Outwitter

No problem, are you working from home? School? Both? Hmm, so maybe I'd go into Zeta/Omicron first before Insurgence. Just to see the team's early work. I don't mind a dark story, not many Pokemon games go that far in their stories.


Really? I've already started though, even completed a couple of chapters and am at the beginning of another one. I'll just continue and hope that I can pick up under my current save file in the next update. I had to start a new one just for Beta 15+ Exp (skipping the Kanto & Orange sagas) because when I loaded my Beta 15 save it was a mess. Bag items jumbled up and it's like nothing has changed. Go to Red's house, his Mom is there. Try to teleport to the last Orange Arch islands and you're told that they are not available. But the Master Trainers are there funny enough. I'm keeping that old save file for references (getting information on the Orange Arch regional variants, etc) because in the Exp save file (since I've skipped ahead to the new content) I was just given an assembled team of Lv160 Pokemon (Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Venusaur, Poliwrath, Pikachu, Snorlax), HMs and some Key Items.


No worries. I hope there is such a program out there, I'll have to do some searching. So far the only program I know of which works with fan games is Cheat Engine. Helps as a speed hack and increasing/decreasing quantities but no editing function.


Great that it has all the latest features but if it is only about battles as of now then I'll hold off until "story mode" gets going proper. With all the legit hype growing around Unbound, I think the wait will be worth it.

If you're looking for interesting games which aren't super big I can recommend Castaway and Pandora. Castaway is an island adventure and Pandora takes place during the MC's journey, like a brief episode of that story. That's some mighty praise for Insurgence and since it's complete then I'll make a note of it fora future playthrough. How about the story? Original stuff in a new region/regions or it's set in a familiar region after one of the official games?

Also, is there a program that you know of which works for fangames like PKHex does on the Citra emulator? Like if I wanted to add an item to my Bag e.g. a Potion, the program allows me to do that.

You lasted a bit longer than I did, going as far as gen 5. "Officially" I lost interest after gen 3, but I've kept up with the games as best as I can to see what's new in terms of story, the regions and the new Pokemon. You could show me a picture of a latter gen Pokemon and chances are I couldn't tell you which generation it's from. They've just gotten weirder and more outrageous with each new generation, no longer as simple and easy to remember as the ones from gen 1 to 3. SwSh looks good and I like the OST but outside of that there's nothing that really draws me in. So I don't blame you for not throwing your money at SwSh, you're probably better off saving it or spending it elsewhere because I doubt GameFreak will recapture that magic of the early generations. Doesn't matter how much bigger or better the next generations get, it just isn't the same.

Hero Voltsy is one of the channels I found, the other one is called Mysterious Blaziken. As far as the Bonus Chapters go I think they'll be very helpful. Sakakii isn't active on Discord like Aethesode probably is? I suspect that's where they may choose to hang out when outside PokeComm.

The Battle Frontier Simulation, is it just battles without any plot?

I haven't played Insurgence yet, but I know of it. For now I'm taking my time with fangames, I've played Pokemon Castaway and am currently trying out Pandora. Both are relatively short and completed games so no rush. I like how story driven a lot of these games are, is Insurgence the same? And is it complete or it's an ongoing series?

I don't have a Switch and my humble computer doesn't have the specs to run the Yuzu emulator smoothly so the closest I've gotten to Sword & Shield is by a fan remake hack which is in Portuguese! There's an English translated version but it hasn't been updated since the very first release. It is okay enough to see the gen 8 Pokemon but I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for serious gameplay. I'm not sure if any other Sw/Sh fan remakes have come out yet which are better. What about you, have you played Sw/Sh proper?

I ended up turning to Youtube for video playthroughs of the new Bonus Chapters because even now I have not gotten a response from Aethestode, though I think he may have popped into PC to release the Fix C update. Luckily there were a couple of YT channels which had videos so I will be relying on those. Even the creator for Kanlara, I messaged weeks ago asking for guides in preparation for the Kanlara Ultimate walkthrough. Not a peep.

How is Unbound?

Maybe that's the case for some regional formes, that they are just the same wine in a different bottle yeah but I think there has to be other variants which have more of an edge to them when compared to their counterparts. Between Electabuzz and Electivire, for me it would depend on what their second type would be. Remain Electric type + something fitting. Electivire I'd guess would be Electric/Fighting maybe? I like its design too, though it really reminds me of the Marsupilami character from an old cartoon.

Perhaps Mega Evo and Dynamaxing are for younger and newer Poke fans who just love to see their favourite Pokemon in new forms. Just like Mega, Dynamax looked intriguing at first when I saw previews of it but nothing to get overly excited about after a while from what I've seen. Is the GameFreak crew almost scraping the bottom of the creative juice barrel or what? They can continue to come up with new generations of Pokemon nod doubt, but as far as offering new and really groundbreaking stuff as time as gone on...I don't know.

Aethestode will have to provide guides and stuff and if Scarlet can bridge the gap between fans of Adventures Red and the creator like Lunos was doing, things will work out. Without updated guides, especially for the new Bonus Chapters, I can't really do much for the walkthrough yet. Waiting for a response from Aethestode.

I get you. In terms of graphics and features I would say there are a lot of vanilla hacks out there but I like the ones which try to make up for that with a decent story. Sure, at times they have typical rivals (who are just there to battle you, even those who are long time friends of the MC and you'd think they could be more helpful during the game like when the villains are causing major trouble and so on), but for the effort give players something engaging, I'll usually dive into those hacks, even the older ones. I'll be honest, I sometimes forget that Firered and Leafgreen came AFTER the R/S/E trio (could be because they were remakes, so...). Grape made me interested in older gen hacks because it's nice to see what people can do outside of the gen 3 hack sphere and so far I am impressed. Plus it helps me when it comes to walkthroughs, someone who might want one for a gen 1 or gen 2 hack can request and I will be prepared to take that up. Beyond gen 3 though...I haven't gone that far but I am curious about what fan sequels are out there for the gen 4, gen 5, gen 6 and gen 7 titles. I saw one for Ultra Sun/Moon called Pokemon Star. Good example of what I mean.

They're more likely to announce new regional forms than new evolutions now. New regional forms for older generation Pokemon though. Maybe because Mega Evolution ain't permanent? Or the requirements for it (needing a Key Stone, a specific Mega Stone and only certain Pokemon can do it)? A nice power up mechanic but not the end of the world for me it wasn't there.

scarlet night isn't helping enough in the thread?

Ahh, okay. I guess they're just for players who may not be too concerned about playing through the same story, not when there are all those new features and extras.

Nice one, I'll give Hex Helper a try later. I like that it looks so user friendly and simplified. Hmm, I may have to spend more time in that ROM Tools section. Even the Tools section for fanmade games, that's another world I hope to dive into. I've just sampled a couple of games to see what they are like but I mainly stick to hacks (simple to play and are not huge files).

I'm not sure what you mean by vanilla hack, sorry. Do you mean it's a typical hack? Easy to play and beat? None of those?? It's a lovely little game, amazing how it has some updated features while being a Gen 1 hack. But because it's a Gen 1 hack it suffers from those Gen 1 limitations like storage capacity. Cryptic at times, fairly simple plot and the additional types...yeah I wasn't a fan of those either. You sort of get used to them as you play on, they are not enough to spoil the game experience, but the new twist they add to many battles is not exactly fun. Give the game a try, see how far you go and then decider whether or not to continue.

Do you Mega Evolve Swampert or you prefer sticking to its original form? When I first found out about Mega Evolution I just looked at as Pokemon's response to Digivolution because it just seems similar. The little bit about bonds between the Pokemon and their Trainers being what can lead to Mega Evolution, the fact that it is not permanent and so on. Poke-Digivolution :) whether or not it's a feature in a hack, no problem for me. Kind of silly how a lot of players get upset if a hack doesn't include it.

How story driven 1158's games are, that much I appreciate and it's why I chose to play them (Mega Power, Resolute and the other one, Victory Fire? I played that one ages ago but didn't know it was part of a series) but I think if he had worked with someone who could polish up the stories, they would've been better. I remember that Court scene, that I liked.

I'll hold off on Stranded until there's more progress or perhaps until it is completed. And no problem about Stigma, I usually post feedback about the hacks I've played in the final sections of the walkthroughs. Positives and negatives, I try to be fair.

I've left Aethestode and scarlet night a VM each, let's see how that goes. With Lunos out, I asked Aethestode to send me guides for the Bonus Chapters and other extras or changes which have been put into this Exp Pass to help me update the walkthrough. I really hope he'll respond and won't mind. If scarlet night will be as helpful as Lunos was, all good because I'll be counting on her going forward and if she has a direct line to Aethestode, even better.

Fantastic! I guess Clover was the very first hack I played which had the feature. Before that it was either the HMs were replaced by tools or mechanics like rides in GS Chronicles or absent from the game like Master Quest or like in Adventure Red Chapter where any Pokemon in the party can use an HM move outside of battle (I think as long as the Pokemon can learn the move? Not sure now). As for Altered Emerald, that's insane but I like that! One move to do all the HM work. Does the hack have a new story as well like continuing after the original Emerald plot or you're just playing through the same plot but with updated features and extras? I usually don't go for those types of hacks where it's just updated features and more Pokemon but the story is unchanged. It'll just feel like I'm playing the original games again.

How does Hex Helper work exactly? I'd never heard of it until you mentioned it.

Thumbs up for Ultimate post game content, another thing I can look forward to.

I play with 0 frame skip and no throttle or 0 frame skip and 150% throttle, depends on the game. For Clover I went with the first setting since it's a game which encourages players to take their time. Superfast won't help there haha. There is always a chance that I missed some details or forgot to do something, meet certain NPCs or find Pokemon or items so I let people know in the walkthroughs or when I post them. For anything I miss out or skipped or anything, they should contact me and I update the walkthroughs. An example is Pokemon Grape, people let me know about an item I'd forgotten to include in the walkthrough (if you've played Grape, I'm talking about the Gold Relic). Another person had an improved Pokemon Locations guide and was kind enough to let me use it to update the Pokemon Found lists in the walkthrough. So I don't worry too much and you shouldn't either. What speed setting do you play under?

Mudkip was the first choice for my younger brother when we first played Ruby version way, way back in the day. I usually went with Torchic but over the years I've tagged alongside Mudkip and Treecko too so that I can learn about them as well. Water/Ground ain't so bad, Grass will sort them out no problem...Water/Grass too, unless you have teams which aren't prepared for enemies of type combos like that? So what do you do in games which might not have Mudkip or Gen 3 Pokemon at all? Any other Pokemon that you like to build around??

Mega Power was one of my early walkthrough plays. The story is what I had a lot of issues with in that game, no problem with the features (the classic RPG style map for the second region was pretty cool). Too many unnecessary battles e.g. you meet a new character and guess what, they want to fight. That got boring. Or almost every Trainer's Pokemon holding Leftovers. The same creator has gone to make Pokemon Nameless, I haven't played it. Still deciding whether or not to, will see in the new year. Stigma I've only read a bit about it, sounds like a much lighter and cleaner Clover haha without Fakemon too but I'll add it to the future walkthrough list.

Stranded sounds very interesting, I've just looked through the features now. Radical Red, same as Altered Emerald - nice features and all, but I wish they had new story too.

Yes, I'll have to update the Adventure Red Chapter walkthrough. Had reached out to Lunos yesterday hoping to find out what will need to be updated or changed but he said he is no longer keeping up with the project. I also don't think the creator is active here in PokeComm, maybe on Discord (I'm not on Discord). If you know of what new stuff has been added to the latest release please let me know. Otherwise I'll find out as I play through it and hope to cover everything haha

I'll probably add a key item that hatches eggs faster at some point (or just buff the egg hatching abilities). No need for an ability switcher, you can buy ability capsules in any Pokecenter mart after beating Brawly. Hidden ability capsules will be in the game too, but they'll be a little harder to get. And yup there's a nature changer, and NPCS who can modify EVs and IVs. HM replacements are something I haven't done yet, but I do have something in mind for that!

No problem, VMs are okay. I don't blame you for skipping Clover, even though it is one of the most well made hacks out there. One of the best features is HMs which can be overwritten like TMs. That's on top of some the HMs having been upgraded too like Flash being an Electric move that deals damage with 100% accuracy, Cut being a Steel move, Rock Climb a Rock move and Strength switched from Normal to Fighting. I really liked that and I really hope newer hacks and updates will adopt this feature or improve on it or offer better alternatives rather than completely doing away with HMs because those are decent moves being left out of the game (Strength, Surf, Dive, Waterfall, Fly). But on the other hand...yeah, there is a lot to dislike about Clover. Initially I thought the game was going to be about spoofing the Pokemon universe while offering a whole new story, regions and maybe throwing in pop culture references. All that is there but I can do without the sex and toilet humour haha.

I'm trying to remember if Zorya was in Kanlara Adventures, because that's the one I played a while back. But I'll be sure to be ready for him, no worries. The Demon Pokemon concept was fresh, I hope it has been expanded in Ultimate because in Adventures I thought it wasn't made enough of a major feature for the story.

Truth be told, I don't plan my walkthroughs. No script, no bullet points or anything. I type them out as I play through the games so my reactions and little notes are in "real time" (except for parts where I play ahead to check stuff out or confirm something). With each guide that I've done I've learned to do better while making the guides as simple to follow as possible and entertaining too. That's it really. It's cool that you invest in the story, I play for the story mostly these days. To see how creative people are, what new regions do they have to show and so on. I won't gripe about which generations of Pokemon are in the game or absent from it haha just give us a fine story first and take it from there. Are there any hacks you're currently playing?

Fair enough! Trade mons have been changed quite a bit, they're all meant to help out with the early gyms (e.g. you can get a Pawniard with Defiant in Rustboro instead of the Makuhita), and I've added new ones to Dewford, Mauville and Lavaridge too. The Wynaut egg is the same, but there's a new NPC in the daycare who will give you a random egg daily that knows an egg or event move. They're currently generated from a small list so you won't get anything too broken there, but it's the only way to get things like Bagon and Rhyhorn early on. The Mauville game corner has all the starters for sale, as well as some of the Alolan forms, Porygon and Munchlax.

Yeah, it's not too hard to have separate patches too, so might as well! Rotom's form change is handled by talking to a box in Birch's Lab for now (same as in ORAS), but I'll probably add the key item that handles it in Sword and Shield later. Not sure if a Hoenn hack is the best place for a regional form of a Hoenn mon, but I'll keep that in mind if I do add regional forms for the starters later on! The Exp Share's given to you in Petalburg Woods, so you won't have to wait too long for it.

Definitely won't be adding a new type, but type/stat/ability changes etc. are included, along with a version without them for purists. I do like the idea of custom regional variants, but for now I'm just going to have a couple of custom mega evolutions (assuming I can come up with decent designs). New side quests are something I'm planning for post game, but some of the existing ones have been tweaked to include rare Pokemon or items e.g. the New Mauville quest also includes a one-time Rotom event. There are a few new locations in the game too, so they should freshen up the experience a bit!
Those are nice HP box designs for sure! UI changes are probably going to be something I'll add in a future version, the existing one is good enough for now.

You're welcome! I like Altered Emerald too, it has so many creative changes like that (Disguise Sudowoodo is brilliant). I'm still not 100% decided on the name of my hack; will probably pick one when I get around to making the title screen.

Haha, no problem! You might run into issues with the palettes if the second frame or back sprite has colors that aren't in the front sprite. Most of the time A-series will handle those, but other times it'll get confused and fill the extra colors in with another color from the front sprite. You can fix it with the palette section of the tool, but the errors can be hard to spot if you've just bulk imported a few hundred sprites. Not sure what would have made the entire sprite yellow, but it's generally a good idea to give imported sprites a quick check before saving them to the ROM so that you don't have to re-import them. Very tedious but worth it if you catch an error!

My Emerald hack's a QoL/difficulty hack with all Pokemon up to gen VII (will add gen VIII later), lots of features backported from newer games and a few entirely new ones too. There are some minor story additions from ORAS but it's still the same old story for the most part. Getting close to something I can release, so hopefully it lives up to expectations!
Also sure, request accepted!

Eh, we're actually doing pretty fine. Schools are being opened formally and attendance is becoming mandatory once more, most of the people seem to respect the quarantine period and... well, it feels like we didn't suffer that much from it compared to other countries like Argentina or Brazil. We're doing fine.

I mean, that video shows the action of copying an existing event and pasting it on a different map. It'd naturally work and if that's enough to you, I guess you should go ahead.

Hey!
Thanks, I'm doing well; hope you and yours are too! I'm actually using the decomp so no tools are required except a sprite editor, but I've done a bit of binary Emerald so I can help with that anyway.

Wichu's advanced sprite editor can handle both frames; you can see the second frame by changing the frame from 0 to 1 when editing a sprite:

Ah, yes. You can do that by simply writing a script.
There's scripting tutorials you can check in order to learn how those work.
I suggest Sierraffinity's and Avara's.

Well, if what you want is to make a customized Pokémon, the first thing I can think of is to just use one of the routines from the ASM Resource Thread that lets you make customized Pokémon, like this one.

Binary hacking or decomp hacking?