Pokemon Sacred Gold & Storm Silver

Pokémon Sacred Gold & Storm Silver​

Current Version: 1.05​

Last Updated: 1st June, 2012, 22:19 GMT​

INFO

Summary
Sacred Gold and Storm Silver are the fourth set of hacks/edits I've done now; others you might be familiar with are Pokémon Fire Red Omega, Pokémon Spirit Gold, and for those of you native to GBAtemp, Pokémon Blaze Black and Volt White. Given that it's one of my hacks, it has a pretty similar style in the sense that all Pokémon are available, there's an increased difficulty curve, there are (optional) changes to Pokémon to make some of them better etcetera. You may wonder why I've chosen to make another HG/SS hack when I've done Spirit Gold previously; the answer to this question is that Spirit Gold never really took full advantage of the tools available for DS games, particularly in terms of scripting. Compared to Spirit Gold, Sacred Gold and Storm Silver are full of new scripted events and other aesthetic changes to make it both full of content and a pleasure to look at.

[​IMG]
Changes to the Games
While the base of the game is the same (e.g. the maps, the storyline, the general order of main events) the two hacks still manage to bring a new series of features to the table to spice up the gameplay experience, including:

493 Pokémon (i.e. all Pokémon available in the fourth generation) can be obtained somehow within the game. Legendaries are somewhat restricted, but otherwise you can build your team with pretty much anything you want. Almost all Pokémon are available prior to the first round of the Elite Four! In addition, you also receive the National Dex the moment you get the Pokédex, making it that much easier to track what you have and haven't caught. There are some minor changes in Wild encounters between Sacred Gold and Storm Silver, but all 493 are available in both.

Trainers have received new rosters to tie in with the greater variety of Pokémon available (explained by a 'migration wave' to the regions). This means you'll be battling a much larger variety of Pokémon than you'll see previously. Gym Leaders and other important trainers in particular have received a large boost to their difficulty, so get ready to take on some hard fights! As with the rest of my hacks, Gym Leaders, Elite Four members etcetera all use six Pokémon in each fight. New Trainer battles have also been added where appropriate; examples include the option to battle Ethan/Lyra, Cynthia and Steven.

The data of a lot of Pokémon has been changed; this can mean just extra level-up moves, but features such as abilities, experience rates, TM compatibility and even types might be changed. Most of these are carried over from Blaze Black & Volt White, but the hack has brought some new ideas to the table. For those of you who prefer a purer Pokémon experience, the 'Classic' version offered has these Pokémon edits removed.

A small amount of attack moves have also been edited. All moves that were given some sort of change in Black & White have had the same change applied to them in Sacred Gold & Storm Silver where possible, as well as some additional edits to make Cut, Strength and Rock Smash more useful than their previous counterparts. A large amount of Pokémon have been given extra level-up moves in some form to make them easier to raise.

Edits to evolutions mean Sacred Gold and Storm Silver are self-contained (i.e. you do not need to trade to obtain all the Pokémon). In most cases, this simply turns the item needed for evolution by trade into a usable item much like an evolution stone, though for some cases where evolution is either awkward or impossible in HG/SS (e.g. Leafeon, Glaceon, Magneton, Nosepass...) some new items have been added; this keeps consistency with previous items.

The availability of items has been changed quite wildly in general; all evolution items and TMs are now available at least once prior to the first round of the Elite Four, meaning you can shape your team up quite well for what's not even the final challenge in the game!

On that note, some things have been changed just to make things in the game a lot more convenient. Examples include an EXP Share available in Violet City, the removal of most unnecessary Cut trees and other annoying HM moments, and the addition of buyable evolution stones to some of the shops around the regions. The numbers of Gym Leaders are also now much easier to obtain--they're given to you directly after the battle! Coins can also now be purchased from the Goldenrod Game Corner.

A wide variety of scripted events have been both added and edited. The levels of most event Pokémon that already existed are now raised, but there are lots of new events for the purpose of giving you new Pokémon, items or TMs. Notables include an Eevee given to you by Cynthia extremely early in the game, the addition of a Teleport system in the Elite Four to let you challenge them in any order á la Black & White, a Team Rocket takeover of Route 47 and the Safari Zone and a Shellder and Cloyster siege in Fuchsia City. Yes, you read that right. Every newly added legendary has also had some sort of script concocted for it, so you won't be just finding them in the wild as you did with Blaze Black and Volt White. The Game Corner's prizes have also been edited; you can get a Porygon in Goldenrod City, if you so choose.

Trades within the game have also been both edited and shifted around to make getting some hard-to-place Pokémon a bit more convenient. Examples include the ability to trade for Pokémon such as Gligar, Skarmory, Beldum and Smoochum. They even have a move ordinarily learned by TM, or not at all!

Some small aesthetical edits have been made, e.g. Karen has a new background for her battle and Lance now uses Cynthia's background from DPPt instead of his own. Some attempt has also been made at engaging the world more in its inter-regional Pokémon change by having Hoenn and Sinnoh overworld sprites appear in various places. Some DP trainers also make an appearance, though this was a late feature and has yet to be fully fleshed out due to time constraints. There's also a fairly hefty addition of Black & White sprites to the table, particularly for Hoenn Pokémon. The main Pokémon also now have seals attached to give them a more personalised appearance. Finally, text has been edited such that all Pokémon names are decapitalised (so Pidgeotto rather than PIDGEOTTO, for instance.) There's also been one or two bits of dialogue that have been changed back to their GSC version.

Some extra bits of 'story' have been added, though it's admittedly very little and was also a late addition so it's not entirely fleshed out yet, but it focuses on the idea of a 'Legendary Trainer' who can meet the 'creator' and the hunting down of the Plate items. Might be something to focus on in a later release.

The game has had a variety of blockades added to it to increase the linearity of the story. While this may sound odd/bad, it serves as a way to increase the level curve of Johto, which in the original games was quite poor. Basically this means you're forced to go to Cianwood first instead of Mahogany, and the Kanto region also forces you to take a certain route to give it more of an 'objective'.

Screenshots of the Changes
Open the spoiler tag below to see a variety of screenshots from different points in the game...

Warning: Spoilers inside!

Credits
:: afcmark15, bossdresser, Joodicator and other friends: For contributing ideas to the hack, as well as in some cases helping to playtest the thing (albeit, not much, but it's something!)
:: Project Pokémon Forums: Again for any help they gave in relation to HG/SS problems, either to myself directly or to other people.
:: Alpha and SCV: Though it hasn't been updated in a while, PPRE is the single most important thing needed to create this hack. Very much appreciated.
:: KazoWAR: His tutorial on inserting sprites in HG/SS was important in order to get that Steven sprite in.
:: Dewgong/Frostbite: For the Steven trainer sprite added to the game.
:: Various GBAtemp / YouTube Members: For your continued support and ideas during the production of SG/SS.
:: Jhon 591 of Romulation: For his significantly improved HG/SS anti piracy patch which means you guys can play this game on no$gba WITHOUT it crashing every five seconds!
:: Jensei: For speeding quite fast through the game and informing me of bugs on the initial releases. Can't say it looks good on me, but it helped!
:: Early Players: I can't thank you enough for helping out with all the bugs, and apologies for making you download things so many times!

Tools Used
The main tool used in order to produce this hack was PPRE, with its Pokémon editing, script editing, overworld editing and Trainer editing features. Other tools included the ever trusty crystaltile2, some moments from Cygnus Hex Editor, and the use of programs such as Tile Molester for the one bit of sprite work I did.

Bugs, Errors & Possible Changes
Warning: Spoilers inside!
Warning: Spoilers inside!

Changelog
Warning: Spoilers inside!

Version Clarification
There are two options for players of Sacred Gold & Storm Silver; the Complete version or the Classic version.

The Complete version includes every single change I have made to the game. It's the same idea as BB/VW's Full version.
The Classic version includes most changes but excludes any changes made directly to Pokémon (stats, types, TM compatibility, level up move changes etc). It's the same idea as BB/VW's Clean version.

TRAILER

 SACRED GOLD

 STORM SILVER