• Our software update is now concluded. You will need to reset your password to log in. In order to do this, you will have to click "Log in" in the top right corner and then "Forgot your password?".
  • Forum moderator applications are now open! Click here for details.
  • Welcome to PokéCommunity! Register now and join one of the best places on the 'net to talk Pokémon and more! Community members will not see the bottom screen advertisements.
  • Want to share your adventures playing Pokémon?
    Check out our new Travel Journals forum for sharing playthroughs of ROM Hacks, Fan Games, and other Pokémon content!
  • IMPORTANT: Following a takedown request, the following hacks have been delisted from PokéCommunity:

    • Pokémon Glazed
    • Pokémon: Giratina Strikes Back
    • Pokémon Flora Sky
    • Pokémon Stranded
    The downloads and discussion threads for these hacks will no longer be accessible, and staff will be unable to return questions regarding accessing this content.

Can we move on to hacking Gen 4 and 5 now?

machomuu

Stuck in Hot Girl Summer
10,507
Posts
15
Years
Can u make a 3D map in GBA? Can u make a new Model of maps in GBA? Do u know about Function in Scripting? Just because of some PSS split and running indoors and some other things, people feel that they have everything in GBA. But the truth is, they dont even know anything of NDS yet! There are still
a ton of things like 3D models, Animations(Like BW), New kinds of Scripts which has not been engineered for GBA yet.( And I think never will be)

I'm not saying GBA is bad. I even understand your saying. But please, if you don't want to spend time with NDS, then don't stop them who are willing to.
As I said, I have nothing against people trying to hack the DS games, nor do I have anything against people who want to.

Honestly, of the things you listed, I can't see a single thing that was listed that can't be done on the GBA, theoretically or otherwise. Save for 3D models.

But 3D is a special thing. I remember, back when I saw some of Pokemon Gaia's first screens, about how, despite clearly being 2D, it looked eerily 3D. This is because, based on the way it was made and placed, it conveyed its orientation really well. And it looked good. Thing about the 3D in the mentioned games is that it's pretty prototypical. If we're talking 3D, why not just skip to Generation 6 and 7, where Nintendo clearly had a much better grasp on how to make a playable 3D world than before (though this was largely due to the tech than because of learning the ropes, but Gen 5 to 6 to 7 shows that they really were working out a way to make Pokemon work in a 3D environment). My point being, do the low-poly 3D models of the DS games really add to the experience all that much?

If yes, there's another problem. 3D modeling and spriting/2D Art are wholly different, making the games inherently less accessible. This isn't necessarily a bad thing by itself, but it means that the fanbase will be split. Save for free Pokemon assets, people will largely have to make models themselves, which is a wholly different monster than 2D Art. It isn't necessarily harder, but learning it is definitely a different process and the GBA experience won't really carry over.

How I basically see it, DS hacks'd probably be 2D for the most part because there really isn't much merit to 3D models other than...well, them being 3D, but when people can have and make higher quality art for less trouble...well, why not?

Which is fine. This is all fine. 4th/5th gen hacking can and should be a thing, but it's "moving on" that I have a problem with. Because the GBA games aren't done being researched and developed for. When you consider how much we would actually get out of DS hacking isn't really all that much (though that could change), it really isn't all that surprising that, all these years later, we still haven't really laid a groundwork. I encourage people to hack them, even, as it just gives us more options and potentially opens up new opportunities, but hacking them just because they're the DS games when we've already been able to replicate quite a bit of what they are is a little head scratching. Not that that's a reason to lose hope.

So if people wanna go for it, I'll be cheerin' ya on, just be sure to reach for the stars if you do.
 
90
Posts
7
Years
Well said! I recently was thinking that. A while ago back in the 1980's when the NES was out, Nintendo wasn't really planning on making any newer consoles, it was only when SEGA released the mega drive/Genesis Nintendo decided to make the SNES. They Both lasted until 2003 (Before the DS was out!) and while the competition got tougher with the PlayStation and Yada-yada Nintendo was still relying on those two aging consoles (well of course they had n64, but, that's another story) if there weren't any competition, how long would we have waited for someone to say "Oh, Let's make a SNES" or something similar? Sometimes people like to keep their own bubble and work to theirselves and others just wanna be apart of a crowd! Whichever one you're most comfortable with, then stay where you feel more welcome. Is the same with GBA and DS (and not to forget GB and GBC) hacking! Maybe instead of pressuring people, we should give them their decision and let them be the way they are.
 

BluRose

blu rass
811
Posts
9
Years
hook me up with an idb and i'm down
i was planning on focusing efforts on a ds hack after mikelan released this, but then he disappeared and left many of us saddened
and now i can probably do something anyways but hey we'll see
 

Dyskinesia

Second-rate hack
82
Posts
8
Years
  • Age 25
  • Ohio
  • Seen May 12, 2019
I honestly can't imagine reverting to pre-IDB and C hacking. So much of the things I want to do in ROM hacking would require going through an extra few layers of work to accomplish. It's not the lack of tools that makes Gen 4+ unattractive, its the added difficulty of doing the things outside of what those tools allow that really does it for me.
 

immacksg

follow @immacksg on twitter for some rad cartoon a
71
Posts
10
Years
Honestly, I feel like one of the reasons we stick to hacking Gen 3 games is because other than a true 3D Engine and the duel screens, there's really nothing from Gens 4 and 5 that we haven't been able to add. We've managed to add new Pokemon without replacing pre-existing Pokemon, larger and more detailed sprites, the Physical/Special split, the list goes on. I don't see anyone really itching to make a Pokemon Hack centered around triple battles, so I don't see that happening any time soon.

GBA Emulation is typically much more stable, and hacking GBA Roms is generally much easier than DS Roms. Other that Light Platinum DS, Dark Diamond and maybe Heart Red, we really haven't seen much from the DS Hacking scene, and I just personally feel that it's because GBA Hacking is just much easier and (incredibly slightly) less time consuming.
 
368
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 23
  • Seen Apr 6, 2018
Honestly, I feel like one of the reasons we stick to hacking Gen 3 games is because other than a true 3D Engine and the duel screens, there's really nothing from Gens 4 and 5 that we haven't been able to add. We've managed to add new Pokemon without replacing pre-existing Pokemon, larger and more detailed sprites, the Physical/Special split, the list goes on. I don't see anyone really itching to make a Pokemon Hack centered around triple battles, so I don't see that happening any time soon.

GBA Emulation is typically much more stable, and hacking GBA Roms is generally much easier than DS Roms. Other that Light Platinum DS, Dark Diamond and maybe Heart Red, we really haven't seen much from the DS Hacking scene, and I just personally feel that it's because GBA Hacking is just much easier and (incredibly slightly) less time consuming.

Why do you guys ignore the fact that the DS system can support having more than one region in it? I mean sure Gold, Silver, and Crystal had Kanto and Johto in them but that's only two regions. The DS system should be able to support more than two regions and the second screen while annoying on a small screened device is still a good feature and is kinda the DS's thing. And you could theoretically change it so you can only have one screen on at a time and switch between them. I would think adding a function on the menu that switches screens and adding one onto the second screen wouldn't be to incredibly hard. But in the end it will just be a matter of whether someone wants to do a GBA hack or a DS hack.
 

Deokishisu

Mr. Magius
990
Posts
18
Years
The reason no one wants to move to the DS is because the system doesn't offer enough to warrant the move. The bottom screen is clunky and mostly pointless/superfluous in the Pokemon games. The DS is more difficult to emulate on mobile platforms, and handling the two screens as a player is frustrating at best. Even the Wii U's DS Virtual Console titles don't have great options for displaying the screens in a way that isn't immediately rage inducing.

The DS has 3D? Big whoop. 3D didn't really help the Pokemon games in the DS era, and we are very far away from a custom 3D city like Castelia with cool camera angles and models for buildings. Doing all the art and modelling alone would be a monumental task for one person for an effect that someone will go "ooh" at ONCE and then never care again. You can fake a small portion of the effect as well on the GBA if you're really gung-ho about it. I'm waiting for someone to bring Mode-7 minigames to our Pokemon ROMS, which is about as 3D as the GBA gets. I'm okay with not having the art workload of modelling buildings and such. An overworld with a sense of scale and depth is something I can fake on the GBA just fine with good mapping techniques.

Most of the mechanics from these games have been ported down, and if you're the one person on Earth who loves an obscure feature like the Xtransceiver or something, you could do the call scenes with C on the GBA or do a lazy workaround with basically just mapping and scripting knowledge and have it look just as good. Most of those features can be done on the GBA with a little elbow grease. Other features like always animated battle sprites have a framework for it floating around, but one person is not going to resize 20 frames of a Pokemon for the Pokemon to look as bad while moving as they did in Gen 5. Such a huge workload is time wasted for a feature that doesn't impact the gameplay at all and looked like hot garbage when Game Freak did it.

The DS was not a step up for Pokemon games. Between the slow Gen 4/5 engine, the second screen that added nothing, the fact that literally everything worth porting down has been ported down already, and the lack of any actual incentive or must-have feature pushing us to move to the DS, the DS will not be the main focus for Pokemon hacking for at least 7 to 10 years, if ever. And I'd be willing to place money on that. Newer does not always equal better.

(As an aside, with PokeCrystal done, I don't know why a lot of Gen 3 hackers haven't moved down for the time being. The disassembly is almost too enticing to pass up for small projects or the crappy newbie hacks that are floating around. My guess is that people just don't really know how good it is.)

----
Why do you guys ignore the fact that the DS system can support having more than one region in it? I mean sure Gold, Silver, and Crystal had Kanto and Johto in them but that's only two regions. The DS system should be able to support more than two regions and the second screen while annoying on a small screened device is still a good feature and is kinda the DS's thing. And you could theoretically change it so you can only have one screen on at a time and switch between them. I would think adding a function on the menu that switches screens and adding one onto the second screen wouldn't be to incredibly hard. But in the end it will just be a matter of whether someone wants to do a GBA hack or a DS hack.

It doesn't seem like you know what you're talking about. It's not like the GBA has some mysterious piece of hardware in it preventing multiple regions, and therefore this isn't a compelling argument for moving to the DS. The big problem is that no hackers are good enough to make 2+ custom regions any good. Kids need to stop with this EVERY REGION IN ONE GAME--I'M ASH KETCHUM stuff. It's not a good idea, despite it being more than possible on the GBA.
 
368
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 23
  • Seen Apr 6, 2018
The reason no one wants to move to the DS is because the system doesn't offer enough to warrant the move. The bottom screen is clunky and mostly pointless/superfluous in the Pokemon games. The DS is more difficult to emulate on mobile platforms, and handling the two screens as a player is frustrating at best. Even the Wii U's DS Virtual Console titles don't have great options for displaying the screens in a way that isn't immediately rage inducing.

The DS has 3D? Big whoop. 3D didn't really help the Pokemon games in the DS era, and we are very far away from a custom 3D city like Castelia with cool camera angles and models for buildings. Doing all the art and modelling alone would be a monumental task for one person for an effect that someone will go "ooh" at ONCE and then never care again. You can fake a small portion of the effect as well on the GBA if you're really gung-ho about it. I'm waiting for someone to bring Mode-7 minigames to our Pokemon ROMS, which is about as 3D as the GBA gets. I'm okay with not having the art workload of modelling buildings and such. An overworld with a sense of scale and depth is something I can fake on the GBA just fine with good mapping techniques.

Most of the mechanics from these games have been ported down, and if you're the one person on Earth who loves an obscure feature like the Xtransceiver or something, you could do the call scenes with C on the GBA or do a lazy workaround with basically just mapping and scripting knowledge and have it look just as good. Most of those features can be done on the GBA with a little elbow grease. Other features like always animated battle sprites have a framework for it floating around, but one person is not going to resize 20 frames of a Pokemon for the Pokemon to look as bad while moving as they did in Gen 5. Such a huge workload is time wasted for a feature that doesn't impact the gameplay at all and looked like hot garbage when Game Freak did it.

The DS was not a step up for Pokemon games. Between the slow Gen 4/5 engine, the second screen that added nothing, the fact that literally everything worth porting down has been ported down already, and the lack of any actual incentive or must-have feature pushing us to move to the DS, the DS will not be the main focus for Pokemon hacking for at least 7 to 10 years, if ever. And I'd be willing to place money on that. Newer does not always equal better.

(As an aside, with PokeCrystal done, I don't know why a lot of Gen 3 hackers haven't moved down for the time being. The disassembly is almost too enticing to pass up for small projects or the crappy newbie hacks that are floating around. My guess is that people just don't really know how good it is.)

----


It doesn't seem like you know what you're talking about. It's not like the GBA has some mysterious piece of hardware in it preventing multiple regions, and therefore this isn't a compelling argument for moving to the DS. The big problem is that no hackers are good enough to make 2+ custom regions any good. Kids need to stop with this EVERY REGION IN ONE GAME--I'M ASH KETCHUM stuff. It's not a good idea, despite it being more than possible on the GBA.

You're right the GBA doesn't have some piece of hardware or software preventing more than two regions. It's cause the GBA system can't sustain more than one region. It puts to much of a strain on the system plus it takes up a hell of a lot of room on the GBA rom(s). Also who the hell said anything about having every region in one game? The point of making a full hack is to make you're own game isn't it? Why would anytime take all the previous games and throw them into one? It honestly sounds boring and way off topic since this discussion is about whether people should move to DS rom hacking.
 

Deokishisu

Mr. Magius
990
Posts
18
Years
You're right the GBA doesn't have some piece of hardware or software preventing more than two regions. It's cause the GBA system can't sustain more than one region. It puts to much of a strain on the system plus it takes up a hell of a lot of room on the GBA rom(s). Also who the hell said anything about having every region in one game? The point of making a full hack is to make you're own game isn't it? Why would anytime take all the previous games and throw them into one? It honestly sounds boring and way off topic since this discussion is about whether people should move to DS rom hacking.

Again, the GBA can sustain more than one region. Space is not as big an issue as you're making it out to be. There is literally no reason why you couldn't have 2+ decent sized regions in a GBA game, especially if you expand the ROM. Your false assertions put us onto this topic.
 
368
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 23
  • Seen Apr 6, 2018
Again, the GBA can sustain more than one region. Space is not as big an issue as you're making it out to be. There is literally no reason why you couldn't have 2+ decent sized regions in a GBA game, especially if you expand the ROM. Your false assertions put us onto this topic.

Again it cannot sustain MORE THAN TWO! I never said it can't sustain more than one though. Second adding another region has a lot more to it than placing tiles to create pretty decent sized maps. You have to figure out how you're gonna do each of the Pokemon I'm the areas you go to. How their levels are scaled and then the scripts for any events. However I still doubt you would be able to sustain multiple regions on GBA. Also have you tried it? Cause unless either of us actually tries it then neither of us can be right or wrong. And no I did not put us on that topic. You're the one who decided to talk about every region in one game and being Ash Ketchum. I was talking about how the DS can sustain more than the GBA can when it comes to regions.
 

Deokishisu

Mr. Magius
990
Posts
18
Years
Again it cannot sustain MORE THAN TWO! I never said it can't sustain more than one though. Second adding another region has a lot more to it than placing tiles to create pretty decent sized maps. You have to figure out how you're gonna do each of the Pokemon I'm the areas you go to. How their levels are scaled and then the scripts for any events. However I still doubt you would be able to sustain multiple regions on GBA. Also have you tried it? Cause unless either of us actually tries it then neither of us can be right or wrong. And no I did not put us on that topic. You're the one who decided to talk about every region in one game and being Ash Ketchum. I was talking about how the DS can sustain more than the GBA can when it comes to regions.

And I'm telling you the GBA can sustain more than two, because it can. I've consistently used "2+" when referring to how many regions it can do. The upper limit to regions in the GBA games is huge if you expand. You have upwards of 16MB of free space if you expand the ROM. Not all of the existing ROM holds scripts/maps/event data/etc. for the overworld; a lot of it is functions and back-end engine stuff. Firered has basically 1.5 regions in it already, and I bet I could fit 1 or 2 more in the existing free space if I was efficient and shifted some things around. With 16 extra megabytes of free space, you could throw 3 more in AT LEAST. And that's an extremely conservative estimate, it's probably more than double that if you're smart and reuse assets when possible. The shit you're talking about has to do with the skill of the hacker, and not with technical limitations. There isn't a hacker around who would want to torture themselves with a ridiculous 5 region hack, nor is there one good enough to make such an endeavor a good experience for any players who aren't idiots (i.e. the ones who can't discern quality, so the DarkRising and Co. fans). Sure, the DS is "better" if you want to fill up all possible space with 30+ regions. But literally no one would do that. No one has pushed the two region "boundary" that you're incorrectly attributing to hardware/space limitations with GBA ROMHacks because it's a lot of extra content that needs to be generated and would most likely suck, not because it isn't possible. Let me say that again. It's not because it can't be done. You don't need to try it to know that it works; the proof is in the space that's just sitting there being wasted in expanded ROMs. I'm not going to try it because I value my time and am not a masochist. In the time it would take to make an okayish 4 region hack, a great hacker could make a universe transcending 1 region hack that redefines ROMHacking and leaves every other hack in the dust forever.

Again, if the only thing you've done with a ROM is patch it and pop it in the emulator, you are not qualified to make an argument like this. You're incorrect in your assumption here and it is clear you don't know what you're talking about. This is not a reason to move to the DS. In fact, it is the worst reason that anyone has come up with to try and justify the move in this thread.
 
368
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 23
  • Seen Apr 6, 2018
And I'm telling you the GBA can sustain more than two, because it can. I've consistently used "2+" when referring to how many regions it can do. The upper limit to regions in the GBA games is huge if you expand. You have upwards of 16MB of free space if you expand the ROM. Not all of the existing ROM holds scripts/maps/event data/etc. for the overworld; a lot of it is functions and back-end engine stuff. Firered has basically 1.5 regions in it already, and I bet I could fit 1 or 2 more in the existing free space if I was efficient and shifted some things around. With 16 extra megabytes of free space, you could throw 3 more in AT LEAST. And that's an extremely conservative estimate, it's probably more than double that if you're smart and reuse assets when possible. The **** you're talking about has to do with the skill of the hacker, and not with technical limitations. There isn't a hacker around who would want to torture themselves with a ridiculous 5 region hack, nor is there one good enough to make such an endeavor a good experience for any players who aren't idiots (i.e. the ones who can't discern quality, so the DarkRising and Co. fans). Sure, the DS is "better" if you want to fill up all possible space with 30+ regions. But literally no one would do that. No one has pushed the two region "boundary" that you're incorrectly attributing to hardware/space limitations with GBA ROMHacks because it's a lot of extra content that needs to be generated and would most likely suck, not because it isn't possible. Let me say that again. It's not because it can't be done. You don't need to try it to know that it works; the proof is in the space that's just sitting there being wasted in expanded ROMs. I'm not going to try it because I value my time and am not a masochist. In the time it would take to make an okayish 4 region hack, a great hacker could make a universe transcending 1 region hack that redefines ROMHacking and leaves every other hack in the dust forever.

Again, if the only thing you've done with a ROM is patch it and pop it in the emulator, you are not qualified to make an argument like this. You're incorrect in your assumption here and it is clear you don't know what you're talking about. This is not a reason to move to the DS. In fact, it is the worst reason that anyone has come up with to try and justify the move in this thread.

First of all you literally said " Again, the GBA can sustain more than one region." In your last message. Which is 1+ not 2+. Second I was talking about the GBA system and your argument keeps talking about the ROM supporting the regions NOT the GBA system. You haven't once said that the GBA system can handle multiple regions. You have only said that the GBA roms can handle multiple regions.
 
755
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 32
  • NY
  • Seen Oct 9, 2023
First of all you literally said " Again, the GBA can sustain more than one region." In your last message. Which is 1+ not 2+. Second I was talking about the GBA system and your argument keeps talking about the ROM supporting the regions NOT the GBA system. You haven't once said that the GBA system can handle multiple regions. You have only said that the GBA roms can handle multiple regions.

Your name is Irish, so, just so you know, in native English "more than one" means "two, three, four, five, ..., or more". Never "a single extra one".

As for GBA multi-region support, even FR/LG sorta-kinda has more than two: the Sevii Islands are divided into three Town Map sections, so that's four regions counting Kanto. And apparently Pok?mon Crimson, a FireRed hack, has three regions in it, Johto, Kanto, and Sinnoh; and Liquid Crystal has Johto, Kanto, and an unfinished Orange Archipelago. (And does Glazed have Tunod, Johto, and Kanto, or just Tunod and Johto?)

It's true that the Sevii Islands were tiny, espcially when you divide them into three sets. But I'm pretty sure there's space for three whole regions worth of content in a GBA ROM. It's trivial to double ROM size from 16MB to 32MB. At that point, the only barrier to having three regions is that it's more effort than anyone is prepared to put in.

And note that hacking DS ROMs has all of the problems of hacking GBA ROMs, and then some. It's harder to create DS content: 3D maps are more complex than tile-based ones, and the tools for editing DS scripts are less mature than for the GBA. GBA hacking has actually advanced in the last few years. People rely on specialized tools less; you can use the IDA Disassembler to aid writing whole new features in assembly language or even C, instead of hex-editing everything.

Meanwhile, most DS hacks are sideshow-quality, like Sacred Gold/Storm Silver or Blaze Black/Volt White. They edit tables of data, like the Pok?mon attributes and trainer rosters, and insert a few scripts with unmoving NPCs (like SG/SS's events with Team Rocket and those Cloysters), but that's it. I know of exactly one exception, Light Platinum, and it's been abandoned. You say the DS somehow "supports" multiple regions, but there are zero DS hacks with new regions, only the maps that came with the original game. For Gen 3 hacks, extending data tables is the bare minimum, and there are automated scripts and tools that will do many of them for you, getting it out of the way to allow more unique creative work.

Before I sound like Gen 3 hacks are the best, Gen 2 has an even greater advantage: complete disassembly. pokered and pokecrystal let you treat the whole game like a proper software development project. Pok?mon Essentials users appreciate their ability to write whole new features with Ruby scripting; pokered and pokecrystal allow that same freedom, but without even relying on an underlying RPG Maker engine. And while Gen 1/2 really do have technical limitations, like 2MB ROMs (4MB if you give up the real-time clock) and single-byte IDs (so only 256 Pok?mon, 256 moves, and 256 items), developers are steadily working past that.

Once pokeruby is complete it'll be the best of both worlds: source code, in high-level C instead of pure assembly, for a GBA ROM. The GBC has its nostalgic charm, but the GBA supports more colors, more data, MIDI music, layered tilesets, more NPC movement patterns... Most of the Pok?mon-specific mechanics have been ported to Gen 2 and Gen 3 by now, like auto-Repel, Physical/Special split, and even abilities in Gen 2, but as far as technical features go, Gen 3 is a clear upgrade. (After all, the GBA is the official successor to the GBC, so why wouldn't it be?)
 
Last edited:

Trev

[span="font-size: 8px; color: white;"][font="Monts
1,505
Posts
11
Years
  • Age 27
  • Seen Nov 15, 2023
If you can't make a decent hack within the confines of one region, you should reconsider if you should be making a hack.

That said, two regions is not at all a bad thing, and it's totally possible with GBA. We don't have the limitations we had in 2011. We've basically almost busted FireRed completely open, and we're getting ever closer with Emerald. We've got art resources abound all around the forum and on the internet, and the amount of ASM that can be easily done by any layman hacker is honestly ridiculous. I have no reason to switch to DS games when all the resources and all of my talents lie in the third gen. It's honestly far easier to design for Gen III games in the current stage, and there's really nothing that's gonna convince me to switch out. I suspect others feel the exact same way.
 
368
Posts
9
Years
  • Age 23
  • Seen Apr 6, 2018
Your name is Irish, so, just so you know, in native English "more than one" means "two, three, four, five, ..., or more". Never "a single extra one".

As for GBA multi-region support, even FR/LG sorta-kinda has more than two: the Sevii Islands are divided into three Town Map sections, so that's four regions counting Kanto. And apparently Pok?mon Crimson, a FireRed hack, has three regions in it, Johto, Kanto, and Sinnoh; and Liquid Crystal has Johto, Kanto, and an unfinished Orange Archipelago. (And does Glazed have Tunod, Johto, and Kanto, or just Tunod and Johto?)

It's true that the Sevii Islands were tiny, espcially when you divide them into three sets. But I'm pretty sure there's space for three whole regions worth of content in a GBA ROM. It's trivial to double ROM size from 16MB to 32MB. At that point, the only barrier to having three regions is that it's more effort than anyone is prepared to put in.

And note that hacking DS ROMs has all of the problems of hacking GBA ROMs, and then some. It's harder to create DS content: 3D maps are more complex than tile-based ones, and the tools for editing DS scripts are less mature than for the GBA. GBA hacking has actually advanced in the last few years. People rely on specialized tools less; you can use the IDA Disassembler to aid writing whole new features in assembly language or even C, instead of hex-editing everything.

Meanwhile, most DS hacks are sideshow-quality, like Sacred Gold/Storm Silver or Blaze Black/Volt White. They edit tables of data, like the Pok?mon attributes and trainer rosters, and insert a few scripts with unmoving NPCs (like SG/SS's events with Team Rocket and those Cloysters), but that's it. I know of exactly one exception, Light Platinum, and it's been abandoned. You say the DS somehow "supports" multiple regions, but there are zero DS hacks with new regions, only the maps that came with the original game. For Gen 3 hacks, extending data tables is the bare minimum, and there are automated scripts and tools that will do many of them for you, getting it out of the way to allow more unique creative work.

Before I sound like Gen 3 hacks are the best, Gen 2 has an even greater advantage: complete disassembly. pokered and pokecrystal let you treat the whole game like a proper software development project. Pok?mon Essentials users appreciate their ability to write whole new features with Ruby scripting; pokered and pokecrystal allow that same freedom, but without even relying on an underlying RPG Maker engine. And while Gen 1/2 really do have technical limitations, like 2MB ROMs (4MB if you give up the real-time clock) and single-byte IDs (so only 256 Pok?mon, 256 moves, and 256 items), developers are steadily working past that.

Once pokeruby is complete it'll be the best of both worlds: source code, in high-level C instead of pure assembly, for a GBA ROM. The GBC has its nostalgic charm, but the GBA supports more colors, more data, MIDI music, layered tilesets, more NPC movement patterns... Most of the Pok?mon-specific mechanics have been ported to Gen 2 and Gen 3 by now, like auto-Repel, Physical/Special split, and even abilities in Gen 2, but as far as technical features go, Gen 3 is a clear upgrade. (After all, the GBA is the official successor to the GBC, so why wouldn't it be?)

First of all its Gaelic (Scottish) not Irish Gaelic. Second don't assume I'm Irish or Scottish just because that's the language my username comes from cause I'm American and the American dialect of English is my first language. Thirdly I said that "more than one" was not 2+. Cause it isn't you said it could be any number. However you said you only said 2+. In other words that wasn't entirely true.

Ok I concede you make your point (though you still only talked about the ROM and not the system).
 

MrDollSteak

Formerly known as 11bayerf1
858
Posts
15
Years
First of all its Gaelic (Scottish) not Irish Gaelic. Second don't assume I'm Irish or Scottish just because that's the language my username comes from cause I'm American and the American dialect of English is my first language. Thirdly I said that "more than one" was not 2+. Cause it isn't you said it could be any number. However you said you only said 2+. In other words that wasn't entirely true.

Ok I concede you make your point (though you still only talked about the ROM and not the system).

I'm honestly not sure what you think the distinction between the ROM and the system is. If there is enough space to put more regions onto the ROM then it will run on the GBA. Multiple regions doesn't have any effect on the RAM limitations as it doesn't fundamentally change the map structure at all.
 
90
Posts
7
Years
You do realize I'm no longer interested in DS hacking? I'm trying GBA hacking for now. This argument/debate should've ended long ago. btw, Pokequality is making a DS hack with 14 regions.

Can this argument end? I've only started hacking and I should've known better. Wait did someone say you can code with C instead of using a hex editor all the time?

How can I get this thread closed?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
196
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 30
  • Seen May 5, 2023
You do realize I'm no longer interested in DS hacking? I'm trying GBA hacking for now. This argument/debate should've ended long ago. btw, Pokequality is making a DS hack with 14 regions.

Can this argument end? I've only started hacking and I should've known better. Wait did someone say you can code with C instead of using a hex editor all the time?

How can I get this thread closed?

That idiot(pokequality) is still making that hack?!!







God may support him
 
Back
Top