Pokemon Sword and Shield Ultimate Plus GBA ROM Hack

Hello everyone. Recently, I finished the game Pokemon Sword and Shield Ultimate Plus GBA Version 1.2.1.2. A ROM Created by PCL.g, Jean star', Phantonomy and many others.

This ROM Hack is a demake of the 2019 game Pokemon Sword and Shield. Translating the game down to a 2D GBA game. I reviewed the complete edition of Pokemon Sword a few years back and when I stumbled across the complete Rom Hack, I was tempted to try it out. Plus, I was trying out the ArcEmu Emulator on my Apple Watch and decided to play Sword Shield Ultimate Plus on it during my now 2 hour daily commutes. What started as a casual game I wanted to play on my Apple Watch became something of an obsession. I really loved playing it. I lament ArcEmu doesn't have Retroachievements integration like PC emulators do because I would have grinded the hell out of them lol. I would played more but I recently reset my Watch and lost my save file so I decided to review what I already played which is the "base game" and Isle of Armour "DLC".

Reviewing the game itself, the first thing that struck me was how faithfully the Rom Hack recreated aspects of Sword and Shield. Towns like Postwick, Wedgehurst, Motostoke, Circhester, as well as areas like Rose's Battle Area feel like 1:1 of their 3D counterparts and arguably look better. The GBA version has a more colourful and saturated palette that makes these places pop.

A few areas do suffer for not coming close to the 3D counterparts. In the 3D version, Ballonlea and its preceding route is like this really moody and cool mushroom route with nice lighting that reminds me of Pandora from the James Cameron Avatar movies. The GBA version, unfortunately, makes it look like a standard GBA Pokemon game forest.

I also find the Pokecenters odd. Almost all of them use a sort of "2 floor" design with the healing centre at the bottom, at the Pokemart/Name Rater/Move Relearner at the top floor. 3D Sword and Shield used a compact 1 floor model where the Name Rater/Move Relearne, Healing Centre and Pokemart where in front of you on the first floor. There is a Pokecenter in Motostoke with a more accurate layout but it's used only there. I do kinda like that version more since it's more compact.

I do like how the GBA version also tries to make Gyms resemble their 3D counterparts as much as possible. Nessa's, Pier's and Raihen's are 1:1 (no surprise there as simple switch puzzles and gauntlets were staples in the GBA Pokemon games). Milo's is now a Strength Bolder pushing puzzle rather than a Wooloo/Yamper challenge and Opal's is a copy of Blaine's gym. A bit of shame but I imagine this was the best you could do on the GBA.

Allastair/Bea's (the GBA version lets you choose whichever you want to fight) gyms are a downward sliding bike puzzle that I actually like better than the Stick Rotating challenge from the 3D version since I was always worried about giving my joycons more drift. The only gym I feel is worse is Gordie/Melony's since you don't have the radar and now have to trial and error your way through it with worse checkpoints and respawning floors so you can't even see the path you took (Also, there is a bug for this gym that advises you to avoid saving until after you beat the gym and talk to Leon).

One of Sword/Shield's new features were Overworld Pokemon (technically first in LGPE but SwSh were the first mainline games with them) and the Wild Area. And the GBA version adapts that.

Tall grass in the GBA version will only have sprites of the most common Pokemon walking around. You don't start battles by walking into them. You have to interact with them first. But you can also do random encounters by walking in grass normally (which also include the most common pokemon from the overworld) but also rare Pokemon.

I really like this implementation. If you don't want any encounters, you can just repel and move through routes without an issue. if you want random encounters, you can enter the grass as normal and/or use the DexNav (yes, this Rom Hack carries the DexNav. An awesome feature removed after Gen 6) to track down specific Pokemon. And the overworld spirtes give you a good idea of what the most common Pokemon are and the chance to target them specifically. I spent quite a while farming for Rolycolys with Heatproof and it was way faster and easier to do with Overworld spirtes than running around for random encounters.

The Wild Area is interesting. I wasn't fond of the 3D version's take on this. I found it a bit boring to ride the bike past stretches of grass as each large stretch of area had similar spawns until you got farther away, cycling between Dynamax dens for Watts. The GBA version shrinks it down drastically. Having a couple town sized spaces with signs you can move between. It's by far the "least accurate" to the 3D version as the GBA's Wild Areas don't even come close to resembling the layout of sections from the 3D Wild Area..... and I honestly prefer it like this.

The GBA's take is way more compact. It's way quicker and more efficient to move through areas, check Dynamax dens, do a few raid battles and move on. Hell, even the concept of Watts is gone. It's all just money now which I prefer.

With the 3D version, I felt it was structured in a weird way. You could ignore the Wild Area entirely, but you had fewer chances to get stuff like certain TMs/TRs, EXP Candies and other rare items. Plus a lot of content, especially in the DLC, required Watts as a currency requiring you to farm Dynamax Dens. There was this sense of "fine, I gotta go do my Watts chores". The GBA version making it all just money based means even if I neglect the Wild Area, I'm fine. I can earn money and XP by doing battles. And if I need a break to go do Wild Area stuff, the rewards go both ways.

I suppose a missed opportunity was doing what the Rom hack, Radical Red did and having Dynamax dens along regular routes as well. That way, the 3D version has a way for players to get some Dynamax Raids and Watts a