GB\C Pokémon ROM Hacking: The Beginnings, 1990-2000
Chapter 1 from my book "The History of GB\C Pokémon Hacks, 1990-2020"
Introductory Premise
This is my Timeline of the decisive events that have in some way marked GB and GBC Hacking, linked together to the common GameBoy Color architecture, and which constitute a niche within the niche of Pokémon hacking, still an important one as the first ROM to be modified was on this platform. Let me start by saying that this is not “the” History of GB/C hacking but is a version of the history according to the events seen and discussed here.
BACKGROUNDS, 1974-1994
1974
The Dungeons & Dragons board game is created, the “analog” ancestor of the Role-Playing-Game genre.
►1981
The very first RPG game, Wizardry, was released on the Apple II and later adapted for the NES.
►1982
Video game developers jokingly create Mrs. PacMan, the first documented Hack ROM in History, an improvement on the original that will even become an official game. In the same year, the first hack based on Nintendo games, Donkey Kong II, was also created.
July 15th 1983
Debut of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System).
February 1986
The first The Legend of Zelda for the NES is published by Nintendo. The RPG boom begins.
May 1986
Enix releases the first Dragon Quest for the NES. Many elements of the following RPGs, including Final Fantasy itself, are introduced here, including the fight screen.
►July 1987
Tonkachi Mario is the first ROM hack based on Super Mario Bros. for the NES.
►December 1987
Square publishes the first Final Fantasy for the NES, the game that influenced Pokémon more than others. From tall grass (forests) to shops up to the clash with “wild” monsters, through attacks, tools (and basic tools) and combinations of special types and statuses (including poisoning), the ingredients for the future Pokémon are almost everyone here already. It is also no coincidence that at the end of Final Fantasy there are four Bosses in succession in a Dungeon where there is no going back which culminates with a Final Boss: even the structure of the Pokémon League and the champion originates here.
December 1989
The original Mother/EarthBound for NES was published only in Japan by APE Inc., many of which would merge into the “subsidiary” Game Freak. It is the first RPG with an entirely urban-contemporary setting with very young people as protagonists.
1989-90
The Game Boy burst onto the market first in Japan and the USA (1989) and in Europe (1990).
1990-92
The SNES, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, arrives on the scene.
June 1994
The Super Game Boy arrives, an additional peripheral for the SNES that allows Game Boy games to be played on the SNES, with the option of being able to enjoy additional features depending on the game, including Super Palettes and more.
HISTORY OF POKÉMON, 1990-2000
1990
Trademark registration of Pokémon names begins, including “Mew” itself: the development phase of Capsule Monsters, the project from which Pokémon was released, has begun.
1993-94
The need to adapt the project arises to ensure compatibility with the Super GameBoy. The first release date, initially estimated around 1994, was postponed to the 1995 holiday season.
Early 1995
Complications in development as well as last minute decisions (removal of 40 Pokémon species, addition of Mew) cause the date to slip a couple of months beyond the established date. Despite a thousand difficulties, (the very glitchy) Pokémon Green and Red are published in Japan. The initial size is just 512Kb of ROM.
Mid-1995
Green and Red undergo 2 revisions (1.1 and 1.2) in silence during the distribution of the cartridges, to overcome some very serious glitches that are all too evident.
Late 1995-1996
To overcome glitches and criticisms of these two first versions, as well as to lay the foundations for an international adaptation, Pokémon Blue is developed and published, distributed in Japan only to magazine subscribers in 1996. Pokémon Blue undergoes a space upgrade ROM at a much more comfortable 1MB. At the same time, the adaptation of the English and international versions begins starting from this Japanese Blue version instead of the original Red and Green.
1996
Development of Pokémon 2 begins, again for GameBoy/SuperGameBoy, initially planned for this console and in 2 versions, Gold and Silver.
Early 1997
A franchise is being planned, including a possible animated series for Pokémon, in the wake of the success of Red/Green and Blue, as well as the imminent arrival of Pokémon Blue internationally.
1997
Almost simultaneously, 2 “intermediate” versions are planned to act as improvements to Pokémon Blue and as intermediate versions between Red/Green and Pokémon 2: Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Pink.
►1997
Previews of Pokémon 2 are presented at Spaceworld 1997. One of these cartridges disappears and will only be retrieved 20 years later. The theft is a total fiasco, but public interest in Pokémon 2 is high.
1997
Pokémon Blue is a success. The imminent development of the Game Boy Color is announced. Between the fears for possible leaks of Pokémon 2 and the excessive redundancy of 2 other versions 80% identical to the previous Green/Red/Blue versions, a radical compromise is reached: Pokémon Pink will be abandoned, Pokémon Yellow will be modeled based on the Pokémon anime that is coming and will come with GameBoyColor compatibility. Pokémon 2, due to fear of leaks as well as its inadequacy compared to the GameBoy Color, will be entirely discarded, and replaced by two ad hoc versions that will make full use of the GameBoy Color: Pokémon Gold and Silver. The latter will have a postponed release date, from September 1998 (date for the original Pokémon 2) to 1999.
The re-adaptation of Pokémon Yellow begins with additional compatibility for GBC. Development also begins on Pokémon Stadium for Nintendo 64.
Early 1998
Pokémon Red and Blue, adapted from the Japanese version of Blue, make their international arrival. It’s a boom.
1998
Pokémon gadgets, as well as trading cards, are arriving on the market. Development of Pokémon Trading Card Game begins with the help of a sub-team.
The development of Pokémon Gold and Silver is progressing very quickly, also thanks to the entry into the group of many new developers and new resources which make the compilation much more efficient as well as the help of a new GameBoy emulator for PC which makes beta testing in real time.
September 1998
Pokémon Yellow is released in Japan to coincide with the first Pokémon movie. It’s a super success. Pokémon Yellow has been, in great secrecy, reworked to have some compatibility with the brand new GBC Gold/Silver rather than with the discarded Pokémon 2 shown at SpaceWorld. PokéMania breaks out.
October 1998
Precisely on the 30th, Pokémon Crystal is conceived as the third version to be added to the new Gold and Silver versions in the future. The name is already decided. This is why Celebi is created.
December 1998
Pokémon Trading Card Game is released in Japan. At the same time there is a boom in the collectible card game. The international adaptation of the game will be postponed to the year 2000.
1999
Pokémon Red and Blue have record sales internationally, this means a lot of budget and guaranteed development for Gold/Silver. The Japanese release date is set for September 1999, 2000, for America, and early 2001 for Europe. The international adaptation of Pokémon Yellow begins at the same time. Pokémon Crystal begins its development in great secrecy.
►1999
The first myths and legends about Pokémon arise, partly fueled by Game Freak itself. Rumors are created about non-existent methods on how to catch Mew, as well as other hidden Pokémon called PokéGods. In the wake of the proliferation of legends (also on the web), the Pokémon Factory is founded, an amateur site solely dedicated to the creation of Fakemon and images of fictitious PokéGods.
April 1999
Pokémon Stadium debuts in Japan for Nintendo64. Work begins immediately on a sequel and given the imminent completion of Gold/Silver, which should be titled Pokémon Stadium G/S.
November 1999
Pokémon Gold and Silver are published in Japan, followed closely by the international versions of Pokémon Yellow. The international adaptations of Gold/Silver begin immediately.
The development of Pokémon Crystal proceeds equally quickly and in great secrecy. It is decided that Pokémon Crystal will be an exclusive title for GameBoy Color, partly to benefit the sale of the latter.
►December 1999
Starting from an already known game error called “Safari Trick”, the MissingNo Glitch in Pokémon Red and Blue is discovered, as well as its detailed functioning. Nintendo spreads fake news about the error and demands the return of the game cartridges, claiming that the error causes the cancellation of the save, when in fact it also causes beneficial effects. The error raises enormous interest in the internal structure of the game (as well as in the games themselves).
Early 2000
There are internal rumors of a possible Game Boy Advance in the pipeline, backwards compatible with GameBoy so as not to throw away the work of any developers. It should also be compatible with GBC, but many bugs arise in certain other games (especially non-Pokémon ones). Pokémon Crystal is completed and needs some tweaks to make it further compatible with previous versions as well as for Stadium and for an eventual GameBoy Advance. Assiduous work on the franchise and on the cartoons is underway.
November 2000
Pokémon Gold and Silver arrive in North America.
December 2000
Pokémon Crystal is released in Japan. Pokémon Stadium 2 arrives at the same time.
Spring 2001
Pokémon Gold/Silver and Stadium 2 arrive in Europe internationally.
February-March 2002
The 16bit Game Boy Advance arrives, but above all the first titles adapted for the PlayStation 2 and the XBox Live arrive in Europe. It’s the end of an era. The boom in portable consoles is almost exclusively limited to Pokémon. There is a need to make the new titles incompatible with the previous ones but at the same time to have the console backward compatible to avoid a crisis like the one Sega had experienced with the Saturn, the unsuccessful 32X peripheral and the total incompatibility of the (albeit phenomenal) DreamCast with the precedents in the span of just 2 and a half years.
2002-2003
The latest international adaptations of Pokémon Crystal. The “third-version
fraudmodel” is splendidly successful and will prove even more successful in the case of the GBA when thre will be three additional versions instead of one with the Red and Blue remakes. The lack of backwards compatibility has paid off. Obviously, the same will be repeated in a barbershop spiral for all subsequent consoles (HG/SS and so on). All of this was made possible by Pokémon Blue and Gold/Silver. Pokémon 2 represented a potentially fatal threat and a deadly obstacle to this scheme, and therefore it had to be disposed of.
(“Posthumous” Post-Scriptum)
►April 2006
GameFAQs publishes the discovery (which occurred two months earlier) made by ProBoards users about the Mew Glitch, a method for obtaining the infamous Pokémon in first generation games without using the MissingNo Glitch, even in the international versions. This event creates the “revival” of the first Pokémon games.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ROM HACKING, 1990-2000
ROM Hacking was naturally born well before that fateful 1995, although we can consider 1995 as the most significant year for the development of the history of ROM Hacking.
Two simultaneous events contributed: in the West, the development and diffusion of emulators through the Demo-Scene (the counterculture based around the Commodore64) and, in the East, the rise of clandestine videogame companies given the prohibition of videogames in the Chinese Mainland.
● The “Console Wars” and the fight against the video game monopoly
The era in which ROM Hacking was born was a period of fermentation and boiling in the world of information technology (and in the world itself). In October 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, the following year there was German reunification, the year after that the fall of the Communist regimes: it was the end of the First Cold War and, with it, customs borders and barbed wires. In the same period, among the U.S. university servers and the garages of young people from all over the world, what would be the 21st century and its counterculture had been fermenting for at least fifteen years.
The premises for ROM Hacking were born in the era of the so-called “Console Wars”, i.e., the entrepreneurial and media clash between the video game monopoly Nintendo and the emerging or expanding development houses (Sega, Capcom, SNK, Konami, Electronic Arts, Sony...). Amid all this turmoil, there were also amateurs and trainees who had remained in the shadow of this whole epic: it was the latter who started the revolution and, once the qualitative and communicative leap had been made with the arrival of the Internet from 1995, would become a phenomenon without historical or aesthetic precedents.
At the beginning, ROM Hacking was mainly an activity carried out by industry professionals, as well as highly qualified university students. There were many reasons, although the first to prevail over all was one: to remedy the abuse of the dominant position in the videogame industry exercised by Nintendo of America. Not only was its parental policy an obstacle to the development of the medium, but the controversial marketing practices meant that developers were at the mercy of market decisions: hundreds of games never arrived in the West (and vice versa) because the US division claimed the right to publish only the games it wanted, where it wanted, and when it wanted.
Because of this, professionals rebelled and decided to proceed in other ways: not only by creating attractive competitive products like other companies (e.g., the Sega Megadrive) or additional peripherals (the Game Genie) but also, for example, by ensuring that games never published in the West or East still arrived in some way. And so it was that the first studies on ROMs and consoles began, also with the aim of being able to translate them so that they could pass from one side of the Pacific Ocean to the other.
● Communist Censorship: Videogames in the People’s Republic of China
See also: History of Chinese GB\C Pokémon Bootlegs
The censorship of the communist regimes was infamous for being among the most severe (and bigoted) in the world, to the point that no Western fashion, from electric guitars to jeans, was accepted: a similar fate also befell original videogames.
However, after the collapse of the communist regimes in 1989 and the opening to international markets, there was still a large communist country in the world: the People’s Republic of China. At this stage, the economy had not yet reached the stage of the 21st century: the economic transformation occurred only in the years following the Tian Amen Square massacre in 1989. The event shook the cornerstones of the government, to the point that it was convinced to implement some “reforms”: gradually adopt some Western fashions to satisfy some segments of the population but maintaining the same pre-existing status quo, mainly with the aim of dissuading any future revolts or defections as happened shortly before in Eastern Europe (as well as to gain from the market, albeit in a controlled manner). Throughout this time, up until at least 2002, video games were still prohibited in Communist China.
There are many reasons and interests that might have led to the clandestine phenomenon of video games in China: probably, one above all, was to open this enormous market, which was still closed at the time, as well as the entertainment factor. In any case, whatever the causes, from 1990-91 an enormous development and coordinated movement began between the two shores of the Pacific Ocean, a “double” import-export activity aimed both at importing Japanese video games into the West (dumped clandestinely in China), and to export the video games themselves which were still prohibited in communist China. Typically, the Chinese from Taiwan or communities at the time still self-managed and/or under colonial legal protection (Hong Kong, Macao) acquired the know-how in universities in the United States and, vice versa, their U.S. colleagues obtained local technology produced at affordable prices aimed at favoring both. It is assumed that somewhere in this dense network there also ended up developers and collaborators of emerging Japanese gaming companies who took part in the phenomenon during their free time – perhaps because they were former freshmen from the same circles.
In any case, this was the true first globalization phenomenon of the 1990s.
Despite the clandestinity and the danger, this was one of the few cases in which teenagers and the counterculture got the better of the strong powers: given up when faced with the impossibility of stopping the bootleg phenomenon, in 2002 the government gave in and agreed to legalize the possession and sale of video games in the People’s Republic of China (albeit with controls).
This was the historical context in which ROM Hacking began.
● High Technology
The last decade of the twentieth century is also characterized by strong developments in terms of information technology: every year the potential of the machines increased exponentially, passing in the range of just four years from 8bit to 16bit consoles, finally arriving at their multiples and graphics in 3D. Furthermore, production costs decreased significantly, both because the new world order (the post-bipolar and post-war one) allowed much more freedom of movement and low-cost work opportunities, and due to improvements in the manufacturing field (smaller and smaller processors, etc.). Obviously, all of this would sooner or later also end with the end of innovation itself (today what is often called “innovation” is either restyle or marketing and social engineering), yet at the time it was still in full expansion.
All of this favored the technologies that enabled to carry out what would become ROM Hacking.
And so it was that in the space of a few years we went from the fortuitous exploit of copying the floppies of the NES disk system on a home computer to increasingly sophisticated peripherals and technologies: the “RAM-Patcher” Game Genie (1990-91), which allows to manipulate the RAM of a video game (introducing “tricks”), up to the cartridge copiers (e.g. the Magicom), a tool halfway between an NES floppy disk and a Game Genie which copies the cartridges inserted into the console in order to remove the game ROMs contained within them. In addition to this, the cartridge copiers also gave the possibility of testing the ROM contained within them on a physical console, and even allowed the entire RAM to be analyzed and saved, a utility that allows for a much more accurate study of the digitized ROM. Within a few years, the working mechanisms of the consoles were deciphered.
Once the potential of the hardware was exhausted, we moved on to software: the idea was soon conceived according to which a digital ROM can also be tested on a support other than the console or the cartridge copier itself (a Magicom could cost double the size of a video game console), therefore we arrived at emulators on computers, ahead of their time compared to the world of video games themselves.
● The phenomenon of translations
Dumping a ROM was done primarily with one goal in mind: to play games that didn’t make it to the players’ country. However, given that many of these video games were made in Japanese (or, at most, in the terrible English typical of non-specialist computer science courses), the need for the language barrier soon had to be overcome.
From here, binary modifications at the textual level came into play, carried out through meticulous research on RAM both via copy-cartridges and via the very first rudimentary emulators. Subsequently, there was also the need to introduce graphic changes for graphics not translated visually rather than textually. Later, the translators also realized Nintendo’s internal censorship and how the original games were different from Western adaptations, which is why ROM Hacking was initially invented.
Although copying, modifying, and emulating a ROM is legitimate (unlike what Nintendo of America claims, which on the other hand even criminalized its own programming errors such as MissingNo by demanding the return of the cartridges), these translation and adaptation projects could not have been for profit in any case: which is why these projects were only for amateur purposes by non-specialized translators and aimed at a casual non-paying audience (at least, in the Western case).
● The Millennial youth and the creation of a new counterculture
Obviously, the real paradigm shift occurred towards the middle of the decade when, thanks to the Internet, we moved from groups of specialists to groups of amateurs. When the collectors of the very first ROMs, distributed through the very first automated bots (therefore exempt from fines as they were non-human), organized themselves to make this culture known to the rest of the world, the phenomenon of ROM hacking exploded: it established itself as one of the pillars of the new counterculture of the Twenty-First Century as something that was not planned by any of the “higher levels” of society.
Beyond the technological speculations and the future anti-hack ebbs of the corporate giants, the great merits of ROM Hacking were first and foremost two: forging a new generational identity for the first three generations of the new millennium (Millennial, Zoomer, and a temporarily defined “Generation Alpha” inappropriately baptized as such by boring elderly labelers) and, above all, build a truly global sense of community, beyond land borders and personal differences whatever they may be.
Whether they are players, ROM hackers or disseminators, researchers and adapters, beyond the roles assumed in the world of ROM Hacking these differences no longer make sense: the sense of belonging is created by common and shared experiences, from the collective imagination around hacks, from the narratives and deeds of enthusiasts and video-documenters, as well as from the many personal stories that flow into the History of Hacking every day.
Below we will see how many of these stories in the case of hacks focused on the Pokémon games of the first two generations, based on the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, have created a unique chapter of this History.
Chronology, 1990-1999
1990
The first “analog” hacks, which consisted of gluing drawings to a NES or SNES game screen and then photographing everything and exchanging photos at school or via email and FTP.
► Boom of the Demo-Scene, i.e., the videogame counterculture community based on the Commodore64 (among other things made famous by “independent” DIY composers such as Jeroen Tel). Many of the very first early hackers and amateur translators are former DemoScene members, and many will start initiatives that feed into ROM Hacking. In fact, the first emulator of a “console” would be none other than an emulator for the Commodore64, developed at the end of the 1980s.
First case of bootlegging: Color Dreams Inc., a pro-Christian company specializing in video games, is in possession of manuals and source codes for the NES and is banned by Nintendo for the poor quality of its titles (see for example Raid2020 for the NES). They take revenge by releasing unlicensed games. It culminated in 1993-1994 with Super Noah’s Ark 3D for the SNES. Following Color Dreams’s example the first pirates dedicated to bootlegs and homebrews flourish.
► A flaw is discovered in the system of the Famicon Disk, the floppy disk device for the NES, whereby it is possible to extract the ROM data from the floppy. The first dump of a ROM occurred with this method.
► Peter “Ratnuts” Mui creates one of the first ROM Hacking communities together with other university students from all over the world and including other famous pioneers such as Michael Klauser (based in Hong Kong and the one who will import cartridge copiers in the West), Ken Arromdee and many other contributors. They will also write the first hardware tutorials.
► Various bootleg cartels arise in China, where video games are still prohibited: Rising Sun, Sintax, Makon and many others. Many of them were based in Hong Kong, which was still formally under British administration at the time. Other bootleg companies are based in Taiwan, but also in Mainland China itself. Many of the early ROM hackers are in contact with the underground video game community in Hong Kong.
►►►July 1990-July 1991
After a legal battle against Nintendo of America that lasted a year, the first hardware peripheral for RAM manipulation, the GameGenie for the NES, goes on sale, first in Canada (late 1990) and then in the United States (July 1991): it’s the real start of ROM hacking. The systematic study of the RAM of games by some experts begins. A few years later (January 1996) the GameShark peripheral will also debut.
►►►1991-93
The first cartridge copiers arrive, modeled along the lines of the GameGenie. Exactly like the latter, in fact, they consist of an auxiliary peripheral with an input port for cartridges to be added on top and an output generally saved on a floppy disk (exactly as in the case of the Famicon Disk). One of the first models is the Magicom for the NES. The impressive features of the Magicom are mainly two: 1) saving, digitizing, and reloading the ROM contained inside also to test it on the console itself, and 2) mapping the RAM of the dumped game.
1991-92
Early binary dumps of ROMs, especially NES, SNES and Sega Megadrive. Among the first dumped games are the Japanese Final Fantasy games that never reached the West (FF2, FF3, FF5). Initially, the ROMs were played and tested via the copy-cartridges themselves connected to the consoles, although later attempts were made to understand how these interact with the current processor’s memory. The latter is studied, both thanks to occasional thefts (or purchases) of cartridges and consoles at exhibitions and thanks to the GameGenie. Overseas localization teams, video game magazine reviewers, and marketers are at the forefront of this industry. Much of the movement is between Hong Kong and the USA.
1991
EA (at the time also creating titles for the Commodore64) threatened SEGA to create its own console by reverse-engineering the Sega MegaDrive/Genesis if it didn’t grant it the license. Everything is averted thanks to the granting of the license. Reverse-engineering of consoles begins.
►November 1993
GoldFinger, the first documented (automated) ROM distribution server, de facto the first ROM site.
►1993-94
The very first ROM hacks begin on the NES and SNES via dumping-redumping via cartridge. Super Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Donkey Kong are some of the first hacks. The first Hack of Zelda I dates to 1993. It mostly involves restyling and graphic changes. However, most of the effort is on translations.
►►►January 1995
Pan of Anthrox writes and publishes (January 28) the PanDocs, the first comprehensive public document and tutorial dedicated to the internal workings of the Game Boy (and later Game Boy Color), one of the most important documents in the history of ROM Hacking.
►►►1995
A former member of the Demo-Scene creates the first console emulator published on the web, based on the PlayStation. Sony sues him but the hacker wins since the software he created is original. The era of emulation officially begins.
Thanks also to the greater possibilities offered by Windows 95, the era of emulators (and not just game consoles) begins. The first emulators for NES are created: Nestopia, followed by LandyNES (1996) and the more famous NESticle (1997).
►►►1996
The first GameBoy Original emulator, Virtual Game Boy, arrives.
In Japan a certain Jesse Fuller dumps two ROMs of Japanese Pokémon Red and Green. While doing so, he also tries to modify the ROM to test the emulator’s compatibility. Pokémon hacking begins.
Mid-1996
Amateur translation teams of video games spread across the web are born, especially NES but also GameBoy, especially for Japanese titles not available in America and Europe.
►►November 9th 1996
Amateur ROM Hacking pioneer Zophar founds Zophar’s Domain, the oldest web community dedicated to modding and hacking.
►1997
The first translation and adaptation groups in Italy are born, including SadNes City and others (Clomax, It. Unknown, etc.).
►1997-98
The first translation and adaptation groups in Spanish are born, initially around the news spread by the Federación de Traductores Hispanos community (1997-2000), from which teams such as Ereza, Vegetal Translations, Paladin Knights, Sayan and, later, Charnego Translations arose (in 1999). Later, Spanish translations in ROM hacking will be popularized by Todotraducciones (2000-06).
1998-September 1999
► First translation hacks of the Japanese Pokémon games in English by Japanese authors, such as Kang Taewook and Shadow.
►►1998-October 1999
Necrosaro begins to decipher the content of the First and Second Generation games and publishes the first data lists on his site “Another Pokémon Page” (closed in 2002), including basic statistics, wild Pokémon data, fishing data and of the PokéDex (for Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold and Silver).
►1998-99
Philip Reuben (United Kingdom) (future Nintendo employee in charge of English and German translations: he will also work, among others, on Animal Crossing) creates one of the first ROM Hacking sites (also) dedicated to Pokémon of which there is a trace on a page of commentary on his ProBoards site dedicated to translations of GameBoy games. The very first Pokémon ROM hackers and researchers will gather there.
►1999
Mad Dogz and Jesse Fuller create PokéEdit, the first site entirely dedicated to Pokémon ROM Hacking and experimental research on how games work.
►►►December 1999
“Oldie Fix ‘98” publishes Pokémon Trep, the first Pokémon hack, based on Pokémon Blue and created at the end of 1998 (the basic version was published just two months earlier in the United States).
The very first Pokémon hacks are started by Vida Translations, BG Translations, Colosseum Translations, MB Hacks, Andy’s Translations, and many others. ► Pokémon Oak’s Dream (the first restyle hack), Pikamon, Pokémon Uncensored, Pokémon II, Pokémon Enhanced, Pokémon Aqua, and many others.
► IceSage’s Cokemon is the first zany Pokémon hack.
► Anonymous Chinese pirates produce a bootleg in macaronic English of Pokémon Green, the first Chinese Pokémon hack.
► Spanish translation of Pokémon Red by Paladin Knights and of Pokémon Blue by RapidFire, the first European Pokémon hacks.
► Pikamon by Andy’s Translations is the first hack with Pokémon as protagonists.
Taiwan-based Sintax produces a ton of Pokémon-themed and non-Pokémon-themed bootlegs across multiple platforms. The hacks are in Mandarin, Cantonese, English (macaronic), German, and even Thai.
Philip Reuben begins the English translation of the Japanese Pokémon Gold, and will finish it in 2000, before the international versions even hit the market. Around the same time, Vida Translations starts the English translation of Japanese Pokémon Silver. The very first hacks of Gen.2 will in fact be based on these translations: Pokémon Dreamland (by Pokémon ROM Station) based on the translation of Japanese Gold by Philip Reuben, Pikamon Silver (by Andy’s Translations) and Pokémon Z 2 (by Vida Translations) based on the translation of Japanese Silver by Vida Translations. These three hacks were published before the arrival of Gold and Silver on the English-speaking market.
First Pokémon Translation Hacks, 1997 – 2004:
Ned Shadow
Blue; JP > Eng; May 1997-September 1999
Kang Taewook
Red, Green; JP > Eng; May 1997-September 1999
Yellow; JP > Eng; Sept. 1998-September 1999
RapidFire
Blue; EN > Esp; October 1998-June 1999
Paladin Knights
Red; EN > Esp; October 1998-December 1999
Filb
Gold, Silver; JP > Deu; Dec. 1999-December 2000
Crystal; JP > Deu; January-August 2001
Just4Fun
Red, Blue; EN > Nor; Febbraio- May 2000
SSJ Andy
Gold; EN > Nor; 2001-2002?
Philip Reuben
Gold, Silver; JP > Eng; December 1999-October 2000
Blue; JP > Eng; December 2000-2001
Vida Translations
Silver; JP > Eng; December 1999-October 2000
GB Trans
Crystal; JP > Eng; January-June 2001
???
Red, Blue; EN > Nld; December 1999-June 2000
Tolik
Red, Blue; EN > Rus; December 2000-January 2004
Gold, EN > Rus; March 2002-January 2004
BG Translations
Green, JP > Eng; June 2000-February 2001
GTI Badge
Yellow; EN > Grc; April 2000-January 2001
CBT
Red, Blue, Yellow; EN > Prt; October 1998-November 1999
TraduROMs
Gold, Silver; EN > Prt; December 2000-2002
Crystal; EN > Prt; August 2001-December 2002
The Translators
Silver; EN > Swe; 2001-2002?
Cin25
Red; EN > Pol; 2001-2002?
AtoMan PL
Gold; JP > Pol; October 2000-2001?
??? (Bootleg)
Green; JP > Eng; December 1999
(“Hong Kong”) Gold; JP > Eng; October 2000-2001?
(“Vietnamese”) Crystal; JP > Eng; August 2001-2002?
??? (H1C)
Red, Yellow; JP > Chn; 1999-March 2000
Huang
Red, Blue; EN > Chn; 1999-June 2001
GZ.GD
Green; EN > Chn; June 2001-2003
Dday.yeah
Yellow; EN > Chn; November 1999-February 2000
Vast Fame
Gold, Silver; JP > Chn; December 1999-November 2000
Star Technologies
Gold; EN > Chn; October 2000-2001?
???
Crystal; JP > Chn; August 2001-February 2002
Colosseum Trans
Green; JP > Eng; December 2001
YF06
Green; JP > Fra; August 2002-April 2004
Gemini
Green; JP > Ita; March 2004
Click here for the next Chapter: Chapter 2, the Pioneers of Pokémon Hacking, 2000-2009.