Explore an enhanced Johto adventure featuring over 950 Pokemon across all nine generations, fully reworked trainers, modern battle mechanics, and quality-of-life features like infinite candy, portable PC, and buyable mints. Enjoy smoother progression, Mega Evolution, level caps, and a post-game Kanto boss rush, all at a fast 60fps.
Pokemon HeartGold Generations NDS ROM
- Creator: spearmintz
- Base Rom: Pokemon HeartGold
- Available Language: English
- Latest Version: v2.0
- Last Updated on: September 03, 2025
- Status: Completed
Pokemon HeartGold Generations is a NDS ROM hack based on Pokemon HeartGold, created by spearmintz. It was updated on September 03, 2025.
What is Pokemon HeartGold Generations?
Pokemon HeartGold Generations is a ROM hack based on the hg-engine, a community-developed project that adds many advanced features to the original HeartGold game. This hack uses those features to enhance gameplay by updating trainers, Pokemon stats, and battle mechanics.
Every trainer in the game has been edited, with changes to their teams, Pokemon movesets, types, and abilities. Some basic scripting was also done to ensure these changes work smoothly in-game. Advanced features like a Pokedex expansion, Mega Evolutions, and a pocket PC were implemented by other contributors, with full credit given separately.
After the initial release (v1.0), a full playthrough revealed that the Johto region was still too easy, especially with all the new tools and mechanics available to the player. As a result, trainer battles—including Gym Leaders and the Elite Four—were adjusted to provide more of a challenge suited to modern players.
While HeartGold Generations is not meant to be a full difficulty hack, it now includes:
- Newer generation Pokemon on enemy teams
- Greater variety in trainer team compositions
- Increased trainer and Gym Leader levels
- Fully evolved Pokemon in mid to late game battles
This means opponents like Team Rocket Grunts no longer rely on weak, repetitive teams—creating a more engaging and modern gameplay experience.
Full Features
- ~950 Pokemon from over 500 families across all 9 generations are available (100+ Legendaries added to the roster, all catch-able in Kanto)
- All Trade-Evolutions and Cross-Generation Evolutions are available
- Every Trainer and Gym Leader adjusted to be more interesting and less weak
- Infinite Candy and Pocket Heal to help grinding
- Portable PC for easy party switching (L Button)
- Buyable Nature Mints and Ability Capsules
- Type Changes for underused and forgettable Pokemon
- Free Heart Scales after 7 Gyms for relearning moves
- Free Master Balls after 8 Gyms to help capture Pokemon
- Level-Cap in place to prevent over-leveling
- Fully functional Mega Evolution
- Level curve adjusted to make progression smoother
- Kanto gym leaders as an Endgame boss rush
- 60fps Unlocked Framerate to speed up your Johto adventure
Changelog v2.0
- 100+ Legendary Pokemon added
- Fixed dozens of bugged evolutions
- Every Trainer and Gym Leader adjusted to be more challenging for adult gamers (NOT A DIFFICULTY HACK)
- Rare Candy and other QoL mechanics adjusted to be more integrated
- Items can be used repeatedly (Potions/Rare Candies etc)
- Portable PC implemented
- Kanto Gym leaders made into hardcore boss rush trainers
- Encounter tables adjusted
- 60FPS unlocked framerate
Known Bugs / In Progress
- MelonDS crashes after Hall of Fame.
- Use Desmume to beat the champion and Hall of Fame, then switch back to your emulator of choice.
- Ariana Double battle in Mahogany town can cause crashes when fainting both opponents at the same time.
- Save often
- Health Absorbing moves (absorb, giga drain) don’t heal you on “not very effective” opponents.
- Just deal with it, I guess
- Generic Heartgold emulation bugs like flickering sprites or following pokemon etc
- This is not a bug from my hack, its intrinsic to emulation. Just save in-game the moment you see a glitch and reload.
- No Guard ability seems to not work, maybe just with Fury Cutter
Creator Note
You will NEED TO USE DESMUME AS YOUR EMULATOR TO BEAT THE CHAMPION AND HALL OF FAME, then you can switch back to your emulator of your choice. The game will crash otherwise due to a hg-engine bug that I don’t know how to fix.
You may also ask, how come there aren’t multiple versions without level caps etc this time? Because that takes a lot of extra work and maintenance and I didn’t wanna do it. Sorry!
Usefull Resuorces
Download
Screenshots
Credits
hg-engine – BluRosie
Hacking video tutorials – sauceyaTTa
Custom PokeMart script – Drayano
Drayano – PC Anywhere
Zebben (Ebbeneezer) – PC Anywhere
dev-cyw – Infinite Candy
Can O Crisco – Implementation
Kingdom of Hacking Discord Channel