Pokémon data structure (Generation III)

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Pokémon in the games Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen, and Emerald are all stored the same way in a 100-byte structure.


Notes

Pokémon
type offset
Personality dword 0
OT ID dword 4
Nickname 10 bytes 8
Font byte 18
Sanity byte? byte 19
OT name 7 bytes 20
Mark byte 27
Checksum word 28
???? word 30
Data 48 bytes 32
Status ailment dword 80
Level byte 84
???? byte 85
Current HP word 86
Total HP word 88
Attack word 90
Defense word 92
Speed word 94
Sp. Attack word 96
Sp. Defense word 98

Personality value

The personality value controls many things, including gender, Unown letter, Spinda's dots, nature, and others.

OT ID

The Original Trainer's ID Number. Part of the XOR encryption key for the data section, also used in shiny determination and the lottery.

Nickname

The Pokémon's nickname, limited to 10 characters.

Font

Determines which character set is used for the nickname (?). This is used to determine what color should be used to write nicknames in a Pokémon's status screen. They may appear in either blue (boy) or pink (girl).

OT name

The name of the original trainer of the Pokémon.

Mark

The marks seen in the storage box. These marks serve only to aide in organizing large collections of Pokémon.

Bit Mark
0 Circle
1 Square
2 Triangle
3 Heart


Checksum

The checksum is of the 48-byte data section in the structure. It is computed by simply adding all the unencrypted values one word at a time. If this value does not match the real checksum, the Pokémon is interpreted as a Bad egg.

Padding

Any entry marked (Padding) is not used and usually set to either 0 or -1 of the respective data type.

Status ailment

The Pokémon's status ailments are stored as follows:

0-2: Sleep bits. Indicates turns of sleep, so 111b = 7 turns, 101b = 5 turns, etc.
3: Poison
4: Burned
5: Frozen
6: Paralysis
7: Bad poison

Location

A trainer's team starts at the following addresses in the GBA's RAM (for US games?):

  • Ruby: 0x03004360
  • Sapphire: 0x03004360
  • Emerald: 0x02024190 (0x020244EC for US games??)
  • FireRed: 0x02024284
  • LeafGreen: 0x020241e4

There are 6 Pokémon per team, so the whole team continues for 600 bytes afterward.

This structure is used to save data on Pokémon stored in your team. The structure for Pokémon saved in the PC stops after the data field, making it only 80 bytes long.
This explains why Pokémon injured by status ailment will cure themselves when put in the PC. It also applies to stats and level, which are recalculated based on Experience.
Thus, there are also 33600 (14*30*80) bytes stored somewhere else in the GBA's RAM to save data on Pokémon in the PC.

When the VBA's saved state (including memory contents) are unzipped into a 740,000+ byte file and viewed, the 14 boxes of 420 Pokémon are stored in the general region of $038000 $040000.