https://github.com/Deokishisu/FRLG-Plus
Please read the FAQ located here before asking questions or opening issues.
The intention of this hack is to be the definitive FireRed and LeafGreen experience, adding in many quality of life and gameplay conveniences to make the game more bearable to play in 2022 while attempting to make the postgame better. The main goals of this project are as follows:
- Implement options that can make the gameplay more or less difficult, giving the player more choice over the type of run they'll have.
- Optionally remove unnecessary time wasters in the gameplay (health bar animations, text delays, etc.) while adding in methods of speeding up basic gameplay.
- Maintain full compatibility with all of the games that vanilla FireRed and LeafGreen can link with and maintain the core Gen 3 gameplay.
- Make sure all obtainable Pokémon are 100% legal in Gen 3.
- Make the postgame more robust and make each Sevii Island unique and distinct.
- Step on established canon as little as possible.
The full feature list can be found
in the project's repository here. The list in that link is easier to read as well.
- A Key System has been implemented similar to Black 2 and White 2. Accessed from the main menu, this contains several difficulty options as well as the version toggle.
- 2-in-1. This hack includes both FireRed and LeafGreen in their entirety, played with one savefile. This allows to player to organically catch the version exclusives in one playthrough. The current version can be toggled from the Key System.
- Easy and Challenge Mode toggles; a built-in Nuzlocke ruleset; IV and EV calculation modifiers; a "No Free Heals" mode that prevents healing by any means except items; and an Experience Modifier are all accessed from the Key System.
- The built-in Nuzlocke implementation is a special version of the standard ruleset to allow for a semi-normal playthrough. Fainted Pokémon cannot be revived by any means (including with the PC), and the player can catch Pokémon other than their first encounter in an area, those Pokémon will just be automatically fainted so they are unusable. This allows a Nuzlocke player to still fill up their Pokédex normally.
- With No Free Heals toggled on, the PC will not heal Pokémon deposited into it in addition to disabling heals from the Pokémon Center and other healing spots.
- Press L in the Key System menu to access the help entries that explain each option more thoroughly.
- Better Postgame
- Faraway and Southern Islands ported from Emerald. All 4 event islands accessible through gameplay accomplishments.
- More obtainable Pokémon. Alongside all Kanto Pokémon, 90% of Johto Pokémon and 5 Hoenn Pokémon are obtainable for a total of 246 Pokémon available in one playthrough without trading.
- Special care has been taken to ensure that all obtainable Pokémon are valid and legal in Gen 3. (With the possible exception of English Faraway Island Mew.)
- A new Pokédex mode, Extended Mode, lists all Pokémon available without trading and is given out instead of the National Dex. The National Dex is now only obtainable by trading in a Pokémon not in the Extended Mode. Never wonder again if blanks in the Pokédex are obtainable without trading.
- Some new areas added to house the new Pokémon, including a Safari Zone expansion.
- Master Trainers for the 151 Kanto Pokémon similar to the Let's Go games with earnable titles for defeating them. Titles can be shown off to other FRLG+ players in link battles.
- Unlockable Gym Leader rematches.
- The RS Battle Tower has been ported, and its Level 100 mode has been changed to Open Level like in Emerald so it is more accessible.
- Quality of Life improvements
- Instant text option.
- Running indoors; toggleable auto-running.
- Other travel speedups: a faster gear for the bike, hold B to surf faster, cut trees stay cut permanently, BW Repel system, boulder puzzles stay solved permanently, etc.
- Expanded inventory space with two new pockets to ease bag navigation. The player can hold one stack of every possible item at once.
- Infinite TM uses.
- EV-reducing berries ported from Emerald and made available.
- New settings in the options menu that can skip the field transition that leads into a battle, the slide-in animation at the start of every battle, animate healthbars faster/instantly, and skip in-battle text delays.
- Move Tutors charge after the first time they teach a move, allowing infinite tutor reuses.
- The Move Reminder can teach moves from a Pokémon's pre-evolutions (with some caveats, see the full features document).
- Indicators for which stats are modified by a Pokémon's nature on the summary screen.
- Press select on the initial Pokédex screen to open the last viewed entry. No need for excessive inputs to see where the roamer went.
- No evolution restrictions: Pokémon will evolve regardless of whether or not they're in the Kanto Dex.
- Trade evolutions can also be evolved with a Key Item obtained during the story.
- All Deoxys formes included; they are implemented in a way that is link compatible with vanilla games.
- No link restrictions. Trade with the other Gen 3 games the moment the Pokédex is obtained.
- Softlock prevention mechanisms are in place.
- Miscellaneous
- All Revision 1 bug fixes are included here, and other vanilla bugs, localization oversights, and tile errors that were never addressed are also fixed.
- The Roaming IV bug has not been fixed to keep the Legendary Beasts legal.
- The summary screen can display the met location of any Pokémon obtained in Gen 3, including Pokémon from Orre.
- Abilities have effects in the overworld, ported from Emerald.
- The Day Care has been made more convenient overall, and Everstone passing down natures has been ported from Emerald.
The current version is v1.5.0 and was released on 28 January 2024.
The best way to obtain this hack is to build it yourself, however,
a BPS patch is available for download here. Apply it to a clean copy of the FireRed Squirrels ROM (or another clean dump of FireRed V1.0) that is floating around with
a BPS Patcher such as this one.
This hack is best played on
mGBA. VBA is an extremely outdated and inaccurate emulator, and I cannot guarantee smooth play experiences on it.
Please do not upload the patch or
especially a patched ROM to third-party sites. I am explicitly
not giving my permission for FRLG+ to be on sites that host patched ROMs. They are making ad revenue money off of my work, mess up my download metrics, and are generally unsafe and frequently outdated.
This is not a binary hack, and therefore everything has been shifted. Action Replay and other similar codes will not work and should not be used.
The preferred method of cheating is through save editing. The savefiles of this hack are mostly compatible with PKHeX. If you opt to save edit, do not under any circumstances open the Items submenu. Bag data has been significantly changed and attempting to edit it with PKHeX will corrupt your save. All other functions of the save editor should be fine. If you want to edit flags or variables, a full list of each is in the repository
here for flags and
here for variables, respectively.
I consider this hack to be feature complete, though there are still several small graphical things that need to be edited. I'm releasing now because I want playtesters to report bugs and give feedback.
Issues for a Future Release
- Alter the cable car sequence so that it travels in the correct direction.
- Add a location preview for Artisan Cave.
Long-term Plans
- If someone else ports the backend for the Battle Frontier to pokefirered, I will include the Battle Frontier in a future release. The backend port job is more than I'm personally willing to do for this project.
Probably-Not-Happening Plans
- Pokémon Contests ported from Emerald. I'm interested in this but realistically no one else is going to want to port this to pokefirered. If I get bored one day I may port it and implement all the needed infrastructure (Berry Blender, support for viewing contest stats, contest moves, and ribbons in the summary screen, etc.) but nobody hold their breath for this.
So many people from pret that I couldn't possibly list them all. The big names know who they are. Thank you.
Kurausukun - For an initial Nuzlocke implementation done on pokeemerald that I based mine off of.
The Accurate FireRed Overworld Sprite Resource - Some of the OW sprites that I edited.
This thread and
this thread for some OW sprites that I edited.
ghoulslash - For the Dive implementation, as well as several quality of life improvements originally done on pokeemerald that I ported.
Josh/ShinyDragonHunter - Emerald hero OW sprites used in the link rooms.
Lunos - A few improvements originally done on pokeemerald that I ported, including letting the player only buy TMs once and LGPE-styled Premier Balls.
Revo - His pokeemerald Instant Text implementation that I ported.
SBird (I think) - Turning TM/HMs into a bitfield in pokeemerald that I ported.
Hiroshi Sotomura - For submitting a bugfix PR that got merged.
