FireRed hack: Touhoumon Another World: Retold (Demo 1.0.6 Released, 8/16/2023)

[Zeta Sukuna]

Touhoumon Another World: Retold

A hack of Pokemon Fire Red (U)(Squirrels)

Current Version: Demo 1.0.6 (Released 8/16/2023)

What is Touhoumon?:
I shall give you a bit of a description of what Touhoumon is. Touhoumon is a rom hack of pokemon that replaces them with touhou characters, hence the name. It's similar to Moemon in that regard, but unlike (most) versions of Moemon, Touhoumon actually changes the mons themselves, the moves, type interactions, and as of the '1.8' version of Touhoumon, the types themselves. The original hacks for Touhoumon eventually became templates, in both Japan and the West, to make their own hacks. Notable examples include Touhoumon Purple, Touhoumon Another World, Touhoumon Zoku Gensokyo Scenario, and Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (And my version Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (Reloaded)).

Touhoumon Another World is the one that we'll concern ourselves with mostly here. A long time ago, a japanese rom hacker attempted to make their own original region, their version of Gensokyo, for people to play through and have fun with. The original project, however, was abandoned after almost two badges. The idea, however, was novel enough for two people to continue on with it.

Another World is the first of the two. It is a combination of this "Gensokyo Scenario" and Pokemon Fire Red, wrapping Gensokyo around Kanto as a second region, and having the player go through both of them.

This hack had very mixed reactions. On one hand, it was a massive change up from the relatively vanilla hacks, giving a new story in addition to the original Fire Red story, alongside plenty of new areas. On the other hand, the balance was very poor (990 BST mons used when you were stuck with Not Fully Evolved mons), there were various glitches that took people out of the experience (such as the music cutting out randomly, and sprite glitches galore), and a lot of the new writing was relatively poor in quality.

All in all, this hack may be seen as a step up from World Link in some regards, and a step down in others.

Why does THIS hack exist?:
Despite all of the severe problems that I mentioned above, I enjoyed and still do enjoy Another World. It is a good idea that was executed poorly, and while the other project that spun off of Gensokyo Scenario (Zoku Gensokyo Scenario) pulls off what the original idea was rather well, I wanted to see if I could make this take work.

A rom hack with its own original plot taking place in both Gensokyo and Kanto? That sounded like a neat project to work on. That was my thought process back in 2015, and it remains that way to this very day. Much like with Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (Reloaded), I put a lot of work into this hack.

What IS this hack?
Touhoumon Another World (Retold) is much the same as Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (Reloaded). It is my version of Touhoumon Another World, and I have torn down quite a few things in this hack to do what I'd want it to do. It has an original story, it has a redone Kanto, it has completely rebalanced Boneka (thanks to BluShell and DarkSlayer415 from the Touhoumon Revised Discord), and it fixes a lot of contentious things from the original.

And as a note, this rom hack does not use Touhoumon 1.8 stats, types, abilities, evolutions, or anything of that nature. It is a completely overhauled Touhoumon 1.5, with mons up to Touhou 14 currently and replacing the Dragon type with the Faith type, due to a lack of Dragons in Touhou. Once again, the credit for these stats must go to BluShell and DarkSlayer415 from the Touhoumon Revised Discord. Without them, this would not have been possible.

Features:
I attempted to write down all of the features I could find, however due to that starting in February of 2020, and this hack's (spotty) development from 2015, not all of them could be found. Here are the main features of the hack, however:

- Completely overhauled Touhoumon 1.5 pokedex
- Replaced Dragon type with Faith type
- Multiple Regions: Kanto, Gensokyo, and Rota
- Completely overhauled plotline
- New Tilesets
- Redone Music System to fix the old, broken one
- New Attacks
- New Abilities
- Remapped Kanto
- Enemies with EVs
- Physical/Special Split

There are more, but as I mentioned before, I can't remember them.

Screenshots

Spoiler:

And take this, an early bird preview of the current state of Kanto as well. It is likely not done in terms of what will be there, knowing me, but it is how it currently is:

Spoiler:

Known Bugs (This will be updated as things are needed)

Spoiler:

Minor - The 'hurt by burn' and 'hurt by poison' messages now display when a boneka immune to the damage of those status effects by way of an ability such as Toxic Boost.

Minor - Opening the Town Map at the Day Care Isle or similar areas causes the game to freeze. While this shouldn't be a problem since those areas aren't really reachable anymore, I feel I should still list it here.

Minor - The Light Clay and the four Weather Rocks likely don't do anything when held by the opponent. They should still work as intended for your Boneka, however.

Minor - At the very least Isami, despite having egg moves listed, can not learn any egg moves from the egg move learner. While the egg move learner is not reachable through normal means, I feel I should still list it here.

Minor - Switching in a Boneka with Intimidate / Fascinate after knocking out an opponent's Boneka in Switch mode will cause the ability to lower the stat of the fainted Boneka and not of the Boneka that comes in afterward.

Credits (This will be updated when more stuff is inserted and added)

Spoiler:

Credits for Another World: Retold

AGSMG64, for aiding with ASM, general guidance, and honestly so, so much more.
BluShell for general guidance, Boneka stats, a bunch of animations, and some of the sprites.
Aichiya Sanae and all those that he credited for making the original Another World
Faust, my fiancee, for inspiration, motivation, and side quest ideas that will be implemented later.
esipode for the tutorial that showed how to raise levels above 100.
haven for making Hex Maniac Advance
Azimuth and jiangzhengwenjz for making the Custom EV/IV display
pfero for the Trainer Sliding in battle insert
Dr. Seuss/Ruki/Gold for the tutorial for Trainer Sliding in battle insert.
Spherical Ice, Cuddlesthefatcat, Mateo, Fangking Omega, Kyle-Dove, and LunaMaddalena for tiles used in this hack. I am not sure which of them made the tiles I used in this (Farm town tiles, crystal cave tiles, sewer, and dirty underground/dirty water tiles from Pokemon Gaia)
KecleonTencho for the Another World Continuation that I used tiles, some music, and sprites from. (also based maps off of)
pawell6 for the Draco Meteor animation
Brolunite for the Archer overworld sprite
Jambo51 for trainer battle music ASM and CallASM command code insertion
Darthatron for the ASM allowing scripts to be used for Key Items without JPAN's engine.
BluRose, Lunos, and Samu for the Exp All ASM
Chacha Dinosaur and Jambo51 for the Hex ASM
Blue for many of the sprites for the Touhou 13 and 14 cast
Stuffman for the MagiStones sprite
blackuser for the super effective type text color ASM
doesntknowhowtoplay for the Trainer EV/Natures, and for the IV display on the stat screen.
Navenatox for the Dynamic Overworld Palettes routine.
Kalarie for the (anime) Aya sprite.
Kalarie and Avatar for the Accurate Fire Red Overworld Rich Boy sprite
Kalarie and Aveontrainer for the Accurate Fire Red Overworld Lass sprite
Delta231's HGSS Overworld Sprite in FR Style resources for the Schoolboy
Farore and ShadowOne333 for the Bugsy sprite (I don't know who did it, so I'm crediting both just in case)
Skeli for the Conversion update
Enderfan and Tohofes for the Last Word Sunny Milk, Luna Child, and Star Sapphire sprites
Enderfan for the Tenshi sprites, and the Byakuren walking sprites
Aevontrainer for the Janine and Bugsy sprites
KDS, Kleenex, and MrDollSteak for the Turn Order Rewrite
Trainer 781 for the Berry Activation Update, Incinerate move implementation, Topsy-Turvy implementation,
Chaos Rush for the Bolt Beak implementation
KDS solo for the Toxic and Flame Orb implementation
blackuser and Dreamaker for parts of the Atk/SpAtk boosting items
Vent for the new HP Bars
Darthatron for the BW2 Repel system


Credits for Abilities:
MrDollSteak for Super Luck, Scrappy, No Guard, Regenerator, Wonder Skin, Toxic Boost, Flare Boost, Multiscale, Fur Coat, Snow Warning, Skill Link, and Protean
Spherical Ice for the updated Sturdy
AGSMG for making Snow Warning work properly.

Credits for Animations:
AGSMG for Energy Light, Shadow Dive, and Braver
dreamengine for Close Combat, Aura Sphere, Drain Punch, Force Palm, Power Whip,
BadgerLordZeus for Mystical Fire,
MrDollSteak for Dark Pulse, Snarl, Nasty Plot, Brave Bird,
Doesntknowhowtoplay for Rock Polish and Earth Power
Spherical Ice for Roost and Moonblast
Artemis64 for Judgement, Aqua Jet, Air Slash
The CFRU (I don't know which contributer specifically) for the pallette for Sludge Wave
If I have missed a credit, then please let me know. A lot went into this, and while I tried to keep documentation, I may have no thoughts head empty added things in, and I do wish to give proper credit to whoever did the original.

Downloads

Spoiler:

Demo 1:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/2tz9...ther_World_%28Retold%29_-_Demo_1.0.6.rar/file

This is the first release of this hack. This version goes up to just before the Futago/Seafoam Islands. It has 6 gyms and a bunch of story content within it currently.

 

[Az_Gc]

Oh? Another Touhoumon Another World 'remake'? Nice, really nice. I'll be waiting for it. Good luck with the project~

 

[Lucifer-san]

Good to see a thread for this finally, even though I'm not really around much, I still remember you working on this years ago so I'm excited to finally see something closer to the finished version you've imagined creating from this work. Keep up the good work and keep pushing, dude.

 

[Roxses7299]

I literally forgat about this rom hack until you made this thread. I actually excited when you post this, with how most pokemon hack became dull. The touhoumon probably one of few I actually enjoy now, Another World was the one of rom hack I enjoy but it not finish.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

I will be honest and say that I don't have much to show since I posted this. Not out of the fact that I've been lazy, but because most of what I've been doing is scripting.

I'm still plugging away at things, worry not. But I thought that I should at least give something of an update after all this time.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

To show more about this hack, I do have a video. I made it a while ago, but forgot to post it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67XhKEKfwlY

I know there are errors in this video, and I did clean them up already, but I just don't particularly feel like making a new video for it at this time. This is just to show a (relatively old) example of eventing for this. I might even touch this up at some point.

Otherwise, still chipping away at it. I recently finished making a Winstrate-like challenge as a side thing, remapped Route 10 again, and am currently doing NPC work.

NPC work might be tedious but it is necessary.

 

[Roxses7299]

To show more about this hack, I do have a video. I made it a while ago, but forgot to post it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67XhKEKfwlY

I know there are errors in this video, and I did clean them up already, but I just don't particularly feel like making a new video for it at this time. This is just to show a (relatively old) example of eventing for this. I might even touch this up at some point.

Otherwise, still chipping away at it. I recently finished making a Winstrate-like challenge as a side thing, remapped Route 10 again, and am currently doing NPC work.

NPC work might be tedious but it is necessary.

I actually surprised how smooth the game look like compared the original Another World to be honest. I did play the translated one before and just looking from the video, it a lot of improvements.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

Another update. A lot of scripting has been done overall since I've last updated you guys. Scripting and changing up moves, abilities, and even some items has been done since last I mentioned things to you. Most of these will not have images to them currently, since I'm admittedly unsure as to what to show of these that would be interesting. There will be a screenshot of a new feature and perhaps some new items, however.

Effectively, I've done a lot of work in between what amounts to Vermillion City and Lavender Town's second visit. That might not sound like a lot, but it absolutely is!

I've also reworked a few maps, such as Route 6, 7, and 8 in my own ways (again in some of their cases tbh, I was not a big fan of my initial Route 6 rework), and based Vermillion City off of HGSS's take on it to some extent. Other new maps have also been introduced as well.

As I said above, I have added some new items. They're not particularly much, but they are something to at least show people.

Spoiler:

As this is a touhou fangame, perhaps items like these should have been expected sooner...

Another thing added was Slide-In Text. Thanks to pfero for the code and Dr. Seuss/Ruki/Gold for the tutorial on how to implement it properly. I only have one example currently, but I've currently made about 94 of these so far. More will be implemented by the end.

Spoiler:

Yes, this does mean that the opening has also been changed from what it was in the original Another World.

Also a bunch of bug fixing and mon rebalancing has been done, which is nice. Unfortunately, a beta launch is still a ways from happening, but I do want people here to know that I'm still working on this. It just might take a while due to the size and scope of what I have remaining.

 

[NotDWaddler]

I'd definitely suggest getting in touch with the dev team for the Revised hack of Another World. Some of the shit and tweaks they've got in that are pretty fire.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

I'd definitely suggest getting in touch with the dev team for the Revised hack of Another World. Some of the shit and tweaks they've got in that are pretty fire.

I have and that's why some of the features that'll be in this are even here. BluShell and AGSMG have been invaluable help for this project. I will not be implementing everything that they're doing (HMs will still be like in normal Pokemon. I'm sorry, but I don't like how that whole thing works.) but quite a bit of it will be implemented.

Like every mon change with the exception of three of them, who will be a little bit of a surprise for the time being.

 

[shikieiki]

Can't wait to see the final finished rom.

 

[yepthisisanaccount]

Still patiently waiting and hoping progress on this is going well.
Really looking forward to this!

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

Progress is going decently, truth be told. I wanted to finish a story arc before the end of the year, but unfortunately I came down with a bad cold, so I might not be able to do so. What I have left for that story arc is short, so if I feel good enough tomorrow, I might be able to finish it off.

It just feels kind of miserable to not have much to show for what's happening so far. I can give you something of an idea of where I'm at overall, though:

The story has effectively been, for the most part, completed up until around the Koga (6th gym) fight, though as I said above, the story arc around this area is not finished yet. While there's been plenty of stuff beyond that where there is progress made in plotting, mapping, and eventing, it is much less finalized for the most part. Considering I'm effectively rewriting a lot of things even in Kanto, this is probably more meaningful than what someone might imagine at first glance.

I wish there was more that I could show you, but there really isn't. Most of what I'm working on is story stuff and I do kind of want to keep a lot of that on the down low for now.

I kind of regret posting this here when I did, considering how long it's been without any real word on the project. I expected to at least get a beta out much earlier than when I will probably do so, but one will probably happen at some point in the future. I've been toying with the idea of releasing one after the next story arc is done (meaning the one after the one I'm working on now). While it will technically be 6 gyms in, it should be longer than what that might imply due to the various Gensokyo storylines inside. However, depending on if I feel that it wouldn't be good to release one, I might not do so.

 

[TheArkhomDestroyer]

So, how's progress been going for this project

 

[NotDWaddler]

That looks like a spam post

 

[GabePuratekuta]

It's been a few months. Has any progress been made?

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

It's been a few months. Has any progress been made?

A few new maps, been stretching out the levels of mons a bit, got some story done (about 70% or so done with Chapter 11, last major update I posted about this was about 80% through Chapter 10).

Note: These chapters are internal ordering based on major events in the game to some vague extent. There are 20 planned for the main game with maybe a few more for post-main game stuff.

I legitimately feel kind of bad for not being able to do much teasing at the moment, but most anything I could show doesn't even really feel like it would be worth saying other than "I'm still working on it".

Burnout, even mild burnout, does kinda suck, but I'm still pushing through it. I probably made a mistake waiting so long to do a beta, but honestly it should hopefully be worth it when I do finish up Chapter 11, some moveset changes (throughout the entire dex), and rebalance the routes and trainers (again...).

 

[NotDWaddler]

Its cool to hear from ya again at least, homie. Take your time sifting through the spaghetti.

 

[Zeta Sukuna]

I've been plugging away at it recently, and I have to say, I'm getting pretty close to being completed with the intended content of the first demo. I can't promise a release will necessarily be soon, but I can definitely see an end in sight, at the very least. Unless there's a catastrophic bug I can't fix, anyway.

Some early to mid game scope creep made it take longer than expected, but I think it'll overall be better for it. Even the early game won't be fully the same, so if you thought that the changes would start in Kanto... well, that will just not be true.

The demo will be 6 gyms and 3 tomes in length.

 

[GabePuratekuta]

Need any testers?