Pokémon X hack: Ancestral X [Official Release]

[Axyn]

Hack of: Pokémon X
Beta Release: May 14th, 2022
Official Release: March 24th, 2023
Latest Update: February 25th, 2024
Current Version: v2.1.0
Ancestral X Discord

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Overview

Ancestral X is a difficulty hack of Pokémon X, built primarily for Nuzlocking, and otherwise inspired by popular hacks from Drayano, Buffel, and NotSuicuu. This is intended to be a truly challenging experience, but you'll also find features common to enhancement hacks throughout. All 721 Pokémon are available, the leveling curve has been revamped, quality of life improvements are in place, and trainer battles are custom built and significantly harder. Best of all, Ancestral X introduces a number of features never before seen in Gen 6 hacks, including the ORAS Megas, Mobile PC, Trainer Natures, and Custom AI!

Features

Built for Nuzlocking, Built as a Challenge

• Let's be clear and upfront here, this isn't intended to be an easy Nuzlocke experience. I want to challenge you, and I want you to feel challenged. I want you to show me brilliant strategies, cutthroat gambits, and overall excellence in your play. In kind, I aim to deliver an experience worthy of those moments.

The ORAS Megas Have Arrived!

• You can now utilize all of your favorite megas from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire in this hack!
• Mega Camerupt, Mega Sableye, and Mega Steelix are currently enabled. However, due to technical complications their mega models are non-functional. In every aspect, except for their models, they will be Mega Pokemon when they mega evolve. I hope to have this fixed in the future.

Catch 'Em All Mode

• Wild Encounters have been fully updated! While not every single Pokémon is present as a wild encounter, every single evolutionary line is, so you can always get your favorites by breeding!
• Horde Battles are now present in the early portions of the game.
• Ambush & Trash Can Pokémon have been updated alongside the traditional Wild Encounters.

Difficulty Increase

• The level curve in this game is increased, with the goal of matching an "Always Off" XP Share.
• An entirely custom AI has been designed for the game, with a deterministic ruleset that ensures the exact result you expect will always occur.
• Every single trainer has a handcrafted team, with Natures and IVs set as close to 31 as possible.
• Some optional battles have been altered to be mandatory.

Pokémon Rebalancing

• Every single Pokémon has been individually evaluated, and each one has had their level up move list overhauled.
• Additionally, many Pokémon have received changes in the following areas:
  • Stat Changes
  • Type Changes
  • Ability Changes
  • Evolution Method Changes

Move Rebalancing

• Select moves from Gens 7-9 have been added to the game.
• Many offensive moves have been buffed.
• Many status moves have had their PP nerfed.
• Select TMs have been replaced with new moves, expanding the move pools of many Pokémon . Additionally, all Pokémon have had their TM/HM compatibility updated to align with these changes.

Altered In-game Trades, Static, and Gift Pokémon

• Select in-game trades, static Pokémon, and gift Pokémon have been altered to give you access to some of the new ORAS Megas!

QoL

• A key item called the Mobile PC has been been added to the game, allowing you to access your boxes from anywhere!
• A Showdown Calculator is available to help the nerds in the audience who like crunching numbers.
• EVs have been completely removed from the game - wild Pokémon do not give EVs and EV granting items are now non-functional and removed from the overworld.
• All Poke Marts have been given an overhaul to reflect the items commonly used by Nuzlockers. Rare Candies, Heart Scales, Ability Capsules, Honeys, and Max Repels will all be available after the 2nd gym at the latest.
• The Move Relearner & Move Deleter are now available in every Pokémon Center from Shalour City onwards.
• Improved shiny odds compared to base game! Now 1 in 512, instead of 1 in 4096.
• Fishing now has a 100% chance to catch a fish on every catch.

Screenshots

Spoiler:

Download & Documentation
All files, documentation, and installation information can be found through the Google Drive folder. Additionally, if you're interested in providing feedback, reporting bugs, or just talking about the game in general, I would love to see you join us in the Ancestral X Discord. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Credits
Kaphotics & SciresM: For pk3DS and all of the various tools encompassed within.
gdkchan: For SPICA, Ohana3DS, which were invaluable tools in getting the ORAS megas into the game.
hello007: For SPICA Improvements & other various auxiliary tools.
hzla: For creating the framework for the Showdown Calculator and providing assistance in getting it set up.
Maël Hörz: For HxD, another fantastic tool, which made hex editing simple.
XLuma, the EXR Team, and Friends: For feedback & support.
Mr. Stebanzo, hooley, Bob, SaberTB, & Kai: For helping me with bits of design, feedback, and support.
Mushrium: For their wonderful title screen art, banner art, and discord icon.

 

[bwburke94]

As always with these types of hacks, I'll ask if there's a version without the Pokémon and move changes, for the sake of compatibility with the vanilla games.

Electric/Dark Luxray just doesn't fit my tastes.

 

[Axyn]

As always with these types of hacks, I'll ask if there's a version without the Pokémon and move changes, for the sake of compatibility with the vanilla games.

Electric/Dark Luxray just doesn't fit my tastes.

It's something that's been on my mind, but it's not something I'll be implementing until after the game is out of beta. Even then, others also want an easier version, so I'll have to prioritize which versions I end up building.

 

[Lolight2]

Wow this is amazing! Can't wait to try it out :)
Is there a level cap? Im wondering since the GEN6 exp share and rare candies are available in stores, couldn't one just overlevel the challenge away?
Also, you mentioned removing EVS, are IVS still in the game then?

 

[Axyn]

Wow this is amazing! Can't wait to try it out :)
Is there a level cap? Im wondering since the GEN6 exp share and rare candies are available in stores, couldn't one just overlevel the challenge away?
Also, you mentioned removing EVS, are IVS still in the game then?

1. Level cap will be up to the player to enforce as I unfortunately don't have control over scripting. Level caps will be provided in documentation, however.
2. You could always overlevel, but imo that would take the fun out of the experience. I can't really stop you from doing so, though!
3. IVs are still present. I followed the philosophy of Nuzlocking that while random chance is ok (encounters, crits, etc), grinding is no fun, which is why EVs were removed.

 

[Kanade Otonashi]

I'm a huge, huge fan of Nuzlocking rom hacks and I saw Drayano retweet this, so I definitely plan on giving this a shot when I get some spare time! I'll be joining that linked Discord to take a look soon. :)

 

[tifaluv]

Why can't you guys ever just post the download here too? Why is it always locked to your discords? It's so annoying

 

[Citral]

Question what was the reasoning behind the pp changes on status moves?

 

[Axyn]

Question what was the reasoning behind the pp changes on status moves?

It was a change that Suicuu did for Vintage White that I really liked. It forces players to be a bit more tactical in scenarios - preventing circumstances where you can simply stat boost to +6 and sweep. Especially the case given that the AI can be kind of dumb, even at its strongest setting, which would allow for easier abuse of such tactics.

 

[floodryan123]

Excited for this!

 

[Axeman69]

Thank you

 

[Bewill]

Hey, I'm attempting to HC nuzlocke this hack, I'm through Grant and I'd say I've overall had fun, but I have a couple gripes with the game balance.

-getting out of the early game without Farfetch'd seems basically impossible. Viola is really hard but doable with some luck, but route 5 Tierno seems basically unwinnable without it or heavy sacrifice. Hawlucha and Crawdaunt can be tricky to deal with when you have the entire dex to work with, forget about it with NFEs. I understand the game is intended for sacrifice, but at this point the player only has 8 encounter locations and there's 6 mandatory trainers in between this fight and the next batch of encounters. Sacrificing a significant chunk of your team is not a luxury that can be afforded this early in the game. I ended up breaking nuzlocke rules to get Farfetch'd because I'm not interested in going through Santalune Forest a dozen times until I get it.

-The Sharpedo Trade in Cyllage City will not obey you before you beat Grant. Assuming this Sharpedo is here to help with that fight, this seems like an oversight. I'd just scrap it honestly, the player has enough options at this point that Grant is completely doable without it. (Sharpedo is possibly the worst fully evolved water type you could bring to this fight anyway)

-Moody Smeargle with actual stats is a crime against humanity and if I knew it existed before going in I would not have played this game. This thing got Dark Void gutted when it had a sub 300 BST, I don't know what you were thinking

-speaking of not playing the game, locking the game files away in the discord instead of just posting them here is a massive pet peeve of mine and I cannot stress enough how many people this probably shoos away, playing 3ds hacks is already kinda difficult, adding another barrier by forcing people to make a Discord account (or for those who do, just adding to the pile of servers they only use for 1 thing) isn't helping

anyway yeah that's kinda it, I think it's a pretty good hack but it could use some tweaks.

 

[rwbonesy]

yeah i was interested until i saw the acceptance of the growing, ridiculous trend of making people join a discord just to download a hack.

 

[Axyn]

yeah i was interested until i saw the acceptance of the growing, ridiculous trend of making people join a discord just to download a hack.

Simply because I know other people are going to continue to read this and be misinformed - this is not the case anymore. As of official release, you can now directly download the game. Please see the Download & Documentation section.

 

[rwbonesy]

yeah i've been tired and cranky all day. i apologize

 

[wolfandsaint]

i know that it says it's built primarily for nuzlocking, but would you recommend playing this to someone who doesn't have any interest in nuzlocking?

 

[Axyn]

i know that it says it's built primarily for nuzlocking, but would you recommend playing this to someone who doesn't have any interest in nuzlocking?

It should be perfectly fine to play as a non-Nuzlocke, and I have a few friends who plan to do so. It's still a catch 'em all game, and the fights will pose a challenge, so you can play however you like. Built for Nuzlocking is mostly design intent, and shouldn't inhibit a playthrough with a lighter ruleset (or none at all).

 

[MrBareBones2000]

I gotta ask this since it was an issue with Wilted Y back in the day, but why can't later versions of Pokemon X and Y that don't have the Lumiose Save Glitch be used for these kinds of mods? Is it just an issue with the patching process or something with how the mods are made, mainly curious about the whole thing?

 

[rwbonesy]

i don't think the current methods to patch a game will work with the update because the update will override some shops and stuff. at least i remember that being the reason when someone asked years ago.

Not sure about this hack but I remember Buffel Saft's readme saying you can install the title update, save in a building, then delete the update.

That said, I'd love to try a version of this where it's not necessarily "easier" but slightly harder than vanilla rather than potentially kaizo tier. I'm not big on perceived excessive difficulty, ain't nobody got time for that. That said, however, all the other changes sound neat as hell but I understand not wanting to spend the effort catering to a small subset of a potential userbase.

 

[Pixel64]

That logo looks incredible! I will definitely be checking this out. I don't really like games where you have to play so many attempts just to beat it. Would you recommend I HC Nuzlocke this, or would perhaps a lighter ruleset fit my preferences based on your intentions as a developer?