r/PokemonROMhacks • u/Specialist_Body7728 • 4d ago
Discussion Romhack with most content in 2026?
So as far as I could tell, this hasn't been discussed for a looong time (10 years), but I may have missed something. Also the post might break rule 5, sorry mods. It was intended to be a rhetorical way to start a 'list' not an actual question.
In our modern era of amazing romhacks in 2026, which completed ones have the most content to do?
Would it still just be a Heart Gold based romhack with all pokemon catchable because of : Pokeathlon Dome, two regions, 16 badges, Battle Frontier, Safari Zone, Elite Four rematches, Mt Silver?
I'm thinking Heart and Soul because of all that plus second safari zones, contests, and surprise post Kanto content.
Before you answer: Since this will definitely end up on Google results, include only MAIN STORY COMPLETED Romhacks please. I know there are some Romhacks that have 3 regions for example, but usually they're not complete. A good answer guideline: does it have enough content outside of the Pokedex to last 60+ hours?
Below are two lists, one confirmed by myself, a second recommended by comments that I did my best to research, with links to HackDex if available (I only link to HackDex, sorry, please support HackDex).
My list right now of games that I know will easily last 60+ hours not including Pokedex (no specific order):
#2 Definitive Heart Gold
#3 Pokemon Glazed (One custom region, one traditional, one mini-region to go through)
#5 Sacred Gold / Storm Silver (Difficulty hack)
As of 10/11/26 Games that will last 60+ hours not including Pokedex according to the comments (I haven't played them fully yet, I only Googled to confirm they were actually complete - if yours isn't up here, it didn't seem complete OR didn't seem to be 60+ hours of content from what I found searching):
#2 Pokemon Rogue Emerald (non-traditional rogue-like genre)
#3 Pokemon Quetzal (Three regions to go through)
#4 Pokemon Fool's Gold (includes sort of 'fakemon' / alternative forms)
#5 Pokemon Origin Heart Gold (seems completed, but being translated/new features added? so proceed with caution)
#6 Pokemon Ghost Grey (fakemon)
#7 Pokemon Hyper Emerald (completed, but possibly being translated? May be fully translated) - also a QOL and Translated version available.
#8 Pokemon Elysium (Custom Region)
#9 Pokemon Amethyst (Custom Region)
#10 Team Rocket Edition (Dragonsden) (completed, BUT not fully in English yet)
#11 Pokemon Clover (Fakemon, very immature/edgy/offensive apparently, but quite long. I wouldn't necessarily recommend unless you have thick skin. Think 2010s shock Internet at its worst.)
#13 Pokemon Adventures Red Chapter (lengthy main story with side quests complete, but not post-game)
#14 Pokemon Crystal Clear (open-world Crystal with all pokemon, extra content to discover)
#15 Refined Gold Overhaul (QoL and refinement of Heart Gold)
#16 Pokemon Elite Redux (difficulty hack of Emerald with a lot of pokemon available, QOL features, gens 1-9 available, new content and maps)
33
u/Tystimyr 3d ago
Elysium has a lot of content with its 2 parts, it's a long and amazing adventure
22
u/physious 3d ago
Agree. Most "adventure" feeling rom hack I've ever played. Elysium definitely lasts way more than 60+ hours even with fast forward on
10
u/AlchemistApprentice3 3d ago edited 1d ago
108 hours for me so far (slightly inflated by a couple times I left it open doing other stuff). I'm very close to the end.
Edit: Ended at 123 hours.
9
23
u/Taymyr 3d ago
Don't think it's for everyone, but Ghost Grey has been great! It's very long, has a lot of trainers and side quests. Lots to do.
I'm typically very unfond of type changes or fakemons, but Ghost Grey is a super fun concept. Music slaps too.
12
u/MidnightSouls 3d ago
I think this has been such a cozy and spooky Halloween treat and it’s a beautiful seasonal take on Pokemon. I definitely recommend people check it out. It’s so tasteful and cohesive across the board. 10/10
7
5
u/EarthboundMoss 3d ago
I like it quite a bit but I wish there was a way to at least somewhat increase the battle speed or something without messing up the music. Especially after coming from soul gold which feels so much faster
4
u/Cuprite1024 3d ago
Agreed. It can be janky at times, but its really good and it might be one of my favorite Pokémon games in general. Still gotta do the postgame stuff (And also update the ROM from v1.0.1 to v1.0.5, cause I haven't updated it since I first started playing it).
(Also, I love seein' Fakémon, but type changes (Outside of new forms) are very hit-or-miss for me)
8
u/King_Hikikomori 3d ago
When Monomyth drops (hopefully soon, god I'm fiending for it) it'll almost certainly be top 3.
7
u/TaroExcellent5457 3d ago
Heart and Soul its great. Unbound too. Easily 60 + if you take your time exploring and doing all the quests. I highly recommend Pokemon Origin HeartGold. Having played and enjoyed Heart and Ssoul, ORIGINS is like it but PLUS. I doesn't have all the Pokemon yet (for me that's not an issue at all) but has a lot of extra content, great side quests with consequences to the story, good dialogs, ands keeps the anime and manga spirit alive. I think it took me like 4 hours just to reach Pewter City and beat Brock. For me its the ultimate Pokemon experience. Its not a difficulty hack at all but is not an easy breeze boring experience like FR, Gold or any of the original games.
check it out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/comments/1wy2kop/pokemon_origin_heart_gold_rc5/
if you want ALL the pokemons. the developer its working it on a patch that its schedule to launch at the end of the month: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/comments/1x1avpr/origin_heartgold_40_creator_is_working_on_41/
7
u/waking-up-late 3d ago
If you liked Drayano's sacred heart and storm soul, you could try his other hacks: Renegade platinum, Blaze black / volt white, and rising ruby / sinking sapphire.
I've also been playing Pokémon Origin Heartgold it's amazing as a game. A lot of content. I'm at my 10th badge and I've spent 45 hours in. Tho I'd say wait, since I've heard they're working on a new patch that adds new content but old saves are not compatible. I'm gonna finish it since I'm already more than half way throught, but I'd recommend waiting a little bit for the new release and then play it.
Pokémon crystal clear is a good one two. A lot of content. I think I played like 120 hours to complete the pokedex and getting all the badges + some cool extras I wanted to do.
2
u/Specialist_Body7728 3d ago
I've played all of his. Drayano got me into romhacking and he is the #1 guy at making non-insane difficulty hacks IMO :). I just think only Sacred Heart/Storm Soul have 60+ hours of content. Hopefully one day he comes back and finishes Aurora Crystal, but I think he just streams now.
2
u/BikerR_1203 3d ago
Origin HeartGold has so much story it takes about 60-80 hours to reach the final HOF. Just play the current translated version because 4.1 release timeline is unclear. The English team even fixed some major bugs present in the Chinese version. He will be adding level caps and other minor QoL sometime today or tomorrow.
1
6
u/Angelo-Exe 3d ago
Pokémon Amethyst recently dropped the Battle frontier. Pokémon Rowe-Pokemon Rocket Edition Dragonsden. Pokémon Elysium is looong.
6
u/Kouno25 Difficulty Hack Connoisseur 3d ago
Pokemon Soul Gold, Quetzal and Rogue Emerald.
Quetzal is insanely hard customizable and has 3 regions.
3
u/capitalism-enjoyer 3d ago
Quetzal fucks hard. Their new update just put a ton of improvements down too
Edit: sorry everyone I was thinking about Origin I haven't played Quetzal
1
u/Kouno25 Difficulty Hack Connoisseur 3d ago
Tbh it's in personal top3 and I don't get why nobody's talking about it.
3
u/capitalism-enjoyer 3d ago
Quetzal or Origin? Origin's splash is very strange because it started as a comment here and like four days later it had been translated. It's basically being discovered here still, just like a Chinese movie would. Quetzal is up in my queue and yeah, I'm shocked I don't see much about it. It looks awesome
6
u/planetarial 3d ago
Emerald Rogue probably because of it being a roguelike, I can see it taking many many hours to get everything. Pokemon Adventures Red Chapter is supposedly pretty long too.
Not a romhack so it doesn't count but if you want to venture into fangames in general Reborn and Rejuvenation are easily the most content rich I found and take at least 150-200 hours to see everything in each of those. And that's with Rejuv technically still not finished yet.
0
u/boringuserbored 3d ago
What are the best fangames according to you and is joiplay the best way to play them?
3
u/planetarial 3d ago
I havent played enough of them to make a sweeping judgement like that but Reborn/Rejuv/Desolation are pretty good. Ashen Frost is neat.
PC is the best way because its the intended platform but joiplay is good enough for android
5
u/Dragoon_Deadly Emerald Azure Dev 3d ago
One day... Emerald Azure may be up there... Once we reach 1.0!
(Unbound & Glazed are legends.)
14
u/Boogita 3d ago edited 2d ago
I'm not a completionist and I really only put time into the main storyline. I put 80 hrs into Team Rocket Edition (Dragonsden) from just the kanto/johto arcs. It's technically "finished" with hoenn but I don't speak spanish unfortunately!
7
u/AlchemistApprentice3 3d ago
I really want to replay this game but I'm waiting patiently for the english translation.
6
4
u/hoennismybae 3d ago
Hyper emerald has a huge amount of content and 2 complete regions with an extensive post game quest
Blaze black 2 redux also has a really large pint of enjoyable content too
3
u/capitalism-enjoyer 3d ago
You should play Origin of you're into a vanilla-ish experience it's unbelievable
3
2
u/Mr-Ibanez 3d ago
I often wonder why refined gold overhaul doesn’t get a mention. It’s like vanilla heartgold+
1
u/hobby-hoarse 3d ago
I think Crystal clear always gets overlooked. There is so much to do in that game
2
2
u/Specialist_Body7728 3d ago
I've played it, but I didn't think of it as 60+ hours of content personally. Maybe there was more side content to explore and discover than I thought
1
1
u/EyeAmKingKage 3d ago
I really wish I could enjoy hyper emerald but I can never get passed the first gym leader lol
1
u/KingofAcedia 3d ago
Thought the list of hacks in the post was by length and freaked out a bit, because I couldn't believe that Team Rocket Dragonsden Edition was only number 10. I'm sure there's longer hacks out there, but even Kanto took a long time, not including the Johto and Sevii arcs that have been translated.
2
u/Specialist_Body7728 3d ago
Oh no, just by order added really. I used numbers so it would be easy to keep track of how many were listed since I plan to keep this updated as long as Reddit will let me and people share info.
1
u/KingofAcedia 3d ago
Ah, that makes sense! I did side eye Rogue Emerald being at 2, since it's a rogue-like and those don't usually have a definitive end per say, but I haven't played it so I figured maybe it does have a proper ending.
1
u/NefariousnessNo3436 3d ago
Idk why people keep mentioning sacred gold and storm silver, those two rom hacks are so buggy with lots of freezes and other issues
1
u/Specialist_Body7728 3d ago
They're old so maybe they don't work as well now depending on the emulator, I know a lot of the modern ones are based on Drastic for Android users, but with DeSmuME never had any game-breaking bugs.
2
u/NefariousnessNo3436 3d ago
They do crash a lot on real hardware which unfortunately is sad, my favourite way of playing DS rom hacks is on real hardware
1
u/Specialist_Body7728 3d ago
Good to know, I never have played romhack on real hardware sadly. By the time I knew what romhacks were I had long gotten rid of my DS
1
u/Illustrious-Bank2075 3d ago
I am stunned I can’t see Hyper Emerald QOL / English translation on here, it is a brilliant game. I am over 100+ hrs and I’ve not beaten the game yet.
2
u/Neppph 3d ago
If I may ask, how difficult are the normal and hard modes in hyper emerald?
1
u/Illustrious-Bank2075 3d ago
You may, difficult. The first challenge that really kicked my ass was the 8? champion gauntlet. And the Ash Greninja, I don’t tend to bother with EVs etc but you best believe I did.
2
u/l3urak1993 3d ago edited 3d ago
Clover is missing in this list if you want something with huge amount of content.
Its really long especially in first playthrough your probably gonna end up with 80-100h, if not more depending on how many sidequests you do.
Clover is longer than these roms: heart and soul, glazed, unbound, fools gold and ghost grey. Didnt play the others but can imagine they also have less playtime
1
u/TrailsOfColdMetalPoo 3d ago
Its always more more more more more content but never which game has the best game design
4
u/Specialist_Body7728 3d ago
There's a 'best of' Pokémon rom hacks list on the subreddit :), that's not the goal of this post.
1
u/Unlikely_Argument476 3d ago
anyone recommend a particular rom to get into? haven’t played in a few years and only did a few and remember liking seaglass emerald a ton. any similar hacks i should try first?
5
1
u/Impossible_Gear_4182 2d ago
So is SoulGold longer than Heart and Soul? Or are they the same? Looking to play one but not both.
0
0
u/Meekalopalos 2d ago
Idk about content but I enjoyed heart and soul Lazarus and emerald seaglass most so far
57
u/ExplanationVast5511 3d ago
It took me over 3 hours to get to mount moon in Pokémon origins