ROM Hack Pokemon Shuffle Preservation Mod v1.1

SaltedNeos said:

Since Pokemon Shuffle 3DS is a primarily offline game which still requires going online once a day to obtain check in
rewards, and more importantly obtain a few of the Megas in the game, I have made a mod which both moves all files in the Extra Data to the base game, for those of you who haven't downloaded the extra data before they shut off the servers, and for everyone, makes the Megas which were only obtainable through the competition events act like boss stages instead of competition stages. These boss stages give the proper mega stone, a level up if you already had the stone, but regardless also give a jewel and 25 hearts. Additionally, Drop Rate Increase has been ported from Mobile, Galvantula (and temporarily Exploud) have been removed from the Survival Mode pool, the Vivillon sprite bug and the Shiny Genesect special enemy graphics bug have been patched.

You will need a Hex editor such as HxD, Flips (or presumably other patching software, flips is the one I usually use), and a decrypted copy of the Pokemon Shuffle.cia file (either dump it yourself, or go through some other means)

Spoiler: For those of you with existing save data

Installation is slightly more complicated then I'd like, but the first thing to do is back up your save file and extra data using either checkpoint or preferably JKSV, as I've seen installing a new .cia over the base game delete the save data, and you'll need to do a hex edit to your save file anyways if you want to keep it. Also back up your extra data, because you will be deleting it in order for the mod to run properly, and if you want to return to vanilla, you will need access to the extra data.

To delete the extra data after backing it up go into your system settings. Once there, go to Data Management, click 3DS, then Extra Data. You'll want to locate Pokemon Shuffle's Extra Data and delete it. What this does is prevents the extra data files from overwriting the modded files in the base game, as extra data files have some sort of verification on them that prevents me from just modding those. All relevant data from the extra data has been ported over to the mod.

Unfortunately, because I've not figured out a way to deal with code edits for 3DS games that doesn't intimidate me, there's instead a small hex edit to any existing save files which have had specials unlocked. Once you have a back up of your save file, put your SD card into your PC, make a copy of the folder the back up is in, put it somewhere safe, and then drag the one you'll be using for the preservation mod into HxD or your hex editor of choice. Basically, these values that are highlighted in the save data need to be changed to 00 00. Once you're done that, save the edits and delete the .bak file it created.

View attachment 446019

Spoiler: For those who DON'T have a save file already or don't care about theirs and want to reset

If you don't have a save file or want a fresh start and are just gonna delete yours, you'll instead be using the save file included with the mod as this one already has specials unlocked, which unfortunately doesn't happen naturally in the game. However, if you don't have a save file, you instead will want to ensure that you nullify the offset of your console through the Luma menu, as the save file will only have specials unlocked if played on a console with an offset of 0. Hopefully in the future, I want to instead make the game just always have specials available without having to worry about this.

Regardless of if you have save data or not, you'll want to patch your .cia file using Flips or whatever patching software you're using. Once you've got it downloaded its pretty easy to patch the file, you just click apply patch and follow the instructions. You have the option to either put the patched .cia file onto your SD card to be installed through FBI, or if you'd prefer to use layeredFS, you can extract the files and put the A4700000, B6680000, and all files which begin with F05 into the folder used for layeredfs. These are the only files changed in this patch, there should be 9 files which begin with F05.

Once this is all done, you should have the game load as version 1.5.0 as opposed to the usual 1.5.11, and upon clicking start, you should be getting a "Attention this game isn't up to date" message, however Special stages should be unlocked. If this is what you see, you're all good to go, the mod is working properly. For anyone using the included save file, Specials can act pretty glitchy before stage 11, or at least stage 6, so I'd suggest not playing them until you've progressed at least that far into the game.

If there are any problems, concerns, or bugs, please reach out so I can either patch them if needed or try to help with anything else related to the mod.

Special Thanks to the people who were involved in figuring out how Shuffle's files worked and datamined the game, for enabling me to create this mod, and to any other member of the community who has contributed anything for the game, you're all awesome!

EDIT: 1.2 is now available, replacing 1.1 on this post, there is also now an alternate patch which addresses SOME but not all of the versions floating around, please make sure your .cia is around 91000kb as the smaller ones floating around will not work for the moment. And make sure that your decrypted .cia file is actually output as a .cia file.

Changelog:
- Victini has RML drops after being caught, but can no longer use jewels to get more attempts, to make up for the now missing comp RMLs until I find a better solution.

- Galvantula Survival Mode patch is fixed and Exploud returns to Survival Mode.

KNOWN BUG:
- Beating a comp boss stage with 99 hearts doesn't give you the stage rewards and then bugs out as if its already given them to you.
- Stages 1-11 give the wrong initial clear rewards, this will be fixed next update.
- Nihilego does not give 5 Exp Booster Ls when defeated as its supposed to.

Click to expand...

OverlordEclipse said:

Im not very good at hex editing myself.

Click to expand...

SaltedNeos said:

Since Pokemon Shuffle 3DS is a primarily offline game which still requires going online once a day to obtain check in
rewards, and more importantly obtain a few of the Megas in the game, I have made a mod which both moves all files in the Extra Data to the base game, for those of you who haven't downloaded the extra data before they shut off the servers, and for everyone, makes the Megas which were only obtainable through the competition events act like boss stages instead of competition stages. These boss stages give the proper mega stone, a level up if you already had the stone, but regardless also give a jewel and 25 hearts. Additionally, Drop Rate Increase has been ported from Mobile, Galvantula (and temporarily Exploud) have been removed from the Survival Mode pool, the Vivillon sprite bug and the Shiny Genesect special enemy graphics bug have been patched.

You will need a Hex editor such as HxD, Flips (or presumably other patching software, flips is the one I usually use), and a decrypted copy of the Pokemon Shuffle.cia file (either dump it yourself, or go through some other means)

Spoiler: For those of you with existing save data

Installation is slightly more complicated then I'd like, but the first thing to do is back up your save file and extra data using either checkpoint or preferably JKSV, as I've seen installing a new .cia over the base game delete the save data, and you'll need to do a hex edit to your save file anyways if you want to keep it. Also back up your extra data, because you will be deleting it in order for the mod to run properly, and if you want to return to vanilla, you will need access to the extra data.

To delete the extra data after backing it up go into your system settings. Once there, go to Data Management, click 3DS, then Extra Data. You'll want to locate Pokemon Shuffle's Extra Data and delete it. What this does is prevents the extra data files from overwriting the modded files in the base game, as extra data files have some sort of verification on them that prevents me from just modding those. All relevant data from the extra data has been ported over to the mod.

Unfortunately, because I've not figured out a way to deal with code edits for 3DS games that doesn't intimidate me, there's instead a small hex edit to any existing save files which have had specials unlocked. Once you have a back up of your save file, put your SD card into your PC, make a copy of the folder the back up is in, put it somewhere safe, and then drag the one you'll be using for the preservation mod into HxD or your hex editor of choice. Basically, these values that are highlighted in the save data need to be changed to 00 00. Once you're done that, save the edits and delete the .bak file it created.

View attachment 446019

Spoiler: For those who DON'T have a save file already or don't care about theirs and want to reset

If you don't have a save file or want a fresh start and are just gonna delete yours, you'll instead be using the save file included with the mod as this one already has specials unlocked, which unfortunately doesn't happen naturally in the game. However, if you don't have a save file, you instead will want to ensure that you nullify the offset of your console through the Luma menu, as the save file will only have specials unlocked if played on a console with an offset of 0. Hopefully in the future, I want to instead make the game just always have specials available without having to worry about this.

Regardless of if you have save data or not, you'll want to patch your .cia file using Flips or whatever patching software you're using. Once you've got it downloaded its pretty easy to patch the file, you just click apply patch and follow the instructions. You have the option to either put the patched .cia file onto your SD card to be installed through FBI, or if you'd prefer to use layeredFS, you can extract the files and put the A4700000, B6680000, and all files which begin with F05 into the folder used for layeredfs. These are the only files changed in this patch, there should be 9 files which begin with F05.

Once this is all done, you should have the game load as version 1.5.0 as opposed to the usual 1.5.11, and upon clicking start, you should be getting a "Attention this game isn't up to date" message, however Special stages should be unlocked. If this is what you see, you're all good to go, the mod is working properly. For anyone using the included save file, Specials can act pretty glitchy before stage 11, or at least stage 6, so I'd suggest not playing them until you've progressed at least that far into the game.

If there are any problems, concerns, or bugs, please reach out so I can either patch them if needed or try to help with anything else related to the mod.

Special Thanks to the people who were involved in figuring out how Shuffle's files worked and datamined the game, for enabling me to create this mod, and to any other member of the community who has contributed anything for the game, you're all awesome!

EDIT: 1.2 is now available, replacing 1.1 on this post, there is also now an alternate patch which addresses SOME but not all of the versions floating around, please make sure your .cia is around 91000kb as the smaller ones floating around will not work for the moment. And make sure that your decrypted .cia file is actually output as a .cia file.

Changelog:
- Victini has RML drops after being caught, but can no longer use jewels to get more attempts, to make up for the now missing comp RMLs until I find a better solution.

- Galvantula Survival Mode patch is fixed and Exploud returns to Survival Mode.

KNOWN BUG:
- Beating a comp boss stage with 99 hearts doesn't give you the stage rewards and then bugs out as if its already given them to you.
- Stages 1-11 give the wrong initial clear rewards, this will be fixed next update.
- Nihilego does not give 5 Exp Booster Ls when defeated as its supposed to.

Click to expand...

MikeyLORR said:

At the risk of sounding dumb, where do I put my save data after installing the patched CIA? I read through the replies and couldn't find anything.

Click to expand...

OverlordEclipse said:

This is a cool idea wish that it was a more contained solution rather than hex editing. Im not very good at hex editing myself.

Click to expand...

Junior1857548 said:

I found a way to do it only using FBI, GM9, flips, Luma, and JKSM. This guide is only for those who don't have any save data or want to start over. Don't worry you don't have to change numbers with HxD like other poor souls did.

First get a cia copy of Pokémon Shuffle from the Hshop to install into your 3ds using FBI. (make sure you don't have any extra data in Data Management)

Then power off your 3ds and go into GM9 to dump it by pressing (Home), select "Title Manager", select "[A:] SD CARD", select Pokémon Shuffle, select "Manage Title..", and select "Build CIA (standard)". (should save in /gm9/out folder)

Next put the SD card into your computer use flips to patch it with the bps file and save it into the cias folder. (delete the previous dump cia from /gm9/out since its not needed anymore)
For those confused where the cias folder is, you create it yourself right next to the other files, it should not be inside another folder.

Back on the 3ds delete the first Pokémon Shuffle with Data Management and then install the new one with FBI.

Then open Pokémon Shuffle and it should be version 1.5.0 (you can check on the top right corner of the top screen when you play the game) and press Home to exit the game. (don't delete the extra data it creates as its need for the next step)

Then on JKSM go to Titles, and select Pokémon Shuffle, select New, and name it whatever you want and exit JKSM.

Then put the SD back into your computer (again) and put the savedata.bin into the /JKSM/Saves/Pokémon Shuffle/"file you named". (the bin file might already be in there but check to make sure. I didn't wanna take any chance and replaced it with the one that came with the zip file)

Then on your 3ds go to the Rosaline menu by pressing left shoulder, down d-pad, and select at the same time. Then go to "Miscellaneous options" and select "Nullify user time offset". Then go back to Rosalina Menu and select "Power off/reboot" and press Y to reboot.

Then go into JKSM, select Titles, select Pokémon Shuffle, select Save Data, select your save file by pressing Y to restore it, and finally select yes.

And you should be good to go, just complete the first 11 stages to unlock the Expert stages, before trying the Special stages. Since the creator of the mod said they can be buggy.

If it helps I tested the method multiple times and the game launches with the special stages and they work fine after completing the tutorial stages.

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OverlordEclipse said:

I followed the installation instructions and its on 1.5.0 but the specoal stages arent unlocked. Do you know of anything that would cause it to do this?

Click to expand...

Junior1857548 said:

Is this your existing save data you want to keep or the save data included in the mod?

Post automatically merged: Mar 22, 2026

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