Hack Series: [GBA][DS] Double Battles Only Hacks and AR Codes (Might be possible to apply to other romhacks!)

[R][FR][LG][EM][D][P][PT][HG][SS][W][B2][W2][GEN3][GEN4][GEN5]




Pokemon Colosseum was sick. Every Pokemon game should be Colosseum. Every romhack should be Colosseum. That's what this does, hopefully.
The patches attached to this post make every battle in the game a double battle, unless one or both trainers involved in the fight have only one Pokemon. To be clear: the data of the trainers have not been changed at all. This hack edits the code which loads trainer data, so the fight becomes a double battle regardless of whatever the trainer was set to be.
This means that this code may be applied to any other Pokemon Emerald or Fire Red romhack, as long as the hack was made on the USA versions of the game: The folder labelled EM only works with USA Emerald ROMs, and the one labelled FR only works with USA Fire Red ROMs. I CANNOT guarantee that the code will work on every romhack: it will not work on hacks which drastically change the game's engine, but try it if you're unsure. The bps file will not work on ROMs which have hacks on them: you'll have to apply the asm file using armips, and you may have to look for empty space in the ROM to put my code. Details are in the enclosed txt files.
If you want to apply this to the vanilla ROMs, bps files are included which you can install with flips.
This code also edits the out-of-battle Pokemon menu to look like it does when you're in a double battle. There is a small visual bug if you only have one Pokemon, but it doesn't crash the game so it's ok. For some reason, the bug doesn't happen in Ruby and Sapphire? Did they originally plan for 1v2 fights, but ran into too many problems?

I also made action replay double battle codes for the DS pokemon games! (only US/European localizations.) These have a much higher chance of being compatible with romhacks than the GBA patches, as there's very few custom assembly hacks for the DS, but they have a few bugs.
For Gen 4 games specifically (including HGSS): Hold A (and no other buttons) after you close the trainer's last dialogue box to turn a trainer battle into a double battle. If you or your opponent only has one pokemon, use B to close the dialogue box, but if you accidentally start a double battle in this situation, don't worry: a bug will occur which fills the empty slot with a glitch pokemon, which immediately uses struggle and dies. Another bug with the code is that it makes your opponent's defeat dialogue disappear: I haven't tested this a lot, but in theory it could crash the game.
For Gen 5 games: hold A as the trainer's dialogue box closes to turn a fight into a double battle, or R+A to turn it into a triple battle! Unfortunately, changing a vanilla double battle to a triple battle makes the game freeze instantly, and the game sometimes freezes during a double/triple battle if you or your opponent has less than two/three pokemon (and is guaranteed to freeze on certain emulators). Also, in order to fix a bug where opponents would attack each other, the codes also set every trainer's AI level to the maximum value. This MIGHT interfere with the final N fight in BW, since he has a unique AI level.
Keep in mind these codes are very much untested! Please tell me if you find any other bugs.
To change which button you hold to start a double battle, change the last three numbers of the commands which begin with 94000130: 1FF is L, 2FF is R, 3FE is A, 3FD is B, 3FF is no inputs (quickly release A after the dialogue box closes to start a double battle, hold any button except X or Y to cancel the double battle), 3FC is A+B, 1FE is L+A, etc.
In the gen 5 codes, you can activate rotation battles by changing 00002601 (replacing double battles) or 00002602 (replacing triple battles) to 00002603, but it crashes the game if your opponent has less than 3 pokemon.

It's guaranteed to work on vanilla hacks like Crystal Dust, but it doesn't work at all on more custom engine hacks such as Sovereign of the Skies.
It's worth a shot to try, but something newbies absolutely need to know: if you apply a romhack and my code to a rom, and my code has no effect at all (menus are the same and battles with four or more pokemon are still single battles), delete the file. The fact that my code was put in the middle of something the romhack's creator made guarantees that the game will bug up at some point.

Fun idea, I like it! Makes me want to make changes to the beginning, have the unpicked starter go to your rival maybe

How do you do this on mobile?

Depending on your device, you may have to patch your ROM on a PC before transferring it to your phone.

Hello Cipnit! This is great. I have a question, by following your .txt instructions using the ASM file on already-applied hacks (Delta Emerald by STikER, for instance), would this also apply the double battle format to secret base battles as well? You know, that feature where 2 or more players go to the Record Corner and are able to battle linked people's teams via their secret base NPC.

Lorelock said:

Hello Cipnit! This is great. I have a question, by following your .txt instructions using the ASM file on already-applied hacks (Delta Emerald by STikER, for instance), would this also apply the double battle format to secret base battles as well? You know, that feature where 2 or more players go to the Record Corner and are able to battle linked people's teams via their secret base NPC.

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I've never tested it, I don't know - but if it's a player vs NPC fight, I assume it would.

would this work on radical red? there might be too many changes...

arcticGalaxies said:

would this work on radical red? there might be too many changes...

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It doesn't, sorry.

question: does this effect the 1st rival battle.

KamikazeSenpai21 said:

question: does this effect the 1st rival battle.

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It only effects the trainers that have more than one pokemon .

Cipnit said:

I've never tested it, I don't know - but if it's a player vs NPC fight, I assume it would.

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Doesn't work no matter what I try, for some reason.

Thanks for the hack. Really appreciates the one for platinum.

Hi, this is really great, the only problem I've encountered in Pokémon platinum so far is when you use this code for an important battle (i.e. Rival or gym leader), the music changes to the regular trainer battle theme instead of the appropriate theme and even skips the vs screen before the battle.

Is this fixable in any way or is this something I just have to deal with? Honestly don't mind too much, just takes away from the experience a little.

This is very cool though and thanks, double battle are so much more fun in my opinion!

SpoopyGhost said:

Hi, this is really great, the only problem I've encountered in Pokémon platinum so far is when you use this code for an important battle (i.e. Rival or gym leader), the music changes to the regular trainer battle theme instead of the appropriate theme and even skips the vs screen before the battle.

Is this fixable in any way or is this something I just have to deal with? Honestly don't mind too much, just takes away from the experience a little.

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Ah, I don't think I can fix that. Thanks for telling me though. and yeah double battles go hard

So you did not add extra pokemon to trainers who do not have 1+ pokemon for gen 4 and 5? Then that means I have to experiment which trainer I come across that has only one pokemon, causing the game to lock.

I could not follow a word of info.txt

Help please?