Pokémon - Magikarp Edition?

Pok?mon - Magikarp Edition?

Just a wild idea that got on my mind: A Pok?mon Hack based around the one and only Magikarp! Because why not?

Nothing is there yet, just some ideas for the Hack:
- Base Game: Pok?mon Fire Red (v1.1).
- Starter: Magikarp, Rival Starter: Feebas.
- Patterns: Normal,
- (Magikarp) Fishing Competition.
- Karp Town (Starter Town).
That's all I got at the moment, will be adding more in the future for sure!

If anyone has more suggestions and ideas for the Hack just let me know, I'm happy with all the help you can offer me!

I'm very new to ROM Hacking, so we'll see where this ends!

*RESERVED*

I can see some problems with this. Starting with Magikarp low base stats and unable to learn any offensive move early in the game with learning Tackle on level 15 & Flail on level 30. So the very first thing you need todo is checking his movepool so he learns Tackle on level 5. You can learn his Flail on level 8 and let's say something like Take Down (you need to hack for this to be learnable) on level 14. This will probally be the best way to ballance him out as a starter. The Take Down will give nice synergy with flail. I would also buff his base stats a little bit. Let's say 20 points or something. What you also can do is edit the move splash. Give it a chance effect like in 20% of the cases you use it. Something crazy will happen like: Fly, Hyper Beam, Slam, Sky Drop, etc...

I would also place Feebas as the pok?mon of your Rival. That was basicly the 3th gen magikarp.

@CoolKnightST

Thank you for these ideas, this will help me a lot in my progress!
I was already planning to edit his stats and moveset otherwise it would be impossible haha, but I would never have thought about Splash being edited to such a move!

No problem, I would suggest adding the move Bounce. It's basicly a sort of Fly. This move could be learned to Magikarp by the move tutor. Originally it was a event exclusive rewards by the Lunar Magicarp. Rage & Dragon Rage where also moves he could learn in side games. But maybe their is room for some of them that's up to you to decide.

As far content goes. How about focussing encounters more based on fishing rods. Something you could do is splitting the rods into 3 different types. Each type of rod you will encounter different pokémon:
- Bait Rod: Psyduck, Poliwag, Seel, Goldeen, etc...
- Flying Rod: Squirtle, Shellder, Krabby, Staryu, Slowpoke, etc...
- Sonar Rod: Horsea, Vaporeon, Tentacool, Lapras, Dratini, etc...

What I also would do is replacing most HM's by Key Items like:
- Cut: Hatchet
- Rock Smash: Pickaxe
- Flash: Lampent Lamp
- Surf: Boat
- etc...
Good Luck