FireRed hack: Pokémon FireRed: Rocket Edition (Completed)

[colonelsalt]

https://rocket-edition.com/
So you thought you knew the story of FireRed...​

Introduction

Play as a member of Team Rocket!

In Pokémon FireRed: Rocket Edition, you will cheat, lie and steal your way to the top as you engage with the thriving gang scene of the Kanto region. Featuring a story that takes place at the same time as the original FireRed, Rocket Edition will play with your expectations and allow you to experience the classic story from a whole new perspective. Along your journey, you will unravel secret conspiracies, explore a side of Kanto you've never seen before, engage with familiar characters in unfamiliar situations – and, most importantly: steal their Pokémon!​

Story brief

One fateful morning in Pallet Town, a newborn hero takes his first steps along his journey to becoming a Pokémon Master. With a love for Pokémon battle, and a burning desire to be the very best, he takes on the region's Gym Leaders, and eventually conquers the Pokémon League. A well-trodden tale if there ever was one… but it is far from the whole story.

Behind Red's seemingly simplistic Pokémon adventures lies a darker, more sinister plot – one that its original hero never hears of, but which holds significance for both him and the fate of the Kanto region. Sociopathic scientists, revenge-hungry nurses and corrupt Gym Leaders are just a few of the characters who show their true colors once Red turns his back, and the very people who appeared most friendly and considerate through his naïve eyes may in fact be secretly harboring the most malicious of intentions.

What is the connection between Lance, Giovanni and Professor Oak? What exactly happened during the Great Pokémon War? How was the mysterious Mewtwo created? Not to mention: what is the fate of the hundreds of Trainers Red so ruthlessly defeat? The answers lie in the story behind the story, and it begins deep in Kanto's criminal underworld…​

Features

• Steal Pokémon from every single Trainer in the game. Unlike other Team Rocket-based hacks, Rocket Edition allows you to steal a Pokémon from every single Trainer in the game once you've defeated them in battle. As you rise up the ranks of Team Rocket, you will gain the opportunity to steal from more and more Trainer classes.
• Experience the true story behind Red's adventures. The game's story runs parallel to the original FireRed, revealing hidden secrets about what goes on in the Kanto region when Red is not around. Incorporating numerous popular fan theories about the Pokémon universe, Rocket Edition presents an original take on the classic FireRed narrative that is filled with twists and surprising revelations.
• Engage well-known characters in Pokémon battle. All of the significant characters from the original game make their appearance in Rocket Edition, and many of them will challenge you to battle as well. Depending on your rank within Team Rocket, you may even be able to steal one of their Pokémon for yourself!
• Morality system and branching sidequests. Although you are a Rocket, you are free to choose whether to play it nice or to go out on a villainous rampage – the game will reward you for either. Many of Kanto's citizens, innocents and criminals alike, will request your help for independent criminal missions, offering additional perks and bonus items. Whom you decide to help and whom you decide to double-cross may turn out to have far-reaching consequences as your journey continues...
• Gen. VI-style mechanics and presentation. Courtesy of MrDollSteak's patch, the Fairy type, the modern physical/special split, and attacks from generations IV, V and VI are all present in Rocket Edition. Proper names of Trainers, Pokémon and locations have all been decapitalized in the style of the modern games as well.
• Overall improved interface and gameplay. Run – inside or outside – from the very start of the game, or use the HM for Fly at your leisure from the moment you step outside. Encounter rates in caves and in water have been significantly reduced, and the player faces every challenged Trainer before battle.

Screenshots

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Downloads

(Note that registered Pokécommunity members may also download the newest playable version from the attachment at the bottom of this post.)​

• Rocket Edition Completed Version v1.0.2
  Released: April 9th, 2020 (minor dialogue edit July 11th 2021)
  Notes: The game ends shortly after the credits roll. Save files from all earlier betas are compatible with this release. Recommended emulators: VBA-M (Windows) and MyBoy (Android).
  Known bugs:
  
  • The player's surfing sprite can occasionally appear buggy. Refreshing the screen (opening/closing the menu or entering a building) solves the issue.
  • Using Fly against a Koffing or Weezing in battle may cause the game to crash.

Please note that Rocket Edition is a hack of "1636 Pokemon Fire Red (U)(Squirrels)" – trying to apply the patch to any other version of the game will not work.

Check out Poli's Rocket Edition guide for details on evolving trade-evolved Pokémon and where to find special items.

Never played a Pokémon ROM hack before? Check out this video for instructions on how to play. (I recommend that you use Lunar IPS to patch your ROM file.)

​

Credits

Art team:

• Magnus Nyborg Berg [Spotify | Soundcloud] (Backwaxed on our Discord server), who has composed a series of original tracks scattered throughout the game
• strange_kid, who has made significant graphics contributions in the form of original sprites and tilesets
• Brolunite, who has drawn a lot of key sprites in the game (notably a complete revamp of all Rocket Admins and several of the Player overworld sprites) - DeviantArt here
• Paul Aamodt Brandal, who has composed a strikingly menacing remix of a FireRed track that features late in the game
• Bacson Dias Graça for drawing the main character's Admin backsprite.

Beta testing team:

Spoiler:

• Just Politoed
• PrimalFan on Discord
• Jalen Washington (F14m3rz)
• InfernoFire (I steal memes on Discord)
• serif_Aizawa (serif on Discord)
• SILVER on Discord
• Agent Coulson on Discord
• Xtimertx
• IHM3000 on Discord
• Obelisk1232
• OliveBandit (Perverted vehicle on Discord)
• IAmYES (yes. on Discord)

Special Thanks:

Spoiler:

• ckret2, the creator of Pokémon Toxic Purple, to whom I owe my original inspiration for creating a Team Rocket hack. In spirit, Rocket Edition owes so much to ckret2's wonderful hack – everything from the blasé dialogue style right down to the Rattata starter gag (which is, of course, a shameless case of artistic theft on my part, I won't hesitate to admit). I would largely attribute my motivation to stick at making Rocket Edition to the memory of how much fun I had playing through the original alpha version of Toxic Purple back in 2009.
• FBI, without whose comprehensive, yet simple assembly language tutorials, many of the game's more advanced functions (of which Pokémon stealing is a notable mention) could never have been. Also for making public many of his ASM routines for novel mechanics, which have been used in this game.
• JPAN, who deserves credit not only for his excellent ASM tutorial, but also for the myriad of extremely useful functions and fixes included in his FireRed Hacked Engine, of which Rocket Edition makes use of quite a few.
• Touched and daniilS for answering my newbish ASM questions, and for providing me with in-depth explanations of unfamiliar concepts where they arose. daniilS also deserves credit for properly introducing me to knizz's database, which brings me to…
• knizz for his ridiculously comprehensive FireRed disassembled database, without which Rocket Edition couldn't have been what it is today.
• CinderGhost on DeviantArt (whose profile you can check out here), whose work the player character's backsprite, as well as large parts of his OW sprite can be attributed to.
• MrDollSteak, whose Decap and Attack Rombase has made Rocket Edition a lot cleaner-looking and more balanced.
• Navenatox, whose dynamic color palette patch has made putting together maps and story scenes so much easier during development. His dynamic map music script, as well as his finding of the tweak that allows for changing preset option settings have also made Rocket Edition cleaner and smoother.
• Jambo51, routine for class-based Trainer music, and for making the player face every challenged Trainer.
• HackMew, as should go without saying, for making all the excellent ROM hacking tools that I have relied on so heavily during development. He should also, of course, take credit for locating the simple tweak that lets the player run inside.
• Ghoulslash, for quality-of-life hacks used in the game, and for very generous personalised help in fixing their errors!
• Jambo51,

Support banners / promotional materials

Official Rocket Edition poster by strange_kid:​

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You may also use either of these banners if you want to support the game:​

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Other fan art contributions are heartily welcomed as well! If you'd like to display your banner / fan art in this main post, you may post it in this thread or send it to me by PM.​

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Source code

All scripts and assets used for the final release of Rocket Edition are publicly available at this repository: https://github.com/colonelsalt/Rocket-Edition

Final thoughts

Join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/eFUGHCy

A splendid time is guaranteed for all.​

 

[konartist96]

this actually looks pretty cool...can't wait to give it a playthrough :)

keep up the great work

 

[for him.]

Whoa this hack looks great. I am so going to play this now.

 

[Tcoppy]

This looks great so far, and from the looks of it, the Team Rocket centered hack that I specifically wanted. Don't get me wrong, I loved Apollo and Hunters of the Ancient but from this I generate a Toxic Purple vibe, and I really loved the taste we got from Toxic Purple, which was the hack that made me join PokeCommunity and learn how to hack. Seeing that Toxic Purple was the inspiration for this hack, I know this is gonna be a great, for my tastes at least. I'll play the beta later and hopefully get another reply here soon!

 

[colonelsalt]

This looks great so far, and from the looks of it, the Team Rocket centered hack that I specifically wanted. Don't get me wrong, I loved Apollo and Hunters of the Ancient but from this I generate a Toxic Purple vibe, and I really loved the taste we got from Toxic Purple, which was the hack that made me join PokeCommunity and learn how to hack. Seeing that Toxic Purple was the inspiration for this hack, I know this is gonna be a great, for my tastes at least. I'll play the beta later and hopefully get another reply here soon!

Thank you! The Toxic Purple vibe is absolutely what I'm going for, and it is what got me into ROM hacking as well: I swear, I kept checking ckret2's profile on a semi-regular basis for about four years straight, just on the off chance that she might come back (spoiler: she didn't). I guess we could think of this hack as just a natural consequence of me eventually getting fed up with waiting for Toxic Purple updates.

 

[for him.]

Well I encountered a problem on my end. I patched my fire red rom, but once I put it into no$gba, I can't do anything after the opening movie/scene.

 

[colonelsalt]

Well I encountered a problem on my end. I patched my fire red rom, but once I put it into no$gba, I can't do anything after the opening movie/scene.

You'll want to make sure you're using Pokémon FireRed Version v1.0 as your ROM-base (not v1.1) -- I should probably specify that in the main post.

 

[for him.]

Thanks! :D Problem solved.

 

[chrunch]

Looks very nice (I too am very happy to see a continuation of sorts for toxic purple), but one thing that worries me is that letting you steal Pokemon from any trainer would devalue actually finding and catching them a lot. Maybe this is your intention, but I think catching and raising Pokemon, evolving them and making them your own is one of the biggest draws of Pokemon. What's the point of that when you can upgrade them whenever you want because you see a trainer has some cool Pokemon? If you want to change your team it should at least take some effort in the form of finding a good Pokemon, catching it then grinding it up to the level of your team. It also trivialises difficulty because you'd have a massive pool of all different types of Pokemon to fall back on in case of a difficult battle. I get stealing Pokemon is an important thing for a team rocket hack but there needs to be a way to severely limit it, or encourage people not to do so. Like maybe the more Pokemon you steal, the more "infamy" you will gain and bad things will start to happen. Just a potential idea.

But anyways, disregarding that little rant I still really like the look of this hack. There's definitely a lot of room to be creative in a rocket hack, I hope you can pull it off well! Good luck!

 

[colonelsalt]

Looks very nice (I too am very happy to see a continuation of sorts for toxic purple), but one thing that worries me is that letting you steal Pokemon from any trainer would devalue actually finding and catching them a lot. Maybe this is your intention, but I think catching and raising Pokemon, evolving them and making them your own is one of the biggest draws of Pokemon. What's the point of that when you can upgrade them whenever you want because you see a trainer has some cool Pokemon? If you want to change your team it should at least take some effort in the form of finding a good Pokemon, catching it then grinding it up to the level of your team. It also trivialises difficulty because you'd have a massive pool of all different types of Pokemon to fall back on in case of a difficult battle. I get stealing Pokemon is an important thing for a team rocket hack but there needs to be a way to severely limit it, or encourage people not to do so. Like maybe the more Pokemon you steal, the more "infamy" you will gain and bad things will start to happen. Just a potential idea.

But anyways, disregarding that little rant I still really like the look of this hack. There's definitely a lot of room to be creative in a rocket hack, I hope you can pull it off well! Good luck!

Thank you!

You're absolutely right, and finding a way to balance the novelty of stealing with keeping difficulty curves reasonable has been and still is an important issue in development. Catching Pokémon will be devalued in Rocket Edition-- in fact I've gone out of my way (lowering prize money, removing stray Poké Balls) to encourage stealing as the player's primary means of attaining new Pokémon.

However: you will certainly not be able to steal from all Trainers from the very beginning-- as a grunt (which is the first and lowest rank within Team Rocket), for example, you can only steal Pokémon from kids and old people (that group includes Youngsters, Bug Catchers and Gamblers, among others). It should be noted that the first mission does feature a higher frequency of stealable Trainers than will be available in other areas until very late in the game (when you'll be able to steal from everyone), in order to familiarize players with the feature and to give them a larger pool potential party members from early on.

For the most part this rank-based structure works well, provided stealable Trainer are consciously placed around the map, and their Pokémon's levels are balanced in lieu of them being stolen (more desirable Pokémon having lower levels, etc.). Your idea of stealing building infamy is spot-on, though, and I'm currently working on incorporating a system that devalues excessive theft which will be introduced during the second mission, which will help keep things even more balanced.

 

[Mana1]

Toxic Purple was such a great project so glad it's spirit continues on this! :) will be watching.

 

[johnyboy169]

Wow this game looks amazing, pokemon toxic purple was the best hack game I ever played and by the looks of this I know I'm going to really enjoy this game too keep up the great work bro :)

 

[XaXa42]

Best hack I played, I expect the next beta forward. With more mission. Thank u very much ColonelSalt.

 

[AmazingCharizard]

Wow, that's a nice project you got there. Good luck with this!
I'd love to see another (completed) Rocket hack.

 

[ranch0]

Hello there, just finished playing through your hack. Twice. It's awesome.

The reason I played it a second time was to beat Red. And guess what? I did. It didn't even take me that long either, about an hour or so.

Here's how I did it.
Step 1: collect the poliwag from the old man near Saffron City.
Step 2: get the star piece from inside Mt. Moon.
Step 3: Capture a pidgey, growlithe, and oddish from east of Celadon City. There, the pokemon are around level 20, and with a little luck (or save states) you can get one without too much trouble.
Step 4: get the pokemon to evolve. I had poliwag clear Mt. Moon, then about half an hour of grinding later, all my pokemon evolved.
Step 5: sell everything and get those stones
Step 6: mop the floor with Ash.

So, my word of advice is to alter the pokemon near Celadon City so no one else gets to exploit this awesome feature of your game... or leave it and let people get hilariously OP. If you need any further proof of my accomplishment, Ash had a butterfree, charmeleon, pidgeotto, nidorino, pikachu, and a mankey, and he gave me 24,480 dollars after he was defeated (which was awesome, by the way). Also, it started a lengthy dialogue where you first said it shouldn't be possible for me to beat ash, accused me of hacking, then asked me to go along with the story where I got my clock cleaned.

It was loads of fun breaking the game. I look forward to the next beta! I hope it's compatible with the old save state, cause, y'know, I've got a nearly fully evolved team and 20k burning a hole in my pocket :)

You did a lot to beat red. I was able to beat him with 1 pokemon i.e. jolteon (of course using save states XD).

 

[ranch0]

lol, really? Didn't think of using the eevee. I didn't just want to beat red, I wanted to smash him to a pulp. And smash him I did. Not a single save state required. :)

hehe.. your attitude will surely help team rocket to achieve glory and in no time you will be an admin :p

 

[colonelsalt]

Hello there, just finished playing through your hack. Twice. It's awesome.

The reason I played it a second time was to beat Red. And guess what? I did. It didn't even take me that long either, about an hour or so.

Here's how I did it.
Step 1: collect the poliwag from the old man near Saffron City.
Step 2: get the star piece from inside Mt. Moon.
Step 3: Capture a pidgey, growlithe, and oddish from east of Celadon City. There, the pokemon are around level 20, and with a little luck (or save states) you can get one without too much trouble.
Step 4: get the pokemon to evolve. I had poliwag clear Mt. Moon, then about half an hour of grinding later, all my pokemon evolved.
Step 5: sell everything and get those stones
Step 6: mop the floor with Ash.

So, my word of advice is to alter the pokemon near Celadon City so no one else gets to exploit this awesome feature of your game... or leave it and let people get hilariously OP. If you need any further proof of my accomplishment, Ash had a butterfree, charmeleon, pidgeotto, nidorino, pikachu, and a mankey, and he gave me 24,480 dollars after he was defeated (which was awesome, by the way). Also, it started a lengthy dialogue where you first said it shouldn't be possible for me to beat ash, accused me of hacking, then asked me to go along with the story where I got my clock cleaned.

It was loads of fun breaking the game. I look forward to the next beta! I hope it's compatible with the old save state, cause, y'know, I've got a nearly fully evolved team and 20k burning a hole in my pocket :)

You did a lot to beat red. I was able to beat him with 1 pokemon i.e. jolteon (of course using save states XD).

Huh-hey. Well done, guys.

The wild Pokémon around Route 7 being very high-leveled is nothing more than a design oversight on my part: I remember making a note to myself to adjust them but seem to have ended up forgetting. At least it made for a hilarious little loophole.

To elaborate, beating Red is just a cute little easter egg that has no actual bearings on the rest of the game. Doing so is meant to be highly unlikely, while still remaining theoretically possible for players wishing an extra challenge. His ridiculously large prize money is indeed intentional-- as a reward of sorts for the grind required to beat him.

Since you ask, it does seem very likely, as things stand right now, that save files from this version will be usable with Beta v2, so you can savor your well-earned prizes for now.

 

[dreinbow]

Well, what I did was get a coin case and used those free tokens that was given and somehow won and bought a dratini, then Dragon Rage all the waaaaay!

 

[InfectedCandid]

I've got to say, I quite enjoyed the beta! I'm definitely looking forward to more. <3

 

[Xalterro]

I've always liked hacks and other fangames that allow you to be evil, as it grants a welcome change or pace from the usual "8 gyms, Elite Four, I wanna be the very best" routine that the main games follow religiously. I'm thoroughly enjoying this hack so far, and want to see you do the best you can to see it through! I'll give you a few pointers that you may find will make your hack an even more enjoyable experience.

I noticed that trainers all react the same way after they've been beaten regardless of whether or not I chose to steal their Pokémon. Stealing someone's Pokémon only to have them say "Zubats are weak at first, but become really reliable later." or something like that seems a little weird, don't you think? You should give everyone something different to say depending on whether or not you spare them or steal from them. For instance, if you stole from a young trainer who didn't think you were evil (like you did with the little girl at the beginning, I really liked that), they should react out of complete shock and have contempt for you afterwards, or just treat you like another trainer in a strange uniform if you leave them be. In another case, you could have a character like a police officer or one of the "heroic" characters see you in a more positive light if you choose not to steal from them, or steal from them to have them become tougher and more wary of you the next time you see them.

Then again, you may already have all of this planned for future releases, in which case, nevermind my rambling. Again, great hack so far. I really hope that you'll see this to the end.

One minor thing is the swearing in the game. While I'm not against swearing in and of itself, it feels really strange having familiar characters in a familiar Kanto region behave out of character in this fashion.