The Pokémon Infernal Punishment demo is now available to download, and this ROM hack from creator drawntoast is rather more ambitious than its title might suggest. Sitting underneath that grim name is a game with a genuinely novel narrative structure, a time-management system that makes Nintendo‘s Majora’s Mask look relaxed, and a Soul mechanic lifted straight from the Pokémon Colosseum era.
Shadow Pokémon and a Story Worth Following
The game draws on Pokémon from all nine generations alongside a full roster of Shadow Pokémon. If Shadow Pokémon passed you by, Pokémon Colosseum is the place to start: it was that game that introduced the concept of Pokémon whose souls had been corrupted, and the process of purifying them so they would obey their trainers. Infernal Punishment puts that idea at the very centre of its narrative.
The story drawntoast has built around these mechanics reads more like a fantasy novel than anything in the official Pokémon canon. Three years before the game begins, a young woman called Yuki sacrificed herself to save her friends. Because she lacked a soul, the sacrifice left her in a coma-like state, trapped in the inner recesses of her own mind. She awakens in Kamikura, a place within the Kami Realm, described as a world opposite to the human realm where time carries no meaning.
There she meets Mashiro, the kami of all souls. Mashiro has lost her divine powers because souls are still being stolen by unknown means back in the human realm. Noticing that Yuki lacks a soul of her own, Mashiro tells her she can forge a new one by building bonds with people. Yuki agrees to help Mashiro recover her power while rebuilding herself in the process, and is sent back to the human realm to begin.
The Pokémon Infernal Punishment Demo and Its Two Central Systems
Two mechanics define how that story unfolds in the Pokémon Infernal Punishment demo. The first is the Unreal Time System. Days are cut into four segments: morning, noon, evening, and nighttime. Time moves as you carry out activities, and the day will not turn over until you sleep and pass the time deliberately. You cannot simply camp in one period; each time segment holds content that demands you explore it properly.
Layered on top of that is the Rokuyo Calendar, a repeating six-day cycle that governs your luck throughout the game. The six days are: Sensho (good luck in the morning, neutral at noon); Tomobiki (bad luck at noon, good luck in the morning); Sakimake (bad luck in the morning, neutral at noon); Butsumetsu (terrible luck all day); Taian (excellent luck all day); and Shakku (good luck at noon, bad luck in the morning). The calendar shapes what is worth attempting on any given in-game day, adding a layer of planning that sits on top of the already demanding time system.
The second major mechanic is Social Links. Yuki rebuilds her soul by forging bonds with the people she meets, and maintaining those relationships requires active effort. Let a bond slip and the person will lose interest and drift away. The more connections Yuki holds, the greater the benefits she gains. drawntoast describes the feeling as something like Pokémon crossed with Animal Crossing in that regard, and if you thought Majora’s Mask trained you to manage time under pressure, Infernal Punishment has other ideas.
The combination of a grief-tinged fantasy narrative, a granular day-night cycle, a six-part luck calendar, and a relationship-maintenance system makes this one of the more layered Pokémon ROM hacks to appear in some time. The demo is available to download now from Eevee Expo.
