Hey!
This hack really looks cool - Gonna test is out while on vacation in the coming 2 weeks 😉
However:
Is there any chance you can implement a save strategy to make it work with 512K SRAM on real HW?
There is one (also containing detailed instructions) in romhacking.net for Emerald that should be usable for this purpose.
I'm afraid right now I will not be able to finish the game because my cartridges only have 512K SRAM :/
Welcome to PokéCommunity!
Unfortunately, that's beyond the scope of this hack. I see the Emerald hack you mentioned, but it's not the most trivial process to create a similar hack for FireRed/LeafGreen. I'd imagine a hack like that would've been made by now. There's places where the two games differ in data saved, such as with FR/LG's "Previously on your quest" function and Emerald's recorded battles from the Battle Frontier. This is something that would need to be made as a general modification and not a Throwback-specific hack, should someone be willing to do that.
For what it's worth, there shouldn't be a problem playing the GBA Pokémon games via custom GBA Virtual Console installs for 3DS or with modern flashcarts like the EZ-Flash Omega. The Everdrive X5 also works, although it can be a pain for games with RTC support.
Hey, thanks for all your work on this hack! Two quick questions:
1.) Can Pokemon from this hack be transported to future games and ultimately to Bank or will they be caught by the legality checker? If so, what specific changes are the cause of this.
2.) Is there a "reverse" save-compatibility patch that allows you to transfer your save back to vanilla FireRed? I was thinking about using this hack on the Retron 5 with a real cartridge and soft-patching, and then using the cartridge in real DS hardware to transfer to Gen 4.
Thank you for the kind words!
I'll answer your second question first. There's nothing you'll need to do to make your Throwback save work with vanilla FireRed. Just rename it and move the file over, and you're good to go! The only slight thing you'll notice is that the GB Sounds item will transform into a mess of ?'s. You won't be able to do anything with it. It'll just be stuck in your Key Items Pocket. But it won't be messing with anything. I
could theoretically make a patch that removes the GB Sounds item, but that'd be a hack in itself. At that point you'd be better off removing the now-corrupted item via a save editor.
Now, for migrating Pokémon to future games. I've recently thought about the many ways in which legality can be determined for Pokémon in Throwback, and an unfortunate reality has dawned upon me. It turns out there are many Pokémon you can obtain in it that can be considered illegal depending on how hard and fast a given system or competition holds to the rules. I don't know how strict Pokémon Bank is with this, and I'm pretty sure no one else is. That'd require either a ton of trial-and-error or a massive effort in reverse engineering a digital service. I can't say that any of these particular concerns I'm about to list will cause issues with using them in the modern games. I'm just listing the possible issues I can think of.
I'll divide them into a few sections.
WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!
Section 1: Wild Pokémon in Throwback not available in either FireRed or LeafGreen
When transferred to later generations, a Pokémon's found location will be greatly abbreviated, shortening strictly to the region of the game from which they originated from. In the case of Pokémon caught in Throwback, they'll be stated to have been met in Kanto (this includes Pokémon caught at the Sevii Islands, FYI). This actually works great for version-exclusive Pokémon, but it still causes a critical issue for Pokémon not obtainable at all in FireRed or LeafGreen.
Regardless of transfer system used (Pal Park, Poké Transfer, Pokémon Bank), the games will retain which Poké Ball the Pokémon was originally obtained with. For later games this serves as an extra check for legality when it comes to event Pokémon, as their displayed Ball will be a Cherish Ball. This might also be used to check if a Pokémon was caught in a game it's not available in. Most Balls are only used when actually catching them inside it. Gen VI and onwards changed that to where you can pass down caught Balls via breeding, but that's irrelevant when it comes to transferring Pokémon from previous generations.
The following Pokémon are wholly unobtainable in FireRed and LeafGreen but can be caught in Throwback. Their evolved forms can be categorized similarly:
- Hoothoot
- Chinchou
- Sudowoodo
- Sunkern
- Girafarig
- Gligar
- Snubbull
- Corsola
- Miltank
These Pokémon are also regularly unobtainable in FireRed and LeafGreen (along with their evolutions). However, they were originally meant to be obtained in Altering Cave by using Mystery Gift at a Wonder Spot. Perhaps someone could conceivably convince someone that their Mystery Gift process went a bit haywire and incremented the variable that changes what Pokémon is available there at a given time. Here they are:
- Mareep
- Pineco
- Houndour
- Teddiursa
- Aipom
- Shuckle
- Stantler
- Smeargle
There are a couple of ways to ensure that these Pokémon, and their evolved forms, don't get flagged when you send them to your Gen VI/VII games. First, you can breed them from the ones you caught in the wild. All Pokémon hatched from Eggs made at the Day Care are legal. The second way is related to that. If you catch them with a Poké Ball, there should be no issue with them being used in later games. Thanks to their indicated Ball being a Poké Ball, they'll be indistinguishable from Pokémon hatched from Eggs.
But I easily understand that not everyone will want to follow these precautions. Will there be any hangups transferring them to the modern games and using them as you wish? Probably not. But I can't guarantee that. Now, can you use these Pokémon with Sword and Shield? Well, I guess you'll have to ask Game Freak about that one. Or wait until the games come out to see which creatures will be given the green light to appear in them. But hey, I guess that's something Throwback will always have over the newest games!
Section 2: Roaming Legendaries
Without putting much thought into this, you'd think that this isn't an issue at all. Sure, you can catch all three of Raikou Entei, and Suicune in the wild in Throwback instead of just one. But hey, technically all three of them are normally caught this way, so there should be no problem, right? Right???
That's where you're wrong kiddo.
An oversight in the roaming code in the Gen III games causes the generated IVs of roaming Pokémon to be terrible. This means that there's a much smaller range of legitimate IV combinations for Pokémon obtained through this method. I fixed the roaming IV glitch in the Extras portion of the hack, meaning that the three of them can now potentially have any possible combination of IVs from 0 to 31 per stat. Of course, this comes with the side effect that most roaming Pokémon caught in this hack will likely have at least one IV outside of the limited range possible from the glitch. Since transferring them up to later games will still indicate that they come from Kanto, someone will be able to deduce that they came from FireRed or LeafGreen. Then people who are aware of the IV glitch could check their IVs to see if they indeed fall into the limited possibilities for those games. If not, they could be classified as illegal.
Does Pokémon Bank check for this? Do online battles check for this? Do tournaments check for this? You're asking the wrong person. I have a feeling that you'll be able to do the first two just fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's something out there that does check for it. I could always remove the roaming IV fix from the hack to bypass this entirely, but I don't know how others would react to that. I've already upset some by removing Faraway Island from the hack (I like to refer to it as "Fauxaway Island" due to how poor a facsimile it was of Emerald's), do I really want to poke the hornet's nest again?
Section 3: Mythical Pokémon
As the hack currently stands today, Mew and Celebi are not obtainable in-game. I know that this disappoints many people. Recently, I've come around on this and am now disappointed myself in this fact. So I'll say this now:
Both Mew and Celebi will be obtainable in-game sometime in the future. It'll be awhile before I get things finished for them, though. I've got ideas for both of them in my head. Celebi's is far more complex, but I really like one part of it that I've already tested out. I think it'll please both people who know Celebi's capabilities and those who like the whole "Throwback" idea. 😄
Should they be obtainable in the ways I intend them to be, I can assure you that they will be considered illegal. In the Gen III games outside of Japan, Mew and Celebi are only obtainable via real-life events. This means that their Trainer IDs, Trainer names, and fateful encounter status are all predetermined from a very small pool of choices. This isn't something I can easily code into the game, and I don't think people will be too happy with obtaining Mew and Celebi through the hack in my intended means only to find out that they aren't the original Trainer for them.
Whew! Sorry if that response was a bit much. I just figured that being thorough about it would really help out with questions like this.
