HOTW (Hack of the Week)

Pokemon Heart & Soul (GBA)

This week's featured hack is none other than Pokemon Heart & Soul by Lil Dill.

Have you ever wanted a Generation 2 experience but wrapped up all nice and cozy inside of Generation 3's engine?

Pokemon Heart & Soul is a recreation of Gold/Silver/Crystal built upon the Modern Emerald decompilation project by Restes and is developed by Lil Dill, Tixo Rebel, InfiniteBacon42, Exclsior, Phantonomy, DaniRainbow, Restes, Jozuno, Meara, Skeletonkey and leob0505.

What is Generation 2.5?

Generation 2.5 is a term I personally call Generation 3 recreations of G/S/C; as they're still the same games in design but usually feature updated mechanics. Games like Polished Crystal don't apply to this principal, and neither do any HGSS hacks. This is purely Generation 3 recreations only.

The History of Generation 2.5 Hacks

The ROMhacking scene has been around for about 22 years now, which is honestly crazy when you think about it; but during that time a lot of people have attempted their own spin on Johto in Gen 3. The most notable hack is Pokemon ShinyGold by zel 2.0 which came out around March of 2006, and would pave the way for bringing Generation 2 into a more modern engine. However, it shortly stopped getting updates and was ultimately left unfinished.

The hack would later be picked up in 2015; by developer AlexSanchez and renamed Pokemon ShinyGold Sigma and would feature Johto, Kanto, Hoenn and the Orange Archipelago. As of writing this article; this hack still recieves updates through Discord.

Inbetween, October 2010, SierraAffinity would release Pokemon CrystalDust which started off as a binary hack up until Beta 3 alpha, where it moved over to pokeemerald decomps. It won 2nd place in HOTY 2012, and voted for best mapping and scripting in 2013. The hack was praised for its faithful recreation to G/S/C rather than featuring on too many additions. This project would also see its end in 2020 when the developer announced retirement from ROMhacking. Another developer named Deokishisu would eventually take over, but the project still remains in limbo to this day.

Other honorable mentions include: Pokemon Crystal Advance by Kertra and its newer counterpart Pokemon Crystal Advance Redux by Arnie, Pokemon GS Chronicles by Ruki Studios, and probably some others that I am forgetting off the top of my head. Shout out to all the Generation 2.5 hacks.

What makes Heart & Soul unique?

"Heart and Soul to me is the best way of reliving the wonder and magic of Johto and the Gen 2 games in a polished and improved experience. It does make me feel things I felt as a kid playing Pokémon Silver." - Mayu

Heart & Soul follow a modern design philosphy, stay true to the source material but maintain replayability through tasteful additions. Even though hacks of previous times have attempted the same thing, Heart & Soul has so much heart and soul put into it, that when you're playing you cannot help but notice the small things like the overworld background Pokemon showing what you can catch on that route; or the dynamic surfing sprites that literally change depending on what Pokemon is using Surf.

It's the "What if Gamefreak made this instead of HGSS?" mindset that really brings out the charm, from the close but unique FLRG like visuals; and the heaps of other beautiful spritework that really make you feel like you're playing an official game that came out 2004-2005.

"Heart and Soul is the Johto you imagined as a kid brought to life by some of romhacking's finest. Starting as a Crystal remake for the third generation of Pokemon, it grew to be an amazing blend of Crystal, the DS releases of HeartGold and Soul Silver, and obvious passion and love for the pokemon world. What sets Heart and Soul apart from other romhacks is how alive and full of pokemon the world is while having some of the best customization settings available in the scene. Play through your childhood imagination with the default settings or go on endlessly replayable and new adventures with the randomizer and difficulty modifications." -DaniRainbow

"Johto Remakes if they were in Gen 3 (with modern QoL changes/additions)" - JoseTheAlolachu

At the time of writing, the game currently features a carefully curated 386+ Pokemon (excluding the Regis, and Jirachi), and they do feature Pokemon from Generation 4 such as Yanmega, Glaceon, etc. It brings Fairy Type into the mix, something that wasn't even a thing in G/S/C nor HG/SS, as well as a toggleable Physical/Special split; amongst other major mechanical changes.

The Future of Heart & Soul

At the time of writing this article, Heart & Soul are on it's way towards recieving its long awaited 2.0 update; which moves the hack away from using Modern Emerald as a base, and migrating into pokeemerald-expansion. The release is expected within the next one to two weeks.

The move to the Expansion means that Heart & Soul will be able to be used as a base for future ROMhacking endeavors.

Closing Remarks

"The best modern johto experience!!" -jpx95

I have beaten Heart & Soul once during 1.0/1.1 with a team consisting of: Pupitar, Feraligatr, Pidgeot, Houndoom, Heracross, and Miltank; and let me tell you, this team has been engraved in my head since I cleared the E4.

Miltank becomes an absolute beast with its Speed when you give it access to Play Rough; allowing easy sweeping of Lance. The Pidgeot build was absolutely bonkers and will forever remain one of the most unique movepools I've ever used for the Gen 1 bird; Rollout is absurdly fun to use with a flying bird. Unfortunately during my time of play, Houndoom's movepool was a wet noodle but later updates have improved upon the movepool. Obviously Heracross OP. Feraligatr too.

Do I recommend Pokemon Heart & Soul? Absolutely. 1.2.1 is an absolute blast to play; and with playtesting of 2.0 going smooth, you can expect 2.0 to knock your socks off even harder.

Also, Pupitar ftw.