ROM Hack Tutorial: How to obtain the Ho-oh song in AS and the Lugia song in OR.

ArmoredGuns1

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
219
Trophies
1
XP
396
Country
United States
Hello guys, I'm going to teach you how to obtain the version exclusive songs. Yes, it's possible to have both in one game, you can choose them in online battles and they will play perfectly.

What you need:

- OR and AS physical or digital game. If it's physical, the process will be faster.

- Have access to homebrew by Tubehax/Ironhax/OoThax. Yes, they still work with the latest update (10.0.0-27). If you don't have the homebrew channel installed yet, there are many guides online and in Youtube.com that tell you how to do it.

- Have Save Manager downloaded and in your SD card. You can download it here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/save-dat...to-9-9.396245/

- Have downloaded the latest version of PKHex.

- Download the Anti-savegame Restore Value tool in case you have a digital version of OR or AS. You can download it here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/antisave...y-oras.396644/

Alright, here are the steps you need to follow. Make sure you already got the Scanner from the game and Captain Stern already gave you the Clear Bell/Tidal Bell depending on your game.

For the physical version of the games:

1) Backup your save with Save Manager.
2) Open your file with PKHex. It should be named "main" with no file extension, and it's located in SD:/saveDataBackup.
3) Go to Event Flags section and uncheck the Ho-Oh and Lugia Captured and Defeated boxes. Click on Save.
4) Go to Items and on KEY ITEMS add the Tidal Bell if you're using an OR save, or add the Clear Bell if you're using an AS save. Make sure the quantity is set to "1".
5) Export your save and name it ORmain or ASmain depending on the game you are using. Put the file in whatever place you want for now.
6) Delete the "main" file in the saveDataBackup folder of your SD card.
7) Backup the save of the other game with Save Manager.
8) Rename the "main" file ORmain or ASmain depending on the game you just made a save backup. Put it in a safe place.
9) Put the save you edited with PKhex back into the saveDataBackup folder.
10) Change the name to "main"
11) Use Save Data Manager to import the save. Yes, now you'll be importing an OR save into an AS cartridge or vice-versa. Don't worry, nothing bad will happen at all.
12) Fight Ho-Oh or Lugia depending on the version you're using and save. You'll now have both songs in your save file, and you can even capture BOTH Lugia and Ho-Oh again in one cartridge.
13) Backup the save, and then import it back to the original game.
14) Import the save of the other game back to its original cartridge.

If you have the digital version of any game (OR or AS), you'll have to do extra steps. The digital version of these games use a save protection that's called the Secure Value. The secure value are hex strings (I think that's how it's called) that are attached to the save file and to the digital version of the game, to prevent using an old save. So in order to use PKHex in the digital games without screwing the Secure Value, you must always edit a save file from the most recent backup. What I mean is, every time you want to edit your save file, you need to make a backup first. If you don't do that, once you import another save (or an old version of that save) once you start the game it'll show you a message that says: "This save data is not compatible".

In order to prevent that, we'll use the Anti-savegame Restore Value tool. This will allow us to import any kind of save to the digital version of the games without any kind of problem.

Let's say you already have edited the save file of an OR game, and want to import it to an AS digital game. This would be the process:

1) Backup the digital save of AS with save manager. Rename it to ASmain.
2) Open Secure Value Fixer.
3) Where it says "corrupt old save", open the OR save.
4) Where it says "good Latest save" open the AS save.
5) Check the box "Backup old save"
6) Where it says "Select Game Secure Value", choose Pokemon ORAS.
7) Click on "Fix" and the OR save will have the AS secure value
8) Import the OR save to the AS digital game.

That's all folks. I know it might be complicated to understand, but I'll be answering any questions here.
 

hotdogturtle

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
21
Trophies
0
Age
34
XP
102
Country
United States
Shouldn't there just be a data flag in your save file that you can edit to signify which songs you have unlocked? It seems like that would be much easier than going through the whole save importing process and unlocking them manually.
 

ArmoredGuns1

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
219
Trophies
1
XP
396
Country
United States
Shouldn't there just be a data flag in your save file that you can edit to signify which songs you have unlocked? It seems like that would be much easier than going through the whole save importing process and unlocking them manually.

It doesn't work like that. You need to import a save file of another game.
 

suloku

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
883
Trophies
0
XP
866
Country
It doesn't work like that. You need to import a save file of another game.
No, it works like that, it's just that pkHex doesn't have a checkbox for that because the flag's location is unknown or else the import thing wouldn't work if they were the same flag.
 

ArmoredGuns1

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
219
Trophies
1
XP
396
Country
United States
No, it works like that, it's just that pkHex doesn't have a checkbox for that because the flag's location is unknown or else the import thing wouldn't work if they were the same flag.

To be able to unlock the song, you NEED to have fought and caught Lugia or Ho-Oh. The checkbox is just for capturing them again even if you already did.
 

hotdogturtle

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
21
Trophies
0
Age
34
XP
102
Country
United States
To be able to unlock the song, you NEED to have fought and caught Lugia or Ho-Oh. The checkbox is just for capturing them again even if you already did.
I think you are misinterpreting what I (and he) said. I was referring to the actual coding of the game which contains a piece of data that controls which songs you have unlocked (which the game would unlock once you meet the ingame requirements i.e. fighting Lugia/Ho-Oh). If people were able to do a little research to find where the songs are located in the coding, then we could hex edit that value to add the songs to our game without actually doing the Lugia/Ho-Oh quest. The only reason that it's not already editable in Pkhex (what suloku was saying) is because they don't know where that value is.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ArmoredGuns1

ArmoredGuns1

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
219
Trophies
1
XP
396
Country
United States
I think you are misinterpreting what I (and he) said. I was referring to the actual coding of the game which contains a piece of data that controls which songs you have unlocked (which the game would unlock once you meet the ingame requirements i.e. fighting Lugia/Ho-Oh). If people were able to do a little research to find where the songs are located in the coding, then we could hex edit that value to add the songs to our game without actually doing the Lugia/Ho-Oh quest. The only reason that it's not already editable in Pkhex (what suloku was saying) is because they don't know where that value is.

I see, I understand what you're saying. The current checkboxes are for triggering the events only. That's the process we have to do until they find the location of songs' value.
 

hotdogturtle

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
21
Trophies
0
Age
34
XP
102
Country
United States
That's why I was asking the first time. I'm sort of surprised that no one has figured it out by now. Then again, I guess unlockable music is sort of low priority for the people who have the knowledge to make the big discoveries.

How feasible would it be to locate the music by testing? Something like:
Get a backup save file
Fight Lugia
Export the new save [maybe use Pkhex to unflag Lugia so that data goes back to the default]
Compare the files?

Or does too much other stuff change in the process of saving? That I have no clue about.
 

ArmoredGuns1

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
219
Trophies
1
XP
396
Country
United States
That's why I was asking the first time. I'm sort of surprised that no one has figured it out by now. Then again, I guess unlockable music is sort of low priority for the people who have the knowledge to make the big discoveries.

How feasible would it be to locate the music by testing? Something like:
Get a backup save file
Fight Lugia
Export the new save [maybe use Pkhex to unflag Lugia so that data goes back to the default]
Compare the files?

Or does too much other stuff change in the process of saving? That I have no clue about.

I can send you two files of the same save file, one which has the extra song unlocked. We would still need to depend on the PKHex author to make the change though.
 

suloku

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
883
Trophies
0
XP
866
Country
Pkhex is open source, the author would most likely add it if we find the value.

Comparing the two files is no good, too many data changes BUT since pkhex is open source we can look where all flags are located. If wer are only looking to a portion of the file, locating the song flag would be easier.
It may be next to defeated lugia/hoho flag even.
A third savefile with both songs unlocked would help. In fact the same save with all 4 combinations possible would help:
No songs
Hoho song
Lugia song
Both songs
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: https://www.youtube.com/@legolambs