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- Seen Apr 25, 2020
Hi all,
I've had this idea for a little while and I've begun to develop it a bit more of late. I always thought there was a lot of mileage in the changes that happened to Kanto in the time between Gen I and II. Given I've not made a Rom Hack before, I figured this would be a good idea to start with as some of the work would already be done. It seems slightly easier and less daunting to do an update of Kanto in FireRed than making a whole new game from scratch. Save that for later, maybe, if this one goes well.
The basic ideas would follow an evil team (with better motives than usual, hopefully) trying to force progress with a lot of technological innovations. Their ideas may not be too bad but they're impatient and don't really care about who they step on to achieve their goals. These are the people responsible for buying the land Pokemon Tower stood on and remodelling it into the Lavender Radio Tower and turning Cinnabar Island into a mine. They're using a Hidden Move that was banned years ago for its adverse environmental effects ('ground rose up somewhere' ring any bells?) causing earthquakes and tremors across the Kanto region. At one point their use of this causes Mt. Moon to cave in forcing the player to find another way around while emergency workers try to clear a smaller path through. There would be a second team of characters of a new trainer class 'Protesters' that are campaigning against this company and their tactics. Gameplay-wise, they serve as roadblocks and NPC trainers. I'm hoping to be able to have multi battles with them against the evil team members but we'll see how I go later on.
Alongside this storyline are other changes such as the gym leader order and elite 4 lineup. The player starts in Fuschia City and, after the announcement of Agatha's retirement from the Elite 4, Koga is promoted placing his daughter Janine in charge of the gym. The player is a friend of Janine and after catching a starter Pokemon in the Safari Zone, agrees to be her first challenger. After this, the player decides to take on the rest of the gyms which take place in a completely different order. Just for fun, Johto and Hoenn Pokemon will appear both in the wild and in trainers' parties.
I've got the majority of the story mapped out and I've started working on map changes. I started with Cinnabar Island even though you don't see it until later in the game mostly because I really wanted to redesign it. Below is an image of where I'm at with it so far:
I'm going to break the work up into story stages, I think, rather than doing ALL the mapping, then ALL the wild data etc. etc. Very few mechanics are going to change, though I do have a few I want to implement such as the Physical/Special split and the removal of trade evolutions. The first hurdle I feel like I'm going to face in the early stage is the starter selection. I'd like to have the player be able to just go into the Safari Zone (or a small area of it at first) to catch their first Pokemon rather than choosing it because that would be a novel idea. I feel like I've seen that before so I don't know how tricky it would be to implement. If anyone has ideas, I'd be grateful to hear them!
I'm not looking for any help at the moment as I want to make sure that this is actually going to work before anybody else commits time but the area I would probably need most help with would be custom trainer sprites. I've modded a few overworld sprites just for fun so I know I can do that but I can't do anything more detailed than that other than basic recolouring work. I'd like to have custom sprites for new male and female player characters, Janine and the evil team and protester trainer classes. But for now I'll probably just use placeholder sprites.
So that's the basic rundown of the idea. Any feedback and advice would be appreciated. I feel like I'm about to be told that what I think is a somewhat easy first project is actually pretty damn impossible so I'm prepared for that eventuality too! Thanks and I look forward to showing you more as this project goes along!
I've had this idea for a little while and I've begun to develop it a bit more of late. I always thought there was a lot of mileage in the changes that happened to Kanto in the time between Gen I and II. Given I've not made a Rom Hack before, I figured this would be a good idea to start with as some of the work would already be done. It seems slightly easier and less daunting to do an update of Kanto in FireRed than making a whole new game from scratch. Save that for later, maybe, if this one goes well.
The basic ideas would follow an evil team (with better motives than usual, hopefully) trying to force progress with a lot of technological innovations. Their ideas may not be too bad but they're impatient and don't really care about who they step on to achieve their goals. These are the people responsible for buying the land Pokemon Tower stood on and remodelling it into the Lavender Radio Tower and turning Cinnabar Island into a mine. They're using a Hidden Move that was banned years ago for its adverse environmental effects ('ground rose up somewhere' ring any bells?) causing earthquakes and tremors across the Kanto region. At one point their use of this causes Mt. Moon to cave in forcing the player to find another way around while emergency workers try to clear a smaller path through. There would be a second team of characters of a new trainer class 'Protesters' that are campaigning against this company and their tactics. Gameplay-wise, they serve as roadblocks and NPC trainers. I'm hoping to be able to have multi battles with them against the evil team members but we'll see how I go later on.
Alongside this storyline are other changes such as the gym leader order and elite 4 lineup. The player starts in Fuschia City and, after the announcement of Agatha's retirement from the Elite 4, Koga is promoted placing his daughter Janine in charge of the gym. The player is a friend of Janine and after catching a starter Pokemon in the Safari Zone, agrees to be her first challenger. After this, the player decides to take on the rest of the gyms which take place in a completely different order. Just for fun, Johto and Hoenn Pokemon will appear both in the wild and in trainers' parties.
I've got the majority of the story mapped out and I've started working on map changes. I started with Cinnabar Island even though you don't see it until later in the game mostly because I really wanted to redesign it. Below is an image of where I'm at with it so far:
Spoiler:
I'm going to break the work up into story stages, I think, rather than doing ALL the mapping, then ALL the wild data etc. etc. Very few mechanics are going to change, though I do have a few I want to implement such as the Physical/Special split and the removal of trade evolutions. The first hurdle I feel like I'm going to face in the early stage is the starter selection. I'd like to have the player be able to just go into the Safari Zone (or a small area of it at first) to catch their first Pokemon rather than choosing it because that would be a novel idea. I feel like I've seen that before so I don't know how tricky it would be to implement. If anyone has ideas, I'd be grateful to hear them!
I'm not looking for any help at the moment as I want to make sure that this is actually going to work before anybody else commits time but the area I would probably need most help with would be custom trainer sprites. I've modded a few overworld sprites just for fun so I know I can do that but I can't do anything more detailed than that other than basic recolouring work. I'd like to have custom sprites for new male and female player characters, Janine and the evil team and protester trainer classes. But for now I'll probably just use placeholder sprites.
So that's the basic rundown of the idea. Any feedback and advice would be appreciated. I feel like I'm about to be told that what I think is a somewhat easy first project is actually pretty damn impossible so I'm prepared for that eventuality too! Thanks and I look forward to showing you more as this project goes along!