long time so I don’t think it was necessary. Similar issues to that in balancing the right amount of pure exposition with action, drama and pokemon interactions.