Setting up Reborn and Rejuvenation on Steam Deck

[Fezzdog]

My Steam Deck arrived earlier yesterday and the first thing I set about doing was getting Pokemon Reborn working on it.

Spoiler

At first I tried running it through Windows not realising Reborn has had a proper Linux release since I last downloaded the game in forever ago but directional inputs were very finicky, I suspect as a result of Windows also eating up inputs at the same time.

 

This is being written for Reborn Ep 19.16, Rejuvenation V13.0.5 and SteamOS version 3.2 Build 20220526.1; I have ZERO experience with Linux and this stuff is going to be pretty easily placed together by a competent Steam Deck user but I'm not one of those and I didn't see any guides out there so I went ahead and wrote one for dummies like me. While a USB-C hub connected to a mouse + keyboard are convenient, they’re not necessary.

 

Installation

1. Switch to Desktop Mode. Open up your web browser and download the Linux version of your game to a folder somewhere accessible and easy to remember.

 

2. Extract your newly downloaded zip.

For Reborn:
Open the updater file, click install game. After finishing the download, it’ll give you a warning to extract the core-lnx.zip. Do so. I un-checked the extraction into subfolder option here. You can over-write any files it asks you to, but I found that all the new files are the same ones as the old ones anyways so it shouldn’t matter.

For Rejuvenation:
Nothing extra needs to be done.

 

3. Still in Desktop Mode, open up Steam. Click on Add A Game -> ‘Add a Non-Steam Game...’ on the bottom OR Games -> Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library on the top row.

For Reborn:
Click browse and head to your installation folder. Change file type on the bottom to ‘All Files’ and click on Game.AppImage (NOT Game.exe) and then open. Add Game.AppImage as a selected program.

For Rejuvenation:
Click browse and head to your installation folder. For some reason I couldn’t see any of the files in here through Steam’s file browser so I had to manually type in mkxp-z.Appimage and then hit open. Add mkxp-z.Appimage as a selected program.

OR you can also add anything as a Non-Steam Game for this step and then change its target to the file in the gear settings if you find that’s more convenient.

 

4. Switch to Gaming Mode and if you head to your library you’ll see Game.AppImage or mkxp-z.Appimage in your Non-Steam games. Select it, open up its Settings with the gear icon -> Properties and you can change its name at the top from Game.AppImage to Pokemon Reborn or Rejuvenation.

 

5. Game should be launchable at this moment. If it’s not, maybe try launching the Game.AppImage or mkxp-z.Appimage file up in Desktop Mode first and then launch it in Gaming Mode. Before we fiddle around with gamepad controls to make the game properly playable there are some things you will want to be aware of.

 

I’ve only really tried out Reborn so far but these should all apply to Rejuvenation as well. So as of Reborn Ep 19.16:

 

CONTROLLER SETTINGS and THINGS TO KNOW WHILE PLAYING

To input text for naming things you can open up the SteamOS virtual keyboard by pressing the STEAM button + X at the same time. If we were to follow Steam Deck Verified status conventions this would fall under:

! Entering some text requires manually invoking the on-screen keyboard !

The ENTER key on the SteamOS virtual keyboard will not work when inputting text for names. I worked around this by changing one of my back grip buttons to Enter instead.
EDIT: If your Steam + X is not opening up your virtual keyboard for whatever reason, you'll have to dedicate a button to opening up your keyboard. Cheers to u/ReadinBeforeMemin on Reddit for bringing this to my attention.
 

Non-rebindable keys are M (or Alt) for Turbo and F12 for soft-resetting. You may want to set these to your back grip buttons. If you do set a button for soft-resetting you will also want to change it to a Long Press input and change the Long Press Time in its settings to something longer so you don’t accidentally tap it and soft-reset when you don’t want to.

 

My current layout is L4 = M for Turbo, L5 (hold for 3000) = F12 for Soft-Reset, R4 = ENTER, and R5 = SHIFT. I think I’ve managed to share mine as a community layout so if you head to the top option that says something along the lines of ‘Gamepad with Joystick Trackpad’ and scroll over to community layouts you should be able to download it. (somebody verify this for me?)

 

6. For Performance settings it’s really up to you. I’m using Nearest as my Scaling Filter only because it’s giving me a longer battery life. Turning off the Framerate Limit lets you zoom around at full speed on Turbo but I also do like having it set at 60 for tighter movement. Might be worth wiggling about with the Screen Size in the game's Options menu as well.

 

IMPORTING SAVE DATA

To find your previous save data they will be located at:
Windows: C:/Users/[Your User Name]/Saved Games/Pokemon Reborn/Game.rxdata
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Pokemon Reborn/Game.rxdata
Linux: ~/.local/share/Pokemon Reborn

 

Using the ‘Open Save Folder’ option in-game will not open up your save folder on Steam Deck.
You will probably need to type this address in to your file browser as the folders are hidden by default. Don't forget STEAM button + X = SteamOS Virtual Keyboard.

The save folder will be at:
/home/deck/.local/share/Pokemon Reborn
or
/home/deck/.local/share/Pokemon Rejuvenation

You will probably need to type this address in to your file browser as the folders are hidden by default. Writing this twice because someone will ask and have skipped past the first bolded message.

If you changed your username from ‘deck’ in the User settings on your Steam Deck then change /deck/ to /[Your User Name]/.

Copy and paste your save data into these folders.

 

(OPTIONAL) Changing Artwork

Non-Steam games will look pretty ugly in your library with a blank background. We can change some of that. This should work for any Non-Steam games you have although you're better off changing them through an automated tool if you're ever thinking of setting your Deck up as an emulation station.

 

1. Find suitable pictures to put into Steam. You can download these from https://www.steamgriddb.com/ or find them yourself.

2. In Desktop Mode, open up Steam and find your game in the Library. Right-click the banner above the green Play button and change your banner and logo here.

3. You can also change the Icon by going to Properties -> Shortcut and tapping on the blank box next to the name of your game.

4. Change your horizontal grid by opening up Steam in Desktop Mode after launching your game at least once. Under the Recently Played tab in your library you can right-click the image and then Manage -> Change Custom Artwork. Change your vertical grid the same way but launch a different game first so it pushes Reborn to the right in the Recently Played category.

 

My setup finished!

https://imgur.com/a/ogfJ1zo

 

[Cultrip]

Would adding any mods to reborn or rejuvenation still work as normal?