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+---- Thread: mortis' pkmn randomizer guide [subjective] (/thread-996.html)
mortis' pkmn randomizer guide [subjective] - skinstealer - 07-01-2026
one of our biggest special interests we are trying to get back to talking about more is the beautiful world of pokemon randomizers. they are potent for bonding with unique, special pokemon, and varying up playthroughs from the usual fare. however- there are a lot of options out there, and we've found that people we know don't really know where to start. thankfully we've been doing this for like, 15 years, so let's break it down.
disclaimer: WE HAVE ONLY PLAYED THROUGH GEN 5 AT LATEST. other randomizers for 3DS onward do exist, but they're not our wheelhouse and we won't be able to answer like, any fucking questions on that unless we do it ourselves eventually. questions are welcome though, as well as sharing your own discussions, tips, comments, questions, etcetera!
OUR PERSONAL PLAYSTYLE RECOMMENDATIONS
okay, so randomizers have. a lot going on- but there's consistencies between them, and we have opinions on what things are easier, harder, more fun, more of a sicko option, etc. these are PERSONAL TAKES. you do whatever you want. different people enjoy different randomizers, and the great news is that these are customizable as shit, allowing you to experiment and find a playstyle that suits your needs.
first of, and maybe most importantly, encounter settings. these affect where you find pokemon, what restrictions encounter randomization will have, types, basically everything. for us personally, we want to have as many options as possible...but have done multiple approaches to this, and developed pretty strong opinions.
one of the main things you'll be setting is what stage and BST you'll be encountering in different areas. we are freaks who enjoy throwing everything into the soup pot and making it so mewtwos can show up in the first route. i don't know if i recommend this for first time players, or at least people who would be frustrated with their asses getting inevitably beat when a tyranitar punts their jigglypuff starter. on the other hand, getting something like a metagross for a starter feels really cool.....with the tradeoff of usually getting a dogshit learnset level-wise.
consistent options for encounter randomization tend to lean into the following categories:
location 1 to 1- if there's an encounter slot in a location- say, a route, a town, a cave, etc- it will be replaced with another mon. pikachu -> slowpoke, etc. these can also show up on other maps for different location spots, and are ideal if you want to make areas nice and varied.
global family to family- one we havent used, but see tons of appeal in. evolutionary lines get swapped with each other- consistently across the map, no less. example: anywhere you see any members of the pichu -> pikachu -> raichu line, they will be replaced with equivalent members of a different pokemon line. if i'm reading this one correctly, that means that you'll have the added benefit of earlier areas still having unevolved pokemon....very cool! applies to the whole map as stated, so that's neat for imagining different pockets of pokemon families...
catch em all- our personal favorite. ohhhh we love catch em all mode. this one is pretty straightforward. catch em all mode will allow every pokemon in the dex to show up AT MINIMUM in one location, leading to dex completion being possible if you're really willing to root around sicko style. i do not do that, but i really enjoy the aspect of "anything can show up anywhere!" and knowing that somewhere, somehow, your favorites are out there. makes hunting for them fucking awesome, especially when you actually run into them.
similar strength- if you're doing your first randomizer, yooooou might want to do this. this makes sure that early game mons cant curbstomp your ass (mostly) and that lategame mons will actually be a challenge. this...does have consequences, namely in charge of limiting variety in some ways....but i'll be honest, you're going to be seeing so many of these fuckers that if you don't want to go clown mode about it, it's solid.
some patchers will let you keep types the same, or a type theme- so like, a fishing area will have fish, and a place will have its electric types swapped with electric types. that's really cool! i want to try that sometime.
apparently the universal randomizer version that exists now lets you check off catch em all and similar strength versus a separate option, allowing you to combine them with location/global randomization? fucking awesome.
personally, we make the wild encounters varied as shit, and keep starters to first stage pokemon with evolutions if possible. HOWEVER: I DO NOT RECOMMEND TAKING PSEUDOS OR ANYTTHING THAT STARTS AT LEVEL 1-5 WITH A SHIT ASS MOVE LIKE SPLASH OR WRAP IF YOU HAVE KEPT MOVESETS THE SAME when you actually get to starter selection, because you will hate yourself and have the worst early game of your life. please. please learn from us and the file we have a lil dratini on. it was fucking miserable.
if you want to not slog through early game in general, are playing with weird movesets, and your randomizer allows- just set it so that your starter starts with four moves. it is so, so easy to roll garbage moves in early game, and switch training is a slog without things like rare candies and EXP all. we do recommend that also for those who don't enjoy grinding. emulators also have speed control- for grinding, use it. you will want cool mons and to see what they become since they're special to You and Your Playthrough, which means that hauling up vibravas up a mountain (from experience) will be a nightmare otherwise. do whatever it fucking takes to minimize potential suffering- even professional nuzlockers lock and load rare candies into their files along with level caps to focus on what gameplay really matters to them.
stats and moves are...vital to defining your experience. if you're wanting a normal, predicttable ride that allows you easy strategizing and a lovely vanilla-esque time aside from random encounters...just leave that shit the same. you can do a lot of garbage to the actual data of a pokemon, and the more you change, the more volatile and hard to keep up with your run will be.
changing a shitload of options is inevitably going to make your playthrough longer, as it becomes harder to plan ahead and you'll be flying by the seat of your pants way more. i sincerely, sincerely do not recommend setting everything to random- you will get softlocked, or at least be made so miserable that you may as well be. don't do it. figure out some that sound fun and try them, preferably across multiple playthroughs. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ABANDONING A RANDOMIZER RUN THAT SUCKS. DO NOT HESITATE. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKES AND TRY TO POWER THROUGH.
type shuffling is fun!!!!! uh, be careful with it. as mentioned five million times, this can make gauging difficulty of encounters extremely, extremely harrowing if you have too much stacked. i recommend if you do this, add some kind of balance to it like making type based areas, palettes, or whatever the fuck.
you can also change up type effectiveness, which sounds horrible. i dont know why you would remotely do this. but you can!
i like keeping evo lines consistent, especially their palettes. however, you could just make a bulbasaur evolve into dialga randomly, and that's awesome. i've seen some real sicko shit like evolving every level, which frightens me deeply and i am not brave enough to try. my one thing about this, and why i haven't tried, is it's already pretty brutal if a mon evolves and its palette completely deviates for us....it would probably be really hard having that happen with the species itself, if we were really attached. still, if that's your speed, it sounds like a lot of fun!
stat randomization is. well. you can do it. we did that for our BW2 run and it made it unhinged. there's granular stuff you can do here such as keeping BST, but for your first run...ehhh...i....wouldntttt? it's just, so fucking unpredictable, even more than typings. at the very least you can infer typings from a couple of combat turns- stats, good fucking luck unless you capture it yourself! it can lead to some serious bullshit!
movesets can be pretty varied, and also level/power scaled. this is another "feel it out" thing, but uh. type changing moves isssssss fun for narrative stuff but kind of UTTERLY NIGHTMARISH for gameplay. wow, steel type fire blast. i have no idea what the fuck just hit me. this is a path of most suffering if you go too far.
power, pp, etc....yeah, a lot of things can change it. i wouldn't.
shuffling up levelup learnsets can be interesting, but i havent done it. it's. probably too much for me? but i may try someday. you can do it in a couple patchers i've used.
turn off wonder guard. please. turn off wonder guard and illegal/bullshit moves. you can softlock yourself really. Really bad. i have seen runs fail because of wonder guard on gym battles that are unwinnable because you don't have the moves needed. Please.
please keep full TM/HM compatibility on. please. you'll thank me later when you roll something just utterly trash and need one to bail you out or cross a progression obstacle. reusable TMs will also save your ass, do that too.
trainer teams are pretty similar, and can be independently randomized to make your actual progression battles less nightmarish. you can do these fully random, but i would be very careful about doing that- at the very least, definitely not if you have some real bullshit stat/learnset stuff going on. our BW2 randomizer, while ludicrously fun in how ridiculous our team got, was also horrible in terms of late game trainer fights....largely because we had set mons to be completely random, while still having "similar strength" and "type based learnsets" toggled on.
this meant after a bit everything was getting that stupid ass giratina signature move that's basically just fly if it could nuke you from orbit. like. every ghost type, and that was random and not able to be identified because of the palette randomization being fully random. it was awful.
palette randomizationr is entirely up to what patch utility you're using, but these have a lot of options generally and are very cutes. i do these whenever possible, because the OC potency is delicious. three fair warnings:
you will get attached to standout ones if you're anything like us. get ready to care about mons you never thought twice about. this can be dangerous if they ssuck ass. (SEE: AFOREMENTIONED DRATINI AND VIBRAVA)
some palettes are going to look horrible. like, just, terrible by whatever standardsyou have for yourself. we have rolled ones that are barely recognizable as their former selves in ways that stress us out, with lineart and colors feeling painful for us to look at. it's an inevitability- and you'll probably have your own takes on what looks "good" and "bad", as this is a commpletely personal opinion. have fun making your own weird parties, and don't let others define what you enjoy!
and...well....
there is always the chance that the humanoid ones will look. really. really bad. we have randomized things that look like dire racist caricatures in basically every run. if this would cause you enough psychic damage to have the experience ruined, this is your warning. i wish there was a way to limit palettes for this, but there is not. if any utility makers read this, please help me.
most utilities will also have a myriad of other options, including item and map randomization. this is purely subjective for the player to experiment with- even moreso than my other recommendations. i haven't done map stuff, but items have very much been a case by case "yeah this is what i'm feeling for this run/i think this would enhance the narrative and/or gameplay experience i'm going for". keep in mind that going full random bullshit will make your life harder, same rule applies.
our rules of thumb:
HAVE FUN
ABANDON RUNS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT
ENJOY YOUR LITTLE WEIRDOS
TRY LOTS OF OPTIONS, EXPERIMENT
SHARE YOUR ADVENTURES WITH FRIENDS! (if you want)
enjoy your pokemon adventure!
RANDOMIZER RECOMMENDATIONS
artemis251's randomizers are very, very good. they've made a blue one (what we're using for space case!) and a VERY good emerald one- both of which have palette randomization, and just about everything you'd expect. if you want a straightforward randomizer experience with either of these games, GET THESE. they are easily the best ones for generalized purposes, and are actually what i'd recommend for a first time with the genre.
universal pokemon randomizer - okay, i reccomended the artemis randomizers for your first time. i did. but, like. the universal is your bread and butter. this thing has gone through over a decade of revisions, upgrades, god knows how much bullshit behind the scenes, just to provide the user with an amazing experience that standardizes terms and mechanics. it also has a list of other randomizers i literally just found while making this list, so the community linking is great to see! i have no idea what games past DS era are like, but apparently it can do gen 6 and 7 now! also has at minimum partial palette randomization for gens 1-5, which is crazy and i'm very happy about it. it did not use to have that. i cannot begin to name how many features are in this, and i have not tried most of them. cool!
the NDS pokemon color palette randomizer does exactly what it says on the tin. you load a DS game in and it makes your pokemon pretty. not only that, but the options are VERY diverse, and are extra fun for creating cohesive OCs and...better gameplay experiences, in some ways. if you don't want to kill yoursself trying to figure out what the fuck type something is but want that experience of having weird typed pokemon, you can set it to giving different types consistent color ranges. highly recommend, but usual caveats with this apply. does BW/BW2 like a dream for the most part, which when paired with animated sprites made it our favorite playthrough we've ever done.
sanqui's red randomizer- ive only done a bit with this, but it's real good. it adds a shitload more mons to the potential pool from other generations, and they have in-style sprites that are so weird and cute. i'd like to run this for real sometime. lacks color randomization, but has music, overworld sprite, and trainer class randomization- which is really cute and good for those looking to worldbuild different areas/variants on areas. what if viridian forest was spooky? that's what ours ended up as with the goddamn lavender town theme.
archipelago randomizers have the unique quality of being a multiplayer experience- i think people should try this at leastt once if they're a randomizer fan and can manage to set up a server/get a group together, because this shit is insane. not only is archipelago a fascinating way to play any game, and people do not have to be playing pokemon themselves to participate, but the randomizers are very granular, and fucking fantastic for customizing a gameplay experience. i've done both the blue and emerald ones, and they rule. do you want to play pokemon while your friend plays fucking dark souls? or tetris? noita? and have that affect each other? yeah go wild go stupid. emerald also has the benefit of being able to trade mons between you and other players in your group, which is so, so awesome. highly recommend if you want to get weird gameplay-wise. lacks palette randomizers natively, but we were able to add an additional color patch on top of ours and it looked great :thumbsup:
ONES I HAVE NOT USED
crystal randofuser looks cool as fuck, but i have no idea how it plays? worth a shot! looks like it's fantastic fun for people who like fusion/type-heavy gameplay. which...we do enjoy that.............
GBAXG seems to be doing wild map shit, which is something we have zero experience in but have seen friends enjoy the hell out of in other, non-pokemon games. i think this could be really good for narrative playthroughs about different adventures...
THE ONE I CAN'T RECOMMMEND
infinite fusion kuray was one of our go-to randomizers for like, a solid year, both because infinite fusion has so many beautiful fan-contributed designs, easy to understand mechanics, and one of the best custom shiny systems i've ever seen. howeeeeever, the main dev of infinite fusion turned out kind of fucking insane, and the dev of kuray isnt much better. plus, it's discord locked last time i checked, which is annoying on principle. as much as this was our favorite for a solid chunk of our life and we still love the mons we got and want to make them OCs, i cannot recommend this one due to not only the psychic damage involved with the creators, but....also the boycott by the artists who contributed. it just feels wrong.