Hack Series: Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Repolished - a light, 'adjusted difficulty' hack of OR/AS

DynamoKota · Jan 13, 2024

Hey again!
Back in August of 2022, I posted a thread here on PokéCommunity of my light X/Y hack known as 'X/Y Rebirth', which was focused on making those games a little bit harder (without going overboard), almost like Black 2/White 2's Challenge Mode, but for X/Y.
Now that Rebirth is more-or-less complete (apart from occasional bug fixes when I'm notified of them), I began working on a similar hack for OR/AS.

Now, I don't think OR/AS were quite in need of this type of hack compared to X/Y, but I can't deny that some of the choices made in terms of trainers' teams were underwhelming, to say the least (such as Wattson and Liza/Tate's teams, low AI on the rivals, too many trainers with one single Pokemon, etc.).

This hack is still essentially in 'beta' (I haven't tested the games quite as much as X/Y Rebirth, so bug reports are very much appreciated!), but I thought I'd still make post about Repolished here and on Reddit in the meantime (after all, it's easier to find bugs if more people are playing the game!).

Major changes can be found in the changelog, but to summarize:

Most major trainers have had overhauls (Gym Leaders, Rivals, Team Magma/Aqua Admins & Bosses, Elite Four, Champion, and Zinnia), with new moves, abilities, held items, high IVs, etc.
Regular trainers around the region are a little closer to Emerald in terms of the amount of Pokémon they use, so now there a lot more trainers that use 3+ Pokémon!
Trade evolutions are mostly removed. A few can still evolve via trade but have received an alternate method. Check the changelog for details.
Some other Pokémon evolve at lower levels, but most (if not all) of them aren't native to Hoenn. (So you'd really only notice this change in postgame, after transferring, or if you randomize the game)

Screenshots:

Spoiler: Gym Leader screenshots

Other notes:

The game still uses mechanics from Gen 6 (move changes, stat changes, ability changes, etc.)
The 'dllfield.cro' file is optional; it lowers the level of the wild Rayquaza (and Deoxys for consistency) in the Delta Episode. It's there to make it harder to sweep Zinnia with Mega Rayquaza, though it will likely cause your game to crash if the game is updated at all. You can easily delete this file (or don't add it at all) if you want to skip this change.
I adjusted the level curve as much as I could, but note that the game still isn't designed with permanently keeping the Exp. Share on in mind. You may be a tad underleveled if you don't use it at all (depending on if you skip any optional trainers or not), but leaving it on WILL make you very overleveled. If you're super-intent on not being overleveled, my advice is to follow "level limits" and avoid optional trainers if you need to. If you WANT to know the 'level limits' (level of the aces) for the Gym Leaders/Pokemon League in the main story, it goes as follows:

Spoiler: boss ace levels

Link to the files and documentation
Newest update: Ver. 1.6.1 - (9/15/24)
Kadabra, Machoke, and Graveler, (as well as Haunter, Boldore, and Gurdurr if you get them) now evolve at Level 37 (they can optionally still evolve via trade if you want them quicker). I originally had them evolve via high friendship, but this approach is more similar to how other "no trade evolutions" hacks do it.

Credits:
Made entirely with pk3DS, kudos to Kaphotics and SciresM!
r/pokemonROMhacks and my Discord server for suggestions and allowing me to bounce off ideas!
Buffel Saft; I originally based the evolution changes on his in Eternal X/Wilting Y (as well as a few of my own), and copy-pasted them for this hack as well!

Hack Series: Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Repolished - a light, 'adjusted difficulty' hack of OR/AS

DynamoKota