Pokémon Emerald Version: Pokémon Revelation

Pokémon Revelation is a vanilla quality-of-life enhancement decompilation hack of Pokémon Emerald. The aim of Pokémon Revelation is to add as many QoL features from the more recent games as reasonably possible while looking and feeling just like vanilla Emerald and maintaining compatibility with the official games.

*Catch 'em All: All 386 Pokémon from the first three generations can be obtained in this hack. They're naturally included through a variety of means, such as time-of-day encounters, outbreak and roaming expansion, prizes from various places, and new (tasteful) events. Read the included documents for more information.
*Bag 'em All: The Bag has been expanded to nine pockets. All items can be obtained (some through new means), they can all be held in the bag at once, and you can hold 999 of any non-essential items. Items within a pocket can be sorted through several different means by pressing the Start button.
*Outfits: You can switch between the R/S and Emerald outfits by using the newly-added Fitting Room that can be found on the second floor of any Pokémon Center.
*Running Free: You start the game with the Running Shoes, can run indoors as well as Fortree bridges and at Pacifidlog Town, and can toggle between automatically walking and running with the R button.
*Bikers Unite: The functions of both the Mach and Acro Bikes are built into one item (the Bicycle), and you can switch gears at any time while riding it by pressing the R button.
*Faster Text: Text speeds have been increased all around, with the new Fast speed rendering text twice as fast as the vanilla version's fastest speed.
*Additional Speed-Ups: Battle transitions are sped up by 50%, the HP bar drains more quickly, fleeing from battle takes less time, using Pokémon Centers is a much faster process, Berry picking is sped up, and the game saves quicker.
*Battle Difficulty: Easy mode enables the modern-day Exp. Share system, Hard mode disables Badge boosts and switching.
*Optional P/S/S Split: The Physical/Special/Status split can be optionally enabled thanks to moves now having assigned categories.
*Reusable TMs: TMs are infinitely reusable, and all standard Move Tutors will teach your Pokémon their moves an unlimited number of times. Additional tutor moves from other Gen III games have also been added.
*No More HM Mons: HMs can be used by wild Pokémon without being taught, and they can be forgotten normally if taught. Animations for wild Pokémon using HMs are faster than normal.
*Fly Anywhere: You can use Fly from the PokéNav map screen, and you can fly to almost any location in the game.
*EV Training: Altering Cave transforms per day into a different layout, with a different wild Pokémon available suitable for EV training and corresponding vitamin in an item ball that respawns daily. EVs are capped at 252 per stat, and vitamins can be used to max out the EVs for their given stat.
*Stats Judge: Get a quick overview of your Pokémon's IVs on the summary screen with this unlockable feature.
*Overworld Ability Improvements: Additional field effects that various Abilities gain in later generations have been backported.
*Breeding Enhancements: Nature and move inheritance has been improved to modern standards, and the Masuda method of shiny breeding has been implemented.
*Registered List: You can register multiple items at once and select which one to use from a list.
*Decapitalization: All text is properly decapitalized the text in the game. Menu items and moments of actual shouting are left capitalized.
*R/S Changes: Various elements of the game's opening section have been reverted to how they are in all other Hoenn games. The same goes for the end of the game.
*Fixes: Most notable vanilla glitches and oversights, as well as various graphical oddities, have been fixed.

And much, much more! The complete list of changes can be found in the "Changes" text file in the Documents folder, and full credits can be found in the included "Credits" file.

Pokémon Revelation

by RichterSnipes

version 231014 (2023 October 14)

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Preface

Pokémon Revelation is a vanilla quality-of-life enhancement decompilation hack of Pokémon Emerald. There's a wealth of other QoL Emerald hacks out there now, so that poses the question:

"Why Revelation?"

The aim of Pokémon Revelation is to add as many QoL features from the more recent games as reasonably possible while looking and feeling just like vanilla Emerald and maintaining compatibility with the official games. There may be hacks that have a more exotic visual flair or hacks that have more involved features, but none will feel or be as true to the original game as this one. Or at least that's what I'm going for! Features added to the game will still look similar to the base game, and added or adjusted text/events will respect the intent of Emerald and the official games. If you want a hack that's just like Emerald, but better, you've come to the right place!

What's more, Revelation now supports just about all major save editors with Generation III support as well as loading hack saves back in vanilla Emerald! If you've ever wanted to bring your hack efforts back to the base game, you can here.

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Features

Revelation comes jam-packed with a ton of features. As a decomp hack, more advanced features and techniques are possible, and I've taken good advantage of that!

Pokémon: Gotta Catch 'em All!
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Revelation one-ups Throwback and meets the expectations of many hack players: All 386 Pokémon from the first three generations can be obtained in this hack. As overwhelming as that may sound, this hack makes everything feel natural. Here's how:

[*]Time-of-day-based encounters
[*]New Pokémon in Emerald-exclusive maps
[*]Mass outbreak expansion and overhaul
[*]Simulated trade for trade evolutions
[*]In-game trade additions and changes
[*]New events
[*]Access to all event tickets
[*]Roaming expansion
[*]Game Corner prizes
[*]Trainer Hill prizes
[*]Altering Cave overhaul
[*]Fossils from breakable rocks in Desert Underpass
[*]Receive all three Johto starters for reaching specific milestones

All but two obtainable Pokémon should be recognized as legal when transferred to the Gen IV games on onwards. Want some general ideas on how to get the newly-available Pokémon? Check the "Pokémon.txt" text file in the "Documents" folder for more information!

Items: Gotta Bag 'em All!
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A cavalcade of improvements have been introduced for obtaining items, as well as using and managing them.

[*]The Bag is expanded. Now you can carry every item in the game at once! You can also carry up to 999 of a single item.
[*]Items are sorted into nine different Pockets for better organization, with each new Pocket being based on ones from the official games.
[*]Items within a Pocket can be sorted through several different means by pressing the Start button.
[*]The functions of both the Mach and Acro Bikes are built into one item (the Bicycle), and you can switch gears at any time while riding it by pressing the R button.
[*]You can register multiple items at once. If multiple items are registered, you can select which one to use from a menu when pressing the Select button.
[*]Medicine and Rare Candy can be used repeatedly without leaving the Pokémon menu.
[*]The game will prompt you to use another Repel after the effect of the previous one wears off.

As for getting these items...

[*]Just about every item, as well as every decoration and legal Berry, can be obtained repeatedly.
[*]Additional item prizes are available at the Battle Frontier Exchange Service Corner, and prices have been slashed across the board.
[*]Poké Mart inventories update based on Badge count. Items exclusive to specific Marts are sold by a second vendor.
[*]Pokémon wild held items have been expanded greatly. Look at the accompanying document for more information.
[*]The Pickup table has been expanded.
[*]Breakable rocks can leave behind valuable items. The specific items found depend on your location.

Outfits
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Of the many changes made from Ruby and Sapphire for Emerald, the most ever-present one is the altered sprites of the main characters. I've added these original outfits back into the game for the player character to wear. Not only that, you can switch between the R/S and Emerald outfits if you feel like it! Simply access the newly-added Fitting Room that can be found on the second floor of any Pokémon Center to change your outfit.

All player sprites, including the overworld sprites, battle sprites, and opening and credits sprites, will be switched when changing outfits. Even the Bag changes depending on what you're wearing! If you link with other Revelation players, your selected outfit will be displayed in other players' games across all relevant modes. I haven't tested cross-compatibility with other hacks to see how they look in those, but I'll work on adding cross-hack support for those if reasonable.

Moves
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The usage and obtaining of various moves has been improved greatly, HM or otherwise:

[*]TMs are infinitely reusable, and all standard Move Tutors will teach your Pokémon their moves an unlimited number of times.
[*]Battle Frontier Move Tutor prices have been significantly slashed, and all general tutor moves exclusive to Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness have been added.
[*]The Physical/Special/Status split can be optionally enabled thanks to moves now having assigned categories. Press the Select button on a Pokémon's summary screen Battle Moves page with the split enabled if you need a refresher.
[*]Moves learned through leveling up and tutoring that are exclusive to FireRed and LeafGreen have been inserted into the level-up learnsets of all applicable Pokémon. Moves learned per level for these Pokémon have been slightly adjusted to account for this.
[*]HMs can be used by wild Pokémon without being taught, and they can be forgotten normally if taught. Animations for wild Pokémon using HMs are faster than normal.
[*]You can use Fly from the PokéNav map screen, and you can fly to almost any location in the game.
[*]Cut trees and smashed rocks that block paths remain gone once removed. Boulder puzzles also remain solved once completed and progressed past.
[*]The default Flash radius is slightly larger, and using Flash will illuminate the entire cave its used in.

...

But wait, there's more!
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[*]Decapitalization: All text is properly decapitalized the text in the game. Menu items and moments of actual shouting are left capitalized.
[*]R/S Changes: Various elements of the game's opening section have been reverted to how they are in all other Hoenn games. The same goes for the end of the game.
[*]Running Free: You start the game with the Running Shoes, can run indoors, run on Fortree City bridges and at Pacifidlog Town, and can toggle between automatically walking and running with the R button.
[*]Faster Text: Text speeds have been increased all around, with the new Fast speed rendering text twice as fast as the vanilla version's fastest speed.
[*]Additional Speed-Ups: Battle transitions are sped up by 50%, the HP bar drains more quickly, fleeing from battle takes less time, using Pokémon Centers is a much faster process, Berry picking is sped up, and the game saves quicker.
[*]EV Training: Altering Cave transforms per day into a different layout, with a different wild Pokémon available suitable for EV training and corresponding vitamin in an item ball that respawns daily. EVs are capped at 252 per stat, and vitamins can be used to max out the EVs for their given stat.
[*]Stats Judge: Get a general idea of what your Pokémon's IVs are on the summary screen. Unlock the feature by speaking to the judge at the Battle Frontier.
[*]Battle Difficulty: Easy mode enables the modern-day Exp. Share system, Hard mode disables Badge boosts.
[*]No Bzzt: The low health sound effect only plays four times instead of repeatedly, and poison no longer affects your Pokémon in the overworld outside of battle facilities. It's still enabled in the Battle Pyramid and Battle Pike, as well as during Trainer Hill challenges.
[*]Less Money Lost: Blacking out in battle will only cause you to lose a fraction of your Poké Dollars based on how many Badges you have.
[*]Catching Enhancements: Sleep and freeze increase catch rate by 2.5x, most Balls have their catch rates boosted to match modern games, and catching Pokémon will still net you experience.
[*]Overworld Ability Improvements: Additional field effects that various Abilities gain in later generations have been backported.
[*]e-Reader Trainers: Support for the e-Reader and scanning in English-language Ruby/Sapphire Trainer cards has been added. Enable Mystery Events first to be able to make use of the feature.
[*]Lucky Charms: The Oval and Shiny Charms have been added to the game, obtainable through the same means as in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
[*]Breeding Enhancements: Nature and move inheritance has been improved to modern standards, and the Masuda method of shiny breeding has been implemented.
[*]More Options: Change the game's font and message window, choose your preferred measurement units, and toggle random overworld Match Calls.
[*]Box Mode Order: Deposit Pokémon is now the top option. It can be switched to Move Pokémon by speaking to Lanette.
[*]Improved Reflection Palettes: The palettes used for reflections are automatically calculated to be highly accurate as opposed to using faulty pre-defined palettes.
[*]Higher Quality Cries: Higher-quality WAV files for the cries of Kanto and Johto Pokémon have been inserted. They're sampled at 13379Hz, the default sampling rate for the GBA Pokémon games.
[*]Terminology: Terminology for various aspects of the game (Nature, Ability, Trainer classes, moves, etc.) have been updated to modern day standards.
[*]Fixes: Most notable vanilla glitches and oversights, as well as various graphical oddities, have been fixed.

And much, much more! The complete list of changes can be found in the "Changes" text file in the Documents folder.

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Patching and Usage

The .zip file should contain two versions of the complete hack and a folder with various documentation for the hack. The only differences between the patches are the capitalization of terms. If you want to keep things capitalized like the vanilla Gen III games, choose the caps version. In the far-more-likely scenario that you want things decapped, though, use the decap patch.

Revelation has been tested to work on actual hardware. It's also fully compatible with vanilla saves. If you import a vanilla save file, the game will make the necessary tweaks to it to make it compatible on first load. If any overworld graphics look odd, just move to a new screen and everything should look fine afterwards. Keep this in mind, though: Once you bring a vanilla save over to Revelation, you won't be able to bring it back to the vanilla version of Emerald.

Check out the guides for obtaining the newly-added Pokémon, wild location changes, and held item changes if you're interested in learning those. If you want a fully-extensive list of changes, take a look at the "Changes" file. If you do, though, sit back. You might be there for awhile!

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I also have a Discord server set up for Revelation and Throwback!

https://discord.gg/gQ8z65JmTc

Feel free to join it if you're interested in staying up to date with my hacks or want to talk about any technical issues you may run into. Or just hang out, if you like! If you have any suggestions for Revelation or Throwback, feel free to share! The "Ideas" channel is the primary place to put them. Just keep in mind that keeping the hacks compatible with the official games is an utmost priority. Also, anyone is free to use and modify this hack's fork for their own projects so long as you give proper credit.

Enjoy your time in Hoenn! 😁

Database match: Pokemon - Emerald Version (USA, Europe)
Database: No-Intro: Game Boy Advance (v. 20210227-023848)
File/ROM SHA-1: F3AE088181BF583E55DAF962A92BB46F4F1D07B7
File/ROM CRC32: 1F1C08FB