Garbage Green FAQ
What is Garbage Green?
Garbage Green is a ROM hack of Pokémon LeafGreen that will make only bad Pokémon
available to the player, removes EVs and healing Items, makes the path through Kanto
linear, and locks the player into gauntlets of enemy trainers at certain points of the game.
The goal is to make the game as hard as possible by taking resources away from the player,
instead of buffing the opponents.
Development of Garbage Green was started by PC himself. The lead developer of the beta
version of Garbage Green was our moderator Spegasparce (Twitch), additional support and
coding provided by our moderator notsuicuu (Twitter, username @Not Suicuu#5636 on
Discord).
When will Garbage Green be released?
Garbage Green will be released later today.
Is Garbage Green harder or easier than [insert ROM
hack/fanmade game here]?
Why don’t you wait until the game is released publicly, play through it, and tell us
afterwards?
Generally speaking, it seems like Garbage Green is on par with Drayano’s later hacks, but
not as difficult as most of SHF’s Kaizo hacks.
In what ways does Garbage Green differ from vanilla
LeafGreen?
Documentation for the current patch of Garbage Green (as of June 12th 2022) can be found
here. Any and all changes can be found there.
Overview over the most important differences to vanilla LeafGreen:
● Shift mode has been removed from the game.
● With the exception of Pokéballs no items can be used in battle.
● Pokémon availability has been reworked completely; the starter Pokémon have been
changed to Paras, Slugma, and Goldeen, and the encounter tables for all areas have
been re-balanced. All static Pokémon encounters (i.e. gift Pokémon, overworld
Snorlax encounters, overworld legendary bird encounters, etc.) have been changed.
● Many Pokémon’s evolutions have been changed, delayed, or removed completely.
● Many moves have been nerfed via PP limitation or reduction of base power.
● The majority of healing items have been removed from the game.
● The player’s Pokémon’s levels are capped to the next gym leader’s strongest
Pokémon’s level.
● The game progression path has been made linear.
● The Sevii Islands sidequest is mandatory.
● Certain points of the game will lock the player inside gauntlets; the player has to
defeat all opposing trainers, before being allowed to leave.
● In-game trades have been reworked completely: trade partners ask for Pokémon
from certain locations and offer bad Pokémon holding valuable items in return.
How has [insert move] been changed?
Many powerful moves have reduced PP to make their use during gauntlets more costly. This
is most notable for Psychic and Electric type moves. Recovery moves are treated similarly,
as they would make HP management inside gauntlets far too easy.
Set-up moves have been reduced to 1 PP to prevent sweeps through strong enemy trainers’
teams.
Strong HM moves like Surf have been nerfed in base power.
Have enemy trainers been changed at all?
No opposing trainers have been changed at all. Garbage Green aims to facilitate difficulty by
nerfing the player, instead of buffing the opponents.
The exception to this rule is Koga: his highest level Pokémon, Weezing, has been nerfed
from level 43 to level 39 to allow for a linear progression through the game.
How do Koga and Sabrina work? Aren’t they capped at
the same level?
Koga’s highest level Pokémon, Weezing, has been nerfed from level 43 to level 39. This
helps make the game linear and allows for Exp management between these two gym
leaders.
What is a gauntlet?
At certain points of the game, the player will be locked in with a number of opposing trainers
and will have to defeat them all, before being able to leave. Garbage Green features both
mandatory and optional gauntlets of this kind. Optional gauntlets offer rare items as reward
upon completion.
It is impossible to retreat to the Pokémon Center, while locked inside a gauntlet, and Fly,
Teleport, Dig, Escape Ropes, and other means of leaving a place are disabled, as well. The
player will have to complete the gauntlet with the limited Pokémon, PP, and healing items
they brought with them.
Oftentimes the player will be locked out of a gauntlet upon defeating it, removing access to
helpful items found inside the gauntlet.
Why are there no healing items?
Garbage Green removes almost all healing items from the game. Only the Poké Mart at the
Indigo Plateau offers Full Restores, no other purchasable healing items remain. The player
may find a number of helpful berries around the map, though, and some additional healing
items can be found in certain gauntlets.
Part of the difficulty of Garbage Green lies in the decision making process of when to best
use a certain healing item.
Why is [insert Pokémon] in the game? It’s not trash!
If a Pokémon can be found in Garbage Green, it is trash. Many Pokémon are limited by their
learnsets, their base stats, or the lack of the physical/special split in Generation 3.
Why is [insert Pokémon] in the game? Its evolution
isn’t trash!
Many Pokémon evolutions have been removed in Garbage Green. If a Pokémon’s evolution
seems too good for Garbage Green, it probably doesn’t evolve.
Does [insert Pokémon] evolve?
All possible evolutions, as well as potential evolution changes are documented here (current
patch as of June 12th 2022).
Why isn’t [insert Pokémon] in the game? It’s trash!
Garbage Green has undergone a number of balancing and re-balancing steps. If a Pokémon
seems like it would be a good fit for Garbage Green, but isn’t in the game, it has been
considered and deemed too powerful. This may include Pokémon that seem underwhelming
in general, but happen to exceed expectations in Kanto against certain Gym Leaders.
