BettyNewbie

Exactly. Every once in a while I'll spot a Gen 3 hack that interests me, but a lot of them I don't care for. I enjoyed Liquid Crystal in spite of some of the stranger things he added that weren't in the games, I was also a fan of Pokemon Gaia, since it was a typical Pokémon story with an emphasis on exploration (which I like) in a new region that didn't just feel like a rearranged Kanto. But by comparison, most Gen 1 and 2 hacks seem more interesting, since they tend to be made by people who are willing and able to put more time and effort into them. Sure, you still get hacks of Gen 1 and 2 that make me say "And what exactly was the point?" but eh.


Yeah, Adventures is rubbish. I have no idea how anyone in their right mind could think that was in any way canon. I can also understand not considering the anime as being canon to the games for just as many (but very different) reasons, but still. I'm less annoyed by games referencing the anime than I am by them referencing Adventures. Not saying I want to play Ash Grey or any of that nonsense, but I enjoy hacks that want to, say, include the Orange Islands or do what I did and include areas/events inspired by one of the movies (how you get Lugia in Christmas). Then again, I was never really an angsty emo kid. The closest I get is some of the music I listen(ed) to. Grimdark wannabe edgy nonsense never appealed to me, even after I got bored of Ash's forever young shenanigans haha.


While I'm not calling it "The Halloween Hack", in an effort to not have people only care about it once a year like they do with Christmas, it is still sort of going to be a Halloween hack. It will take place during Autumn, and it will have ghosts and supernatural stuff involved in the story. But it won't be anything like "Walk outside and there is a Jack-o-Lanturn outside your house, and everything is super the same so everyone thinks it's a gimmick" haha.

And as for the teenager stuff, yeah, I remember some of the stuff I did back then. I'd rather not, but I remember it. Haha. But hey, we live and learn. Maybe one day enough of these users will outgrow it, and the hacking scene can become decent again.


Yeah, if we get it all in, it's going to be pretty cool I think. I say "We" since ShantyTown has also been helping me out lately. It's still my project and I'm still the primary developer, but from time to time he'll randomly code something that's on my todo list and send me a pull request on Github, or he'll ask "So how would you feel about us adding this feature?" or I'll ask him "Hey would you be willing to look into this while I'm doing this other thing?" or something. But even still, it's a lot of help. By the time we're done, the engine is going to be crazy updated, to the point that I daresay it would be better than Gen 2. Another thing I forgot to mention is that I'll probably look into adding the Bug Catching Contest as well. It shouldn't be too hard to make, reusing a lot of code from the Safari Zone and whatnot, but it would be a nice touch since Johto is hopefully going to appear.

When it comes to natures and abilities, I go back and forth as to how I feel about it. I don't think that their inclusion would really equate to "you may as well just hack Gen 3" though. I feel like the challenge of getting them included would be fun, and I feel like they are something that a lot of players would enjoy (since most of them take them for granted now anyway). On the other hand, as I've never been much of a competitive player, I've never really cared about my Pokémon's natures, and I forget about most abilities that aren't Pickup (Zigzagoon is one of my favourites, sue me haha). I do have trouble justifying spending that much time on a feature that I've personally never paid much attention to. But since the hack's stated goal is to update it as much as possible, it does seem like at least Natures should maybe happen. Either way, it wouldn't be something I'd start on right away though. I'm more worried about fixing existing bugs, cleaning up leftover unused junk code, optimizing some of the vanilla code that was poorly done, and of course adding more fun features like color and multiple regions and whatnot. Natures are pretty much on the back burner for the forseeable future.

That's exactly right. Once you make something so simple that any idiot can use it, most idiots will. That's part of why it took me so long to really bother with Gen 3 hacking. At first it was because I didn't feel like jumping on the band wagon and moving on to Gen 3 hacking when everyone else did. Then it was because "Everyone and their dog is making Gen 3 hacks and they suck, I'd rather stick with Gen 1 and 2. I liked those games more, less people are making hacks of them, and the people who do play Gen 1 and 2 hacks tend to prefer quality instead of crap" haha.

Glad you've noticed the Adventures Manga connection too. The same people who love those "edgy" hacks are the same people who swear that Adventures is "canon" and always try to bother people to include things from Adventures in their otherwise unrelated hacks. It's so annoying. I do eventually have plans for a hack that will be slightly darker than the normal games, but it won't be anything like the way most hackers these days do it. Probably because I'm not an emo 13 year old :p While they think it's edgy to fills hacks with useless profanity, sex, gore, violence, etc that don't belong in a Pokemon game, I'd be using mostly the same Pokemon formula but including supernatural elements and slightly darker elements in an actually mature way. But again, that probably comes from being close to 30, not 13, and having a degree in English Literature with a focus on creative writing. Haha.


On the issue of GSC vs Red++, if I was using v2.xx as a base, I would definitely agree that GSC has more potential. However, there are a lot of things that I've been looking into that I *can* add to Red++, I just haven't yet, in an effort to prolong breaking saves for as long as possible. Now that I'm running out of non-save-breaking updates to add, I'm bringing v2.xx to a close so that I can work on v3.0 -- with the plan being to get as many of the cool, save-breaking updates in from the start as I can.

I'm not sure how much you've been following the thread, I know I haven't seen you posting there in a while. But even if you have been checking it at times, I know I don't have a concise list of planned features posted anywhere that is easy to read, so I'll go ahead and mention a few of the planned updates while we're on the topic:

- Full Color, like Crystal. The code already exists, I just need to merge it in.
- Nicer tilesets, using non-snowy versions of the tiles I made for Christmas. Some tilesets, mostly indoors, already use those tiles. But once the game is a GBC game, I'm planning to take advantage of the extra VRAM like Crystal did to allow for larger tilesets (like I did in Christmas as well).
- Crystal's Audio Engine. This has again already been ported to Gen 1, I just need to merge the code in. This has a lot of advantages over Gen 1's audio engine, mainly due to saving space (Gen 1 used like 4 identical copies of the same audio engine because it was so badly written) and more flexible (more music options, and it can find song data anywhere, so no need for multiple duplicate copies of the engine).
- RTC and Day/Night. This has already been shown as possible in Gen 1 a long time ago, before Red or Crystal were as fully disassembled as they are now. Looking over it, it shouldn't be too much of a pain to add. Fingers crosed.
- Pokegear-like device. This one has been mentioned off and on for a while. I figure it would replace some of the Key Items, and add new functions as well. I may or may not move Wonder Trade into this menu as well.
- More Pokemon that Gen 1 or 2 could originally support. ShantyTown has come up with code to expand Pokemon IDs to 2 bytes instead of one, meaning that instead of ~255 Pokemon, we can have (theoretically) thousands of Pokemon IDs. Not that anyone would ever use that many of course.
- More bugs fixed in the battle engine
- New, better, rewritten Trainer AI. Hopefully even better than Gen 2 once it's done.
- More than one region. We've already successfully made a test rom load maps from a fully separate second region, so we know it's possible. Just need to shuffle some things around to make sure we have enough Flags and Vars to make sure any regions that are added won't be empty (because what would be the point if they were?)
- Held Items
- The bag has pockets and more storage space
- Infinite Use TMs
- IVs and EVs instead of the current system That way stats are calculated better, plus if we do it right, IVs and EVs actually take up less space than the Gen 1&2 system if I remember correctly. Would probably keep the old DV bytes to use as a small version of the PID, for determining stuff like shininess, gender, Unown letters, how Wurmple evolves, forms, etc.
- Mini Battle Frontier It would have a Battle Tower, Battle Factory, Battle Tent, and possibly more. Probably would be located in Johto.
- (Possibly) Natures and Abilities. Natures aren't that big a deal, a few Gen 2 hacks have already added them. In polls, people said they wanted both in Red++, but Abilities will be a can of worms if we get started on that, since there are so many.
- Pokemon have genders Since there is already breeding, this would let us improve it so you don't have to only breed with the Day Care Man's Ditto. This would also allow passing down Egg Moves and stuff too.
- Even more I know there are things I forgot to mention here, since I wrote this off top of my head during my lunch break. But yeah, basically the goal is to fix as many of the remaining Gen 1 glitches/bugs as possible, add as many of the missing Gen 2 features as we can, and of course even more features from beyond Gen 2 as well, like we've already been doing. Heck, the trainer data format in Red++ is already slightly more flexible than the one in Gen 2 in some ways haha. But yeah, v3.0 will definitely be worth starting a new game when the time comes.

Well, to be fair, I didn't make all of those Acanthite tiles. Some were mine, some were Pyro's, some were Fangking's, some were collaborations, and some were from other people. That's why if most people would at least have credited "The Acanthite Team" I wouldn't be as bothered. But most people don't credit anyone for any of them. Some of them honestly aren't even that great, haha, but they were fine for a decade or so ago when we made them (wow I'm getting old). Anyways.


I think you hit most of the common points on bad hacks. A few that I might add would be:
- Palette and tile errors everywhere
- Terrible spelling and grammar
- The whole game was clearly made up as they went, without any actual thought or planning



On the sequel thing, I can sort of see your point on Gen 3. I've been experimenting with learning Gen 3 hacking on the side a bit, but I still prefer Gen 1 and 2. I don't think I would use GSC as a base, though. I would use Red++, since regardless of what other people see it as, I still think of it primarily as a baserom, and by the time v3.0 is ready it will already have most of the features Gen 2 has and more, and I would still be able to use devamped tiles like I did with Christmas (since my current plan is to use larger tilesets like Crystal does, while I'm already in there making it be in color). I know to a certain extent that's reinventing the wheel, but that's also the fun part. Doing what you can because you can, and proving just how much Gen 1 could've had if they'd wanted it to.

Ah yeah, Advance Adventure. Yet another hack that uses tiles I made without giving me credit (this map uses what was originally Ecruteak City's Dance Hall, created by myself and Fangking Omega for Pokémon Acanthite, yet neither of our names or the Acanthite Project are credited. I really and truly hate whoever released that huge image full of Acanthite Buildings as a public resource without saying who should be credited for them. Just like how now every GBA hack set in Johto uses my Celebi Shrine). But yeah, lack of credit aside, there is still a lot wrong with that hack. Unfortunately, hacks with that type of nonsense are extremely popular for no discernible reason. Advance Adventure, Adventure Red, Snakewood, Dark Rising, and other extremely low quality hacks are often heralded as "the best hacks of all time" by stupid people, so it's honestly not too surprising that in light of that, Gamefreak and their new project leader decided to take some influence from what they assume people want. That means this gen will probably also see Sinnoh remakes with every single Legendary Pokémon in existence shoehorned into the storyline somehow.



But on a more positive note, you're right, Kanto and Johto are the most iconic regions for a reason. If it wasn't for them, none of the other games would have happened. To be honest, earlier in the year I kicked around the idea of making a hack for Pokémon 20 that would've been set 20 years after RBY, with Blue taking Oak's place, Oak is retired, and you play as Red's son/daughter. Explore Kanto first and see how much it's changed in 20 years, then take the Magnet Train over to Johto. I wasn't sure which rom to use as the base, though, and never went anywhere with it of course, but it would've been fun. If Red++ was farther along, I could've used it as a base. Lots of cool stuff planned for v3.0, and I'm pretty much putting finishing touches on the last minor release in v2.xx right now. Guess I could still come back to that idea later even if it isn't the anniversary (or yknow, technically every year is an anniversary, so it could just be set that many years after RBY when the time comes).

Ok, now that I'm home, I'll give you a proper reply!

I have to agree that the games are shaping up to be a rather lackluster way to celebrate the anniversary. I know some people would complain, but I'd really like to see new games set in Kanto (not another remake, but a new story in Kanto. Maybe a prequel to Gen 1 or a sequel to Gen 1 and 2 set 20 years after RBY, where Blue is the professor and you play as like Red's kid or something. I think that would've been more significant than going to Hawaii and taking gameplay in some weird-ass direction.

Oh, sorry! I was on my phone when I saw it and I meant to reply when I got home, but I got distracted.

I'm at work now but I'll reply for real when I'm free. Sorry again!

Forgive me if I sounded offensive when I used the term nostalgia whore, I was only referring to the people who pick on GF for not making everything the way it was when they were kids, and fans of post-Generation 1 content.

Yeah, S/M are reminding me of the type of hacks where I stop reading the thread halfway through the first post, and never bother coming back. I haven't completely given up on them yet or anything, but the stuff they are trying to hype isn't very promising. Kind of like how with ORAS, I downloaded the free demo, and it was just a parade of "Mega evolution! Mega evolution! Oh my god, Mega Evolution! Dude, did you hear me? MEGAAAA EVOLUTIOOOOOOOOON!" and I was like "Can you not?"

Well, maybe GF wants to bring old fans back and improve PR?

That seems to be a trend lately, game developers are giving in to nostalgia whores due to irrational fear of losing sales or something else.

I remember having my wisdom teeth out, that wasn't fun at all. Feel better soon!

As for Sun & Moon, I'm not really hyped at all. It honestly feels more like a shitty fangame than a pair of real Pokémon games. Alola Forms are just making the idea of pointlessly changing Pokémon's stats canon, and the Ultra Beasts are like pretty much literally canon Fakemon. >.<

Hey! How've you been?

How's it been?

Casual...mobile games like Go on the other hand are said to appeal to casual audiences.

That's true. The last time I remember there being hype for the main games was DP, and prior to those were GS.

Great to know that I'm not the only one who was being reminded of 1999. I remember the popularity of Pokémon during that time, even though I was 5!

So, at E3 it was revealed that Masuda isn't the one Directing SM. Perhaps the games will feel less bland now with someone new.

They kind of were, but then again the original GSC included several references to Yellow too.

Lol, I remember people calling Lyra a female take on Mario...

That's a more diverse formula for the girls than what the guys have.

It seems that Emerald Brendan and DP Lucas are the only one to not have Red or Blue as their dominant color. Instead it's Black, something you would've expected from Hilbert and/or Nate...

Ikr? The first three had red, with Lucas' DP design having a bit of it with some blue. His Pt design started going Blue, and so have the others since then.I wish they had used the dark skin or light haired versions for the official artwork.