One launcher for native Pokémon ports on Windows, with a menu for controller, keyboard and mouse. It starts each game through its own engine, and the engines stay forks that keep pulling their upstream updates. It also installs and runs the fan game Pokémon Infinite Fusion, and any other self-contained PC game you add.

No games are included: you need your own ROMs. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo, Creatures Inc., GAME FREAK inc. or The Pokémon Company.

Supported games

Generation	Game	Gen1Recomp	Fulldex	Platinum PC port	nativeplat
1	Red, Blue, Yellow	✓
2	Gold, Silver, Crystal	✓
3	Ruby, Sapphire	✓
3	FireRed, LeafGreen, Emerald	✓	✓
4	Diamond, Pearl				✓
4	HeartGold, SoulSilver		✓
4	Platinum		✓	✓	✓
5	Black, White, Black 2, White 2		✓

Plus Pokémon Infinite Fusion, a PC fan game with no ROM, which the launcher installs and runs as its own program.

Not supported yet: Generation 6 and later (3DS and Switch games).

Several copies of a game: if your folders hold more than one version, such as Rev 0 and Rev 1, the game's page gets a ROM version row to choose between them.

ROM hacks are games of their own. A hack of a game Fulldex runs (FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald; Platinum hacks the same way, not yet tried) gets its own place in Games, named after its file: Pokemon_FireRed_Rocket_Edition.gba shows as "Pokemon FireRed Rocket Edition". Rename on its page changes that, and the name stays even if the file is renamed. Whether a ROM is a hack is decided by its contents only: it carries the game's code but isn't one of that game's clean dumps (every clean revision is known). The file name only gives it its name, so a clean copy under any file name stays with its game. It runs on Fulldex only, with saves, backups and save slots of its own, and its saves read as the base game's do, for Move Pokemon, My Collection and PKHeX. Widescreen depends on the hack. Tested: Pokémon Rocket Edition FINAL v1.0.2, a FireRed hack, which opens straight into the game and plays with no graphical issues.

Where a game has more than one engine it starts in Fulldex, and you can switch on its page. Each engine accepts certain versions of a ROM, mostly the US release: the launcher tells you if yours isn't one. Windows only for now.

Accepted ROMs

Gen1Recomp and nativeplat only run exact dumps, so they check each ROM's SHA-1. If yours is refused, the game's page shows the hash it found.

Game	Engine	Accepted SHA-1
Red	Gen1Recomp	ea9bcae617fdf159b045185467ae58b2e4a48b9a
Blue	Gen1Recomp	d7037c83e1ae5b39bde3c30787637ba1d4c48ce2
Yellow	Gen1Recomp	cc7d03262ebfaf2f06772c1a480c7d9d5f4a38e1
Gold	Gen1Recomp	d8b8a3600a465308c9953dfa04f0081c05bdcb94
Silver	Gen1Recomp	49b163f7e57702bc939d642a18f591de55d92dae
Crystal	Gen1Recomp	f4cd194bdee0d04ca4eac29e09b8e4e9d818c133 f2f52230b536214ef7c9924f483392993e226cfb
FireRed	Gen1Recomp	41cb23d8dccc8ebd7c649cd8fbb58eeace6e2fdc dd5945db9b930750cb39d00c84da8571feebf417
LeafGreen	Gen1Recomp	574fa542ffebb14be69902d1d36f1ec0a4afd71e 7862c67bdecbe21d1d69ce082ce34327e1c6ed5e
Ruby	Gen1Recomp	f28b6ffc97847e94a6c21a63cacf633ee5c8df1e 610b96a9c9a7d03d2bafb655e7560ccff1a6d894 5b64eacf892920518db4ec664e62a086dd5f5bc8
Sapphire	Gen1Recomp	3ccbbd45f8553c36463f13b938e833f652b793e4 4722efb8cd45772ca32555b98fd3b9719f8e60a9 89b45fb172e6b55d51fc0e61989775187f6fe63c
Emerald	Gen1Recomp	f3ae088181bf583e55daf962a92bb46f4f1d07b7
Diamond	nativeplat	a46233d8b79a69ea87aa295a0efad5237d02841e
Pearl	nativeplat	99083bf15ec7c6b81b4ba241ee10abd9e80999ac
Platinum	nativeplat	0862ec35b24de5c7e2dcb88c9eea0873110d755c (Rev 1) ce81046eda7d232513069519cb2085349896dec7 (Rev 0)

Fulldex and the Platinum PC port don't check a hash: they go by the game code in the ROM's header, so most dumps of a supported game work.

Decrypt an encrypted DS ROM first: the launcher offers this when it finds one. nativeplat's own import screen refuses Platinum Rev 0, but nativeMons places the ROM itself. The two revisions share the same game files, differing only in a GTS screen, and Platinum runs nativeplat's Rev 1 code either way.

Download

• Dev: built from every commit to dev. It may be broken, so back up your saves.
• Stable: the latest working build, from main.

Unzip it anywhere (not inside Program Files), start NativeMonsLauncher.exe and add your ROM folder under ROMs, or drop the folder onto the window. File names don't matter: games are found by reading each ROM. Patching .nds ROMs needs Python 3.

The first start after adding ROMs takes about a minute behind the splash screen:

• Your Game Boy and GBA games are prepared for Gen1Recomp from your ROMs, three at a time.
• The game the menu opens on gets its title screen and town wallpaper; the other games' pictures are made in the background once the menu is up.

Everything runs out of sight at low priority. Windows Defender scans the many small files preparing writes, which is most of the load during that first start. After that the launcher opens in about a second.

Before a stable release, tests/stable-check/stable-check.ps1 tests a release package on copies of your ROMs and saves. It runs in groups, so a failed part can be retested with -Retest; its header explains the options.

Using it

The launcher is a phone-sized Pokédex that takes on each game's colours, and unfolds into a tablet for Move. Its home screen shows the game you played last: its intro plays in the Play tile, and one of its towns is the wallpaper, both captured from your own ROM on your PC. Below that are Games, Collection, Mods, ROMs, Move, Settings and Exit. Whenever the launcher is loading, a rainbow Poké Ball spins: on the splash at start, while it works on something such as preparing a game or backing up a save, while a game's title screen is being made in its Play tile, and while Pokémon pictures and Pokédex entries arrive.

• D-pad or left stick: move. A: select. B: back.
• Keyboard: arrow keys or WASD, Enter, Esc.
• Mouse: hover to select, click to choose, right-click to go back. The D-pad and buttons on the device can be clicked too, and dragging its shell moves the window.

Dropping files on the window works on any menu screen. A folder becomes a ROM folder. A .gb, .gbc, .gba or .nds ROM is used where it is, without its folder. A .zip's ROMs are copied into state\roms, and the zip isn't changed. A .sav goes to Import saves. Afterwards a page says which game each ROM turned out to be. If a ROM isn't one nativeMons runs, the page says so and shows its SHA-1. ROMs > Add a ROM file does the same from a file picker. ROMs added on their own, and copies taken from a zip, are listed on the ROMs page, where you can remove them.

Shortcuts: NativeMonsLauncher.exe --game <id> starts a game and closes the launcher when the game ends. Ids are the lowercase names, such as firered, crystal or black2. Add --slot <number or name> to choose which of its saves to use, or --launcher to open the menu on that game's page instead. If the launcher is already open, it takes the request itself. --play <id> still works.

A game's page in Games has Play, its engine, ROM version, saves, game options, mods, backups, export and the PKHeX and OpenHome buttons.

Pokémon Infinite Fusion

Pokémon Infinite Fusion is a PC fan game (RPG Maker XP on mkxp-z), not a ROM. Open it in Games and choose one of two ways in; both are fine, and you can switch between them later:

• Import it into the launcher. From your installed folder, from the game's downloaded zip, or straight from its GitHub (that one needs Git for Windows). The launcher keeps the game in games\infinitefusion and its saves in state\saves\infinitefusion, both inside the launcher's folder. Saves you already have in %APPDATA%\infinitefusion are copied in, and the originals stay. Update gets the newest release the way the game's own INSTALL_OR_UPDATE does. Uninstall removes the game's files and keeps its saves.
• Add an existing installation. The launcher runs your own copy where it is and never changes its files, and its saves stay where the game keeps them, in %APPDATA%\infinitefusion. Update it with the game's own updater. Remove from the launcher only forgets it.

Either way the launcher backs up the save files before each session (newest 30, under state\save-backups), and the game keeps backups of its own too. About 5 GB. Its Play tile and wallpaper come from the game's own title screen and region map. Move Pokémon, My Collection, quick start and the save tools don't apply to it.

Other PC games

Add a PC game, at the end of Games, adds any self-contained game with its own program, such as another fan game, with nothing written for it. Three ways in:

• From its folder: point to where the game lives. It runs there, and nothing is copied.
• From a .zip: the launcher unpacks it into games\ and keeps that copy. The zip stays as it is.
• Choose its program (.exe): then run it where it is, or let the launcher copy the game's folder into games\.

The launcher finds the game's program itself, leaving out installers and uninstallers, and asks which one when there's more than one. It's named after the program (rename it on its page) and gets a colour of its own.

These games go without the extras: no captured title screen or wallpaper, and no save handling, since the launcher can't know where such a game keeps its saves. The launcher starts the game, shows it on Discord, and waits for it to close; if the program only hands over to another one in its folder and quits, the session lasts until that one closes too. Remove from the launcher forgets it, and deletes the launcher's copy if it made one; your own folder and saves are never touched.

Saves

Several saves per game. Saves on a game's page lets you keep as many saves as you like, each with a name of your choice. Switch between them, start a new one, copy or delete them. A switch keeps your current save exactly as it is, and the engines follow it.

Bringing your saves. Settings > Import saves finds .sav files in your ROM folders and any others you add, and works out their game by reading them. The originals aren't changed, and a save that gets replaced is backed up first.

One save across engines. FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald can run on Gen1Recomp or Fulldex, and Platinum on Fulldex, nativeplat or the PC port. Each of these shares one save when your ROM works with the engines. Before and after each game the launcher brings them level:

• A verified backup comes first. Every save that's about to change is copied, and the copy is checked byte for byte.
• The result has to prove itself: its trainer, party, boxes, Pokédex and bag must match the source, or it's thrown away.
• If that fails, both saves stay as they were, the game still starts, and it tries again next time.
• If both saves changed, you choose which to keep. The other goes to your backups.

Everything stays in the launcher's folder. Saves, settings, mods and prepared games live beside NativeMonsLauncher.exe, in state and in each engine's folder, so the whole folder can move to another drive or PC. Gen1Recomp kept its own in %APPDATA%\LOVE\nativemons before; the first start of a newer launcher copies them into state\gen1recomp, checks every file, and leaves the old folder as it was, as a backup you can delete. If that copy can't finish, Gen1Recomp keeps using the old folder and the launcher tries again next time. Pokémon Infinite Fusion, when you add your existing installation, keeps its saves where the game puts them.

A game's page lists its Save backups to go back to. After each game the save is checked for corruption, and you're offered a healthy backup if it fails.

Sending saves back. Settings > Export saves, or a game's page, gives you:

• A plain .sav for emulators, flash carts and PKHeX.
• 3DS Virtual Console (Game Boy and Game Boy Color): a Checkpoint folder holding sav.dat, copied byte for byte. Matching it to a Checkpoint backup of the game checks the size and copies its SecureValue.
• 3DS DS games: needs a Checkpoint backup of the game, for the exact file name and size.

Only some of this has been tried on a real 3DS, so back up your 3DS save first.

Pokémon

My Collection is a Pokédex built from all the saves of every game the launcher finds. It has a National list from 001 to 649, a list for each region from Kanto to Unova (by the generation that introduced each Pokémon), and your counts by game. Pokémon you haven't seen show as ???. ROM hacks and fan games such as Infinite Fusion never count toward it: Romhacks and fan games lists them apart, each with a Pokédex of its own. Infinite Fusion's is read from its own saves: species caught and seen by National Dex number, later Pokémon than Unova counted beside them, and its fusions counted apart. The launcher only reads the game's species list and saves, and never changes them.

A caught Pokémon's entry shows its picture, category, types, height, weight, base stats, abilities and the description from a game you caught it in, plus each game that has it. A gold star marks a shiny, and A switches between its shiny and normal pictures. Shinies are counted only while they're in a party or a box, because saves keep no record of the rest.

Entries come from PokéAPI the first time you open them and are kept in state\pokedex-cache. No game text is included in nativeMons.

Move Pokemon shows your games' PC boxes the way Pokémon HOME does. The Pokédex unfolds into a tablet for it, smoothly, and folds back into the phone when you leave: two games side by side, each showing one box as a grid of its Pokémon. Drag a Pokémon onto an empty slot of the other game, or of another box in the same game (there it can also swap with one). With a controller or keyboard, A picks it up, A puts it down and B puts it back; left and right cross from one game's box into the other's at the edge. ◀ ▶ step through a game's boxes, and holding a dragged Pokémon over them turns the box too; selecting the game's name switches to another game. It uses PKHeX.Core, and both saves are backed up to state\save-backups first. If a move is blocked, you choose whether to delete or change the attacks in the way, then retry. A Pokémon that doesn't exist in the destination game can't go there. Only Pokémon in the PC boxes can be moved, not your party.

Moves with no real transfer between the games use the conversion code from OpenHome (GPL-3.0), and PKHeX checks the result. The result may be flagged as not legal, and its form, ball and origin may change. The original data is kept and comes back when the Pokémon returns to its own generation. This part is experimental: try a moved Pokémon in battle before relying on it.

Open in PKHeX and Open in OpenHome on a game's page open its save in your own copy of either.

Pokémon pictures come from pogo.hails.app (hailsDotGO) and are kept in state\sprite-cache, refreshed after 30 days. The launcher fetches a Pokémon along with its whole evolution line, and works without them. Settings > Download Pokedex fetches every picture (Generations 1 to 5, normal and shiny) and every entry at once for offline play; run it again any time, it only fetches what's missing.

Mods

Mods on the home screen, or on a Gen1Recomp game's page, installs and turns on mods for Gen1Recomp games. Choose a mod's .zip from any drive; installing a newer version over an old one keeps the old copy until the new one is in place. Mods only apply to games played on Gen1Recomp.

Find mods browses the Gen1Recomp community mod index: the mods that fit the game, most downloaded first, each with its author, version, games, what it asks for (engine internals, files, going online) and whether it's experimental. Install downloads its release .zip from the author's own release and installs it as above; an installed mod shows Installed or Update. The index only lists mods: they're their authors' own code, and being listed isn't a check of them, so install only what you trust. A mod you install is switched on in each game it runs, unless it clashes there with one that's already on: then it stays off, and you choose. The examples that come with Gen1Recomp and need art imported from your own cartridge start switched off.

Mods that need other mods. A mod can name others it needs (dependencies) or can use (optional_dependencies) in its manifest.json. After any install, the launcher reads them by Gen1Recomp's own rules, versions and games included, and if one is missing or the wrong version, Needs other mods lists it. For each, you choose where it comes from: the mod index, its GitHub releases (when the mod names a repo), a .zip you downloaded, or a link to one. Whatever you choose has to hold that mod, or nothing is installed, and what it needs in turn is asked for next. An optional one can be declined, and isn't asked again. While anything is still missing, the game's Mods page shows Missing mods.

Mods that clash. A mod can name others it doesn't work with (conflicts, or incompatible), optionally for some versions only. While both are on, Gen1Recomp skips the mod that said so, without a word in the game, so the launcher says it instead: the Mods page shows Clashes while any pair is on together, and under each mod who it clashes with ("Won't load: clashes with ..."). Choose which to keep, or leave both on. Switching on a mod that clashes with one that's on asks first, and so does installing one. In Find mods, a mod's page lists what it clashes with, and says if you have one of them.

Settings

Each engine has its own page of options (Fulldex, Gen1Recomp), stored where its menus keep them, so changes show up on both sides.

Game options set volume, music, sound effects, fullscreen, widescreen, smooth scaling, text speed, battle scene, battle style and sound for every game, and a game's own page can override them. Each one is left alone until you choose it, and it applies when a game starts. Not every engine has every setting: the page says which. Options kept in the save aren't available on Generation 5 yet.

Quick start opens games straight at their title screen, past the copyright and intro. On Gen1Recomp (Game Boy, Game Boy Color and GBA games) and nativeplat (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum), the last game you played waits at its title out of sight, silent and paused, while the menu is open, so Play shows it at once; it's used only if its save and options are still what it read. DS games on Fulldex start from a snapshot of their title screen, made in the background from a copy of your save; it's used only while your save is exactly the one it was made from, and the game's clock is set to now. Either is thrown away and made again whenever something it loaded could have changed. Turn it off to start games with their intro. GBA games on Fulldex, the Platinum PC port and Infinite Fusion start as before.

Discord status shows what you're playing while a game runs: "Playing nativeMons", the game and a timer, with a button others can use to find nativeMons on GitHub, through the Discord app on your PC. It clears when the game closes, and does nothing when Discord isn't open. Gen1Recomp's own Discord status is switched off for games the launcher starts, so only this one shows. Turn it off in Settings.

Updates checks this project's releases when the launcher starts and every 6 hours while it's open. When a new build is ready, a banner appears for a few seconds and Settings gets a badge; nothing downloads until you choose to. The same page switches between Stable and Dev. Updating replaces the launcher and every engine together from one checked download, and changes only the files that differ. Your saves, ROM copies, wallpapers, Pokédex data, settings and anything in games\ stay as they are. A copy built from source reads as a local build, and any release counts as newer until you build again.

Controls lists the keys each engine uses while you play (Fulldex, Gen1Recomp, nativeplat, the Platinum PC port and Infinite Fusion): saving, fast forward, snapshots, screenshots and where to change them.

Screenshots opens the folders where nativeplat (F12) and Infinite Fusion (F8) put the screenshots you take. Fulldex and Gen1Recomp have no screenshot key; Windows + Shift + S works in any game.

Import saves, Export saves, Download Pokedex, Credits and Last session (how the last game ended) are here too.

nativeplat

Diamond, Pearl and Platinum can run on nativeplat by sohamb117, native ports from the pret decompilations. It's the only engine for Diamond and Pearl, and an option for Platinum under Engine on the game's page. Packages carry a Windows build made by our fork's public workflow, program only: your ROM stays on your PC. Our fork adds the quick start mode. It shares one save with the other engines, checked each time it comes back. This is experimental, so keep a backup. nativeMons isn't affiliated with that project, so please report problems here first.

Pokémon Platinum PC port

Platinum can also run on the native PC port by cybervisi0n and contributors, from the pret decompilation and libntr. Choose it with Engine on the game's page. The download has only the program: the first start unpacks the game's files from your own ROM, on your PC. It shares one save with Fulldex, checked each time it comes back. This is experimental, so keep a backup. nativeMons isn't affiliated with that project, so please report problems here first.

What it's built from

Part	What it adds	Source
engines/gen1recomp	Red to Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen, Emerald, and mods. Its own launcher is removed, as its licence requires of forks; our fork adds quick start and keeps the launcher's background jobs out of sight	bryanthaboi/gen1recomp
engines/fulldex	DS and GBA games in widescreen at 60 fps. Packages use its published Windows build	mamesj/pokemon-fulldex, a fork of ClickingMaster/ssrecomp, using melonDS and mGBA
GBA player (engines/fulldex/gba)	GBA games and hacks: FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald in widescreen, everything else at 3:2. Ours, in our Fulldex fork; packages build it	Hailey-Ross/pokemon-fulldex, after Pokemon GBA Widescreen by mamesj
Platinum PC port	A native Platinum. Packages carry its published Windows release, program only	cybervisi0n/pokeplatinum
nativeplat	Native Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. Packages carry a build from our fork, program only	sohamb117/gen4recomp
tools/nds-patcher	Decrypts .nds secure areas	hails.nds-Patcher
tools/mon-bridge	Reads saves and moves Pokémon	PKHeX.Core by Kaphotics and contributors
tools/openhome-bridge	Converts Pokémon between games that have no real transfer	OpenHome by Andrew Benington, run on Node.js
launcher	The menu	Window and input code from the steam launcher of the Skate 3 Rust Engine's hails-additions branch (SK8-ENGINE)

Pokémon Infinite Fusion isn't part of a package: you import it or add your own installation.

Build

Open launcher\build.bat to build everything into build\nativeMons, ready to run. It needs Git and the .NET 10 SDK, and downloads LÖVE, Fulldex's published Windows build, the Platinum PC port's and nativeplat's. With Node, Corepack and Rust too, it builds the OpenHome converter; without them, cross-generation moves use a simpler copy. To build somewhere else, put that folder's path in a build-output.txt at the repo root. Rebuilding keeps your settings, saves and games\ folder.

launcher\build.bat <output folder> builds only the launcher and needs only Windows, but it can't run games without the engines. Beside the exe, state\nativemons.cfg can set the paths love, gen1recomp, fulldex, pokeplatinum, nativeplat, infinitefusion, openhome, node, patcher and python. Version colours and finishes live in launcher\games.json.

Credits

Parts of Gen1Recomp inspired this project and helped with research along the way. For the Gen1Recomp engine included here: Based on the Pokemon Gen 1 Recompilation Project by BOIS CLUB GAMES, LLC (https://github.com/bryanthaboi/gen1recomp).

• Pokémon Fulldex by mamesj, a fork of ssrecomp by ClickingMaster, using melonDS and mGBA.
• nativeplat by sohamb117, from the pret decompilations. Not affiliated with nativeMons.
• Pokémon Platinum PC port by cybervisi0n and contributors, using libntr (MIT), from the pret decompilation. They aren't affiliated with nativeMons.
• Pokémon Infinite Fusion by chardub (Frogman) and its contributors, made with Pokémon Essentials; its custom fusion sprites are by the Infinite Fusion artist community. Not included: imported from your own copy or its GitHub, or run from your own installation. Not affiliated with nativeMons.
• PKHeX.Core by Kaphotics and contributors.
• mGBA by endrift and contributors (MPL-2.0), in the GBA player with our widescreen change, and as its libretro core for romhacks' title screens.
• Pokemon GBA Widescreen by mamesj (in Pokémon Fulldex), whose idea and game protocol the GBA player follows; its widescreen patches are our own, written from the pret decompilations' names.
• rcheevos by the RetroAchievements team (MIT), for RetroAchievements in the GBA player, through Pokémon Fulldex's achievements code.
• OpenHome by Andrew Benington (GPL-3.0), running on Node.js.
• LÖVE, which runs Gen1Recomp.
• The Gen1Recomp community mod index, read for Find mods. Its listings are by the mods' authors; the mods are theirs.
• hails.nds-Patcher by Hails.
• Pokédex entries from PokéAPI.
• Pokémon pictures served by hailsDotGO at pogo.hails.app, from the PokeAPI sprites collection. The busy Poké Ball is after its "Updating" page.
• Launcher design from the Skate 3 Rust Engine's hails-additions branch.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo, Creatures Inc., GAME FREAK inc. or The Pokémon Company. Pokémon and all related names belong to their owners.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later (see LICENSE). Each engine keeps its own licence and credits, including the additional terms in Gen1Recomp's LICENSE.MD.