Red hack: Pokemon Red/Blue Full Color Hack (RB remade for GBC)

[Danny-E 33]

A while ago, FroggestSpirit made a color hack of Pokemon Red. He did the hardest part, which was colorizing the entire overworld. Drenn decided to pick it up and try to finish it.

There are 2 versions right now: one is more-or-less just a color hack, while the other includes Danny-E 33's Gen 2 Graphics Patch. Nearly everything is colorized, however if you're playing without the gen 2 patch, trainers are still using the same old palette as before.

Downloads: Last Updated July 25, 2017

Get the IPS patches for v1.2 here.
Source code is also available.

Changelog:

v1.2 (July 25, 2017):

* Fixed numerous graphical corruption bugs, such as in the first pokemart when getting
  Oak's parcel, and in the item menu. (If these aren't fully fixed, please send a bug
  report!)
* Reviewed colorization for many things, including:
  * Trade animations
  * Attack animations
  * Gamefreak intro
  * Pokemon blue slots
  * Cut animation
  * Cities (changed Celadon and Vermilion)
  * Safari zone
* Textboxes are now always the same color (they don't depend on the room they're in)
* Fixed a bug with the gen 2 patch where a pokemon's level would appear incorrect
  in-battle after viewing the stats of another pokemon.
* Changed the threshold for "yellow bar" to be the same as gen 2 (less than half health).
* Smoothed out the "enter battle" animations by removing flickering.
* Fixed the colors in the cutscene with ghost Marowak

v1.1 (January 20, 2016; retroactively given a version number)

* Added the EXP bar
* Made patches for pokemon blue
* Probably many other things

v1.0 (June 16, 2013)

* Initial release

Known Bugs:
- VBA white screens in various cases. It's not a crash, the palettes are just stuck at
white.
- X attack/defend/etc animations take the color of the last used move.
- When taking the west exit of lavender town, you can see a roof changing colors.

Credits:
- FroggestSpirit for starting this hack and doing the majority of overworld colorization.
- Drenn for finishing FroggestSpirit's colorization & putting it together.
- Danny-E 33 for his Gen 2 Graphics Patch, bug fixing, and general polishing.
- iimarckus and company for the Pokemon Red disassembly.

Screenshots:

 

[Danny-E 33]

I'm not sure why a thread here at PC hasn't existed for this hack for the last three years.
Some of you already know about this hack, cause I have talked about it on these forums, but I figured since I just released a new version that I would finally create a thread for it.

Here are the updates in this new version:

• Exp bar displays on the stats screen (thanks to xCrystal)
• Fixed the party menu hp bar healing palette bug
• Fixed the Transform/already owned Pokeball tile bug (reported by JahnFvN)
• Fixed the Exp.All/Exp bar animation bug (reported by Shadowmn214)
• Fixed the trade animation palette bugs (reported by kunparekh18)
• Fixed the battle screen palette assignment bugs (reported by everybody)
• Fixed the player blackout palette

 

[Vladmir_Fox]

So just out of curiosity all this does is add color to the games right? So does that mean the missingno and mew glitches are still part of the game?

 

[Danny-E 33]

The Vanilla versions only add color, yes.

The Gen 2 versions add even more color than the Vanilla versions, and also add some gen 2 graphics (battle sprites, text box border etc.) and add a few gen 2 features (exp bar, "already owned" pokeball tile).

Both the Vanilla and Gen 2 versions still contain all glitches present in the original game.

 

[Ammako]

How long has there been a Blue version for O.o

Anyway, by, "this could damage hardware on a real gameboy", that only applies to like, an actual original GB, right? And GB Pocket too.
Screens seem to work differently on the GBC and up so I don't know if those could be affected.

I'd only really be playing this on GBC emulator on my 3DS which I doubt could possibly be affected from this but if it can damage screen on an original GB, probably good to figure out if it affects only GB/GB Pocket, or if GBC is also affected (or maybe even GBA in GBC mode.)

(Also are the Skeetendo forums meant to appear completely broken? It's been like this for a while and there doesn't seem to be any threads about it over there.)

Your Gen. II graphics patch is awesome btw.

Also one last thing. Bug report, maybe?
I don't know if it's only my emulator (I use GameYob 3DS), but colorization is off on sprites of Pokémon on the title screen.
Charmander/Squirtle are okay, but as soon as it cycles to other Pokémon, about 5/6 of the sprite uses the wrong palette (the same as the "Pokémon" logo)

 

[Danny-E 33]

How long has there been a Blue version for O.o

Over a year.

Anyway, by, "this could damage hardware on a real gameboy", that only applies to like, an actual original GB, right? And GB Pocket too.
Screens seem to work differently on the GBC and up so I don't know if those could be affected.

No, it should certainly not damage a GB or a GB Pocket. Frogg was referring to a GBC. Which means as far as I know for now, it could cause the same problem on a GBA.

I'd only really be playing this on GBC emulator on my 3DS which I doubt could possibly be affected from this but if it can damage screen on an original GB, probably good to figure out if it affects only GB/GB Pocket, or if GBC is also affected (or maybe even GBA in GBC mode.)

Yeah, you have nothing to worry about when using this on any kind of emulator.

(Also are the Skeetendo forums meant to appear completely broken? It's been like this for a while and there doesn't seem to be any threads about it over there.)

We're just kind of waiting for iimarckus to get around to doing some maintenance. In the mean time, it is doing no harm.

EDIT: After reading your post, I nagged him about it again, and he fixed the warnings.

Your Gen. II graphics patch is awesome btw.

Thank you!

Also one last thing. Bug report, maybe?
I don't know if it's only my emulator (I use GameYob 3DS), but colorization is off on sprites of Pokémon on the title screen.
Charmander/Squirtle are okay, but as soon as it cycles to other Pokémon, about 5/6 of the sprite uses the wrong palette (the same as the "Pokémon" logo)

I can't recreate this bug. I use GameYob also. (If you didn't already know, Drenn, one of the makers of this hack, is the developer of GameYob. So I use it to test for compatibility.)
GameYob correctly displays the palettes both in the vanilla version and in the gen 2 version.

 

[Ammako]

Alright, well, I've realized it doesn't do it as you boot up the game. I forgot that when I did it was right after I soft-reset.

But if I soft-reset after having entered the game to go back to title screen, it does it. It doesn't always do it but sometimes it does. Might be random? Might depend on what you previously did in-game? Dunno.

What I did was, start a new save file, pick up Potion in the PC, go outside, meet Oak, pick Charmander, save in Oak's lab before the fight with my rival, and soft-reset, then it does it.
You get color glitches on the intro whenever you soft-reset for any reason, it seems. Squirtle sprite has garbled colors after soft-resetting but quickly reverts to normal and then every Pokémon is OK, when all I do is enter the game and soft reset at Oak's Lab without doing anything.
Different results depending on different things you do, it seems. But it seems most of the time, the colors revert back to normal once the "Blue Version" text shows up on title screen. Except when I do the steps I mentioned above, then I get 5/6 of every Pokémon's sprite using the Pokémon logo color palette.

This might not be a very important glitch to fix since really, you mostly won't really be soft-resetting during normal gameplay so you'll never have to worry about that.
Also the graphical glitches appear to only occur on intro and title screen, there didn't seem to be any graphical glitching at all while in-game itself.
Could be worth fixing though if you want to aim for perfection but not really sure how feasible it would be to fix that.


If it matters, I am using GameYob 1.0.8 (f603256146) .cia version on 3DS CFW. Maybe this doesn't happen with the .3dsx build or maybe this doesn't happen on the original DS one, in case you're using that one.

Spoiler:

Pokemon - Blue Version (UE)[!].gb used as rom base to patch with the Gen. II + colors graphics patch.

 

[Danny-E 33]

Thanks for pointing this out.

I have fixed the bug and will update the download links probably tonight.

If anyone is too anxious to get the fixed version before tonight, you can compile the source code for yourself:
https://github.com/dannye/pokered-gbc

 

[Raizako]

Can i please get a version of the full color red and blue with original sprites but with the exp ball and pokeball capture icon added

And if possible a version of blue with the 1st launch japanese graphics from pocket monsters midori in full color also with the exp bar and capture icon with title saying green instead of blue.

And hopefuly u can add more imersion to a seperate patch later. the ability to react to objects for example when you click on a tree it will say it can be cut, so if a pokemon in your party knows cut it will use cut without having to go into your party, same for surf and strength. Also the ability to register items from my bag so if i register bicycle i can use it just by pressing the select button if this can be added to the version with gen 2 graphics and color it would be epic!

Ps- I love the running shoes ^_~

 

[Danny-E 33]

Hi

Thank you for your comment.

I will not be releasing extra versions with different variations of graphics.
If you would like to have this kind of variation, you are more than welcome to make it yourself using the repository here. If, for example, you want original sprites with exp bar, that is not too hard to do by yourself.

But this hack already has 4 versions in the download section which is already too much in my opinion, but oh well.

As far as adding hm moves to the overworld and registering items, I would at least consider adding this to the hack if enough people seemed interested in it.

 

[Raizako]

No problem i downloaded all 4 of your patches the one you made in color for the original sprites is my personal favorite for the nostalgia but i find myself playing the other version more because of the exp bar and caught icon do you know anyone that can patch the original sprite version u made with those features for me i have no idea how to do it myself, the exp bar realy motivates me everytime i see it go up i feel like its going somewhere when i cant see it i feel like im not going anywhere and the caught icon prevents me from filling up my box with the same pokemon i already caught because i forgot i caught it already. Anyways i hope someone can patch the red and blue vanilla version u made with those 2 features for me but thankyou for the quick reply the work you did made this games experience amazing for me and im in a constant tug of war deciding wich of your versions to play because of the seperate features i love from each :p

Or teach me .-.

Yeah i tried still have no idea how to do any of it

 

[Danny-E 33]

Here is an ips for the full color hack with original sprites and exp bar/already owned pokeball:

pokered_color_vanilla_exp.ips

 

[Raizako]

Awesome thankyou! will this work for me to patch blue also?

 

[Danny-E 33]

No

pokeblue_color_vanilla_exp.ips

 

[Raizako]

You're the best thankyou so much just made my day :)

 

[Danny-E 33]

No problem!

I'm glad you're enjoying my hacks!

 

[Raizako]

I love your hacks.

Other hacks modify the game implementing more pokemon/npc different maps & different things to do.

Your hack preserves the original feel & story of the game enhancing it with color, updating its graphics and added features that doesnt change the game itself but adds more immersion to whats already there such as the exp bar and capture icon. Wich makes your hacks my personal favorite.

P.s While looking into red and blue i noticed there are shiny pokemon however you cant tell there shiny untill after you catch it. Specific stat values in red blue and yellow will make the pokemon shiny once you trade it to gold silver or crysal. Just the thought of this made me wonder how many shiny pokemon i passed up on my adventure since the only way to know if you have a shiny in RBY is by using a formula that determines whether or not its shiny from its individual values. If seperate pallets for the shiny pokemon could be inserted into the gen 1 games it would be very useful and it would save alot of work from calculating its IV to determine if its a shiny.

Hopefuly its possible & the only features i can think of that would enhance the game without changing what it is was used in fire red and are as followed.

- Register item from bag so it can be used just by pressing select (example: if i register my bicycle i can turn it on and off just by pressing select)

- hm moves can be used without going into party
(Example: pressing A while facing a tree will tell me it can be cut, then it will ask me if i want to cut it. If a pokemon in my party knows cut it will say that pokemon used cut)

- running shoes - holding B allows you to run *bicycles are still faster. In FireRed and LeafGreen, their mom sends them to the player via one of Professor Oak's aides, who is met in Pewter City, right before entering Route 3 and after battling Brock.

- each pokemon has its own sprite in party menu like the later gens do it and i saw you started to work on this with prototype ;)

I hope one day we can see these features your hacks are my personal favorite and the best experience in my opinion to relive kanto.

 

[Raizako]

Hey danny in yellow charizard can learn fly and in the gen 2 games dragonite can learn fly any chance you can allow this in red and blue?

 

[Danny-E 33]

Thank you for the suggestions. I apologize I never saw your posts.

Of these suggestions, the ones I would consider are registering items and using HM moves without going into the party menu. But the truth is I don't have much free time for rom hacking. And when I do have time, I have lots of other things on my todo list.

For these reasons, I encourage others to make hacks from this hack so that they can make these kinds of changes.

 

[chrisrow]

Hey OP, do you think you could import Gen 2 songs into this (Like the town themes, pokemon center, oaks theme)? I'd be so happy!