Pokemon Heart & Soul (GBA) Download

“Pokemon Heart & Soul” is a Completed GBA Rom Hack made by Lil Dill. Explore Johto in Pokemon Heart & Soul on GBA, with modern features, QoL upgrades, and classic vibes!

Contents

Pokemon Heart & Soul Completed GBA Rom Hack
Description
Features
Differences from GSC/HGSS
Developer’s Note:
Recommended Emulators
Game Related Stuff
Download Pokemon Heart & Soul
Screenshots
Credits
Lead Developer / Game Director
Developers
Playtesters
Open Source Assets Used:

Pokemon Heart & Soul Completed GBA Rom Hack

Creator: Lil Dill
Base ROM: Emerald
Language: English
Latest Version: v1.0
Released on: August 26, 2025
Status: Completed

Also Check Out: Pokemon Colors

Description

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!

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
No trades in Kanto

Developer’s Note:

Development for this project was primarily (95%) a solo-effort that consumed almost all of my free time for the last year. I am not a professional programmer or artist, but I did my best to make the game that I wanted to play. If you’d like to improve, expand upon, or make your own version of HnS, feel free to take advantage of the open source! Please direct any questions to the (Heart & Soul Discord). I hope you enjoy!

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.

Future Plans

I plan to take a step back from this project once the initial wave of inevitable post-release bugs are fixed. Over the course of the playtest, the dev team has grown from 1 to 6, and an effort to port the whole project to pokeemerald expansion is underway.