Beginner’s Guide

When we say Pokemon rom hacks, these are often referred Pokemon GBA games modified by enthusiasts. Some popularly played ROM hacks are Pokemon Glazed, Platinum, Gaia, Ash Gray and so on. To play these games, you need the following files and tools;

• A clean FireRed/Ruby/Emerald/ as a rom base for patching
• UPS or IPS patching tool
• The ROM hack ips/ups file
• GBA Emulator

Patching a rom hack can be done in two different ways depending on where do you wish to play the game. You can patch a rom hack using a computer or using your phone.

For patching on a Computer
When patching using a computer, you need a patching tool such as NUPS to patch UPS files or Lunar IPS patcher to patch .ips files.

For patching on mobile
This method can be achieved using the GBA emulator called My Boy for Android. We highly recommend My Boy to mobile users as this app fully supports rom hacking and cheating.

Players who wish to play GBA games on mobile devices, we recommend the following GBA emulators;

• My Boy (Android)
• John GBA (Android)
• GBA4iOS (iOS)

For players who wish to play GBA games on PC, Visual Boy Advance is the best GBA emulator for you. On the other hand, for Mac OS users you can use OpenEmu.

There are hundreds of existing GBA rom hacks online, some of them are good while some aren’t. For beginners, we recommend the following;

• Pokemon Glazed
• Light Platinum
• Ash Gray
• Adventures Red Chapter
• Gaia

These are the top rom hacks according to visitors’ vote; we also have a collection of completed Pokemon rom hacks and our top picks of best Pokemon rom hacks of the year.

Fan made Pokemon games are those Pokemon games created using a software named RPG Maker XP. This type of game is quite different from rom hacks as this is played only on Windows computers. Playing fan made is simple; all you have to do is download the game and install it like a regular Windows software – no need for an emulator.

Unlike rom hacks, there are only a few good fan-made Pokemon games existing online. You ask why? Because it’s not easy to create a Pokemon game completely from scratch. Creating such a game requires too much time, and it can’t be done by a single person alone. For starters, we suggest trying out Pokemon Uranium, Pokemon Insurgence, and lastly Pokemon Infinite Fusion.

Playing DS games including DS rom hacks is quite easy, all you need is a DS rom and DS emulator. The hardest part is finding a DS rom, you can download it from other sources, but keep in mind that sharing DS rom files are illegal.

We have listed the best DS emulators for Pc, for Mac, you can use OpenEmu, for Android we suggest using DraStic DS Emulator

You can’t go wrong with Nintendo DS games as these games have better and higher-quality graphics with lots of features as compared to GBA games.

Playing Pokemon on Nintendo DS is quite popular in recent days. These are the popular Pokemon DS games we recommend everyone to play;

• Pokemon Black/White
• Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
• Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver
• Pokemon Platinum
• Pokemon Black 2/White 2

Where to get these games? It’s not easy to find them, especially if wish to play them for free. But other websites offer rom file download for these games. Take note that sharing such files is not legal, so, do it at your own risk.

DS rom hacks are interesting games; however, as is mentioned, it’s not easy to modify such games due to their program complexity. As a result, only a few enthusiasts dare to hack the game, and many of these DS rom games are incomplete.

Listed below are good Pokemon DS rom hacks, and we suggest you play them.

• Pokemon Light Platinum DS
• Pokemon Heart Red
• Pokemon Moon Black 2
• Pokemon Blaze Black | Pokémon Volt White
• Pokemon Blaze Black 2 | Pokémon Volt White 2

Check Pokemon DS Rom Hacks page to view our collection of Pokemon DS rom hacks with its download link.

PC
We have two favorite Nintendo DS emulators for PC; We recommend everyone to use them, not just because they are popular, but also because these emulators have almost the same functionality as with a regular DS console. Here are they;

• DeSmuME
• No$GBA

Android
Short and straight answer, the best DS emulator for Android is DraStic DS Emulator.

iOS
NDS4iOS and iNDS are two good NDS emulators for iOS according to many users.

Mac
We only have one DS emulator we strongly recommend every Mac user to use, and that is OpenEmu. OpenEmu is a multiple video game system that enables a user to play not just NDS games, but other popular consoles such as Atari, GBA, GBC, PSP and more.

There are several reasons why cheats fail to work; in My Boy, there are three instances why a cheat fails to work.
You have V1.1 rom
Cheats work best in V1.0 roms and not on v1.1. This is a common issue our readers are having. For the fix, search, and use v1.0 rom.

You forgot to add the Mastercode
Not all cheats require Master code activated paired to the main cheat. But if a cheat requires it, add and activate it first before the main code.

You are using My Boy Free
Unfortunately, My Boy free version has limits; it won’t let you enter two or more liner cheat codes. The favorite fix for this issue is by entering the lines of codes as a separate cheat, and it works well for many.

There are many more reasons why GameShark cheat codes fail to work. See here and learn how to fix them.