I am writing this review because I do not understand why everyone rates this ROM hack so highly. I see this hack being praised all over the Internet, hailed as one of the greatest Pokémon ROM hacks ever made. Even on here, Light Platinum has an overall rating average of 9.6. I was mislead by all the positive reviews into thinking this would be such an amazing hack, so I feel obligated to write a negative one myself after my bad experience with the game. There is so much blatantly wrong with this game that I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I'll just go in order. You're free to have whatever opinion you want about the game, but I feel like this game has a lot of obvious flaws that everyone is turning a blind eye to.
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Graphics - 7
Graphics look very nice on the surface. Note that I said "on the surface." First off, the maps. Rather than stick with the original RSE tilesets (this is a Ruby hack), the tilesets are taken from DPP, and for the most part, the mapping is well done. I actually think the mapping is done better and is more interesting/detailed than the mapping of Pokémon in the first four generations. But when you look deeper, the maps have some pretty glaring flaws. For one, for a supposedly complete game, there sure are many graphical glitches. There are many spots that look like you should be able to walk on, but can't. An example of this is Inhore City (the honey town), a four tile spot to the right of a house located to the right of a Pokémart. There's nothing there, yet you can't walk there for some odd reason. Tile passability on objects such as benches isn't set correctly, as in you cannot walk behind them, which I found most annoying in the starting town, Yellow Town.

I played as the girl character, so I don't know if the boy character does this, but my character's reflection in water is shown to be blonde for some reason instead of dark blue as shown on the actual sprite.
The running sprites (at least for the girl) could have been done much better.
Characters sometimes completely vanish out of nowhere and show up again, an example being your mom briefly after setting the clock at the beginning.
There is a part where you have to take a ferry to cross a lake. The ferry is shown horizontally on the dock. When the ferry crosses the lake, it doesn't turn up, instead staying horizontal as it moves vertically, which looks really bizarre and lazy. 
This last thing, I'm not sure if it qualifies as graphics, but in cutscenes, when the screen pans, it's done at such a painfully slow speed that I am obligated to speed the emulator up.

As for battles, the Pokémon sprites are taken from later games, and for the most part they look good except there are some sprites that needed to be cropped and look a little weird. 

In short, effort was put into the graphics, but they could be done better. The hacker should have polished them up more.
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Sound - 6 
The soundtrack is just the good ol' RSE soundtrack. What's not to love? The RSE soundtrack is one of my personal favorites. The sound effects are also kept the same, and I have no complaints about the RSE sound effects.

...So why did I only rate this a 6 then?

I rated it a 6 not because of the soundtrack quality, but WHEN the soundtrack was used. See, the hacker didn't think about what songs would be appropriate for the various situations in the game. The best example I can think of is the fact that gym leaders use the regular plain trainer battle music (yeah, really), yet when Professor Oak was being attacked by a pathetic level 3 Feebas, one of the weakest Pokémon in the game, the Regi battle music played. That should be self-explanatory, I shouldn't have to explain why that's so wrong.

Trainer classes always have specific encounter music to suit who they are, but here, the default music for each class were changed, which is to a very unfitting effect for many of them. The best example I can think of is the Sailor trainer class. For some peculiar reason, the hacker thought it was a good idea to change the sailor encounter music to the twin girls encounter theme. I'm just so confused on why the hacker thought that was a good idea. Was it supposed to be funny?

There is also a part where Team Steam (the evil team of the game) has taken over a botanical research building and set the town on fire. You would expect something menacing to play as the flames engulf the town (I mean this lightly since the flames were tiny and didn't spread, and were not long after extinguished) but no, the DEWFORD TOWN music plays. Even inside the taken over building, Dewford still plays. I can go on and on and on with moments like this. The hacker just did not think about how important music choice is when crafting cutscenes or making a story. 
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Addictiveness - 2
I don't have very much to say about this. The only reason I played as long as I did is because I found the flaws to be entertaining. This is just simply not a good ROM hack.
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Story - 1
The story might be the worst part. First off let me get this out of the way, I don't play Pokémon for the story. I don't go in expecting a story that'll tug at my heartstrings and bring me to tears. Second, yes, I know that English is not the hacker's first language but that doesn't excuse the mistakes made here. Anyway, I found the story hard to follow and boring. Ash Ketchum is in the game as the champion for some reason despite the anime proving time and time again that it won't ever happen, which immediately made me have no expectations for the plot and gave off the impression that this hack is meant to cater to fans of the anime. Speaking of that, the game's plot feels like a poorly-written fanfic.

What I mean by the plot being hard to follow is that the syntax in the game's dialogue is poor. The language used is very simple and repetitive, which makes the dialogue very boring to read, and frankly the scenes just don't flow very well. I hear that the story is much better in the original Portuguese version, so I think this hacker should have had someone help them translate it, smoothing out the dialogue so it sounds more natural in English. 

There are also so many rivals (too many) and none of them have personality. Throughout the game, you fight many different rivals, far more than you have in any of the main games, even more than XY. Many people's complaints about XY includes having too many rivals. Well this game takes it up to eleven. ...Not literally. But still, you have about 7(?) rivals in this game. Because none of them have personality, I can't really tell them apart, so I lost count of them, but I think there are seven. Anyway, in your standard Pokémon game, you have only one or two rivals, which show up periodically to battle you. It's not that often, so it's unpredictable and ends up surprising you. In this game, any of your many rivals will show up so often to battle you that I was like like "oh... meh." when they showed up. I didn't get the feeling that I do when a rival normally shows up.

This last thing doesn't really have to do with story but it's about dialogue. It's so lazy. There are many NPCs that share dialogue, sometimes located right next to each other. Here are some notable examples:

- In Central City, there is a lady sitting on a bench with her Buneary that says, "My favorite POKéMON is ROSELIA. It's very fragrant and beautiful, but it's also strong in battle." A little south of her near the train station is another lady that says that same exact line. There are many instances of this. Most if not all areas have at least one NPC that shares dialogue with another in the same area.

- There is a boy with brown hair and glasses in a house also in Central City that says, "To learn a POKéMON's secrets, just be a good friend!" In subsequent towns, that same boy with brown hair and glasses appears in every single Pokémon center to say the same exact line. Speaking of Pokémon centers, I noticed that they actually always have the same 3 NPCs inside of them. The aforementioned boy, a ranger that says, "The POKéMON CENTER restores the energy of your POKéMON and heals them quickly." and a karate person that says, "I train my POKéMON every day so that they will be my best friends!" Most if not all of them have those same 3 NPCs, in the same spots no less.

- Every Pokémart has the same boy that says, "Here you can buy anything from POKéBALLS to ANTIDOTES!" even when the mart in fact does not carry Pokéballs or Antidotes. More on this subject under "Difficulty" below.

- There are even NPCs of a boyfriend and girlfriend next to each other where the girl says (using a couple in National Park for an example), "My boyfriend and I like to relax by this beautiful lake." and then the boy says "My girlfriend and I like to relax by this beautiful lake." Real people generally do not talk like this. They'd use different words.

I can keep going on. Besides the poor syntax, the dialogue is just plain lazy, as if the hacker didn't want to write enough lines of dialogue to accommodate the amount of NPCs they wanted to include in the game.
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Depth - 8
What I won't deny on the positive side is there's a lot to do in the game. There are two regions to explore which puts it above most real Pokémon games in content. It's also of course, a Pokémon game, meaning you can spend hours just looking around for new Pokémon to catch which adds a lot of depth. However, all these flaws I described before and past this prevent me from being hooked in enough to want to see the full game. The depth is likely what makes this hack so beloved by everyone. What everyone should be keeping in mind though is that quality is more important than quantity.
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Difficulty - 7
I had no idea what to rate the difficulty because it is all over the place. This game is plagued with fake difficulty and overall being unbalanced.
The very first area of the game alone had 3 unavoidable trainers, each with 4-5 Pokémon. All the other first routes in Pokémon I can think of have no trainers and just grass. This makes sense, because you are just starting out and cannot afford to be fighting, say... 3 trainers that each have 4-5 Pokémon. You only have your starter, and don't yet have Pokéballs to catch more to help. Normally, I wouldn't make a big deal of this, because in most games you can just return home to heal up. Most games have your mom heal your Pokémon, or in the case of Gen 2, there is a healing machine in the professor's lab.

Well, not Light Platinum! Light Platinum has absolutely no healing point in the starting town. Your mom does not heal you, nor is there a healing machine in the lab. I talked to every NPC there in Yellow Town, interacted with stuff, and no, there is no way to heal there. Indeed, my Bulbasaur ended up running out of PP and Struggled itself to death because there was no way to heal. That wasn't before me dying because he got paralyzed and there was no way to heal it besides fainting. You could say I would have had a much easier time there if I started with Charmander, but those Venipedes the Bug Catchers have know Rollout, so not necessarily. I don't mind a challenge, in fact, I believe main Pokémon games are too easy, but there's a difference between being too difficult and too unbalanced. This is just plain unbalanced. I should note you can find an Elekid in the starting town, but not everyone wants to be forced to use a specific Pokemon like that.

Remember when I said there are no Pokéballs? Well while I was talking to every NPC in Yellow Town desperate to heal my Bulbasaur's paralysis, the professor gave me Pokéballs. If I didn't do that, I would have never known that you could even get those free Pokéballs. That was a poor design choice, I wonder how many players completely missed that? The professor should have given you the Pokéballs when she was talking to me before I set off, not if you talk to her again.

Now let's talk about items. Another reviewer on here already addressed this but I'm going to mention it too. In a completely bizarre game design choice, the early marts sell the stronger (but expensive) items such as Ultra Balls and Full Heals, and the later marts sell the weaker items. Because the stronger items are sold at the beginning, and trainers don't drop much prize money, it's very difficult at the beginning to save up to buy enough supplies. Central City sells the weaker items too, (except Pokéballs) but all the marts past that sell the strong, expensive items. I don't want to have to go all the way back to Central City's mart just to stock up on the cheaper Potions and Antidotes.

This is especially bad because, another reviewer also talked about this, there are a ton of bug and grass type Pokémon during the beginning, meaning your Pokémon very commonly get plagued by status problems. You need to buy lots of Full Heals, but can't afford a lot of them because it's the beginning and you don't have much money. If you start with Charmander, I bet the beginning of the game is much easier, but my point still stands because just because you have a fire type doesn't mean you can't be affected by powders and the like. Also, even if you didn't start with Charmander, a guy in Central City gifts you a Growlithe, and you find the TM for Flamethrower early on. This isn't good game balance. You also get the TM for Focus Punch in the second town, which mind you is a 120 power move.  Very powerful TMs early in the game.

Growlithe isn't the only Pokémon handed to you either. You are gifted lots and lots of Pokémon throughout the game. More starters, Larvitar, Zorua, Miltank, an Eevee egg (you are told it's Eevee), Lapras... and this is just early in the game. It's almost not worth catching Pokémon at all because you get so many Pokémon gifted to you on a silver platter. I can see people liking this aspect but I don't, I think it's done way too much.

Central City also has a Safari Zone, which is cool, except it has two different areas that both cost 500 Pokédollars to get into. They have cool Pokémon at the first glance, until you realize that you can actually catch those Pokémon for free if you wait just a little. The most egregious instance of this is Croagunk. You can catch Croagunk in the marsh area in the Safari Zone. However, you can literally find Croagunk in the grass on the route to the right of Central City. What was the point of that?! I didn't catch a Croagunk myself there, but I can only imagine how annoyed someone who did would have been at that, considering how precious money is in the beginning.

Until around the second gym, all the trainers tend to each carry 5 Pokémon, it isn't just that first route. I enjoy battling, but even I found that a chore. Then suddenly trainers start having only two Pokémon, and the leveling curve ceases being as steep as it was at the beginning of the game.

I can keep going on and on, the difficulty is mostly fake difficulty, and it's all over the place. It tries to compensate by giving out powerful gift Pokémon but it just makes the unbalancedness of this hack more apparent.
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Overall - 3
Some would say this is a harshly low score, but I see this as generous. Light Platinum just isn't the "amazing" hack everyone paints it to be. I have played worse hacks, don't get me wrong, but there's just so much weighing this down. I'm not saying don't play, I'm just saying to take the positive reviews with a grain of salt because this hack could be a lot better. Its strong points are graphics (in the strictly aesthetic sense since as I mentioned there are many bugs) and its length. Weak is everything else. 
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I have two more things I must mention, but don't know where to place, so I'll put them here.

1. There is a part where you need to infiltrate an area that the evil team of the game took over by putting on a disguise. The disguise is literally just the Acro Bike except instead of riding a bike, your character is wearing a different outfit. The bike music plays while wearing it, you walk super fast as if you're riding the bike, and you can even do the bunny hops while wearing it which looks ridiculous. Couldn't the hacker at least have removed the music? Or maybe change the music to be something menacing to fit the mood? Also, if you open the menu again to take off the disguise, the cancel for it says "WALK" which makes it more obvious that it's supposed to be a bike.

2. I am convinced that the hacker didn't playtest this much if at all. There is a way to get stuck by accident with no way to continue, I only could continue because of a Gameshark code to walk through walls. The second gym is skippable. After the botanical research building takeover, there is nothing stopping you from moving on to the area with the ferry I mentioned earlier, and taking the ferry. For some reason, the ferry is one way only, meaning that lake is a point of no return until you have access to Surf. The second gym badge grants you the ability to Lava Surf, so if you ride the ferry before beating the second gym, you are unable to pass Mt. Shuem which requires Lava Surf and are completely stuck because you can't go forward or back. A complete game, huh? If I needed to use a GAMESHARK CODE in order to prevent myself from being unable to progress, that is not a complete game and needs a fix.

What a good review! I mean sure it's a negative one but wow you really surprised me as I thought it was gonna be a 50 word post saying it's bad. You went into detail saying why it's bad, why you personally don't like it, etc. Please make more of these if you like making these, newbies like you are great when then review more than 30-100 words.

I mostly wrote this review because every other review I saw turned a blind eye to this game's faults which made me think this would be a super amazing perfect game when really it's pretty... unpolished. They call it complete but I think it needs a ton of ironing out. It's certainly playable (except of course for the fact that I needed to use a walk through walls cheat at one point because I unintentionally got myself stuck and others have done the same), and I can see why people would like it (the reasons you said are valid) but with all my nitpicks I don't think people should be calling this the "greatest Pokémon hack ever made" like I have been seeing them do so. I played many Pokémon hacks over the years that are much more polished than this one but don't get as much attention.

And yeah, I've heard of Dark Rising and just from the single screenshot (...Digimon...? Really...?) I saw, I believe you. There are definitely worse hacks out there.

This review is great. Way to go for not being afraid to actually criticize a game! You really should become a reviewer, if ya wanted. I look forward to reading more of your reviews in the future.

A user of this is right, it takes courage to go against the popular opinion when your gut tells you otherwise. You've built a bulletproof list of your gripes, and done so in a clear, focus way that isn't griefing.  Your bit about the author's seemingly careless way with shuffling the music I felt was a strong argument, and one that shows you see this not just from a player, but from the developers side.  Fantastic review.

That's exactly what I did. As a person who has been working on a game for several years, when I analyze  games, I try to look at it from not only a player's perspective but a developer's perspective. I tried to imagine what went through the hacker's mind when making this game and deciding it was presentable enough to call it a complete game.