PLAYSTATION VITA · HOMEBREW

PMD VitaIN DEV

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team

A familiar adventure, a different handheld. I’m bringing Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team to PlayStation Vita as a native port, built on the pret/pmd-red decompilation.

PRIVATE BUILD · EXPERIMENTAL

The port is taking shape. The adventure still needs testing.

The latest private builds extend French text across missions, mail, services and Pokémon categories, alongside experiments with the shared Vita menu. Earlier builds have been played on a real console; these recent changes have targeted local tests. The full story and every screen have not yet been validated.

Project notes · 25 October 2026

IMPLEMENTED · HARDWARE CHECKS STILL NEEDED

Made to feel at home on Vita.

A menu made for Vita

Touch tabs, control profiles, Triangle/Square swapping and help that follows the selected controls.

A little more comfort

Stick controls, an adjustable left-stick dead zone and ×2 acceleration, with audio muted while speeding up.

Tools for the journey

Save backups and restoration, plus an optional technical diagnostic exported locally. No automatic upload.

FIELD NOTES / DEVELOPMENT

From a first boot to a handheld adventure.

A development notebook about the big steps: what changed, why it mattered, and what still needs a real-console test.

25 October · French text and the shared menu

01 / THE IDEA

Give the adventure another home.

This started with a simple wish: play Red Rescue Team on the Vita through a native adaptation. The pret/pmd-red decompilation provides the starting point; video, audio and inputs have to find their place on different hardware.

A personal, unofficial fan project. The original game and its resources are not mine.

02 / PERFORMANCE & PRESENTATION

Make room for a smoother run.

Performance, audio and textures became a substantial part of the work. In my console tests, optimisations took scenes running at roughly 19–23 FPS to around 60 FPS. That is an observed improvement in those tests, not a promise of 60 FPS in every scene.

Visual artefacts and audio behaviour still need checks as the adventure progresses.

03 / THE VITA FEEL

Adapt the controls, not just the screen.

A touch menu with tabs, profiles and a Triangle/Square swap makes the port more comfortable to use. Stick controls and ×2 acceleration give the handheld its own rhythm. In 0.43, dynamic help, a local diagnostic export and a left-stick dead zone join the toolkit.

The latest additions have mainly local and synthetic tests. Their console checks are still ahead.

04 / LANGUAGE & THE LONG RUN

Follow the story, one scene at a time.

French text now reaches further through menus and dialogue. That does not mean every screen has been checked. Remaining English, text placement and graphical issues are tracked through normal play, while the full main story remains to be validated.

A finished translation claim needs evidence from the screens actually visited.

PMD VITA / ROADMAP

The road to 1.0.

From today’s private build to a stable foundation, one tested milestone at a time. The next stop is better controls on real hardware.

IN DEV

YOU ARE HERE · PRIVATE BUILD

Next up: a real Vita session

Check the French mission and service screens, menu styles, button icons and controls during normal play. These hardware checks remain the next step towards 0.5.

0.5THE NEXT MILESTONE
Controls that feel right
Stabilise the menu and everyday comfort: touch, tabs, profiles, button swapping and stick dead zone.
What makes this milestone complete?
A normal Vita session without unintended menu closures, phantom option changes or known visual defects on the map screens under test.
0.6PLANNED
A more consistent adventure
Track remaining English and fix reproducible text or graphical issues along the tested route.
What makes this milestone complete?
No known blocking defect on the route already tested, with remaining language exceptions documented.
0.7PLANNED
A build others can reproduce
A complete ROM-based rebuild procedure is now documented in the private repository. The milestone still needs a clean-environment reproduction and a check of the documented tools.
What makes this milestone complete?
Rebuild from a clean development environment using documented tool versions, with no machine-specific paths.
0.8PLANNED
See the main story through
Play through missions, dungeons, shops and key scenes on Vita. Check longer sessions and suspend/resume along the way.
What makes this milestone complete?
Complete the main story on a candidate or documented sequence of builds without an unresolved blocker. Unplayed post-game content stays marked as unverified.
0.9PLANNED
Prepare a release candidate
Pause new features, check regressions and prepare a clean source export with dependency notices and installation guidance.
What makes this milestone complete?
A Vita-tested candidate, documented reconstruction and an inspected export that excludes game resources and private data.
1.0TARGET
A stable foundation. Maybe open source.
Stability on the validated route, clear known limits and a maintainable build process. I’m considering opening the source from 1.0.
What makes this milestone complete?
Final validation and a separate publication decision. Open source is an intention, not an available release or a dated commitment. Binary distribution is a separate question.

THE PATH CONTINUES

Beyond 1.0

Post-game checks, accessibility, more languages and gameplay experiments may follow feedback and contributions. Save states and console-to-console connectivity are outside the current 1.0 scope.

AVAILABILITY & CREDITS

No public download yet.

Current builds remain private. This page shares development progress, not ROMs, game assets or installation packages. A future public release needs its own preparation and decision.

An unofficial fan project by AlexisRqs, developed with Codex assistance. Based on pret/pmd-red, VitaSDK and libvita2d. Pokémon and PlayStation belong to their respective owners. This project is not affiliated with them.

Explore the upstream decompilation