Pokémon Heart & Soul is a freebie that's better than a Gen 2 Switch port

Pokémon Heart & Soul 2.0 is available now, and it’s a must-play if you’re a fan of Gen 2 and desperately want a modern revival.

Earlier this month, it was theorised that both The Pokémon Company and Nintendo have more re-releases up their sleeves, after the success of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen’s Nintendo Switch ports in February.

Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are the games believed to be getting a port next, but a Gen 2 tease hidden in plain sight has some gamers second-guessing that notion.

Rather than sit here speculating all day, however, let’s instead look at something available in the here and now: Pokémon Heart and Soul.

It’s another ROMhack, surprise surprise, but a damn good one at that. Based on Pokémon Emerald, it’s a Gen 2 revival unlike anything even Game Freak could manage.

Pokémon Heart and Soul has been out for a while now, but it’s recently received its major 2.0 update, which is a game-changer in every sense of the word.

The lead developer, Desperate-Low784 on Reddit, shared a full list of the included changes and additions, along with some screenshots of the ROMhack in action.

Below you’ll find the current list of changes from the indie developer:

• Change all challenge settings after starting the game (some can only be made easier, not harder)
• Gen 7 movepool option, complete with all moves up to Gen 7
• Overhauled Kanto maps and tilesets
• All Pokégear rematches from GSC (and some new ones), including items
• Full Pokégear radio with all channels from Crystal (and some new ones)
• New postgame content
• All 92 HGSS TM's
• GB player for Gen 2 music and sounds
• No more bike reaction time puzzles

While the screenshots should paint a clear picture of what it’ll look like, we’d also recommend checking out the official trailer below.

Unfortunately, the only thing this mod can’t do is transfer a save, so if you’ve been playing the current version, you’ll have to start from scratch for 2.0.

Nevertheless, it’s gone down well with the community. Replying to Desperate-Low784’s Reddit post was Tight_Lettuce_8023 who said: “This is my favourite ROM hack of all time! Huge thanks to the developers for creating this for us and for continuing to support it with all the updates. I really appreciate all the work you’ve put into it.”

Then staticdresssweet lovingly referred to it as “a real labor of love”.

How to play Pokémon Heart and Soul for yourself

As said before, this ROMhack is built around Pokémon Emerald, and as such, you’ll need a legally-obtained ROM of said game.

Annoyingly, a genuine copy of Pokémon Emerald is very hard to come by nowadays, and if you do find one, it’s usually priced at a ridiculous amount like most of the other games in the series.

If you’ve got your ROM though, there’s a download and patch guide on the mod’s official page, and you’ll, of course, need a Game Boy Advance emulator to run it through.

So a few hoops to jump through as always, but well-worth it if you want to experience a new-and-improved Gen 2!

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