Red hack: Shin Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/JP builds (Bugfix, AI, and QoL patch)

[MStern]

The color correction by pressing select at the startup screen looks great, however it does not seem to get saved. I have to redo it every time I start a new play session, which makes it not very convenient.

Also, when giving the ability to learn multiple moves at the same level, you made Graveler learn both Harden and Body Slam at level 27. I don't see Body Slam at any level-up learnset (https://www.serebii.net/pokedex/075.shtml). Are you sure it should be learning it on level-up?

 

[jojobear13]

The color correction by pressing select at the startup screen looks great, however it does not seem to get saved. I have to redo it every time I start a new play session, which makes it not very convenient.

Also, when giving the ability to learn multiple moves at the same level, you made Graveler learn both Harden and Body Slam at level 27. I don't see Body Slam at any level-up learnset (https://www.serebii.net/pokedex/075.shtml). Are you sure it should be learning it on level-up?

It does not save because sram is not read until reaching the new game/load game menu. This is on top of the fact that whether it's needed or not depends on the screen and/or emulator being used at the time. It's a limitation where I haven't found an elegant workaround.

Learning body slam at level 29 was intentional. It plays nicer with the trainer AI at higher levels. Otherwise the endgame move set is self-destruct, explosion, harden, and earthquake. If you send out a Pokémon that earthquake is bad against, the AI will nearly always resort to blowing itself up on turn 1. Body slam gives it a decent neutral option to fall back on.

 

[jojobear13]

The color correction by pressing select at the startup screen looks great, however it does not seem to get saved. I have to redo it every time I start a new play session, which makes it not very convenient.

This and the post by sdeleon1234 have given me an idea. The destination code in the rom header does not seem to be used for anything. The gameboy never had region lockout, so this code is just for informational purposes. I'll bet I can make it so changing this code reverses the default state of the gamma shader; auto-on instead of auto-off. This way it can be adjusted either in the Makefile options or by using the Gameboy Header Editor.

Time to experiment.

EDIT: Oh hey! Looks like this is going to work.

 

[tabaquinho]

I'm sorry if this was asked before, I tried to use the search engine, but didn't really found it. So, I love all the improvements this hack has done to Pokémon Red, but I was wondering if, like, is there a patch with all your mods to the system that adds Gen 2 graphics (like what Danny E-33 has done in their "Pokémon Red/Blue - Gen II graphics and music patch"?)

 

[jojobear13]

I'm sorry if this was asked before, I tried to use the search engine, but didn't really found it. So, I love all the improvements this hack has done to Pokémon Red, but I was wondering if, like, is there a patch with all your mods to the system that adds Gen 2 graphics (like what Danny E-33 has done in their "Pokémon Red/Blue - Gen II graphics and music patch"?)

No. It's out of scope for this project.

 

[MStern]

So I tried doing a Set battle-style playthrough in the most recent patch, and it honestly feels like a trollish difficulty romhack. I'm at the E4 right now and it's horrendous. Agatha's Gengar will outspeed and repeatedly Hypnosis your entire team as soon as you cure it. My mainstay top-tier team which I raised while keeping the E4 in mind can barely keep up with them. Raising other Pokemon that can counter these specific strategies would take literally hours of grinding. The XP gains in RBY are horrible and are not fun with these kind of difficulty spikes.

Some rambling about XP: the reason levelling is so slow in the late game is because XP requirements are cubic while gains are linear. In vanilla: XP gain = base yield * fainted level / 7. Later generations added a scaling factor which takes into account the player Pokemon's level, but you could probably achieve a similar effect by making gains quadratic instead of linear. For example: XP gain = base yield * (fainted level)^2 / 40 + 10. This formula gives very similar gains early on against your rival and route 1 Pidgeys, but scales up fast as levels increase. I have no idea whether implementing something like this is practical or desirable, but these are some thoughts.

 

[jojobear13]

So I tried doing a Set battle-style playthrough in the most recent patch, and it honestly feels like a trollish difficulty romhack. I'm at the E4 right now and it's horrendous. Agatha's Gengar will outspeed and repeatedly Hypnosis your entire team as soon as you cure it. My mainstay top-tier team which I raised while keeping the E4 in mind can barely keep up with them. Raising other Pokemon that can counter these specific strategies would take literally hours of grinding. The XP gains in RBY are horrible and are not fun with these kind of difficulty spikes.

Some rambling about XP: the reason levelling is so slow in the late game is because XP requirements are cubic while gains are linear. In vanilla: XP gain = base yield * fainted level / 7. Later generations added a scaling factor which takes into account the player Pokemon's level, but you could probably achieve a similar effect by making gains quadratic instead of linear. For example: XP gain = base yield * (fainted level)^2 / 40 + 10. This formula gives very similar gains early on against your rival and route 1 Pidgeys, but scales up fast as levels increase. I have no idea whether implementing something like this is practical or desirable, but these are some thoughts.

Ah yes. Agatha. The updated AI shows just how brain-dead effective the old hypnosis-confuse ray combo can be. I would suggest activating the Sleep Clause if she's giving you too much trouble. Fun fact - Agatha is the only member of the Elite-4 in the vanilla release to not have intelligent move-picking AI; her move-picking was the same as a Channeler.

Set mode is now the "hard mode" option and is not meant to be relaxing. Trainers having StatEXP starts to matter more and more the farther into the game you go. You don't have your badge boosts either, so every trainer is like a link battle against a kid that manically grinds out wild encounters.

When it comes to doing math on the gameboy, you really want to avoid calculating exponents whenever possible. The processor is from the 1970's. Doing quadratic equations is always possible, but it's also very resource-intensive. Also, your equation would result in the cumulative XP gained through trainer battles (beating every trainer one time) to be somewhere in the ballpark of 28 million as opposed to ~500,000 normally. A tad too much to say the least.

Here's the thing about EXP distribution in the pokemon games that Satoshi Tajiri directed. It's more of an art form with a set of assumptions than a hard science. He made the assumption that the total EXP gained from trainer battles should make up between 1/3 to 1/2 the total EXP gained throughout the entire adventure. The other 1/2 to 2/3 of that comes from wild battles. The vision was that players would be spending most of their time looking for rare pokemon and KO'ing stuff they didn't want instead of running. This mindset comes from pokemon's predecessors (Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest/SaGa) which rarely had you running from weak foes as it was faster and optimal to just kill them. Tajiri also wanted to heavily incentivize trading, so balancing was done with the idea that traded pokemon get a permanent 50% EXP boost. The result of this direction is that you can't make large changes to EXP-gain or level curves without carefully re-scaling everything else in the game.

As it stands, beating every trainer in the game a single time gets you a cumulative ~500,000 EXP. With a team of 6 pokemon with medium-fast growth rates (where level = cube-root of experience gained), that's enough to get each one of them to about level 43. Now let's say that for every two trainer 'mons you KO in the game, you've at some point gone and KO'ed three or four wild mon's of similar level. That should add an additional 500k EXP from wild battles. So with about 1-mil EXP accumulated and spread evenly across your team of 6 med-fast 'mons, they are now going to be about level 55. This is enough to reasonably take on the Elite-4 and have a tough fight against the champion. So far everything is working out and the game ends with a difficult boss gauntlet. Now let's assume that all pokemon on the player's team are traded for that sweet 1.5 EXP multiplier. That brings the EXP accumulated to 1.5-mil which results in a team around level 62. That's enough to power through the Elite-4 without too much trouble.

There's not much I would do with tweaking the EXP-gain formula. That's a bit of a pandora's box with unknown repercussions. But giving a 1.5X boost for playing in Set mode is unlikely to hurt anything.

 

[MStern]

It's a shame the options are so limited. The lack of catch-up mechanics means late-game additions like the gift Lapras (level 15 and slow level up group) are completely unusable. 1.5x would be better than nothing, at least, and would simulate the player trading their Pokemon for the boost.

 

[jojobear13]

It's a shame the options are so limited. The lack of catch-up mechanics means late-game additions like the gift Lapras (level 15 and slow level up group) are completely unusable. 1.5x would be better than nothing, at least, and would simulate the player trading their Pokemon for the boost.

It just means that one needs to get a bit creative with the programming. Exponent math is slow, but anything that can be broken down into doubling and halving numbers is fast and easy. That's nothing more than shifting bits left and right and occasionally doing addition.

What I can do is repurpose the 1.5x boost function that runs when 1.5x modifiers are being applied to the total EXP value. I can call it as many times as I like in order to make the boost multiplier compound on itself, and I've been playing around with making it compound based on level gap. This results in a big initial boost for very under-leveled pokemon. The boost then lessens itself as the level gap shrinks, and it provides no extra benefit when the gap is finally closed. This can be combined with the level-scaling toggle and trainer rematches in order to power-level a dratini or a lapras up to where the player sits in the game progression.

 

[MStern]

That sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to trying out these changes.

 

[ericgall23]

Hi there! :)

I just played Pokémon Shin Green up to the end! Honestly, I really loved it, it's awesome and revolutionary for sure! ;) I won't try Shin Red or Shin Blue, coz from what I've seen, there are mostly the same as Shin Green, and I chose Shin Green coz it has diferrent sprites than Red and Blue, and I wanted something really different as well! ;)

What I really liked in your game:
- The fact that we can choose to make trainers harder! Oh my! What a great change is that! Of course, I activated it since the beginning. At first it was difficult (when I faced Beedrill in Viridian Forest), but I really enjoyed the challenge all the game! It's so great to have the choice for the difficulty! (It makes me remember Black2, though in that game, it's only activated after Elite 4) Great job for this! ;)
- The inclusion of the Move Deleter and the move relearner! Serisouly, those should have been present in the very orginal games (Gen 1 and 2)! They're very useful and convenient! The move deleter is the only way we can get rid of HM moves, and the move relearner allow us to obtain moves Pokémon learn at earlier levels, but that we missed them. There were no way in the originals Gen 1 games to do this!!! They're very useful! Awesome change and awesome job for this! ;) Thanks so much! ;)
- The new content after Elite 4, like Oak's battle, Fuji's battle, etc. Very interesting, and it makes us play our game much longer than the original! ;) Good job!
- Some improved movesets for certain Pokémon (Such as Koffing/Weezing getting Mimic via level-up, or some like Yellow). A difference that is always appreciated! ;)
- That fact you keep the same Pokémon and same moves, without adding new ones! That allows us to trade with other games (including originals) without any glitch, so it's ALWAYS a good thing! Thanks so much for this as well, coz if you had added new moves or new or fake Pokémon, I won't have played it... never!
- The fact we can have rematches with most trainers! What a great change for sure! No need for VS Seekers or Pokégaer calls to have rematches! A very nice and great feature that should be in the originals! Great and awesome job for this! ;) I love this!
- The sprites from Green is a real difference as well! They make a real change insted of the same from Red and Blue! Thanks so much! ;)
- The fact that all marts have TMs on sale! It's a really good thing in itself, especially coz TMs are single-use and not like the ones in Gen 5, which they can be used infinitely in Gen 5. Anyway, thanks so much! ;)
- The fact we can sell our Pokémon. A new different thing useful for getting money.
- The fact we can obtain coins by showing a Pokémon. Very good in itself too! ;)
- The new tournament on S.S. Anne was aawesome too. It meks me remember the batle Tower in later gens! Great job for this! ;)

What I liked less in your game:
- Well, the dialogs are mostly the same (about 90%) as the original game. I was quitte aware of that, and it's not a big problem in itself, but different dialogs would be great... Just a suggestion...
- I would have liked some TMs to be different, especially the uselss ones like TM37 (Too restricted!), TM41 (Too much restricted!) or TM04 (Whirlwind is completely useless in trainer battle!). There are other move possibilities... It's just a suggestion, but it doesnt ruin your game at all, don't worry! ;)
- TM compatibilities with Pokémon could have been updated as well, according to later generations... I would have loved that, but then again, it's just a suggestion...

Bref, I really love your game in general, and I will always keep it in my games to play it again for sure! ;) Thank you so much for it, and for all the efforts you made! It's clear that you have put lots of work, passion and determination into it, and I really felt it all the way! I recommend it to everyone, coz it's flexible for everyone! I never seen a Pokémon game like this one! You should become a part of the real Pokémon Team who makes real Pokémon games! ;) I'm sure they would love your ideas! ;) Revolution is always great! ;) You have lots of potential for sure! ;)

If you have other games like this one, and from Gen 2 too, I'm very interested to try them!

Good luck, and good success, in your future projects! ;)

 

[MStern]

As evidenced in the bike shop glitch, it's possible to set the in-game text to display instantly. Would it be possible to implement that as a legitimate feature? For example, you could rank up the text speeds in the options menu. Slow would be medium, medium would be fast, and fast would be instant. I'm not aware of anybody using the vanilla slow text speed, so I doubt anyone will miss it.

 

[jojobear13]

As evidenced in the bike shop glitch, it's possible to set the in-game text to display instantly. Would it be possible to implement that as a legitimate feature? For example, you could rank up the text speeds in the options menu. Slow would be medium, medium would be fast, and fast would be instant. I'm not aware of anybody using the vanilla slow text speed, so I doubt anyone will miss it.

I looked at this last year, but there were a few issues with getting the speed to stick. Per glitch city labs:

The instant text will persist until:
The player opens the start menu.
The player heals their Pokémon at a Pokémon Center.
The player loads a Yes/No box.
The player speaks with the Bike Shop owner again.

I might look into it again once I get some vacation time.

 

[MStern]

Speedrunners use item underflow to overwrite memory and seem to achieve the effect permanently. Here's an example:

https://youtu.be/wtZ7CzbxBFM?t=2017 (at 33:37)

He says the options store the text delay as 1, 3, or 5 frames per character, but can be set to 0.

 

[jojobear13]

Coming sometime this month:

**Temporary Field Move Slots**
When teaching a pokemon a field move outside of battle, such as with a HM, this feature becomes apparent.
You will be asked if you would like to teach it as a temporary field move.
If so, it will be learned into a special field move slot that is separate from the normal list of four moves.
Such a temporary move cannot be used in battle, but it can be used in the overworld as normal.
Each pokemon on your team can have one temporary field move at a time.
Having one will display it on the status screen above the pokemon's other moves.
A temporary field move cannot be overwritten with another field move.
But it will be erased if it's owning pokemon leaves the party (such as by being deposited in the PC).
If all four of a pokemon's regular moves are field moves, its temporary field move cannot be menu-selected.
But if a fifth field move in the temporary slot is a HM, it can still be activated via One-Button HM Usage.

 

[Mortimer]

Hello! Probably a dumb question, but neither Lunar IPS nor the online patcher allow me to use the shin_pokemon_green_v1.22.ips patch, they keep telling me it is not a valid patch. Am I doing something wrong? I am doing the exact same thing I do with all patches.

 

[jojobear13]

Hello! Probably a dumb question, but neither Lunar IPS nor the online patcher allow me to use the shin_pokemon_green_v1.22.ips patch, they keep telling me it is not a valid patch. Am I doing something wrong? I am doing the exact same thing I do with all patches.

Most likely. It's needs to be applied to a US Blue rom. Patching the wrong rom will give errors.

 

[Mortimer]

Most likely. It's needs to be applied to a US Blue rom. Patching the wrong rom will give errors.

Oh yeah, I do have a US Blue Rom. Thing is, when I use Lunar IPS, the moment I select the "Shin Pokemon Green" .ips file it gives me an error that says "This is not an IPS file!". This has never happened to me before with other .ips files. It doesn't even allow me to select a ROM to patch. Double-clicking it doesn't work, and none of my other .ips files behave like this.

 

[jojobear13]

Oh yeah, I do have a US Blue Rom. Thing is, when I use Lunar IPS, the moment I select the "Shin Pokemon Green" .ips file it gives me an error that says "This is not an IPS file!". This has never happened to me before with other .ips files. It doesn't even allow me to select a ROM to patch. Double-clicking it doesn't work, and none of my other .ips files behave like this.

This can happen when a person downloads a github file wrong. For example, doing right-click & Save Link As... on shin_pokemon_blue_v1.22.ips will cause it to download a html link. You have to click on the file to view it in github, and then click the download button off to the right. You will get the IPS file attached below.

 

[Mortimer]

This can happen when a person downloads a github file wrong. For example, doing right-click & Save Link As... on shin_pokemon_blue_v1.22.ips will cause it to download a html link. You have to click on the file to view it in github, and then click the download button off to the right. You will get the IPS file attached below.

It appears that you are right and that was indeed what happened. I genuinely thought that right-clicking the .ips file on Github would allow me to download it right away, but I was indeed downloading an HTML file that posed as an .ips one. Thank you!