Pokémon Platinum Reforged

What it is

Platinum Reforged is a ROM hack of Pokémon Platinum that brings in Black 2 and White 2's battle engine, and more of Gen V along with it. The goal of this romhack is to create a Platinum experience in Gen V's more modern graphics.

This is the home of Platinum Reforged Anvil, the tool that builds the game. Anvil takes your own Platinum and Black 2 or White 2 and writes a new ROM, Pokemon Platinum Reforged.nds. It runs in your browser or as a program for Windows and Linux.

What's new

A wild Starly appears on Route 201, in BW2's battle engine with Platinum's battle menus
A wild Pokémon on Route 201: BW2's battle engine, with Platinum's battle menus on the Touch Screen.

Gen V battles everywhere. Wild Pokémon, trainers, double and tag battles, legendaries, the catching tutorial, the Safari Zone, Pal Park and the Battle Frontier.

BW2's battle backgrounds. Routes use BW2's open-field look and dynamic backgrounds depending on where you are standing: lawn, dirt path, tall grass, mountain, caves, snowfields etc.

Trainers.

The Sinnoh Gym Leaders and Cynthia battle with the animated sprites BW2 gave them for the Pokémon World Tournament.
Trainer classes both games share, like Hiker, Youngster, Psychic, Black Belt, Lady and Swimmer, can be switched out to use BW2's sprites. Togglable in the options menu.
Custom sprites. This is my attempt at keeping Platinum's aesthetic while still getting the animated battle sprites. I think it turned out decent if not good. For Ace Trainer, Fisherman, Worker, Lass and Waitress trainers I recolored and/or retextured BW2's sprites and animations to look like their Platinum counterparts. For Roughneck, Clown and Aroma Lady I animated their already existing battle sprites. I'll try to add more as I go. Togglable in the options menu.

Retextured: BW2's sprites and animations, in Platinum's look.

	Platinum	BW2	Retextured	Overworld
Lass
Fisherman

Animated: Platinum's own sprites.

	Platinum	Animated	Overworld
Roughneck
Aroma Lady

More of Gen V. BW2's transitions into battle, its evolution and egg-hatching scenes, and its Critical Health! Low HP Theme. All togglable in the options menu.

Platinum's battle menus, recreated. Since the game now uses BW2's battle engine, it came bundled with its battle UI on the bottom screen as well. I retextured it to look as close as possible to Platinum's battle UI, but if you notice some differences, that is why. Still, if you prefer having BW2's UI, you can configure this in the options menu.

In-game options

The OPTIONS menu has seven new settings. Each one picks between Gen V and Platinum, so you can play with as much or as little of Gen V as you like.

Option	What it changes	Starts at
TRAINERS	How trainers look in battle and on the overworld	PLATINUM
BATTLE MENUS	The look of the battle menus on the Touch Screen	PLATINUM
CUSTOM SPRITES	The custom sprites and animations for Gen IV trainers	ON
TRANSITIONS	How battles start from the overworld	GEN V
EVOLUTION	The evolution scene	GEN V
EGG HATCHING	The egg-hatching scene	GEN V
LOW HP	BW2's pinch music, or Platinum's beep, when your Pokémon's HP is low	GEN V

Planned features

Level caps before each Gym. Togglable.
Exp. Share for the whole team, the modern way: your whole party gets experience. Togglable.
Experience for catching Pokémon. Togglable.
A difficulty setting.
More to come!

What you need

Pokémon Platinum (USA), Rev 0 or Rev 1, as an .nds file (game code CPUE).
Pokémon Black Version 2 or Pokémon White Version 2 (USA, Europe), as an .nds file (game codes IREO and IRDO). "NDSi Enhanced" dumps are fine.
A recent web browser, or Windows 10 or 11, or Linux.

Both ROMs must be clean, unmodified dumps of your own cartridges. Trimmed dumps work.

Why two games? Every Gen V piece of Platinum Reforged (the engine, sprites, backgrounds, music) comes from Black 2 or White 2.

Setup

In your browser

Open Anvil in your browser.
Choose your Platinum ROM and your Black 2 or White 2 ROM: click Choose..., or drop both files onto the page.
Click Build Platinum Reforged, then Save the ROM.

Your ROMs never leave your computer: the page builds the game there. The first time, your browser downloads about 15 MB to run Anvil, and a build takes about a minute.

Windows

Download Platinum-Reforged-Anvil-<version>-Windows.zip from the latest release and unzip it.
Open Platinum Reforged Anvil.exe.
Choose your Platinum ROM and your Black 2 or White 2 ROM: click Choose..., or drop both files onto the window and Anvil puts each one in its slot.
Click Build Platinum Reforged.

Windows may say "Windows protected your PC" the first time, because Anvil isn't signed. Click More info, then Run anyway.

Linux

On Linux, Anvil is a command-line program. Download Platinum-Reforged-Anvil-<version>-Linux.tar.gz from the latest release, then in a terminal, in the folder you saved it to:

tar -xzf Platinum-Reforged-Anvil-<version>-Linux.tar.gz
cd "Platinum Reforged Anvil <version>"
./platinum-reforged-anvil --platinum "Platinum.nds" --black2 "Black 2.nds"

Command line (both)

The same build without the window. On Windows, it's platinum-reforged-anvil.exe, in the same zip as the app. On Linux, it's the program above.

platinum-reforged-anvil --platinum "Platinum.nds" --black2 "Black 2.nds" --out "Platinum Reforged.nds"

--white2 works the same way as --black2.
--out is optional. Without it, the new ROM goes next to your Platinum ROM.
platinum-reforged-anvil --identify "some rom.nds" tells you what a ROM is and whether Anvil accepts it.

Troubleshooting

"... doesn't match a clean copy of the game"
That ROM has been changed (patched, or saved over by a tool) or is a bad dump. Dump the cartridge again, or use another clean copy.

Your antivirus removes or blocks Anvil
Programs packaged the way Anvil is are sometimes flagged by mistake. If you downloaded it from this repository's releases, restore it and allow it.

The window doesn't open (Windows)
The app needs the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, which Windows 10 and 11 usually have already. Install it from Microsoft, or use the command-line program, which doesn't need it.

"Permission denied" when starting it (Linux)
Make it runnable with chmod +x platinum-reforged-anvil.

Still stuck, or found a bug in the game? Open an issue. Say which version of Anvil you used, which ROMs you gave it (the output of --identify helps), and what happened.

FAQ

Can I download the finished ROM instead?
No. Platinum Reforged is only available through Anvil, built from games you own.

Can I keep playing my Platinum save?
Yes. Platinum Reforged works with your original Platinum save. If future features need changes an original save can't hold, you will be able to opt out of these in the anvil tool.

Source code

Anvil is open source, under the MIT License. Its source is on GitHub. Also refer to: LICENSE.md.

Credits

Platinum Reforged is built on the work of the Pokémon decompilation community:

pret/pokeplatinum, the Pokémon Platinum decompilation.
pokebw2, the Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 decompilation.

Anvil is made with Python, pywebview, Pillow and PyInstaller, and runs in the browser with Pyodide. Their licences are in NOTICES.txt, which comes with each download, and on the site's notices page.

Disclaimer

Platinum Reforged is a free, unofficial fan project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures Inc. or The Pokémon Company. Pokémon and all related names are trademarks of their respective owners. This repository contains no ROMs or game files; the pictures of the game in this README are only examples. Use only games you own.

Platinum Reforged was made with the help of Claude, Anthropic's AI model, which wrote much of the code and tools under my direction. The ideas, design choices and playtesting are mine.