Pokemon Heart & Soul is a Completed GBA Rom Hack made by Lil Dill. Play a modern GBA remake of Johto combining Gen 2, 3, and 4 elements with enhanced gameplay features.
Pokemon Heart & Soul Completed GBA Rom Hack
- Author: Lil Dill
- Hack Off: Emerald
- Language: English
- Released on: September 26, 2025
- Latest Version: v1.0
- Status: Completed
What is Pokemon Heart & Soul?
Pokemon Heart & Soul brings the classic Johto Region and its iconic story to the world of modern GBA decomp hacking. Built on the Modern Emerald decomp, this project offers a fresh take on the GSC/HGSS experience, blending key aspects of the Gen 2 and Gen 4 games, while incorporating many modern QoL features, as well as some familiar Gen 3 mechanics. Not only is Heart & Soul (HnS) a first-of-its-kind, fully completed, playtested, and largely faithful GSC remake / HGSS demake, it’s also completely open source, and is intended to be a base for a new generation of Johto rom hacks.
Features
- Generation 1-3 Pokémon, plus their later gen evolutions (excluding the Regis and Jirachi)
- Full Johto story and Kanto postgame from HGSS, including the Kimono Girls and Eusine
- Following Pokémon
- Overworld background Pokémon allow you to easily see the notable encounters on each route
- Day/Night System with variable encounters
- Dynamic overworld palettes
- HGSS Music
- Highly varied trainer teams and encounters, based on Crystal Legacy
- HMs do not need to be taught to a Pokémon in order for it to be used
- Apricons replaced with berries, Kurt will use them to make unique Pokéballs
- Timekeeping does not track days of the week, Everything is progression based
- 16 Gym leader rematches
- Two Safari Zones
- Unique surfing Pokémon sprites
- Customizable shiny rate
- Physical/special split is toggleable
- Fairy type is toggleable
- AutoRun and FastSurf are toggleable
- Quick run from wild battles using button combination
- Ball prompts for quick catching
- … and much more!
Setting Expectations
- Heart & Soul was designed as a traditional Pokémon experience, akin to the main-series games. It is not a difficulty hack, and does not have built-in features for non-traditional playstyles. Do not expect to see features like infinite rare candies, or built-in randomization or nuzlocking rules.
- Heart & Soul stands on the shoulders of giants. I am not an artist, so much of the art and some of the code for this project was drawn from open source assets. I did my best to credit all sources below and in the game credits, but if you find any that I missed, please let me know in the Heart & Soul Discord.
- Heart & Soul has been rigorously playtested, (shoutout to the playtesters) but there still may be some small bugs. If you find any, please report them to the Heart & Soul Discord.
- There are a few GSC/HGSS features that were too complex or time consuming for me to implement in this project. See differences section below.
Differences from GSC/HGSS
- Radio is a standalone Key Item with limited functionality instead of a menu in the Pokégear
- Trainers will not offer their phone numbers, no way to rematch them
- Greatly improved level curve
- Apricorns replaced with berries, berry ball catch boost is based on Type
- Strength boulder-in-hole puzzles replaced with Emerald Mach Bike puzzles
- No itemfinder and no hidden items – Only 50 TMs (The ones from emerald)
- Swarms are replaced with a 5% Hoenn encounter on each route in Kanto
- Mom does not take your money
- Ruins of alph back room requirements are slightly altered
- No pokéathalon dome
- Battle Tower from Emerald is in the game. Battle Frontier is not.
- No trades in Kanto
Recommended Emulators
- For PC/Mac: mGBA
- For Android: pizzaboy, Lemuroid, Retroarch w/ mGBA core.
- For IOS: Delta, Retroarch w/ mGBA core, Ignited.
- For Linux Handheld Devices: Retroarch w/ mGBA core.
Screenshots
Also Check Out other Completed GBA Hacks:
