Pokémon Gold 97 Reforged FAQ

Pokémon Gold 97 Reforged FAQ
Updated Jan 31, 2021

Q: What game is this?
A: This is a rom hack which effectively completes the Gold/Silver Space World Demo from 1997. The rom was originally "completed" by lvl3 and went through an additional overhaul by Rool, with the most recent update in December 2020.

Q: What is the Space World demo?
A: An early build of Gold/Silver which was shown at Nintendo Space World in 1997, prior to official release. Here is a more "official" backstory:

On November 22, 1997, an early playable demo of Pokémon Gold and Silver was shown at Space World '97 alongside Hey You, Pikachu!, Pokémon Stadium, and Pokémon Snap. Long considered lost treasures, on May 26, 2018 an anonymous user unexpectedly dumped ROMs of the elusive demos online. The ROMs themselves were built on November 15, 1997.

Q: Any differences with the finished versions?
A: Lots! The region is completely different (Rihon), a lot of pokes are different (different starters, different pre-evos and later evos, some pokes completely reskinned or with different names), different type effectiveness (e.g. fire not super effective on steel, normal super effective on dark - this can be changed to the final type chart in options). A TON more spinners (~35 passes in total!) and mandatory trainers. A completely different storyline, with a lot of the same characters in different locations.

Q: What is WR?
A: 3:50:37 by me

Q: What Pokemon will you use in this run?
A: I will choose Flambear (fire starter) and use that as my main battler and also for Strength. I will also catch a Pokemon for Fly (usually Hoothoot which is available early, but possibly a Pidgey/Spearow later). For my Surf/Whirlpool/Waterfall slave, I will catch a Rinring and trade that for a Bomsheal. I will also buy an Abra from the Game Corner to perform one single teleport.

This game also has Cut and Rock Smash, but these are not required to beat the game.

Q: Not the water starter?
A: Cruize (the water starter) is actually pretty bad in this game. It has awful speed (final form, Aquarius, has base Speed of 65), its attacking stats aren't as good, and its learnset isn't quite as good, despite it being able to learn Surf. Flambear evolves 2 levels earlier (L14) and matches up much better against the early game than Cruize.

Q: An in-game trade? Isn't that slow af?
A: Yes, it is, however we need to get a Pokemon with a set TID to perform a manipulation. There are no gift mons like Kenya in GSC, and the Bomsheal learns 3 HMs, so it works well to meet both requirements.

Q: You mentioned a manipulation?
A: Yep, we do a Lucky ID (LID) manip in order to get a Master Ball. This is needed to activate the last bit of plot, which requires you to catch BOTH Ho-oh and Lugia. As you only get one Master Ball without manips or glitches, one of these two catches would otherwise be terrible (2% catch at 5% health with Ultra Balls).

Thus, the only practical approach to getting the second master ball glitchless is to do a LID manip for the lottery Master Ball. CasualPokePlayer just found a workable LID manip, which will allow me to win the Master Ball in Westport City, using the TID of the Bomsheal I trade for. Other than this, there are no manipulations in the run (a good chunk of Flambear stat spreads are runnable)

Q: Are you resetting for stats?
A: Yes. I will not take Flambear with 10 Attack at L5 (0-5 DV) or 12 Special Attack at L6 (0-5 DV). This means that I have a roughly 36% chance of getting a runnable Flambear.

Q: Why run Gold over Silver?
A: The Rinring I trade is less common in Silver (5% instead of 30%), and since the Bomsheal it is traded for will be required for LID manip, Gold will likely be the way to go moving forward. It is also likely that the LID manip does not work on Silver version anyway.

Q: Goal time?
A: Sub-3:50:00