LeafGreen hack: Pokemon PearGreen Release

[KantoClark]

Looking for a new fun ROM hack / fan game to play that takes a modern twist on the gen 3 games, while largely preserving the classic feel and mechanics we once got to enjoy?

Well this might be the game for you!

PearGreen Special Edition is now also available to be played!!
I think people will enjoy the special edition more if they play through the original edition first, but people can do as they please. The special edition will mainly appeal to 90s kid like me and the only crucial change is the starter Pokemon options.

Let's talk about the game!!!

This game takes place in the next century after a great disaster has drastically altered the Kanto region, separating the 'Sevii Region' from 'Greater Kanto,' and leaving much of the region lost. After this disaster, new 'paradox' forms of old Pokemon appeared and outcompeted their old forms to dominate the region, although these forms remain rare to see throughout Sevii. Lower unevolved forms remain largely unaffected, however they do not evolve anymore in order to avoid becoming prey to the overtaken forms. The power levels of all Pokemon have adjusted though along with this evolutionary race of sorts…
You will go through a changed Sevii Region, encountering many familiar but altered landscapes, with additional areas and plenty of post-game content, and a few special additions of my own that make the game unique. Collect these new forms throughout the journey to build a unique team with and be ready for the expansive post-game!!

As I continue updating the ROM, I will be posting the fixes in this folder, although I'll share the game directly here too. The folder contains the patches for the game. There is a IPS and BPS version of the patches. The IPS one worked fine for me. The ROM patch just called 'PearGreen' is compatible with LeafGreen Version 1.1, and I'm not sure about the one named PearGreenFirst, so I would default to trying the version shared in this post or my folder, assuming you have a LeafGreen V1.1 virtual copy (MD5: 9d33a021...).
PearGreen Drive Folder
RomPatchMaker
Walkthrough Guide

To make the game, you will need:


- Your own copy of a Pokemon LeafGreen.gba file


- One of the patches in my file folder (I tried it with the IPS patch and it worked)


To make the game, just go to the website in the link titled 'RomPatchMaker', add the leafgreen file as the main file, and the patch as the secondary file, as indicated in the included picture. This will spit you out a pathed copy of leafgreen that is now my game to play. Enjoy!!

Those of you deeper in the rom hacking community may at first ask yourselves; why are you making this game on LeafGreen instead of FireRed when FireRed has compatibility with a bunch of patches people have created to expand the game, etc.?

This question can be answered in a few points:
- I am an amateur ROM maker, and this is the first project I've ever worked on (by myself no less). As such, I actually had no experience of ROM hacking going into starting the adventure of making this game. I've just always had a passion for Pokemon and always dreams (literally) of playing my own games. So when I found out about HexManiac, I was very excited to jump into the process even though I knew very little about ROM hacking and practically as little about coding at the time. I only learned about the CFRU patches and such when I was quite a ways into the process. Even the progression of my learning lends itself to the end result.
- When I started making the game, I had the intention of honoring the game play experience of the old games even though I wanted to reinvent the storyline and redo the maps. I myself am a '95 kid who I grew up loving these games in the 'old times'. So, when I found out that I was missing out on all these patch updates I didn't necessarily view it as a bad thing. It forced me to continue working within the restriction of what is already permissible on a classic copy of the games, although I did add some moves, etc. If I make another game in the future, I will likely make at least one in the expanded code.

Features:
- 40+ hours of content before the post-game, with post-game containing an expansive area akin to a second region
- Largely preserved all the original mechanics and parameters of the game, meaning no fairy, Pokemon types are split by physical special (normal, ground, steel vs. fire, grass, electric). Etc.
- Around 150 replaced Pokemon forms with their own unique types, stats, and movepools
- Buffed stats that largely even out among all the Pokemon's interactions (Paradox forms on average have Base Stat Totals between 580 and 620, and don't have a booster energy lol)
- All the same items of FireRed with some TM/tutor move changes, trade changes
- 3 completely new pokemon (one being Gorochu); 3 special 'mythicals'
- 6 new moves and 2 secret new moves
- Map reworked while keeping the old map
- Shiny odds increased x9 from original odds, to about .1%. Fully updated shinies for new forms and some for remaining old forms.
- Expansive post-game region, with many changes of the game increasing after like Gym 4.
- Only borrowed features are the Gorochu front (official?) and back sprites (VivinkArt?) used.
- Only thing I expanded codewise is I added one move to the game before deciding it was better to replace moves. That is why when you use Night Slash it just says 'used a dark move.' I broke up some palettes for sprites, but the auto-pointer should has that handled. I noticed some hidden items not working towards the end of making the game, so I had to abide by the natural limit there and just do away with the ones that weren't working.

I will be going back and enriching some sprites, items abundance, etc. after taking a few months break. But there's lots to find in this game! I encourage people to try to make it to the post game region to really get a sense for how much the game is expanded, and check the stuck file or ask others who have played if you need help.

Credits:
To Haven1433 for making HexManiacAdvance and to VivinkArt if they were the creator of the Gorochu back sprite I took inspiration from, and to the official Gorochu front sprite I borrowed.
Thanks to the creators of the GBAIntroManager so that I could put Arbok's cry in the game intro
Credits to the official game's sprites I took inspiration from for my secret mythical pokemon too, which will make sense once you encounter them.
I did all the playtesting and remodeling otherwise myself so credits to me for that. I'll still be doing small fixes if I notice anything not working right.
Thanks to StCooler for explaining to me how to make a patch, and anyone in the HexManiac Discord who gave me little bits of coding advice.
Thanks to Kiyan420 for helping identify some impassible spaces I didn't catch myself. He was also the first person beside me to reach the post-game so big congrats to him on that!!

But just like the old games, remember that you will likely have to feel your way through the game in your first play! If the community doesn't develop its own store of knowledge for where certain items are, etc, you will have to do the old fashion talking to people in the game to find out where certain key items or places to go might be. For me, I have a memory of this game like I do of Ruby/Sapphire. I know where all the HMs are, where to go, etc, because I played it (and made it lol), and I hope everyone enjoys returning to this form of exploratory play while things are gearing up for the next big real game in the franchise. There's lots of funny and light-hearted moments, but also deep and thought-provoking gems to be found in this game. I look forward to seeing if anyone tries to Nuzlocke the game or anything fun like that.

So thanks everyone and enjoy! [March 15, 2024, Jan 22, 2025]

 

[KantoClark]

I will be occiasionally updating the version of the patch available, as some will notice with resetting download counts, but this is just to fix small errors I find in the game. A record of those fixes will be kept here. Thank you to everyone who has been trying the game so far; I'm glad people have been enjoying it.

- In order to keep you save file if you redownload the game. Just pull your .ss (save state to the side), and when you redownload the game save it with the same name and in same folder as the one you downloaded before. If the new file name matches the old save state name, it should still work. Check the file IfStuck_PearGreen in my folder if you really need help finding your way.

I am going to use this comment to keep updating what I have fixed on a day if I upload a new copy of the patch.

For the Jan 25th patch version - fixed possible game-lock at the fourth gym

For Jan 26th patch version - Fixed protect being both a tutor move and TM (return and frustration are both now tutors), fixed Oddish who uses Drain Punch in 4th gym, fixed some spaces that act like cross spaces instead of walls and vice versa (one small spot in charred path was priorly inaccessible), fixed dialogue of person in Safari who references Saffron, fixed trainer in Safari who walks into the wall, changed TM Cross-Chop in Safari to Iron Tail to reduce double item proximity, and last is the important one... fixed flags for the city event where some lines of dialogue didn't activate at the proper times.

Jan 27th Patch Updates - Minor sprite graphic fixes on Eevee and one other 'mon, slight moveset change to other 'mon, fix for a few walls/cross that should be otherwise, fix change to abilities that may have caused abilities to not work properly at times, this means Cacophony is an ability again instead of a second chlorophyll, changed Espeon/Umbreon evos to Sun/Moon Stones, added one sun stone location

Jan 29th Patch Updates - Minor sprite graphic fix on Espeon, fixed a few cross-spaces that should have been walls, readded in one Oak's aide interaction, working on flare blitz animation glitches
Jan 29th Night - Flare Blitz animation is fixed, a few walls fixed, including one that was blocking part of endgame.

Jan 31st Patch Updates - Fixed a few more walls that needed to be passable or vice versa, fixed one trainer despawn, fixed Mawile copy sprite that shouldn't be visible. Hopefully that is all I need to do.

February 10th Patch Updates - Added new area S.P. Catacombs! This area allows all three parts of Fairytale Isle (and their Mythicals) to be reached without Surf. Expanded Crystal Caverns. Fixed a few tiles that were supposed to be accessible, which were making certain areas inaccessible (in glacial caves and dino mines). Fixed possible error in the original version of the game which made the game crash when trying to load certain areas.

February 12 Updates - Fixed some trees that were walkable on.

February 22 Updates - Fixed a spelling error in one trainer's dialogue. Fixed quite a few more impassible spaces I didn't notice. Shoutouts to Kiyan420 for helping find some of these spaces. A few sprite updates

March 3rd Update - Fixed spot in Crystal Caverns where a staircase was missing. Fixed miscoded spot that was making the Trainer Tower inaccessible. Should be last update for a while.

When I make final updates to the game in a few months, that will be: sprite graphic updates, item disbursing/abundancy, maybe some stat adjustments, and expanding some areas a bit (like crystal caverns)

The Special Edition was released on February 1st!! I still think playing the regular edition first makes sense, but people can do as they please.

March 17 - There is now a walkthrough/guide for the game in my folder, for those who get lost. Feel free to suggest updates to the guide! I can add more specifics; it just takes time.

Enjoy all!

 

[KantoClark]

Updated the ips and bps shared in this post as well so that you don't have to go into my folder to get the working copies, as long as you have a leafgreen V1.1 copy to apply the patch to

 

[Kingofclouds190]

the concept sounds good but the designs could use some resprites than just recolors but other than that it seems good

 

[KantoClark]

My plan is to go back and redo the sprites to enliven the gameplay experience after I take a little while off, like I noted in the post, but I did do a few sprites already that turned out decent. I have my favorites for sure, but I look forward to redoing the rest of them later too.

 

[Hermione Granger]

Been a while since we got a leafgreen rom hack, what made you decide to use leafgreen over firered? Besides that congrats on the release!

 

[KantoClark]

Thank you! I kind of answered the question above but the most simple answer is that LeafGreen is the game version I had downloaded to play years ago on my phone every now and then, which I then used to start making the game. I didn't know a lot about ROM Hacking when I first started, so I didn't know there was even a difference until I learned about the CFRU and started talking to ppl in the HexManiac discord who were like yeah noone uses LeafGreen as the base game anymore because update patch compatibility, etc. lol. But I had always intended on preserving the nostalgic feel of playing gen 3 and not expanding the dex much or anything so I didn't mind continuing to work in LeafGreen, plus I was too far in to feel like trying to recreate the game in a FireRed copy lol. So, the game is I would consider fully done now , unless I find any big errors I need to go back and fix. I am also planning on going back and updating the rest of the forms that I just recolored like the other person also pointed out. But there is already around like 20ish reworked forms in the game, including other things I won't spoil. Let's just say I hope some ppl make it as far as the fifth gym, if better fully play the game, and then when I release the special edition (which is not the same as me updating the sprite graphics and will actually be a second version of the game) the people who actually played the original version will truly appreciate it :)

 

[Wirawr]

From my experience playing you have good concept i think and love the new layout design in some city. You got some potential as romhacker. See you around if you decide to stick around in forum and making new romhack again someday. If you decide to someday make new romhack i recommend to create romhack with new region design and new Pokémon and character sprite and new story, example is gaia so you can better experiment with what you want. Stay healthy

 

[KantoClark]

Much appreciated! I was super happy with how the city turned out to, and that part of the game is super especial to me. Seeing as it took me 10 months working on and off (working very hard last few months) to make the game I am definitely planning on taking some good time off, but my long-term goal if I plan on making more ROM hacks is this
- make a game with ruby/saphhire or emerald as the base game and create a game that is all my own pokemon/region, like you said, and also using a different type matchup for the starters.
- make a game with the CFRU patch and using expanded normal dex, but maybe some changed forms like with this game.
- make a gen 4 or 5 based game if I learn how to do that.
So, all in good time I suppose.
Thanks for the kind words <3

 

[Aros777]

Hey I'm going to download this and give it a go! Looks interesting. .01% is 1/10000 which is a little less than the 1/8192 shiny odds normally!

 

[KantoClark]

Hope you enjoy!! It's shiny odds increased by x9, I probably got the decimal wrong. Original odds are 8/65535 and I increased the odds to 72/65535. So I guess .1%. not .01% Max you can increase to is like 255/65536 but I was finding too many shinies with that I felt like it wasn't special anymore.

 

[MasterPoucie]

Hi, where you should go after beating the 2nd Gym leader ? I'm Stuck And btw love the Game and the New forms I chosse Feraligator and I love it so Much with his increased special attack ;)

 

[KantoClark]

Oh hey lol. Yeah I expected this to be the first place where ppl really get stuck. You should find a NPC in the main part of the 2nd isle that says something like "I've never hid anything...". Then in Isle 3 people will be confused where is the Tea? But if you pay attention to the trainer dialogues, one of the trainers will tell you where to find it. So just little things that are easy to overlook.

 

[KantoClark]

I added a document in my folder linked above call IfStuck_PearGreen to give people some pointers if they are really struggling at any point in the game, without trying to give away too much. <3 Hope everyone enjoys!!

 

[Biteki]

I have been playing this for quite a bit now, I gotta say it got potential for something that isn't too modern-ish in terms of romhacks (p/s split, vice versa.)

though I gotta say that I found the pacing in this game a bit weird, mostly the Maze part, which was a bit too long for my taste, but I got the idea.

so far, theres a bug in one of the islands where if you go to the poke-center, the game acts like you went to the SS Anne with bill, and plays the Celio cutscene.

Looking forward to play more of this!

 

[92houndoom]

What's different about 'special'? Is it just a more Vanilla experience?

 

[KantoClark]

The starters are the big difference. If you play the original version the starters of the special edition are found as surprises in certain parts of the game, but in the special edition the surprise mons are the starters, thats really the only difference. It's just a fun change for people, but kind of spoils part of what makes the original version unique as well if you play the special edition first

 

[KantoClark]

Thanks, glad you're liking it! The pacing is definitely interesting at times, because theres a good bit of grinding if you don't use lucky eggs, so kind of like hard mode. And even with lucky eggs, you may feel overleveled then underleveled at certain points through the playthrough. The maze areas, if you mean nefarious hole, is supposed to be the most difficult part of the game, but is the part I hope people really reach and solve before trying the special edition, although I think beating the game is better before trying the special edition.

The scene with bill taking you back to the island is supposed to happen though. It is part of the storyline of firered and leafgreen, but it just looks a bit glitched because I moved some buildings around. I have a documented list of known bugs or graphical glitches in my folder, as well as tips if stuck, for those interested. And am still planning on going and doing a few more game updates in due time after I take a break.

 

[Sadd93]

Hey! Liking the game so far. Definitely a bit difficult to navigate the map, but enjoying the exploration and new versions of pokemon. Definitely a bit stuck atm. Looking for the If stuck folder, but cant seem to find it anywhere. Also is there a dex available? thanks

 

[CPT.Fahim]

Is the Special version complete?