Pokemon Throwback Unofficial Expansion ROM

Pokemon Throwback Unofficial Expansion is a GBA ROM Hack by Tybobeebo based on Pokemon Fire Red in English. It was last updated on August 17, 2025.

Also, be sure to check out Pokemon Autumn Red.

Description

Features

• Route 28, Mt. Silver, Route 26-27, Tohjo Falls, and New Bark Town have all been added to the postgame and are accessible once the Sevii Islands postgame is complete. Includes new trainers, items, encounters, and wild Pokémon. Battle the protagonist of GSC/HGSS at the top of Mt. Silver for a “canon” ending to the Red/Green’s journey.
• GB Sounds allow you to hear the classic chirptune Gen I soundtrack at the click of a button, found in your Bag from the beginning of the game.
• Catch ’em All: All Gen I and II Pokémon obtainable in the base game (Gen III added in my expansion!)
• Wardrobe Changes: Male and female player and rival models changed to better reflect concept art and sprites of Red, Blue and Green from Gen I.
• Team Rocket Plotline Expanded: All references to “Admins” have been changed to Executives in line with the Johto games. The Warehouse Admins have been given new sprites as a nod to their Gen IV appearances and explicitly named Ariana and Archer. Proton and Petrel have been subtly added to the game as nameless grunts working their way up- see if you can spot them!
• Rocket Day-Care: sell any Pokémon to Team Rocket for five Rare Candies a pop in the Rocket Day-Care, replacing the Day-Care Center south of Cerulean. (The Four Island Daycare/Breeding Center still functions as normal). This is optional to provide a less grind-heavy experience for those who choose it and allow anyone to complete the full experience of the game regardless of age, skill/experience level or amount of free time.
• Boss trainers, including Ethan/Gold, May (as the protagonist of RSE), and me have been added to the postgame challenge. The Mt. Silver fight is the hardest and should be done last!
• Full 386 National Dex Tastefully Implemented: All Johto and Hoenn Pokémon can be found in the postgame, including legendaries. The Sevii Islands have been reworked- now, they are located between the three regions of Kanto, Johto and Hoenn, and Pokémon from all three regions can be found there. Sevii trainers have additionally been tastefully reworked to use a mixture of Pokémon from all three regions in their teams.
• Story events and dungeons have been added to the postgame enabling capture of the Regis, the Weather Trio, Latios and Latias, Mew, Celebi, and Jirachi. Most existing legendary events have had stories/questlines added or beefed up, including Mewtwo, Navel Rock (Ho-oh and Lugia), Birth Island (Deoxys), and the roaming Legendary Beasts. (I’m especially proud of the three new ruins I added for the Regis. They can be found at Outcast Island, Icefall Cave, and Memorial Pillar and feature new braille puzzles ranging from really easy to, I think really challenging.)
• Lots of new NPCs have been added, with dialogue connecting to Gen II and other games, expanding on what Game Freak already did with the Fame Checker.
• All Kanto starters are obtainable through their Yellow events in Cerulean, Route 24, and Vermilion. You can use Red’s canon team if you’d like!
• Physical/Special split
• More Quality-of-Life changes, including Name Raters and Move Deleters in every Pokémon Center, Move Reminder in the Indigo Plateau Pokémon Center, dramatically expanded HM learnsets, and a way to register roaming legendaries as “seen” in the Pokédex without just encountering them randomly.

Known Bugs

• Lots of locations display you being in the wrong place when you try to Fly or open the Town Map. Some of that’s because I repurposed unused Sevii Island location headers and can’t figure out how to change which map they display on, but some appear to be bugged (Mt. Ember for example). Shouldn’t really affect gameplay, but let me know if you know how to fix it.

Possible Future Updates?​

• Insert GBA versions of the original music for all new locations in the game. (Routes 26-28, Mt. Silver, Tohjo Falls, New Bark Town, Southern Island, Faraway Island). They would need chirptune versions for the GB Sounds, as well, and I’d have to figure out how RichterSnipes’ GB sounds stuff works.
• Fix which town map level the new location headers (repurposed Sevii maps) display to, and potentially add flying flags so you can fly to and from New Bark Town and Mt. Silver.
• Insert maps for the rest of Johto- most likely just as a New Austin in Red Dead 2-style easter egg/bit of fan service. I’m about out of flags and map headers, so there would be very little to do, and I think Red’s story ends here even with me stretching it as far as I can. Could still be fun just to hike to Blackthorn for giggles, though.
• Make Three Island gold prospector’s tunnel finish after you get the Sapphire instead of when you first get there (I haven’t figured this out yet, and I suspect if it was doable RichterSnipes would have done it in Throwback).
• Make it so Selphy has a small chance to give the player a Master Ball upon completion of her minigame.
• Make space and add an overworld sprite for Looker
• Get new sprites for Ethan/Gold and the Executives based on their Gen II appearances for the Oldhead Version.

Changelog

V1.2

• Route 29, 46, Cherrygrove City, Route 30, Route 31, Dark Cave, Violet City, Route 36, Route 37, and Ecruteak City have been added to the game and are unlocked once you receive the Johto starters from Prof. Elm. Trainers continue at your level – they are not designed for you to “start fresh” with your Johto starters (you WILL get wrecked by Youngster Joey if you do that). These areas are complete with story, NPCs, buildings, Gyms, PokéCenters/Marts, and trainers, but no item balls or hidden items due to limited flags. This is still a “complete hack”, just some more bonus content – maybe I’ll add more Johto eventually, maybe not.
• Water Labyrinth Gentleman who gives you Togepi Egg (implied to be Mr. Pokémon) has been moved again, this time from Route 28 to Mr. Pokémon’s House at Route 30.
• Level curve of the 8th gym and Elite Four has been slightly tweaked to smooth out and eliminate grinding.
• Some glitches and oversights fixed, including one where Mewtwo’s sprite doesn’t disappear during the Mew questline. The byte that causes Mew to disobey unless obtained through event distribution in the original games has been fixed.
• Availability of some Johto Pokémon in the Sevii Islands has been removed to reflect their new availability in their original Johto locations. Full documentation in a different doc.
• Looker no longer gives the Mystic Ticket at Tohjo Falls – now, he will give the player a second Master Ball. The Mystic Ticket is received upon defeating the Kimono Girls’ challenge in the Ecruteak Dance Theater. If the player already received the Mystic Ticket from Looker, they will recognize that and give you a Master Ball instead.
• Now, Mt. Silver unlocks once the player has defeated the Kimono Girls and completed the Johto Region as much as it has been added by this update. Slight save compatibility issue with this – due to a reused redundant flag, if the player has already spoken to the Mt. Silver gate guard and been let through to Route 28, they will not be able to fight the Kimono Girls. This can be fixed by speaking to the debug NPC in the bottom left corner of the Ecruteak Dance Theater, who will clear the flag.
• Memorial Pillar Ruins (Regirock) braille puzzle has been reworked, since the hint was not clear enough and the puzzle was too hard. There’s a new, clearer hint now.
• Memorial Pillar/Outcast Island Regi ruins have been tweaked with a warp added so it no longer looks like the player is stuck in the wall when they leave.
• Itemfinder has been renamed to Dowsing MCHN, and Faint Attack has been renamed Feint Attack in line with later games.
• Fixed an issue where Waterfall, Clamp, Present, Smellingsalt, Endeavor, and Hyper Voice were erroneously put into the wrong damage category for the main patch. Now, the first ones will correctly be physical, and Hyper Voice will be special.

V1.1

• Properly implemented the modern Physical/Special split to the game
• Fixed a scripting error with the starter events. Now, the Charmander and Bulbasaur NPCs properly check which starter you picked and don’t give you another one.

Useful Links

Reddit

Pokecommunity

Discord

Documentation