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Hack Series: X/Y Rebirth - a light, 'adjusted difficulty'/Vanilla+ hack of X and Y

DynamoKota said:
Hmm. It looks like the issue seems to specifically be for Y. I'm looking into the issue right now.
EDIT: Alright, I think I got it fixed. If your issue was specifically trying to get the Torchic version of Y Rebirth to work, then the issue seems to have been with the dllfield.cro file not working for Y specifically (I must have copy-pasted the one for X). The new files are up now.
Click to expand...

It's fixed, thank you so much! It was the torchic version of Y Rebirth. Looking forward to do a nuzlocke run now.
 
Hey! I was trying to find your Discord channel, actually joined the PokeCommunity Discord hoping you'd be active there. I even made this account just to say: WOW!

For over 12 years, I haven't really been able to enjoy the 3DS Pokémon games. They were just too easy for me, and I'd end up playing them on autopilot. But then I discovered your mods for ORAS and XY, and holy crap, I had an amazing time.

I've tried tons of ROM hacks, some of my favorites being Luminescent Platinum for the BDSP remakes and Compass for Scarlet/Violet, but even those were either a bit too hard for me or changed more of the base game than I wanted. I'm definitely more of a casual player and not a competitive expert or anything, and your mods hit that perfect sweet spot of difficulty while still feeling totally official.

I got that same feeling playing Prismatic Moon and Let's Go: Peerless Pikachu. They were an absolute blast.

I really hope you keep making more mods, especially for the Switch titles like Sword/Shield, BDSP, or Scarlet/Violet. Just wanted to say thank you for all the incredible work you've done, it's honestly reignited my love for the series.

Sorry for the long message, but I just had to let you know how much I appreciate what you've created. Seriously, thank you!
 
kirimoh said:
Hey! I was trying to find your Discord channel, actually joined the PokeCommunity Discord hoping you'd be active there. I even made this account just to say: WOW!

For over 12 years, I haven't really been able to enjoy the 3DS Pokémon games. They were just too easy for me, and I'd end up playing them on autopilot. But then I discovered your mods for ORAS and XY, and holy crap, I had an amazing time.

I've tried tons of ROM hacks, some of my favorites being Luminescent Platinum for the BDSP remakes and Compass for Scarlet/Violet, but even those were either a bit too hard for me or changed more of the base game than I wanted. I'm definitely more of a casual player and not a competitive expert or anything, and your mods hit that perfect sweet spot of difficulty while still feeling totally official.

I got that same feeling playing Prismatic Moon and Let's Go: Peerless Pikachu. They were an absolute blast.

I really hope you keep making more mods, especially for the Switch titles like Sword/Shield, BDSP, or Scarlet/Violet. Just wanted to say thank you for all the incredible work you've done, it's honestly reignited my love for the series.

Sorry for the long message, but I just had to let you know how much I appreciate what you've created. Seriously, thank you!
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for the kind words, I appreciate it a lot!

I'm actually not part of too many Discord channels, so here and Reddit are definitely the best places to contact me in regards to my mods (I have Bluesky and Tumblr too, but I have DMs closed on the former, and obviously the latter isn't the most active platform).

Yeah, "Vanilla+" hacks tend to be the ones I enjoy the most, rather than full-blown Challenge Hacks (even though I greatly admire the work those devs do), so I definitely was disappointed when I couldn't find any for Gen VI games, and decided to take matters into my own hands, even if I had little to no experience with making romhacks. But I'm really happy people have been enjoying Rebirth and Repolished so much, and I appreciate every compliment and constructive criticism.

As for the future, I don't have anything planned. I've toyed around with an USUM hack, and even made a mock-up beta for myself to test and see if it's even worth releasing, and I'm not entire sure it's worth it seeming the games are already considered pretty difficult by Pokémon standards (even if the Kahunas have incomplete movesets).

For the Switch era, I think it'd be a while before I even look into it.
BDSP wouldn't really feel worth it to me, since Platinum hacks like Refined Platinum exist. And if you're dead set on playing BDSP, I think if you use cheats to turn off the permanent Exp. Share and Affection mechanics, the game would be basically perfect in terms of difficulty (aside from the Pokémon League being a borderline-unfair difficulty spike)

Sword/Shield are mostly okay if you use a cheat to turn off the permanent Exp. Share. Aside from a few incomplete movesets earlier in the game, most of the major fights are okay.

And I don't even know how I'd take on S/V other than slight moveset and team adjustments. Realistically, I'd prefer the game to have scaling difficulty for the Gym Leaders based on the order you face them, but that's probably not ever going to be changeable. And I don't need to say that Indigo Disk is perfect the way it is (I'm actually okay with Pokémon games being fairly easy if they have difficult postgames, and Indigo Disk is definitely that)

Anyway, ramble over. I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me how much you've been enjoying my mods; it definitely brightened my day!
 
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this hack looks so fun and im excited to get through it just getting to gym bagde 1 as i write this. only thing id say is make the no version exclusives encounter doc a little more readable as right now it just looks like you vomited onto a google doc and called it good
 
zanddy said:
this hack looks so fun and im excited to get through it just getting to gym bagde 1 as i write this. only thing id say is make the no version exclusives encounter doc a little more readable as right now it just looks like you vomited onto a google doc and called it good
Click to expand...
I didn't want to spend hours writing down every single change made to the dex and where you could find each Pokémon. I'd have to go through the encounter tables and look at every single change made (including what was removed to make room for these encounters), along with encounter rates, floors, etc.
So I decided to just dump the encounter tables so people could just ctrl+f and search for the mons in the meantime before I end up finally going back in and recording all of the locations. But as you can see, I just kept putting it off.

But I can put a general "these are where you can find the Version Exclusives" doc in the folder. It won't go over every single change to the entire game's encounters, but you'll get a gist of where each of them can be found with the encounter rate. I think that'll work for 95% of people.
EDIT: This new doc should be up now. as I mentioned, it won't go over every single change made to the dex, but iirc most of the non-Version Exclusives aren't overly changed.
 
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when do i get access to the mega stone for kangaskhan? i cant find any info on it and i wanted to use it for the pre ramos rival battle but thats not an option as the shop doesnt sell it and neither does the vendor
 
zanddy said:
when do i get access to the mega stone for kangaskhan? i cant find any info on it and i wanted to use it for the pre ramos rival battle but thats not an option as the shop doesnt sell it and neither does the vendor
Click to expand...
It's one of the many Mega Stones that becomes purchasable from Poké Marts after you obtain your 5th badge, so you'll have to wait until you beat Clemont, unfortunately.
 
DynamoKota said:
Hey there.
I am NOT an experienced hacker, but this has been something I started working on in 2020, off and on.
Everyone knows about how easy X/Y are, and while there are "challenge hacks" of X/Y, I personally wanted to find a more 'rebalanced/fixed' version of the games that makes the games harder, without the brutal difficulty said challenge hacks are known for; basically something closer to say Platinum or B2/W2 Challenge Mode (or BD/SP without the baked-in Exp. Share and affection). Turns out, those types of hacks aren't as common; the closest I could find was an abandoned hack and many theory-crafting videos/threads. So, I decided to make a light hack of my own essentially "fixing" the major boss battles, as well as a few minor stuff.
In short, this is a small and light "fixed/adjusted difficulty" hack of X/Y; the game is meant to be harder, but it's not a "challenge hack" in the traditional sense.

The summary of the major changes can be found in the Google Drive, but in short, most major battles have been changed either slightly or significantly (with either new Pokémon, better movesets, and/or held items. Higher IVs as well). A decent handful of minor trainer battles have gotten minor buffs as well (many trainers with only 1-2 Pokémon have received 1-2 more, especially in the Gyms and Victory Road). All the patterns of Vivillon can also be found in the wild.

There is also an optional patch to make wild "version exclusive" Pokemon present in both versions.

Wild Vivillon pattern locations:
Spoiler:


NOTES:
- The game still isn't designed with keeping the Exp. Share on in mind. You may be a tad underleveled if you don't use it at all, but leaving it on WILL make you very overleveled. I didn't want to give the game a huge level curve to balance out X/Y's non-scaling Exp. system. I recommend toggling it on and off when needed. If you want to impose level limits based on the Gym Leader's/Elite Four/Champion's aces, it goes as follows:
Spoiler:

- The game still uses mechanics from Gen 6. I considered adding in Gen 7 onward mechanics (move changes, stat changes, ability changes, etc.), but ultimately decided against it.

- Don't bother using Writs in the Battle Chateau. As of update 1.9.8, I've increased the levels of the postgame Gym Leader/E4/Champion fights to match the Black Writ of Challenge; using any Writs messes up their movesets.

- Like many hacks/mods, you probably have to play on Version 1.0 of X/Y. Installing updates may make the game crash, so just be wary of saving in Lumiose City; save in buildings rather than on the streets, just to be safe. If your game is updated and crashes occur, uninstall any updates (delete update files on your emulator or delete update data on your modded 3DS).

- The Mega Stone merchant in Coumarine only has his text altered in English. If you're playing in another language, he'll still mention that he sells Incense rather than Mega Stones. English is my native language, and is the only language I speak fluently, so changing this would be difficult for me (I don't want to rely on Google Translate).

- While the difficulty of this hack is greater than vanilla X/Y, it's not nearly as hard as other well-known hacks, as stated before. Because of this and because I haven't changed any Pokémon's stats/moves/etc., some Pokémon are still overpowered, ESPECIALLY Aegislash and the optional Speed Boost Torchic (once fully-evolved). Be wary that using these overpowered Pokémon could easily trivialize the entire game.

- I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but obviously Pokémon-Amie will make the game easier, as with enough Affection, your Pokémon will get more experience, crit more often, occasionally survive with 1 HP, and sometimes shake off status conditions. Obviously it's part of the game, and I obviously can't stop you from using it, but just keep the effects of it in mind.

Screenshots
Spoiler:



Be sure to check the FAQ doc; any question you may have might be answered there already!


Link to the files and documentation

Newest Update: Ver. 2.1.4 - (3/15/25)
Another Diantha adjustment. I felt like her Roserade being yet another hazard-setter was unnecessarily slow, so now it's more of a dedicated attacker with Expert Belt instead of Black Sludge, Energy Ball instead of Giga Drain, and Extrasensory instead of Toxic Spikes. This means that her team is overall more aggressive, with the exception of her Klefki lead.



Credits:
Made entirely with pk3DS, kudos to Kaphotics and SciresM!
r/pokemonROMhacks and my Discord server for suggestions and allowing me to bounce off ideas!
Buffel Saft; many of my evolution changes, purchasable Mega Stones, and a few misc. changes were taken from inspired by Eternal X/Wilting Y!
Click to expand...
I'm having an issue with getting this on my Modded 3ds. When I try to open the game i get past the language selection and the game just crashes. I tried to downgrade it to 1.0 but then it crashes before anything loads. I've tried this with both the regular and mega versions and both of them yield the same result. I've tried to get this on my system for 3 days now and I'm at a complete loss for what I can do. This is the only complete hack like this I can find. Do you have anything that could help me?
 
Borckschav said:
I'm having an issue with getting this on my Modded 3ds. When I try to open the game i get past the language selection and the game just crashes. I tried to downgrade it to 1.0 but then it crashes before anything loads. I've tried this with both the regular and mega versions and both of them yield the same result. I've tried to get this on my system for 3 days now and I'm at a complete loss for what I can do. This is the only complete hack like this I can find. Do you have anything that could help me?
Click to expand...
It's hard to say. It seems to work fine on my modded 3DS, so it has to be something on your end, which is going to be hard for me to figure out because I don't know exactly what you're doing wrong, since I'm working with incomplete information. It could be that you're not placing the files in the mod folder correctly, or you're not uninstalling updates correctly, or there's something wrong with the ROM of X/Y on your system (if you aren't using a physical cart).

There was some issue with the Torchic version of the mod where the game would crash for Y specifically, but it was fixed almost two months ago, so if you downloaded the files from my Drive recently, that shouldn't be the issue.

Sorry, I wish I could help more, but with limited information, I wouldn't know how to troubleshoot properly.
 
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Pokenoob666 said:
The notes talk a lot about citra. would this work on the new manic emulator or just citra?
Click to expand...
At the time that I was first starting work on Rebirth and doing documentation, Citra hadn't been taken down by Nintendo yet, and was still the main 3DS emulator people used.
I'm not as familiar with newer 3DS emulators, so I can't say for sure, but whatever emulator you use needs to be able to support mods via a mod folder.
 
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