Kanto Gear 4.0.4 reduces repeated background work, keeps Full Gear battle information in step with the game, and brings another round of interface polish.
Performance
- Less repeated Gen 3 Pokédex work: unchanged seen/caught flags reuse their existing projection instead of repeatedly querying every Pokémon. Changes to the native flags and National Dex unlock still update normally.
- Less repeated inventory work: unchanged Gen 3 pockets reuse their existing projection. Pocket contents, quantities and order are still checked at the same cadence; changes and item remappings invalidate the cache.
- Reuse resolved Gen 3 modules during screen synchronization, avoid redundant item-ID normalization, and reduce temporary allocations when reading Pokémon status.
- These changes do not lower map refresh or state-polling rates. A CPU-only desktop comparison of the latest inventory change, using an exported Emerald save with six party members and 91 item stacks, measured about 51% less time and 40% fewer temporary allocations in that projection step. These figures describe that small step, not total game performance or Android frame times.
Battle presentation and controls
- Full Gear no longer reveals a faint early through the team indicators: their HP, status and fainted state follow the game's displayed battle state rather than the final saved result.
- EXP bars follow the native presentation: Gen 3 follows the game's displayed EXP animation, including separate experience awards; Gen 2 uses the displayed battle EXP. Gear no longer jumps directly to the final saved EXP value while the game is still presenting the gain.
- Fix the Gen 3 new-move YES/NO selection focus, including the Emerald Full Gear case where D-pad movement appeared stuck on YES.
- Add Full Gear EXP bars, a STAB star and clearer type-multiplier chips. Matchup colors are consistent across move cards, battle information and target selection.
- Improve move power/accuracy readability, return controls and double-battle card layout. Enemy information cards show types, status and relevant weaknesses when type hints are enabled.
Pokédex
- Swipe within the description during native Pokédex registration after a catch to change its description page.
- Improve research icons, description pagination and size captions.
- Give cry, size and habitat controls a consistent key row, leaving more room for the waveform and size comparison.
Silph Connect
- Use actual imported trainer sprites where available, with visible sprite bounds centered inside the card.
- Support trainer avatars from other generations through Recomp's avatar resolver when the required game assets are available. Missing or unsupported avatars retain the fallback.
- Preserve supported custom sprites for the current player and reuse cached avatar data across peers.
- Fix own-player versus peer sprite placement, gender selection, and name/status spacing. Keep the sonar animation inside its frame.
- Silph Connect remains an online presence display. This release does not add battle or trade invitations.
Home, themes and apps
- Give C-Gear app buttons pixel-art icons inside their ring seats.
- Move the Explorer widget's encounter rail beside the map so it no longer covers the map itself.
- Refine stamp-widget progress rows and help spacing, focus movement and prompts.
- Improve the native Gen 2 Pokégear companion: centered tiles, time-of-day labels, full radio show names, map navigation controls and a phone action submenu below the selected contact.
- Fix the small-font yen glyph and improve readability and spacing across both theme families.
- Make settings help fit its category panel, explain single options directly, and omit inactive advance arrows.
Store
- Open directly on the catalog, with BUY / MY GEAR / NEWS tabs.
- Give each catalog selection a clear description and action, followed by an installation confirmation and an OPEN NOW / NOT NOW prompt.
- Use a 4×3 installed-app grid with OPEN, TO HOME and confirmed REMOVE actions. TO HOME uses the first free home slot.
- Link news entries to the corresponding catalog app.
- Add the new Store/help text keys to the language modules; untranslated entries continue to use the English fallback.
Updating and validation
Import kanto_gear-4.0.4.zip below or update through the Mod Index when it refreshes. Existing saves, settings and notes are retained.
The final release commit passed 96 automated suites across all 11 supported editions. The release ZIP was verified against that commit and contains the same runtime code and assets as the tested 4.0.4-test.7 package; only the version and generated package metadata differ. Enlarged UI previews were checked in both theme families, Light and Dark, and the test package was checked on the Thor.
Gen 3 still benefits from broader playthrough and mod-combination testing; feedback is welcome.
Full source comparison: v4.0.3...v4.0.4