Ruby hack: Pokémon: Nick's Journeys

[MasterMew]

My current project. It is a remake of my first Pokéhack ever, Pokémon: New Journey (a GSC hack, and the start of Nick's adventures). Well, actually I'm not sure if it could be called a remake... but it is based on NJ.

I'm planing on releasing a beta soon. It will be the next hack that I release, and probably the first completed hack that I post here.

This "remake" will have a very changed storyline, new characters, new features and even new regions.

The storyline will feature several changes, maybe to the point of being considered a new story. The original version wasn't story-based, so it had a unoriginal and very simple storyline: you are a boy (Nick) who want to become a Pokémon Master, so you collect Gym badges to fight the Elite Four, and during your path you will foil the plans of the evil team (in this case, Team Rocket) of the game. This time, it will be completly different, with new characters, different storytelling, much more events and a completly new main enemy.

Some of the protagonists are:

Nick: The main character of the hack and the series. You will be Nick, a boy from Maintropolis (before Sunny City) who want to become a Pokémon Master. Yeah, he isn't a original character at all... but he isn't supposed to be. He is supposed to be the average main character of a Pokémon game.
This hack will tell how Nick's adventures started.

Tina: Nick will met her in this hack. She wasn't present in the original version. She was going to be introduced in the sequel, Light & Darkness. But I decided that she would work better in the series with a earlier introduction, during Nick's first adventure.
I'm not spoiling the story by telling you what is gonna be her role in the story. But gameplay-wise, one of her roles will be act as your rival in certain parts of the game (althrough she isn't actually Nick's rival): someone with a team most stronger than the teams of most NPCs, who you will have to beat in order to continue the game. The original version hadn't a rival, as Chris, Nick's main antagonist in the series, was (and is) supposed to be introduced in the sequel of the hack, Pokémon: Light & Darkness.

Team Chaos: The main villains of the story. Team Chaos uses Psychic-type and Dark-type Pokémons and are as evil (if not eviler) as the Team Rocket. They are attacking Minto, so you will have to fight them and discover their main goal.
Originally Team Rocket was the villains, and Team Chaos was going to be introduced in Pokémon Sunshine. But I decided to replece them by Team Chaos in order to have a more original story, and because the Team Rocket role in the original version was minimal and it wasn't gonna be important for the on-going Nick's story through the series. They will still have a role in here, though, and will be the main villains in some of the sequels.

Of course, there will be many more protagonists. But these all the ones I will show at the moment.

Here is a pic of Nick's house in remake to compare with the original:

The maps will be based on the original areas, but may be very different at the same time. Compare the upper part of the map of the first city, Sunny City (now Maintropolis) to the same part of the Maintropolis map of the remake and you will see what I mean.
The city was originally named Sunny City, but I decided to rename it "Maintropolis". This isn't a change done for the remake, if I release a new version of the original hack, Sunny City will be rename in it too. Rather, I made this change because I didn't like how it "Sunny City" sounded in english (the original hack was in spanish, but now that I'm making my hacks in English, I will have to rename some cities because their original names don't sound that well in english).
Maintropolis was originally gonna be the name of the first Pokémon Sunshine city, but I will probably swap the names. So that in Sunshine the first city is named "Sunny City" in order to "fit" with the name of the hack.

Here are more pics:

This hack will feature a system about days of the week. It will work similar to the day/night system of Light & Darkness: everytime you beat a dungeon (even it it is a dungeon that you already beat before), the in-game time will flow. In this case, the current day will change. Nearly all of the events of every city will change according to the day, so there will be events exclusive for each day and stuff you only can get certain days.

Other of the features will be a new weather system. Everytime a new in-game day starts, the weather of any area of the game may change, and it will stay during all the in-game day (you have to make the time flow to start another day in order to change it).
This is ramdonly decided everytime a new in-game day starts, but it may change the weather in any area of the game, affecting the routes and cities of that area.
Although wild Pokémon that you find in the grass will stay the same, different Pokémon will appear in the routes as overworld sprites according to the weather. Naturally, you can fight them and catch them. Some Pokémon can be gottne only this way.
Most of those Pokémon will reappear every day that the required weather is set, and will "disappear" after the weather is changed. But some rare Pokémon will appear only until you catch them of knock them. After that, they will stop appearing, so you will have to take it to the day-care center and get eggs in order to get more Pokemon of that specie.
One of those Pokémons is Mudkip. There is a Mudkip in the game that only appear in a certain route, and only when it is raining. So it will be hard to find. That is the only Mudkip that can be caught in the game. All of the 9 started will obtainable in the hack, but they will be very hard to find, same as Mudkip (although Mudkip is the only one that could be obtained only when a certain weather is set).
The weather may be:
-Sunny day: The normal weather. Rarely special events are trigged by this weather.
-Storm: If when you enter a route the sky becomed cloudy, that probably means a storm will start in some minutes. When it rains, you can find water-type and grass-type Pokémons, as they love water.
-Thunderstorm: It when you enter a route it starts raining almost instantly, the storm will probably become a thunderstorm. During the thunderstorms, the only Pokémons you can find is those that are Water-type and Ground-type at the same time, as it is dangerous fo the normal water Pokémons to go out during thunderstorms.
-Fog: During this weather, you can find ghost-type Pokémons.
-Cloudy: A bit darker than sunny days. It usually means that it will start raining. If a rain doesn't start, no special events of Pokémons that aren't present during sunny days will be triggered. There are some few exceptions, though, as you may discover later.
-Snow: Only high places in mountains tend to have this weather. Obviously you will be able to find ice-type Pokémon when it snows.

Naturally, there is areas where rains are common, and areas where they are extremely rare.

Here is a pic of a normal route but taken during a storm:

The original version had a region, Main Minto, and ended when you beat the Minto Elite Four.
Here is a crappy map I that made in Paint:

(The red route is a underground path)

I also created a improved version of the hack, Pokémon: New Journey - Gold Edition. It featured improved graphics, updated maps, and best of all: a new region reachable after beating Main Minto. The new region was North Minto, and it featured new cities, new characters, new Pokémon Gyms and a second Pokémon League.
This version will feature both regions. Plus 2 more: Johto and Kanto (plus the Sevii Archipelago). You will be able to reach them after beating both Minto regions. They will provide with a storyline continuation, 16 extra Pokémon Gyms and a third Pokémon League. Plus they will have new dungeons that weren't present in the original Johto and Kanto from RBY and GSC, and a few new islands with new cities. This part of the story will work as a sequel to GSC (the story is supposed to take place in the same universe as the video games, not in the universe of the anime, nor any of the universes of the mangas), so it will feature characters from the first two generations.
So the game will have 4 regions and 32 Pokémon Gyms.
And not only the remake will be much longer than the original version because of new regions, but the journeys through both Minto regions will be much longer than they were originally.

Johto will be the last reachable region. Here is two screenshots of Johto, with pics of GSC to compare them:

And last: You may choose a "Metavo" (for Meta + Evolution) as a starter. Is is a unique Pokémon: by using a fire stone, a grass stone, a water stone or a thunder stone, it will evolve in a certain form according to the element of the used stone. However, there is a new special stone that may be used to make it de-evolve. It could be used in order to get moves of four different types. But stones will be really cheap, as they are easy to find in Minto. So the point main point is that you will make it evolve into the form that suits you better for the next battle. So you can make it evolve to a different type everytime you reach a Pokémon Gym in order to have advantage of type. Also, Metavo learns attacks from the element that you make it evolve into when it evolves, not by level. So you don't will need to make it have moves of four types always: you can change its moveset everytime to make it evolve to fit its current form. It doesn't matter if he already reached level 100, it will still be able to learn attacks everytime you want.
Also, there is two hard to get evolutions that require Moon stones and Sun stones. They are rare in the game, as they can be gotten only from wild Lunatones and wild Solrocks, and these Pokémons are hard to find in the hack.
Metavo will also have three evolution stages, like every starter. Let me put it like this: is can evolve two times, so is has three evolution stage. However, it also has the special ability to change into "fire-mode", "grass-mode", "water-mode", etc., by using the evolution stones. So the way you train him may be very different to the way you train normal starters.
If you hate using Pokémons that aren't authentic, though, you have other options: You can choose a special Eevee that may be evolved and de-evolved the same way as Metavo. The difference is that its evolution line will include only legal Pokémons (Eevee, Flareon, Jolteon, Vaporeon, Espeon or Umbreon).
Or if you want to use Pokémons that are 100% authentics, you can choose one of the three Kanto starters.

This time I will stop starting new hacks. And I will work only in this one to release it before posting any version of L&D or Sunshine, so people can play the hacks of the series in chronological order. I will continue with the other hacks once this one is finished.

 

[Chazz Princeton]

OMG-COOOOL! This a hack of ruby and look at that it looks much more like
FR/LG and yes a lot like Megaman (The Dialogues) This is really a unique hack!
And if you need some kind of help (a spriter or so),Do you think I can help!!
If yes PM me!!

 

[blast]

Wow, is very, very great screenshots! :)

 

[jas]

Good hack looks great the map could use a bit of work.

 

[RKO1125]

Hmmm...Looks pretty good to me. I'll definitely keep my eye on this one.

 

[inuyasha5101992]

whoa that looks awesome can you pm me when you finish it? I really wanna play that game.

 

[Vipershark]

This is possibly one of the best hacks I have ever seen just looking at the screenshots. I can't wait for a beta.

 

[Spar-tah]

Wow this looks like a cool game, cant wait to play it.

 

[Christos]

This hack is awesome! ;)
I really like the thing you've done with the textboxes.
Keep up the great work!
I can't wait for more updates and releases.

 

[~Jack~]

omg this looks so great ,good luck

 

[ssj]

This hack looks like the perfect hack keep up the great work.

 

[Samson]

looks good except the trees.

 

[UnHoly]

awesome lookin hack cant wait for a beta

 

[Ronmaster]

This sound so kl!! And Sunny City o0r Mainotropolis looks awesome

 

[Auron]

Looks like an AWESOME hackrom. I'm yearning to play this ^_^

 

[Green Charizard]

Looks great, I'm glad you included Jhoto, in my view, that was your best hack before this. Also I think your hack would suit some custom or fire-red wild pokemon grass...Also I like the way you include the characters whilst talking, is that done by editing letters and a palette edit? Anyway I suppose that would of been hard!

 

[DarkArcz]

This looks GREAT! The thing you did with the textbox is something new, i've never seen it before. Is this a hack for Ruby or FireRed or something? Looks like it might be from the RSE generation, since it has the weather and all, but I might be mistaken.

 

[Cartmic]

Looks great, I'm glad you included Jhoto, in my view, that was your best hack before this. Also I think your hack would suit some custom or fire-red wild pokemon grass...Also I like the way you include the characters whilst talking, is that done by editing letters and a palette edit? Anyway I suppose that would of been hard!

The only was of doing this I think would be doing some assembly hacking. Either that or these are fake screenshots.

 

[DarkArcz]

They look like authentic shots to me but Im no expert at these stuff, so I might be wrong or something

 

[Ash&pikachuarethebest]

This is a good game keep it up i would like to see more screenshots