Pokémon on Gameboid

Remember when you used to obsessively play Pokémon on Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance? Back when you had all the time in the world to just sit in your rocking chair and hatch the same egg a hundred times until you got a Pokémon with high IVs? Yup, those were good times.

Then came a glorious thing called the Internet, and suddenly we all had free emulators and roms. But most importantly, we got access to the information and tools to make our Pokémon stronger.

When I first learnt about IVs and EVs, I had just begun playing Pokémon Emerald. It was a difficult process to legitimately achieve a dream team of stat superior Pokémon. You needed to spend long hours breeding, hatching eggs, planning out natures and EV spreads, training, scribbling EV points down on bits of paper after each battle, and levelling up. Heaven forfend if you made a mistake somewhere along the line, because then you’d also have to spend hours watering berries to start all over again.

I managed to reach my goal in the end. It took at least two Pokémon Emerald game cartridges, 500 hours of clocked time and an immense amount of patience. Obviously, these hand-raised Pokémon are never leaving my generation three game cartridges. Here’s the cream of what I have to show for my efforts:

These days we’ve got fancy editing programs and flash cards to do all the hard work for us. I’m not against this, and I actually welcome anything that can make my life easier after all the time I spent raising Pokémon the natural way.

The major issue with bending the game coding to our will is that we are cheating. Personally, I see no problem with this facet since I have been raising Pokémon the legitimate way for years before I was introduced to modern code editors.
  
We used to need to go out and catch a box full of the same Pokémon for a chance at pulling one with high IVs. Even with wild encounter codes, there was no guarantee of netting a Pokémon worth EV training.

One thing to be concerned about is the fact that in-game Pokémon no longer have a sense of value or uniqueness. There are programs and in-game elements which can be exploited and used to clone, alter and perfect everything about them. Rare, IV high and shiny Pokémon now have very little worth since code editing is so common.

I don’t play Pokémon competitively because it forces and limits players to using only a few variations. I much prefer to have the freedom in choosing my own Natures, movesets and stat spreads without limitation. And sometimes, it can be fun to play Arceus by giving a Magikarp Spacial Rend.

I say there’s no harm in messing with nature if you’re limiting the code editing to just your cartridge or immediate friends. And with this nifty new HTC Desire S, I can play Pokémon games anywhere!

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Putting Codes on your Gameboid version of Pokémon

It doesn’t seem like you can add cheats directly onto your Pokémon game through Gameboid. But fear not, it can be done easily enough. :)

You will need:

- Gameboid

- Pokémon Rom

- BIOS  (If required)

- List of Codes you want to use

- VisualBoy Emulator

- Ciro's Pokemon Maker

- Stat Calculator (Optional)

1. Research

Gather the codes that you want to use by scouring the internet. Copy and paste them all into a text document. Don't forget to note down in any conditions, such as 'press L to activate'.

2. Starting

Open the Pokémon rom with VisualBoy emulator on your computer. If you are starting a new game, and you want to get a nice Trainer ID number or a starter with high IVs without resorting to using cheat codes, use the Save States and then reload until you get something you like.

 

3. Testing

Start your game and test out all of your codes. Delete the ones that don’t work. Remember to save after each working code, just in case your game crashes from a bad code.

 

4. Creating

If you are creating your ideal Pokémon using Ciro’s Pokémon Maker, don’t forget to change the box and position of each new Pokémon, otherwise you will overwrite the existing Pokémon in the box slot every time.

Using the program is very simple. Just put in all your Pokémon details and generate the code. Copy the Anti-DMA code into the Gameshark section of VisualBoy, then copy the Pokemon code into the Code section.

If you are making a shiny Pokémon and you don’t know your Secret ID, find the code which reveals it. For Pokémon Emerald, this Secret ID code is:

6028CDAE 99993B05

FA034D9B 4D8B35A9

Note: There is no working universal Max IV code for Pokémon Emerald. It is strongly advised that you use Ciro’s Pokémon Maker to generate your high IV values.

5. Importing

Once you are happy with your game, save it on VisualBoy. Copy the .sav file and set it aside. Open the Pokémon rom on Gameboid and save the game to create a .sav file. Copy the name of the .sav file from your phone and rename your VisualBoy save file to that name. Cut out your renamed VisualBoy .sav and replace the existing save on your phone with it.

You may see a warning alerting you that the .sav sizes are different when you try to replace your old save file. The save file should be recognised and work anyway, so go ahead and replace it.

6. Backup

It’s probably a good idea to back up your save files in case something goes wrong.

 

7. Enjoy your awesome game. :>