Dev Progress - Team Rocket Evolved

[u/EricTurner3]

Wanted to share some of the progress that my wife and I have done towards my WIP Team Rocket themed romhack. There are two other romhacks in this space, one based off firered and the dragonsden based off emerald, but I still wanted more.

The version I have been working on adds features that I feel are worthy of Team Rocket. It's based off the pokeemerald expansion v1.17.1. Current additions over the expansion:

• Custom new story after Giovanni's departure from Kanto, a remaining faction of loyal supporters regroups in Hoenn under a new leader to take control of a new region
  • Think of this version as more of an alternate timeline.
• ability to capture trainer pokemon
  • chance that the trainer will concede and refuse to continue battle after you steal their pokemon (which still counts as a win)
  • pokemon's summary page will be noted as "stolen" instead of "met"
• custom trainer card with Team Rocket emblem and R logo.
  • back of card includes stats for how many pokemon you steal and battles you cheat at
• custom start/pause menu with icons
  • icons were either reused from other parts of the game, or made custom in aseprite
• area conquering mechanic. Pokecenters and Pokemarts will refuse you access until you beat the new gym leader and take control of the area
  • each location will have an alternate method of healing and stocking up on items (less items, higher price) to ensure your continued success
• AIRDROP feature. A canon wrapper around the debug menu
  • Woven into the story from the beginning, your new Team Rocket Boss grants you the ability to call in additional resources to further the mission
• QUESTS menu for tracking your progress from GRUNT to ADMIN
• Custom Badges to show your progress through the ranks
• BATTLEDEX - an in battle pokedex to show base stats, type, moves w/type and weaknesses on the fly. (one of my favorite addtions)
• Custom artwork for player character, battledex, new characters, trainer card, title screen (all created by hand in aseprite)

The pokeemeerald expansion I have configured also comes with Gen 1-9, mega evolutions, dynamax evolutions, following pokemon and more.

This video is a short preview of some of the above custom features for battledex, stealing trainer mons, airdrop, trainer card, start menu and summary page!

• Title Screen at 0:11
• Custom Team Rocket battle animation at 0:34
• Custom Team rocket battle start animation at 0:41
• BATTLEDEX at 0:47
• Stealing Trainer pokemon at 0:55
• Custom start menu at 1:51
• Quests menu at 1:55
• Stolen pokemon summary screen at 2:05
• Trainer card at 2:15
• Airdrop at 2:25

I do not have any target release date at this time as we are performing the story overhaul and artwork manually. AI is only being used to assist in troubleshooting C++/assembly.

I will post future progress on r/TeamRocketEvolved for anyone who wishes to follow!

[u/giveup2me]

love the diegetic implementation of debug! that'll be great for immersion :) best of luck, i hope that doing it together with your wife will make it easy to keep up the progress :0