Introduction

Pokémon Mega Blue is a rather small project, aimed to create a counterpart game for my other rom-hack, Pokémon Delta Emerald. Together, they provide a full roster of available Pokémon, so you can fill up the Pokédex playing only these two hacks.
Essentially, it's still the same FireRed and LeafGreen with an unchanged storyline (except for an addition of Ariana and Archer), but updated mechanics, Alola Forms and Mega Evolutions (the latter two are mostly in the post-game, though).

Features

A vast majority of features are provided by an old version of Leon and UltimaSoul's FireRed Base, it's better you look them up in the rombase's thread.
I'll just list the most notable ones:

• Fairy-type
• Gen 4-7 Moves and Abilities
• Mega Evolutions
• Physical/Special Split
• Expanded bag capable of holding every item
• Day and Night System
• Game is fully decapitalized
• B2W2 Repel System
• Poison survival at 1 HP
• Emerald-style Pickup ability
• Eggs hatch at level 1
• Running indoors
• Pokémon stats updated to the standards of Gen 7
• Over 25 new overworld sprites by Kalarie
• Game Freak presents fix
• Nature-colored stats
• PokéMart items depend on your badge count
• Ultimate Move Tutor is infinite use for Gen 1-3 starters
• Roaming Legends IV Fix
• Infinite TMs
• Deletable HMs
• Disabled badge stat boosts
• Disabled LR help menu
• Disabled Flashbacks ("Previously on your quest")

Features separate from the rombase:

• Updated Pokémon sprites and cries
• Gen 4+ Evolutions of Gen 1-3 Pokémon with their respective Evolution methods and items
• National Dex is expanded to include new Pokémon
• All 150 Kanto Dex Pokémon (except Mew) are catchable without trading or events
  • All Trade evolutions now evolve also by just holding their evolution item and leveling up
    (Machoke, Kadabra, Graveler and Haunter need a new Link Cable to evolve)
    • You can get all evolution items from Lady Selphy at Resort Gorgeous
• All non-Kanto Dex Pokémon that are available in vanilla FireRed and LeafGreen are also catchable (except Deoxys), as well as all three Johto starters and Celebi
  • All three Legendary Beasts are obtainable, the next one begins to roam when you enter a Pokémon Center after catching the current one
• Alola Forms can be found as wild encounters on Sevii Islands
  • Pikachu, Exeggcute and Cubone will evolve into their regular evolutions in Kanto and into their Alolan evolutions on Sevii Islands
• Pokémon gain experience after capture
• Infinite Move Tutors
• Proper item fanfares
• ipatix HQ Sound Mixer
• Archer and Ariana are also included in the main plot, not only the post-game
• Koga's and Blaine's teams are tweaked to include more diverse Pokémon, Sabrina's Venomoth is replaced with Hypno
• Gym Leader rematches become available after giving Sapphire to Celio

And that's all of the features, if I didn't forgot something :')

Screenshots

Changelog

Bugs

• Game is unplayable on mGBA, 3DS and probably actual GBA as well (freezes on the title screen)
• In some save files VS Seeker doesn't work
• Sylveon does not show up in the Pokédex
• Leveling-up Eevee causes the game to reset; temporary solution - you can evolve Eevee into any of its non-Kanto eeveelutions by talking to a Black Belt who you received an Eevee from (in Classic Edition available only after obtaining the National Dex)
• At the beginning of the game Oak will give you National Dex instead of Kanto Dex if there's another save file with unlocked National Dex
• Some graphical glitches

Download

Mega Blue v1.1.4
Notes: ZIP archive include Mega Blue Classic patch, Mega Blue Deluxe patch, ReadMe file, Pokémon and Items Location Guide and NUPS Patcher.
Patch: Required ROM for patching is "1636 - Pokemon Fire Red (U)(Squirrels).gba"
Differences between two editions: Pokémon Mega Blue comes in two editions - Classic and Deluxe.

• Classic Edition is for those who want to use only original 150 Pokémon in the main story.
  It has the same restrictions for evolving Pokémon as the original FireRed - you can't get Gen 2+ evolutions before getting the National Dex.
  Evolution items that were added after Gen 2 are available only in the post-game.
• Deluxe Edition is for those who want to use not only original 150 Pokémon, but also their evolved forms added in later generations in the main story
  It doesn't have any evolution restrictions as well as it has a lot of evolution items accessible in the main story.

Compatibility with Delta Emerald:
One of the main ideas behind the creation of Mega Blue was the ability to trade with Delta Emerald to fill up the National Dex. That means all Pokémon in both hacks have exact same index numbers and can be moved between games freely. There is only one problem here - Delta Emerald has more moves than Mega Blue, so many move slots don't exist in the latter game. Here is a list of all Pokémon moves from Bulbapedia. Every move that comes in that list after Incinerate (No.510) must be removed from your Delta Emerald's Pokémon's movesets before performing a trade. Also, a lot of new moves can change after trading because of two different moves being assigned to the same index number between games. So I recommend you to use link features between Mega Blue and Delta Emerald only to fill up your Pokédex and not for battling.

Credits

Prof. Leon Dias and UltimaSoul (and everyone else credited in the rombase's thread) - Leon and UltimaSoul's FireRed Base
Sugimori Palettes: The DS-style 64x64 Pokémon Sprite Resource Thread - Gen 1-4 Pokémon Sprites and Icons
Gen VI: DS-style 64x64 Pokémon Sprite Resource Thread - Sylveon and Mega Evolution Sprites and Icons
DS Style Gen VII and Beyond Pokémon Sprite Repository in 64x64 Thread - Alola Forms Sprites and Icons
Spacewalker - this very thread you're looking at right now

And huge thanks to all of you for playing my hack and bug reporting!

This looks great. Thank you for making it. Is the game harder than the original? The original Fire Red is a joke unless you're a small child.

I'm not sure how to say this politely, but the grammatical errors in the screenshots are unattractive. "Is that the three Legenday Birds of Kanto?" Should be "Are those the three legenday birds of Kanto?" Also why did you capitalize warehouse, gym leader or champion?

No, it has the same difficulty as the original.
As for the grammatical errors... Yeah, I noticed it while making a post and I have already fixed it for the next update. Sometimes I wonder how could I even make silly mistakes like that...

And, I'm sorry, I don't understand your question about the capitalization. Isn't it how trainer classes and location names are formatted in Pokémon games since Gen 4?

Maybe random nouns are capitalized in the games so if you're emulating that style, never mind.

Is the Team Rocket battle theme implemented? Because in your other hack, Zinnia and Wally has their own theme from ORAS which I'm assuming is the same case here.

No, currently not, but maybe I'll add it in a future update. Thanks for the idea, for some reason I wasn't even considering it!

It would be awesome if Mr. Rime or Sirfetch'd were in the game, but you've done plenty for us already.

A quick update: in version 1.0.1 a previously mentioned grammar error was fixed, and also Brock's lines about TMs being one-time use items were removed.

Both this and Delta Emerald look great!

Edit-Both games patches say "patch does not match the file" when patching to Squirrel FireRed(Mega Blue) or Trashman Emerald(Delta Emerald)

This looks really great and so does the Delta Emerald one! Unfortunately I get the error message "patch does not match the file" when trying to patch Mega Blue to multiple different downloads of Fire Red, is there a specific version of the game that I will need to use?

Same, tried it with Delta Emerald and Mega Blue.
Used (U)-Versions and VBA Emulator. Saying patch doesnt match file. What can i do?

Honestly I love this idea. Rather than stuffing 10000 Pokemon into one Game and making the distribution seem unnatural and forced, having 2 Roms with separate Dexes is an incredible idea! I'll make sure I try out both your hacks Delta Emerald and Mega Blue.

Hmm, you're not the only ones who's been reporting this issue. I'll look into that, maybe I need to re-download base FireRed and Emerald roms. Thank you!

I am itching to play it right now but i cant patch it. I tried using squirrels and 1.1 version of fire red but it is both error. Hope that it will be fixed soon.

Yo how do we play this, no rom patches with the ups

On the UPS Patcher, select "Ignore" so it will patch regardless. It should still work. The default option is "Abort"

This looks pretty cool, OP, been looking for a reason to replay Gen 3 and this looks like a good one.
However... yeah, "patch does not match file" and all that.
This is what I was trying to do after seeing the error messages. However, even after forcing the patch into both 1.0 and 1.1 roms, the game freezes right before the title screen is supposed to show up.

Really neat hack, thank you for efforts. Random thing though, my Kingdra is trying to evolve into a Donphan after level 25. :-/

I used the Squirrels ROM (1.0) and VBA and the game's working just fine. It could be the wrong ROM or an emulator compatibility issue.

Huh. That's the rom I used too, yet VBA refuses to reach the title screen (I even tried multiple forks of VBA and nothing). And yet as soon as i booted up Retroarch it loaded without issue. Which probably means it's an issue on my end.

Thanks for your help, I never would have even tried using anything beyond VBA-M if it wasn't for your suggestion on emulator compatibility :p

Hah, funny.
Thanks, I'll fix that in the next update.

It should have worked with VBA-M, that's what I'm using...
Anyway, I re-downloaded my FireRed rom to be absolutely sure it's the Squirrels rom, so the next version will supposedly be more compatible.

I got the patch to work kinda, but when I start the game its buggy then soft crashes after I get my starter

I cant patch either

I understand wanting to keep the original game balance but could you at least make an optional patch where you start with the national dex. Not being able to use Pokémon like Crobat is something I hated about OG FR/LG

Hm, okay, I'll include it in the next update.