Blue hack: Pokémon Redcurrant & Blueberry

[TheBlueZangoose]

What if Gen 1 had good moves? That's the entire concept of this ROMhack, and what I endeavoured to enable. But, I didn't want the player to not know if something was changed or not. So I made sure everything was changed.

This ROMhack has completely removed all 165 original moves^* and replaced them with 200 brand new moves^**. Here are the problems I hope this will address:

• Ghost-type has only one STAB move (Lick) and it's unusably bad
• Dragon-type has literally no STAB moves
• Bug-type moves are very bad and the best Bug-type damage output is on a non-Bug-type!
• There are literally only two Rock-type moves, and one is atrocious!
• Fighting type moves are either bad, or have miniscule distribution, making Fighting-type damage a non-issue

With this ROMhack, each type has a variety of moves, from weak to strong, with (hopefully) no big gaps or ommissions.

Every type has at least 13 moves^***, with a mix of damage and status moves. I've included a spreadsheet which has a list of every move, each Pokémon's moveset, and their TM learnset.

Oh yeah, the TMs have all been updated too, obviously. Wouldn't work if they didn't!

The hack is complete, and should be fully playable. It is possible there are glitches I haven't caught yet.

Other features:

• Cheat House - found on Route 1, this will give you rare items for free, as well as allowing you to toggle Badge Boosts, stat experience, and level limits
• Trade Stone - evolves Pokémon which used to evolve by trading. Available for free in the Cheat House.
• Fixes which allow previously-broken mechanics (such as Focus Energy)
• Five Counter-type moves (one counters all physical moves, one counters all special moves, and three can counter any move with a guaranteed status effect)
• More helpful failure messages when a move doesn't work
• Updated dialogue to reflect the new moves, especially any TMs referenced in dialogue
• Game Corner TMs are a lot more affordable
• Gen 1 Miss fixed
• Struggle changed to typeless (can hit ghosts, isn't resisted by rock)
• All field moves are HMs (inifinite use, can't be deleted; affects Softboiled, Teleport, Dig) - cannot be learned by levelup
• All HM moves are 50BP moves with 100% accuracy and a unique type

<sub>*Except for field moves, Transform, Leech Seed, Substitute, Toxic, Metronome and perhaps a few others I might've forgotten

**There are actually 199 moves in the game in total right now, and some are mostly or completely unchanged, but details like that make for less compelling ledes

***Except Dragon, which has 6 because Dragon is special and very powerful.</sub>

Credit to the various members of the pret community, who have assisted and lent their experience to this project, as well as the tools they've created.

New moves:

Fail:

Updated dialogue:

Cheat House:

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

I gotta say: pretty cool ideas going into this one. :)

 

[mgriffin]

But, I didn't want the player to not know if something was changed or not. So I made sure everything was changed.

I love this approach :)

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

I gotta say: pretty cool ideas going into this one. :)

That's a relief to hear! I don't know much about the romhack scene, and I didn't know if this was something that had been done before!

This looks promising. I'll give it a go.

Happy to take any feedback you've got!

I love this approach :)

^_^

 

[jastolze007]

This looks awesome. Love how moves are so much better (but not OP like Amnesia).

Did you have any plans of adding in the missing Pokemon from the game? Would be cool to do a 151 challenge.

What about Missingno and other vanilla glitches?

Did trainers get new teams with new move types?

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

This looks awesome. Love how moves are so much better (but not OP like Amnesia).

Did you have any plans of adding in the missing Pokemon from the game? Would be cool to do a 151 challenge.

What about Missingno and other vanilla glitches?

Did trainers get new teams with new move types?

Harmless glitches like Missingno are untouched.

Everything that isn't new moves or something in the Cheat House is untouched; wild mons, trainer fights etc. are all the same (though they'll have different moves).

My future plans aren't concrete yet. I have some ideas around removing the R/B differences to make Pokémon not limited to one version, but I'm not certain how to go about it; I wanted players to feel like they were playing the originals, just with different moves, and changes like that take it further from the original. Still removing the R/B split does seem fairly harmless.

 

[LancerHohoho]

Harmless glitches like Missingno are untouched.

Everything that isn't new moves or something in the Cheat House is untouched; wild mons, trainer fights etc. are all the same (though they'll have different moves).

My future plans aren't concrete yet. I have some ideas around removing the R/B differences to make Pokémon not limited to one version, but I'm not certain how to go about it; I wanted players to feel like they were playing the originals, just with different moves, and changes like that take it further from the original. Still removing the R/B split does seem fairly harmless.

I think making the pokémon that are not found in the version usually just rarer with a lower encounter rate and fewer locations would be the safest thing to do.

 

[mhashi4798]

How do kabuto and omanyte get there level 1 moves?

 

[Penny55gg]

Hey! I love your hack, all of the new moves really make it feel like you are playing a new game!
I wanted to use the whole new move list thing to make a hack of Pokemon Crystal, since I think it has problems in its move list too, is that okay, or is this obiviously plagiarism lol.

 

[Hermione Granger]

Is there any documentation on the move lists, so I know what I would be teaching my pokemon if I try this out?

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

How do kabuto and omanyte get there level 1 moves?

Oh man, that's a really good point! I never realised it, but currently, they can't. I'll update the movesets so that they can.

Hey! I love your hack, all of the new moves really make it feel like you are playing a new game!
I wanted to use the whole new move list thing to make a hack of Pokemon Crystal, since I think it has problems in its move list too, is that okay, or is this obiviously plagiarism lol.

The concept of making a new movelist isn't plagiarism, go for it

Is there any documentation on the move lists, so I know what I would be teaching my pokemon if I try this out?

The .zip contains all of this data

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

Oh man, that's a really good point! I never realised it, but currently, they can't. I'll update the movesets so that they can.

Or maybe I should just reduce the level you get those Pokémon at...

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

Update 1.0.15:

Fixed a bug with Gem Missile's animation

Changed the levels fossil pokemon learn their move - guarantee they keep their level 1 moves when you first get them

 

[Inner Rhymes]

So you have any plans on updating the backsprites of the Pokemon?

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

So you have any plans on updating the backsprites of the Pokemon?

Nope. Outside of the move changes and the content located in the Cheat House, this is supposed to be a vanilla experience.

 

[StCooler]

...

Hey, I moved this thread to the Sideshow Showcase subforum :)
(And nice project by the way)

 

[Regalia776]

Love the hack so far, feels certainly more balanced and interesting right now. It feels like you've fixed 90% of the flaws Gen 1 Pokes and the battle system itself had!

Are you thinking about continuing this idea with GSC? Would love to play those games with this updated move list plus the additions you would come up with for them.

 

[TheBlueZangoose]

Love the hack so far, feels certainly more balanced and interesting right now. It feels like you've fixed 90% of the flaws Gen 1 Pokes and the battle system itself had!

I'm so glad you feel this way - that's exactly what I felt! I felt like so many of Gen 1's problems were down to its poor movepool!

Are you thinking about continuing this idea with GSC? Would love to play those games with this updated move list plus the additions you would come up with for them.

At first, I did consider that idea. I would love to, but IRL commitments might prevent me from being able to. If I was to move forward into Generation 2, I would change every held item, too.

It does feel less important for Generation 2, though - the moves were nowhere near as problematic as Gen 1.

So; am I thinking about it? Absolutely, yes, but only time will tell if I'll be able to.

 

[floodryan123]

really cool idea!

 

[DonKalypso]

I've decided to try and catalogue my adventure through this mod in my normal way: With a single 'Mon line. In this case I've decided on a good fallback: Nidoqueen/King.

~BROCK~

Spoiler:

Before Brock it's worth noting the initial rival fight is unwinnable if you choose Bulbasaur as Charmander has a 60+STAB Fire move and you have what amounts to Leech Life.

Getting a Nido was easy enough, but in Blueberry I could only seem to find Nidoran Females, so the Queen of 'Mons was chosen for me instead of by me.

That being said, the Brock fight itself wrecked me. I had forgotten that the Nidos were weak to Ground, but in the end, some level grinding got me through the fight.

~MISTY~

Spoiler:

The road to Misty was rather easy. Mount Moon gave me the Moonstone I'd need to make my Nido a Queen, and so I bit that apple, initially believing I was dooming my new Queen to a life of few moves before TMs come into play. I was wrong. Queenie's new found strength led her to a crushing victory against Misty's psychic sea stars.

~SURGE~

Spoiler:

Oh, boy, where to begin. The second major Rival fight was a tiny bit touch and go, but ended with Earth Spikes killing his Charmander with ease, and again aboard the SS Anne, only this time Queenie had a new toy in her hands: Crush. I knew after reading your description about changing everything that Body Slam wouldn't remain the same, but I didn't expect a 100 power move this early.

Needless to say Surge and his trashcans didn't stand a chance.

I'd include Erika in here now, if I didn't crash hard trying to sort through my TMs in Celadon by trying to use TM 13 to learn what it is.
I'll keep going tomorrow after work. Here's hoping my Nidoqueen has what it takes to go the distance.