Hack Series: Pokémon Photonic Sun & Prismatic Moon

[Buffel Saft]

Alright, I should have probably posted this earlier, but might as well do it now:

Add an alternate evolution method to Dusk Lycanroc. Currently it's one of the most pain-in-the-ass evolutions to get due to its strict time, as you have to be up at either 5 PM for Photonic Sun, or 5 AM for Prismatic Moon, and the latter is especially brutal. The only way to make it easier is by editing your system time, and even then it's a crapshoot on if it even works. My solution to this is to make them evolve via evolutionary stones, Dusk Stone for Photonic Sun, Dawn Stone for Prismatic Moon (or just Dusk Stone for both).

Also I'd like to notify that the docs still don't show Sunflora having Drought as its hidden ability, even though it has it.

Yeah that one is pretty annoying. I considered having Rockruff evolve into all three Lycanroc forms with stones at one point, but the stones are too late in the game for that to be worthwhile. I don't mind adding the Dusk Stone as an alternative for Dusk Lycanroc though.

Oops, I fixed that a while back but didn't upload the fixed file. Thanks for letting me know!

Curious to see why Incineroar didn't get a speed bump, Primarina being slow fits with it's motif but I figured Incineroar would be faster (maybe swapping it's Spe base with its SpA attack base? 80 is better than 60), or maybe even adopt Torracat's base speed of 90.

Was there any particular reason you decided not to do that?

Yep! The reason for that is that Incineroar is pretty strong as is (though it'd be a lot better if there were more double battles in game), and it's bulky enough to get away with the low speed, so I didn't see the need to change its stats. It also gets Sucker Punch in the hack, so it can use that to compensate for its poor speed if needed.

 

[Urriah Wade]

Hi! I'm playing prismatic moon, so far im addicted to it. I have a question can i catch other legendaries that requires other legendaries in my team? (e.g Rayquaza need Kyogre & Groudon). Thanks :)

 

[KarebuKupa]

Yep! The reason for that is that Incineroar is pretty strong as is (though it'd be a lot better if there were more double battles in game), and it's bulky enough to get away with the low speed, so I didn't see the need to change its stats. It also gets Sucker Punch in the hack, so it can use that to compensate for its poor speed if needed.

Ah, that's a bit of a shame, I was hoping to use an Incineroar that was a bit faster. Guess I'll use one of the other two lol.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hi! I'm playing prismatic moon, so far im addicted to it. I have a question can i catch other legendaries that requires other legendaries in my team? (e.g Rayquaza need Kyogre & Groudon). Thanks :)

Hey! Yes you can, the hack makes both legendaries needed to get those mons obtainable without trading, so once you've caught both you can catch the third member of the trio too.

 

[Urriah Wade]

Hey! Yes you can, the hack makes both legendaries needed to get those mons obtainable without trading, so once you've caught both you can catch the third member of the trio too.

Nice. Thank you for the response. I thought i can't catch the other member of the trio (based on the documents) i thought the other member only catchable for the photonic sun version. Btw awesome hack im loving it :) also the wilting Y.

 

[Imabot_27]

I was just wondering how I can get hidden abilities on my pokemon. I really want justified on my gallade and multiscale on my milotic so any help would be appreciated!

 

[Sunzfan45]

Love the hack! My favorite citra hack by far. I wanted to ask about the Emerald hack to see how it was going, super pumped for it to drop as someone who isnt kaizo's biggest fan im excited to see your take on gen 3. Also will it be balanced around AI having evs or no evs or will there possibily be an option for both?

Cheers!

 

[Buffel Saft]

Nice. Thank you for the response. I thought i can't catch the other member of the trio (based on the documents) i thought the other member only catchable for the photonic sun version. Btw awesome hack im loving it :) also the wilting Y.

Ah yeah maybe the docs don't make that clear enough. They only list the wormhole encounters that were changed, but all the vanilla legendaries are still there. Thanks! Glad to hear you're enjoying my hacks!

I was just wondering how I can get hidden abilities on my pokemon. I really want justified on my gallade and multiscale on my milotic so any help would be appreciated!

You can get hidden abilities the same way as vanilla: by SOS chaining (shouldn't be too hard to find a guide on this if you're not familiar with it). You can also use a save editor if you've already got Gallade and Milotic - sadly there's no way to switch from a regular ability to a hidden ability in game.

Love the hack! My favorite citra hack by far. I wanted to ask about the Emerald hack to see how it was going, super pumped for it to drop as someone who isnt kaizo's biggest fan im excited to see your take on gen 3. Also will it be balanced around AI having evs or no evs or will there possibily be an option for both?

Cheers!

Thanks! Emerald's going well, I'm just setting up the base stats file to include the rebalanced and standard stats for everything, it's taking a little longer than I expected. Once that's done there a few little things to tidy up, some battle engine bugs that need fixing, and some documents to finish. Shouldn't be too much longer now!

There's an option for both! It's based on the difficulty setting you choose at the start. On normal they have no EVs, while on Hard some trainers will eventually have good EV spreads, but most fodder trainers will have bad spreads so they're not as overwhelming as they can be in PSPM.

 

[bulbasaur99]

Here is my final team. I used Ranger the Ledian (lvl.46) until I got my final member, Dharma.

Spoiler:

I played the standard version cuz I don't like type changes and stuff. The game was so challenging and fun but I must admit I won a lot of battles thanks to refresh boosts. The only battles I struggled a lot with were the totem lurantis battle which took more than 10 tries and Dulse in Aether Paradise. Other than that I was able to win every battle without spamming items. Somehow ultra necrozma battle was easier but I think again refresh boosts. But the one thing I love about this game is how fair it is. It isn't ridiculously hard like kaizo or radical red. You can still win every battle with any pokemon you like. And also love how mega evolution was distributed. Even random ace trainers or veterans uses it. Wild pokemon selections are amazing, so diverse. Really good quality of life changes for a 3DS game. I know it is not easy at all to alter the game. So I appreciate and love this game. 8/10 there is always room for improvement.

 

[HardRocker_12]

Prismatic Moon Help,
When I saw the Documentation for Prismatic moon, I saw stat changes for certain pokemon. However, upon using them I realized that the stat change was not applied. Is this a problem of the romhack?.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Here is my final team. I used Ranger the Ledian (lvl.46) until I got my final member, Dharma.

Spoiler:

View attachment 97230

I played the standard version cuz I don't like type changes and stuff. The game was so challenging and fun but I must admit I won a lot of battles thanks to refresh boosts. The only battles I struggled a lot with were the totem lurantis battle which took more than 10 tries and Dulse in Aether Paradise. Other than that I was able to win every battle without spamming items. Somehow ultra necrozma battle was easier but I think again refresh boosts. But the one thing I love about this game is how fair it is. It isn't ridiculously hard like kaizo or radical red. You can still win every battle with any pokemon you like. And also love how mega evolution was distributed. Even random ace trainers or veterans uses it. Wild pokemon selections are amazing, so diverse. Really good quality of life changes for a 3DS game. I know it is not easy at all to alter the game. So I appreciate and love this game. 8/10 there is always room for improvement.

Nice team, lots of speed and power there! Thanks for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback, glad you enjoyed the hack! I definitely wanted it to be challenging but fair (mostly), so it's good to hear it actually played out that way for you - there are so many options in Pokémon it can be tricky to get that balance right. Wish I could do more QoL changes, but yeah the options are limited on the 3DS (for now at least).

Prismatic Moon Help,
When I saw the Documentation for Prismatic moon, I saw stat changes for certain pokemon. However, upon using them I realized that the stat change was not applied. Is this a problem of the romhack?.

It could be a problem with the hack, could you give me some more details so I can check? Namely which Pokémon don't have the stat changes they should?

 

[Imabot_27]

You can get hidden abilities the same way as vanilla: by SOS chaining (shouldn't be too hard to find a guide on this if you're not familiar with it). You can also use a save editor if you've already got Gallade and Milotic - sadly there's no way to switch from a regular ability to a hidden ability in game.

Ok thanks for the help!

 

[RainWinter]

Hi! Just ran into an issue with the "standard" version of Prismatic Moon. The island scan replacement for Poni Island for Wednesday isn't working; instead of a level-100 Deoxys I'm getting a level-57 Leavanny, which is the vanilla pokémon.

Other than that, awesome hack. Unlike bulbasaur99, I've found it quite a challenge, unlike Wilting Y (which was more fun (simply because I think X and Y are better games than Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon) but also pretty easy once I cleared the second gym or so and my whole team was always ten or fifteen levels above everything the game threw at me). Here's my team:

Spoiler:

It isn't built for efficiency (I don't have any strengths against electric or water, and ground, steel, fighting and electric can be a pain in the ass); they're just my six favourite gen-VII pokémon. bulbasaur99's team looks much more versatile. But, other than episode R (which just seemed to me like a very poor excuse for an endgame scenario; I guess GameFreak's running out of ideas), it's been a lot of fun, especially Mina's challenge. Thanks again for making such a cool hack!

 

[Jk Howling]

Heyo again, just noticed you didn't seem to change the levels for the berry pile encounter on route 10.
Docs say Pachirisu encountered in the berry pile should be level 42-45, but the one I ran into was level 25. Might want to check other berry pile locations too.

I also noticed that documentation says Rhyperior has been given Heavy Slam from its gen 8 additions, but it doesn't seem to learn it. The only things that seem to have been added are Heat Crash and Metal Burst (which is normally an eggmove).

 

[katamuri]

@Buffel Saft Did you make any changes to when the mega ring is received? Sorry too many pages in this thread to check. I saw on the first post, you couldn't - have you tried giving it as a held item to the starter pokemon?

 

[bulbasaur99]

Unlike bulbasaur99, I've found it quite a challenge

Spoiler:

It isn't built for efficiency (I don't have any strengths against electric or water, and ground, steel, fighting and electric can be a pain in the ass); they're just my six favourite gen-VII pokémon. bulbasaur99's team looks much more versatile.

I used the EV reducing berries and EV training items in order to EV train. Also, I used dragon dancing Haxorus, nasty plot Raichu, wish Vaporeon and belly drum Darmanitan. Plus Pokemon refresh boosts like living on 1 hp or having a critical hit helped a lot too. I agree the game is challenging but I guess I cheated a little bit with using those strategies.
And like you said your team isn't that versatile so that could be the reason but I am happy to hear you enjoyed it too.

 

[AugusteDupin]

Hi. Can i patch this on a phone somehow?
The pre-patched roms what i find somewhy got no outlines in the game. I really dont like it, so is there a way for me to make my own rom? Or turn back on the outlines with some trick?

Thanks

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hi! Just ran into an issue with the "standard" version of Prismatic Moon. The island scan replacement for Poni Island for Wednesday isn't working; instead of a level-100 Deoxys I'm getting a level-57 Leavanny, which is the vanilla pokémon.

Other than that, awesome hack. Unlike bulbasaur99, I've found it quite a challenge, unlike Wilting Y (which was more fun (simply because I think X and Y are better games than Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon) but also pretty easy once I cleared the second gym or so and my whole team was always ten or fifteen levels above everything the game threw at me). Here's my team:

Spoiler:

It isn't built for efficiency (I don't have any strengths against electric or water, and ground, steel, fighting and electric can be a pain in the ass); they're just my six favourite gen-VII pokémon. bulbasaur99's team looks much more versatile. But, other than episode R (which just seemed to me like a very poor excuse for an endgame scenario; I guess GameFreak's running out of ideas), it's been a lot of fun, especially Mina's challenge. Thanks again for making such a cool hack!

Thanks for letting me know about that, will look into it and see what needs to be fixed. Probably a missing file or an oversight.

Glad you liked the hack! Can definitely see why electric types are a pain for that team, still looks solid though! Episode RR was definitely no battle frontier lol. It was at least fun making teams for all the villains, but it was pretty sad compared to what the earlier improved versions added. And you're welcome!

Heyo again, just noticed you didn't seem to change the levels for the berry pile encounter on route 10.
Docs say Pachirisu encountered in the berry pile should be level 42-45, but the one I ran into was level 25. Might want to check other berry pile locations too.

I also noticed that documentation says Rhyperior has been given Heavy Slam from its gen 8 additions, but it doesn't seem to learn it. The only things that seem to have been added are Heat Crash and Metal Burst (which is normally an eggmove).

Hey, thanks again for letting me know about these errors! Will get a fix up for them soon.

@Buffel Saft Did you make any changes to when the mega ring is received? Sorry too many pages in this thread to check. I saw on the first post, you couldn't - have you tried giving it as a held item to the starter pokemon?

Unfortunately the mega ring isn't an actual item in USUM (well technically it is, but it's just leftover from XY and doesn't do anything), it's a flag in the save file that needs to be set. Only way to set the flag is in a script, which isn't something I can do on the 3DS.

Hi. Can i patch this on a phone somehow?
The pre-patched roms what i find somewhy got no outlines in the game. I really dont like it, so is there a way for me to make my own rom? Or turn back on the outlines with some trick?

Thanks

Hi, patching the game on a phone is very similar to patching it on PC, you'll just have to create a folder as an extra step. There's a post earlier in the thread that explains how to do it, I'll see if I can find it for you. I haven't made a mobile install guide as I can't get citra working on my phone (think it might be too old to run it).

EDIT: this post explains the extra step needed (create the "load" and "mods" folders), after that it's the same process as on PC (copy files, install eshop update, etc.)

 

[katamuri]

Unfortunately the mega ring isn't an actual item in USUM (well technically it is, but it's just leftover from XY and doesn't do anything), it's a flag in the save file that needs to be set. Only way to set the flag is in a script, which isn't something I can do on the 3DS.

Oh that's unfortunate, then how about adding some mega stones to the battle royal dome? If people are suggested to use the pxHex to enable mega evolution, but stones are still obtained at the battle tree, that defeats the purpose right?

 

[Buffel Saft]

Oh that's unfortunate, then how about adding some mega stones to the battle royal dome? If people are suggested to use the pxHex to enable mega evolution, but stones are still obtained at the battle tree, that defeats the purpose right?

I think that's full of other useful items already. There's not enough room for all of mega stones anywhere but the battle tree, and as pk3Ds is required to enable mega evolution in the first place you might as well use it to get the mega stones you want at the same time.