Hack Series: Pokémon Photonic Sun & Prismatic Moon

[Giovanni Boss]

Well, now I've finished capturing what I wanted to capture from Ultra Sun, I am going to wait for the trainer changes you wanted to do in order to play Photonic Sun. I'm wondering what will my team be, besides the distorted duck. I'm thinking of choosing Litten and replacing it immediately for Porygon and go from there, filling my team as I go, after getting to the nursery, of course, because I am a breeder at heart, afterall. XD

 

[DancingDodo]

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but I would be very interested to know if there are any trainer pokemon in this hack using choice items (choice scarf/specs/band)

 

[Buffel Saft]

Thank you for the answer ! Ok i'm gonna learn how to use PKHex
Thank you for your very good rom hack

have a nice day

You're welcome! Hope you have have fun with the hack!

Well, now I've finished capturing what I wanted to capture from Ultra Sun, I am going to wait for the trainer changes you wanted to do in order to play Photonic Sun. I'm wondering what will my team be, besides the distorted duck. I'm thinking of choosing Litten and replacing it immediately for Porygon and go from there, filling my team as I go, after getting to the nursery, of course, because I am a breeder at heart, afterall. XD

The trainer changes may not be done for a while; they're pretty minor, but I need to go through every trainer with an Incineroar (which there a lot of, thanks to Hau) and make sure they have the right ability. It's not much fun so I'm in no rush to do it, especially after overhauling all the level up movesets 😅. You've got plenty of good options for a team at least!

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but I would be very interested to know if there are any trainer pokemon in this hack using choice items (choice scarf/specs/band)

Yeah, there are 25 Trainer Pokemon in the entire game holding choice items. Most of them are Team RR Grunts with gimmick sets though, so you won't encounter them very often before the post game. IMO random trainers with choice scarves are pretty rude and just feel cheap to fight most of the time, so there are very few of them with "good" sets.

 

[paladin2408]

Is it just me or my dusk form Lycanroc doesn't have Dark type after evolving from own tempo Rockruff? It got 3 new moves btw.

 

[Rayquaza Master 384]

Is it just me or my dusk form Lycanroc doesn't have Dark type after evolving from own tempo Rockruff? It got 3 new moves btw.

Dusk as far as I recall remains pure Rock, it's Midnight that becomes Rock/Dark.

 

[paladin2408]

Really? 'Cos I see dusk form type changes from Rock to Rock/Dark in the documents provided by the dev.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Really? 'Cos I see dusk form type changes from Rock to Rock/Dark in the documents provided by the dev.

That change is referring to Midnight form; type changes are listed in the bottom row of each Pokemon's entry in that document (and also in the type changes document). I can see why you'd think that though, it's not that clear which type change goes with which form. I'll fix that now.

 

[Mystesis]

@Buffel Saft, enjoying the hack once again, thank you! I might have an uncompleted casual version, does anyone need it?

Not arguing since I've not seen or tested the whole balance picture of this game, but the changes seem less impactful than Drayano's, right? For example, Beedrill's buffs are smaller. Since your game might be balanced aroung less changes, are they enough?
How can one get its hidden Sniper ability, though? Outside of PKHeX, I mean. Merciless is cool (but less universal), don't see any use for Swarm, though. Shouldn't Swarm be replaced with Sniper?

 

[Buffel Saft]

@Buffel Saft, enjoying the hack once again, thank you! I might have an uncompleted casual version, does anyone need it?

Not arguing since I've not seen or tested the whole balance picture of this game, but the changes seem less impactful than Drayano's, right? For example, Beedrill's buffs are smaller. Since your game might be balanced aroung less changes, are they enough?
How can one get its hidden Sniper ability, though? Outside of PKHeX, I mean. Merciless is cool (but less universal), don't see any use for Swarm, though. Shouldn't Swarm be replaced with Sniper?

Hey, happy to hear that!

Yeah, generally my stat changes are smaller than Drayano's. They're enough to get more use out of something like Beedrill or Raticate, but they'll still need a bit of extra support to get through the whole game (Beedrill gets by just fine with its mega stone of course). For most Pokemon I tried to give them something other than raw stats to work with; sometimes that's just what they need, but I'd rather do something like, say, buff Toxic Thread instead of just giving Ariados better stats (though it did need both in the end).

Almost all hidden abilities are available via SOS chaining; after a certain number of Pokemon appear in a battle there's a chance they'll have their hidden ability. It works the same way in vanilla, so it's easy enough to find the specifics in a guide somewhere. I left hidden abilities "hidden" to make it easier to figure out how to get the ability you want; if you want Sniper Beedrill, you know it's a hidden ability so you can chain for it and don't need to refer to the hack's documents.

 

[Univioxiz]

Hello again !
I have a problem but i don't know if it comes from the base ROM or the hack . Every time i want to buy something at any vendor the game crashes so i can't buy anything . If the problem is from my ROM do you have a link where i can download a good version of Ultra Moon 1.2 ?

sorry for the bad english

 

[TommyS]

Hey! Completely new to citra and adding a mods to roms. I have followed your instructions but there isn't a code.ips file just the romfs folder. I have added this anyway to the mod file location and the game runs but how do I know if the mod is active or if I am just playing the Vanilla game. Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Tommy

 

[DancingDodo]

I found a trainer that I believe you somehow missed when rebalancing.
While surfing on Hano Beach there is a fighting trainer standing on a rock by the edge of the available water area (name: Black Belt Ross, only has a level 26 Mankey when the area is meant for level 45ish)

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hello again !
I have a problem but i don't know if it comes from the base ROM or the hack . Every time i want to buy something at any vendor the game crashes so i can't buy anything . If the problem is from my ROM do you have a link where i can download a good version of Ultra Moon 1.2 ?

sorry for the bad english

Hey, have you got the title update installed as well as the base ROM and the hack? I can't share ROM links here as that's against the rules, and also illegal.

Hey! Completely new to citra and adding a mods to roms. I have followed your instructions but there isn't a code.ips file just the romfs folder. I have added this anyway to the mod file location and the game runs but how do I know if the mod is active or if I am just playing the Vanilla game. Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Tommy

Hey, if you're playing one of the standard versions there won't be a code.ips file. Guess I forgot about that when writing the install guides, sorry for the confusion! If the hack's working Kukui will mention the hack's name in the English intro. You can also compare trainer teams or wild Pokemon with the vanilla games to make sure the hack is working.

I found a trainer that I believe you somehow missed when rebalancing.
While surfing on Hano Beach there is a fighting trainer standing on a rock by the edge of the available water area (name: Black Belt Ross, only has a level 26 Mankey when the area is meant for level 45ish)

Hey, thanks for reporting that, I definitely missed him. Will fix it with the next update.

 

[NuclearNecro]

Okay hello it's me again, back from not talking in here for a while because Terraria took over my life for a bit, and I'm here to put a couple changes:

- Replace Wimpod's Shell Armor with Run Away, since it fits Wimpod's cowardly nature better than it just being really tough.

- Give Froslass access to Ice Beam via level up and possibly access to Snow Warning. As things are right now, Froslass doesn't have access to a good, reliable Ice type move until Freeze-Dry, Ice Beam is normally only accessible for it until Mount Lanakila, and the only other options are less than reliable, with Frost Breath relying on its guaranteed crits and it having not great accuracy, and Blizzard having very low PP and not too good accuracy.
As for giving it Snow Warning, the fact that its Pokedex entries mention that it appears on nights of terrible blizzards, it being a soul of a woman who died on a snowy mountain, and it being able to spit out extremely cold air, it makes sense that it would be able to bring the hailing weather with her. That and her other abilities leave a lot to be desired, with Snow Cloak requiring hail to begin with and it just being a luck machine, and Cursed Body not being good for it due to its fraility, Snow Warning would be a good ability it could reliably use. That and it could give the rest of its team some support, thanks to it getting Aurora Veil, or just to use it to spam Blizzards everywhere.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Okay hello it's me again, back from not talking in here for a while because Terraria took over my life for a bit, and I'm here to put a couple changes:

- Replace Wimpod's Shell Armor with Run Away, since it fits Wimpod's cowardly nature better than it just being really tough.

- Give Froslass access to Ice Beam via level up and possibly access to Snow Warning. As things are right now, Froslass doesn't have access to a good, reliable Ice type move until Freeze-Dry, Ice Beam is normally only accessible for it until Mount Lanakila, and the only other options are less than reliable, with Frost Breath relying on its guaranteed crits and it having not great accuracy, and Blizzard having very low PP and not too good accuracy.
As for giving it Snow Warning, the fact that its Pokedex entries mention that it appears on nights of terrible blizzards, it being a soul of a woman who died on a snowy mountain, and it being able to spit out extremely cold air, it makes sense that it would be able to bring the hailing weather with her. That and her other abilities leave a lot to be desired, with Snow Cloak requiring hail to begin with and it just being a luck machine, and Cursed Body not being good for it due to its fraility, Snow Warning would be a good ability it could reliably use. That and it could give the rest of its team some support, thanks to it getting Aurora Veil, or just to use it to spam Blizzards everywhere.

Hey! The Wimpod change makes sense, I'll change that in the next update.

Froslass definitely doesn't need Ice Beam by level up; the Freeze-Dry TM replaces the Frost Breath TM, which you can get as soon as you have Lapras Paddle (i.e before you even clear the second trial). That's also about the same time you can get the first Dawn Stone, so you can have Freeze-Dry as soon as you have Froslass. I'll consider the Snow Warning suggestion though!

 

[Mystesis]

@Buffel Saft, not saying it's good\bad or anything, just curious: why have you decided not to copy Drayano's more severe and drastic overall stat changes? Love some nasty Beedrill. :)

 

[Swahilimaster]

First time posting here, was looking for some help getting this up and running on Citra for Android. A far as I'm aware the android version doesn't support layeredfs, so I've gone about modding the main file for sun and the Cia for the 1.2 update. The problem I'm having is that the game simply crashes when using the modded update, both on pc and Android, so I'm clearly doing something wrong. I have the documentation for the old install method and it mentions a separate extras folder for modding the 1.2 patch, is this different from the main files to be installed and if so where can I obtain them? In the current version the folder contains a small ips file labeled "code", is this meant to patch onto the file of the same name in the 1.2 Cia, or does it simply not work if you are unpacking and rebuilding a Cia? Sorry if I am being unclear, I've just never modded a 3ds game and would really like to get this running on my phone.

 

[Buffel Saft]

@Buffel Saft, not saying it's good\bad or anything, just curious: why have you decided not to copy Drayano's more severe and drastic overall stat changes? Love some nasty Beedrill. :)

When I initially started on Pokemon changes for EXWY (most of which were copied over to this hack too), I wanted to do stat boosts similar to the way Gamefreak did them. So for whatever reason I tried to keep the stat increases around 25 points per mon (still more than GF's silly 10 point buffs), and buffed Pokemon by giving them better movepools and/or abilities instead. As an example I gave Beedrill Merciless and buffed Twineedle (got that idea from luuma), which gives it much better damage output without needing to give it a massive attack stat. Obviously I didn't stick with that 25 point rule, especially in PSPM (see Vikavolt), but I still prefer to give Pokemon some sort of interesting move/ability combination instead of just giving them better stats if possible.

First time posting here, was looking for some help getting this up and running on Citra for Android. A far as I'm aware the android version doesn't support layeredfs, so I've gone about modding the main file for sun and the Cia for the 1.2 update. The problem I'm having is that the game simply crashes when using the modded update, both on pc and Android, so I'm clearly doing something wrong. I have the documentation for the old install method and it mentions a separate extras folder for modding the 1.2 patch, is this different from the main files to be installed and if so where can I obtain them? In the current version the folder contains a small ips file labeled "code", is this meant to patch onto the file of the same name in the 1.2 Cia, or does it simply not work if you are unpacking and rebuilding a Cia? Sorry if I am being unclear, I've just never modded a 3ds game and would really like to get this running on my phone.

Hey, I think the android version does have layeredfs support (see this post; looks like it's the more or less the same process as on PC), so I'd recommend using that instead. I'll answer your .cia questions if you still want to do it that way, but the ROM unpack/repack method has been a massive headache for a lot of people, and I'd rather not have to help troubleshoot it anymore if possible 😅. The old extras folder has been removed from the drive for a few reasons, but the main one is that I'd prefer that people just use layeredfs instead.

 

[Swahilimaster]

Sir, you are a saint, I couldn't find reference to layeredfs for Android Citra anywhere. The nightmare of trying to mod this is finally over and I can play, massive thanks, I'll let you know what I think about the hack once I've got enough time in it.

 

[Mystesis]

Ok, here we go, my little contribution to the casual community. It's untested, most likely unfinished (especially the lategame), but should suffice for now. Anyone's welcome to finish or edit it, of course.