Hack Series: Pokémon Photonic Sun & Prismatic Moon

Thestorm4 · Mar 23, 2019

and Gethsis !?!?! 255 EV in every stat except attack (he doesn't have physical attacks anyways) and Giovanni(let me stay silent), oh boi, and Champion Challenger Youngster Tristain

, he says he trained his pokemon all he can on route 1, and now that he has level 100 pokemon............ can you imagine grinding on route 1 up to level 100, using only weak level 2-3 pokemon ??? that's hell

Thestorm4 · Mar 23, 2019

Contrary Draco Meteor Serperior............. welp,I'm out of here, are you serious ???? that's like a swords dance for special attack every time he uses the damn thing :evil-smirk:

Buffel Saft · Mar 24, 2019

TheGreenCero said:
Route 6 no Chespin
ill post if i have anymore unless if you have discord which you can dm to me, so i can dump them in real time XD

Chespin's there in the encounter data, but I'll check in game tomorrow. It's only in the two southern patches of grass on that route though, maybe that's the problem? You can probably find my discord account on the Pokecommunity server (if not I'll DM you the details), my username's the same as it is here.

Thestorm4 said:
OMG !!! thank you so much, I was surprised when I read through the Documents folder to see the encounter changes because I started a fresh game and saw Zigzagoon and Weedle in the grass on route 1, when I saw the elite four teams and how they have legendary pokemon after you challenge the league after the first game clear, I was shocked O_O, oh boi can't wait for that lol, just had the chance to sit and set up the hack because I was busy this week :)

You're welcome! I hope the league lives up to your expectations!

Thestorm4 said:
and Gethsis !?!?! 255 EV in every stat except attack (he doesn't have physical attacks anyways) and Giovanni(let me stay silent), oh boi, and Champion Challenger Youngster Tristain , he says he trained his pokemon all he can on route 1, and now that he has level 100 pokemon............ can you imagine grinding on route 1 up to level 100, using only weak level 2-3 pokemon ??? that's hell

Yeah he would have been there a while :laugh-squinted:

Thestorm4 said:
Contrary Draco Meteor Serperior............. welp,I'm out of here, are you serious ???? that's like a swords dance for special attack every time he uses the damn thing :evil-smirk:

I can't take credit for that one, it's copied from Drayano's hacks. It's just as crazy as it sounds though!

Thestorm4 · Mar 24, 2019

yup, Drayano's Volt White was a really good hack, the guy is a veteran in difficulty enhancing mods

Jk Howling · Mar 24, 2019

Can I drop a few suggestions?

=Tynamo= It needs... anything. Literally anything. Right now it's essentially Magikarp in the sense that it learns NOTHING but what it has [Spark, Charge Beam, Tackle, and Thunder Wave] until level 37. It's just... depressingly bad. No TM's, no tutors, nothing but that for 37 levels!. I'd like to propose:
>Evolving at level 20, like Magikarp. Eelektrik already has a levelup learnset [including Discharge at 29] so that balances out nicely enough alone.

=Ledyba/Ledian= I love the buff to its attack, and giving it Aerilate, but its moveset is... to be blunt? hot garbage. Not a single physical flying or bug move between both evolutions. I do understand Bug Bite is available as a tutor, but not until the very end of the first island. And it's utterly useless without Aerilate. I'd like to push for
>Bug Bite being learned naturally by them at least, maybe oat either 7, 12, or 21? [replacing Supersonic, Safeguard, or Silver Wind].
>Leech Life or X-Scissor, via TM and maybe in place of Bug Buzz at 33/38?
>Acrobatics, or maybe Dizzy Punch, at 36/42 in place of Air Slash
>buffing Comet Punch to 25 power like you did Arm Thrust and Spike Cannon, or replacing it with Dizzy Punch at level 22/24

=Shuppet= Again, love the buffs. Ghost/Normal is dope! Just a minor suggestion here:
>Allow it to learn Covet via Tutor, just for a decent early STAB. It also fits in with Banette's theme a bit, I think; an abandoned doll probably would covet items itself, since it itself was discarded according to some dex entries.

=Togetic= Just.. another really bad learnset. Like, borderline useless. We don't get a Shiny Stone til all the way in Konikoni, and up until then, this thing is mostly deadweight, solely due to the fact that it learns literally no flying type moves and only Fairy Wind by levelup. I'd propose:
>Air Cutter at 17 [Encore] or 21 [Follow Me]
>Swapping Ancient Power to 25 instead of Bestow, then putting Draining Kiss at 33
>Air Slash at 37 [Safeguard] or 41 [Baton Pass]

=Gladion Route 5 Battle= The documents say he has Crush Claw, Pursuit, Roar, and U-Turn. Fsr he seems to have Tackle instead of Crush Claw though. Everything else is as the documents say.

james19 · Mar 25, 2019

Excuse me, is there any easy way to edit the roosters of the trainers who challenges you after you're champion? Those, and the e4 teams? I want to create new challenges for my team, but I can't figure out how to do it (I've downloaded pk3ds but I don't know which files should I open, or if I need to decompress the patch for example)

$_Swagsire_$ · Mar 25, 2019

How are the trainers' battle strategies in this romhack? Are there trainers who employ gimmicky tactics such as (but not necessarily) FEAR, Assist Spore Liepard, Paraflinch, etc.?

Also this might be just mine but my game freezes when buying from Pokemarts. I'm using the Citra Nightly 1236.

Buffel Saft · Mar 26, 2019

Jk Howling said:
Can I drop a few suggestions?

=Tynamo= It needs... anything. Literally anything. Right now it's essentially Magikarp in the sense that it learns NOTHING but what it has [Spark, Charge Beam, Tackle, and Thunder Wave] until level 37. It's just... depressingly bad. No TM's, no tutors, nothing but that for 37 levels!. I'd like to propose:
>Evolving at level 20, like Magikarp. Eelektrik already has a levelup learnset [including Discharge at 29] so that balances out nicely enough alone.

=Ledyba/Ledian= I love the buff to its attack, and giving it Aerilate, but its moveset is... to be blunt? hot garbage. Not a single physical flying or bug move between both evolutions. I do understand Bug Bite is available as a tutor, but not until the very end of the first island. And it's utterly useless without Aerilate. I'd like to push for
>Bug Bite being learned naturally by them at least, maybe oat either 7, 12, or 21? [replacing Supersonic, Safeguard, or Silver Wind].
>Leech Life or X-Scissor, via TM and maybe in place of Bug Buzz at 33/38?
>Acrobatics, or maybe Dizzy Punch, at 36/42 in place of Air Slash
>buffing Comet Punch to 25 power like you did Arm Thrust and Spike Cannon, or replacing it with Dizzy Punch at level 22/24

=Shuppet= Again, love the buffs. Ghost/Normal is dope! Just a minor suggestion here:
>Allow it to learn Covet via Tutor, just for a decent early STAB. It also fits in with Banette's theme a bit, I think; an abandoned doll probably would covet items itself, since it itself was discarded according to some dex entries.

=Togetic= Just.. another really bad learnset. Like, borderline useless. We don't get a Shiny Stone til all the way in Konikoni, and up until then, this thing is mostly deadweight, solely due to the fact that it learns literally no flying type moves and only Fairy Wind by levelup. I'd propose:
>Air Cutter at 17 [Encore] or 21 [Follow Me]
>Swapping Ancient Power to 25 instead of Bestow, then putting Draining Kiss at 33
>Air Slash at 37 [Safeguard] or 41 [Baton Pass]

=Gladion Route 5 Battle= The documents say he has Crush Claw, Pursuit, Roar, and U-Turn. Fsr he seems to have Tackle instead of Crush Claw though. Everything else is as the documents say.

These are all really good suggestions, I'll add them to the game with the next update. Covet Shuppet may not be possible; I've had to revert previous tutor move changes because they didn't work (though that may only be a problem when modifying the moves the tutor teaches), but I'll make it a level up move instead if that's the case.

Thanks for letting me know about the Gladion mistake! He used to have Crush Claw but it was a bit much for some teams to deal with, so it was downgraded to Tackle.

james19 said:
Excuse me, is there any easy way to edit the roosters of the trainers who challenges you after you're champion? Those, and the e4 teams? I want to create new challenges for my team, but I can't figure out how to do it (I've downloaded pk3ds but I don't know which files should I open, or if I need to decompress the patch for example)

To use pk3ds you'll need a full ROM that's been unpacked into its individual files and folders; you can then open the folder that contains these folders with pk3ds. The citra install guide covers how to unpack a ROM and merge the hack into it if you need more details. Once you've made your modifications you can either rebuild the ROM and use it with citra or copy the files you've modified into the hack's folders and play on 3DS.

Violins77 · Apr 5, 2019

Hi Buffel Saft! Thank you for this amazing Rom Hack! I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I must admit I just came back to Pokemon, the last game I beat in the series was the original Sapphire back in 2006, so I'm getting a little bit destroyed here!

I wanted to know if you could tell me (just like in your Eternal X documentation) which files contain the trainers and the pokemon changes in the hack (example a013), so I could keep all of your other changes but play the game in a more noob friendly way to catch up on what I've been missing in the last... well, 15 years! I compared with the Eternal X files, where you did document it, but it doesn't seem to be the same with USUM!

Thank you!

Buffel Saft · Apr 6, 2019

Violins77 said:
Hi Buffel Saft! Thank you for this amazing Rom Hack! I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I must admit I just came back to Pokemon, the last game I beat in the series was the original Sapphire back in 2006, so I'm getting a little bit destroyed here!

I wanted to know if you could tell me (just like in your Eternal X documentation) which files contain the trainers and the pokemon changes in the hack (example a013), so I could keep all of your other changes but play the game in a more noob friendly way to catch up on what I've been missing in the last... well, 15 years! I compared with the Eternal X files, where you did document it, but it doesn't seem to be the same with USUM!

Thank you!

Hey, you're welcome! Always nice to hear people are enjoying the hack.

I probably should add a section on garcs to the documents, but until then here's the complete list of notable garcs:

Spoiler:

The wild encounter levels will get a bit crazy without the trainers to go with them, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Violins77 · Apr 8, 2019

Thank you very much!! Ironically, I got better during the last few days and I think I'm gonna keep playing as is. I was able to level up and clear the first island trial, which was hard, but not that bad when I was fully prepared. I should learn to be more patient haha. Sorry I didn't mean to ask you to document this for nothing, and I'm quite sure it will be useful to have the file structure listed down the road.

Buffel Saft · Apr 9, 2019

Violins77 said:
Thank you very much!! Ironically, I got better during the last few days and I think I'm gonna keep playing as is. I was able to level up and clear the first island trial, which was hard, but not that bad when I was fully prepared. I should learn to be more patient haha. Sorry I didn't mean to ask you to document this for nothing, and I'm quite sure it will be useful to have the file structure listed down the road.

No problem! I had the file list on hand anyway so it was no trouble to get it for you. Good luck with the rest of the game, it does get a bit harder later on!

Thestorm4 · Apr 12, 2019

thank you so much, I was doing some research and editing the garc files to get rid of the annoying tree banlist in a regular game of usum, you see the banlist for oras's battle maison was inside a/1/7/0 and for sm it was inside a/1/3/7 wich was found thanks to a post by isleep2late on projecpokemon

i successfully removed the banlist in those games thanks to a reply made by Kaphotics wich contained the following section to replace by zeros using a hex editor, I used HxD

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0E
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0
07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 98 7E 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
D8 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 03 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 E0 01 07

I was stuck for days with either no changes happening or the game crashing when I try to select my mons, in one of these cases he told me i don't have a full team even though i had 6 regular mons,i was just about to ask you for the directory of the file that contains the banist but you answered indirectly when you made your reply to Violins77 and you saved me the headache lol

Buffel Saft · Apr 13, 2019

Thestorm4 said:
thank you so much, I was doing some research and editing the garc files to get rid of the annoying tree banlist in a regular game of usum, you see the banlist for oras's battle maison was inside a/1/7/0 and for sm it was inside a/1/3/7 wich was found thanks to a post by isleep2late on projecpokemon

i successfully removed the banlist in those games thanks to a reply made by Kaphotics wich contained the following section to replace by zeros using a hex editor, I used HxD

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0E
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0
07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 98 7E 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
D8 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 03 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 E0 01 07

I was stuck for days with either no changes happening or the game crashing when I try to select my mons, in one of these cases he told me i don't have a full team even though i had 6 regular mons,i was just about to ask you for the directory of the file that contains the banist but you answered indirectly when you made your reply to Violins77 and you saved me the headache lol

You're welcome! Hopefully it works properly, I never actually tested it. Seemed okay based on the Project Pokemon thread though.

james19 · Apr 13, 2019

75 hours took me to finish the main campaign of Prismatic Moon, but man, again, what a journey! I found the trainers they were better planed in comparison with Eternal X, without relying too much on legendaries to make it difficult or challenging. Gliscor just to say the first example it comes to my mind, on the e4 is just a nightmare if you dont have an ice attack (which I havent lol)

The curve through out the game felt very organic, although a little OP sometimes using LIfe orbs for example. But its more about I was mad about them, than a proper bad idea of yours lol.

Great hack, as I said before, its very clear you improved since Eternal X design. Congratulations, and welp, Post game here I go!

Buffel Saft · Apr 15, 2019

james19 said:
75 hours took me to finish the main campaign of Prismatic Moon, but man, again, what a journey! I found the trainers they were better planed in comparison with Eternal X, without relying too much on legendaries to make it difficult or challenging. Gliscor just to say the first example it comes to my mind, on the e4 is just a nightmare if you dont have an ice attack (which I havent lol)

The curve through out the game felt very organic, although a little OP sometimes using LIfe orbs for example. But its more about I was mad about them, than a proper bad idea of yours lol.

Great hack, as I said before, its very clear you improved since Eternal X design. Congratulations, and welp, Post game here I go!

Thanks again for the kind words, much appreciated! It's really good to hear Prismatic Moon is an improvement over Eternal X, I did try to improve on the weaker aspects of my XY hacks with the USUM ones. Also good to hear the level curve worked well for you, I've had mixed feedback on that one so far.

Hope you enjoy the post game!

Jk Howling · Apr 19, 2019

Here's a great question. How do I get Photonic Sun out of Citra?

I've deleted the rom. I've reset the save file. I've got a brand spanking new, clean US rom.

And for all the life of me, it still insists on greeting me with a cheerful "Welcome to Photonic Sun! :D" even though I know for 110% certainty I am not using a Photonic Sun rom. Is it pulling from some place I don't know about? And better yet, how tf do I get rid of it??

Buffel Saft · Apr 19, 2019

Jk Howling said:
Here's a great question. How do I get Photonic Sun out of Citra?

I've deleted the rom. I've reset the save file. I've got a brand spanking new, clean US rom.

And for all the life of me, it still insists on greeting me with a cheerful "Welcome to Photonic Sun! :D" even though I know for 110% certainty I am not using a Photonic Sun rom. Is it pulling from some place I don't know about? And better yet, how tf do I get rid of it??

That is a good question! I suspect it's getting that text from the hack's title update. I don't know how to uninstall that from Citra, but installing a clean Ultra Sun update .cia over the top of it should get rid of it.

Luxmoa · Apr 20, 2019

Love the hack so far.

Is the 1% bagon still on route 3? Been searching for 3 hours and still nada.

Buffel Saft · Apr 20, 2019

Luxmoa said:
Love the hack so far.

Is the 1% bagon still on route 3? Been searching for 3 hours and still nada.

Thanks! Yeah it's still there, but only in one patch of grass, same as the vanilla games.