Pokemon PureRed ROM

Pokemon PureRed is a Game Boy ROM Hack by Vortiene based on Pokemon Red. It was last updated on September 03, 2026.

Also, be sure to check out Pokemon PureBlue.

Description

This is a purist’s enhancement of Pokémon Red/Blue/Green. The goal is to enhance the original games for excellent replayability without bringing in mechanics, moves, sprites, visuals, type matchups, or Pokémon that were introduced in later games.

The only version differences between PureRed / PureBlue / PureGreen are visual. Play whatever color you like the most.

Features

• It makes the bulk of the 151 original Pokémon all more obtainable and usable in the early game, with better movesets and more balanced stats.
• Many moves in the game were rebalanced or modified. When the author says “rebalanced”, it means “the useless things were made more useful!”
• There are more bug, poison, and Ghost type moves available. The focus is on getting a useful set of moves available for every single Pokémon in the game.
• Front sprites were updated to be just about the best set of sprites from Red/Green/Blue/Spaceworld 1997 overall.
• All 151 Pokémon are obtainable in all versions of this hack.
• HMs are deletable anytime you like and new code to prevent softlocks by deleting them was introduced.
• Some pokemon have additional types, for example, Ninetales is now FIRE/GHOST instead of FIRE. If you don’t like specific type changes, you can change any specific pokemon or all of them back to normal type-wise at an NPC in indigo plateau route 23.
• Many small quality-of-life tweaks and bugfixes were made.
• Game bugs that can be used to your own advantage (like the leech seed/toxic bug, the hyper beam no recharge on faint bug, etc.) are unchanged, because they are quirks of the battle engine that you can use as your own tool.
• Mew is under the truck as expected!
• Missingno and the item duplication glitch are intact – but won’t corrupt your save anymore!
• An entirely new mode for the Pokédex called the MOVEDEX was added. It shows data about moves you have seen in detail. You unlock the MOVEDEX in Viridian City.
• There is an arena to rematch gym leaders and other important trainers after becoming CHAMP.
• There are multiple secret areas to be found after becoming CHAMP. Bills Garden, Team Rocket / Mewtwo lore, and more…
• Many options to enhance the game visually and mechanically were added. **(You must turn them on via the options in-game!)** Including:
• Switchable color palettes (Choose between original colors, Super Gameboy Colors, or Pokémon Yellow Colors in-game whenever you like! Works on GBC and Super Gameboy. Yes, this romhack has GBC support!)
• Optional Spaceworld 1997 Back Sprites
• Optional enhanced menu sprites/overworld icons
• Optional enhanced music (Add in cut content music like Giovanni’s theme)
• Optional stereo panned audio (Similar to the Earphone1 option in Pokémon Yellow)
• Optional alternate color palette Pokémon based on region (catch differently colored Pokémon depending on where they appear in Kanto)
• Option to turn off the bicycle song (plays in Cycling Road still)
• Option to turn on smoother higher framerate fade animations while on the GBC
• Tweak the type matchups to be exactly like Gen 1, Gen 2, or a cross between them if you like, directly in-game.
• Optional in-battle experience bar
• Option to give trainers some Stat EXP to their Pokémon based on level. Makes the game a little bit harder.
• Option to have the game track the PP of opponents (the original game they had infinite PP). Makes the game a little bit easier.
• If you’re playing on GBC and have the palettes set to SGB or GBC mode, move animations will have colors! Surf will be blue, ember will be red, etc.
• There are a couple of entirely new things added into the game to facilitate quality-of-life fixes. Including:
• An NPC who can permanently remove CUT trees.
• An NPC who can revive fossils for you in SAFFRON CITY so you can get fossil Pokémon a bit earlier.
• An NPC who will give you LAPRAS a bit earlier in the game.
• An NPC who will teach you how to DIG in between towns, just like you can FLY in between towns.

Changelog

V2.7.6

• Messed up text in some places in safari zone FIX: fix typos from recent optimization
• Due to 60fps code, by holding A on the last couple frames of a ledge hop, you can stay in ledge-hop mode and walk through walls FIX: wait until ledge hop is done to re-enable controls
• Some text from the cerulean ball designer was skipped FIX: fix typos from recent text optimization
• Messed up text during movedex quiz FIX: fix typos from recent text optimization

V2.7.5

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Re-talking to the pokemon center nurse after healing your pokemon will not trigger her dialog again, instead she will just quickly bow to you. This resets after you move off of the coordinate that you talked to the pokemon center nurse. Avoids accidental re-triggering of nurse dialog.
• Added a “Currently selected pokemon” info box to the deposit/withdraw/release PC menus. This will show the pokemon’s party icon, its species name (in case you nicknamed it) and its types. Just useful for people who sometimes forget which pokemon they gave which nickname.
• Created a new CopyVideoData function that can copy during HBlank as well as VBlank. It can copy >2x the tiles per frame than CopyVideoData can, so many graphics will load considerably faster than before. Improves the snappiness of menus, talking to NPCs, and most things in general in the game.
• Outside of battle, you can more quickly use items on your pokemon. The party menu will stay open if you have more of the item you’re trying to use. The party menu will show how many you have left, and will automatically close when:

1. It cannot be used on any other pokemon after you used it (like Antidote with no poisoned pokemon in your party)
2. You used your last of the item

MINOR TWEAKS

• A lot of code was optimized, especially text data and text-related functions.
• Removed Route 18’s trainer tips, moved it to route 13, and moved the one it replaced in route 13 to route 6 because it’s a rather important tip that knowing earlier in the game is useful. Route 6’s tip was about the PC’s View Mode, which is kind of pointless now because of the new text prompts that indicate you can use it.

Bug Fixes

• BUG: Using Mimic on a pokemon after the opponent switches will always copy the move to move slot 2 which can cause other issues. FIX: Back up the move slot data so it isn’t overwritten by opponent switching
• BUG: Using Mimic on a pokemon after the opponent switches will cause incorrect tiles to be reloaded after displaying the player’s mimic move selection menu. FIX: back up tiles in a better spot so they reflect the correct switched pokemon.
• BUG: After displaying the diploma for catching all the pokemon, there is a quick flash of previously-printed text before it disappears. FIX: Move the “Congratulations!” message to after the diploma is displayed to prevent this minor issue.
• BUG: In some cases, TownMapCoordsToOAMCoords function can try to write data to the game’s ROM (which is not possible) FIX: stop that from being attempted
• BUG: Sort of a bug, sort of probably what they intended, when changing options from the “Continue, New Game, Options” main menu, option modifications are not actually propagated to the save data unless you “Continue” then save the game. FIX: If no save file has been created yet, when you exit the Options menu that was opened from the Main Menu it will just copy the options data into your SRAM so they persist as if you saved them. If you have a save file, it will save the game when you exit the options menu from the Main Menu. Basically, this is how people expect it to work.
• BUG: Garbage tiles can display for 1 frame at the end of the credits when rebooting the game. FIX: reboot in a slightly different way that doesn’t do that.
• BUG: Uncapitalized “until i fix” in fossil guy’s text. FIX: Capitalize it “until I fix”
• BUG: Using Mimic on a pokemon that has no moves other than MIMIC can get you stuck in a loop FIX: Make mimic fail in this specific scenario, and block Mimic’ing MIMIC in general. Randomized MIMIC (when opponent uses mimic or when it is used in a link battle) will never choose to mimic MIMIC.
• BUG: Accessing the player’s PC directly (player’s house PC) can incorrectly re-enable text delay while viewing the menu. FIX: Keep the correct text delays in this menu.
• BUG: In rare cases option menus won’t set their options due to a code typo. FIX: fix the typo

V2.7.4

MINOR TWEAKS

• Seafoam won’t reset the boulders to their original floors if you leave and re-enter before finishing either of the boulder puzzles. It did in the original game. I don’t think there’s any need to do so, it just makes things more confusing.

BUGFIXES

• BUG: Safari Zone Trainers are not being shown correctly in some circumstances. FIX: recent typo fixed
• BUG: In Cinnabar Gym, the gym guide would react opposite to whether you’ve beaten Blaine. If you’ve beaten Blaine, he would treat you as if you hadn’t yet due to a typo. FIX: Fix typo that was made in 2.7.3

V2.7.3

QUALITY OF LIFE

• You can now sort your Items and PC Items by pressing select on the option from the start menu, or pressing select while viewing the player’s pc
• You can rename PC Boxes with 5 letter custom names now, which might make it easier to remember which pokemon are in that box
• On the start menu, Bill’s PC and Player’s PC, there are small indicators of what SELECT will do when pressed now.
• Celadon Mart’s directory now uses a menu, so it’s easier to use. The clerk will also give you her own version of the same info, with her own personal flair.

MINOR TWEAKS

• Two NPCs were added to the Safari Zone rest houses and will speak unused text with some additions for flavor.
• The pokedex category (e.g., “Shellfish Pokemon”) was adjusted for Moltres, Electabuzz, and Zapdos. Electabuzz: “Electric Pokemon” -> “Shock Pokemon” Zapdos: “Electric Pokemon” -> “Storm Pokemon” Moltres: “Flame Pokemon” -> “Inferno Pokemon”
• Talking to the Wigglytuff on the SS Anne will mark it as seen in the Pokedex.
• When the rival leaves in Pokemon Tower via the stairs, a “going down stairs” sound effect now plays instead of them disappearing from existence silently
• When the rival leaves on Silph Co 7F, when they reach the warp pad, their sprite will “warp away” with a sound effect instead of phasing out of existence silently

BUGFIXES

• BUG: Pewter museum guide phases out of existence at the edge of the screen instead of walking off the screen. FIX: Make him walk downward 1 more coord before ending the script
• BUG: Different positions make the Articuno encounter animation look strange. FIX: Use variable starting coords
• BUG: Conversion cannot be selected in link battles. FIX: Make it always use ATTACK mode in link battles
• BUG: You can change pokemon boxes from the start menu while linked with another player. FIX: disallow
• BUG: Occasionally, you can see thin white lines on the edges of the screen when Cinnabar Volcano shakes the screen. FIX: Fill up the bgmap when loading the volcano
• BUG: Can deposit your bike to PC while riding it, and stay riding your bike. FIX: Make the player get off of the bike
• BUG: Can deposit your bike to PC while on cycling road. FIX: disallow depositing it while on cycling road
• BUG: Prospector’s boombox will not shake while the player is moving when it’s playing music. FIX: Convert its animation to an overworld animation instead of a map script animation.
• BUG: If you turn on pause/resume music between battles, fighting a Snorlax will cause the route music to stop playing after the battle. FIX: Back up audio data before the Pokeflute song plays
• BUG: Due to the change in Vermilion’s map size, the detection for not being able to deposit the SS Ticket when behind the ticket checker was wrong. FIX: Adjust coords
• BUG: You can open the start menu between auto-walking segments in some new areas, which can break their scripts. FIX: prevent button presses during these.
• BUG: Save file updater was updating pokemon box data incorrectly in some cases. FIX: adjust it to check for the correct values.

Useful Links

Pokecommunity

Github

Reddit