Pokemon Brown 2024 - ROM Hacked

It's genuinely scary to me that Pokemon Brown version, the first ever Pokemon rom hack that changed the story, sprites, and debuted an original region, is over 20 years old now.

Originally created by user Coolboyman in January of 2004, Pokemon Brown helped bring to life a community of creatives who hack and create their own Pokemon journeys.

And it's fascinating to see how this hack evolved over the years.
Originally the game only had the original 151 Pokemon available, but then in a remake/update from 2009 it had it's Pokedex upgraded to include 224 Pokemon.

and in 2024, it received a new update, version 6.0. with a grand total of 231 Pokemon available to catch in the Rijon regional dex.

And there's much else new in this update beyond just the new pocket monsters.

So, let's dive into Pokemon Brown 6.0 to see exactly what's new, what's old, and whatever is in-between.

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So you may be familiar with Coolboyman and the Rainbow Devs team for their work on the fantastic Pokemon Prisim,
well, this 2024 update is the quality of their more recent work, firmly polished onto the old skeleton of Brown.

It's not to say that Brown version pre-6.0 was unplayable or anything like that, but the newer additions definitely make it hard to go back and play older versions.

Not only do we have Pokemon from all the way up to Gen 9 (don't get too excited) but we also have new Pokemon Evolution methods, 5 new Pokemon types that you might be familiar from if you played Prisim, as well as a Fakemon legendary Pokemon to top it all off.

Many of my favourite Pokemon from generations 2 through to 4 are here and all have fun generation 1 sprites.

Sure, it's largely still the core Kanto Dex but there's plenty to love about pokemon variety from this 231 handful.

You play as a new trainer in the great region of Rijon, tasked to complete the pokedex by Tim. Yeah, that's Tim. There he is. Tim.

Your rival is named Mura and your quest is to go collect the 8 gym badges, defeat the Pokemon League, and explore the land, discover Pokemon, make friends a long the way, etc etc

You're still starting with the OG Kanto starters though, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Charmander.

I went with the basic fire type choice and cherished my Charizard as a core powerhouse unit of my team.

I also used a Noivern which was a cool early catch. Alongside that, a Vileplume which is always great for leech seeding duties. A Golem for all rock and earthquaking needs. A Raichu as a my emergency generator. And finally a Porygon Z. Just because.

By the time you truly get through this whole game, the final bosses team will be level 100s, so you're gonna be with your team for the long haul with Brown.

I won't lie, having the new types like Sound Type and Gas type be in the mix certainly would throw me off every now and then, but it's never anything too drastic.

In total for new types, it's Sound, Gas, Wood (which feels kinda similar to Grass but whatever) Wind (which also kinda feels similar to Flying buuuuuut whatever) and finally, Abnormal.

Which is like the normal type... only not.

And don't forget, despite this being a Generation 1 rom hack... it has Dark, Steel, and Fairy types in it, too.

There's new TMs and HMs, as if it all wasn't enough...
Though having more HMs is ahhhh not my favourite thing, but I'll survive.

The game is stocked to the brim with content, which makes sense given it's essentially been cookin' for 20 years.

Some of the map layouts are a little strange but overall this is a highly navigable hack, with some pretty streamlined progress to know where to go next to get the next badge, and so on.

Oh right, side note, you ever wonder if they named Castro Valley after uh...

Aesthetically the game is awesome, and I even played in the ol' Gameboy colour pallet and still had a good time, so that's how you know this is legit.

The original sprites look pretty solid and mimic the original style just enough while also having it's own look and feel.

Some character sprites are actually phenomenal, while some others you can tell are older and less refined.

Especially when you see the changes made to the user interface, you begin to kind of understand the intentional design differences. It just feels more... “hoodie”. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense but that's just the impression I get.

There's a new music track, along with other quality songs from Generation 2.

And there's colour support too if you can play it in a Super Gameboy.

[meme.interzone]

Brown is still getting updates? That's like going back to elementary school projects to make them better in university

[Nasaratsu]

Thanks for the heads up, never played this and sounds good!

[stbmonke]

Castro Valley is a city from the East Bay where this region is based off of, same thing with Hayward, there's an actual mall named Southland Mall just like its game counterpart, but unlike the game, the real counterpart only has the ground floor and the basement floor. Overall, very excellent review!

[terrymoss]

I need to know why he would call it "Brown" version. Of all the names, it certainly seems the least appealing. Good thing the game, itself, is killer.

[Thunderspeed]

Can it play in colour?

Example: I have a gameboy colour and an everdrive, could I use it like that? Or in an emulator?

[TheHardys]

Can they just make a cool looking game that caps at Gen