Over the last few days, I’ve been doing some googling on how to somehow transfer my Pokemon team from Pokemon Yellow to Pokemon Crystal, which is my choice for the second generation game I’ll be playing. I’ve found a couple of possibilities and with plenty of pros and cons for each. Pikasav seemed like the most promising one. It allows editing of first and second generation save games. You can edit individual Pokemon, your team, and PC boxes, stats and can even export a Pokemon and import it into another save.
It has a serious problem, though. It can only import Pokemon into another save of the same generation, possibly even only to the exact same game. I’m sure of the former, but I haven’t tried the latter, so I can’t say for sure. In any case, I could not export my Pokemon from Pokemon Yellow and import them to Pokemon Crystal. I did some more research and for a moment, even considered switching to the DS releases HeartGold and SoulSilver, but I ended up deciding against it because it would only make the eventual switch to Ruby/Sapphire even harder. I also tried looking for other tools that might be able to do it, but apparently, the generation II games have some weird save format which hasn’t been completely cracked yet.
I couldn’t even make any screenshots, due to the emulator locking up, so here’s the title.
My next option was to manually add a Pokemon to my crystal save by creating a fresh one and then copying the IV and EV values, experience and moves. For a few moments, I actually thought this would work, but it created a whole new set of issues. Each time I would add a Pokemon or an item, my game would freeze upon selecting that Pokemon or item. Clearly, this wasn’t an option. I did progress a bit, though. I realized I can easily changed my Pokedex data, so I at least managed to add the data from Pokemon Yellow to my Pokedex in Pokemon Crystal.
I then tried playing until I got my starter, saving my game and then editing that starter. I created a copy of it, then changed its species and sprite to my Pikachu and modify its attributes to their proper values form Yellow. This showed promise because my game didn’t freeze this time and I could use my Pikachu fine. All of its data was there to, compared to the previous attempt, where its name and some other information seemed to be corrupted. It didn’t last long, though. After I fought a battle, I realized this wouldn’t work either, because after each battle, I would have several instances of “??? is evolving” and a corrupted sprite being shown on the screen.
And here’s professor Oak, in all of his colorized majesty.
For my last try, I resorted to gameshark. I added a couple of pokeballs to my inventory and went to route 29. I then enabled a cheat to make all the random battles against a wild Pikachu and caught one. I saved my game, opened up the save in Pikasav and edited the new Pikachu’s IV’s and stat experience (the EV equivalent of the first two generations) to the values from my Pikachu in Yellow. I decided to leave it at level 2, simply because it feels like in the anime, Pikachu somehow gets weaker in each new region, having to regain and surpass its strength. Thanks to stat experience, this might actually work here to. I also added its old moves and modified them according to my usage of PP Ups in Pokemon Yellow.
This was the first thing I did that worked without causing any issues in the game. It did present an issue for me, though. I would now have to enable a cheat and catch each Pokemon I had in Yellow, then save my game, exit the emulator, open it in Pikasav and modify the values. I decided not to waste my time on this, since in the end, this challenge is about making the game fun for me. Instead, I’ll just modify my Pokedex to add the data from my first game and then add any Pokemon on an individual basis, depending on if and when I need them. Honestly, though, I don’t think I’ll need anything other than my Pikachu.
The change in graphics really is dramatic. And they say the game changes very little…
In any case, I had my starter and I had my Pikachu. I was ready to start Pokemon Crystal
