Mid-May already, huh? Man, time flies by fast. Strange to see so many deleted posts on this last page, too.
I'm getting back to working on Throwback. Right now, my focus is on overhauling the hack's structure entirely. There are some deep-seated intricacies about the hack that I want to change to make the hack cleaner, smaller in file size, and easier to port. All parts of the hack will see this change in some way. This will take me some time, so I don't know when I'll be done with it. My ultimate goal for this sounds unwieldy, but also powerful:
Make every single feature of the hack optional/selectable.
What does this mean? Even more choice than there is now. You get all the choices possible! If you only want specific things from the Extras patch, for example, you can select them A la carte. I never want people to have to deal with unwanted features or features seen as bulk, so this will let people precisely choose how they want to play Pokémon. When I finish overhauling things, I'll just need to determine a means of distribution for the options. With the ideal setup I have in my mind, I hope to look back at possibly including some options that I previously felt were unfitting for the hack. We'll see, though!
Fair warning, though: Me doing this means that there might be an option or two that's dropped in the next release. Certain modifications in the hack are provided by other hackers in the Pokémon community. If they don't wish to have their hacks distributed in a patch or patch-esque form without any other changes, I'll need to remove them. From what I know so far, only Darthatron's modern Repel system port will get the axe under this new system. I'll try to find a way to keep them available, but I must respect the wishes of other hackers.
This is amazing! Thank you for your hard work on this. If I can make a suggestion on how to make it even more the 100% definitive Kanto experience however, would it be possible to add in the cut battle with Professor Oak from red and blue as an optional individual patch? It could be a post game event that happens after you complete the Kanto Dex of 151(or the national dex if you want). The excuse to start the battle could make use of popular fan theories by having him reference that, he was the previous league champion before Blue (beating Agatha) and he resigned recently to pursue research but as a reward for fulfilling .his dream, hell give the player a chance to prove that they are the undisputed best. Obviously he'd congratulate the player after he loses and will give them a rematch if he wins. His team could consist of: Taros, Gyrados,Executor,Arcanine, The fully evolved starter that the player and rival didn't chose and finally Nidoking (who is the evolved forum of Nidorino who fights Gengar in the intro, possibly showing Oak vs Agatha in the past (this is a popular fan theory as Pokemon generation 0's team have given Oak Nidoran as a starter) heck Oak even shows a Nidoran F in the starting scene of the game (could be changed to male for consistency).
Thanks for trying out the hack!
You're right about considering the context of including such an option. My problem with your suggestion is exactly as you said: It's a fan theory. I personally don't like the idea of trying to canonize something that have been proposed by the people playing them. I don't really know any specifics about the possible Oak-Agatha connection a lot of people in the fandom seem fascinated by. If I wanted to entreat that, I'd need to become immersed in that information and implement a feature based on how I feel is best considering everything floating around that's been posted by fans. Frankly, I don't want to do that. I like Pokémon, but I've got many other interests in the world of video games, too. And plenty others outside of it, of course.
There's also the issue of Professor Oak's team. In the game, Oak states that the three starter Pokémon are his last remaining creatures. I find it best to put faith in what he says. There's always the justification that he's lying to the main characters and actually does have a personal team left. As a professor, though, I think his ambitions and attention would be fully focused on studying Pokémon. Also, I always thought that if anyone was to get the unchosen starter from Oak's lab, it would be the protagonist that you're not playing as. I know I previously shot down the idea of including the Oak battle.
Now that I'm thinking everything over again, though, there's always a slight chance I'll do something about it if I can find a good way to do it. It'd certainly be it's own patch separate from any existing patch for Throwback, along with other options being reconsidered.
Anyway I just think that would be a really cool patch that would make Kanto feel more complete. Other than that the hack is just about perfect. The only other things that come to mind is adding day/night cycle (that include the eveelution), weather, seasons and adding an optional patch that could make trade evolution obtainable via leveling up or by using a stone (but that would be in an ideal world IMO). Maybe to expand the post game the battle frontier from Emerald could be inserted like the Mew event was. Well that's all the ideas I can think of, if any of my suggestions are already possible then please let me know. Anyway great work and thank you so much for the patches.
You're very welcome, and thanks for the suggestions! Let me go through these things individually:
Day/Night: There would need to be mechanics in the game that justify its existence. Espeon/Umbreon is not enough (You can get both of them in the hack, BTW. I implemented RTC for that reason). I guess I could find things to tie to day and night, like certain wild Pokémon appearances and a few events already in the game. Maybe make it so Daisy only gives one Pokémon a haircut once a day during the daytime... although I bet people would get mad at me for changing that to make it much less exploitative.
Weather: This isn't entirely out of the question. I actually think some areas would look better with a certain weather effect. However, they'd be subtle effects that are realistic for the given area. That means no snow or heavy rain.
Seasons: This would be a feature to include just to say, "Hey, look! My hack has seasons!" There's no functional purpose for it that'd be fitting for the original games without reworking them entirely, and that's not the purpose of this hack.
Trade Evolutions: At this point I have no idea if anyone will ever figure out a more elegant way to simulate in-game evolutions triggered by trading. The feature portions of this hack will never change how these Pokémon evolve. Like I said, though, I'm reconsidering things for off-to-the-side options.
Battle Frontier: You are aware that no existing FireRed hacks have that, right? It's a lot harder to implement than many might think at first.
