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- Seen Apr 3, 2023
Over the past month or so I've been working as a guinea pig for Deijin27's RanseiLink editor, a program that you can use to create your own Pokemon Conquest ROM hacks (which you can view and download yourself at https://github.com/Deijin27/RanseiLink). In the meantime, the hack that I have in development has become enough of an improvement over the base game that I thought it would be worth posting here. Pokemon Conquest is a very fun game and one of the most underrated Pokemon spinoffs in existence, but it is also full of game design elements that will just make you scream "why?" and this hack aims to remedy that. The in-game text that you can see by pressing Y on the status screen should accurately reflect the changes I made, but here are some of the important changes:
-Espeon, Umbreon, Glaceon, Leafeon, and Leavanny reach their final evolution much earlier.
-Base stats are updated to gen 7 equivalent. Fixed some Pokemon (like Leavanny) that were using the wrong attacking stat.
-Confidence boosts accuracy, and boosts defense by 3 stages instead of 1. (It is only active during your own turn, but it already worked like that before.)
-Shackle reduces speed as well as range.
-Stat changes from Hero are doubled.
-Pokemon that appear by swarm (such as Croagunk and Sneasel) can be encountered normally in some episodes, typically those in which all of their respective Perfect Link warriors can be recruited. Eevee can be encountered in Aurora during episodes where the player character is present. Riolu and Spiritomb have no episode restrictions.
-All Pokemon have at least 3 range, and some suck-ish fast Pokemon (like Persian and Froslass) had their range bumped up to 4.
-Postgame warriors will no longer be fighting you with pathetic unevolved baby Pokemon, and most can achieve 70% or at least 62% with the Pokemon they start with.
-Abilities and moves have been reassigned. However, no Pokemon uses a move that it cannot legally learn in the main series, and I tried to ensure that all new abilities make thematic sense.
-Some moves including Thunder, Mud Bomb, Icicle Crash, and Rock Wrecker hit a larger area. Also, highly inaccurate moves are slightly more accurate, and several moves in the 50-60 BP range had their base power increased slightly.
-Warrior skills that need buffs have received them. Some of the worst skills (Greed, High Jump, Extinguish) do something else entirely. Warlords will not end up with rank II skills that are worse than what they had in rank I.
-Some warlords and warriors have additional Pokemon that they can achieve 90% or 70% with. (For example, many dragon specialists can reach 70% with non-Dragon types that are dragon-like, and for many warlords, the highest sub-90% link Pokemon were bumped up to 90%.)
-Some warriors have a high link with a Pokemon that they are unable to fully evolve due to max link restrictions. This should no longer be the case unless you end up with minimum IVs or something.
-A handful of warriors have higher capacity.
-There is not much emphasis on nerfs, but Fire Blast, Fire Spin, and Marksman (skill) were nerfed. Gengar and Excadrill also lost useful abilities, though they gained different useful abilities in return. (Run Up was overkill anyways, and you can use Mismagius if you want a levitating ghost.)
Here is a sort-of complete changelog: https://pastebin.com/pWesGnis
The result should be a balanced experience that plays like an official Pokemon game, with changes that will be appreciated by both casual players who only use Perfect Links and sweaty nerds who have poured hundreds upon hundreds of hours into this game and have Zoroark on regular warriors. Personally I think you can play this hack even if you never played the original game before, as it's more of a balance patch that's intended to enhance the existing experience rather than provide an entirely new one. The name of the hack has "Hard" in it, but it's not that hard honestly; I originally called it "Vanilla Plus", and "Hard Plus" was supposed to be an alternate version with enemy warriors using stronger Pokemon. Then I realized that Hard Plus was the only version worth playing, since Vanilla Plus and the original game had you battling pathetic opponents like Starly and Ekans for the entire postgame. So I just continued developing Hard Plus and was too lazy to change the name. Sorry.
It's not a super ambitious hack and it doesn't aim to change everything from the ground up, but I had fun playing it and I hope you do, too. Keep in mind that RanseiLink can be used to revert any specific change that you're not a fan of.
google drive folder with full documentation, xdelta patch and rlmod file (editable mod in RanseiLink): https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1CTUHS_S-5u5Um-NsQm6vu2moKt8TDT7d
xdelta utility download here: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/598/
The base ROM I used is Pokemon Conquest (USA, Australia) (NDSi Enhanced). It probably won't work for other ROMs.
Huge thanks to Deijin27 without whom none of this would even be vaguely possible, and Pleonex and the folks at PokeStation for developing Tinke and other tools (originally intended for fan translations) that I used to figure out some things that weren't possible to edit with RanseiLink. I am still willing and able to update this hack further, and I don't have any "official" beta testers, so any feedback you guys can provide will be like mustard and mayo on the stale, dry sandwich of my soul. Happy conquering!
-Espeon, Umbreon, Glaceon, Leafeon, and Leavanny reach their final evolution much earlier.
-Base stats are updated to gen 7 equivalent. Fixed some Pokemon (like Leavanny) that were using the wrong attacking stat.
-Confidence boosts accuracy, and boosts defense by 3 stages instead of 1. (It is only active during your own turn, but it already worked like that before.)
-Shackle reduces speed as well as range.
-Stat changes from Hero are doubled.
-Pokemon that appear by swarm (such as Croagunk and Sneasel) can be encountered normally in some episodes, typically those in which all of their respective Perfect Link warriors can be recruited. Eevee can be encountered in Aurora during episodes where the player character is present. Riolu and Spiritomb have no episode restrictions.
-All Pokemon have at least 3 range, and some suck-ish fast Pokemon (like Persian and Froslass) had their range bumped up to 4.
-Postgame warriors will no longer be fighting you with pathetic unevolved baby Pokemon, and most can achieve 70% or at least 62% with the Pokemon they start with.
-Abilities and moves have been reassigned. However, no Pokemon uses a move that it cannot legally learn in the main series, and I tried to ensure that all new abilities make thematic sense.
-Some moves including Thunder, Mud Bomb, Icicle Crash, and Rock Wrecker hit a larger area. Also, highly inaccurate moves are slightly more accurate, and several moves in the 50-60 BP range had their base power increased slightly.
-Warrior skills that need buffs have received them. Some of the worst skills (Greed, High Jump, Extinguish) do something else entirely. Warlords will not end up with rank II skills that are worse than what they had in rank I.
-Some warlords and warriors have additional Pokemon that they can achieve 90% or 70% with. (For example, many dragon specialists can reach 70% with non-Dragon types that are dragon-like, and for many warlords, the highest sub-90% link Pokemon were bumped up to 90%.)
-Some warriors have a high link with a Pokemon that they are unable to fully evolve due to max link restrictions. This should no longer be the case unless you end up with minimum IVs or something.
-A handful of warriors have higher capacity.
-There is not much emphasis on nerfs, but Fire Blast, Fire Spin, and Marksman (skill) were nerfed. Gengar and Excadrill also lost useful abilities, though they gained different useful abilities in return. (Run Up was overkill anyways, and you can use Mismagius if you want a levitating ghost.)
Here is a sort-of complete changelog: https://pastebin.com/pWesGnis
The result should be a balanced experience that plays like an official Pokemon game, with changes that will be appreciated by both casual players who only use Perfect Links and sweaty nerds who have poured hundreds upon hundreds of hours into this game and have Zoroark on regular warriors. Personally I think you can play this hack even if you never played the original game before, as it's more of a balance patch that's intended to enhance the existing experience rather than provide an entirely new one. The name of the hack has "Hard" in it, but it's not that hard honestly; I originally called it "Vanilla Plus", and "Hard Plus" was supposed to be an alternate version with enemy warriors using stronger Pokemon. Then I realized that Hard Plus was the only version worth playing, since Vanilla Plus and the original game had you battling pathetic opponents like Starly and Ekans for the entire postgame. So I just continued developing Hard Plus and was too lazy to change the name. Sorry.
It's not a super ambitious hack and it doesn't aim to change everything from the ground up, but I had fun playing it and I hope you do, too. Keep in mind that RanseiLink can be used to revert any specific change that you're not a fan of.
google drive folder with full documentation, xdelta patch and rlmod file (editable mod in RanseiLink): https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1CTUHS_S-5u5Um-NsQm6vu2moKt8TDT7d
xdelta utility download here: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/598/
The base ROM I used is Pokemon Conquest (USA, Australia) (NDSi Enhanced). It probably won't work for other ROMs.
Huge thanks to Deijin27 without whom none of this would even be vaguely possible, and Pleonex and the folks at PokeStation for developing Tinke and other tools (originally intended for fan translations) that I used to figure out some things that weren't possible to edit with RanseiLink. I am still willing and able to update this hack further, and I don't have any "official" beta testers, so any feedback you guys can provide will be like mustard and mayo on the stale, dry sandwich of my soul. Happy conquering!
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