Pokemon Yellow Legacy GBA ROM Hack Video Game Boy Advance

The Yellow Legacy project is the prequel to Crystal Legacy by content creator Patrick Smith (TheSmithPlays), and the second project in his Legacy series. It is based on the Pokémon Yellow Disassembly. The Legacy project is focused on changing the base game in a way that adds quality of life additions and better balancing with the benefit of twenty years of hindsight. The primary goal of each mod is to keep the original feeling of the game while still making meaningful improvements for the player. This means that certain idiosyncrasies of the first generation of Pokémon games will remain, as they are considered an essential aspect to the core experience.

Pokémon Yellow exists in a unique role in the Pokémon franchise – it was the first truly significant revision of existing Pokémon games, and it still exists as the only core Pokémon game to be influenced by the anime. Furthermore, Pokémon Yellow introduced greater use of color, more challenging boss fights, availability for all three starters, and Pikachu as your companion. As a project to improve this game, Yellow Legacy seeks to find balance between furthering the unique niche of anime-influence while still representing the first generation of Pokémon as a whole.

Yellow Legacy aims to give each Pokémon a special niche. Balance changes were made with the intent to keep the first generation of Pokémon feeling similar to their original incarnations, while also guaranteeing that using your favorite Pokémon will not significantly handicap your journey through Kanto. As the intent is to maintain the feeling of the Generation 1 games, Yellow Legacy will not change core aspects of the battle system such as the sleep status, critical hit chance being based off of speed, or the overpowered functionality of trapping moves such as Wrap or Fire Spin.

While Yellow Legacy is not designed as a “Kaizo” project, Pokémon trainer fights (especially bosses) throughout the game have been made more difficult. Difficulty is used as a tool to make the game as engaging as possible to the most amount of players. It will not be difficult for the sake of being difficult, but rather, to provide you with a challenge that gives reaching the title of Champion a feeling of genuine earned satisfaction. Major trainers will have Pokémon and attacks designed to counter players attempting to easily sweep through the fight with a single super-effective Pokémon. However, players will also have more opportunities to create unique teams of stellar Pokémon to tackle each major fight. Pokémon availability has also been altered throughout the world to provide appropriately-powerful Pokémon based on your progression through the game. Finally, all 151 Pokémon will be obtainable in a single playthrough, and a small amount of post-game content has been added as well.

General Changes

Quality of life changes are abundant in Yellow Legacy. Here is a list of changes that have  been implemented to make the game more enjoyable to play through.

Menus

• Ask to reuse Repels
• HMs can be used from the overworld
• HMs can be forgotten
  • To avoid softlocks, HMs cannot be stored in the PC
• Extended bag with more slots
  • Items can be sorted with Start
  • Items now have descriptions
• Party menu now shows StatEXP and DVs
  • Press Select/Start respectively when selecting STATS
• TM names are shown in menus
• Updated Pokedex functionality (See Encounters & Learnsets for more details)
  • Level-up and TM learnsets now displayed
  • Location menu now includes gifts and fishing

World & NPCs

• Running Shoes added
• Faster Nurse Joy
• Faster Saves
• Updated Marts to include TMs and other rare items
  • All TMs can now be repurchased
  • Use Left/Right to change items by 10 when buying or selling
• You can now obtain the Old Rod from an NPC in Viridian City Mart
  • The Old Rod’s original location has been replaced with the Good Rod
  • All rods now have improved encounter tables
• Game Corner Pokémon & TMs prices lowered
  • Coins can also be bought in bulk
• Enabled easier access to Fuchsia Pokécenter
• Surge’s Trash Puzzle no longer resets after every check
• Faster spinning tiles 
• A Move Reminder and Move Deleter have been added to Cinnabar Lab
• The Cerulean City Jynx trade has been re-added in Saffron City
• Miscellaneous dialogue changes have been made
  • Some story and character moments have been updated
  • Several NPCs now hint at gameplay changes

Visuals & Music

• Female character option for Green
• Pokémon Palette changes
• Various backsprite updates
• Unique Party Icons
• Overworld sprites for Pokémon and Gym Leaders
• Improved Battle UI
  • EXP bar
  • Already Caught icon
  • Full Box reminder Text after catch
  • EXP. All text shortens non-participants to “Party gained…”
• Seafoam Islands now uses a blue pallet
• Elite Four battles now use more fitting battle music
• A previously unused song in the game has been added to Viridian Gym
• The buttons in Victory Road now make a sound when pressed

IMPORTANT - This game saves using a flash save state, not like a traditional Pokemon game. Pressing start to save will not work. Press L + R simultaniously to bring up the page. From here, you can save or load your save file. Other settings can be modified in this menu to change and enhance the gameplay as well.