ROM Hack [WIP] [ORAS] Pokemon DeltaColosseum - The Colosseum Prequel

[LeifEricson]

UPDATE: 11/10/2015

Being at college, progress is rather slow. But there has been some progress. Here's the current state of affairs:

• Shadow Pokemon have been implemented! Here's the technical details: I have swapped out the files of Pokemon that are not obtainable in ORAS with duplicates of various Gen IV/V Pokemon (as an analog to Colosseum containing Gen II Pokemon.) I then texture hacked the duplicates to have a similar shadow style to Shadow Lugia, since an "aura" would require a model hack. Finally, I edited the move sets to have a single move: Shadow Rush.
• Shadow Rush: An edited Head Charge. It has the same recoil percentage (25%), and only Bouffalant learns it, so it was simply removed from its level up moves, added as the only moves of the Shadow Pokemon, and renamed to Shadow Rush. Although Normal has a few weaknesses, it has no super effective match ups, making it the closest analog to the Colosseum Shadow type.
• Capturing Shadow Pokemon: All gym leaders have a single Shadow Pokemon. At the moment, I have yet to successfully edit the code.bin to allow capture of trainers' Pokemon, and honestly it may be way outside of my capabilities, so it may have to be that Shadow Pokemon need to be caught in the wild. The idea currently is to make them very rare encounters.
• Purifying: Purifying is done via an edited evolution method. I'm working on maybe having certain items renamed based on each Shadow Pokemon, perhaps like Mega Stones. Then, once its leveled up holding the item, it will "purify" by evolving into its normal version.
• Mega Evolution: Someone will have a Shadow Pokemon that can mega evolve. This will require another texture edit, and is planned to look awesome.
• Starter Pokemon: All three have been replaced with Eevee. Due to the way the editor works, this means that there are now 4 copies of Eevee: the original, the one over Treecko, the one over Torchic, and the one over Mudkip. The three over the starters can only evolve into either Umbreon or Espeon, however the original Eevee (i.e. once you breed Umbreon/Espeon) will be able to become any Eeveelution. However, if you manage to never evolve the Eevee and try to breed it, you'll just get the same Eevee back. This way, you're forced to receive at least one of the starters you start with in Colosseum.

As a result of these changes, you can not trade to or from Delta Colosseum unless its with another copy of it, otherwise you'll get unexpected results when trading a Shadow Pokemon/Pokemon that has been changed to a Shadow Pokemon.

Stay tuned for more updates!

~~~Original post~~~

Hey all, I'm working on my very first romhack, for Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. And it's an ambitious one. As you can guess... this is a throwback to probably the most underrated of the Pokemon games, Pokemon Colosseum!

The basis of the hack is that it's a prequel to Colosseum. Those of you that played Colosseum know that Wes is in his late teens in that game, but in this he's about a year or two younger (a creative way to say that I'm only capable of making minimal model changes, so he looks the same age as Brendan/May.)

Anyways, the idea is that he is training in Hoenn to be a Pokemon Trainer; him and his parents moved from Orre since the region is desolate of both wild Pokemon and a proper gym system/elite four. He's dressed a little more casual then he appeared in Colosseum, and this is because at the time he's still an innocent trainer/kid and has the aspirations to be a champion, like any young trainer does.

Obviously, the tools don't currently exist to change major events in the game, but I'm slowly working on changing some text so that the story more closely sets up the backstory for Colosseum and refers to Orre in multiple places. I'm also working on replacing the models of Maxie/Archie with... well. I'm deciding what the villain should be. Can't be Miror B since he acts like he's never met Wes in Colosseum. Ditto for the Cipher Admins and Evice... any ideas for that? Perhaps Gonzap?

There's two major things that I HAVE replaced at this point:

• Music. All the music that can properly apply to a relevant track in ORAS has been replaced with its Colosseum versions. The city themes use every possible town from Colosseum, with one or two repeats. The battle themes are from Vs. mode (aka remixes of the R/S originals), while the wild battle theme is a custom one I found on YouTube:

• Player model. You're only supposed to play as Wes, and I'm still deciding on who the female protagonist will be since Rui also has never met Wes before Colo.

Here's some pictures of Wes in his current state (the latter two show a rather sloppy body texture edit, I'm still working on modifying it):

Please let me know what you think and if you have suggestions!

 

[Damon_girl]

This looks awesome.

 

[Reserved]

Would it be possible to switch out the Starter Pokemon with a guaranteed Eevee? Along with that, any ideas on how Shadow Pokemon could be implemented or hinted at? Possibly changing the Shiny Pokemon textures, iunno. There's a lot of Shadow Pokemon textures in the other thread.

 

[LeifEricson]

Would it be possible to switch out the Starter Pokemon with a guaranteed Eevee? Along with that, any ideas on how Shadow Pokemon could be implemented or hinted at? Possibly changing the Shiny Pokemon textures, iunno. There's a lot of Shadow Pokemon textures in the other thread.

Possibly. I've heard there's some issues with HANS and changing the starters though, and since I test with HANS it may be an issue.

 

[NoNoNeko]

You need any help?

I have both Colosseum and AS. I would love to help test/work with music!

 

[LeifEricson]

You need any help?

I have both Colosseum and AS. I would love to help test/work with music!

My next task would be trying to extract more models from Colosseum. Also, I need some more help putting some things together, yes. PM me!

 

[NoNoNeko]

Done

 

[Coleman_C18]

This is cool, though, the models for wes look a bit strange atm.

 

[foreveryang]

wow!!

 

[LeifEricson]

This is cool, though, the models for wes look a bit strange atm.

How so? Remember that the ORAS style is much different from Colosseum, so he has to be adapted accordingly.

 

[Reserved]

I think it's because all main characters that have appeared in the main series wear hats.

 

[Coleman_C18]

How so? Remember that the ORAS style is much different from Colosseum, so he has to be adapted accordingly.

His Overworld facial texture and model needs tweaked is all I'm saying. His head says "Im 18/20ish" but his body says hes 12, it just looks a bit off.

 

[ChrisN8]

It's amazing that you can edit the model of the character, i wish i could do something like that.

 

[TheReturningVoid]

Possibly. I've heard there's some issues with HANS and changing the starters though, and since I test with HANS it may be an issue.

It's not just HANS. Editing ORAS CROs will cause the game to crash. What you can do, however, is swap out the models for Treeko, Torchic and Mudkip with the ones you want them to be, and edit their information (evolutions, level up moves, name, etc.) with pk3DS.

 

[LeifEricson]

His Overworld facial texture and model needs tweaked is all I'm saying. His head says "Im 18/20ish" but his body says hes 12, it just looks a bit off.

Unfortunately I'm not a skilled enough modeler to do that stuff. So I guess the weird manchild Wes will have to stay.

 

[Swiftloke]

Something tells me you'll need someone experienced to write a completely new mechanic, Shadow Pokemon, since it was never a part of ORAS. How are you going to do that? Are you going to do it at all? What are the major game changes going to be? New towns? Plot change? What?

 

[LeifEricson]

Something tells me you'll need someone experienced to write a completely new mechanic, Shadow Pokemon, since it was never a part of ORAS. How are you going to do that? Are you going to do it at all? What are the major game changes going to be? New towns? Plot change? What?

This is a prequel to Colosseum. Therefore Cipher had not yet invented Shadow Pokémon, canonically (though I have retconned that at this time they are researching it). However this also helps me physically since yes, I don't have the skill to make an entire game mechanic.

Instead, it'll focus on Wes' attempt to become a Pokémon champion just like any other young trainer, only to be interrupted by (villain) and his attempt to take over the region in order to maintain control of the black market of what would become the Shadow Pokémon business. Basically the research on Shadow Pokémon is being done but it is not yet a public project, only known to the core researchers and whomever this villain is going to be -- and he thinks it'll be a widespread, profitable market.

This plot allows the events of ORAS to make sense with just a little dialogue changing, and perhaps the motive to capture Groupon/Kyogre can be portrayed as the desire for a first test subject, so to speak.

 

[rainparadesamurai]

Please send nintendo a blackmail email to fully develop/release this hack if they don't make an official colosseum/xd sequel/prequel/new game (although it's been hinted with the recent reveal of Shadow Mewtwo).

 

[Swiftloke]

This is a prequel to Colosseum. Therefore Cipher had not yet invented Shadow Pokémon, canonically (though I have retconned that at this time they are researching it). However this also helps me physically since yes, I don't have the skill to make an entire game mechanic.

Instead, it'll focus on Wes' attempt to become a Pokémon champion just like any other young trainer, only to be interrupted by (villain) and his attempt to take over the region in order to maintain control of the black market of what would become the Shadow Pokémon business. Basically the research on Shadow Pokémon is being done but it is not yet a public project, only known to the core researchers and whomever this villain is going to be -- and he thinks it'll be a widespread, profitable market.

This plot allows the events of ORAS to make sense with just a little dialogue changing, and perhaps the motive to capture Groupon/Kyogre can be portrayed as the desire for a first test subject, so to speak.

Nice!

 

[LeifEricson]

I've updated the main post with some progress on the implementation of Shadow Pokemon.