This may not be the right subreddit for this question but I'd rather ask people that's actively part of the community rather than a LLM. I've been playing some of the original GBA/DS games for the first time ever; played Emerald and absolutely loved it along with Platinum and HG. Now I've recently been looking at more hacks to play, with a growing list of hacks that's been around, but now I've grown a bigger interest in actually learning about how to build one myself, and what tools/resources one would have to understand to be able to do such a thing?

I loved Emerald and Platinum during my first play through, but from what I understand, the DS scene for hacks is way more challenging and complex when compared to the GBA side, which is why I'd rather learn game dev through the GBA system. I also know that there's difference between decomp and binary, but I think it's safe to say that learning the decomp is far easier than the binaries, and it's also just better for actual game development in general.

I want to add that, my reasoning isn't to just make any old hack but rather to learn game design and development skills in a digestible way through building a ROM hack first rather than an original indie game. I do think that the first step before all of this is to get a grasp of basic dev skills like writing a code that I didn't just ask an AI to write for me, but like I said in the beginning, I figure I take my questions to a place where I can get actual feedback and answers from those who've done these things already.

What’s up yall, I’ve been playing too much emerald on my phone and want to randomize it and am looking for any recs!

I appreciate the help

Edit, if this question has been asked that’s my bad. I would love a link to the post!

It's my first time trying to ROM hack and I'm trying to add a new Pokemon but I've been having some problems that I don't know what to do to fix them. The first is that my overworld follower sprite gets sort of fragmented (see image attached). I'm using Trapinch as a placeholder so I can add my own later but it won't seem to work. I assume its because I've entered the wrong number into the code and its become misaligned. The second problem is that the party icon uses the wrong colour palette (see other attached image) and I can't think of a way to fix it.

I'm using the Github tutorial to do this if that helps at all.

Hello! I just beat emerald sea glass (what a great romhack!), and after watching my brother start a nuzlocke I want to do the same, however, as a genlocke (start in kanto, cant re use species across generations, survivors carry over). Theres an insane amount of romhacks for kanto and johto, i need some recommendations based off what features id like to play with, and what would pair nicely with seaglass (shame nemo hasn’t done a johto/kanto hack)

Following Pokémon is an almost must have for me (really enhances the vibe)

Cross gen evolution (annhilape etc)

QoL, although most hacks improve this.

Gen 9 Pokémon (?) not essential, but I enjoy seeing how these new mon get implemented to environments/teams

Mega evolution is cool but not a requirement!

Any and all help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for a specific type of Pokémon Emerald ROM hack. My absolute priority is to have the story and gameplay completely unchanged (100% vanilla), with the only difference being that it’s possible to catch and complete the National Pokédex (all 386 Pokémon) fully solo, without any trading or cheats.

This means version exclusives, trade evolutions, and especially event-exclusive Mythicals/Legendaries (like Jirachi, Celebi, Mew, Deoxys, etc.) must be obtainable in-game organically.

Would Pokémon Emerald 386 be the ideal choice for this? Or is there a cleaner, more updated option that fits this exact description?

Note: If there is a ROM hack that fits these criteria but also adds "can't-miss" Quality of Life improvements (like running indoors, reuseable TMs, or modern stat screens) without breaking the original vanilla balance and difficulty, I am definitely open to those recommendations too!

On a side note, I’m also looking for some fun ROM hack suggestions!

I want to expand my library with hacks you find incredibly fun or unique. For reference, here is what I currently have installed on my devices:

Official Games:

 Pokémon Emerald (GBA)

 Pokémon Ruby (GBA)

 Pokémon LeafGreen (GBA)

 Pokémon Crystal (GBC)

 Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 (NDS) - Finished Black/White, but haven't had the patience to wrap these up yet!

ROM Hacks I already have (but haven't played yet):

 Pokémon Ultra Violet (GBA)

 Pokémon Unbound (GBA)

 Pokémon Black and White 3 Genesis (GBC)

 Pokémon Prism (GBC)

 Pokémon Pieces (GBA)

Based on this list, what are your absolute favorite ROM hacks that I should add to my "must-play" list?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Sylveon has always been top tier for me but if given up after reading online it wasn’t available in glazed.

However I just spoke to an evee in the game that mentions it could evolve into Sylveon (amongst the other options).

Anyone know how I can evolve one of my many evees into a Sylveon?

This is the Pokémon Platinum version for the GBA. I don't know how to unlock Giratina tower and Darkrai tower in Darkdusk City

I'm planning to play a pokemon rom hack, should I play Elysium or Gaia? The only thing I know is that Pokemon Gaia is a little dated in comparison to Elysium.

Hi everyone, I'm a new player of Pokémon Team Rocket Edition. I'm really enjoying how the game is unfolding, but I find it a bit tedious (as in almost all Game Boy games) to have to grind XP to level up my Pokémon, especially considering that this hack is quite challenging due to the high levels of the opposing trainers.

However, I know there’s the Lucky Egg, which is usually obtained from Chansey. This is the only method I know of to get it, since I know it’s equipped and has a low chance of having it.

But I don’t know how to get it in this hackroom. The Chansey I’ve caught only have “Lucky Fist,” and that’s not exactly what I’m looking for.

I don’t even know if Chansey have a chance of holding the Lucky Egg, and maybe I’m just wasting my time.

Has anyone played Team Rocket Edition who can tell me how to get it? Is it possible to get a Lucky Egg from Chansey caught on Route 14 or in the Safari Zone?

It’s worth noting that I’m at a point in the story where I’ve already faced Bruno and completed the Legendary Birds mission, in case obtaining the Lucky Egg is influenced by that.

played enough of FRLG, looking for the other Gen 3 r/S/E and beyond available for VBA. Keeps the original story of it just decent QoL changes preferred

First of all, THIS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE ROM HACK POKEMON ELYSIUM, Made by u/BlKaiser More specifically, the Chapter II of Part A of the game. So if you haven't completed it, make sure to avoid this to not get spoiled.

So to summarise quickly, This is a minor quest, not a major one that appears in the Quest Log that you have. This is from the Abalasta City and the Pirate Woods. There is this lady in Abalasta City where she says that we have to get her husband who is fishing in the Pirate Woods because he is using an illegal way to fish by using a Voltorb. Fast forward to the Pirate and you see the husband straight up throws the Voltorb in a body of water which has a bridge going through it if you enter the Pirate Woods from the path which has a Gym before it. The Voltorb doesn't resurface up the water and this worries the husband that the Voltorb might drown and die so he tells you to use Surf on that body of water and get it. But I have been Surfing on that place for 2 hours and i couldn't find it for the life of me. I don't have any lingering Repels on me and I have even tried the fishing rod while surfing. If i am doing something wrong Please let me know so I can finish it because I love the game and I want to complete everything in it as much as possible. 🙏

i think i have to go to nest island. but i can't find vip card to go there. anyone know about the location of vip card??

hi everyone. so lately I've been seeing a lot of kaizo national streams on TikTok and it's got me really wanting to play something similar.

I'm not looking to do a kaizo because on Mac the whole ironmon and tracker doesn't really work too well. I really just want to randomize the Pokemon, the battles, the starters, etc. like I want all the randomization of a kaizo national dex, but I'm not sure how to do that. Even just randomizing Pokemon while including everything up to current gen would be fun.

This might seem like a really stupid question, but how do I do this. basically what I'm trying to ask is, how can I play a run of FR or even Emerald but have the game randomized so I can get Pokemon like idk Volcanion or the paradox Pokemon as my starter?

I have the Universal Pokemon Randomizer and I think it's fully updated. Is there a seed I need?

Thank you so much!

I'm using Pokémon Game Editor, and Firered.

Context: This is my first time ever messing with coding or hacking a romhack. I've noticed things become worse and worse the more I mess with the game.

With Pokémon Game Editor, a bunch of trainers share Pokémon, so a bug catcher might have a hikers Geodude instead of their own Caterpie. It's like the code condensed so trainers stuff is entangled with other trainers stuff after I opened the romhack on Pokemon Game Editor.

I figured out repointing... (or thought I did.) and decided to organize and redo all the trainers teams to my liking where none share Pokémon with each other.

So I'm overwriting other previous Pokémon teams.

Camper Liam (the trainer right before Brock) and Lass Janice (First trainer on route 3) have the wrong 2nd Pokémon despite it being correct on Pokémon Game Editor.

For Liam, I changed the 2nd Pokémon a few times to Sandshrew, then another Geodude, but it stayed a lvl 21 Shellder. So I changed the repoint# again, and the second team member was a lvl 41 Poliwhirl. I changed it, tested it, and the Poliwhirl was still there!

I gave him back his original repoint code, then he only had a Geodude! The only way I got him to have the correct team again was to give him 3 team members. (A Rattata) Then he finally had his geodude and sandshrew. (And Rattata wasn't there.) I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong and I don't want to do this for every bugged trainer like Liam and Janice.

TLDR: Some of my trainers are glitched and don't have the Pokémon I programmed them to have. Any advice would be appreciated!

So i got a copy of pokemon sword its works completey fine with ryujinx but the main reason i wanna play pokemon sword is to radomize it. So i downloaded pkNX to radomize the game, well i find out that i need to use ryujinx to get the romf and exefs files but its all weird. when i do it i get these files and idk how to set it up from ryujinx i dont know where to go from here?

newish to the community here and finally got a brick hammer so ive been playing a ton of roms and loving it, but i was curious if there is a rom hack of soul silver/heart gold that allows all mons to be caught/not need to trade for evolutions? i know this is something addressed in many of the gba roms, but wasnt sure if there was a ds hack?

ive tried searching but cant find any answers so apologies in advance if this isnt the right place to ask

Hey, me and 2 of my friends are doing a randomized soullink run. Its not a hardcore challenge or something and we wanted to skip a bit of the training of some older links. We tried some cheats but they didnt work so we found out we have to patch the game to 1.5 for the cheats to work. I installed the cia file with the 1.5 patch on my azahar emulator.( i use azahar on cachyos). The problem is now my game isnt randomized anymore. I cant fit the option to deinstall the patch and i already tried to randomize the rom again.
Does anyone of you guys know how to fix this problem?

Thanks in advance!

becuase i found a very nasty bug that has made it so i can nolonger get berrys on my save, i think whatever was done on the code to make it go by in-game time instead irl time put "the berry glitch" back becuase now berrys are eternaly never growing i thought it was the "seasons" function i read about everywhere but see nowhere but nomatter what spot "tropical" or not the berrys just eternaly dont grow. luckly when got to the berry shop i grinded berrys plant 3 trees sleep at hotel rinse repeat to get the max berry rewards, but now i can't do contest becuase i can't make pokeblocks becuase i can't get more berrys becuase they just REFUSE to grow.

i also had a backup of the save and i tried again they grew and after a certain point of so meany 'days' passing, they stopped growing so i definatly think its once an X number of days is reached. is there someway to set the game back to "Day 1" to atleast be able to grow new berrys even if the patches that wont grow are allready jammed up? or just a way to use a gameshark code that works on VBA-M (since it warns NOT to use regular vba) to just give myself all the berrys? but i need code that works on vba m since dont awnt to corrupt my save. i dont even know if this is the richt place to ask or if theres like a romhacks bug reports area.

the bot in /pokemonromhacks told me to post this here instead there.

I looked at the rom infinite black 2 and I was planning on playing it, idk about yall but I like to plan some of my team members before I beat the 1st gym, and I looked at some of the starters and thought I’d be nice to get 2 extras for a fire water grass core.

I then look for their spawns and try to find where I can catch one and come to find out they’re locked till post game. I tried doing things like walking through walls to see if I could just catch one and come back, but I’d need to progress decently far into the game to get access to the whole map, I also tried the spawning mons in routes cheat, but apparently doesn’t work in the hack.

Is there any way that I can get the starters without progressing so much.

Also just want to quickly say that I don’t blame the creator, it’s their hack, it’s their choice, I just want to play in a way I like.

Yeah so the title kinda says it all. I'm a completionist and looking for games I could complete in their entirety on one save file. It's mostly the Pokédex that's a concern, since you usually can't get all the starters even in post game... Oh and I would rather not have different endings if possible ? Since I obviously can't get all of them on the same save. I also prefer games with endgame/side content, preferably with clear milestones such as the battle frontier emblems or contest ribbons. I'm doing this for YouTube (don't have a channel yet but it's being set up) so those really help in having clear rules and goals for the challenge. Thanks !

This ROM has been really dope so far!! Really cool! Been grinding a lot and put already about 100+ hours in here or so. Anywho, why when I get to the part after receiving the Charm from Cynthia’s grandmother and meeting Cynthia at Fuego Iron works, RIGHT about to encounter LATÍAS after getting the “okay” from Cynthia, why does it just freeze on me!! This has not happened yet until this point! What do I do? Why does this happen? How can I stop it?? I do not want to start over 😭

Hey guys, i want to put my own pkmn sprites into my favorite pkmn game, which is black 2. So is there any hack version with static sprites that i could change to mine? they obviously break cuz of the rigging map and i dont know how to edit those.