Bakken31

- Pretty close! Just cleared the Aqua Hideout, but found a few issues and stopped playing to fix them.
- I want to replace the Fly HM with something (probably the eon flute), and also allow fly to be used without needing the Fortree badge. There's a lot of back tracking early on and it's a bit of a pain!
- It's a tough call between Renegade and BB2 (I prefer the full versions with all the type changes etc.). I've played BB2 far too many times so I guess it'd win just based on that!
- I normally do, but sometimes I'll run into something along the way that winds up on the team early on and stays there until the end. E.g. I'd planned to use Golduck, Gourgeist, Heatmor, Lycanroc, Vikavolt and some Fairy type on my current Emerald run, but wound up catching a Magic Guard Abra and using that instead of the Fairy type. The triple Dark weakness is nasty but Alakazam has been really good so far. Also had Granbull, Venusaur, Toucannon and Zapdos at some point, which were all really good at certain points in the game.

I probably won't continue working on it; the early game level curve is really bad (not sure how that happened) and Renegade Platinum is better, though not as difficult. Don't know what I'll be doing after Emerald yet, but there's lots more to be done before it's completed!

Unfortunately it's still the crappy gen 3 itemfinder, might have to do something about it at some point! Most of the hidden item locations are unchanged or in obvious spots though so it's not too bad as it is.

Removing EV gains for the player can actually be harder than just giving the trainers EVs - I tried it in my unreleased Platinum hack and it was really nasty. The main thing you notice is that bulky Pokemon don't take hits as well as they usually would; I'd guess because they lose HP and points in a defensive stat, while offensive mons only lose points in an offensive stat. Perfect IVs vs bad IVs doesn't help either!

Oh nice, I used a Sudowoodo early on in EX too, it made short work of Viola's team! That's an interesting mix of boxed mons too.

- Gale Wings is the gen 6 version for now; I might tweak it a bit later (maybe have it only work with no held item or something), and Parental Bond isn't implemented yet. Will probably go with the gen 7 version for it.
- Yep they can be! My plan for that is to have the code contain all the data for both versions, but only include the relevant stuff when it's built into each ROM.
- Haha, the wild battle and regular trainer themes are starting to get a bit grating, but the rest is still good!
- That does look better than the DPPt one, will add it in when I add all those recent second frames he's done.
IMO random EVs/natures is the best way to play EXWY, it keeps your team from horribly outclassing the enemy trainers. Min-maxing EVs for PSPM helps but definitely isn't needed. Was Slowbro your mega in Prismatic Moon?

- I'll be going with scenario 2; the only reason there's no Insanity at release is so I can include gen 8 mons when working on the trainer rosters.
- I have much less grindy systems than that, you can pay a "super trainer" NPC to give your Pokemon EVs without even battling, conveniently found in the same house as the hyper trainer. You can also buy the power items in Slateport as a slower but much cheaper method, and the EV reducing berries grow very quickly and give a lot of berries, even without watering them (IIRC the minimum is 8 berries and they grow in 4 hours).

Haha it's fine, don't worry about it!

- Yeah I'd need a midi download, don't enough about music to convert it myself. It's a good rendition of the theme though!
- Game corner prices are as follows:

Hey, not bad!

My favorite thing's adding new features in C; things like Rotom's form change and the nature changer were pretty fun to get working. Least favorite thing is finding bugs, especially in the battle engine. Sometimes they're quite tricky to fix!

Personally I don't use items in battle anymore, but that's mostly just to make sure my trainer battles aren't too hard. I figure if I can beat them without using any items, then other people should be able to beat them with some item use if needed. I try not to use them in other people's hacks too (and won't use revives in battle), but sometimes I'll use a healing item to get past something like Mira's Porygon 2 in Renegade Platinum. I also don't mind boss battles taking a few attempts in a difficulty hack, that's part of the fun!

Also Sacred Ash can't actually be used in battle, it's just a nice QoL thing to cut down the time you spend healing while going through an area.

Hey!

- The three big things are not having to deal with Advance Map (porymap is sooo good), how easy it is to change almost anything (E.g. editing the title screen in pokeemerald was just replacing a png file) and access to proper source control for the entire ROM. That last point makes it really easy to find bugs, and makes it impossible to permanently break something. The CFRU simplifies a lot of things and is really good, but it still comes with some of the old binary hacking drawbacks. Also there's no Emerald version of it!
- Hard has "proper" EV spreads for trainers; they won't have more than the 510 limit, and they won't always have 252/252/4 spreads either, though those are the most common spreads for bosses.
- Those are really good! I've already made a custom Milotic one so that's ok. Haven't decided what the other new megas will be yet, other than Flygon and Lapras (still haven't got a design for Flygon).

I'm looking forward to SGSS too! Might try doubles hard mode just to shake things up a little; if it's anything like Blaze Black's doubles and triples it'll be pretty fun.
Hopefully Pixel Platinum gets finished! There have been a few attempts to demake Platinum, not sure if any made it to the end.
Emerald's not too far off now, my test playthrough is at Mt. Chimney (found plenty of bugs so far, glad I decided to do a test run). Not sure how much longer Gen 8 will take as I'll have to do a lot of the item and ability effects myself.

- It doesn't, but I might look into adding that. Never really noticed that Emerald didn't have that feature!
- That's pretty cool!
- Looks like that's coming along nicely, the music is done well.
- It should work on any good GBA emulator. Never tried MyBoy but I don't think there will be any issues with it.

Hey, I'm good. How've you been?

- I've finished the rematches, now I'm just making some changes to the AI and doing a test playthrough to catch any obvious bugs. Other than that version 1.0 is pretty much done.
- Maybe. I've set the ROM up so that saves from the current version will be compatible with the version that adds gen 8 mons, but any new forms won't be accounted for so that'd be a save-breaking update. I'd prefer to avoid those for as long as possible!
- Yep! They're all backed up online too; the 3DS ones are on google drive of course, and Emerald is on github. Very unlikely I'll lose them!
- Ooh I do want to check those out, Mr Dollsteak's second frames are always really good.
- I mostly use mgba and citra (for Emerald and 3DS games), but I've also got a hacked 3DS and a flashcart so I can play all the DS and 3DS games on hardware. Drastic on Android is pretty good but I don't really use it much. I do want to get dolphin set up for some of the older Fire Emblem games too, still haven't played most of them. Definitely have to do the important things before playing games!

Hey!
- It's going well, I just need to finish the rematch teams (which make up about half of the trainers in the game somehow) and fix a few bugs in the battle engine and it'll be ready for a release. Need to make a "standard" version too, but I might see how much demand there is for that first. Gen 8 mons are included now but are currently unobtainable, but this will make save files from future versions compatible with version 1.0 saves. I've also just expanded the bag so it can hold every single item in the game, and added a new key item that acts as a portable Poke Center (it has limited uses, but can be recharged whenever you visit an actual center).
- Normal difficulty is actually closer to Drayano hacks, the only difference between Normal and Hard is that trainers on normal don't have EVs, but they will in Hard. If normal turns out to be too hard I might add a casual setting for people who want it. Insanity will be similar to Radical Red and Unbound Insane with some added nonsense (currently thinking totem boosts for some trainers' Pokemon), but it won't be in the initial version of the hack as I want gen 8 to be ready to go before working on it.
- Currently the difficulty is set at the start and can't be changed, but I'll probably add a way to lower it in the future.
- I actually haven't seen any of the new Snap, will need to take a look!
- Yeah I've been keeping an eye on Dray's twitter, hope he's looking after himself. Will be interesting to see how he solves his Sylveon dilemma!

I hope so! I had fun making it either way, if anyone else enjoys it I'll be happy. Should be more accessible than my 3DS hacks too so it'll be interesting to see how much that matters.

Have fun with Bayonetta!

Hey, I'm not sure what I want to do ROM hacking wise after Emerald. Probably won't add gen 9 to it, but I kinda want to try a custom region hack at some point. Don't know if I'll have enough free time for something like that, or even which game I'd base it on (probably Emerald, unless the Platinum decomp is usable by then).

Those aren't bad, might need to clean up the outlines on a few of them though. Still need to finish gen 8 moves and abilities before worrying about second frames, but I'll keep them in mind for later.

Hey, that was something I'd planned but wound up scrapping as I didn't like the map I'd made for it. The current plan is to add a graveyard and/or haunted house to Dewford instead, so there'll still be an early game ghost area.

Happy New Year! Hope this one's better than last year!

Hey!
Oh nice, he's finished the last two starter sprites then?
- I hadn't planned to include Looker, but might do something with him if I can get a RSE style version of his theme into the game. Wouldn't be the same without it!
- I haven't ported anything from the CFRU but I think some of my QoL features are same as the ones it includes.

- I've got a custom HM system that lets you deal with HMS in a few ways:
* You can teach a Pokemon the HM move and use it like in vanilla
* You can just have a Pokemon in your party that can learn the HM, and it will be able to use it in the overworld without actually knowing the move
* If you don't have any Pokemon that can learn an HM (except Flash and Fly), you can call a gym leader's Pokemon to use the HM for you (basically the Poke ride system)
- Yep, you can even choose between a few different modes for the rematch: singles, doubles and legendary (which will allow them to use "ubers" legendaries)
- I haven't actually played any this year, but from what I've seen it'd be either Radical Red or Unbound. Won't know until I've actually played them though!

Responses in bold! Copied your whole message so I could keep track of all the questions:
-Pokecommunity didn't complete all new Gen V icons, so I found a link for you:
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1xxOEbLr1mD-RDqWS9g1t7bOas-QeUrGE?usp=drive_open
Thanks!
-I guess your Emerald hack will have 85-90% of pokemon that have second frame sprites in the first release version, right? and is it hard for you to create some custom second frame sprites for some pokemon that don't have it yet?
Not quite that many sadly, closer to 50%: every Pokemon from gen I-IV and most of V have second frames, but the rest are all single frame animations. I can make second frames but it's very time consuming, so I haven't made any custom ones yet (that'll be a version 2+ thing I think)
-I prefer the design of Pokemon & stats menu to stay originally as it is instead of HGSS and/or BW styles (like in Radical Red, Theta Emerald Renev & maybe Unbound), and for pokedex, well maybe a new PokedexPlus from this site but with Emerald design, but it's up to you.
I'll be keeping most of the Pokemon menus close to their original design. At some point they'll need to be modified a bit to support longer move/Pokemon/ability names, but I'll try to keep the general look. I'll be using The Xaman's Pokedex though, it's like having all the hack's documents in game!
-Are May & Brendan's pokemon teams different (aside from starters)?
Yeah, they got completely different teams aside from their starter and Swellow; there wasn't much to work with there lol.
-Does it have a rival battle inside the Pokemon League before battling the E4? (Like Barry/Sinnoh rival battle in the Pokemon League (DPPt))
I had that in my old 2012 version of Emerald, still deciding if I want to have it in this one too! There's a daily rematch with them in the post game at least.
-Does Scott from Battle Frontier have some battles in this hack to demonstrate players?
No, but I'll be adding battles with the Frontier Brains in the main game as a way to get certain items.
-I know it's obvious, but I want to say that I'm sure that in this hack, trainers in the Victory Road have mega evolutions like in EXWY, RRSS, & PSPM.
Yep! Some Ace Trainers even have them a little earlier this time.
-Does this game have Medal challenges like in B2W2, or maybe a challenge like this in Pokenav?
Nothing like that yet, maybe in future versions.
-Will there be some mirage spots/places like in ORAS, maybe with some legendary encounters?
No mirage spots, but most Legendary Pokemon have new locations added just for them.
-Will there be some Item/Money sidequests like in Alola games?
Yeah, I'm still working on those - there's an "interesting" one to get the Gyaradosite involving a lot of Magikarp.
-Does Safari Zone have 6 areas before E4/Post-game, or still 4 areas?
All six areas are available before post game.
-I hope we can revive prehistoric pokemon by giving fossil items, instead of catching them as wild pokemon (Theta Emerald Renev).
Yep! The fossil guy can revive all the fossils, and you can get as many of each as you want (though they're pretty rare after the guaranteed ones).
-I wonder if you can add some new trick house puzzles.
I hadn't actually considered that, it's a good idea. Could add a few more in the post game.
-Is Soothe Bell available earlier in the game so we can evolve Pokemon that requires friendship easier, and because to evolve it, it takes a long time in Gen 2 & 3, longer than the next generations.
Yep, it's available somewhere around Petalburg Woods, along with a Friend Ball, which instantly grants caught Pokemon enough friendship to evolve.
-What was your hardest part when your were working on your Emerald hack, and what will be the hardest part when you'll be working for some next versions?
So far it's been the code for Rotom's form change; it turned out to be a lot more involved than I thought, so it took a couple of tries to get it right! I want to add inverse and 6v6 modes to all the Frontier facilities, so I think that'll be the hardest thing to do in later versions.
-Before the release of ORAS, fans were listening to RSE soundtrack with some excitements, this year (or these days), I'm doing it the same but for your Emerald hack, listening to some Hoenn songs before playing the first version, or the version with Gen 8 Pokemon. (Crazy, I know ^_^)
Haha, I have the RSE soundtrack on as background noise while working on the hack sometimes. Helps to get in the mood!
-Are you working on your hack too much, or are you working on it sometimes and have some important and free moments like work, other hobbies, family & friends, going out...etc ?
Probably working on it too much, but I make time for all those other things too so I don't burn out. Got a 4 week holiday coming up so that'll be a lot of hacking time!

There's a very good chance gen 8 mons will be ready to go before I have a first release ready, so I might just delay the hack a bit to have them in version one. Will see how much I get done this week.

I probably will use some of those, there are some definite improvements over the PC ones.
- No rustling grass etc. in the hack yet, but I've always liked that feature so maybe in version 2.
- The E4 and Champion are done! I'm currently working on the AI and filling out rematch teams for all the trainers that have them. Haven't got multiple teams for the league trainers yet, but that's on the to-do list.

Ooh thanks for that, wasn't aware of those threads. Some of those second frames are pretty good, and a lot of the others wouldn't be too much work to tidy up.

- Johto Pokeballs are a reward from the Verdanturf battle tent for now; they'll be available somewhere else too, but maybe not just for sale! Nectars will definitely be in the Slateport Market though.
- Haha yeah I'll make sure that's really clear this time; don't need a full thread of "where do I find Pikachu?!"
- That's pretty much exactly the roster I'd go with, though I'll have a separate Elite 4 tournament too.

Nice, congrats on clearing the game! Looks like a solid team, especially if they never used Z-moves..
You're welcome, glad you had fun playing my hacks! If all goes well Emerald will be ready for a first release early next month, but the post game will be blocked off and added back in a later version. Given what this year's been like I think it'd be nice to get something fun out before christmas rather than waiting for the frontier and gen 8 to be done.

Hopefully we'll chat again some time, but either way it's been good talking to you. Best of luck with everything, stay safe, and merry christmas to you and yours too!