As I have said many times on our podcast, and I even mentioned IT in our dedicated video about handhelds and Pokémon ROM Hacks, this scene keeps growing and growing. Many want to experience their favourite Pokémon games in a new way, and on new hardware, ROM hacks, thanks to talented individuals is a way of doing just that.
Over the last couple of years, many new games have come to fruition, so many in fact that we struggle to keep up with the news, and even more so, testing them out. But a few have kept us occupied for longer than we thought, such as Pokémon Lazarus, Pokémon Unbound and Pokémon Prism, all making their way into our best Pokémon ROM hacks list, and ranking highly too.
But to reassure you, which Pokémon ROM hacks are exciting players from around the world? Reddit user by the name of /Jicem decided to put together an awards ceremony, revealing the best Pokémon ROM hacks in the following categories:
- Best Story (featuring: Pokémon Pisces, Pokémon Odyssey and Pokémon Dreamstone Mysteries)
- Best Graphics (featuring Pokémon Lazarus, Pokémon Aesthetic Red, Pokémon Recordkeepers, and Pokémon Super Mariomon)
- Best Pokédex (featuring Pokémon Dreamstone Mysteries, Pokémon Pisces, Pokémon Lazarus and Pokémon Odyssey)
- Best Difficulty (featuring Pokémon Emerald Imperium, Pokémon Odyssey, Pokémon Dreamstone Mysteries and Pokémon Royal Sapphire)
- Most Anticipated Of 2026 (featuring Pokémon Ghost Grey, Pokémon Odyssey 2, Pokémon Auora Crystal and Pokémon Coral)
- Hack of the Year (featuring Pokémon Heart & Soul, Pokémon Lazarus, Pokémon Pisces, Pokémon Odyssey and Pokémon Super Mariomon)
This took many months of voting, and the entire /PokemonROMHack reddit community was involved on assisting with it. Thousands of votes later, Jicem has revealed the winners of each category, alongside the overall winner of the "Hack of the Year" award.
- Best Story winner: Pokémon Odyssey
- Best Graphics winner: Pokémon Lazarus
- Best Pokédex winner: Pokémon Odyssey
- Best Difficulty winner: Pokémon Emerald Imperium
- Most Anticipated of 2026 winner: Pokémon Ghost Grey
- Hack Of The Year winner: Pokémon Odyssey
It's very clear that a lot of gamers love Pokémon Odyssey, and I completely understand why, it's vast, it's beautiful and is built on the original Pokémon Fire Red. For those not sure how to legally download these ROM hacks, I recommend visiting HackDex. This, this is a website that allows you to legally patch your ROMs of the original Pokémon games into hacks, easily and quickly.
All of the ROM hacks featured in this news post (apart from Lazarus) are on there for you to explore, except the most anticipated ones, which are currently in development, with some releasing this year and some in 2027.
