FireRed hack: Pokémon Elysium (GBA)

[BlackKaiser]

Only question is, can you get anything in the Ralts line early on? I never found one.

Hello! Ralts and its line aren't available early in the game. You can catch a Gardevoir later on, in Part B (and Mega-evolve it).

 

[Gamergov]

Loving this game so far! Easily one of the best I've played!
I am currently stuck in a spot where the game freezes just after the battle with Lady Mralia on the SS Challenger… not sure if there is a fix for this or what I've done wrong?

 

[BlackKaiser]

Loving this game so far! Easily one of the best I've played!
I am currently stuck in a spot where the game freezes just after the battle with Lady Mralia on the SS Challenger… not sure if there is a fix for this or what I've done wrong?

Hey, thanks so much for your kind words! 😊

You didn't do anything wrong, it's likely a bug. Could you let me know which version you're playing? Is it the latest one 2.3.0? (Does your character wear a red hat or a white one?)
Also, does the game freeze right after the battle ends or after the cutscene that follows? Also, did you use any cheats? I'll look into it but in the meantime you could try this:

Spoiler:

after your character changes into your rival's outfit, try entering the arena from the opposite entrance tile. If you entered from the right before, try the left one this time, or vice versa.

Or, if you're speeding up the emulator, try temporarily switching it back to normal speed just before this battle ends.

 

[J. D. Guy]

I should have asked this sooner, but does the player-character have a canon name? (Is it Iris?)

EDIT: Another question: does this game have a move relearner, and where is it located, if so?

EDIT 2: Yet another question: after the opening prologue of the story, where making sure the player doesn't have access to any Pokeballs makes sense, upon obtain the 1st badge, where can the player obtain Pokeballs outside of buying them? I ask because traditionally there will be a small handful of Pokeballs given near the start of a game. I was wondering if that is in this game, too, and where this occurs if it is. I don't want to end up missing them.

 

[BlackKaiser]

Hello!

1. No, she has no canon name. Iris is one of the names I use when I playtest.
2. In the first chapter, you'll find a Move Relearner in Astrantia city but you'll need to trade mushrooms to use his services. Shortly after you begin Chapter II, a portable tool named Omni will let you relearn moves for free from then on.
3. Shortly after you get the first badge, you'll be able to travel to Bluebell city. Just north of town, there's a friendly monk who'll give you some free Pokeballs if you defeat him in a battle. You'll also come across a few other helpful NPCs handing out pokeballs later in the game.

 

[J. D. Guy]

1. No, she has no canon name. Iris is one of the names I use when I playtest.

Ah, I see.

I admit, I went on ahead and went with Iris. Feels like a good name for her. :)

2. In the first chapter, you'll find a Move Relearner in Astrantia city but you'll need to trade mushrooms to use his services. Shortly after you begin Chapter II, a portable tool named Omni will let you relearn moves for free from then on.
3. Shortly after you get the first badge, you'll be able to travel to Bluebell city. Just north of town, there's a friendly monk who'll give you some free Pokeballs if you defeat him in a battle. You'll also come across a few other helpful NPCs handing out pokeballs later in the game.

Noted. Thank you! :D

 

[Gamergov]

Hey, thanks so much for your kind words! 😊

You didn't do anything wrong, it's likely a bug. Could you let me know which version you're playing? Is it the latest one 2.3.0? (Does your character wear a red hat or a white one?)
Also, does the game freeze right after the battle ends or after the cutscene that follows? Also, did you use any cheats? I'll look into it but in the meantime you could try this:

Spoiler:

after your character changes into your rival's outfit, try entering the arena from the opposite entrance tile. If you entered from the right before, try the left one this time, or vice versa.

Or, if you're speeding up the emulator, try temporarily switching it back to normal speed just before this battle ends.

Red hat so 2.3.0
Did a work around with the previous version and changing save state names…

 

[J. D. Guy]

I have a few more inquiries about certain locations that I'm unsure of what I'm supposed to do there. I wonder if I should wait a bit and progress further, or if I should ask now and avoid feeling bad when I realize I'm past something that was missable?

One thing I do want to let you know now, though, is that I think Steel-Type Pokemon don't resist Fairy-Type Moves in this game. I've only faced 1 Steel Pokemon so far. It was a Forretress (yeah, that one). Draining Kiss did normal damage to it, when it should have resisted it. I haven't come across another Steel-Type Pokemon to check. (Certain Types are very rare in this game during its earlier portions. For example, it takes a while to find any Fire-Types. In addition, that initial area with them ends up becoming inaccessible not long after it's found due to a 1-way ledges at the end of Mt. Lonelytop. I haven't seen any Ice, Steel, or Dragon Pokemon yet, and the Mareep line is the only Electric Pokemon I've come across.) Once I do, I'll be sure to double-check and see if the Fairy-Type Move really did do normal damage against the Steel-Type.

 

[J. D. Guy]

You know what? Thinking about it, let me go on ahead and post those inquiries now, so that you can get to them the next time you're on the forums.

Because one thing I've learned is that this game can be quite particular about event timing. For an early example, the first portion of the "A Tail to Tell" major sidequest is said by the sidequest guide that it must to be completed before earning the 3rd badge. Thing is, unless I missed or overlooked a way to do so without Surf access, Mt. Lonelytop cannot be traversed very far from the Route 3 side of it, due to the layout of the final room. Meaning not starting and finishing the first portion of that sidequest before jumping down the ledge in said final room where the Route 3 entrance/exit to Mt. Lonelytop is effectively means missing out on the entirety of that sidequest.

(Makes me wonder how Otto planned on making his way back to Bluebell City from the Route 3 Mt. Lonelytop entrance after giving the player-character her new gadget? He was miffed enough as it was that he had to go back to Crysta. He'd be more miffed if he found out his trip through the mountain was one-way. 😜 )

So with that said, let me get started.

* First, was there something more to be done regarding the Bluebell City incident that involved the discovery of a buried murder victim, beyond talking to the officer who guards the entrance to the enclosed area of the site of the crime?

* Second, how is the item ball on top of the southern border wall that's in the Mt. Lonelytop room just before the Rest Area exit supposed to be obtained? Like, how do you even get up on the south border wall to begin with?

Spoiler: This one right here.

* Third, what is intended to be done at the grove off of the north path of Route 3? It's the one where the game pans to the big tree on an unclimbable plateau, with the lotus flower pot/box and the thin tree northwest of the area with the cryptic message? While the player-character wonders if someone in the nearby town is maintaining the lotus flowers, no one in the nearby Bryony Town has dialogue referencing that grove or anything there. There's a note in the home with the grandma and unhappy grandson with a poem that could reference that big tree. But, again, reading it doesn't seem to change anything. Same for that gray rock near the town's east entrance. I'm not sure what to do about that area.

* Fourth, when it comes to the Pokemon that have their Mega Evolved forms as standard evolutions, how we evolve those Pokemon into these forms?


My thanks in advance for any help regarding these inquiries!

 

[BlackKaiser]

Hi again! Thanks for your feedback!

Spoiler:

1. I'll double check Steel's resistance to Fairy just to be sure. While I'm 100% certain that Steel is super effective against Fairy, I'm not entirely sure about the reverse.
2. Yes, A Tail to Tell must be started before you jump that ledge (it's a Mt. Moon–Route 4 kind of situation). On the second level of the mountain (the one just before the Rest House), head to the northern border of the map, there is an exit from the cave that leads to an open area with a small lake. This is where that side quest takes place. And ys, Otto probably needs to swim to get back, which is definitely not great for his already bad mood.
3. As long as you've spoken with the police officer guarding the crime scene, you're good to go.
4. You can ignore the item up there. It was meant to be removed and will be completely gone in an upcoming patch.
5. That grove relates to an old incident that happened in the town years ago. It is a small puzzle. You need to inspect the other trees to complete a message and uncover a secret (and a rare Pokemon). It has to be done in a specific order but it's not too hard to figure out.
6. Mega Evolutions become available much later in the game, in Part B.

I hope I didn't miss anything.

 

[ThroughTheCosmos]

Hello! Can someone tell me what to do with ultraeviolites?

 

[J. D. Guy]

Hi again! Thanks for your feedback!

Spoiler:

1. I'll double check Steel's resistance to Fairy just to be sure. While I'm 100% certain that Steel is super effective against Fairy, I'm not entirely sure about the reverse.
2. Yes, A Tail to Tell must be started before you jump that ledge (it's a Mt. Moon–Route 4 kind of situation). On the second level of the mountain (the one just before the Rest House), head to the northern border of the map, there is an exit from the cave that leads to an open area with a small lake. This is where that side quest takes place. And ys, Otto probably needs to swim to get back, which is definitely not great for his already bad mood.
3. As long as you've spoken with the police officer guarding the crime scene, you're good to go.
4. You can ignore the item up there. It was meant to be removed and will be completely gone in an upcoming patch.
5. That grove relates to an old incident that happened in the town years ago. It is a small puzzle. You need to inspect the other trees to complete a message and uncover a secret (and a rare Pokemon). It has to be done in a specific order but it's not too hard to figure out.
6. Mega Evolutions become available much later in the game, in Part B.

I hope I didn't miss anything.

1. Okay.
3. That's good that I'm good on that one.
4. Ah, I see.
5. Welp, time go back and start clicking on trees there. I didn't even know/realize there were other trees to click on.
6. Okay. I won't look out for them this early on, then.

 

[BlackKaiser]

Hello! Can someone tell me what to do with ultraeviolites?

Spoiler: Ultraeviolites

They are used to Mega evolve legendaries and Charizard to X-Charizard.

 

[J. D. Guy]

I do have a bit of feedback on the Route 3 grove puzzle.

Spoiler:

Because not all of the trees can be interacted the same way, it made finding the remaining correct trees unintuitively difficult. 3 of them are interacted with from their south sides, but 2 arbitrarily can only be interacted from their east sides. I only ended up finding them by clicking in frustration, despite passing and trying to interact with those final 2 trees multiple times.

To that end, I recommend either making them all south-facing interactions, or allowing them all to be interacted from any of their respective trunks' sides.

Related to the goal:

Spoiler:

Maybe consider having a visible sprite of some kind to indicate the Larvesta encounter is an overworld encounter, and a 1-time only one at that, rather than being a technical overworld encounter but with extra steps by placing a 1-time trigger in one of the grass patches.

Because if someone didn't realize what had happened, they'd assume multiple Larvesta can be found in the grass there, even though I don't think there's anything in that grass. This unintuitive aspect could lead them to flee or something and think it no big deal, missing a 1-time encounter.

---

EDIT: On a separate note, I found a Shoal Shell in the beach cavern accessed from travelling southeast of Bryony Town. Is that a leftover item of some kind? Or is there a Shoal Salt and an NPC to turn them into a Shell Bell somewhere? Mostly wondering so I know what to do with the Shoal Shell; I'm also curious if I missed a Shoal Salt somewhere.

Speaking of hidden items, is the Itemfinder in this game?

---

EDIT 2: Just a small visually thing I noticed, but when having the Pokedex evaluated via a PC, Prof. RAMA's PC uses the default Prof. Oak text throughout the evaluation. :)

---

EDIT 3: My apologies if this is becoming a bit much.

Regarding an event that occurs when leaving Lilya Town.

Spoiler:

Does answering Harry the Illusion recruiter's questions to his satisfaction, failing to do so, or opting not to engage change or affect anything going forward? Or is this just meant to be foreshadowing to future events so they don't completely come out of the blue, while otherwise not affecting said future events?

 

[BlackKaiser]

Hello again! Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming! I really don't mind at all just make sure to keep using spoiler tags.

Spoiler: About the Grove puzzle:

I understand the frustration. I had added a small visual clue on the patch of grass directly in front of the tree you're supposed to inspect but it appears to be too subtle. But once you've found the correct group of trees (a single tree first, then two trees, then three and so on), it should only take a second to check which of the trees adjacent to that patch is interactable. That said, I meant for this puzzle to be a little tricky. It's not crucial to the main story, it's not even a sidequest, just a small world mystery. So I was okay-ish with making it a bit more obscure and missable. The same goes for Larvesta hiding in that patch of grass as one time only encounter. Making some content missable was a conscious artistic choice for this game. Still, I probably underestimated the frustration for the completionist players not being one myself.

Spoiler: Hidden item

There's an itemfinder in Part B and correct, that shoal salt is a leftover item and it will be replaced. There's an NPC later in the game who give you a shell bell.

Spoiler: As for the recruiter:

Those choices don't affect the main storyline and are mostly there to introduce that particular organization/character in a slightly interactive way. It does foreshadow a side quest later where some decisions do matter but overall, don't stress too much about how a choice impacts the game. That kind of branching aspect is pretty limited in Elysium.

 

[Gamergov]

Just want to say this game has been absolutely incredible! I've been playing rom hacks for years now and recently I had played a few that I just couldn't get into so was losing some hope of finding a good one… now I can easily say this is my #1 game, everything about this is just so so so flipping good! I haven't been this invested in a game for so long and now that I'm finished I'll be searching for the next one as good as this
So thankyou for all your time and effort into this game, if you ever decide to make another I'll play the heck out of that too haha

 

[J. D. Guy]

Thanks again!

About the Grove puzzle

Spoiler:

The thing about those squiggly plain grass tiles is that in Fire Red and Leaf Green, they were used as visual cues for respawnable Berries throughout the overworld. I learned quickly that they were just being used as decoration, as early as the Prologue island of Crysta. Meaning them suddenly being used as relevant markers ending up being, as I mentioned, unintuitive, because I had already discarded them as decorative-only. It doesn't help that the northeast tree has, like, 3 of them in a line for some reason.

Just sort of an aspect of the puzzle language backfiring a little, optional area or not.

 

[J. D. Guy]

Has the sidequests guide been updated?

I'm at a point in Chapter 1 where I'm starting to get a little antsy about the new quests and how, when, or where to proceed with them. And the version of the sidequest guide I think I have might be for an older version of the game, since some of the sidequests go by different names in the guide versus in the Journal, while others don't seem to have any comparative entries at all (which I'm guessing is 'cause they're the newest ones).

 

[BlackKaiser]

Just want to say this game has been absolutely incredible! I've been playing rom hacks for years now and recently I had played a few that I just couldn't get into so was losing some hope of finding a good one… now I can easily say this is my #1 game, everything about this is just so so so flipping good! I haven't been this invested in a game for so long and now that I'm finished I'll be searching for the next one as good as this
So thankyou for all your time and effort into this game, if you ever decide to make another I'll play the heck out of that too haha

Thank you very much for your kind words! I'm happy you liked the game! 😊

Has the sidequests guide been updated?

I'm at a point in Chapter 1 where I'm starting to get a little antsy about the new quests and how, when, or where to proceed with them. And the version of the sidequest guide I think I have might be for an older version of the game, since some of the sidequests go by different names in the guide versus in the Journal, while others don't seem to have any comparative entries at all (which I'm guessing is 'cause they're the newest ones).

Hello again! No, it hasn't been fully updated. Just now I updated the titles. That guide doesn't include the in-game log entries, only plain-text descriptions of what to do and when.

 

[J. D. Guy]

Hello again! No, it hasn't been fully updated. Just now I updated the titles. That guide doesn't include the in-game log entries, only plain-text descriptions of what to do and when.

Plain-text was what I was looking for the new sidequests, like the one titled "Bones" in-game. Sorry if I was unclear.

As I mentioned, I'm a bit trepidations to continue.

Spoiler:

Particularly when it comes to finding clues. Hopefully me talking to that lady that turned out to be some kind of a spirit way before I became a Ranger won't hinder me in gaining the clues needed for the "Bones" sidequest that I'm expected to gather. Going back to Lilya Town and talking to folks there didn't do anything, either.

As always, thank you so much, @BlackKaiser!