Hack Series: Pokémon Photonic Sun & Prismatic Moon

[Negaman]

Small issue here. I caught Marshadow for my team, but when I went to the old guy in Malie hotel (the one who gives the Z-crystals for Mew, Marshadow, etc.), he said the same thing as if I didn't have it. I was really looking forward to using it's Z-move too.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Thanks for accepting the suggestion! I just got through the Poni Gauntlet, and it took over 7 hours total, I kid you not. Had to heal my team and save after every battle. Let's just say I'm glad my Arcanine, Magnus knows Extreme Speed.

Think I might have gone a bit overboard with gauntlet haha. Hope it was fun at least!

Small issue here. I caught Marshadow for my team, but when I went to the old guy in Malie hotel (the one who gives the Z-crystals for Mew, Marshadow, etc.), he said the same thing as if I didn't have it. I was really looking forward to using it's Z-move too.

He only works with Pokemon from the actual events; not sure if he checks for a ribbon or whether they're fateful encounters, but unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it. The only way around it currently is to use pkhex to make Marshadow look like an event mon, or to just give it the Z-crystal directly.

 

[SevenChurches]

I just started this hack, and I'm not sure if this was answered. Do the ability capsules work for hidden abilities? Say I want to change Litten's ability from Blaze to Intimidate. Would that be possible? I spent a few hours soft resetting for an Intimidate Litten with good IVs and just gave up. I forgot how brutal the cutscenes are in these games.

 

[Buffel Saft]

I just started this hack, and I'm not sure if this was answered. Do the ability capsules work for hidden abilities? Say I want to change Litten's ability from Blaze to Intimidate. Would that be possible? I spent a few hours soft resetting for an Intimidate Litten with good IVs and just gave up. I forgot how brutal the cutscenes are in these games.

Ability capsules will work for the starters and fossils because I made their hidden abilities one of their two regular abilities as well, but they won't work that way for other Pokemon.

Yeah the cutscenes are ridiculous, wish I could shorten them.

 

[SevenChurches]

I'd like to share what just happened to me.

I made it to Hala. So far this hack has done a great job of exposing my impatient and stubborn playstyle as problematic. My team consists of a level 27 Litten, a level 19 Stunky, and a level 22 Hawlucha (the in-game trade one). I didn't spend time looking for wild Pokemon, especially with this game's SOS system, I'm tempted to just chain for a long time. Like the DexNav, when Game Freak offers a method of getting perfect IVs on a Pokemon (minus breeding), I go ham on it, which slows the playthrough down a lot, that's bad for a fast player like myself.

I'm saying this to explain why this was a difficult battle. The easy solution would've been getting more Pokemon, grinding a bit, all that. So with Hala, I got lucky with Litten burning Hawlucha with Fire Fang. My Litten didn't last long, but it did get a KO. My Hawlucha proved to be the MVP, but the problem was that it's past level 20, which made it prone to disobeying me. I got a lucky stream of hits with very little disobeying.

Then when it mattered the most, Hawlucha choked. Hala's Hawlucha was a survivor. Never mind the Super Potions used on it, but the thing kept using Aerial Ace, weakened by the burn. My Hawlucha kept disobeying me, and suffered a slow, agonizing death. I was stunned.

Edit: Finally beat him, Litten was the MVP. I'm keeping Litten from evolving so it can learn its best moves sooner.

 

[Buffel Saft]

I'd like to share what just happened to me.

I made it to Hala. So far this hack has done a great job of exposing my impatient and stubborn playstyle as problematic. My team consists of a level 27 Litten, a level 19 Stunky, and a level 22 Hawlucha (the in-game trade one). I didn't spend time looking for wild Pokemon, especially with this game's SOS system, I'm tempted to just chain for a long time. Like the DexNav, when Game Freak offers a method of getting perfect IVs on a Pokemon (minus breeding), I go ham on it, which slows the playthrough down a lot, that's bad for a fast player like myself.

I'm saying this to explain why this was a difficult battle. The easy solution would've been getting more Pokemon, grinding a bit, all that. So with Hala, I got lucky with Litten burning Hawlucha with Fire Fang. My Litten didn't last long, but it did get a KO. My Hawlucha proved to be the MVP, but the problem was that it's past level 20, which made it prone to disobeying me. I got a lucky stream of hits with very little disobeying.

Then when it mattered the most, Hawlucha choked. Hala's Hawlucha was a survivor. Never mind the Super Potions used on it, but the thing kept using Aerial Ace, weakened by the burn. My Hawlucha kept disobeying me, and suffered a slow, agonizing death. I was stunned.

Edit: Finally beat him, Litten was the MVP. I'm keeping Litten from evolving so it can learn its best moves sooner.

Don't forget you can hyper train your Pokemon in post game, so bad IVs effectively aren't permanent (though I completely understand the temptation to go for good ones). Really nice to see Stunky on your team too, it's a fun Pokemon to train.

It's funny how the RNG always finds a way to mess with you at the worst possible time; that would've been an easy win for you if Hawlucha had decided to listen.

How long are you going to keep Litten unevolved? All the way until Flare Blitz, or just until Flamethrower? I don't think anyone has mentioned doing that in the hack so far so I'd be interested know if it pays off.

 

[SevenChurches]

How long are you going to keep Litten unevolved? All the way until Flare Blitz, or just until Flamethrower? I don't think anyone has mentioned doing that in the hack so far so I'd be interested know if it pays off.

Until Flare Blitz, and I've hit a dead end with Kaki's (I prefer the Japanese names) trial. Stunky and Hawlucha aren't meant to be permanent team members, only Litten. I just haven't bothered hunting for wild Pokemon. But they were certainly helpful, also have a Togetic I'll replace (from the Paniola Ranch egg) and a Crabrawler to replace. At this point I'll focus on grinding Litten up. It's level 39, so close to learning Flare Blitz.

Edit: Litten learned Flare Blitz and I finally let it evolve. Also this is my 100th post on this forum, kind of dubious, but I'm fine with that.

 

[DanF2000]

I was going through the pokemon changes doc since my Meowstic (Male) has Sheer Force, and it isn't listed as a change in the doc. Are there any changes which haven't yet been documented there/in the documentations?

Also as an update, I've reached Paniola Ranch about to face Gladion and absolutely loving this and how it makes me think in battles and well, strategise. My team is a Shiny Munchlax (got a full odds shiny munchlax as soon as I got the Tauros Charge and went to the Route 1 blocked area. 3rd encounter!), Ribombee, Meowstic, Dratini, Yamask and Spheal. All pokemon I've never used, and gives some great coverage! I might change this up, but I saw in the docs that most of these get either 1 or 2 single changes, or no changes. Maybe for future updates you could edit the level up movesets a bit, or TM compatibility unless you have already and I'm completely dumb for writing this XD

1 more error I've found which may or may not be an error: Pokemon Breeder William in Route 6 has a Level 27 Fennekin and Bounsweet but a Level 17 Flaaffy which I thought was a drastic difference, so just something to change for next time maybe?

 

[SevenChurches]

Can you farm Lucky Eggs from Pelipper or others?

 

[Buffel Saft]

I was going through the pokemon changes doc since my Meowstic (Male) has Sheer Force, and it isn't listed as a change in the doc. Are there any changes which haven't yet been documented there/in the documentations?

Also as an update, I've reached Paniola Ranch about to face Gladion and absolutely loving this and how it makes me think in battles and well, strategise. My team is a Shiny Munchlax (got a full odds shiny munchlax as soon as I got the Tauros Charge and went to the Route 1 blocked area. 3rd encounter!), Ribombee, Meowstic, Dratini, Yamask and Spheal. All pokemon I've never used, and gives some great coverage! I might change this up, but I saw in the docs that most of these get either 1 or 2 single changes, or no changes. Maybe for future updates you could edit the level up movesets a bit, or TM compatibility unless you have already and I'm completely dumb for writing this XD

1 more error I've found which may or may not be an error: Pokemon Breeder William in Route 6 has a Level 27 Fennekin and Bounsweet but a Level 17 Flaaffy which I thought was a drastic difference, so just something to change for next time maybe?

Oh apparently I haven't updated that doc since May this year, so there are probably quite a few changes that weren't listed. I've replaced it with an up-to-date copy so hopefully everything will be there now, thanks for pointing that out! Meowstic has had an extra stat buff since then as well as its new ability, so it should be pretty solid now. Happy to hear you like the hack, and congrats on the shiny!

Level up movesets have been extensively edited, but most Pokemon just had egg moves added or learn moves sooner than usual. There are some TM compatibility changes too, but the major changes there are the new TMs.

William's Flaaffy is definitely an error, thanks for pointing that out too!

Can you farm Lucky Eggs from Pelipper or others?

I thought so but it seems they're only held by Blissey, which only appears in a post game area. Might change that in future.

 

[WorldGuard_01]

Gauntlet was fun, just challenging. Also, do you know how hard it is to find a female Zorua at the trainer's school? Not asking to change the rates, they're fine, but man oh MAN was it hard. 15% chance on top of 12.5% chance of a female.
Also by rough cutscenes, I haven't had any lag in cutscenes whatsoever, might just be my specs helping it, I have an SSD.

 

[Guinevil]

Would be neat if Photonic Sun would eventually include the new Sword and Shield Pokemon and maybe even the new moves and abilities, if possible, one day.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Gauntlet was fun, just challenging. Also, do you know how hard it is to find a female Zorua at the trainer's school? Not asking to change the rates, they're fine, but man oh MAN was it hard. 15% chance on top of 12.5% chance of a female.
Also by rough cutscenes, I haven't had any lag in cutscenes whatsoever, might just be my specs helping it, I have an SSD.

Cute Charm would've helped there! I assume the cutscene issue is more the sheer number of them rather than lag, they slow the pace of the game down quite a bit.

Would be neat if Photonic Sun would eventually include the new Sword and Shield Pokemon and maybe even the new moves and abilities, if possible, one day.

Maybe one day; there's a script and map editor for the 3DS games now so who knows how advanced the hacking scene will get.

 

[Ulysess]

hello buffel can you help me a bit? you see i was using pk3ds to edit pokemons and it took a lot of time honestly, but im such an idiot cuz i didnt do it in your hack which was my original intention, what files should i move to the root of my 3ds to just copy my pokemon changes to your hack room? idk if i explained myself well enough, pls help

 

[Zisiskozani]

Hello Buffel.
I don't know if this the right thread but I wanted to ask you if you have any plans to create a Sword & Shield Rom Hack for the Nintendo Switch, like you did with Photonic Sun for the Ultra Sun game. If you do how long do you think it will take for you to complete it and release it?

Keep up the good work mate.

 

[Buffel Saft]

hello buffel can you help me a bit? you see i was using pk3ds to edit pokemons and it took a lot of time honestly, but im such an idiot cuz i didnt do it in your hack which was my original intention, what files should i move to the root of my 3ds to just copy my pokemon changes to your hack room? idk if i explained myself well enough, pls help

Hey! Assuming you want to replace my Pokemon changes with yours, copy the following files to luma/titles/[title ID of game]/romfs:
levelup moves - a\0\1\3
evolution data - a\0\1\4
personal data (base stats etc) - a\0\1\7
Those are all file paths, but if you need more clarification than that let me know.

If you want to merge your changes with mine I can help out with that too, it shouldn't be too hard.

Also, I've just updated the games with a few suggested changes, bug fixes, and 160+ movepool changes from Sword and Shield. Might be nice for those of you who aren't planning on playing them who or don't have a Switch. I haven't added any of these changes to trainers yet, so they're player exclusive for now. Details are in the change log and documents as usual (see "Pokemon Changes" and "Level Up Moves, Rebalanced")!

 

[SevenChurches]

Also, I've just updated the games with a few suggested changes, bug fixes, and 160+ movepool changes from Sword and Shield. Might be nice for those of you who aren't planning on playing them who or don't have a Switch. I haven't added any of these changes to trainers yet, so they're player exclusive for now. Details are in the change log and documents as usual (see "Pokemon Changes" and "Level Up Moves, Rebalanced")!

You didn't remove moves that SwSh did like Pursuit or whatever? Sorry for being wary, I'm halfway through the game and such a massive update can affect everything.

 

[Ulysess]

Hey! Assuming you want to replace my Pokemon changes with yours, copy the following files to luma/titles/[title ID of game]/romfs:
levelup moves - a\0\1\3
evolution data - a\0\1\4
personal data (base stats etc) - a\0\1\7
Those are all file paths, but if you need more clarification than that let me know.

If you want to merge your changes with mine I can help out with that too, it shouldn't be too hard.

Also, I've just updated the games with a few suggested changes, bug fixes, and 160+ movepool changes from Sword and Shield. Might be nice for those of you who aren't planning on playing them who or don't have a Switch. I haven't added any of these changes to trainers yet, so they're player exclusive for now. Details are in the change log and documents as usual (see "Pokemon Changes" and "Level Up Moves, Rebalanced")!

yes pls help me, i really love the changes you made specially the encounters and the new moves by sword and shield, my changes where mostly for fun and the feel of me being overpowered, the only changes i did where: base stats, EV yield, abilities and typings. i just want to merge those things with your hack

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hello Buffel.
I don't know if this the right thread but I wanted to ask you if you have any plans to create a Sword & Shield Rom Hack for the Nintendo Switch, like you did with Photonic Sun for the Ultra Sun game. If you do how long do you think it will take for you to complete it and release it?
Keep up the good work mate.

Hey sorry for the slow reply, completely missed your post somehow. I kinda want to make a Sword and Shield hack, but my Switch is pretty new so it's not exploitable and I have no way to play test a hack for it right now. Once that changes I'll look into it, but I don't know when that will be. It'd only take a couple of weeks to make seeing as there's no need to do much wild Pokemon editing.

You didn't remove moves that SwSh did like Pursuit or whatever? Sorry for being wary, I'm halfway through the game and such a massive update can affect everything.

Nope! I should have said moveset additions rather than changes; no moves were removed and Aegislash keeps its original stats.

yes pls help me, i really love the changes you made specially the encounters and the new moves by sword and shield, my changes where mostly for fun and the feel of me being overpowered, the only changes i did where: base stats, EV yield, abilities and typings. i just want to merge those things with your hack

So you'll need three files to merge your changes with mine:

• A clean (unedited) copy of the a\0\1\7 garc
• Your edited a\0\1\7 garc (this file contains all of the things you've changed)
• My edited a\0\1\7 garc

Once you've got those, rename them all to something else so it's clear which is which and copy them all to a new folder somewhere. Then get a patching program (e.g. Lunar ips; should be easy to find a download) and create a patch using the clean garc as the original file, and your edited file as the modified file. Apply the newly created to patch to my edited a\0\1\7 garc to merge your Pokemon changes with mine.

Finally, rename the patched file back to 7 and copy it to luma\titles\[title ID of whichever version you're playing]\romfs\a\0\1. Overwrite the 7 file that's already there. That should be all you have to do, but you could also copy the patched 7 garc to the folder you're using with pk3DS to check that everything worked properly.

 

[SevenChurches]

Here's a "cheat" for the Ultra Necrozma battle. If you didn't get any Focus Sashes from the Battle Royal Dome, save the one you get on Poni Island for that battle. Put it on someone with Counter, Mirror Coat, or Metal Burst. At least on Prismatic Moon, Mirror Coat is needed. And that's it, not using that "cheat" means pure Hell. I couldn't beat it without such a strategy.