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

[Slowbro91]

Trademons evolve by trade as usual or at level 45. Whichever comes first.

1.23M is the latest release. There is also a beta-test patch in the master_dev branch that has some bugfixes and new features but is still being playtested.

I'm really liking your hack so far. I never knew how badly I needed 60FPS for this game lol, it looks great. Are you going to do gen2 or know of a hack that's similar to yours but for gen 2?

 

[jojobear13]

I'm really liking your hack so far. I never knew how badly I needed 60FPS for this game lol, it looks great. Are you going to do gen2 or know of a hack that's similar to yours but for gen 2?

A hypothetical Shin Crystal is, as of this moment, nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet and a text file full of notes to myself. I don't know when/if I'll ever do anything with it since Gen 2 is such well-covered territory.

I think I answered this in your other thread, but I tend to recommend Perfect Crystal 2020 Update as a follow-up to Shin Pokemon.

 

[Slowbro91]

Would you recommend keeping it to set mode? I only have 1 pokemon so far and I'm already level 19 at Mt.Moon. I feel like I'm a bit overleveled for that early in the game.

 

[jojobear13]

Would you recommend keeping it to set mode? I only have 1 pokemon so far and I'm already level 19 at Mt.Moon. I feel like I'm a bit overleveled for that early in the game.

You will always be over-leveled if you bulldoze through the game with only your starter. If you are going to do this, but still want a challenge, go back to Oak's lab and turn on level-scaling.

 

[Gotowork2004]

Hi jojobear13. First off, just wanted to say that I love this game, thank you so much for making it!

Second, I had a question regarding trainer pokemon over level 100. For some reason it seems like trainer pokemon that are exactly level 100 (or 101) are stronger than those over 101. I don't have any hard data to back this up, but I did around 20 battles against Misty with my level 100 Starmie (full stat exp, 9 speed DV) and it was only ever outsped by opposing Starmie that were level 100 or 101 (maybe there one that was one level 102 or 103 that outsped, cant remember for sure). The Starmie that were level 104+ never outsped and just seemed weaker in general. Could just be a coincidence or in my head, but I wanted to bring it up.

 

[jojobear13]

Hi jojobear13. First off, just wanted to say that I love this game, thank you so much for making it!

Second, I had a question regarding trainer pokemon over level 100. For some reason it seems like trainer pokemon that are exactly level 100 (or 101) are stronger than those over 101. I don't have any hard data to back this up, but I did around 20 battles against Misty with my level 100 Starmie (full stat exp, 9 speed DV) and it was only ever outsped by opposing Starmie that were level 100 or 101 (maybe there one that was one level 102 or 103 that outsped, cant remember for sure). The Starmie that were level 104+ never outsped and just seemed weaker in general. Could just be a coincidence or in my head, but I wanted to bring it up.

No you're not crazy. From your description it sounds like an error with stat exp overflowing. Sure enough, I overlooked adding a level cap in the function that gives stat exp to enemy trainers. The function grants 65,448 stat exp at level 101, but overflows at level 102 to a mere 560 stat exp. Suddenly all the enemy trainers have 64 less stat points and you start out-speeding everything like you're playing in SHIFT mode.

I'll add it to my pile of fixes for the next version.

 

[Gotowork2004]

I thought it was something like that, but wasn't sure. Excited to play the new update, sounds like it will be a good one!

 

[jojobear13]

Hi everyone. On a tangentially-related note, Vortiene has released Pokemon PureRGB which takes advantage of several advances made by Shin Pokemon. Go give it some love if you get a chance. It gives me the warm fuzzies to see that my contributions are helping others to make cool stuff!

 

[triassicranger]

This is my favourite Gen 1 ROM Hack. I picked the Blue Version to play . Thank you jojobear13 for putting the effort into making it. I like that you can rebattle trainers whenever you want, as I went on a few grinding sessions to train some Pokemon to beat some gym leaders, and it's also useful to get more money as well. I also liked the "randomize trainer's Pokemon" option as well as the option for weaker Pokemon to get more experience. I'm currently grinding Pokemon to beat the Elite 4 + the Rival.

However, I'd like to point out an odd glitch. About halfway through the playthrough, the music starts sounding scratchy. I'm not sure when it started, but it was happening by the time I got to Fuschia City. And more recently, there's been instances of music not stopping playing when it should. E.g.:
- The Victory music (when you beat a trainer) keeps playing when you return to the Overworld. (This started happening when I was doing rebattles in Giovanni's gym)
- The Pokemon Centre music keeps playing after you've exited it. (This happened one time exiting Fuschia City's Pokemon Centre)
- I enter Viridian City's shop and the town music keeps playing instead of the Pokemon Centre theme.

 

[jojobear13]

This is my favourite Gen 1 ROM Hack. I picked the Blue Version to play . Thank you jojobear13 for putting the effort into making it. I like that you can rebattle trainers whenever you want, as I went on a few grinding sessions to train some Pokemon to beat some gym leaders, and it's also useful to get more money as well. I also liked the "randomize trainer's Pokemon" option as well as the option for weaker Pokemon to get more experience. I'm currently grinding Pokemon to beat the Elite 4 + the Rival.

However, I'd like to point out an odd glitch. About halfway through the playthrough, the music starts sounding scratchy. I'm not sure when it started, but it was happening by the time I got to Fuschia City. And more recently, there's been instances of music not stopping playing when it should. E.g.:
- The Victory music (when you beat a trainer) keeps playing when you return to the Overworld. (This started happening when I was doing rebattles in Giovanni's gym)
- The Pokemon Centre music keeps playing after you've exited it. (This happened one time exiting Fuschia City's Pokemon Centre)
- I enter Viridian City's shop and the town music keeps playing instead of the Pokemon Centre theme.

I can't tell what's going on without more details.

Which version number? Which emulator? Does a hard reset fix things?

 

[triassicranger]

I can't tell what's going on without more details.

Which version number? Which emulator? Does a hard reset fix things?

Version 1.23 of Shin Pokemon Blue (the one based on US Blue, not Japanese Blue). Emulator is Pizza Boy (not the paid version) running on an Android phone.

What's a hard reset? If you mean exiting the game and app, and then reloading the app and game, the scratchy music didn't go away (although turning my phone's volume on and off repeatedly seems to fix the problem). As for the wrong music playing, I'll try seeing if turning everything off and on fixes that.

 

[jojobear13]

Version 1.23 of Shin Pokemon Blue (the one based on US Blue, not Japanese Blue). Emulator is Pizza Boy (not the paid version) running on an Android phone.

What's a hard reset? If you mean exiting the game and app, and then reloading the app and game, the scratchy music didn't go away (although turning my phone's volume on and off repeatedly seems to fix the problem). As for the wrong music playing, I'll try seeing if turning everything off and on fixes that.

This sounds like an issue with Pizza Boy and its interactions with your device. I'm a bit concerned that it fails about half the timing tests compared to the results of retroarch-mgba. Still, the best results are going to be seen using a GBC-dedicated emulator. I use BGB for its accuracy and dev-friendly debugger, but the most accurate android solution looks like it might be GBC.emu or retroarch-gambatte

What's a hard reset?

Turn everything off and turn it back on again.

 

[JulianoFdeS]

Excuse-me, I can confirm this is a Pizza Boy issue.
I paid the pro version of both Pizza Boy GBC and GBA, this is an issue that only happens in GBC.
Usually, I use Android's Retroarch Gambatte to play my GB games for best accuracy emulation, but for people who want to trade with Cable Link feature, there's only two options, My Oldboy! and Pizza Boy GBC Emulator, even with this audio issue, I guess Pizza Boy is still the best overall standalone GBC emulator in the Android market, I have no regrets of buying it, and I use it as well to play this hack, and to be honest, this issue still didn't happened to me playing it, but it's very common in other games that the same music repeat a lot in loop like Tetris or any other game with almost few music transition along the gameplay.
Our only option for Link Cable users is await for the Pizza Emulator's dev fix this issue anytime in the future, if this bothers you too much you can switch to My Oldboy! in the meantime.

 

[erpster8]

Hi everyone. On a tangentially-related note, Vortiene has released Pokemon PureRGB which takes advantage of several advances made by Shin Pokemon. Go give it some love if you get a chance. It gives me the warm fuzzies to see that my contributions are helping others to make cool stuff!

no probs. I'll give PureRGB a try later this month but I'll get it from the romhacking net site instead as there were a few recent updates of that one

 

[triassicranger]

This sounds like an issue with Pizza Boy and its interactions with your device.

Excuse-me, I can confirm this is a Pizza Boy issue.

Thank you both of you.

So I tried playing the game again this morning. The music playing in the wrong places glitch was still there, and even had the wrong sound effects playing. The funniest (IMO) instance of this was at the Pokemon Centre when the balls were being loaded onto the machine and being lit up. There were battle sound effects instead of the normal sounds.

Anyway, onwards to beat Elite 4...

 

[LinkNinjaMaster]

Hello!! It's been a while since I last posted a comment about your game. I have been playing Shin Blue Lite, and I'm already about to enter Victory Road. I want to say that having basically all bugs and glitches fixed, and smarter trainer AI has really made me enjoy Gen 1 when I no longer enjoyed the vanilla games.

Now, I started playing Shin Red Lite (v1. 23 hotfix) to get an extra copy of Dig, but decided to trade and transfer some 'mons from my Blue save (using Pokémon Stadium on an android emulator) to obtain some other TM copies, but I just noticed that SOMEHOW my OT in my Butterfree and ONLY my Butterfree got its last letter corrupted. I don't know when it happened, probably when I transferred it with Stadium, but it's the only one that suffered that glitch. It doesn't seem to have any adverse effect, but I find it pretty weird. I have no idea if it has something to do with the hack, the saving process when using Stadium, or the emulators I used (M64Plus FZ for android, GameYob on the DS), but it happened.

(Normal)

(Glitched)

Aside from that, I was going to comment that the trainers in the grass gym using Bellsprout or Weepinbell only attempted to use Wrap on my Gastly even though it had no effect, but then I realized that it's probably because they learn the 3 powder moves and their only remaining attacking move is Wrap, so once I'm statused they can't do anything to me. If Erika's gym was a joke before, now it's just sad 😅

...Well, before leaving I want to make a comment about Gym Leaders and their AI being able to switch Pokémon. Since they usually have all of their team of the same type, Switching is usually counterproductive to them, since they switch in a weakened state, frequently when paralyzed, and the incoming Pokémon receive a super-effective hit most of the time anyways, which has almost always resulted in basically a free turn for me. Really, the only exception has been Sabrina, since switching to Alakazam actually complicated my game plan. But, well... it's ALAKAZAM, so no surprise there.
Anyways, I don't know if there's any kind of improvement to make to the AI for those situations, particularly when they switch a low-health, paralyzed Pokémon that does nothing when it comes back out, but I wanted to share my experience.

That's all for now, I want to repeat that this hack really really improves the game experience and has allowed me to enjoy a game that I otherwise no longer enjoyed. Thanks a lot, really.

 

[JulianoFdeS]

this hack really really improves the game experience and has allowed me to enjoy a game that I otherwise no longer enjoyed

I feel the same, the AI boost is really a thing here, it makes the game less boring for those familiarized with the vanilla one.
I was about to write a comment about AI to make a suggestion as well, it seems to be a good time: usually, the first two moves the AI seems to use is non-damage moves, to reduce stats or inflict some status ailments, but I also noticed that the AI uses some useless battle moves like whirlwind, splash, teleport (even when it have other moves available) and as someone who wants a real challenge.. I dislike those weird AI decisions that make the battle easier, is it possible to improve it? (for instance, they can't use the move unless it's the only move available?) I also agree with the switch response LinkNinjaMaster said, makes sense the AI draws back if it's confused or received a few reduce stats moves as sand-attack, but anything else as low HP paralized/asleep/poisoned(probably burned and frozen too) doens't seems to being improving the challenge, but making it easier as we get free turns to inflict several damage with super-effective moves.

 

[jojobear13]

Good feedback guys. I'll try to address some things.

but I just noticed that SOMEHOW my OT in my Butterfree and ONLY my Butterfree got its last letter corrupted. I don't know when it happened, probably when I transferred it with Stadium, but it's the only one that suffered that glitch. It doesn't seem to have any adverse effect, but I find it pretty weird. I have no idea if it has something to do with the hack, the saving process when using Stadium, or the emulators I used (M64Plus FZ for android, GameYob on the DS), but it happened.

Yes, that's probably an emulator or hardware issue. A single byte got misinterpreted somewhere along the way.

Aside from that, I was going to comment that the trainers in the grass gym using Bellsprout or Weepinbell only attempted to use Wrap on my Gastly even though it had no effect, but then I realized that it's probably because they learn the 3 powder moves and their only remaining attacking move is Wrap, so once I'm statused they can't do anything to me. If Erika's gym was a joke before, now it's just sad 😅

That's correct. Gastly is incredibly powerful for the mid-game PVE.

I was about to write a comment about AI to make a suggestion as well, it seems to be a good time: usually, the first two moves the AI seems to use is non-damage moves, to reduce stats or inflict some status ailments, but I also noticed that the AI uses some useless battle moves like whirlwind, splash, teleport (even when it have other moves available) and as someone who wants a real challenge..

Youngsters and Cueballs in particular have no move-choosing AI and they are allowed to do stupid things. Everyone else has AI Layer 1 which should prevent Whirlwind-Roar-Teleport, but sometimes there isn't a better option (example: trainers can run out of PP now). But I think Splash is a pothole that needs filling.

...Well, before leaving I want to make a comment about Gym Leaders and their AI being able to switch Pokémon. Since they usually have all of their team of the same type, Switching is usually counterproductive to them, since they switch in a weakened state, frequently when paralyzed, and the incoming Pokémon receive a super-effective hit most of the time anyways, which has almost always resulted in basically a free turn for me. Really, the only exception has been Sabrina, since switching to Alakazam actually complicated my game plan. But, well... it's ALAKAZAM, so no surprise there.
Anyways, I don't know if there's any kind of improvement to make to the AI for those situations, particularly when they switch a low-health, paralyzed Pokémon that does nothing when it comes back out, but I wanted to share my experience.

I also agree with the switch response LinkNinjaMaster said, makes sense the AI draws back if it's confused or received a few reduce stats moves as sand-attack, but anything else as low HP paralized/asleep/poisoned(probably burned and frozen too) doens't seems to being improving the challenge, but making it easier as we get free turns to inflict several damage with super-effective moves.

I'm currently fixing some bugs in the AI switching code. I think I can implement something to help with this. I'll use Erika as an example.

As it stands, all 'mons on an enemy team get a bonus or penalty to their "switch score" based on if the player's active 'mon has a move that is super-effective against them. That means if the active player 'mon has Ember, all of Erika's grass 'mons get a -10 to their score. But this creates a false assumption that both eating Ember and switching into Ember are of equal value. They are not. Switching into Ember is much worse because it costs a full turn.

A way to fix this would be that every one of Erika's pokemon should get a score penalty from Ember, but the one that is active should have a lesser penalty than the others. Erika, when faced with Ember, may want to switch her active pokemon that is status'd and has low HP. But her active pokemon's score will still be higher than the scores of her non-active grass types. This will basically keep her from switching in the face of fire moves except in extreme cases.

 

[LinkNinjaMaster]

Thanks for your answer! I'll be waiting patiently for the next big update and hopefully by then the AI will be even better.

A quick additional comment, now that I'm playing on Red with my team from Blue, I started using the Exp. All, but I think that the experience shared with the rest of the team doesn't get boosted by the trade bonus. Is there anything that you can do about that in the future? It's not that big of a deal but I feel like I'm wasting that little lost Exp. each time, even though I prefer to have it active to balance the Experience gain at high levels.

(Also, does the Exp. All shares the Stat Exp. or is it only awarded to the active 'mon? Just a small doubt I got.)

 

[jojobear13]

Thanks for your answer! I'll be waiting patiently for the next big update and hopefully by then the AI will be even better.

A quick additional comment, now that I'm playing on Red with my team from Blue, I started using the Exp. All, but I think that the experience shared with the rest of the team doesn't get boosted by the trade bonus. Is there anything that you can do about that in the future? It's not that big of a deal but I feel like I'm wasting that little lost Exp. each time, even though I prefer to have it active to balance the Experience gain at high levels.

(Also, does the Exp. All shares the Stat Exp. or is it only awarded to the active 'mon? Just a small doubt I got.)

Yes, the vanilla function of EXP All is that it does split Stat EXP the same way it splits regular EXP. So many little undocumented intricacies in these old games.

On the trade bonus I'm a little unclear what you mean. Can you describe in detail how you think it currently works and contrast that with how you think it should work?
EDIT: Wait, I think I know what's going on here. So...the way EXP splitting works is that it divides the base exp values taken from the enemy pokemon. Bonuses are then applied and final exp is calculated on a per-teammate basis. Yes, your traded party members are getting their trade boosts from EXP All. However, the message displayed only gives the exp value for the first pokemon (originally it spammed you with the values for every teammate). In hindsight, I'll admit this is a tad misleading. I might want to alter the text a bit.