FireRed hack: Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (Reloaded) (Version 6.8D Released)

[Zeta Sukuna]

A new update is here. It's not even just a bugfix, though I did fix a couple. Only a couple, though. Wouldn't be surprised if I introduced a bunch of them considering what I added, though! More below in the spoiler because I ramble and I don't want to take up too much page space.

Spoiler:

It's been a while since I did an X.0 update. And honestly, if you've beaten the game, it doesn't really add much of anything. But I did this in order to try and make endgame a little bit better than it was before, because there was kind of a gap between the end of Johto and what I consider 'endgame'.

Unfortunately there isn't enough trainers to allow me to put more in to help level, or to help fill out what I put in a bit more, but I still did add in a couple things.

The biggest changes are one new dungeon, and two older areas that were updated. The new dungeon is a post-Clair dungeon unlocked to help grinding a little bit, since that is a bit of a pain, as well as accessing a new mon that wasn't accessible before.

One of the dungeon expansions isn't anything particularly special. Mostly removing a couple trainers for use later, and changing the levels of the mons inside to better reflect what I want it to do, as well as adding a new room to it. The other is turning Cinnabar Volcano into an actual dungeon.

I'm going to just drop the link now. Keep in mind, don't be surprised if something is messed up. If it is, I will try to fix it, and if I can't, then I will simply remove the update and that will be that.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/hnpf...et_Play_Enhanced_%28Reloaded%29_v5.0.rar/file

But I'm not done yet. If nothing is too heavily affected, I might try and put in two more endgame dungeons (one in Kanto, and one in Sevii) and redo Mt. Silver as well. I've never been happy about Mt. Silver as an endgame dungeon, so might as well at least try to do more with it, make it at least more than what it is now. Most of Johto's dungeons will remain the same, however. I do not have that much time or effort I can give this.

I wouldn't really expect this to put in more playtime for people who have completed it, but it is something I wanted to do anyway.

Known bugs:
MPSuika's and probably* ExMarisa's dex entries are mismatched after they're caught and there's nothing I can do about that. Even Aichiya couldn't do anything about that.

*When I tested it, it was fine, but after everything is said and done, it might not be fine in the hands of other people.

 

[TibJib]

I actually just started playing through this a week ago, so it's kinda cool that there's an update now. I'm finishing up Kanto now, just have the water routes and Cinnabar before last gym & Elite 4. I've updated my game to 5.0, so I'll let you know if I encounter any issues as I progress.

 

[esperance]

Nice to see you still updating this four years later. I gave it another play through and the only major bug I found was that the policeman wasn't blocking Cinnabar Volcano when I first arrived. He later moved into position after I returned from the Sevii Islands.

Here's my team after round 1 of the Elite 4: Reisen 57, Suwako 50, Wriggle 50, Youmu 49, Keine 48, Attack Reimu 47

Now onto the post game!

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

Nice to see you still updating this four years later. I gave it another play through and the only major bug I found was that the policeman wasn't blocking Cinnabar Volcano when I first arrived. He later moved into position after I returned from the Sevii Islands.

Here's my team after round 1 of the Elite 4: Reisen 57, Suwako 50, Wriggle 50, Youmu 49, Keine 48, Attack Reimu 47

Now onto the post game!

Ahahaha. Ha. Ha. Somehow I completely forgot to put him back while I was doing some testing for it.

Uploaded a fixed version. There shouldn't be any other changes in there.

Also, using this post to admit that I will likely also be editing a bunch of water encounters by the time next update hits as well (I'm sorry Cinfest). This along with making Mt. Silver closer to what it's like in HGSS (though not a 1 to 1 replica simply due to tiles and Gen 3 traversal mechanics) will likely be the next major update.

Perhaps all of these as well would have been better to do before releasing a "5.0". Maybe, maybe. But I've never exactly been smart about how I've done anything when it comes to releasing this.

 

[Cinfest]

Improvements are always welcome, even if it does mean more work for me :P

 

[SevenChurches]

A little request for the documentation, the type chart. I know you can find one in a Touhoumon wiki or whatever. I'm requesting for the sake of convenience, further enhancing the Docs link as a hub of important info.

 

[Cinfest]

Please enjoy the new table, which I've been using for ages but never thought to include.

 

[Doughey]

Hello, Been playing this game for the past month or so. Thoroughly enjoyed it, i've been stuck a few times, one of the times i was doing the radio tower thing and the dude never gave the key for the goldenrod's store basement. so i had to WTW on it, idk if i might've missed something there but that was one of the issues I've brushed off

Spoiler:

i have both the beans and the beer and yet the shrine hasn't activated, i have gone through all the gym badges, (have johto's badges as an key item. cant fight the elite four cuz it still says that lorelei is gone even though i did the side mission and it says shes off the fourth island.

I could be missing something after the 8th Johto gym? something i might not remember that i should be doing after it?

Spoiler:

i caught the legendaries that took Ho-oh and lugia's spot and the MPsuika shortly after typing this to see if that would do something. and yet i got nothing.

i created this account just for this forum, and rarely use forums at all, so i apologize if i dont do something right and such when composing this message.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

Hello, Been playing this game for the past month or so. Thoroughly enjoyed it, i've been stuck a few times, one of the times i was doing the radio tower thing and the dude never gave the key for the goldenrod's store basement. so i had to WTW on it, idk if i might've missed something there but that was one of the issues I've brushed off

Spoiler:

i have both the beans and the beer and yet the shrine hasn't activated, i have gone through all the gym badges, (have johto's badges as an key item. cant fight the elite four cuz it still says that lorelei is gone even though i did the side mission and it says shes off the fourth island.

I could be missing something after the 8th Johto gym? something i might not remember that i should be doing after it?

Spoiler:

i caught the legendaries that took Ho-oh and lugia's spot and the MPsuika shortly after typing this to see if that would do something. and yet i got nothing.

i created this account just for this forum, and rarely use forums at all, so i apologize if i dont do something right and such when composing this message.

Thank you for reporting this, I will attempt to fix these for 5.1. Though I will admit, the goldenrod event looks fine to me. The key might be not ACTUALLY be an item, but the eventing looks like it should be fine. I'll have to replay that part at some point. The shrine is going to be touched up on, definitely.

Except the Lorelei thing. You're not supposed to fight the Elite Four again yet, and will more likely change a couple things on four island to adjust. Talk to Oak after getting the Johto Badges item.

Also, for a minor status update, I have nerfed the first round Elite Four. After having seen someone face off against it, as well as the levels on the various save files I've had people submit to me for bug testing, I've noticed that it might be tuned a bit high.

I have also fixed Agatha's team, because apparently I didn't finish editing her and she has a bunch of illegal moves that make no sense. (Youmu with Bite? What? Huh?)

I've done all of the (non-Mt. Silver) Water spots now. Fishing rod encounters are going to suck, that's probably not going to change.

Mt. Silver is about 2/3 done. Probably a bit more than that, really. I only have one big map to go, and then redoing some of the wild encounters.

 

[Onism]

I'm glad to see that the nerfs are happening. I'm glad you took the experience in so quickly

I look forward to seeing the next revision! I'm curious what happened to cause the illegal moves thing with Agatha - this is because I have no idea what goes into ROM hacking, so it comes across as weird to me due to lack of knowledge

Spoiler:

I'm curious where you put the E4 exclusives (I see them on the wiki, but obvs I've seen they're not in this E4). Are they obtainable in this game?

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

I'm glad to see that the nerfs are happening. I'm glad you took the experience in so quickly

I look forward to seeing the next revision! I'm curious what happened to cause the illegal moves thing with Agatha - this is because I have no idea what goes into ROM hacking, so it comes across as weird to me due to lack of knowledge

Spoiler:

I'm curious where you put the E4 exclusives (I see them on the wiki, but obvs I've seen they're not in this E4). Are they obtainable in this game?

As I said before, it wasn't JUST asprey's playthrough that did it, but it was probably the biggest push that happened to get it done. Who knows, maybe the second iteration isn't much easier, but I did try to take out a little bit of coverage, remove the items, take out the EVs, and push some of the power of some of the moves down. They remain in round 2 because round 2 is supposed to be hard.

Spoiler:

Attack Koishi kept Thunderbolt, though, because for some reason that's a naturally learned move. I was surprised, too.

As a bonus, I'm probably also going to be reworking Johto's level curve a bit after Mt. Silver is done. The destination is going to be the same, but with some of the changes, there might not be as jank level curves in the endgame. But who really knows.

Spoiler:

If the E4 mons were in the game before, I wouldn't know where. At the moment, I think most of them are, but I'm definitely missing one or two mons right now. Their dex entries are bizarre and don't necessarily work, though, which was a consequence of porting the game to an english rom, according to Aichiya. This is why the qualifications for going to the final village were changed, too.

Oh, and the Agatha thing was me forgetting to finish her. I probably went to eat and came back thinking I was done with editing her. I wasn't.

 

[SevenChurches]

I looked back at my notes of the Elite 4/Champion battles, mainly because I don't remember the details. It was incredibly difficult, though a lot of my victories came through setup sweeping and being overleveled. I'm used to that kind of strategy in other difficult hacks, so I didn't consider that the E4/Champion teams should be nerfed on the 1st round. I can see why that's done though. If anything it just means fewer attempts to beat them when I play this hack again.

 

[Doughey]

oh and another thing i noticed:
-

Spoiler:

when Battling Rin Satsuki (i think, its the Ho-oh touhou) there is no music, only sounds of slaps and broken pokeballs.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

I looked back at my notes of the Elite 4/Champion battles, mainly because I don't remember the details. It was incredibly difficult, though a lot of my victories came through setup sweeping and being overleveled. I'm used to that kind of strategy in other difficult hacks, so I didn't consider that the E4/Champion teams should be nerfed on the 1st round. I can see why that's done though. If anything it just means fewer attempts to beat them when I play this hack again.

Yeah, that's a little bit of a problem. Like I said, I'm not sure if I did a GOOD job nerfing it, but I did try to nerf it. Hopefully they will be not as jarringly difficult as they are currently.

oh and another thing i noticed:
-

Spoiler:

when Battling Rin Satsuki (i think, its the Ho-oh touhou) there is no music, only sounds of slaps and broken pokeballs.

This is fixed. Ilex Forest Shrine is also finally fixed and slightly updated. I was shockingly lazy about fixing this one.

EDIT (6/6/2020): While this will likely be repeated when I post again (unless I forget), I have attempted to do something somewhat large. I've changed up Johto's level curve a bit.

I added 1 mon to just about every mook trainer in Johto and ran through it with a lucky egg over 6 mons. Whatever level I was at, I added +3 or +4 for the boss I was facing and truth be told, it ended up working out a little bit better than last time. (For transparency, I started with a party that was between 51 and 54 at the Elite Four)

I'd even say until near the very end, I didn't feel the need to grind at all, personally. Your Mileage May Vary, and I am the dev, so that might bias me, but it did feel better than the last draft where I felt I was flagging behind a bit starting around halfway in, with the same circumstances.

The beginning of Johto is higher level, but it all smooths out to about the same near the end. I'm also nerfing some of the endgame fights with the exception of the final boss by 3-4 levels, simply because there isn't an amazing grinding spot for most of it. I attempted to get the Vs Seeker to work, but unfortunately I could not make it work on Johto trainers no matter how hard I tried.

The new dungeons should help a little bit for lucky egg wild grinding if need be, but relying on that for 85 -> 90 and then from 92 -> 95 or so is a bit much.

 

[joey10000th]

Question: Is the Ilex Forest Shrine event working? I got the golden beer, talked to all the nearby NPCs, and tried interacting with the text block where the shrine usually is and nothing is happening. I also tried to use the golden beer at the shrine location and tried interacting with the shrine from all sides and nothing works. At least the game isn't breaking though. Any information would help a lot! Thanks! :D

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

Question: Is the Ilex Forest Shrine event working? I got the golden beer, talked to all the nearby NPCs, and tried interacting with the text block where the shrine usually is and nothing is happening. I also tried to use the golden beer at the shrine location and tried interacting with the shrine from all sides and nothing works. At least the game isn't breaking though. Any information would help a lot! Thanks! :D

In 5.0, and possibly every version beforehand, the Ilex forest event does not work. The script is all sorts of messed up. This has been fixed for the next version.

Also, for people who were expecting a status update from this post, all I can really say is check my last post. Still the last BIG thing I did. I guess I just plopped a new legendary event or something? Not the biggest news.

 

[joey10000th]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[TheScrubRomHacker]

I have a question, I've already done the Kanto and Johto gym rematches except Giovanni,rematched the e4 and defeated Red. How do I enter Cinnabar Volcano?

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

You may currently have to use Walk Through Walls. I messed up with the flag on the guard in front.

If you do not want to be stuck behind this, then do not progress beyond the Dragon's Den. Speaking to Oak triggers this.

There may be a release within the next few days, which will not only fix this, but will add new things to begin with. I wanted to get everything left in here before I go beg for help in the Launchpad, but given a few things, they will have to wait until 6.1.

The release date depends on when I have the time to get through post-Johto myself. I will say more when it gets released.

EDITED at 1:18 PM, 6/23/2020 for more clarification

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

Is this a double post?

Yes!

Is there a reason?

Yes!

And that reason is...

Spoiler:

The 6.0 Launch:
https://mega.nz/file/a0QjHIgY#kRvaRvAFrnYIt3x093oeU1jbWiEt_gHzJNaDLreEKmc

This is something I've been piecing together for a while. As you know, I've been bringing up a bunch of things in this thread on what I was doing, and this is the culmination of it. This is not likely to be the last version, there are more than likely some horrendous bugs I didn't catch in the process of making this, but even still.

There are many changes included in this update. Mostly some rebalancing changes, admittedly, but a few more things snuck themselves in here.

Johto's level balance was redone entirely, and each trainer (or at least most of them) have been given an additional boneka. The Lucky Egg was moved to a very visible spot as well, so it should be easy to get.

The First Round Elite Four was also nerfed due to me watching what it was like to actually fight them. It might still be a slight bit overtuned, but still. I tried.

In addition, water routes have been redone to some extent. Granted, fishing spots are still awful, but I did try to make things a little better. I may not have succeeded, but I tried.

Also, I remapped Mt. Silver to fit more closer to HG/SS's design, though not entirely (the tiles simply aren't there). Though admittedly, the items on there might not all be placed. I tried to check for them, but I might not have gotten them all.

Some text errors and endgame progression was also fixed a bit. No longer is an endgame boss locked behind a flag that gets cleared, leaving you to have to cheat to get to him! (Though if you cleared the Dragon's Den before this and got locked into the Gym Leader rematches, this doesn't really help you.)

I also tweaked the underground shops in Goldenrod as well to provide ALL TMs instead of just half of them.

There is likely more as well added into this, but these are the things I remember off the top of my head.

I hope you enjoy this, and also another spoiler below for future plans if I get another giant burst of energy:

Spoiler:

If I do a full-on 7.0, I might be replacing Team Rocket in Johto with other plot ideas. Not another Evil Team, and it'd likely result in Johto losing a decent chunk of trainers and needing another level rebalance.

This would be more to end up making it a different experience, and maybe even adding more to the Sevii Islands because I like them and want them to be larger and have slightly more stuff in them. But this one is a bit more of a 'maybe', truth be told, than what's above.

For more immediate future thoughts, though. 6.1 should be the last major content addition if I don't end up doing 7.0, complete with:
1 new dungeon
1 training area for endgame (Effectively just 6 EV trainers at high levels to continually grind off of)
Finishing Mt. Silver's mon redistribution (That bug report kinda made me rush this out a bit quicker)
And a couple of gift mons dotted throughout Johto.

Truth be told, I regret naming the last version 5.0 when it was more like a 4.9, but I did that, so I gotta deal with it.