title: Python Read memory address of Pokemon in VisualBoyAdvance
body: <p>First off, I'm new to more "Low level" things like this using Python, so please excuse me if this is a noob question.</p>
  
  <p>I had an idea for something like an "Achievement" system similar to Xbox and Playstation, where you could possibly track certain things in a Gameboy emulator using Python by reading memory addresses.</p>
  
  <p>I decided that I should try this with Pokemon. (Leaf Green to start out)</p>
  
  <p>My first idea was to make a couple achievements like so:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Fire! - Chose Charmander as your starter
  Water! - Chose Squirtle as your starter
  Grass! - Chose Bulbasaur as your starter
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So after Googling a little for some memory addresses I ended up <a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_data_structure_in_Generation_III" rel="nofollow noreferrer">HERE</a>.</p>
  
  <p>It says in the article that in Leaf Green, a Trainer's Party Data starts at
  0x02024284 and each Pokemon's individual data is 100 bytes. Right.</p>
  
  <p>So I go into VisualBoyAdvance (My emulator) and click</p>
  
  <pre><code>Tools -&gt; Memory Viewer
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now I type in 02024284 in the search box and it takes me to the data.</p>
  
  <p>The article says that from that line, with an offset of 8 bits over, the next 10 bytes are the pokemon's nickname.</p>
  
  <p>If I read this from my emulator (in 8 bit mode) I read the next 10 sets of 8 bits, and I get:</p>
  
  <pre><code>C3 D0 D3 CD BB CF CC FF 00 00
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Which should be Ivysaur (I am assuming this is in hexidecimal, so I googled a hex to string converter and typed this in, but it brought back a bunch of gibberish (below) )</p>
  
  <pre><code>ÃÐÓÍ»ÏÌÿ��
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now, my two questions.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>How would I go about pulling these memory addresses from VBA to Python?
  (I'm using Python 2.7 on Windows 7)</p></li>
  <li><p>How would I decode/decrypt the string returned into a "Human readable format"? - Thanks to @blubberdiblub for clearing this part up</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I couldn't find much info to guide me on this, regarding VBA and Python working together, and was hoping that someone could help shed some light on this for me. I would like to get into memory addresses (For reasons like this) and I think this would be a cool little project to start out with.</p>