Hey everyone! We (Vcaveman and Seatrekninja) have been working on this hack for over a year now, and are pleased to share our creation with you. We hope you'll have as much fun playing it as we are having making it! The primary goal of this hack is to take the most outstanding feature of Pokémon X and Y - character development - and bring that to Pokémon FireRed, adding multiple rivals with fully-developed backstories which motivate their actions. To spice things up, we've given the player the power to make choices that will impact their relationship with their friends/rivals. We've also given the player the option to do a lot of things we've always wanted to do in FireRed, like take both fossils in Mt. Moon or walk back to Mt. Moon from Cerulean City.

The product of these endeavors is Pokémon StunningSteel - a branching story with rich character development and convoluted plot twists that ultimately converges to one of three possible endings.

Going along with the theme of choice, we've given the player plenty of options to customize their team of Pokémon by adding Pokémon like Heracross and Charmander to the wild, as well as giving several Pokémon access to their hidden ability, such as Drizzle Politoed and Flash Fire Typhlosion. All while preserving the classic feel of Kanto. More details on gameplay features can be found below. But first, a little background on your journey!

The year is 2008, a decade after the Great Pokémon War. Your late father, a master of Steel-type Pokémon, is hailed as a national hero. However, you don't remember much about him, apart from the stories your mom tells you and the glorified accounts of the media.

Nevertheless, just like your dad, you've always been gifted when it came to Pokémon. Although you didn't have time to raise your own Pokémon while you were in school, that didn't stop you from making a name for yourself at various battle facilities using rental Pokémon. Now, after graduating at 17, you decide to embark on your own journey to see what the world of Pokémon holds for you as a trainer.

However, your path is not as straightforward as you imagined it would be, and you soon find yourself faced with decisions that have the power to impact those around you, for better or for worse. What kind of mark will you leave on the world? On your friends? How far will you go to pursue your goals? The choices are in your hands.

On your adventure, you'll struggle through difficult battles and form bonds with rivals and friends alike. You'll laugh. You may even cry. You'll unravel mysteries and expose hidden motives. Your journey will become one of self-discovery as you delve deeper into your father's past and explore the meaning of destiny. But be careful which paths you take. In this tale, you are no mere spectator.

• Branching choice-based plot development: As I mentioned before, the story is the main focus of this hack. There are 4-6 friends/rivals (depending on your definition), and several other named characters with solid backstories. Your relationships with (most) of them are dynamic, and ultimately the choices you make will determine which of 3 possible endings you receive.
• 151++ Pokémon: All 151 original Pokémon are available through traditional solo gameplay. In addition, almost every Pokémon from Gen 2 and 3 are available; they are just extraordinarily rare in the wild, to make sure Kanto still feels like Kanto. I'm including a pdf which documents all of the gameplay changes, including evolutions and wild Pokémon, so you don't have to run around blindly if you really want a Bagon :).
• Difficulty: Moderate (significantly harder than vanilla, but not crazy)
  Most NPCs near the beginning of the game are untouched, but once you get to Celadon City, they start gradually increasing in difficulty. The main challenge comes from several battles with your 4 rivals and other special NPCs (e.g. the captain of the S.S. Anne). We put a lot of work into making the gameplay enjoyable for all levels of players. To that end, we implemented a losable battle system so that we could add difficult battles without hindering plot progression for less experienced players. These battles generally entail max IVs and custom (legal) movesets, as well as generally high levels. There are plans to add custom EV spreads after Fuchsia.
• Losable battles: Battles against your two strongest rivals are losable unless the plot absolutely requires you to win (e.g. you have to beat Gary during the champion battle!). By losable, I mean that if you lose the battle, the plot will (usually) progress the same as if you had won, although the character you lost to will remember whether you won or lost. Watch out, though - a few battles have higher stakes (Pokémon, items). There is a poster on the wall of your bedroom that displays a record of your wins/losses against your main rival (Gary/Blue), excluding the first battle in Prof. Oak's lab.
  Spoiler:

  
• Revamped EV Training Hotspots: All available before Silph Co., almost all with 100% encounter rate! See pdf for details.
• Hidden abilities: Around 30 evolutionary lines have been updated with their hidden abilities from Gen 5 (again, see pdf for details).
• Updated movesets: Around 30 Pokémon have had their movesets updated, mostly for flavor (e.g. Cut on Zangoose) or convenience (i.e. egg moves and Emerald tutor moves are instead learned at Lvl 1 so they can be taught by the move relearner). (Again, see pdf... you know the drill.) This list will likely expand. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments!
• Run indoors; Running Shoes available before you leave Pallet Town.
• TMs reusable
• Poison overworld effects disabled
• Pokéballs reusable (but more expensive)
• EXP gain after catching Pokémon
• Repel system from BW2 (When Repel wears off, it asks you if you want to use another)
• Various minor gameplay changes, such as making Lava Cookie a held item. (You guessed it! See pdf for details)
• Gen 4 Physical/Special Split - currently an optional patch. If nobody is playing the gen 3 mechanics route, we will just simplify the process and add the Gen 4 PSS to the main patch with the next beta.

There are soooo many people to thank. I've put a (hopefully) complete list of credits in the pdf. But a few people are especially deserving of credit:

• Seatrekninja: My partner on this project and StunningSteel's primary storyboarder. It goes without saying, but StunningSteel wouldn't exist without him.
• HackMew: For multiple tools, XSE, and groundbreaking work that enables us to do awesome things like run indoors.
• LU-HO: For AdvanceMap, without which I probably would not be hacking.
• Jambo51: For the safe flag expansion patch, which makes my life so much easier.
• JPAN: For the saveblock extension patch that is required for Jambo51's safe flag expansion.
• Navenatox, knizz, Touched: For the Dynamic Overworld Palettes patch, which is too clutch.
• karatekid552: For excellent documentation of the uses of various flags and variables, which I reference regularly.

• Please do not try to Nuzlocke this game. Some of the losable battles are pretty darn near impossible to win.
• Pokéballs are more expensive now. Don't squander them on Pidgeys at the beginning of the game if you want to have them when you run into that ultra rare Heracross!
• Completing the Kanto dex is very reasonable. Also, we will almost certainly add the rest of the Pokémon from Johto (except Celebi) before the final release. However, completing the National Dex will be impossible without trading because we have no plans to add Groudon, Kyogre or Rayquaza.
• The plot order has been altered slightly, and some events have different triggers now. Specifically, note that you have to explore both Cycling Road AND Routes 12-15 in order to get into Silph Co. As a rule of thumb, if you get stuck somewhere, you just need to push forward in another location. The triggering events are generally pretty easy to find, especially if you know what Kanto normally looks like.
• IMPORTANT: If you finish the game and want to restart a brand new save file, you need to remove the .sav file from the folder your game is in. If you do not, the game will "remember" that you have completed certain events in the previous game which will mess up events in your new game. It doesn't cause any actual bugs in the ROM (.gba file), but basically an old .sav file (.sgm is fine!) will mess with your new save file if you restart the game.

We've put a lot of work into making a bug-free experience for you! If you do find a bug, please let us know and we will try to fix it ASAP.
List of known bugs/features:

• Safari Zone fishing - FEATURE. If you catch a Pokémon while fishing in the Safari Zone, it will steal your fishing rod. But never fear! The attendant will give you a new rod when you leave the Safari Zone. Unless, of course, you lose your Old Rod, in which case the rod he gives you will, in fact, be old. I'll see my way out now.
• Double Battles on Route 10 (event) - Bug, stylistic (does not affect gameplay). If you go into a double battle with more than one Pokémon in your party, but only 1 Pokémon is un-fainted, you will enter a double battle and will send out a fainted Pokémon as your second Pokémon. It looks weird, but does not affect the battle at all. That is, the fainted Pokémon will be unable to battle and will not be targeted by the AI. If your first Pokémon faints, you will lose the battle (the fainted Pokémon you sent out is correctly considered fainted).
• In-game save function makes Registered Key Item disappear - Legitimate bug, but easily avoidable. Apparently, if you have a Key Item registered to the Select button and you save the game using the in-game save function, then restart the system and use the in-game load function (Continue), the registered Key Item will be gone. Avoid this by either 1) using save states, not battery files OR 2) deselecting the Key Item before saving and quitting. If you have encountered this before in another hack and/or have an idea what might be causing it, help your dude out and drop some knowledge (I don't know why this is happening). I'll try to implement a functional fix when I get the time.

Thanks to Oppenheimer for these awesome graphics!

Spoiler:

StunningSteel v1.3.3 beta:
Release date: June 27, 2017
Notes: Bug fixes and minor improvements. See this post for details.

StunningSteel v1.3.2 beta:
Release date: April 8, 2017
Notes: Bug fixes and minor improvements. See this post for details.

StunningSteel v1.3.1 beta:
Release date: September 22, 2016
Notes: Minor improvements. See this post for details.

StunningSteel v1.3 beta:
Release date: September 18, 2016
Notes: The first public beta release is complete through Fuchsia City, including Fuchsia Gym. Essentially, anywhere you can reach without Surf is ready to go. Save files from v1.3 should be compatible with all future betas.

Download includes a pdf with extensive documentation of gameplay changes (evolutions, wild Pokémon, EV training hotspots, etc.)
In case you missed that.

Gen 4 Physical/Special Split patch: http://www.mediafire.com/download/aw4211xgoktlaae/Gen4PSS.ips
This is an OPTIONAL patch that adds the Gen 4 PSS and updates important trainers' movesets to make use of the change. Apply this patch AFTER you apply the main patch, StunningSteel.ips. If you prefer the type-based system of Gen 3, then you should just ignore this patch (but comment below to let us know your preference, otherwise the Gen 4 PSS will be officially added to the next beta and you won't have a choice in the future). Credit to doesnt for the mechanics patch, Darthatron for the original ASM routine to display the P/S icons and Jambo51 for its improvement.

New to Pokémon ROM Hacks? Here's how to apply the patch: