FireRed hack: Pokemon Unown

Pokemon Unown

Intro to the Hack:

This hack "Pokémon Unown" is based on Pokémon FireRed which focuses on creating a more natural and immersive randomized experience. Battles and encounters are always "unknown", which attempts to bring the unpredictability of competitive battling into the Kanto story.

All wild encounters, trainer battles, and gift Pokémon are thematically randomized on the fly. This means that the Pokémon power level and types are derived from the vanilla engine. Unlike most other randomizers, you cannot encounter fully evolved or legendary Pokémon in route 1. Naturally, you cannot fish/surf a fire type. We've also overhauled a number of features to make them thematically random including: Mixed Generations of Starters, Pikachu, Unown, Trades, Gifts, Overworld Pokémon, and added a number of new Mega forms.

As a result, the hack should be very replayable, much more challenging than vanilla, and with more controlled entropy compared to most other randomizers.

Highlighted Features:

• Includes 905 Pokémon
• Smart AI and Teams
• Thematically randomized
• Enhanced difficulty
• Mega evolutions
• Unown & Pikachu Buffs
• Jessie and James Rivals
• With Hisui Pokémon
• Built-in nuzlocke modes
• Automated healing
• Automated nicknames
• Difficulty modes
• Min-grinding Mode
• Overhaul Trades

Documentation Website
Please see this website for up-to-date detailed documentation.
http://unown.foobear.org/

Screenshots:
I'd like to stress that the changes I've made to the encounter and trainer battle engine are fairly substantial, but they don't screenshot well... Nevertheless, here are some screenshots of various new text, items, and affects added.


Download:
You can download the Pokemon Unown UPS Patch and apply it to a vanilla Pokemon Fire Red Squirrels ROM, or use our online patcher.

Status/Timeline:
We consider the hack to be at the very end of Beta (as of v0.9 in Dec 2022). It is completable and contains all features we set out to make. But we may tweak the balance and fix any remaining bugs.

Credit:
This hack was built using a huge amount of resources from this website. This project wouldn't be possible without the outstanding work of the DPE and CFRU.

All modifications are a derivative of code from

• Skeli's Dynamic-Pokemon-Expansion (DPE)
• Skeli's Complete-Fire-Red-Upgrade (CFRU)
• Leon's Base Patch
• Against's BW Summary Screen
• Against's BW Summary Screen
• Nature-affected Stats

Here is a list of further credits related to the hack's development.

• adamtwig and TF for all their help in too many ways to list.
• Greenphx for help with Hisui integration and general hacking advice.
• New Sprites: ~AlexandreV2.0#5579, CourageousArcanine, Loafus022, lennybitao, IDesbas, Miranjii, TheyMadeMeMakeThisAC, Darklight177, KingOfThe-X-Roads, Vent, leParagon, Red7246, tay (on whackahack), Frander04, Greenphx, Dewitty, Chocosrawloid, Kymontonian, milomilotic11, Neo-Spriteman, hamsterskull, Sparta, DarkusShadow.
• The Discord community for feedback, bug reporting, etc!

Hey!

Really enjoying this hack so far! Just two things

1. There is a softlock bug that happens to me at nighttime, occasionally it half loads either when I exit the Dig house in Cerulean, or crashes when a Pokemon evolves over at Route 10. Saving and resetting the game seems to help with this.

2. Everytime I go to battle the rival in the Pokemon Tower, it freezes when the screen goes black (right before battle starts), this one I haven't found a solution to unfortunately.

Hopefully a fix can occur for these glitches, otherwise this is a great game! A list of all available moves/tutors and where to find them, color coded natures, Pokeball changer, and also a IV/EV checker/changer would be great additions too!

ricomanuel32 said:

Hey!

Really enjoying this hack so far! Just two things

1. There is a softlock bug that happens to me at nighttime, occasionally it half loads either when I exit the Dig house in Cerulean, or crashes when a Pokemon evolves over at Route 10. Saving and resetting the game seems to help with this.

2. Everytime I go to battle the rival in the Pokemon Tower, it freezes when the screen goes black (right before battle starts), this one I haven't found a solution to unfortunately.

Hopefully a fix can occur for these glitches, otherwise this is a great game! A list of all available moves/tutors and where to find them, color coded natures, Pokeball changer, and also a IV/EV checker/changer would be great additions too!

Click to expand...

Thanks ricomanuel32!
- What emulator are you using? Are you using any high fast forward rate?
- Do you happen to remember what starter your rival is using?

I've never encountered these issues. I'm very curious what could be causing them. It does sound like it is related to the day/night cycle though. Lmk if you think it'd be possible to exchange save files (.sav or .srm) so that I can debug it on my end a little closer. One other user reported a similar issue to your #2 but I haven't heard any details from them about it and I cannot reproduce it on my side.

I'm using VBA (Visual Boy Advance) and I was using the standard fast forward rate option. My rival in previous battles was using the Sobble line. I can send my .sav file!

Do the starters have a chance of getting hidden ability?

I really enjoy this hack. But there is a problem to me when trying to clear map with legendary pkm: they are duplicated. I catched many Sivaly and Aceus but they keep apearing on the map 😅

I love this game. I love the concept. Semi randomizer might just be the coolest implementation in a pokemon hack I've ever seen, hats off to you sirs.

But I'd like to report something which I believe to be a bug: Anorith and either version of Shellos don't seem to interact well. Here's what happens.

Start new game, set up as I wish, choose starter, go through Oak tutorial, test out some routes and fishing to see what pokemon can spawn. Buy all the pokeballz I can because I decided to catch as many pokes I could find. Find and catch an Anorith, make progress, have Anorith at first spot in my party because Rock type helps resisting all those Normal attacks.

Encounter a Shellos. (Not entirely sure if it was in the Viridian grass patch or fishing anymore, sorry...) Weaken it. Swap to the pokeball bag in my inventory, make a savestate (I'm stingy I don't want to waste balls, bite me :D). Try to catch the Shellos. And here's where the problem happens:

It doesn't matter if I catch the Shellos, kill the Shellos with Anorith or swap to a different pokemon to kill the Shellos. Once the battle ends I get an error message saying "Failed to load savestate... somethingsomething." And then my emulator exits. (I use mGBA 0.9.2)

I don't know if this is a bug in the emulator or in the pokemon, but since it was Anorith vs Shellos both times, and my parties were completely different except for Anorith both times something tells me that ain't right.
I had these teams during both attempts:

Anorith, Starly, Lilipup, Turtwig (starter), Stunky, Mankey
Anorith, Cyndaquil (starter), Scraggy, Dreepy, Rattata, Zigzagoon-Galar

ricomanuel32 said:

I'm using VBA (Visual Boy Advance) and I was using the standard fast forward rate option. My rival in previous battles was using the Sobble line. I can send my .sav file!

Click to expand...

This should be fixed in the latest versions!

Senpai69 said:

Do the starters have a chance of getting hidden ability?

Click to expand...

Not from the wild, but you can buy Ability Pills/Capsules in Celadon.

imoon said:

I really enjoy this hack. But there is a problem to me when trying to clear map with legendary pkm: they are duplicated. I catched many Sivaly and Aceus but they keep apearing on the map 😅

Click to expand...

Hm. Weird? Is this after beating the game presumably? Roamer could may be a bit goofy but I'll take a look.

Zero-G said:

I love this game. I love the concept. Semi randomizer might just be the coolest implementation in a pokemon hack I've ever seen, hats off to you sirs.

But I'd like to report something which I believe to be a bug: Anorith and either version of Shellos don't seem to interact well. Here's what happens.

Start new game, set up as I wish, choose starter, go through Oak tutorial, test out some routes and fishing to see what pokemon can spawn. Buy all the pokeballz I can because I decided to catch as many pokes I could find. Find and catch an Anorith, make progress, have Anorith at first spot in my party because Rock type helps resisting all those Normal attacks.

Encounter a Shellos. (Not entirely sure if it was in the Viridian grass patch or fishing anymore, sorry...) Weaken it. Swap to the pokeball bag in my inventory, make a savestate (I'm stingy I don't want to waste balls, bite me :D). Try to catch the Shellos. And here's where the problem happens:

It doesn't matter if I catch the Shellos, kill the Shellos with Anorith or swap to a different pokemon to kill the Shellos. Once the battle ends I get an error message saying "Failed to load savestate... somethingsomething." And then my emulator exits. (I use mGBA 0.9.2)

I don't know if this is a bug in the emulator or in the pokemon, but since it was Anorith vs Shellos both times, and my parties were completely different except for Anorith both times something tells me that ain't right.
I had these teams during both attempts:

Anorith, Starly, Lilipup, Turtwig (starter), Stunky, Mankey
Anorith, Cyndaquil (starter), Scraggy, Dreepy, Rattata, Zigzagoon-Galar

Click to expand...

Thanks! This sounds VERY strange to me though. I've heard of a similar sounding crash with mantyke but I haven't been able to reproduce it myself, although I will try again with the new information. Both cases were using save states so I'm not sure if something weird is happening in the emulator's RAM? I'm really not sure!

This is by far my favorite improvement hack! Everything has been smooth and enjoyable, and I'm already onto my third run!
The only issue I ran into was that the fight against Erika took near five minutes to load, it happened on both my A53 and my Retroid Pocket 2+ using the pro version of PizzaBoy.
Other than that little hiccup, it's perfect! Thanks for making this!

Couldn't help but notice a slight bug regarding sweet scent.

If a pokemon uses sweet scent outside of battle while it isn't in the first pokemon in your party it tends to create an encounter with the last seen wild pokemon where it's already in a "Fainted" state. Upon using up your turn it faints.

It's kind of nice for a nuzlocke cheese strat but other than that, it's a bug.

Out of pure curiosity, is move compatibility completely up to date or on Gen 8/PLA status?

The main reason why I'm asking is Cloyster and Waterfall, which it got in Paldea.

Loving this hack, however I have a couple of questions. Would it be possible to up the number of boxes in the PC to 31-32 so that it is possible to complete the living dex? and do wild Clefairy still have a chance to hold a moon stone? I know this thread hasn't been posted on for over a year, but I'd really love to know.