A mod for Pokémon Red Version
Started in 2018 by a secret cabal of ancient Pokemon nerds, Shin Pokemon is an enhancement ROM hack of Pokemon Red & Blue that aims to be the ultimate remaster fans never got. It is a mostly-vanilla hack that focuses on fixing game engine bugs and oversights from the original game. Additionally, trainer AI routines are improved and multiple quality-of-life enhancements have been added. It also acts as a kind of research-informed speculative work that interprets what the 2016 Nintendo Virtual Console re-release of Gen-1 Pokemon could have been. It is the image of a glitch-free experience with player-friendly goodies and enhancements common to other modern remasterings.
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This is it. This is the one.
Pokemon romhacks are omnipresent. There are at least 150 on Backloggd and over 1000 on PokeHarbor. Most often, fangames attempt huge changes to their base games, sometimes creating an entirely new adventure, but the three versions of Shin Pokemon are much more restrained, focusing instead on surgical alterations to Gen I that largely maintain the original experience as opposed to supplanting it.
This has been attempted before, most notably with Pokemon Red++, but even that sought to modernize Gen I. There's obviously nothing wrong with that, but Shin Pokemon isn't interested in adding abilities, held items, or new evolutions. Rather, it's all about making the definitive Gen I experience.
The full list of changes can be found here, so I'm just going to go over the major selling points. A toggleable Hard Mode means the trainers actually make intelligent decisions now. Unless you overlevel, you can't just spam attacks and expect to win. Speaking of overlevelling, there are fantastic options that allow customization of your game, including auto-trainer level scaling, trainer team randomization (which does not affect key battles such as gym leaders), and wild encounter randomization. What's key about this is that it's not your standard randomizer, you're not going to run into a Mew on Route 2. Instead, Pokemon are swapped with a comparable counterpart with similar stats and evolution status. For example, between Pallet Town and Viridian City, the Pidgeys and Rattatas in my game were replaced with Vulpixes and Mankeys. The randomization is consistent, tied to your save file so it's not constantly shuffling. This kind of replacement creates an engaging remix of Gen I while still feeling more like an official release than a wacky hack. Now this does mean that sometimes you'll fish up a Charmander with a Super Rod, but all in all I thought it was very well-implemented.
The Select button gets a lot more to do here, showing an extra options menu (where you can turn Hard mode, better trainer AI, obedience level caps, and Nuzlocke mode on and off), swapping between a second inventory (THIS IS HUGE!!), auto-selecting HM moves, and, when combined with another button like a hotkey), using your bike or rod without requiring any menu navigation. You can also hold B to run, doubling your speed, but this also works while surfing AND while biking! This is arguably my favorite improvement, as it's become second nature to increase the speed of Pokemon games ever since the Dodrio Mode in Pokemon Stadium's Game Boy Tower. What I always disliked about that, however, was mangling the god-tier OST. With the ability to run and to bike at 2x speed, I felt no need to rush any more than that. This is the ideal speed for Gen I, they absolutely nailed it.
Moves get a little bit of a makeover here, but nothing crazy. The most critical change here is that outside of a Pokemon's 4 move slots, a fifth "Field Move" slot has been created, allowing a Pokemon to learn a single HM for overworld use only. I LOVE not having to sacrifice an attack slot for Cut, this is an incredible inclusion. Beyond that, moves in-battle are more repaired than revised. Focus Energy and Rage actually do what they're supposed to, multi-turn attacks like Wrap and Fire Spin telegraph the final turn and allow switching out in order to avoid infinite trapping, though the game also allows running from a trainer battle (counts as blacking out) if you legitimately get stuck.
There are a couple of new features added, but they're tastefully done and don't drastically affect the original experience. If you're interested, I'd highly recommend reading through the full breakdown of alterations and giving the game a shot. This is the most I've enjoyed Gen I since the Game Boy days, and it deserves all the attention and praise it can get.
Pokemon romhacks are omnipresent. There are at least 150 on Backloggd and over 1000 on PokeHarbor. Most often, fangames attempt huge changes to their base games, sometimes creating an entirely new adventure, but the three versions of Shin Pokemon are much more restrained, focusing instead on surgical alterations to Gen I that largely maintain the original experience as opposed to supplanting it.
This has been attempted before, most notably with Pokemon Red++, but even that sought to modernize Gen I. There's obviously nothing wrong with that, but Shin Pokemon isn't interested in adding abilities, held items, or new evolutions. Rather, it's all about making the definitive Gen I experience.
The full list of changes can be found here, so I'm just going to go over the major selling points. A toggleable Hard Mode means the trainers actually make intelligent decisions now. Unless you overlevel, you can't just spam attacks and expect to win. Speaking of overlevelling, there are fantastic options that allow customization of your game, including auto-trainer level scaling, trainer team randomization (which does not affect key battles such as gym leaders), and wild encounter randomization. What's key about this is that it's not your standard randomizer, you're not going to run into a Mew on Route 2. Instead, Pokemon are swapped with a comparable counterpart with similar stats and evolution status. For example, between Pallet Town and Viridian City, the Pidgeys and Rattatas in my game were replaced with Vulpixes and Mankeys. The randomization is consistent, tied to your save file so it's not constantly shuffling. This kind of replacement creates an engaging remix of Gen I while still feeling more like an official release than a wacky hack. Now this does mean that sometimes you'll fish up a Charmander with a Super Rod, but all in all I thought it was very well-implemented.
The Select button gets a lot more to do here, showing an extra options menu (where you can turn Hard mode, better trainer AI, obedience level caps, and Nuzlocke mode on and off), swapping between a second inventory (THIS IS HUGE!!), auto-selecting HM moves, and, when combined with another button like a hotkey), using your bike or rod without requiring any menu navigation. You can also hold B to run, doubling your speed, but this also works while surfing AND while biking! This is arguably my favorite improvement, as it's become second nature to increase the speed of Pokemon games ever since the Dodrio Mode in Pokemon Stadium's Game Boy Tower. What I always disliked about that, however, was mangling the god-tier OST. With the ability to run and to bike at 2x speed, I felt no need to rush any more than that. This is the ideal speed for Gen I, they absolutely nailed it.
Moves get a little bit of a makeover here, but nothing crazy. The most critical change here is that outside of a Pokemon's 4 move slots, a fifth "Field Move" slot has been created, allowing a Pokemon to learn a single HM for overworld use only. I LOVE not having to sacrifice an attack slot for Cut, this is an incredible inclusion. Beyond that, moves in-battle are more repaired than revised. Focus Energy and Rage actually do what they're supposed to, multi-turn attacks like Wrap and Fire Spin telegraph the final turn and allow switching out in order to avoid infinite trapping, though the game also allows running from a trainer battle (counts as blacking out) if you legitimately get stuck.
There are a couple of new features added, but they're tastefully done and don't drastically affect the original experience. If you're interested, I'd highly recommend reading through the full breakdown of alterations and giving the game a shot. This is the most I've enjoyed Gen I since the Game Boy days, and it deserves all the attention and praise it can get.