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- So, you want to make a GBA Pokemon romhack? There are two methods to making a romhack: binary hacking and decomp hacking. Binary hacking is the traditional kind of romhacking where you use various programs to edit a ROM file. Decomp hacking is a newer method where you make changes to the game's decompiled source code and assets, and compile them to produce modified ROMs.
- Decomp hacking is generally the better method as it gives you all of the game's data and code in an easy to edit format, allowing for modifications that would be extremely difficult to implement with binary hacking. Decomp hacking also has better tools and lets you avoid many of the data corruption pitfalls of binary hacking. However due to being newer there's less tutorials for the decomps and the installation process is more complicated than with binary hacking.
- ====================== DECOMP HACKING ======================
- First, you need to decide which ROM you want to hack. Emerald is the best choice as basically all decomp hacking resources are for Emerald and its decomp is more documented than the others.
- The other decomps are also fully usable, and viable if you either want to make a really vanilla hack without custom features, or you are fine with programming/porting those features from pokeemerald by yourself.
- Decomp repositories:
- https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald
- https://github.com/pret/pokefirered
- https://github.com/pret/pokeruby
- The first thing you need to do is to download a decomp and install its dependencies so that you can compile it.
- Each decomp comes with installation instructions in a file called INSTALL.md.
- Alternatively you can follow one of the many installation tutorials on pokecommunity:
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=432351
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=425246
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=454082
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=446273
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=426921
- If you want your hack to include Pokemon, items, moves, abilities or mechanics from later generations, you should install pokeemerald-expansion:
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=432321
- https://github.com/rh-hideout/pokeemerald-expansion
- Once you've managed to compile a GBA file you can actually start making changes to the decomp.
- To edit the decomp, you'll need some tools:
- - Text editor: any text editor will do.
- - Image editor: should support PNG format, transparency and indexed colors. (e.g. GraphicsGale, GIMP)
- - Porymap: https://github.com/huderlem/porymap/releases
- You can find other useful tools here:
- https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Useful-Modding-Tools
- Useful links:
- Porymap manual: https://huderlem.github.io/porymap/index.html
- Scripting tutorial: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=416800
- Pokeemerald wiki's tutorials: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Tutorials
- Pokecommunity tutorial section: https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?fn=decomp-resources
- Simple modifications: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=416647 and https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=10354961
- Team Aqua's Hideout tutorial videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLNv9Lq6kDmTIYfN5NvgQRvfOHTOXl0uU
- Mantager's tutorial videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnf38dBXTIP2hWTp80nXY_mJM5BIOencf
- ====================== BINARY HACKING ======================
- First, you need to decide which ROM you want to hack. FireRed is the best choice because it has the most resources and tutorials. Emerald is also viable but it's less supported than FireRed. Emerald is mostly hacked with the decomp and many of its resources are not available for binary hackers. All the other versions are shit and no one hacks them.
- Once you've chosen FireRed, make sure you get the English 1.0 version of the ROM as most resources and tools expect you to use that version.
- Download the following tools:
- http://getam.no-ip.info/?ver=1.92 - Advance Map
- https://github.com/Gamer2020/Unofficial_XSE/releases/tag/v1.1.1 - XSE
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=428388 - HexManiacAdvance (HMA)
- The above three tools are basically all you need to make a hack. There are loads of other tools but their functionality is mostly replaceable with one of the previous tools (mostly HMA).
- Other tools:
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=320113 - Generation 3 Hacking Suite
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=311461 - Generation 3 Tools
- https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=26913 - GBA Graphics Editor
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=149454 - Nameless Tile Map Editor
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=85025 - Advanced Palette Editor
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=205687 - Nameless Sprite Editor Classic
- https://www.irfanview.com/ - IrfanView
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=490&prefixid=fg_resource_tool&tag=rom-hacking - More tools
- You might then want to check out some tutorials on getting started:
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=369646
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=66
- Scripting:
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=9705229
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=164276
- FireRed flags: https://github.com/pret/pokefirered/blob/master/include/constants/flags.h
- FireRed variables: https://github.com/pret/pokefirered/blob/master/include/constants/vars.h
- Tile editing: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=193377
- Editing cries: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=293830
- Editing battle backgrounds: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=302401
- Adding new Balls: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=326311
- Tilesets and tilemaps: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=298030
- Adding the Gen 4 Physical / Special / Status split: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=7465618#post7465618 and https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=6976957&postcount=114
- FIRE RED EXCLUSIVE:
- Complete FireRed Upgrade (CFRU): https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=425447
- Title Screen Hacking: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=459583 and https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=325944
- Pokédex Expansion: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=318569
- Adding new types: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=313872
- Creating new items: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=7202888
- EMERALD EXCLUSIVE:
- Title Screen Hacking: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=283345
- Pokédex Expansion: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9446220
- Rombase: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=451990
- Other resources:
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=267728 - Resized all Gen 4 and 5 sprites to 64x64, as well as Gen 4 sprites of Gen 1, 2 and 3 sprites
- https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=490&tag=binary
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