Emerald hack: Pokémon Revelation v231014: A Vanilla Improvement Hack for Hoenn

[RichterSnipes]

Here's another bugfix update for Revelation!

It's easy to think your own hack might not have as many issues as it might have if you're not testing it every which way you possibly can. Several bugs have been pointed out in my hack Discord server the past month, and I've stamped out each and every one of the ones I've been able to confirm as issues. Hopefully this most recent update takes care of most of the rest of the potential issues the hack has from a technical standpoint.

It's been awhile since I posted here. Before today's update, I pushed an update in late July that changed quite a bit of things. There's a few new features for it in that time:

Spoiler:

• The aforementioned RTC reset code
• Removal of trade restrictions with FR/LG
• An extra Fly spot on Route 112
• Less-strict requirements for rebattling the Pokemon League
• proper scaling on Elite Four/Champion mugshots
• Improved PokeNav flying functionality
• Improved P/S/S category showing on the Pokemon Summary Screen (just press Select with the split enabled, no need to hold Select down)

None of those are brand new in this update, BTW. Those are just me noting what's been added over time since I hadn't mentioned it here previously.

Maybe megas for the pokemon that would have them?

Not happening. I'm not going to be adding anything that impacts battle as significantly as that. I understand the

Firstly, and perhaps most simply - would any patches that update or modify existing moves and level up movesets work on this hack? If not, would you consider releasing an - entirely optional - additional patch that did so?

Maybe balanced, custom, Gen 3 - legal level up moveset modifications to your liking? Gen 3 has some egregiously bad level up movesets, like the Seedot and Lotad lines that don't naturally learn any useful STAB for the vast majority of the early-to-mid game. Lombre can't even easily get a Water Stone to evolve until you get Dive, which, if I recall is near the 7th Gym! As for moves, one of the best grass type moves learnable across the board, is Giga Drain which has 5 pp and 60 base power. It's just...not very useable you know?

It just makes training and levelling most of the base monster set a total chore. I wouldn't expect nor want it as part of the base hack, as per your wishes for compatibility and legitimacy - but an optional patch for people whom that isn't an issue, nor who mind throwing off the balance a tad, it'd be extremely appreciated.

Decomp hacks shift data around in the hack to locations that they normally wouldn't be in compared to the vanilla ROM or more basic binary hacks. As such, I don't see any pre-existing moveset patches working with Revelation.

I'm hesitant to start introducing add-on patches to Revelation because of the nature of multi-patching. Throwback is fairly clunky with how many modular pieces need to be juggled with it. Doing it with a decomp-based hack that requires a baseline BPS patch will mean needing to use two different patching tools. There seems to be enough trouble for some people getting BPS-based hacks working to begin with. Imagine how those people would feel if you told them you needed another tool to also add another feature they may want.

FWIW, I'm not against looking at adding more moves to Pokemon's overall learnsets. I'll look at what options I have available regarding that. I want to maintain fairness and legality when brought to later generations if at all possible, but there is the possibility of leeway with some things.

The implementation of version exclusives/biases via day/night splits, and fitting in the non-Hoenn-native mons in via expanded mass outbreaks, and the bonus post game areas exclusive to Emerald is genius. I adore your version of the Altering Cave.

However some of the wild encounters seem a bit oddly placed for my personal preferences. I love the idea of the daily Altering Cave being a biome for different themed monsters, like the Underground from BDSP. To me that'd be more organic than Seel being found in tropical waters or Sneasel randomly popping up on Mirage Island (which to me would be a much better fit for Unown than Artisan Cave?). I appreciate its explicit purpose is easy EV training with a specific mon each day, but personally, its a sacrifice I'd be willing to make.

Thank you! I didn't begin work on Revelation thinking it would be a 386 hack. It was something that kind of just gradually happened as I looked deeper into possible methods of adding more Pokemon to the game in a natural way.

The Pokemon I placed on Mirage Island are ones that don't have any real good locations to be placed in Hoenn while retaining both legality with later games and making sense with regards to their natural habitats. Hoenn is almost completely absent of snow/ice locations outside of one single room in Shoal Cave. The same goes for Delibird, and similar logic can be used for Ponyta (which can only be caught at higher levels in FR/LG). It can be seen as more of a grab bag than anything else. I also don't think there's a problem with Seel's location, it's appeared in surfable areas regardless of biome specifics. As for Unown, I think it's fitting for it to be in Artisan Cave. The beginnings of the modern alphabet can be traced back to glyphs drawn onto walls and surfaces. Those who inscribed the glyphs could certainly be considered artisans.

Regarding changing the function of Altering Cave, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Part of the reason I like how I implemented it is that it holds true to the original intent of the cave in the sense that only one species of Pokemon is available there at a time. The fact that the Pokemon originally intended for there were meant to hold the stat-boosting Berries just made it a natural choice for me to use it as an EV training grounds.

I would never ask nor expect you to change any of these placements. It's your hack and the placements are intentional/functional. But if I wanted to go about tweaking them myself, could you please, briefly, explain how I might do that?

Naturally being a decomp hack nearly all the old, vanilla, binary romhacking tools are of no use. I'm no hacker, I'm vaguely aware of PoryMap but wouldn't know the first thing about how to open your hack as a project to edit your hack with it? Could you point me in the right direction?

Frankly, there is no easy way of editing wild Pokemon tables without using my custom decomp for Revelation. You could always try brute-force hex editing, but otherwise it is what it is. That's just how decomp hacking goes.

 

[pokemonfan6498]

does this hack works with colosseum bonus disc?

 

[chris burton]

Thank you for your detailed responses, and I respect your decisions. Apologies for replying so late.

I'd never thought about Artisan cave that way! That also makes a lot of sense as regards Altering Cave. I completely forgot about it spawning one specific monster each time in the original. I think I'll grow to appreciate the placements more the more I play. It certainly makes more sense for Unown to actually be in a cave rather than some random island I guess lol.

I think some tools like Hex Maniac at least let me edit certain move properties and may hopefully let me edit level up movesets too once I get my head around it, so even my pleb-tier skills can probably learn to make some tweaks 😅

Quick aside, forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but I believe the locations of some TM's have been changed due to them now being infinite use? Is there a document showing where they are that I've overlooked or would you rather us discover it ourselves? I'm a weirdo who likes to plan out my team in advance and knowing when and where I can get what I need helps smooth that process along. Would you consider doing a quick spoiler tagged post with their location?

Once again, thanks for this wonderful hack

 

[RichterSnipes]

does this hack works with colosseum bonus disc?

Emerald as a whole doesn't work with the Pokemon Colosseum bonus disc. I haven't made any edits to the hack that would make it compatible, so Revelation doesn't work with it, either. I could look into it to see what getting it to work would entail.

I think some tools like Hex Maniac at least let me edit certain move properties and may hopefully let me edit level up movesets too once I get my head around it, so even my pleb-tier skills can probably learn to make some tweaks 😅

Quick aside, forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but I believe the locations of some TM's have been changed due to them now being infinite use? Is there a document showing where they are that I've overlooked or would you rather us discover it ourselves? I'm a weirdo who likes to plan out my team in advance and knowing when and where I can get what I need helps smooth that process along. Would you consider doing a quick spoiler tagged post with their location?

Does Hex Maniac work with decomp hacks? I was under the impression that it was for binary hacking and expected specific offsets for various tables for a specific game. If it's binary-specific, Hex Maniac won't work with Revelation. I will be looking a bit at potential learnset additions in the future, though. I'm not done with that!

The only TM that's changed places is TM35 (Flamethrower). In Gen III it's exclusive to the Game Corner. Since the Game Corner doesn't offer TMs anymore, you instead obtain it

Spoiler:

by giving Professor Cozmo the Meteorite. You receive that instead of TM27 (Return), which is still available in Pacifidlog Town.

 

[chris burton]

Awesome.

Yeah for the handful of moves and TM compatibility changes I wanted (Adding some latter-gen buffs to Giga Drain, Dig, Knock Off, Fly etc. and letting Manectric learn Flamethrower and Overheat by TM), editing them in Hex Maniac on a blank ROM and then patching Revelation worked great. I think it might be because the move learnsets/attributes/compatibilities are largely unaltered in Revelation?

On a patched ROM it lets me edit move attributes but little else, I guess that the pointers/offsets must be the same for moves even in a Decomp hack.

Did a full playthrough the other night and really enjoyed it. Although I love the difficulty options in their simplicity, I think a modern-style exp share system but with a 'set' option would be really appreciated in a future revision.

Also don't know if this is the place to say but found a couple of bugs, one of which I believe has already been pointed out in the Discord. First, I couldn't get the Faraway Island Old Sea Map event to trigger even after listening to the TV broadcast. I'm not sure if I did something wrong or if its still a little buggy. All the other Maps/Events/Items unlocked and worked beautifully. I managed to set the flags to unlock the event myself with PKHex and grabbed Mew, so no worries either way.

Secondly, very minor. When fighting Steven Stone at Meteor Falls in the postgame, the text on just one of his lines of dialogue overran the text box space itself. Not so much that it made what he was saying illegible but it looked a little odd. Sorry I haven't got a screenshot.

 

[RichterSnipes]

Yeah for the handful of moves and TM compatibility changes I wanted (Adding some latter-gen buffs to Giga Drain, Dig, Knock Off, Fly etc. and letting Manectric learn Flamethrower and Overheat by TM), editing them in Hex Maniac on a blank ROM and then patching Revelation worked great. I think it might be because the move learnsets/attributes/compatibilities are largely unaltered in Revelation?

On a patched ROM it lets me edit move attributes but little else, I guess that the pointers/offsets must be the same for moves even in a Decomp hack.

Does it actually work without issues? Decomp hacks shift data around to different locations in the ROM from where they'd be in the vanilla game, so I would think the learnset tables would be in entirely different places. If it is actually working just fine, that's pretty fortunate.

Did a full playthrough the other night and really enjoyed it. Although I love the difficulty options in their simplicity, I think a modern-style exp share system but with a 'set' option would be really appreciated in a future revision.

This has been mentioned several times. I definitely understand the desire to have those features separate from the difficulty setting. The only issue is that if I separate the "Set" battle style from difficulty, literally the only difference between Normal and Hard difficulties would be the badge boosts. I'd want to find other difficulty modifiers to put in place of it if I do separate it. Otherwise I'm not sure if there's much of a point in having a difficulty setting.

Also don't know if this is the place to say but found a couple of bugs, one of which I believe has already been pointed out in the Discord. First, I couldn't get the Faraway Island Old Sea Map event to trigger even after listening to the TV broadcast. I'm not sure if I did something wrong or if its still a little buggy. All the other Maps/Events/Items unlocked and worked beautifully. I managed to set the flags to unlock the event myself with PKHex and grabbed Mew, so no worries either way.

Secondly, very minor. When fighting Steven Stone at Meteor Falls in the postgame, the text on just one of his lines of dialogue overran the text box space itself. Not so much that it made what he was saying illegible but it looked a little odd. Sorry I haven't got a screenshot.

For the Old Sea Map, you have to wait until the next day after you watch the TV broadcast for the item to be available. You can't get it the same day you watch the broadcast.

I'll check the textbox for your other issue sometime in the near-ish future. I want to make an adjustment to that event anyways, so I'll touch up the dialogue as necessary at that point.

 

[H3LLFIR3]

I will admit yes it does need the set feature seperate. maybe you already thought of this but maybe hard difficulty is different teams and better ai. idk i just really like "set" mode. its the only mode i play on. but great hack man im in absolute awe of it! this is the first time ive played anything higher than gen 2 besides y, moon, and sword. Great work dude.

 

[RichterSnipes]

I will admit yes it does need the set feature seperate. maybe you already thought of this but maybe hard difficulty is different teams and better ai. idk i just really like "set" mode. its the only mode i play on. but great hack man im in absolute awe of it! this is the first time ive played anything higher than gen 2 besides y, moon, and sword. Great work dude.

Thanks! Much appreciated.

I've about reached the point to where I'm determined to return the Battle Style option as a separate thing. I just want to find something else I can add to Hard difficulty first.

 

[SpecificallySwampert]

Hey, just thought of something, is the RNG fixed in this hack? I was wondering, because I've seen other hacks do it before, and vanilla Emerald's RNG is broken, by my knowledge.

 

[romariodemacedo]

Hello. First of all, this hack is one of the best I've seen.

Is the project Open Source? I couldn't find a link for the Github repository.

Since I couldn't find any info on the documentation, is the Destiny Knot mechanic implemented somehow or breeding still inherits only 3 IVs?

Is the inheritance IVs bug from original Emerald fixed?

 

[Livectores]

Without spoiling too much, do the Evil Teams/Gym Leaders/E4/Champion have increased difficulty like having more Pokemon on their teams and/or higher levels the further you get into the game?

 

[Carlos0079]

Hi! I have a problem, with the old sea map, i answered the interview and watched already on tv, but there's no mystery gift man in any of the poke marts, maybe it was because i did all the steps before activating the mystery gift option for the first time? Can anyone help me?. Another question i have is how much does it take to the contest girl to win a contest, it is not specified on the txt. Thanks!

 

[RichterSnipes]

Imgur wants to be dumb, so I've updated the links to Postimages. I'm also (finally) resumed hacking work! Perhaps something will materialize in the near future...?

Hey, just thought of something, is the RNG fixed in this hack? I was wondering, because I've seen other hacks do it before, and vanilla Emerald's RNG is broken, by my knowledge.

It sure is! Happy to have you around in the Discord, BTW.

Hello. First of all, this hack is one of the best I've seen.

Is the project Open Source? I couldn't find a link for the Github repository.

Since I couldn't find any info on the documentation, is the Destiny Knot mechanic implemented somehow or breeding still inherits only 3 IVs?

Is the inheritance IVs bug from original Emerald fixed?

It's complicated. I'll share more information on the source once I'm comfortable enough with the state of the hack, among other things.

The Destiny Knot mechanic is not implemented into Revelation. The inheritance bug, on the other hand, is fixed.

Without spoiling too much, do the Evil Teams/Gym Leaders/E4/Champion have increased difficulty like having more Pokemon on their teams and/or higher levels the further you get into the game?

They do not. This is meant to be an enhancement/QoL hack. Changing the difficulty outright of regular game progression would go against my goals.

I will say, though, that the late Gym/Elite Four/Champion situation is a little changed from how it is in vanilla Emerald.

Hi! I have a problem, with the old sea map, i answered the interview and watched already on tv, but there's no mystery gift man in any of the poke marts, maybe it was because i did all the steps before activating the mystery gift option for the first time? Can anyone help me?. Another question i have is how much does it take to the contest girl to win a contest, it is not specified on the txt. Thanks!

Interview: You have to wait until the next day to be able to receive the Old Sea Map. Patience, mail takes time to arrive!
Contest Lady: It takes five desirable/good Pokeblocks for her Pokemon to win its contest.

 

[maccollac]

Hi! Love the hack. How do I find all the other Pokemon besides the standard ones in Emerald base game?
Also the first game hall you encounter you should be able to HMs but it doesn´t have them in store?

 

[PokéemeraldFan92]

Can this game be used as a rom base? I'm working on two rom hacks using emerald, but the first one I can't add more items and the second one has no sounds for Pokemon cries.

 

[RichterSnipes]

Hi! Love the hack. How do I find all the other Pokemon besides the standard ones in Emerald base game?
Also the first game hall you encounter you should be able to HMs but it doesn´t have them in store?

Pokemon not in the Hoenn Dex aren't obtainable until after you beat the game. You'll find them in wild locations not in Ruby/Sapphire, in the Safari Zone expansions, in mass outbreaks, as prizes, and from events.

Also, by "game hall" do you mean the Game Corner? The TMs there have been replaced by hold items that increase specific move type damage in battle. Most of those TMs were already obtainable in other ways in the vanilla game, with Flamethrower's TM being put in the game elsewhere.

Can this game be used as a rom base? I'm working on two rom hacks using emerald, but the first one I can't add more items and the second one has no sounds for Pokemon cries.

Technically, yes. As of now you'd need to try your best to get it to work with HMA. I'm not exactly comfortable with the state that my hack is in yet to publicly have my repo be accessible by others. But I'd really appreciate others wanting to use it as a base for their own works (with proper credit given)!

 

[RichterSnipes]

Pokémon Revelation v230919 Finally Arrives!

Revelation returns with a long overdue update. As part of my effort to maintain compatibility with the official games, I'm happy to announce that I've restored backwards compatibility with vanilla Emerald! I've also restored compatibility with PKSM and removed the need to mess with settings with PKHeX. Additionally, I've fixed all hack bugs that I've been able to replicate.

As far as hack features goes, this update adds some nice things like a stats judge and e-Reader Trainer support. It also addresses many requests I've received on the hack's Discord server on a variety of topics, from additional QoL features to tweaking hack options, and even adding some stuff from other games. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to share them! I gladly take all input I can get.

You can read the changelog included with the download to see what's different this version. Enjoy!

 

[JMcG]

Thanks so much for creating this amazing hack, I'm loving it. Can I just ask, am I understanding the day/night changes correctly? I'm finding Mawile in Granite cave throughout day and night 6-8/8-6 and can't seem to find Sableye… Any ideas?

 

[megascizor22]

Hi there,

First of all, love the hack!
I was wondering, is there a way to obtain a different region ditto for masuda method without trading?
I have no one to trade with.

 

[RichterSnipes]

I'm gonna be releasing an update tomorrow that addresses bugs introduced with this previous update. It'll come with a couple of new features in its own right, but this is mainly about maintenance.

Thanks so much for creating this amazing hack, I'm loving it. Can I just ask, am I understanding the day/night changes correctly? I'm finding Mawile in Granite cave throughout day and night 6-8/8-6 and can't seem to find Sableye… Any ideas?

It should be working that way. What are you playing the game on? As in, what hardware and/or emulator? Can you confirm that the clock ingame is showing the correct time?

Hi there,

First of all, love the hack!
I was wondering, is there a way to obtain a different region ditto for masuda method without trading?
I have no one to trade with.

There is not. As it currently stands, there aren't any foreign Pokemon obtainable in Revelation itself. If you need to, you could always edit a Pokemon in your save file to have a different origin language. Or find/make a save file from a different language of the game. It actually isn't that hard to convert an English save to that of a different official language (as long as it's not Japanese).