Pokemon Pinball DX is a fan-made expansion of Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, the 2003 pinball game for the Game Boy Advance. It started as a passion project with a simple goal: to add an extended Pokédex, quality-of-life improvements, and extra gameplay features, while keeping every original board and mode that fans already love. The project is built on the open-source pret/pokepinballrs decompilation of the original game.
Features
- Pokémon expanded: 205 → 1,025 National Dex species, with catch sprites, hand-cropped portraits, hatch sprites, and individual Gen 9 cries. In v1.2, hatched Pokémon face the way they walk when moving left and right.
- Catching expanded: 77 → 586 directly catchable Pokémon, with much larger catch pools and legendary/mythical Pokémon available through Ruins pools.
- Egg system expanded: 26 per board → 544 species, including 23 Pokémon that are egg-only.
- Evolution system added: 416 evolution-only species plus their pre-evolutions, with Evo Mode and evolution items such as EXP, Leaf/Sun Stones, and Link Cable.
- Catch presentation improved: Pokémon can blink white when hit; new portraits/silhouettes and expanded visual assets support the larger Pokédex.
- Pokédex massively expanded: 205 → 1,025 entries, with category and two pages of descriptions for every species.
- New Pokédex functions: sorting/filtering via START (current area, any of the 14 areas, egg-only Pokémon, or show all, with evolutions listed alongside the Pokémon they come from), saved display settings, and expanded navigation.
- Gameplay options expanded: 4 ball tiers → 8 multiplier tiers, configurable starting balls, up to 999 coins, 7-character names, and Normal/Slow/Hard/Space/Hell ball modes.
- Legacy Map Pokémon (new in v1.2): an optional Difficulty setting that restores the original game’s catch and egg lists: 77 Pokémon to catch across the 14 areas and 25 eggs on each board.
- Unseen Bonus (new in v1.2): an optional Difficulty setting where each ball upgrade above the Poké Ball adds a 3% chance that Catch ‘Em mode picks a Pokémon you haven’t caught yet, up to +21% with the top ball.
- Controller swap: configuration 1 and 2 swapped by default.
- Menus expanded: new DIFFICULTY and information screens, plus a redesigned pause menu with save/quit, Pokédex, and continue functionality. In v1.2: The Difficulty menu has 4 pages, and each option’s explanation changes when you switch it on or off. The 12 info pages, the Difficulty menu, and the Pokédex settings page get a checkered frame and extra space between lines.
- ROM expanded: original 8 MB → approximately 17.9 MB, distributed as a BPS patch against a clean US ROM.
- Save system expanded: format v3 with checksummed settings/Dex records, old-save conversion, and automatic SRAM/Flash support.
- Removed unused content: boot intro and e-Reader code/data/graphics removed.
- Performance/audio: DX v1.1 raises audio mixing from 13,379 Hz → 21,024 Hz and reduces CPU load on the board through more efficient division.
- Full Pokédex and spawn pool overhaul, including Smart Dex sorting, full detail display before catching or seeing, as well as repooling all pokemon to their appropriate location based on typing and game-specific locations.
- Full portrait and sprite overhaul including 3D animated sprites from modern games.
- New minigames and boss battles based on the Anime and other events from the Pokémon universe.
- Custom main menu art hand-crafted from Pokemon Black DLC content.
Useful Links
