Pokémon Crystal Maeson, like other hacks of the same author, aims to give a game he has played a lot a different flair through a variety of changes, so it keeps feeling fresh or more interesting to his own particular tastes.

On 20/03/23 it was updated once more, to fix a couple of mistakes, simplify the Clock Reset procedure, and a couple of minor changes.

On 04/09/22 it was updated once again, to fix one palette error on Crobat’s back sprite. People asked to add the Shiny icon to the Naming Screen, and it was also added.

On 21/08/22 this hack has been updated to include optional patches to remove flashes during battles and while walking with poisoned Pokémon. This is something several people brought up to the author of this hack, and he was happy to give the choice as, pure white to pure black flashing effects can be painful to most people’s eyes, specially if playing with back-lighted screens.

To avoid confusion, the patches inside the 7zip file have been organized on folders to make things simpler.

Hack Updated to version 1.3. Significant rework on Pokémon Stats both in BST and stat spreads, fixed a number of mistakes in several areas, Freeze has been changed for Frostbite, etc. Battle Tower was updated to count for the changes too.

Version 1.2 was a smaller update, containing fixes for a few mistakes, and a considerable number of changes on Moves looking to make more moves interesting options to use.

Version 1.1 brings a slew of improvements and also bring back elements that where cut for the first public release regarding how Types interact with each other. These cause a large number of changes to Stats, Types, Moves, and more, you can check the updated readme to see them. Corrections were also made on the several text files, which had a number of errors.

Here’s a general summary of some of the changes made by this hack:

·Moving away from the “vanilla Pokémon experience” by making a different “balance” for the Pokémon themselves. This means new Type Matchups to make Types equal, giving many species different Types, new Stat distributions for each evolutionary line and putting them at the same level, streamlining evolution across all species and more.

·To help with the above, the Pokédex has been changed. It no longer offers the dubious trivia it originally had, and now provides both a list of Weaknesses and Resistances and the Base Stats of each species to help the player.

·A Physical/Special split has been added, and beyond that, many old moves have been taken out to implement new ones in order to give each Type moves of different Power tiers for both Physical and Special sides. There has been no intent to follow trends made by newer games with the new moves, though.

·An effort has also been made to streamline all stuff related with training and RNG. DVs/IVs no longer factor in Stat Calculations, meaning any Pokémon can reach full potential (Shiny and Female Pokémon included, of course). Acquiring Stat Experience is a far less frustrating process now, as there has been changes to Vitamins in addition to new Items to make them actually useful this time, and you will need to pay attention and take care of your team this way.

·There has been a fair increase in the overall difficulty of the game. The AI has been improved, Levels have been raised (Generation 2 had a rather low Level curve), teams for pretty much every trainer out there have been tweaked (which, with the prior changes and having to learn new stuff does in fact increase the challenge), and the Pokémon from Trainers do get progressively harder as you progress because just like you, they also get Stat Experience, and after a point all of them will have fully trained Pokémon. Badge bonuses and NPC “nerfs” have been removed too, among other changes.

·Another big point of this hack is a huge rework of the Battle Tower. Besides renewing the Pokémon you fight there to be in line with the new changes made to the hack (and also adding a lot more variety to the species you find there), a lot of new stuff has been added to it. Among other things, Move Tutors of various types and a reward system where you can get Special Eggs with Pokémon that know a unique move, somewhat similar to what Pokémon Stadium did. This place is much more than it ever was.

·Some “endgame” content was added too, in the form of rematches and other things. Once you beat Red, the Elite Four gets stronger and Gym Leaders want to fight again (not the only ones though). To help levelling up, a series of helpful Items were added to the Battle Tower. Pokégear Rematches also had some pretty substantial upgrades compared to the original.

·There has been a number of changes to Items and Item storage too. There are a few new Items, such as Fruits that help you strengthen your Pokémon, and Kurt Balls are now very different from what thy were in the original game.

·While there’s no intention to create a new story or region, there are some new maps here and there, sometimes to bring back stuff like the Viridian Forest, others to expand certain places that felt short, or simply a few new areas. There were also many small additions and changes made throughout the game, way too many to point out here.

·Big changes to the graphics in many areas. Pokémon sprites were cleaned up, improved or changed (they also have individual icons for each and Shiny colors were altered too), the overworld graphics had also some touches here and there. Many areas had some edits here and there to make them feel better to traverse or to look at, and the scrolling is also smoother. In general, the colors used by the game are less saturated so its easier to the eyes when playing on anything with a back-lighted screen. Also some menus and other UI stuff got redesigns to make them easier to the eye, and hopefully more clear to see.

There’s much, much more to the changes, but if you want to read more about it you have the usual “why this is so long” readme included. In fact, there’s a variety of files with different information to help accommodate people to all these modifications, in case you have ages of free time to read it all!

• Database match: Pokemon - Crystal Version (USA, Europe) (Rev A)
• Database: No-Intro: Game Boy/Color (v. 20180815-131105)
• File/ROM SHA-1: F2F52230B536214EF7C9924F483392993E226CFB
• File/ROM CRC32: 3358E30A