Ever play Explorers of Sky and love it, but catch yourself grumbling at things like your allies stepping on a trap you just tripped? How about how long it takes to gain IQ? Or maybe even how none of your recruits are of any use due to the story forcing them to be benched the entire game, unable to gain exp? Project Orion might just be for you!
There are also minor edits to many dungeons to hopefully make the game just a tiny bit harder at points, but not enough to feel unfair. Hopefully it feels like the vanilla game would in most places. Your vanilla EoS save WILL work on this, so don't worry about needing to start over if you just want to toy around with stuff postgame. Savestates likely won't carry over from vanilla due to the difference in ROMs, though, so I recommend renaming your vanilla save to work with this if you don't want to start fresh.
Don't use savestates between Project Orion versions, if an update comes out the ROM difference will make them not work. Save normally in the game before updating.
Pokemon specific changes:
Made Episode 4's Team Charm suck less.
Buffed the Dark Crater Cresselia to curb its Reviver Seed addiction.
Changed a few of the worst abilities on pokemon, like swapping Gluttony for Keen Eye on Zigzagoon. Nothing has Run Away anymore
Aegis Cave no longer needs Unown Stones. Rejoice!
The Wingull line is now a pile of EXP, hunt them down for levelups.
Mystery Part/Secret Slab legendaries have increased spawnrates and recruit rates.
Gen 6+ type chart, Bronzong is no longer a pokemon with zero weaknesses. However, Fairy is not a type (maybe some day, it's not a priority)
Torkoal has been given Drought.
Mew has Levitate.
Hoppip and Castform can float over water and the like now.
Quite a few Pokemon have better stats
QoL:
Text speed greatly increased.
Trap Avoider, Status Checker, and Lava Evader are all default IQ skills.
Leader switching enabled, you switch like you do in Rescue Team.
Press Start to manually take your teammate's turns. Not recommended for normal use, recommended for boss/monster houses.
Hold L and hit A/B/X/Y for your attacks as you would in the 3ds games on, no need to set a move anymore.
Experience gets distributed to benched party members.
A few minor text edits, mostly to remove pointless text boxes (such as Wobbuffet's "That's right!" when you make a drink, or to slightly shorten Xatu's appraisal time.)
Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe/Marowak Dojo
The stutter whenever you take damage from weather is removed (it was caused by the text displaying, which has been removed)
Life Seeds give +4HP
Same type Gummis, "not very effective" Gummis, and Wonder Gummis all give more IQ. Nectars are also placed in a few dungeons here and there to further assist the IQ grind without the stat buffs normal Gummis will give.
New Appraise All option at Xatu's shop. Open pages of chests all in one go!
Aside from the protagonist, all pokemon can be renamed at any time in town. Just open the Team menu!
Dungeons:
Water in the Golden Chamber has been dried up. Now you aren't forced to bring a watermon or a hovermon to get the chests.
There are 2 guaranteed Blue Gummis in Craggy Coast, in case you didn't save 2 for Manaphy.
Sky Peak is just a tiny bit shorter, with more common Secret Stairs. (not that they're that important for grinding anymore)
Dark Crater Pit is shorter, because let's be real at this point you just want to get to the postgame.
Darkrai's got a new set of minions this time. Don't forget about hitting Start for manual control, as these minions are quite a bit more threatening.
Bottomless Sea is cut nearly in half because I couldn't guarantee Kyogre joins and because water dungeons are bland as hell and I got pissed off from having to run this place 12 times in a row years back for a Kyogre. (NOTE: While it's a guaranteed recruit now, it's still shorter because I still have ocean dungeon fatigue from Rescue Team)
Sky Stairway now has buried items to make diving deep into the dungeon more interesting and rewarding.
Aegis Cave have been shortened because it's Aegis Cave, and the Unown Stones are no longer a requirement.
Shimmer Desert has been made slightly longer to be closer in length to the other 7 treasure dungeons.
Greater item spawns in Marine Resort to aid IQ grinding, there's more than just cash in the walls too.
98F of Zero Isle South and 99F of Orion Tower have had their item spawnrates jacked up, and good loot added to make up for the lack of good rewards. There's a few extra rewards in 99F ZIS's treasure room, too.
A few surprises have been thrown into dungeons here and there. You might see some Pokemon much earlier than you normally would, or find odd floor layouts.
Exp gain enabled in Zero Isle North/Center. Zero Isle North has also been lengthened, and both dungeons given decent buried items.
Destiny Tower is changed to Orion Tower, allowing for a few items and a team to be brought in. This gives an experience closer to what Wish Cave used to be.
Other changes:
Reflect/Light Screen buff your entire party
Ember/Vine Whip/Water Gun have a 2 tile range
Dragon Pulse is ranged
Confusion/Psychic cut corners
Many moves have slightly improved PP/Accuracy
Male:
Poochyena
Mareep
Pikachu
Wooper
Murkrow
Gligar
Cyndaquil
Zigzagoon
Riolu
Chespin
Hoppip
Smeargle
Munchlax
Anorith
Mudkip
Gible
Female:
Piplup
Drifloon
Vulpix
Ralts
Totodile
Sneasel
Skitty
Azurill
Mew
Chikorita
Jigglypuff
Oddish
Ledyba
Mareep (yes, it's in both)
Minccino
Smoochum
All starters marked with a * are Fully Featured. This means they have no missing animations. I hope to one day have all of the starters fully featured.
Starters marked with a # have some new (non-sleep) sprites, but have some missing sprites, mostly having to do with the stockade scene.
Partner list:
Torchic
Mudkip
Anorith
Chespin
Piplup
Ralts
Drifloon
Wooper#
Mew
Gible
Skitty
Zigzagoon
Minccino
Hoppip
Mareep
Cubone
Pikachu
Smoochum
Cyndaquil
Ledyba
Murkrow
Almost entirely different starters for boys/girls alike. Choose your starter after being asked if you're a boy/girl. All new starters given portraits. Portraits taken from http://sprites.pmdcollab.org/index.html#home
Chespin sprites done by https://www.deviantart.com/ubernooga and https://twitter.com/Ernmuffin
Minccino sprites done by Baronessfaron
Pokemon you want to play as isn't a starter here? It's a very easy edit with SkyTemple, it won't take you more than a minute or two. You go into Lists>Starters, and then change a mon to whatever you like.
Most new starters have been slightly buffed from their vanilla counterparts, usually in the form of slightly better levelups or replacing useless moves with more usable moves, often these are egg moves. This has the side effect of making the pokemon of these species stronger as a whole.
Run Away is removed from Poochyena and Zigzagoon, replaced with Intimidate and Keen Eye respectively. Skitty now has Scrappy instead of Normalize. Hoppip/Oddish now learn Sunny Day via levelup.
Mudkip and Chikorita are the only vanilla starters with moveset changes, now learning Earth Power in the early 40's and Energy Ball in the late 30's
Known issues:
If your partner faints in a dungeon when you have no Reviver Seeds, you can still continue on. However, they will not be in your party after the dungeon and cannot be added back in via the Assembly. To remedy this, hit R on the overworld. This is a failsafe I added that will force your party into the Protag/Partner composition.
I picked a starter but reset the game before I picked the partner, and I wasn't able to get past the New Game screen to get into the quiz again without deleting the save with nothing on it on the SD card. This was done in TwilightMenu on a 3ds and it's not the first time TwilightMenu has caused problems with a game.
Apparently this is possible on emulator, and simply resetting should get it working.
The Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe disappears during specific events in the cafe, like the announcement of Shaymin Village. The Rock will reappear.
Cannot switch leaders in Mt Travail when going to see Drowzee, when in Azurill's Nightmare, when taken to Spacial Rift by Palkia, and in Dark Crater with Cresselia's escort. Only applies for the story-based runs. This might be an intended vanilla mechanic, as code exists to allow leader switching post-graduation, but is never enabled by default in any dungeon. They likely would have shut this off for story reasons.
As these are custom starters, some animations are missing. Most notably, the Stockade scene in the future. These will be fixed as more and more pokemon have fanmade sprites made for them
If you save at the Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe and then turn off the game/go to Top Menu, when you reload you'll be in the guild bedroom. Likely a failsafe of the game itself and not a real concern.
If you throw a Doom Seed at an enemy and then KO it, later on in the dungeon it's possible for some wild pokemon to level up several times, complete with a message about it. This might have something to do with the shared exp patch. For this reason, Doom Seeds were removed from most dungeons.
Entering Ice Aegis Cave after the first Team Charm cutscene puts you into the dungeon with no music. Entering a second time makes the music work again, but since the only reason to enter Ice Aegis Cave in the first place is a Nectar spawn, it's a very minor issue.
Attempting to use the Lower Guild hole warp in TwilightMenu freezes the game in Bidoof's Wish. Performing this action on emulator spawns a dummy 2nd partymember behind you, like a totem pole or Spoink, but does not crash the game and leaving to the east and reloading the area fixes it.
The same bug occurs in Sunflora's Special Episode, and is likely a bug due to both Bidoof and Sunflora being alone on the overworld with no partner following behind them. Don't take this warp in the Special Episodes.
On the day after Spoink's mission, entering the guild through the campfire shortcut instead of the main entrance allows you to repeat Chatot's cutscene for the day.
Going to the Friend Rescue island and talking to the Delibird makes them act like the Pelipper it replaced.
1.1 Changes
-Upped Nectar spawnrates in a few dungeons, some floors in said dungeons have guaranteed Nectars.
1.2 Changes
-Upped initial enemy spawns in Ice/Rock/Steel Aegis Cave, made the layout smaller, and guaranteed a Nectar to make forced reruns hurt a little less.
1.3 Changes
-Added a Kangaskhan Rock into Spinda's Cafe.
-Made Wobbuffet's text calling out the color of the card you picked a tiny bit shorter
-Removed the duplicate "(pokemon) of (Team)!" text box when you make drinks for a recruit, as well as Wobbuffet's "That's right!" text box that accompanies drink making
-Removed a little bit of text from Xatu, allowing for the chests to be opened slightly faster
-Swapped more bad abilities out for abilities that aren't actively hindering. Nothing should have Run Away anymore.
1.4 Changes
-Tweaked Dark Crater's floor layouts to be a bit less cancerous
-Darkrai's new minions show up in the cutscenes now
-Removed Double Team from Darkrai's levelup moveset
-Tweaked random mission rewards, generally the rewards should be better now
-Changed the Tier 4 town Kecleon Shops (post-graduation) to have better items overall. Removed throwing items from the T4 pool entirely
-Added a Kangaskhan Rock into the Marowak Dojo
-Further sped up drink making in the Cafe.
-Made Dragon Pulse a ranged attack as opposed to "foe in front, cuts corners" and put it in Ampharos's levelup/TM learnset.
-Gave Water Gun and Ember their modern ranges, now they'll hit up to 2 tiles away and cut corners
-Vine Whip now hits 2 tiles away like Quick Attack
-Gave Ice Beam a few more PP
-Gave Roar of Time 1 more PP because it's only 4PP normally
1.5 Changes
-Made Flash Cannon a ranged attack
-Reflect and Light Screen now affect the entire party when used
-Changed around the tilesets and music in Zero Isle North so the entire dungeon doesn't use the same tileset/music
-Made the final floors of Shimmer Desert have a less cancerous layout
-Guaranteed that the Secret Slab/Mystery Part legendaries will join you when KO'd
-Halved the cost of Keys and made vitamins a bit cheaper
-Changed a few item spawn chances in the Kecleon shop, vitamins are now for sale
-Tweaked a few mission rewards, no more Heal Seeds in 5* missions
-Zero Isle West's 39f now has plenty of items.
1.6 Changes
-IQ fixes are finally here!
-Trap Avoider now has an IQ requirement of -1 and every single IQ group gets it, meaning all recruited pokemon start with it. Finally, no more watching your team conga line onto a PP-Zero Trap!
-Lava Evader's required IQ is now -1, meaning all pokemon will have it. No more watching your pokemon walk/fly into lava!
-IQ Group C gains Collector and Multitalent
-In addition to Trap Avoider, IQ Group E now gets Multitalent, Quick Dodger, Quick Striker, and All-Terrain Hiker, giving the group a few decent skills to work with now. It loses House Avoider in return, but that skill's worthless anyways.
-Multitalent's required IQ is changed from 310 to 400.
-House Avoider's required IQ changed from 800(!) to 450. The skill remains worthless, however.
-Gave female Sneasel portraits so that the protag/partner Sneasel actually has portraits.
-Slightly nerfed Pelliper's exp yield.
1.7 Changes
-Changed the storage limit of every single rank to 1000. No more getting screwed over mid-plot because you hit the tiny 200 item limit for Silver Rank in the middle of the future.
-Further sped up ticket drawings in the Recycle Shop
-Made Ginseng's random "Lucky!" buff more likely.
-Reduced the damage delay on Burn from 50 turns to 40, and Poison's was reduced from 20 turns to 16, making them more threatening
-Threw in a few more surprises in dungeons here and there.
-Some moves now have higher PP/Power/Accuracy.
-Changed Rock Climb to Rock type.
1.8 Changes
-The cure for insomnia is finally here! You and your partner will finally sleep as opposed to running in place all night. Their evolutions also have sleeping animations as well, so if this was the main reason you didn't want to evolve, evolve away! Ironically, adding this for everyone made me lose sleep.
-Removed Unown ? and ! from the game to make room for Walrein/Gligar's sleep animations.
-Added Rain Dance to the Horsea's line levelup moveset
-Added Reflect/Light Screen to Bronzong's levelup moveset
-Added Screech to Honchkrow's levelup moveset
-Nerfed Mew's starting HP so it doesn't have nearly 70 HP at level 5. Also gave Mew Confusion at Level 5.
-Gave Zigzagoon Helping Hand at Level 1. Removed Odor Sleuth from its moveset.
-Hoppip now starts with the Egg Move Confusion.
-Replaced Tail Whip with Double Kick in Cubone's learnset.
-Made Spheal learn Powder Snow in the 20's, as opposed to level 1.
-Gave Azurill the egg move Aqua Jet to start.
-Added the egg move Razor Leaf to Oddish's moveset
-Fixed the bug where your partner would die and never come back if they died before you unlocked the ability to recruit
-Removed Wonder Gummis from the post-graduation Kecleon Shop, as they were bugged to never actually cost any money despite what the price said.
-Replaced the Golden Mask at the Master* rank with a Wonder Gummi.
-Floors 75F and deeper in Zero Isle South now have a mission difficulty rating of 9*. Also changed the music around in the dungeon.
1.9 changes
-The hack finally has an official name! PMD: Project Orion!
-Chespin is here! The first post gen 4 Pokemon added, Chespin replaces Chimchar in the starter selection menu. Chespin is in IQ Group D and has its Gen 6 learnset. Chespin will spawn normally in Tiny Meadow. Sadly it will be unable to evolve for the time being, as no sprites exist for its evolutions as of yet.
-Removed the Wingull Bow, now it is the Chespin Scarf. With it in the bag, Chespin has a chance of restoring a bit of PP when attacked.
-Turned the Normal Spawn Delay from 36 turns to 33
-Turned Belly loss from entering walls down to 4 per turn, letting you hunt for buried items a bit longer before needing to eat another Apple.
-Life Seeds now give +4 max HP.
-The textboxes for taking damage from Hail/Sandstorm have been removed. This also removes the abrupt stop forced upon you while the game prints the textboxes, allowing for smoother movement in bad weather.
-The textboxes for taking damage from Burn/Poison are removed. This doesn't prevent the damage animation, but it lags a little less. This also lets you continue running through halls without having to hit the D-pad again after the "hurt" animation. Be careful about running on a floor when hit by Toxic!
-Tweaked the Zero Isle West 39F item spawns so that the "rewards" aren't just a few thousand Poke and a ton of Apples.
-Removed Doom Seeds from many dungeons.
-Buffed Comet Punch's accuracy/PP
-Scyther's line now learns Wide Slash via levelup in addition to via TM.
-Ember and Vine Whip now have 20PP, matching Water Gun's PP.
-Buffed Seed Bomb and Bullet Seed's PP slightly
-Confusion/Psychic now have the "in front; cuts corners" range.
-Teleport's PP changed from 7 to 20
-Wide Slash's PP changed from 10 to 13
-Made Swift a ranged attack
-Changed some text for edited moves to accurately reflect the changes made
-Removed Deoxys from Temporal Spire (not that you see it in normal gameplay), replaced with a rare spawnrate Rotom. Watch out!
-Gave Kakuna the revolutionary ability to move. Also added Poison Sting as a Level 1 move and did the same for Metapod and Tackle.
-Buffed Beedrill and Butterfree's starting stats
-Buffed the Articuno/Rayquaza/Giratina boss fights
-Mew now has Levitate as a second ability
-Changed the movement of the Hoppip's line to Hovering, allowing them to cross water and the like. Also slightly buffed its starting HP and early levelups.
-Gave Torkoal the Drought ability
-Added Buizel and Mudkip to Serenity River
-Fixed female Hoppip's stats so that they're equal to male Hoppip's
-Since Sandstorm's constant delays have been fixed, readded Hippowdon to Dark Crater
-Status Checker now has a required IQ stat of -1, meaning all pokemon start with it. No more watching a fresh recruit try to Thunder Wave an already paralyzed foe.
-All Gummis now give a minimum of +3IQ. Normally, something like a White Gummi used on a Ghost type would only give +1 due to Normal types having "little" effect on Ghost, but now it'll give +3.
-Same-type Gummis (Like Blue on Water Types) now give +8IQ instead of +5.
-Supereffective Gummis (such as Red Gummis on a Grass Type) give +5IQ instead of +4
-Wonder Gummis now give a whopping +25IQ, up from their original +15.
-Further shortened Xatu's dialogue. It's not by much but it adds up!
1.10 changes
-Minccino is here! No evolution like Chespin yet, but it comes packing heat. With Technician and Skill Link as its abilities, there's a lot to like here. Minccino replaces Clefairy in the starter selection list. Should you choose to pick another starter, you can find a Minccino in the first 5 floors of Happy Outlook.
-Minccino also gets the exclusive item, Tidy Bow! With this, you'll take almost no damage from explosions.
-Added a few new sprites to some of the starters.
-Removed the "[pokemon] is sleeping!" text from dungeons when you get put to sleep. Hard to tell if this speeds up sleeping or not, but it helps remove clutter from the Message Log.
-Shortened the text for Chansey's Daycare and both Kecleon Shops.
-Added HM's as a rare shop spawn in Post-Graduation Kecleon Wares.
-Removed Doom Seeds from Ice Aegis Cave and Spacial Rift
-Almost every Pokemon gets one Tutor/older gen-exclusive move somewhere around level 40-60, unless all they could get were useless moves or moves they already learn. Some of these moves can be pretty powerful, so keep an eye out. In general, the more useful/deadly the move, the later it'll learn it. This also makes enemy Pokemon found later in the game that much more threatening.
-Also, Ho-oh is given Healing Wish as a nod to its lore. The same goes for Deoxys and Tri Attack.
-Most evolutionary lines learn the same new move across the entire line. Exceptions to this rule include the Eevee line.
-Added Energy Ball to the Vulpix line's TM learnset.
-Added Cut to Zangoose's HM learnset
-Tweaked a few movesets with absurdly late moves to have said moves show up earlier (for example, the entire Eevee line learns useful moves extremely late compared to other pokemon, Jolteon now gets Discharge at 46 instead of 78(!)
-Added Rain Dish as Surskit's second ability.
-Swapped Truant out for Unaware on Slakoth/Slaking
-Increased the base exp yield of the Unown that drop Stones.
-Tri Attack's PP has been lowered from 17 to 13. To compensate, it is now a ranged attack!
-Lowered Power Gem's PP to 13, while making it ranged.
-Increased Water Spout and Eruption's PP to 8 and made them hit all enemies within a 1-tile radius.
-Increased Doubleslap's PP to 14
-Made Magical Leaf a ranged attack
-Buffed Primal Dialga's defenses. Come prepared!
-Buffed the escort Cresselia's stats even more
1.11 changes
-Aegis Cave is DEAD! Well, mostly. You no longer need ANY Unown Stones to clear the stone markers. Gone are the days of beating up Unown praying they drop the letter you need. Consequently, this means there is no reason to visit ice/rock/steel Aegis Cave outside of easy Nectars, but I seriously do not care at this point because this dungeon can go to hell for all I care. To the one guy out there that liked vanilla Aegis Cave and calls this soulless, too bad.
-Boosted Pelliper's chest droprate
1.12 changes
-Hopefully (for good this time) fixed a gamebreaking bug where your partner would faint in a dungeon and never be able to rejoin
-As a consequence of the above fix, forced to disable leader swapping until graduation. I'm not any happier about this than you are.
-Emolga joins the team! A fan-favorite (in my eyes at least) from Gates to Infinity, Emolga's got all that you'd expect it to have. Its moveset is roughly what you'd expect from gen 5, with a few egg/tutor moves added in to replace moves that aren't in gen 4. In IQ Group A, Emolga's a good pick for gathering up treasure chests and having more Discharge uses.
-Emolga's abilities are Static and Lightningrod, a good pick for screwing over enemy Electrics.
-Emolga's swap item is the Agile Cape (stolen from Machoke). With it, Emolga can ignore Light Screen/Reflect and deal full damage
-Emolga can be found from floors 8-10 of Amp Plains or floors 1-5 of Mt. Mistral. As it is not a starter choice, this is the only way to get one.
-Made some of the basic moves (such as Scratch, Pound, ect) more accurate.
1.12.1 changes
-Reenabled leader swapping before graduation
-Hopefully fixed a bug where swapping leaders and getting the protag killed afterwards would render the protag impossible to add back to the party ever again
1.12.2 changes
-Fixed the error where Emolga and Minccino looked at the same sprite, so both looked like Minccino.
1.13 changes
-The first full evo line added to the game, Joltik and Galvantula join the game! In IQ Group B, they'll be a perfect fit for any team, allowing for skills such as Pierce Hurler and Trap Seer at max IQ. With the abilities Compoundeyes and Swarm, they're fearsome foes to run across in the dungeons they show up in.
Some liberties have been taken with its moveset, such as replacing Electroweb with Thundershock, or Electro Ball with Shock Wave.
-You can find Joltik in the back end of Far Amp Plains, 6-9F. Galvantula lurks in the deepest depths of Zero Isle North, ready to give you a run for your money should you come unprepared.
-Buffed Porygon's spawnrate in Deep Spacial Rift
-Slightly buffed Lapras's spawn rate in Miracle Sea (it had a 0.58% chance to spawn originally!)
-Added Goldeen to Drenched Bluff
-Added Ledyba to Apple Woods 5-7F
-Added Marill to Craggy Coast 3-6F
-Added Jigglypuff to Landslide Cave floors 1-4F
-Added Croagunk to Serenity River 5-7F
-Added Spoink to Mt. Horn 6-9F
-Added Growlithe to the first half of Upper Steam Cave
-Added Ponyta to the second half of Upper Steam Cave
-Added a few more tricks to a certain one-time dungeon.
-Turned down the initial spawns in Aegis Cave, since the Unown have no purpose anymore.
1.14 changes
-Many boss fights have been buffed.
-In addition to this, Regigigas finally got his act together for good, and enjoys having Clear Body replace Slow Start.
-Gligar's sprite is now Fully Featured
-Your moveset is now shown when you hold L.
-At some point between now and 1.12, I made the recruit rate of 7 Treasures legendaries 100%. Not actually a new addition, but it helps to list this.
-Sitrus Berries now heal 500HP as opposed to the only 100 they'd normally heal. Max HP gain when eating one at full HP has not been edited.
-Tweaked Joltik's recruit rate so it wouldn't ask to join 100% of the time at higher levels.
-Buffed Porygon's recruit rate
-Significantly buffed Lapras's recruit rate to make up for its buffed spawn rate still being very low.
1.15 changes
-The campfire near Xatu's Appraisal was hiding a secret tunnel to the guild for all these years! Enter it, and you'll come out of the Sentry Duty hole, and vice versa.
-Before you ask, yes I tried to make the hole actually look like a hole but ran into so many errors and glitches that I cut my losses after an hour and a half.
-Nectars are now buyable in all Kecleon Shop tiers.
-Nectars now cost 1000 to buy
-All vitamin sprite colors edited, you should be able to tell an Iron from a Max Elixir now
-Swapped around Rampardos's offensive stats so it doesn't have stats of 3 Attack and 16(!) Special Attack. Did the same for Cranidos.
-Changed the level learned for Lapras's Perish Song from 27 to 60 so that you aren't getting bombarded with an extremely cheap instakill when you find it.
-Added Vulpix to 1F-4F of Treeshroud Forest.
1.16 changes
-The Weather update is here! One useless TM has been changed to something more useful, and several dummy TM's have been made weather TM's. Use the new weather TM's to run a fully realized weather team with more options than ever before!
-False Swipe TM is now the Rain Dance TM. (technically this makes it the most common of the 4 since it replaces False Swipe in the item pool)
-Re-added the dummied-out Hail/Sunny Day/Sandstorm TM's
-Added all of the Weather TM's to mission rewards for 3* and up missions, as well as the Tier 3 and 4 Kecleon Wares item pool
-Added a rare Sandstorm TM to the back half of Northern Desert
-Added a rare Hail TM to the final 6 floors of Blizzard Island
-Added a rare Sunny Day TM to the final few floors of Shimmer Hill
-Brine Cave Pit's boss fight now has Rain. These guys are usually a joke, after all.
-Primal Dialga's fight has Sunny weather (mostly because I think it looks cool)
-The Froslass boss fight starts with the Snowy weather now. Come prepared!
-Added Fog to the Regigigas fight.
-Added Fog to the Giratina fight. Honestly this is more of a visual change than anything, Electric ain't even good here.
-Added Sunlight to Heatran's battle.
-Darkrai and his minions now attack from the Fog. Doesn't affect your accuracy, but you won't be Discharging them so easily now.
-Slightly lowered Intimidator's activation chance.
-Replaced Spheal with Munchlax in the Protag selection. Spheal's added sprites/portraits still exist should you use Skytemple yourself to play as it.
1.16.1 changes
-Added sleeping sprites for Snorlax
-Gave Plusle and Minun Volt Absorb as a second ability
-Set Castform's bodysize to 3*. You'll be able to run a full team of 4 with it now.
-Added Pidgey to 5f-8f of Apple Woods (it's only in Concealed Ruins and World Abyss normally, wtf?)
-Added Magnemite to 7f-10f of Landslide Cave
-Boosted IQ gain from the IQ Booster in Marine Resort. Each floor gives +2 IQ now.
1.16.2 changes
-Sprinkled in a special little surprise into a few dungeons. I won't spoil it, but it's a very rare spawn
-Optional dungeon's final "treasure" floors give significantly more IQ with the IQ Booster equipped.
5IQ: Serenity River/Landslide Cave/Lush Prairie/Tiny Meadow/Labyrinth Cave/Oran Forest
20IQ: Lake Afar/Happy Outlook/Mt Mistral/Shimmer Hill/Lost Wilderness/Midnight Forest
30IQ: Marine Resort
100IQ: Zero Isle North/Zero Isle Center
1.16.3 changes
-Added an "Appraise All" option to Xatu's shop. Now you can finally open all those chests at once.
1.17 changes
-Replaced the Pelipper in Shaymin Village and Friend Rescue with Delibird
-Allowed Silcoon and Cascoon to move
-Changed the Cranidos line's L40 "tutor" move from Whirlwind to Thunderpunch
-Gave Primal Dialga a minor buff to offenses, going from 75 to 80 in both.
-Made each section of Sky Peak 3 floors instead of 1. Still shorter than vanilla, but isn't completely thoughtless now.
-Made Bottomless Sea 30f long, up from 25f. Since the legendaries should be guaranteed recruits now it isn't so bad.
-Boosted Sky Gift's spawn chances in the 7th section of Sky Peak
-Guaranteed a Sandstorm TM on the final floor of Shimmer Desert.
-Guaranteed a Rain Dance TM on 29F of Bottomless Sea
-Guaranteed a Sunny Day TM on 19F of Giant Volcano
-Guaranteed a Hail TM on 19F of Mt Avalanch
-Added X-Ray Specs into the Tier 3 and 4 Kecleon Shop item pool
-Added the Invisify Orb to Tier 4 Kecleon Wares
1.17.1 changes
-Added in the ability to push your teammates by moving into them. Works mostly like it does in Super where you hold B to not push them. They won't instantly attack foes on the same turn you push them towards a foe, however.
-Set Castform's movement type to Hovering. It's hovering, after all.
-Slightly buffed Joltik's HP gains. Base HP went from 25>30.
-Changed just a couple songs around for a couple of the "Random Dungeon Theme" selections. Mostly because hearing Crystal Cave got old.
2.0 changes
With a new Pokemon line as well as an overhauled dungeon, Project Orion 2.0 is here!
-Cutiefly and Ribombee are here! I have had to take many creative liberties to make it work in this game, but there's still a lot to like here. In IQ Group B, Cutiefly is good at recruitment as well as party buffing. You'll be able to find Cutiefly early on in Apple Woods, while Ribombee will be hiding in Mystery Jungle.
Cutiefly and Ribombee also get the Pollen Bow. With this, Kecleon Shops are more likely to show up!
Due to being a pure Bug type here, there are no Fairy moves, and I'll list the movesets down below.
Cutiefly:
L1: Absorb
L4: Gust
L7: Stun Spore
L10: Leech Life
L13: Silver Wind
L16: Confusion
L21: Sweet Scent
L26: Bug Buzz
L31: Signal Beam
L36: Aromatherapy
L41: Calm Mind
L42: Tailwind
L50: Morning Sun
Ribombee:
L1: Aura Sphere/Absorb/Gust/Stun Spore
L13: Silver Wind
L16: Confusion
L21: Sweet Scent
L28: Bug Buzz
L35: Signal Beam
L42: Aromatherapy
L49: Calm Mind
L50: Tailwind
L55: Morning Sun
-A new(ish) dungeon is here now! Destiny Tower is under new ownership, and is now Orion Tower. I was always pretty disappointed how Destiny Tower felt so similar to Zero Isle South down to having almost the exact same tilesets and little in the way of Sky-exclusive music, a crime considering it's a Sky-exclusive dungeon. I also found myself wishing I had a deep dungeon dive at level 1 while using different combinations of teams while doing so.
Permahidden traps are removed (they're now hidden until you step on them or attack them) and IQ skills are re-enabled so Trap Avoider works. While you will be able to bring 2 pages of items and a team with you, it is still a level reset dungeon and Reviver Seeds are extremely difficult to find.
Watch out though, there are Pitfall traps sprinkled in now, and they can and will send you BACK a floor.
Orion Tower also has the following foes awaiting your challenge, all of whom are Project Orion "exclusives":
-Chespin at 1-3F
-Joltik at 5-9F
-Galvantula at 18-20F
-Minccino at 24-27F
-Emolga at 37-40F
-Ribombee awaits you at the very top, on 90-98F. Be warned, Ribombee's got its best moves at the levels it'll show up at.
-Added very rare Reviver Seed to 1-3F of Orion Tower. After that, you'll only find them in shops every 10 floors from 10F on.
-Added Snow to Articuno's fight
-Renamed Ditto's swap item and gave it it to Cutiefly's line.
-Changed female Emolga's movement type from Hovering to Normal, a little mistake I made awhile ago.
-Slightly nerfed Pelliper's exp yield
-Lowered Chatot's learn level for Uproar by one level to 36.
-Added Bullet Seed to Chespin's TM learnset
-Boosted Brine's PP to 13
-Added Cutiefly to 4F-8F of Apple Woods
-Added Ribombee to 23F-29F of Mystery Jungle
2.1 changes:
This mostly focuses on tweaking Orion Tower to be a little more fair.
-Tweaked encounter rates in the early parts of Blizzard Island, as well as recruit rates for Smoochum. This should help get you a Level 1 capable Pokemon quicker.
-Removed Ledian from 90F of Orion Tower. Ribombee does its job here anyways.
-Boosted the Kecleon Shop chance on all Orion Tower floors ending in 0 from a 1/5 chance to 1/3
-Guaranteed a Reviver Seed will spawn in Kecleon Shops that spawn on 10-40-70f and guaranteed a Kecleon Shop on 10F (may change at some point in the future)
-Changed the music in 60-69F of Orion Tower to Sky Peak Coast (aka Stormy Sea from RT)
-Made Grudge and Random Traps less common while sprinkling in a couple more Pitfall Trap floors
-Added a chance for Hidden Stairs to spawn on all Orion Tower floors ending in 7
-Brightened up the first few floors of Orion Tower
-Changed the post-Arceus Statue text to say the correct dungeon name
-Removed Doom Seeds from Mt. Avalanche.
-Added a guaranteed Golden Mask to Orion Tower 99F. Now you have an option to get one that doesn't involve a ton of grinding for Zero Isle North
-Made money a little less common here too.
-Guaranteed a Big Apple/Max Elixir spawn on 30-60F
-Removed the duplicate, low-level Ominous Wind in Drifblim's learnset. I was an idiot and put it there way back in 1.0 back when it was just a personal romhack. It is beyond unfair for the Orion Tower Drifblims to have.
-Slightly nerfed Gligar's starting HP/Attack
-Slightly nerfed Mareep's starting Attack
-Boosted the EXP yield of Grotle/NidoranM
2.2 changes:
-Changed the portrait that appears when you hit R in town in the endgame and during the "end of day" cutscene that plays after graduation. The partner deserves a little more happiness, after all.
-Seed colors are now here! While there aren't enough colors to use to give everything a unique look, you should be able to tell stuff apart a bit better. Listed below are the new colors.
Heal Seed: White
Eyedrop Seed: Light Blue
Reviver/Reviser/Vanish Seed: White
Blinker/Vile/Via/Dough/Doom Seed (not that the latter appears now): Dark Blue
X-eye Seed: Purple
Life/Joy Seed: Pink
Hunger/Stun Seed: Brown
Quick Seed: Orange
Totter/Sleep/Slip Seed: Green
Plain Seed: Unchanged
Warp Seed: Sky Blue
Blast/Violent Seed: Red
Pure Seed: Blue like a Wonder Orb
-Run out of Gravelerocks from playing Orion Tower? Landslide Cave has you covered. Gravelerocks have been added to the item pool, with 12F having a ton of them laying around. There will be enough to get roughly a stack and a half of them. Quickly restock for another climb! No other items spawn on 12F, but all that was there otherwise was ultra-basic items.
-Kecleon Shops on 10-40-70F of Orion Tower now merely have a "good" chance of a Reviver Seed spawning.
-Added a Reviver Seed chance on 77F of Orion Tower, after all it's a lucky floor
-Added a guaranteed Key spawn to 98F of Orion Tower.
-Added "imperfect rooms" to 80-89F of Orion Tower, just like 90F onwards has.
-Made Ribombee spawn more in Orion Tower
-Greatly boosted the chest drop rate of the Wingull Line to encourage beating them up more
-Buffed Bubblebeam's PP
2.3 Changes
-More TM changes are here!
-The useless Return TM is now Thunderpunch. As it replaces an old TM, it's not all that rare. All Pokemon that can learn the move from TM/Tutor in the mainline games can learn it.
-The useless Embargo TM is now Ice Punch.
-The nearly useless Payback TM is now Fire Punch. Let's be real, "Counter-like" moves aren't ever used.
-The king of moves, Ominous Wind, is now a TM! As this does not replace any TM, there will be only one place to obtain this highly valuable TM, and it's at the top of Orion Tower.
-The ever-helpful Heat Wave is now a TM! You will only be able to find it in the depths of Zero Isle North.
-The extremely deadly move Earth Power now comes in TM form! This time, you must fight your way to the very bottom of Zero Isle South to prove that you deserve it.
-Gave Delibird an actual levelup learnset.
-Made the partner's portrait something happier when they give you the wakeup message at the start of a day.
-Added an extra little Partner line when you talk to them with R in the endgame. Look at that enthusiasm!
-Buffed the following move's PP
Bug Buzz
Cut
Thunderbolt
Lava Plume
Psycho Boost
Dark Pulse
Seed Flare
Stealth Rock
Gunk Shot
-Joy Seeds are now 1500 Poke cheaper, costing 5000 now.
-Removed Doom Seeds from Sky Stairway
-Changed the songs that play in Sky Stairway.
-Implemented yet another fix for pre-grad leaderswapping. Again. Still no clue if it's the very final fix for this.
2.4 changes:
-Sneasel is now a Fully Featured Pokemon, having all its missing sprites.
-Minccino's portraits and sprites are updated
-Updated Mareep's sprites
-Updated Wooper, Ralts, and Chespin's portraits
-Slightly buffed Bubble's PP
-Made Mist Ball ranged
-Made Solarbeam ranged and gave it 10PP. This move's weird though, the chargeup fails if no enemy is in front of you on the first turn so you can't bait an enemy into walking into your line of fire. Looks like a limitation with how chargeup moves work in Sky. It's not like the move is useful in its vanilla (foe in front) form, though.
-Guaranteed a Max Elixir spawn every 10th floor in Zero Isle South from 10F onward
-Removed Doom Seeds from Southeastern Islands
-Added better buried item spawns to Oblivion Forest/Trecherous Waters/Southeastern Islands/Inferno Cave
-Concealed Ruins was a pretty lackluster place as far as treasure goes. Now, nearly every TM in the game can be found here, buried inside the walls.
-Nectar IQ gain boosted by 5 points for +15IQ per Nectar
-Changed the Master rank reward from a single Joy Seed to a Pierce Band. Useful for getting your team buffed up
-Nerfed Pelipper's exp yield once again
2.4.1 changes:
-Added more portraits for Ribombee, as well as sleep animations
-Made 4-6F of Orion Tower share the same music/tilesets as 1-3F
-Added Torchic to 6-8F of Steam Cave
2.5 changes:
-Removed Dugtrio and Team Raider from the "endgame" beach. They say nothing of value and add nothing and just crowd the beach out.
-Removed Pelipper from the Dusknoir beach scene, as well as the game's opening cutscene
-The Treasure Bottles on the beach now spawn with a 100% chance.
-Updated Sneasel/Jigglypuff portraits
-With a new set of portraits as well as new sprites, Smeargle is now a starter! Replacing Cubone in the starter lineup, this is a mon to choose if you want a more unique playstyle. Starting off with basic attacks as well as Sketch, you can choose your own moveset throughout the game. After level 6, you gain new Sketch uses for every level ending in 0 or 5.
-A very rare Pokemon can now be found in Tiny Meadow. I won't spoil it but as long as the leader KO's it, it will always join you.
-Colored the Sinister Boxes black, and the Cute Boxes pink
2.6 changes:
-Changed the game's DS menu icon. I don't know if this shows up outside of TwilightMenu, but it'll show there for sure.
-Changed the sort order so that the recently added TM's show up in alphabetical order in storage
-Added Blinker Seeds to Tiers 1-3 of the Kecleon Shop, allowing for Smeargle users to blind themselves to Sketch moves off their allies.
-Keys now cost 3000 instead of 4000
-Changed many hold item's sprite colors. You'll be able to tell a pair of X-ray Specs apart from a pair of Lockon Specs with only a glance now.
-Gave Zero Isle East's 39F better item spawns
-Changed Zero Isle West's 39F to have a less annoying layout, it is the reward floor after all.
-Buffed Smeargle's starting stats and earlygame levelup gains. He was too frail before.
-Gave IQ Group F the Cheerleader IQ skill
2.6.1 changes
-Somehow...partner permadeath returned. Screw it, hit R to force the game to set your party to be composed of protag/partner. I don't know if this causes issues at any point in the game and i'm far past the point of caring.
-Buffed Smeargle's starting HP to put him more in line with the rest of the roster
-Slightly buffed Poochyena's starting Attack and made it learn Bite at level 11 instead of 13. Also gave it Poison Fang as a starting move.
-Changed Zigzagoon's L45 move from Fling to Extremespeed. Let's face it, you were never going to use Fling anyways.
-Changed Jigglypuff's Pound to be a Level 1 move so it actually has an offensive move when starting. Gave it Tri Attack at Level 35 as well (it learns this in gen 1!)
-Slight update to Ledyba's portraits
-Added Pitfall Traps to more floors in Orion Tower and changed around a few floor layouts
2.7 changes
-I got the nickname patch to work. There's a lot of oddities with it, which are as follows.
-To nickname a pokemon, let them join your team and go into the Team menu while in town. Doesn't work within Chimecho Assembly
-To nickname your partner, you have to wait until post-grad, have 3 members in your party, and have neither protag or partner as leader
-Protag can't be renamed for whatever reason
2.7.1 changes
-Fixed the recruit rate of the Tiny Meadow "secret mon" to be higher. Females didn't have the right recruit rate.
-Murkrow is now a Fully Featured Pokemon, having a full assortment of sprites. In addition, all of its portraits have been updated.
-Updated female Sneasel's portraits
-Updated Chespin's sprites
2.8 changes
The Starter Update! Sort of.
-Even though it ain't a starter anymore, the following changes have been made to Phanpy to make it suck less:
- Level 5 gives Mud Slap
- Level 10 gives Ancientpower instead of Take Down
- Added Dig to its levelup learnset
- Level 40 gives Ice Shard
These edits also apply to Donphan, though some moves are a couple levels later.
Many starters now have tweaked sprites and portraits
-Changed Mareep/Gligar/Vulpix/Skitty's sprites/portraits to make them look more official
-Changed Drifloon's portraits to be a darker purple.
-Changed Ralts' portraits to be more expressive. Its eyes will show more than before.
-Changed Sneasel's sprites to be a bit lighter.
-Gave Mew entirely new portraits. They'll look more full of life than the static pose the old ones had.
-Gave Jigglypuff a new set of portraits.
-Added more sprites for Wooper. It still doesn't have everything, but it has most "plot" sprites.
-Fast Friend is no longer group exclusive. All Pokemon get it!
-Tweaked item spawns in Deep Dark Crater to be more helpful for the final boss
-Made Reviver Seeds more common in the town shop
-Lengthened SE5's Dark Wasteland from 4F to 16F. Apparently this was the original intended length.
-Moved the Zigzagoon that was stuck inside a Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe. It should be near a table now.
2.8.1 changes:
-At some point, Moltres left the spawn tables for Giant Volcano, making it impossible to obtain. You should once again be able to find it on 10F, as long as you have the Part/Slab
-The wingull line has new abilities. Have "fun" with them!
-Changed the wingull line's "category" name.
-Boosted the chest droprate even further of the wingull line
-Lowered the Wingull line's HP regen rate
-Slightly nerfed Wooper's earlier levelups. It was simply too powerful for too little effort
-Nerfed female Wooper's starting defense to be equal to that of the boys.
-Lowered the level Delibird needs for Powder Snow from 60 to 35.
-Removed "buried" items on Zero Isle North's 60-69F. Due to the tileset, the items were, in fact, floating in the void. Any enemies walking around in the void is 100% intentional. They have All-Terrain Hiker, after all.
-At some point a lot of Marine Resort exclusives were AWOL. They have been readded to the following areas:
Cleffa: 1-3F Marine Resort
Clefairy: 10-12F Happy Outlook
Igglybuff: 1-3F Happy Outlook
Corsola: 7-10F Surrounded Sea
Wynaut: 1-4F Crystal Crossing
-Reverted Sneasel back to its old sprites, as there was a minor issue with the old ones.
2.8.2 changes:
-Added Torkoal to 5f-8f of Steam Cave. Turns out the only spawn place for it was in the cut floors of Deep Dark Crater.
-Added X-ray Specs to all tiers of the Kecleon Shop. Better start saving early!
2.8.3 changes:
-At long last, Wooper is now Fully Featured! All of its sprites are now available. Big thanks to the anon who went the extra mile to make these, you know who you are!
-Ledyba is Fully Featured as well.
-Though it's not actually a starter, Togetic is Fully Featured in case you wanted to play as it.
-Delibird has sleep animations and portraits now if you actually decided to make it your starter
-Changed Hustle to Super Luck for the Togepi Line
-Changed Hustle to Keen Eye for Delibird
2.8.4 changes:
-Togetic gets Air Cutter at L8, and Air Slash at L26. This gives it some Flying STAB.
-Hopefully fixed some strangeness with Sneasel's animations.
2.9 changes:
-A new Pokemon enters the lineup, Oshawott is here now, complete with its evolutions as well! Oshawott's line is in IQ Group F.
-Should you not take one as a starter, you can find it on the first 4 floors of Serenity River. Dewott can be found in the first 3 floors of Crystal Crossing.
-Oshawott's line gets the Special Shell as its swap item. With this in hand, they'll have nothing to fear from Electric attacks.
-Samurott will be your opponent on 61-70F of Zero Isle North.
-Here is Oshawott's learnset. Samurott's learnset is mostly the same but with L1 Megahorn and L80 Hydro Cannon.
L1: Tackle
L5: Tail Whip
L7: Water Gun
L11: Water Sport
L13: Focus Energy
L17: Cut
L19: Fury Cutter
L23: Water Pulse
L25: Revenge
L29: Aqua Jet
L31: Encore
L35: Aqua Tail
L37: Air Slash
L41: Swords Dance
L43: Hydro Pump
L50: Icy Wind
-Azurill is no longer a starter, being replaced by Oshawott
-Cyndaquil is no longer a boy starter, and is instead a girl starter
-Fixed a softlock where if you saved in Spinda's Cafe while Azurill is in your old guild room, you would spawn on top of Azurill and be unable to move
-Corsola has been added to 4-6F of Drenched Bluff (a bit earlier than Marine Resort of all places)
-Added both Nidorans to floors 3-6 of Mt. Horn
-At some point in the past I added Squirtle to the final floors of Craggy Coast and didn't mark it down. The final 3 floors have it now.
-Added Corphish to the final 4 floors of Craggy Coast
-Updated Wooper's sprites
-Removed Unowns B/C/D from the game to make room for Oshawott's line.
-Removed Pelipper's swap item.
2.10 changes: (COMING SOON!)
-The awful hay beds in Sharpedo Bluff have been replaced with cozy cotton beds! Sadly, the guild is too cheap to afford cotton. Apparently Wigglytuff thinks his addictions are more important than a good night's sleep.
-Fixed female Cutiefly not flying over water.
-Removed Doom Seeds from World Abyss
-Added buried evolution items to Spacial Rift
-Several Pokemon now get Refresh, allowing for better access to a helpful support move. This should hopefully open up options for L1 dungeons. Some got it newly added to their movepool, while others learn it earlier. The mons that are listed below get the move around levels 4-6.
Squirtle line
Psyduck line
Eevee line
Teddiursa line
Swablu line
Marill line
Mudkip line
-Made the Chikorita line learn Aromatherapy at L19-20
-Made the Mareep line learn Heal Bell at L15