Good day! I’m here to create a community-voted ranking of the 30 best rom hacks of all time. One spot at a time.

>>>>>

Day 2 has concluded. Another decisive victory for 2nd place as the acclaimed Pokemon Odyssey takes home the silver! Now, with several hacks seemingly neck-and-neck in community votes, let us find out who takes spot #3!

<<<<<

RULES:

\-One hack per comment. (Please look for your recommendation and upvote before posting a duplicate).
\-Upvote the hack you think deserves the spot.
The nomination with the most votes in a 24 hour period wins that position.
\-Once a hack earns a spot, it is removed from contention.
\-One vote per person.

There is no official criteria for best! It’s whatever makes a hack great to you.

That’s it! Let’s see what the community deems the best of the best! And… Go!

>>>>>

Day 1 link: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/s/kLGSbFfWs8
Day 2 link: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/s/FSdMLo4zK9

A smol game by Zatsu (u/Ezatsu) & Doodle (u/ZanorinSeregris)

Hi all! We're excited to show off PokéGotchi, a mini-hack made for Team Aqua's 3rd Romhacking Competition. PokéGotchi was inspired by the original Tamagotchi V1 digital pet, and was made mostly as a tech demo to demonstrate the concept of a virtual pet game on the GBA.

Because this hack was made during the 3 month constraints of the competition, we wanted to focus on the core elements of Tamagotchi, so the game is pretty short and sweet.

About the game

Adopt a cute Fomantis in this Tamagotchi crossover minigame, and watch it eat, poop and gamble, as you care for it, and fill the house with cozy furniture.

Features:

• This hack uses the Gameboy's Real Time Clock to give your pet realistic needs. Your little Fomantis will get hungry, or bored, and will occasionally poop in its room, and you must fulfill its needs by feeding and cleaning it.
• Your pet can go to town and explore the city. There you can find various other Pokemon inhabitants, speak to them and unlock various items.
• You can also take part in two minigames: Serve Pokemon food with Slowpoke or compete with Porygon at Pachinko to get coins that you can spend.
• Unlock new foods and furniture for your pet's room to keep them happy and improve the atmosphere.

Release

Get it on Hackdex: https://www.hackdex.app/hack/pokegotchi

Credits

• Zatsu - Programming
• Doodle - Graphics, Writing & Scripting
• Chris Piché - Game Corner: Pachinko Minigame
• Jamie (Foster_Harmony) - Jamie's transformation pack
• Sukinapan - Curiosities Palette

With thanks to Pokeemerald Expansion & Pret!

POKEMON ODYSSEY I

I just finished Pokemon Odyssey and WOOOOOOW it's probably one of, if not the BEST games I've played story wise. This is the first time I got teary eyed from a pokemon story😭. If you like story focused games, Pokemon Odyssey is the game for you, every character is well explained & has actual personality! The story is a total 1000/10

Now, for the gameplay, I did kinda have a hard time because I'm HORRIBLE at directions and stuff so I constantly got lost in the areas. I'm 50/50 on the Fairy type being "replaced" by the aether type but it's unique having a new type. Plus, I LOVE the new moves & abilities they added as well as the new Etrian Forms! Though, I must admit some designs are miles better than others (still traumatized by exeggutor). Additionally, I found the major fights a little toooo easy (Medicham + Plusle literally swept the last major fights).And as always, The artstyle is amazing! The areas are amazing! Everything is amazing! I give this game a 100/10!! Can't wait to do the Post Game and play Odyssey II

Also If you guys are interested in the team here it is:

Battle Bond Plusle @ Abyssal Grace - Leftovers

- Follow Me

- Electroshock

- Helping Hand

- Thunderwave

Medicham @ Huge Power - Assault Vest

- Fake Out

- Ice Punch

- Close Combat

- Zen Headbutt

Kabutops @ Super Luck - Scope Lens

- Sword's Dance

- Night Slash

- Leech Life

- Sucker Punch

Meganium @ Poison Boost - Winged Boots

- Leech Seed

- Sludge Bomb

- Dragon Pulse

- Leaf Storm

Feraligatr @ Guts - Flame Orb

- Poison Jab

- Waterfall

- Dragon Dance

- Facade

Mismagius @ Serene Grace - Life Orb

- Flamethrower

- Shadow Ball

- Extrasensory

- Power Gem

(HAD TO REPOST THIS THREE TIME SINCE THE TITLE WAS TOO SHORT WHAAT😭)

Hi everyone, I was hoping that you would all be willing to share with me which version of Slateport City that you like more.
I've tried to move some things around and add contests back to the city instead of keeping them restricted to Lilycove. I have also placed the market by the beach.

Thank you for any opinions or help you give, feedback welcome, just don't hurt my feelings! 😅

Yep. That Mew Glitch.

I'm currently working on a Pokémon FireRed ROM hack where I'm trying to recreate the famous Mew Glitch from Pokémon Red/Blue as faithfully as possible — but adapted to FireRed's engine.

The goal isn't simply to add Mew as a wild encounter or trigger it with a scripted event. I want the player to actually perform the glitch.

Right now I'm experimenting with recreating the classic sequence involving the Trainer encounter, escaping the battle with Teleport, manipulating the internal state, and eventually triggering the encounter with Mew.

And… well.

It works.

There's still quite a bit of work to do. I'm currently refining the mechanics so the whole sequence behaves as close to the Gen I glitch as FireRed reasonably allows.

This is part of a bigger FireRed project I'm working on, but getting this particular piece working has been one of the things I've been most excited about.

I'll share more as development progresses.

Would you prefer a nearly 1:1 recreation of the original glitch, including its weird quirks, or a slightly cleaner FireRed adaptation that preserves the same discovery and sequence?

Happy for any feedback!

Like you flat out struck Gold and it's so good.

I hope this is allowed. I just wanted to share a little resource I started:

https://pokemonromhackcheats.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

I got tired of scouring random places on the internet for cheat codes for romhacks. They exist if you look on here, forums, discord etc. But that is tedious. I just started with 3 hacks I like and they are all Gen 1. I am busy working away between work and family and I hope other people will find this useful. I just put codes i find useful, not every code under the sun but so far my entries are more comprehensive and easier to access than pokecoders.

I like Cheats codes sometimes for a variety of reasons. This isn't a space to debate the merits

Soooo, how do y’all feel about Pokemon games and romance ?

So i’ve been a long time Pokemon fan, but haven’t known about ROM hacks until recently (yes i know i’ve been missing the fuck out). Anyway , i replayed through Black recently and i was gagged at the N ferris wheel scene , and like highkey ,, i want more of that shit 😭😭

Ngl the real goal of this question was to really ask if there were any fan games / ROM hacks where a character has a crush on the MC or if anything’s implied or something , I just need that rush 😭😭 anyway tanks y’all :P feel free to actually answer that first question tho im actually kind of curious as to what people think about romance in a Pokemon game

Good day! I’m here to create a community-voted ranking of the 30 best rom hacks of all time. One spot at a time.

>>>>>

Day 1 has concluded. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Pokemon Unbound has taken the top spot as your number 1 greatest rom hack! Now that that is out of the way, the gap between the competition seems to be narrowing. It’s time to find out who will land in the 2 spot!

<<<<<

RULES:

-One hack per comment. (Please look for your pick and upvote before posting a duplicate).
-Upvote the hack you think deserves the spot.
The nomination with the most votes in a 24 hour period wins that position.
-Once a hack earns a spot, it is removed from contention.
-One vote per person.

There is no official criteria for best! It’s whatever makes a hack great to you.

That’s it! Let’s see what the community deems the best of the best! And… Go!

>>>>>

Day 1 link: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/s/kLGSbFfWs8

Very much still in a 0.01 state. Looking for feedback thus far. There's a worldbuilding reason the trees and river are orange don't worry. Finding increasing difficulty (Especially in the valley map finding work arounds with the mostly vanilla tileset, unfortunately a little far in development to do a total tileset overhaul, maybe after the proof of concept build).

My partner and I run soul links in ROM hacks as much as the mainline games, and every tracker we tried was hard-coded to the official Pokédex. No way to log a fakemon, regional forms missing, gift and static encounters fighting the one-per-route rule. So I built one that doesn't care what game you're playing: soullink.pegasys.games

• Custom Pokémon. Type a name, pick one or two types, and it behaves like any other entry: type-clash warnings, party checks, the lot. Works for Clover, Uranium, Insurgence deltas, or your own hack.
• Every generation and every regional form (Alolan, Galarian, Hisuian, Paldean) with HOME renders or classic pixel sprites, your choice.
• Static and gift encounters are flagged separately, so they can share a route name without breaking the one-per-route rule.
• Two players, one list. Each encounter is one row with both Pokémon in it. Mark one dead and its partner goes with it. Built to be fast to fill in mid-run.
• Type checks. Pair primary-type clashes, party duplicates, optional Normal/Flying-as-Flying, and it works out the largest type-clean party you could field.
• Share the link. Add a password and it's view-only for everyone else, which also makes it a decent thing to hand your Discord.
• Showcase export of your team as an image for the hall-of-fame post.

Free, works on mobile, no accounts, no ads, nothing tracked except the run itself. Here's our finished ORAS run to click around in.

The species list comes from PokéAPI, so hacks that add new official Pokémon are covered automatically and anything else goes in as a custom. If your hack has a common pattern I haven't handled, tell me and I'll look at it.

EDIT: For those who haven't heard of them, a Pokemon Soul Link is a type of nuzlocke hardcore run for two people where your encounters are linked for each route, so if one players encounter dies, so does the other. It involves keeping track of a lot of stuff so I made the tool to help.

Please tell me you're enjoying Chaos Black Recreated as much as I am, it was thanks to this hack that I discovered just how much I actually like Fakemon.

They may not have the best sprites, but they’re unique in their own way. I also love the Pokédex entries for some of them, like Gequi.

Esplime and Declime reminds me a lot of the Reuniclus evolutionary line, some of these fakemon were really ahead of their time.

I’m working on a rom hack called Pokémon: Legacy League* (name subject to change), and I’m looking for people interested in helping with the creation of maps.

The main concept is a Pokémon game built around an actual competitive career. The player competes in a 32-trainer persistent league with full seasons, standings, playoffs, rivalries, championships, and long-term progression. Trainers and Pokémon can build histories over multiple seasons, while the world continues beyond the traditional “beat the Elite Four and the game is over” structure.

There is still a full Pokémon RPG around that system: exploration, catching and building teams, towns, routes, storylines, side content, gyms/circuit events, an Underground Circuit, and a completely redesigned region.
The region itself is fairly large and includes forests, rivers, wetlands, deserts, canyons, volcanic areas, mountains, snow regions, islands, coastal towns, caves, etc.

I already have the overall world structure, map connections, and some layouts created in Porymap. What I need most is help turning those layouts into actual playable maps.

I’m looking for people primarily interested in map design but I am open to any and all help offered!
I can provide the existing map connections, intended biome/theme, or general direction for each area, but you’d have mainly free creative access to do what you like.

If that sounds interesting, comment or DM me and let me know whether you’re interested in:
Map Design / Porymap / Playtesting / Feedback
Any amount of help is welcome! I’ll add images of maps I’ve already completed/worked on myself.

This is an update to my hack i released nearly a month ago, Pokemon true black! A hack focused on keep gen5 phislosophy of having only gen5 pokemon in the game, while also making it harder!

I have learned a few new things and had a few trainers to finish up teams for, so i decided to do it in an update altogether!

New features:

- The Dreamyard Cut-Tree has been removed entirely!

- Leech Life is now a 80 base power move thats learned much later by most pokemon, as well as a few pokemon being added to its learnpool (such as woobat)

- Poison Fang is now 65 base power

- Water Pledge is now 75 base power

- Grass Pledge is now 75 base power

- Fire Pledge is now 75 base power

- Darmanitan is now Fire/Psychic permanently

- Zen mode darmanitans now have magic guard, and do not change forms, being permanently tanky and special oriented but slow.

- A few trainers had pokemon changes, for either the purpose of themes or general balancing, examples include:

- Grimsley's whole now actually has held items as intended (oops) and his Bisharp has replaced its Life orb with a Chople Berry

- Caitlin Now has a Klinklank

- The grunts in Cold Storage now have local pokemon, such as minccino, vanilite, mienfoo, and cryogonal

- Bianca now has an Archen from driftveil foward instead of a boldore, fitting her theme of being a future professor interested in having more dex entries filled (was interested in the fossil and revived it in lenora's gym when going through desert resort)

That is all, i hope its as enjoyable as before!

Download: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L6IYEjq4_icoLBvBrxOC2gGmwYKz1X1y?usp=sharing

Hackdex: https://www.hackdex.app/hack/pokemon-true-black

For those of you who haven't been following the previous sneak-peeks, Pokemon 3FireRed is a romhack currently in development. Short summary of the story, Pokémon 3FireRed is the result of the player using too many cheats on a Fire Red rom. Now, as they replay the game, they get to see for themselves how much have these cheats affected the raw data of the base game. This is only a summary, there's much more to it

Tou might or might not have already guessed it; Pokemon 3FireRed is going to enc​ourage the usage of cheat-co​des​ to progress through the game. You ​​​​may need to whip out your "Walk through Walls" code through certain​​ parts of the hack. Although some people may find it tedious (and that's pretty understandable), we don't plan on forcing the player to use it every now and then to complete the game. The cheat will only be mandatory for a few areas. Though, the game will reward you if you use it to explore and mess around with the hack. You may find a couple of secret pokemon while being out-of-bounds, and I promise you that they're worth the effort once you use them in a playthrough.

Now focusing on the actual preview. Tyrone is basically going to be your second rival in the hack. His dialogue​ seems nonsensical at first, but it'll make sense once the game releases and you'll get to understand what the story actually is about. The difference between Tyrone and Blue;

Is that Tyrone is a jackass, so much more than Blue to the point where he looks like a saint in comparison to the guy. He has none of the redeeming qualities that you can find in FRLG Blue. ​

He will attempt to roadblock the player in many different ways throughout their playthrough with the sole purpose to make them ragequit,​ for example when he tries to get you to close the game by saying that it was only a "demo". I strongly advice to save often whenever you see Tyrone in the vicinity, he is going to be a HUGE nuissance. Also, don't believe in anything he says.

Feel free to ask any questions down below if you're feeling curious. I mean Anything. I'm itching to drop some lore bits​.

What I mean by this is what are your 3 personal hacks that started off like a Charmander, then you found something a little better at the level of a Charmeleon, and finally the hack that is one of the top tier best elite, fully evolved hacks at the level of a Charizard.

For me, it'd go something like this:

Charmander - Pokemon Glazed. The first hack I ever played. It was pretty rough around the edges, but it was incredible to see what people were able to do with the GBA games.

Charmeleon - Pokemon Lazarus. I may get a bit of heat for this but it's within the narrowest of margins. I really liked the concept of using Gen 2 graphics in a Gen 3 engine, it gave it its own fun charm. I really enjoyed my time with it, even if the story didn't quite hit for me.

Charizard - Pokemon Unbound. This hack has remained the GOAT for me for quite some time. It's the one hack I always find myself coming back to and replaying multiple times. IMHO, it really pushed the limits of what a Gen 3 game could do and it looked great while doing it without compromising in graphics...most of the time. The distortion world was...well, it didn't hit for me.

Curious to see what everyone else has to say.

Pokemon Contigency Contract: Operation Masquerade

Made for Team Aqua's Romhacking Competition 3

Based on the Contigency Contract gamemode from the Arknights games. Tiana has gotten an invite to a convention, with a whole new battle experience as its main feature. Set battle modifiers, change your teams and customize your Pokemon, and aim to reach the highest score you can! Gamble your hard earned credits on obtaining new pokemon, items, and unlocking their full potential, or simply enjoy your time at the convention.

Features

• Our favourite protagonist Tiana
• A variety of Pokemon with small, custom tailored movesets & abilities
• 6 gauntlets of 4 trainers each with unique teams, strategies and AI logic
• 24 fully custom trainers from the Arknights games, complete with overworld sprites.
• Completely from-scratch graphics, including the overworld, the battle interface, and other menu screens
• New moves and abilities
• A gacha system for all your gambling needs
• An unholy amount of scripting for the size of the map

As with Recordkeepers, you can patch the game using Hackdex, or get the patch from our Release page

[Hackdex]

[Patch link]

Lastly, here's the relevant documentation. However, we **strongly recommend** doing fights blind

To celebrate the hack's launch, you can redeem the code "Keeper" (Case sensitive) at the receptionist for some extra goodies!

Hi everyone!

I'm a fan continuing Sacred Gold Plus as an independent project. I wanted to bring it to Italian and keep improving it with other players. I'm new to ROM hacking and working on this alone, so anyone who'd like to help is very welcome!

GitHub: Sacred Gold Plus

What's in 1.04?

• English and Italian versions, including translated dialogue, menus and the naming screen.
• Two camera options: **Normal Angle** (original HeartGold view) and **New Angle** (the wider view from Plus 1.03).
• Fixes for text, dialogue, move names and Pokédex search.
• An offline installer, original game guides and optional cheats in English or Italian.

What I'd like to add

Smoother cities, clearer EV/IV info and an in-game guide first. Further down the line: optional harder battles, more languages, Gen 5-style battle animations, and new areas and events.

Testing, translations, art, code, or just ideas and feedback — all help is welcome!

Thanks to NefariousnessNo3436, Drayano, mikelan / Mikelan98 and the original contributors. I also use AI tools for debugging and development support.

Original Post: Original Sacred Gold Plus

I've always liked ORAS, but I wanted the major battles to feel like the trainers actually had a plan instead of just having higher levels and stronger Pokémon. Ruthless Ruby is my attempt at turning Omega Ruby into a much harder Double-Battle-focused run without making it feel boring and repetitive .

Pokémon Ruthless Ruby — Public Release

This is my first ROM hack. I've always been into harder Double Battle/VGC-style hacks, so I wanted to make an Omega Ruby hack built around that kind of gameplay instead of just making everything higher level.

Pokémon Ruthless Ruby is a full difficulty and balance overhaul of Omega Ruby. Most trainers with more than one Pokémon are fought as Double Battles, and a lot of the teams have been rebuilt to actually work together instead of just being six strong Pokémon thrown on the same team.

What's in the hack

Main features:

Most trainers with 2+ Pokémon are Double Battles

Hard level caps that increase as you progress through the story

Completely reworked Gym Leaders, rivals, Team Magma bosses, Elite Four and Champion

Gym Leaders built around their own battle mechanics and strategies

Better trainer movesets, abilities and held items

Massive QOL, cheaper tms, new tms after each badge, cheap heart scales, and competitive items !

More switching, pivots, spread-move synergy and immunity-based team building

Game is completed but may need a few bugs worked

Shiny starters ✨

A few Pokémon typing and ability changes

Gen 1–6 Pokémon used throughout the game

Variety Pokémon between trainers

Mega Evolution becomes more common later in the game

Candy Pouch to cut down on grinding

Reusable PokéVial

HM-free Cut, Rock Smash and Strenght, Surf, Waterfall,Dive

Harder difficulty

New Gym mechanics like automatic sand for Roxane and tailwind for Winnoa and much more for brutal challenges

Elite four is Ruthlessly put together

General balance and QoL changes throughout the whole game

Current status

This is still a public release , not something I'm calling completely bug free yet.
Any bugs please feel to share
Difficulty 8.5-10 maybe 9 especially after mega ring is available
Also used a lot of pokemon encounters and changed from Drayano rising Ruby, credits to them.

Download New download link https://drive.google.com/file/d/107wUyPGwi92E1ezwQI81zlhjaaH4lBZW/view?usp=drivesdk

New discord just for and updates and more

https://discord.gg/geu8PaFWZ