Pokemon FireEmerald ROM

• Hoenn becomes accessible immediately after becoming champion in Kanto.
• This is not an open-world hack; the player cannot travel to Hoenn until they’ve beaten Kanto, and they cannot return to Kanto until they’ve beaten Hoenn. After that, free travel between the two regions becomes available.
• The Sevii Islands are also accessible immediately after becoming the Kanto champion as well (no more 60-Pokedex-entry requirement). Either quest can be done first. Difficulty will scale accordingly.
• All pokemon, items, money, and Pokedex data obtained in Kanto will carry over to Hoenn. The player keeps HMs, but can no longer use HM moves outside of battle before earning more badges.
• Very minimal changes to the original story. Dialogue is only altered as much as necessary in a few instances for the sake of continuity. No new characters or side quests.
• Modern updates and quality of life features from baseline Pokeemerald-Expansion are included
• Updated battle mechanics, types, and movesets
• Follower pokemon
• Optional day/night cycle
• Difficulty in Hoenn is increased. For now, the parameters are:

  • Wild and trainer pokemon’s levels are raised by 45 or 50, depending on whether the player completed the Sevii Islands’ main quest beforehand.

  • Generic trainers’ pokemon are also evolved accordingly with appropriate movesets. Wild pokemon remain unevolved.

  • Gym leaders immediately start with their third rematch load-outs and have their levels raised by 10 or 15.

  • The rival has a much expanded and improved team

  • Defeated trainers give $1,000 more

  • Great Balls and super potions are available from the start of Hoenn. Ultra balls and hyper potions are also available earlier.

• No missing version-exclusive pokemon.
• Event tickets are organically incorporated into the setting. Certain NPCs give them instead of duplicate key items that the player may have already obtained in the opposing region. One of them is unavoidable by following the main story, the rest are optional/missable.
• Mega stones and linking cords become available at a certain shop at a certain point in the game.
• Cerulean Cave is accessible immediately after becoming champion and no longer gated behind the Sevii Islands quest. However, Mewtwo is now level 60 instead of 70 if he is encountered before Hoenn, and 100 after.
• The game boots into either the FireRed or Emerald intro and title screen depending on which region the player last saved in.

Planned Future Updates

• Player color palette customization
• Custom text box color
• Optional expanded starter selection
• Advanced difficulty settings
• Basic nuzlocke mode
• Team size limiter
• Disable items during battle
• Disable “shift” battle style
• Proper nighttime lighting effects

Changelog

V0.7.1

• Modern EXP gain adjusted to 60% in the first campaign and 40% in the second and third.
• Level curve in early Kanto slightly lowered.

V0.7

• Prior saves are incompatible
• Rearranged gifts/rewards from NPCs
• Sevii Islands main quest is now mandatory to unlock the Hoenn campaign
• Difficulty scaling is reworked from scratch and greatly improved
  • Generic trainers in the second and third campaigns have improved battle AI
  • Gym leaders, elite four, rivals, and other mini-boss rosters are expanded and updated based on canonical teams from GSC, PS2, HGSS, B2W2, ORAS, and LGPE
• Breeding and egg gifts disabled until Johto to preserve story continuity
• Free ferry travel between all regions is unlocked with the S.S. Ticket from Prof. Elm
• Modern and classic game modes
  • Modern
    • Gen. IX+ gameplay mechanics
    • 200 reusable TMs
    • Togglable Exp. All key item
    • Exp. gain tentatively set to 30%
    • Mega evolutions
    • Post-gen. III evolutions
    • Expanded bag and PC storage
    • HGSS-style pokedex
    • Pokemon can use field moves without needing to learn them, so long as they are ABLE to learn them and are either past the required level, the player owns the associated TM, or it has previously been taught by move tutor or breeding
    • Vending machine that sells linking cords added to the upper floor of all pokemon centers
    • More quality-of-life updates
  • Classic
    • Gen. III gameplay mechanics
    • Original 50 gen. III consumable TMs
    • Exp. Share held items
    • Exp. gain tentatively set to 90%
    • Gen. I-III species only
    • Overall old-school faithfulness
• Mega stones and linking cord removed from market stall on Two Island
• Linking cord now works on all pokemon that normally require trading to evolve. Any additional held-item requirements remain.
• Nighttime lighting effects extended to all three regions (still needs some work)
• All gen. IV+ pokemon “cry” audio files reduced to gen. III’s sample rate to save ROM space
• Player bedroom PCs in Hoenn and Johto have full pokemon center PC functionality
• Changes to Heart & Soul’s campaign
  • H&S’s difficulty, nuzlocke, and randomizer settings are not incorporated
  • HQ audio mixing reduced from 15 channels to 12 and 18,157 Hz to 15,768 to save RAM and CPU cost
  • H&S’s Trainer Hill and battle tents ported from Emerald are removed and replaced with a modified Battle Tower from Ruby/Sapphire. Trainer Hill and battle tents still remain in the Hoenn region, so this actually adds content instead of removing any.
  • Secret postgame bonus content is currently excluded
  • Ruins of Alph overhauled to be more faithful to HGSS/Crystal with added Unown Report key item (not quite finished – Unown ! and ? forms and other final bits of content are not yet implemented)
  • Kanto gym badges and FLY locations carry over from the first campaign, so postgame Kanto is essentially open-world
  • Bicycle from Goldenrod bike shop replaced with Hybrid Bike
  • Most of H&S’s custom mechanics for battles, catching, evolution, Exp, and so forth are omitted in favor of official rules and conventions
  • Most overworld set dressing pokemon sprites are removed
  • Many more minor/moderate alterations to make content more faithful to Crystal/HGSS and adapted to FireEmerald’s triple campaign structure
• Bug fixes:
  • Fixed the standard/Kanto bike behaving like the mach bike after map transitions
  • Globally fixed crashes caused by overflowing sprite count under certain conditions
  • Fixed the bike sometimes not stopping when pressing B downhill
  • Fixed fossil revival bug leftover from vanilla FireRed
  • Fixed party erasure after viewing battle record replay

V0.6.1

• Fixed potential crash during hyper, master, and link contests. Shadows are disabled then to make this fix.
• Fixed potential crash during final round in Battle Dome. Shadows are also disabled then to make this fix.
• Fixed potential crash in union rooms. Shadows are also disabled then to make this fix.
• Fixed pokemon being permanently removed from party in Battle Dome
• Standard/Kanto bike now accepted on Cycling Road
• Removed infinite nugget farming on Nugget Bridge