Pokémon Crystal Legacy
Pokémon Crystal, rebalanced from its own disassembly: tougher, more varied gym leaders, a fuller Johto dex, honest trade evolutions, and an optional Hard Mode with its own level-cap ladder.
More about the game
Pokémon Crystal Legacy is TheSmithPlays' rebalance of Pokémon Crystal, built from the game's own disassembled source code with Craig Livingstone (cRz Shadows) as programmer. The creator's own stated goal is a more polished, better-balanced Crystal that keeps Generation 2's feel, changing things only where the original design already sets a precedent — moves, learnsets, wild Pokémon locations, the Team Rocket storyline, the rival's team and every trainer from ordinary battles up through the Gym Leaders, Elite Four and other bosses. Chuck, Jasmine and Pryce, Johto's non-linear middle badges, now scale their own teams and levels depending on whether you have 5, 6 or 7 badges when you get there, whichever order you fight them in. Several Kanto-only Generation 2 Pokémon are now catchable in Johto, Generation 1's trade evolutions (Machoke, Kadabra, Haunter, Graveler and the rest) now happen by levelling up, and Generation 2's trade-item evolutions (King's Rock and the like) now work by simply using the item, the way an evolution stone always has. Ghost moves are special here and Dark moves are physical, the reverse of the original Crystal. An optional Hard Mode (and a stricter Hardcore Mode) forces Set battle style, bans non-held items in battle, and puts a rising level cap on your own team, gym by gym; Normal play has no cap. This guide is generated from the creator's own source tree at tag V1.3.1.
What's different, point by point
- Every ordinary trainer, Gym Leader, Elite Four member and Champion rebalanced with fuller teams, held items and more varied movepools
- Chuck, Jasmine and Pryce — Johto's non-linear 5th/6th/7th badges — scale their team and levels to whichever order you fight them in
- Several Kanto-only Generation 2 Pokémon (Houndour and others) added to Johto's own routes
- Generation 1's trade evolutions (Machoke, Kadabra, Haunter, Graveler, Poliwhirl's line and the rest) now happen by levelling up instead of trading
- Generation 2's trade-item evolutions (King's Rock and the like) now work by using the item, like any other evolution stone
- Ghost moves are special and Dark moves are physical, the reverse of the original Crystal's category split
- A rebuilt Team Rocket storyline and rival team
- Fossils and the GS Ball made obtainable, and evolution items easier to find
- An optional Hard Mode and stricter Hardcore Mode, each with a rising level cap on your own team tied to badge count, chosen once at New Game
TheSmithPlays
This guide is built from TheSmithPlays's own documentation. The game, the ideas and the work are theirs — the site just makes the numbers searchable. Play it from the official page, and send them the feedback and the thanks.
What this guide covers
Every guide here is built from the game's own documentation. Where a ROM hack changed something but never published the numbers, this says so rather than quietly filling the gap with the original game's — which would be worse than leaving it out.
| Section | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Wild Pokémon by area | From the game itself | Every wild table in the game's own data: grass by time of day, surfing, all three rods, headbutt trees, Rock Smash, wild swarms and the Bug-Catching Contest, for all 127 areas the source places one in. |
| Encounter rates | From the game itself | From the game's own probability tables, or (for the Bug-Catching Contest) the percentage the game's own table gives each slot directly. |
| Wild levels | From the game itself | Every level is the game's own. |
| Stats, abilities and movesets | From the game itself | Base stats, types, learnsets, evolutions, egg moves and TM/HM compatibility for all 251 species. There is no ability system in Generation 2, so the ability line is intentionally blank. |
| TM and HM compatibility | From the game itself | All 50 TMs and 7 HMs, with per-species compatibility read from the game's own tables. |
| Where TMs are found | From the game itself | Read from the map script that hands each TM, HM or rod over — 52 of 57 are placed this way. The remaining 5 (three Punch TMs, Psych Up and Protect) aren't handed out by any map script in the game's data, so they're marked not placed rather than guessed at. |
| Trainer and boss teams | From the game itself | Every roster the game's own map scripts start, plus the post-Elite-Four rematch for every Gym Leader, Elite Four member and the Champion, and the phone-rematch teams for ordinary trainers who call again later. |
Credits
- Pokémon Crystal Legacy: TheSmithPlays (Patrick Smith)
- Programmer and co-developer; source code this guide is generated from: cRz Shadows (Craig Livingstone)
- Overworld and party-menu sprite art: Katt, Chamber, Soloo993, Blue Emerald, Lake, Neslug, Tom Wang, Seasick and Pikachu25
- Help with the Pokédex and Pokémon pages: Nayru62
- Editor for SmithPlays Pokémon: Weebra
- Discord admin: Jaashouh
- The Pokémon Crystal disassembly the game is built on: the pret team
- Sprites via PokéAPI; base move and TM data from PokéAPI and Bulbapedia.
Reading the tables
SourceEvery table on this site is read from the creator's own source tree at tag V1.3.1: base stats, types, learnsets, evolutions, egg moves, move data, wild tables with their rates and levels, TM and HM compatibility, and every trainer party. TM, HM and rod locations come from the map script that actually hands each one over, since the game's data doesn't otherwise name the place. The creator's linked Google Doc is genuine but was deleted after publication; a Wayback Machine capture from 2023-10-06 (which predates Hard Mode) was checked against the code for reader-facing facts, never used over it.
DifficultyHard Mode and Hardcore Mode are optional, chosen once at New Game. They change battle rules (Set mode, no non-held items in battle) and put a level cap on your own team that rises as you clear each gym — see the level caps below. Wild encounters and trainer rosters are the same in every mode.
Hard Mode CapsThe level cap under Hard Mode, badge by badge, read from the game's own level-cap table: Falkner 16 · Bugsy 21 · Whitney 25 · Morty 31 · Chuck, Jasmine and Pryce (5th/6th/7th badge, in whichever order) 36 → 38 → 45 · Clair 50 · Will 52 · Koga 54 · Bruno 55 · Lance/the Champion 60 (rising to 77 on the post-Elite-Four rematch) · Silver Cave and the post-game, uncapped. In Kanto the cap instead follows your total badge count: 9 badges 62 · 10 63 · 11 64 · 12-13 66 · 14 67 · 15-16 69. Normal play has no level cap.
CategoriesCategory is decided by type here, as in the original Crystal, except that Ghost is special and Dark is physical — the reverse of the original game. The move list says so on every Ghost and Dark move that does damage.
KantoKanto follows the original Crystal's own order rather than a straight badge line, so its routes and cities are placed together at the same checkpoint instead of one by one.
EvolutionsGeneration 1's trade evolutions (Machoke, Kadabra, Haunter, Graveler, Poliwhirl and Slowpoke's Water Stone lines) now happen by levelling up, and Generation 2's trade-item evolutions work by simply using the item — both read straight from the game's own evolution table, not inferred.
RatesSlot percentages are the game's own probability tables. The Bug-Catching Contest gives its own percentage directly, per slot. * marks 5% or less.
TimesGrass tables are split morning, day and night (4am-10am, 10am-8pm, 8pm-4am in this game). Where two or three of them are the same, the row is listed once and says which times it covers.
Rock SmashRock Smash is TM08 here, not an HM, matching the original Crystal.
RematchesA Gym Leader, Elite Four member or the Champion takes one upgraded rematch team once Red is beaten; about 50 ordinary trainers call to rematch with a stronger team once or twice more as the story goes on. Both are listed as separate fights on the trainer's own page. A rematch roster's own map isn't recorded in the game's data the way its first fight's is, so it's shown at that trainer's original location.
AbilitiesThere is no ability system in this generation, so every Pokémon page has an empty ability line and the comparison block does not try to say what was gained or lost.