Pokémon Spinoff: Pokemon TCG: Neo (V1.41 Update)

[Cataclyptic]

WELCOME TO A NEW GENERATION



NEW: The final version AND Legacy mode is here!​

This hack, Pokémon TCG Neo, is a near complete overhaul of the base game in terms of battling. Why? Because all the generation 1 cards in this game have been replaced with generation 2 cards, and everything has been balanced.

Featuring your favorites from Neo Genesis all the way to Skyridge, so many cards have been added and replaced that it's completely changed the way this game is played. Pokémon, attacks, abilities, even a few trainer cards- altered to create a completely new battling experience. If you're looking for a TCG hack with all-new cards, look no further and download the link below.

If you aren't looking for a new way to play the old TCG, see the instructions below.

Spoiler:

You have to play the game anyway because I worked really hard on it for almost three years

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FEATURES​

As previously stated, all the Pokémon and trainers in this game have been replaced by generation 2 cards from real life sets. This completes the real Johto Pokédex, with some Kanto Pokémon thrown into the mix. These card's attacks and abilities either reflect their real life counterparts, come close to it, or I ignored it for a better attack. The Trainer card edits followed similarly: I tried to change the sprites and names to generation 2 equivalents, with a special note that Super Energy Removal has been replaced by Master Ball. The ONLY card that is unedited is Super Energy Retrieval, and only because in the English TCG it is already a generation 2 card anyway.

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Everything in this game has been balanced. Cards that I thought were weak received buffs, and cards that I thought were too strong received nerfs. In general: Pokémon, especially evolved Pokémon, got more powerful, while trainer cards became less powerful. Games will now be more focused on the Pokémon and not the trainers, giving new strategies to pursue!

But, if you don't care for the new effects and balance and just want to play with official gen 2 cards on a rom simulator, we have you covered. This game also includes a Legacy Version, in which all the cards in the game are as close as possible to their real life counterparts! If you love coinflips, then this is the version for you!

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As 99.9% of the cards in this game are different, the dialogue, trades and text in the game have also been altered to reflect that difference. In particular, there are now only 7 promo cards and EVERY card in the game is obtainable, so deckbuild to your hearts content: no more Card Pop holding you back from key cards. Not to mention, the boosters that you get these cards in have been altered too!

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In addition to the cards, you can also play it your way by playing as a boy or girl! There are two versions of this game, containing either Mark or Mint's spriteset and colors. Furthermore, I updated the portrait sprites myself, as seen above, so now they both look even better than before, ready to take on everyone in the trading card league!

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Speaking of trainers, every single NPC deck has been altered. Some even use completely different strategies, such as Steve, who is one of four character who had their portrait altered. The auto deck machines are likewise edited from the ground up, mostly just filled with ideas for fun decks that I had and the boss's decks. In addition to all of this, Ronald is re-battleable after beating him after the championship, and Imakuni now gives a rare card after beating him 2 and 4 times as opposed to 3 and 6 in the original game.

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For the sake of convenience, the tutorial duel has been eliminated. I'm going to assume you all know how to play the card game; thereby letting you skip the tutorial and go straight into the fun. The dialogue for learning the game has been unaltered, so use that if you must.

Finally, because there has been some confusion over this, I want to clearly state what isn't a feature: the difficulty. This is not a difficulty hack, read the spoiler below for the reasons why.

Spoiler:

In order to make this a difficulty hack, you would have to have the NPC's play cards like a normal human, and I don't have the AI coding skills for that. The AI has a chance to not do anything on their turn, and supporters don't exist yet which means human players can take advantage of the card drawing and searching trainers in a way the AI simply can't replicate. Yes, I can give them better decklists than in the base game, but that only goes so far. Anyone who has played the competitive TCG will likely still find this hack easy.

On top of all of this, the Basic Pokémon Problem will pervade my game just as much as it does the actual TCG. Basic Pokémon will forever be easier to use than evolutions by definition, and Legendaries have to be strong basics in order to avoid a problem of gameplay conveyance VS gameplay balance. It's just how the official TCG is set up and I can't do anything about it unless someone knows how to make it such that certain Pokémon can only be a one of in deckbuilding or something.

THE ART STYLE

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All of the new art in this game was done by me. I wanted to have a different feel from the base game, so instead of using mostly black and white + 2 colors, I tried to make each Pokémon as colorful as possible. This is my preference, so I'm sticking to it. If you want a poster of all the sprites, it can be viewed here https://www.deviantart.com/cataclyptic/art/Pokemon-TCG-Neo-Sprites-936162337 (Spoilers for in game cards).

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DOWNLOAD

The Zip file is at the very end of this thread

Or, download it from my Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7unhthpdxgt7dis/AABIxh0ulGovswxZjGyM8cd3a?dl=0



The downloads include the patches, a copy of LunarIPS, a Readme file, the version update history, and a document detailing every card in the game and how to obtain them- don't look if you don't want spoilers!


And, by popular demand, I have made the repository file public! You can see and download that here: https://github.com/RealCataclyptic/Pokemon-TCG-Neo


The pret file has been updated such that it can be understood by humans! Happy hacking!​

Also, if you are interested in hacking this game, code discussion or want to show off sprite art, we have a Discord right here: https://discord.gg/K2kfTx2xRf

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Version history (See Full notes in the download section)​

Spoiler:

- 1.0: Game release
- 1.01: Fixed a bug where returning to the Hall of Honor only gave Ho-oh.
- 1.02: Fixed a trade. Reverted Tailwind (Retreat Aide) to its original effect, as the new one was broken. Changed energy cost of Crystal Charizard.
- 1.03: A spelling error and an attack name change.
- 1.1: Huge balance changes, bug fixes, AI changes. Entei's Protective Flame now works.
- 1.11: Entei1 now works properly, one typo fixed for Sudowoodo's energy cost.
- 1.2 : Booster pack edits, sprite edits, Bug fixes, balance changes, sprite edits, deck edits, basically everything edits, see the version update history in download for more information.
- 1.25: Title screen edit, bug fixes, balance changes, some sprite edits, typo and text edits, Readme edits, entire pret document cleaned up, new effects, new attacks, bug discoveries and exploit fixes.
- 1.3 : New effects, new attacks, balance change, MORE POKEMON, LEGACY VERSION!
- 1.31: Bug fixes
- 1.32: Bug fixes, balance changes, sprite changes
- 1.33: More bug fixes, more text fixes
- 1.35: Bug fixes, text fixes, SELECTABLE GENDER ADDED
- 1.4: A ton of bug fixes, new effects, new balance changes, QoL features
- 1.41: Bug fixes and optimizations
​

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KNOWN BUGS AND GLITCHES

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I can't do anything about these, but all of them only minorly affect gameplay. If any of you know how to fix them or what's going on, feel free to comment below.

Spoiler:

- The booster pack card selection is skewed towards some cards, which sometimes makes collecting certain cards difficult. The booster are not randomly decided. A discovery made in March of 2024 confirms what we all suspected: certain rares, uncommons and commons are weighted more than others. There is no way to fix this yet.

- The AI will sometimes use Pokémon Fan Club (Pokémon Trader) to trade a Pokémon for an energy. This is a holdover from the base game that I can't fix. Luckily, this only happens very rarely.

- Legacy Version only: Using Venusaur's Harvest Bounty ability while you have no energy in hand erroneously states that there is no energy in the deck, and asks you to look at the deck. It is still the hand in either case. Due to the way that the game handles searching, I'm not sure how to fix this without breaking the game.

- Legacy Version only: Attacks that do no damage but affect the defending pokemon can bypass Baby Power. This is due to a quirk of how the game engine works. I cannot find a way to fix it without breaking the game.

- Both versions: Attacks that let you switch the defending Pokémon before doing damage sometimes ignore other effects. Might have been fixed as of 1.41 due to switch-attack optimizations, but it's hard to tell...

F.A.Q.'S​

Spoiler:

1) "Will you add the original Pokémon to the game / add more Pokémon / add more types?"
-- The game only allows me to add a maximum of 254 cards into the game, and I have reached that limit as of V1.4. I refuse to add more types because the game allows me to create only 1 additional type, so it just isn't worth it in my eyes, since a real type expansion would mean both Dark and Metal added, not just one or the other. HOWEVER, as of 9/22/24, there have been major advancements in poketcg technology. One of which lets us get up to 510 cards! So maybe for my next hack, I'll take advantage of that...

2) "Can I use your sprites for my project?"
-- As long as you give me credit, then yes! The full spritesheet can be found up above on my Deviantart account.

3) "Can I stream this hack?"
-- Yes, go ahead!

4) "Is this game done?"
-- Yes, the game is completed. I will only come back to edit it in order to fix exploits or bugs.

5) "What will you hack next?"
-- Right now, nothing. I'm primarily an artist, so as of September 2024, that means getting back to trying to draw my original manga, found at Deviantart. This whole thing has been a blast to do, but in the end, comic making is my true passion. I will be working on the Sacred Phoenix project again, found here: https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/pokémon-sacred-phoenix.464873/ , so that sort of counts as my next gaming adventure?

HOWEVER, due to the aforementioned advancements in poketcg technology, I am currently preparing sprites for Pokemon TCG Advanced. Perhaps when I'm done with all my sprites, TCG2 will be hacked, or maybe even TCG1 will contain the ability to put up to 8 colors per card sprite. Either way, TCG Advanced is currently in production... but it will take me a while to do it, so don't count on a release anytime soon.

You can find the TCG Advanced Sprites on my deviantart account.

SPECIAL THANKS



- Everyone who made the PokeTCG disassembly
- Anon822, for major coding help
- Lunos, for answering all my noob questions
- MonopolyRubix, for helping me alter the booster packs
- Snackerfork, for the female playable character inspiration as well as typo and dialogue corrections
- Github, for making it so easy that even an idiot like me is able to use their site
- Gotron, for helping with balance changes
- Oats, for helping immensely with coding
- Shaoden, for helping immensely with coding
- Paperfire88 for inspiration and coding
- Electro, for coding tutorials, Select Gender code, and other help
- All of you who downloaded this hack!​

 

[Canex|]

Nice Work!!! Going to try it out now

 

[Luminosity]

Wow... the art is insane, I played the original a looong time ago, but I'm definitely going to give this a try. How long did it take you to finish this?

 

[Cataclyptic]

Wow... the art is insane, I played the original a looong time ago, but I'm definitely going to give this a try. How long did it take you to finish this?

Thank you! This hack took about 8-9 months to complete. It took about five months to get all the art done due to work.

 

[nickwatic]

I cannot express how happy I am to see a TCG hack going

 

[Inner Rhymes]

This is honestly amazing. I've been a huge fan of the TCG GBC spinoffs, and to der a 'dex replacement' hack of sorts makes me excited for a fresh playthtough. Thank you for this!

 

[PiaCRT]

When I saw this I knew I had to try it, and I haven't played someone else's rom hack in probably a decade.

It's a real breath of fresh air seeing all these Neo cards in a beloved spinoff title that I play religiously every 2 years or so (though lately ive been playing TCG2 instead since it has more cards), and it looks amazing.

Some suggestions, perhaps change up the pack art to match the Neo sets, Evolution -> Revelation or something along those lines. Look into adding Mint as a female counterpart to Mark.
Also, I've not gotten too far yet, but are there any card pop exclusive cards?

Is your source public? I could see many awesome hacks coming out of this one for a true TCG3 experience. (some of us more techy hackers might be able to help with some of those bugs or issues you listed)

 

[Cataclyptic]

When I saw this I knew I had to try it, and I haven't played someone else's rom hack in probably a decade.

It's a real breath of fresh air seeing all these Neo cards in a beloved spinoff title that I play religiously every 2 years or so (though lately ive been playing TCG2 instead since it has more cards), and it looks amazing.

Some suggestions, perhaps change up the pack art to match the Neo sets, Evolution -> Revelation or something along those lines. Look into adding Mint as a female counterpart to Mark.
Also, I've not gotten too far yet, but are there any card pop exclusive cards?

Is your source public? I could see many awesome hacks coming out of this one for a true TCG3 experience. (some of us more techy hackers might be able to help with some of those bugs or issues you listed)

I would LOVE to change the pack art... but I don't know how. That's one of the things in my wishlist, if you or anyone knows how to do so, please tell me and I'll get on it. Also not sure how to add Mint into the game too, that sort of programming is way beyond what I'm capable of. I'm mostly an artist, after all.

There are no Card Pop cards, I made sure of that. Every card in the game is 100% obtainable by yourself. And finally, my source code is not public. I may give it out, but considering how I basically just switched everything in the code around, the entire thing is going to be gibberish to anyone who doesn't have my notes.

 

[rofltje]

Although I haven't gotten around to playing the game yet, I just wanted to say that I love the artwork you made for these cards! They are so recognisable and give me nostalgia for the old cards 😊
It must have been an incredible amount of work turning these cards into sprites and it absolutely payed off.

 

[ablahblah987]

This was a lot of fun. It got me through a long plane ride.

For some reason whenever I beat the Grand Masters I only get the Ho-Oh card. Is this a bug or am I supposed to do something else to get the other cards?

I wish there was a way to up the difficulty or add more stuff to do but that's probably too difficult to change. I'm grateful this hack was made in any case.

 

[Cataclyptic]

This was a lot of fun. It got me through a long plane ride.

For some reason whenever I beat the Grand Masters I only get the Ho-Oh card. Is this a bug or am I supposed to do something else to get the other cards?

I wish there was a way to up the difficulty or add more stuff to do but that's probably too difficult to change. I'm grateful this hack was made in any case.

That's odd actually. You are supposed to get all four. I just tested this and I got all four... is anyone else having this problem?

EDIT: I think I figured it out, despite the fact that my game doesn't share this glitch. Nevertheless, it should be fixed now in the latest patch.

But yeah, difficulty is beyond me. It requires manipulating the AI to be smart about playing cards, and I don't know how to do that.

 

[skateman222]

Wow, this is phenomenal stuff! What's wild is I just started work on my very own first TCG romhack that is trying to accomplish something very similar to what you have done! 😂

I'm definitely giving this a look/try tonight (and probably on stream too if you don't mind). This will definitely give me tons of inspiration/motivation and don't be surprised if I end up resorting to picking your brain on this stuff if you ever have the time. 😅

Congrats on completing such an amazing project! I'm very much looking forward to playing it C':

 

[Cataclyptic]

Wow, this is phenomenal stuff! What's wild is I just started work on my very own first TCG romhack that is trying to accomplish something very similar to what you have done! 😂

I'm definitely giving this a look/try tonight (and probably on stream too if you don't mind). This will definitely give me tons of inspiration/motivation and don't be surprised if I end up resorting to picking your brain on this stuff if you ever have the time. 😅

Congrats on completing such an amazing project! I'm very much looking forward to playing it C':

Ooh nice, good luck on your hack. Also yeah go ahead and stream if you want, the game is public now. Though you should probably use the latest version, which I just posted, as it corrects a minor but annoying postgame glitch. And sure, PM me if you have questions.

 

[ablahblah987]

I hate to be a complainer but the crystal type power isn't working. I tried it with Celebi and the game says I can't change its type to anything but grass.

I know the original post says the ai can't use the power correctly but thought I'd say something since I see no mention of it being unusable for the player.

 

[Cataclyptic]

I hate to be a complainer but the crystal type power isn't working. I tried it with Celebi and the game says I can't change its type to anything but grass.

I know the original post says the ai can't use the power correctly but thought I'd say something since I see no mention of it being unusable for the player.

Crystal Type is the same as Shift in the original game- you can only change it to a type which is the same as one on the field, excluding colorless. Tested this just now and Celebi was able to change into a fire and fighting type once one was out.

 

[ablahblah987]

I must have misread the card. Thank you for looking into it.

 

[Bluelatios*]

Hey, I've been hoping for a TCG hack adding gen 2 cards for a long time, thanks so much for making this! I'm having a lot of fun with my triple energy deck featuring Lugia, Entei, and Dragonite. However I noticed Dragonite's tailwind ability gives everyone free retreat just by being in the deck. It doesn't even have to be in play or in the hand, its just straight up free retreat for everybody in any deck its put into!

 

[Ziko577]

I have a few Sneasel cards but yet the girl who wants to trade me her Entei won't give it to me unless there's another Sneasel card in the game I don't know about.

 

[Cataclyptic]

Hey, I've been hoping for a TCG hack adding gen 2 cards for a long time, thanks so much for making this! I'm having a lot of fun with my triple energy deck featuring Lugia, Entei, and Dragonite. However I noticed Dragonite's tailwind ability gives everyone free retreat just by being in the deck. It doesn't even have to be in play or in the hand, its just straight up free retreat for everybody in any deck its put into!

I tested this and I couldn't figure this one out, the ASM logic isn't very clear. It seems like messing with any part of the code breaks the game in some form or another. So, I just updated the game, it's ability is now the same as Retreat Aid from the original, reducing retreat cost by 1 instead of making it free.

I have a few Sneasel cards but yet the girl who wants to trade me her Entei won't give it to me unless there's another Sneasel card in the game I don't know about.

Sorry about that. Fixed one line of code, it now works in the latest patch.

 

[bleedpark]

Hey, I've been hoping for a TCG hack adding gen 2 cards for a long time, thanks so much for making this! I'm having a lot of fun with my triple energy deck featuring Lugia, Entei, and Dragonite. However I noticed Dragonite's tailwind ability gives everyone free retreat just by being in the deck. It doesn't even have to be in play or in the hand, its just straight up free retreat for everybody in any deck its put into!

Yo that deck sounds sick! Any chance of a list hook up? I had so many deck ideas from when I played competitive back when Neo Genesis dropped but the Macargo I played isn't in game nor the broken Feraligatr. I love me my toxic decks but I can't play them unfortunately :(