Pokemon Unknown is a GBA ROM Hack by brazgardian based on Pokemon Fire Red. Pokemon Unknown is based on Pokemon FireRed, which focuses on creating a more natural and immersive randomized experience.
Battles and encounters are always unknown, which attempts to bring the unpredictability of competitive battling into the Kanto story. All wild encounters, trainer battles, and gift Pokémon are thematically randomized on the fly.
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Download the official Pokemon Unknown ROM in the (USA) version for the Game Boy Advance handheld consoles. To fully utilize a GBA ROM game, use our Cheats, Rom Hacks and GBA Roms sections. You can open the Pokemon Unknown ROM or GBA file by Installing VisualBoyAdvance on Windows, MAC, Linux, Android or IOS/iphone.
Pokemon Unknown is a GBA ROM Hack by brazgardian based on Pokemon Fire Red. It was last updated on April 08, 2025.
Also, be sure to try out Pokemon Scorched Earth.
Pokemon Unknown is based on Pokemon FireRed, which focuses on creating a more natural and immersive randomized experience. Battles and encounters are always unknown, which attempts to bring the unpredictability of competitive battling into the Kanto story.
All wild encounters, trainer battles, and gift Pokémon are thematically randomized on the fly. This means a Pokémon’s power level and types are derived from the vanilla FireRed engine. Unlike some randomizers, you can’t encounter fully evolved or legendary Pokémon in route 1. Naturally, you cannot fish/surf a fire type either.
We’ve also overhauled a number of features to make them thematically random including: Mixed Generations of Starters, Pikachu, Unown, Trades, Gifts, Overworld Pokémon, and added a number of new Mega forms. As a result, the hack should be very replayable, much more challenging than vanilla, and with more controlled entropy compared to most other randomizers.
Smogon usage statistics and movesets from 2015-2023 have been collected and used to influence nearly every element of random Pokémon selection in the game. While the entroy is reduced this way, there are still far too many enemy Pokémon combinations to account for.
The core game difficulty mostly manipulates Pokémon IV/EV stats to buff or nerf enemy Pokémon. Illegal stats are never used in any mode. The most fair setting is Normal. Casual gives the player a statistical advantage and Hard gives the enemy one.
We implemented optional built-in challenge modes to help players nuzlocke, sadlocke, or just play with restricted encounters. The built-in rules are lenient regarding Gifts and Trades, which are not included in the encounter restriction logic. These are meant to be quality of life, are totally optional, can be turned on or off at any time, and can be mixed and matched with self-enforced rules.
We have also implemented a few quality-of-life toggle options.
This is an optional mode that neutralizes IVs and EVs for the player and the enemy. It was designed to have no impact on the difficulty modes. On average, playing with or without it should be just as difficult, whether you are in min-grinding mode or not. In practice, this may vary since having competitive vs. uniform stats can have more impact on some Pokémon than others.
If this mode is not enabled then it is HIGHLY recommended to use the new EV vitamins (Super and Max) in the Celadon Department Store. Once this mode is enabled, it cannot be disabled since it would be exploitable and confusing for the player.
When this mode is enabled, the player has uniform EVs=min(level, 85) and IVs=14-16. Enemy stats vary depending on the difficulty mode. Generally, Casual has flat zeros, Normal has average, and Hard has perfect stats. There is a small +-1 variance to all stats though.
After defeating the E4, the player may optionally choose to take over the Viridian Gym. This acts as an endless randomized battle system with ways to track your ranking and streaks in the game. This includes about 38 trainer classes for you to can battle against (and 1000s of names). The trainer classes each have their own text and difficulty, which affects their team and AI (Bug Catchers are easy, while Ace Trainers will be boss level). They sometimes have type biases in their teams, in line with their theme.
The battles are fought consecutively in bouts of 5, with healing in between. Losing a battle does not interrupt the gauntlet. The max rank is 5 Stars, based on win % and the total battles fought (using an exponential moving average to allow for some recency in the calc). You’ll need at least 32 battles under your belt for a chance at 5 Stars and a win rate ≥ 90%. As your win % increases, so does your reputation. As your reputation spreads, you’ll start to be challenged by more diverse and difficult classes of trainers.
Nautre changing mints and overhauled EV changing vitamins have been added to Celadon Department store with an EV checker on the rooftops. There should be no reason to EV grind even if you aren’t playing on min-grinding mode. Check the Vending Machines in the Celadon Dept. Store for Mushrooms, Heart Scales, Poké Dolls, Ability Pills, and PP Max.
We built an automated healing feature from the Party Menu to help you keep a healthy party (inspired by Scarlet and Violet’s similar feature). This uses a somewhat optimal knapsack-like algorithm to handle healing and status. Only some of the items are supported.
The items for healing are Max Potion, Full Restore, Hyper Potion, Moomoo Milk, Lemonade, Soda Pop, Fresh Water, Super Potion, Potion. The supported items for status are Burn Heal, Ice Heal, Awakening, Antidote, Paralyze Heal, Lava Cookie, Full Heal, Full Restore. Lastly, we have added functionality for reviving Pokémon which supports: Revive, Max Revive.
We have added a Pokémon scanner device which will report a handful of useful stats such as IVs and EVs (not min-grinding), and friendship.
If you don’t wish to grind experience in the wilds or using the trainer simulator, we’ve added a non-consumable rare candy item “Bubble Gum”. This item can be acquired in the Viridian School and functions like a rare candy, but won’t be consumed and doesn’t act as a permanent revive.
The mints are availble to change to almost every nature, except for some redundant ones. The AI will use neutral natures until about midgame since the player doesn’t have the opportunity to change them before than. There’s no maximum times mints can be used. Natures are color-coded for red to reflect the increased stat and blue for the reduced stat.
These are pretty inexpensive and are meant to enable easy EV training. The vitamins come in 3 denominations which give +4, +64 and Max. When you’re at the EV max, it will borrow from the lowest nonzero EV. There’s a resetter on the rooftops of Celadon Dept. Store.
We added a number of alternative items for HMs. This is intended as a quality of life for self-enforced game modes where the player may not have access to a Pokémon who can learn the HM. Simply equip a Pokémon with the held item to gain access to the HM overworld capabilities.
Cut – Quick claw (Route 11 upper left), Fly – Air Balloon (Rocket Hideout), Flash – Bright Powder (Hidden Route 10 behind a tree), Surf – Float Stone (Route 2), Strength and Rock Smash – Muscle Band (Route 18).
All evolutions should be possible, and some Pokémon can evolve in many different ways! Use the evolution search bar here for details.
We’ve kept the original 46 mega evolutions and also converted 26 of the available gigantamax Pokémon evolutions into new mega evolutions. The motivation was to create a larger and more diverse pool of megas using existing sprite designs. We prioritized only converting Gigantamax forms that didn’t already have a Mega or two. For example, Charizard did not get a 3rd mega.
The majority of new Mega forms have a new ability, type, learnsets, or a mix. Most new mega forms should be viable, but strengths will vary. The Mega Ring is given by the Route 15 Professor Aid (50 Pokemon owned/evolved) but isn’t really expected till around badge five.
Unown has been buffed to be somewhat more viable. Their type was changed to PsychicDark. It also has the following new properties, which ultimately means using Unown will be much more situational. Its usefulness depends heavily on the letter you have and your party.
The Pikachu that is offered as a starter has been upgraded to the stats of Partner Pikachu which has a BST of 430. When holding a Light Ball to double its Atk and Sp. Atk, its BST is 585. There are 8 variants you can get offered in Oak’s Lab. We have revamped these with a new typing, movesets, and hidden abilities. The motivation here was to make Pikachu more randomized in the spirit of the other starters.
Moreover, the starter Pikachu cannot be found in the wild or evolve into Raichu. Regular Pikachu’s still can.
We have buffed each stat of Meowth by 40%, Persian by 20% and Raichu by 10%. This was done to make Jessie and James, Giovanni, and Surge more competitive, respectively. Meowth’s BST ends up around 400, while Persian and Raichu have BST approximately at 530. Lastly, Eevee has been updated to the full stats of Partner Eevee with a BST of 435.
We give many randomized gifts in otherwise empty locations. There are also a handful of randomized trades, where a trainer is looking for a specific type of Pokémon and will provide a random Pokémon of the type they have, which is likely convenient for nuzlockes.
All trades and gifts are marked as “exchanges”, given a random nickname, and marked as the OT trainer they came from. In a Nuzlocke scenario it’s up to you how you wish to enforce these. They were intended to be used and the AI difficulty was balanced with these in mind.
Trades and gifts attempt to abide by the duplicate clause when possible (but not if you’ve already caught every Pokémon of the receiving type). The special statistical trades in the Cinnabar Lab use thresholds of low ≤ 50 and high ≥ 100.
Wild encounters are based on a Pokémon of a random type sampled from the vanilla engine’s native generator. The chance of evolved Pokémon is very low (about 1% early on). Some rare or impossible types have been given a low chance to spawn instead of the type the engine is trying. For example, Ghost and Dark Pokémon are more likely to show up while you are playing at night.
The shiny chance has been boosted from odds of 1/8096 to 1/2048. It’s possible to complete the national Pokédex (905) to earn three stars, but you will need to finish the post-game for Cerulean Cave. It’s possible to catch more than 90% of the Pokédex before Badge 4, though!
These trainers are not bound by their vanilla Pokémon. Instead, competitive teams are created on the fly using a custom battle generator. The matches get more difficult with time, beginning with level-up moves but starting to use competitive moves by Gym 3 and items by Gym 4. The gym themes are setup to guarantee 3 in-theme Pokémon while the rest can be any other types. *may level scale.
NOTE: The trainer team generation never analyzes your team to find counters. But it does try to generate balanced teams.
File Name | Pokemon Unknown |
File Size | 12.0MB |
Version | 1.1.1 |
Release Date | World: April 08, 2025 |
Genre | RPG |
Developer | |
Platform | Game Boy Advance |
Region | USA |
Download | |
Rate ROM | [Total: 4 Average: 4.8] |
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