Pokemon Colosseum - Celebi Restoration [GameCube]

[Wolf_]

So this is a crazy rabbit hole I ended up going down. Buckle up because it gets kinda crazy and goes deep into OCD/Autist territory. Basically the game Pokemon Colosseum has 48 Pokemon you can purify and a few bonus Pokemon for beating the game/various challenges. Then if you have a GameCube to Game Boy Advance Link Cable (that's right a GameCube Controller port to Game Boy Advance link cable existed) you can trade those Pokemon to your copy of Ruby/Sapphire as long as you have beaten the Elite Four. Several of those Pokemon are massive time saves or downright unobtainable in Gen 3 without this method.

Here is where things get complicated. You thought using a cable most people have never heard of to trade between a GameCube and a GBA was complicated? Ha! The game came with a pre-order bundled Bonus Disc. The Japanese one checks your save file to make sure the game is complete and then gives you Celebi and a Pikachu. The US Bonus Disc doesn't check your save file at all and gives you a Jirachi just for having the US Bonus Disc. So if you want a legit copy of Celebi in Gen 3 you need to beat the Japanese Pokemon Colosseum game, insert the Japanese Bonus Disc AND you have to play it on a Japanese GameCube which can only trade to a Japanese copy of Ruby/Sapphire WITH the Elite Four beat. (You also need a US GameCube to play the US Bonus Disc if you want Jirachi). Then you need a second GBA to trade from the Japanese GBA game to your US GBA game. Crazier still was the fact that the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum had the Japanese Bonus Disc content in the game! It simply never set a trigger for the event and didn't translate like 5 text boxes into English but still has the data on the game. So I made a patch that enables that flag and translates those lines. Now if you beat a US copy of the game you can claim your Celebi and Pikachu and still use the US Bonus Disc to get Jirachi and they will all trade right to your US GBA game.

Without the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-JPN GameCube (unless your US GC is region free)
-JPN Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum with completed save (unless you beat the US version and converted the save)
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-A second Game Boy Advance to trade from your Japanese Game to your US Game
-GBA Link Cable
-The ability to understand some Japanese or memorize which buttons to push

With the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-A way to play a patched US Pokemon Colosseum rom

Ofc you can replace all the hardware with emulators as Dolphin supports trading between the GC and GBA games and you can download completed Japanese save files for Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire but if you are editing save files or downloading completed ones I don't think that qualifies as a vanilla run anymore. The games are identical in both languages except for two rewards being left out and the data is even on the disc. This romhack changes nothing except for enabling an event flag and translating a few text boxes and in exchange you can beat the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum and the US copy of Ruby/Sapphire and get all the rewards you would get for playing the exact same games in Japanese and the rewards weren't even added to the disc because they were already on it. This is a 99.999% vanilla run, vanilla-ish if you will and the only way to complete the Gen 3 dex without learning Japanese/memorizing Japanese menu options, playing Ruby/Sapphire TWICE (once in Japanese), and having thousands of dollars worth of Japanese Games + consoles. It's good enough for me.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/9133/

I mean look at this nonsense:

 

[CaptainToad]

I believe the save file checked isn't region-locked so you can actually have a completed US save file when booting up the japanese game?

 

[Wolf_]

I believe the save file checked isn't region-locked so you can actually have a completed US save file when booting up the japanese game?

Possibly? I know if you have a JPN and US save file on the same memory card it will corrupt at least one of them. If you have a GameCube sd card memory reader or are emulating and want to make a backup of your save file you can give it a shot. It will still only trade to a Japanese Ruby/Sapphire with the elite four beaten though. Would be nice to eliminate at least one problem for people that don't want to use the patch.

 

[CaptainToad]

If it's done via Swiss (on GameCube or Wii) it will actually prevent that region save corruption from happening so that's one small step that makes it easier. You're right about still needing a JP GBA game to transfer the Celebi to.

 

[Wolf_]

If it's done via Swiss (on GameCube or Wii) it will actually prevent that region save corruption from happening so that's one small step that makes it easier. You're right about still needing a JP GBA game to transfer the Celebi to.

And if you are using Swiss to patch the regionlocking out you might as well just use Swiss and a SD2SP2 Pro for like $8 to load the patch I made off a sd card on your GameCube.

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

Definitely a solid restoration of Celebi and other things plus the game feels somewhat more complete.

 

[waterxwraith]

This is insane. Thank you, so much.

 

[tryagainlater]

This is fantastic. Do we apply the patch to the Bonus Disc or the base game?

 

[Wolf_]

This is fantastic. Do we apply the patch to the Bonus Disc or the base game?

Base game. Japanese bonus disc is no longer needed and the US bonus disc will give Jirachi regardless of what you do to the base game (including not playing it).

 

[Lee__Kanker]

So this is a crazy rabbit hole I ended up going down. Buckle up because it gets kinda crazy and goes deep into OCD/Autist territory. Basically the game Pokemon Colosseum has 48 Pokemon you can purify and a few bonus Pokemon for beating the game/various challenges. Then if you have a GameCube to Game Boy Advance Link Cable (that's right a GameCube Controller port to Game Boy Advance link cable existed) you can trade those Pokemon to your copy of Ruby/Sapphire as long as you have beaten the Elite Four. Several of those Pokemon are massive time saves or downright unobtainable in Gen 3 without this method.

Here is where things get complicated. You thought using a cable most people have never heard of to trade between a GameCube and a GBA was complicated? Ha! The game came with a pre-order bundled Bonus Disc. The Japanese one checks your save file to make sure the game is complete and then gives you Celebi and a Pikachu. The US Bonus Disc doesn't check your save file at all and gives you a Jirachi just for having the US Bonus Disc. So if you want a legit copy of Celebi in Gen 3 you need to beat the Japanese Pokemon Colosseum game, insert the Japanese Bonus Disc AND you have to play it on a Japanese GameCube which can only trade to a Japanese copy of Ruby/Sapphire WITH the Elite Four beat. (You also need a US GameCube to play the US Bonus Disc if you want Jirachi). Then you need a second GBA to trade from the Japanese GBA game to your US GBA game. Crazier still was the fact that the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum had the Japanese Bonus Disc content in the game! It simply never set a trigger for the event and didn't translate like 5 text boxes into English but still has the data on the game. So I made a patch that enables that flag and translates those lines. Now if you beat a US copy of the game you can claim your Celebi and Pikachu and still use the US Bonus Disc to get Jirachi and they will all trade right to your US GBA game.

Without the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-JPN GameCube (unless your US GC is region free)
-JPN Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum with completed save (unless you beat the US version and converted the save)
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-A second Game Boy Advance to trade from your Japanese Game to your US Game
-GBA Link Cable
-The ability to understand some Japanese or memorize which buttons to push

With the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-A way to play a patched US Pokemon Colosseum rom

Ofc you can replace all the hardware with emulators as Dolphin supports trading between the GC and GBA games and you can download completed Japanese save files for Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire but if you are editing save files or downloading completed ones I don't think that qualifies as a vanilla run anymore. The games are identical in both languages except for two rewards being left out and the data is even on the disc. This romhack changes nothing except for enabling an event flag and translating a few text boxes and in exchange you can beat the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum and the US copy of Ruby/Sapphire and get all the rewards you would get for playing the exact same games in Japanese and the rewards weren't even added to the disc because they were already on it. This is a 99.999% vanilla run, vanilla-ish if you will and the only way to complete the Gen 3 dex without learning Japanese/memorizing Japanese menu options, playing Ruby/Sapphire TWICE (once in Japanese), and having thousands of dollars worth of Japanese Games + consoles. It's good enough for me.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/9133/

I mean look at this nonsense:

I love you

 

[Wolf_]

I love you

Its funny because when someone goes into a deep dive into their hyperfixation and fixes a problem in the deepest levels of their yarn ball conspiracy wall you never know if you are doing it just for yourself and the schizo voices in your head or if there are other people just as obsessed as you out there that will be glad you fixed this really obscure thing from 20 years ago lmao. Although with the Pokemon community it is a safe bet there are other people as obsessed as you out there the worry was more that I would get dragged by people that would insist that any level of patching was cheating even if it just translated disabled foreign language content on the disc that was available in other regions. Luckily for me I wasn't attacked by mobs of pokedex purists haha.

 

[Magnus37]

How do you actually trigger the event with this patch? I downloaded a save file with all the pokemon purified just to test this on dolphin and can't figure it out, is it somewhere in the menus or do I need to go somewhere in-game? Do I need to beat the final boss again for it to actually trigger the flag? Do you even need the 48 purified pokemon? (the OP only says you get it "if you beat a US copy of the game")

 

[Wolf_]

How do you actually trigger the event with this patch? I downloaded a save file with all the pokemon purified just to test this on dolphin and can't figure it out, is it somewhere in the menus or do I need to go somewhere in-game? Do I need to beat the final boss again for it to actually trigger the flag? Do you even need the 48 purified pokemon? (the OP only says you get it "if you beat a US copy of the game")

We put it in the Agate Cave where you used to get ultra balls and a Silk Scarf as you can easily get tons of ultra balls and Silk Scarf is given in Gen 3 and complete trash so you don't need extras.

 

[Magnus37]

We put it in the Agate Cave where you used to get ultra balls and a Silk Scarf as you can easily get tons of ultra balls and Silk Scarf is given in Gen 3 and complete trash so you don't need extras.

Tried it and it works, which is really cool, but there really should be a warning in-game or next to the download links to not enter that cave without saving since it reads your save file and boots you to the title screen, essentially deleting all your progress since your last save (sucks especially in this game since you can only save at PCs).
Would be great if there was a version that loaded it from the menus to avoid any risk of losing save data, putting it into something like the settings menu or the battle mode pokécoupons info menu to avoid clashing with any other functionality (maybe backing out of the main menu?), or adding a prompt to save before entering somehow.

 

[Wolf_]

Tried it and it works, which is really cool, but there really should be a warning in-game or next to the download links to not enter that cave without saving since it reads your save file and boots you to the title screen, essentially deleting all your progress since your last save (sucks especially in this game since you can only save at PCs).
Would be great if there was a version that loaded it from the menus to avoid any risk of losing save data, putting it into something like the settings menu or the battle mode pokécoupons info menu to avoid clashing with any other functionality (maybe backing out of the main menu?), or adding a prompt to save before entering somehow.

There was actually a bit of a debate about that but ultimately we decided the highest likelihood of the patch being embraced by the Pokedex completionist community would be if it added absolutely 0 content to the game that wasn't already on the game disc. Honestly there was legitimate fear that saying this hack was designed for "vanilla enough" runs would spark outrage even though the data was on the disc and the reward was simply left out of the US region's game. Both cheaters and anti-cheaters are kinda feral in the Pokemon community.