Character encoding (Generation III): Difference between revisions

The Generation III games use a proprietary character encoding to store text data. The Generation III encoding is greatly different from the encodings used in previous generations, with characters corresponding to different bytes. Versions of the games in different languages may use different encodings, some more different than others.

Some text strings are stored in fixed-length structures while others are stored in a block of text with separate strings simply terminated by 0xFF. In the large, variable-length blocks, usually another structure will have pointers to the appropriate string(s) within that block of text. In the fixed-length structures, strings are still terminated by 0xFF, but any remainder of the alotted space is padded out with 0x00.

Character sets

Games in different regions use different character sets for the great majority of their text, but all versions of the Generation III games contain and can display all character sets. The character set used for most text is dictated by the region of the game being played, but a Pokémon's name and it's Original Trainer's name obey the Pokémon's origin language.

Note that 0x00 in the following tables is a space (" "), not empty.

English

The English games will print any of the characters below. However, only the characters on a white background are actually used in text. Characters on a dark gray background are holdovers from the Japanese encoding, while those on a light gray background may be used in a game in a different language. While all the holdovers from the Japanese encoding (that is characters on a dark gray background) display as themselves in Ruby and Sapphire versions, they appear as spaces in Emerald, FireRed, and LeafGreen versions. Only two exceptions to this rule exist: 0x50 (っ), which appears as a tall box in those latter 3, and 0xAF (・), which appears as itself across all games.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-		À	Á	Â	Ç	È	É	Ê	Ë	Ì	こ	Î	Ï	Ò	Ó	Ô
1-	Œ	Ù	Ú	Û	Ñ	ß	à	á	ね	ç	è	é	ê	ë	ì	ま
2-	î	ï	ò	ó	ô	œ	ù	ú	û	ñ	º	ª	ᵉʳ	&	+	あ
3-	ぃ	ぅ	ぇ	ぉ	Lv	=	;	が	ぎ	ぐ	げ	ご	ざ	じ	ず	ぜ
4-	ぞ	だ	ぢ	づ	で	ど	ば	び	ぶ	べ	ぼ	ぱ	ぴ	ぷ	ぺ	ぽ
5-	っ	¿	¡	PK	MN	PO	Ké				Í	%	(	)	セ	ソ
6-	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト	ナ	ニ	ヌ	â	ノ	ハ	ヒ	フ	ヘ	ホ	í
7-	ミ	ム	メ	モ	ヤ	ユ	ヨ	ラ	リ	⬆	⬇	⬅	➡	ヲ	ン	ァ
8-	ィ	ゥ	ェ	ォ	ᵉ	<	>	ガ	ギ	グ	ゲ	ゴ	ザ	ジ	ズ	ゼ
9-	ゾ	ダ	ヂ	ヅ	デ	ド	バ	ビ	ブ	ベ	ボ	パ	ピ	プ	ペ	ポ
A-	ᵉʳ	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	!	?	.	-	・
B-	…	“	”	‘	’	♂	♀	$	,	×	/	A	B	C	D	E
C-	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U
D-	V	W	X	Y	Z	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k
E-	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	▶
F-	:	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü	⬆	⬇	⬅	Control characters

Japanese

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-		あ	い	う	え	お	か	き	く	け	こ	さ	し	す	せ	そ
1-	た	ち	つ	て	と	な	に	ぬ	ね	の	は	ひ	ふ	へ	ほ	ま
2-	み	む	め	も	や	ゆ	よ	ら	り	る	れ	ろ	わ	を	ん	ぁ
3-	ぃ	ぅ	ぇ	ぉ	ゃ	ゅ	ょ	が	ぎ	ぐ	げ	ご	ざ	じ	ず	ぜ
4-	ぞ	だ	ぢ	づ	で	ど	ば	び	ぶ	べ	ぼ	ぱ	ぴ	ぷ	ぺ	ぽ
5-	っ	ア	イ	ウ	エ	オ	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ
6-	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト	ナ	ニ	ヌ	ネ	ノ	ハ	ヒ	フ	ヘ	ホ	マ
7-	ミ	ム	メ	モ	ヤ	ユ	ヨ	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ	ワ	ヲ	ン	ァ
8-	ィ	ゥ	ェ	ォ	ャ	ュ	ョ	ガ	ギ	グ	ゲ	ゴ	ザ	ジ	ズ	ゼ
9-	ゾ	ダ	ヂ	ヅ	デ	ド	バ	ビ	ブ	ベ	ボ	パ	ピ	プ	ペ	ポ
A-	ッ	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	！	？	。	ー	・
B-	・・	『	』	「	」	♂	♀	円	.	×	/	A	B	C	D	E
C-	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U
D-	V	W	X	Y	Z	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k
E-	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	▶
F-	:	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü	⬆	⬇	⬅	Control characters

Control characters

• 0xFA and 0xFB both mark a prompt for the player to press a button to continue the dialogue. However, they will print the new line of dialogue differently: 0xFA will scroll the previous dialogue up one line before printing the next line, while 0xFB will clear the dialogue box entirely.
• 0xFC is an escape character that leads to several different functions (see below).
• 0xFD is an escape character for variables, such as the player's name or a Pokémon's name (see below).
• 0xFE is a line break.
• 0xFF is a terminator, marking the ends of strings.

0xFC functions

When 0xFC is followed by...

• 0x01, it will change the color of the text, depending on the byte following. The available colors are listed below.
• 0x02, the text will be highlighted, depending on the byte following. The available colors are listed below.
• 0x03, the text's shadow will have its color changed, depending on the byte following. The available colors are listed below.
• 0x04, the text will be colored and highlighted. The byte immediately following determines the text's color, while a second byte afterward will determine the highlight color. The available colors are listed below.
• 0x06, the text will change size, depending on the byte following. 0x00 will make the font smaller, while anything else will make the font the default size.
• 0x08 and another byte, it produces a pause in the text. The byte after 0x08 determines the length of the pause.
• 0x09, the game will pause text display, and resume upon pressing a button.
• 0x0C, it will escape the byte that follows 0x0C if it is a control character and print a new character. If the second byte after 0xFC is not a control character byte, that byte prints normally.
  • When the third byte is 0xFA, "➡" is produced.
  • When the third byte is 0xFB, "+" is produced (though in the Japanese games, within the Options screen, it produces "=").
  • The other control characters do not produce any characters. In the English games, nothing is printed, while in the Japanese games, miscellaneous data appears to be printed.
• 0x0D, the text will be shifted by a certain amount of pixels, depending on the byte following this one. The effect wears off upon entering a new line.
• 0x10, music will begin to play. Music is specified by the two bytes following, in little endian format.
• 0x15, text will be rendered slightly larger and more spread out.
• 0x16, text will be rendered at the default size and spread.
• 0x17, music will be paused.
• 0x18, music will resume playing.

Color values

A table of available text, highlight, and shadow colors is shown below.

0xFD variables

When 0xFD is followed by the bytes below, the following variables are printed.

• 0x01: the player's name
• 0x02, 0x03, or 0x04: whatever text has been assigned to one of three buffers using a variety of script commands
• 0x06: the rival's name
• 0x07: the game's name^RSE
• 0x08: the name of the villainous team^RSE
• 0x09: the name of the non-villainous team^RSE
• 0x0A: the name of the villainous team's leader^RSE
• 0x0B: the name of the non-villainous team's leader^RSE
• 0x0C: the name of the villainous team's legendary Pokémon^RSE
• 0x0D: the name of the opposing legendary Pokémon^RSE

Trivia

• In the name field for Eggs, the game places the bytes 0x60 0x6F 0x8B corresponding to タマゴ (tamago, the Japanese word for egg). This remains in the English version even though the characters have been replaced.

This data structure article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.