Generic Pokémon Cries
What It Does
For pokeemerald-expansion projects that disable Pokémon cries to save ROM space, by using P_CRIES_ENABLED this allows any species to use one of five shared fallback cries based on their base stat total:
| BST | Cry |
|---|---|
| Under 300 | Caterpie |
| 300–399 | Machop |
| 400–499 | Machoke |
| 500–599 | Machamp |
| 600 and above | Tyranitar |
I wanted to take from Generation 1 as the cries are some of the most basic due to the hardware at the time. Machops line seems like a very happy medium, and I hope using Caterpie and Tyranitar cries also gave the extremes a bit more variety.
Porygon is handled separately. Its cry is hardcoded to play during the pokeemerald-expansion intro sequence by using the CRY_MODE_RHH_INTRO constant.
How It’s Implemented
Two config values in include/config/pokemon.h are required to enable this. The pre-existing P_CRIES_ENABLED must be set to FALSE to disable individual species cries, and the new P_CRIES_GENERIC set to TRUE enables the generic cry system. A new GetBaseStatTotal() function sums all six base stats for a given species. GetCryIdBySpecies() is modified to check whether generic cries are active and return the appropriate generic cry instead of the species cry.
The five generic cries are also added in sound/cry_tables.inc and sound/direct_sound_data.inc, referenced as Cry_Generic_Small through Cry_Generic_Largest. Swapping any of them out can be done by replacing the cry file in direct_sound_data.inc.
Future Implementation
In the future, I’d love to adjust these cries dynamically within the code based on other species factors. Their type, weight and height, potentially even on a per stat basis. But unfortunately, I’m not currently well enough versed in sound editting to be able to do this.
Installation
The diff for this feature can be used to add these changes.
Why It’s In Ikigai
ROM space on GBA is always constrained, and individual Pokémon cries are one of the larger consumers. By Pokémon Ikigai’s nature, it’s impossible to remove any given species, so generic cries by base stat total starts to solve that. A Starly and Giratina will both sound different from each other, even if neither sounds exactly right, but it’s better than silence or a single cry for everything.