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Emerald hack: Pokemon Emerald Kaizo

How Kaizo was this?

  • Truly Kaizo

    Votes: 1,168 71.9%
  • Fairly Challenging

    Votes: 264 16.3%
  • Entertaining

    Votes: 133 8.2%
  • Needs more Kaizo map edits

    Votes: 66 4.1%
  • Unfair

    Votes: 175 10.8%

  • Total voters
    1,624
2
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 36
  • Seen Jun 6, 2019
Tried playing it.. not a fun experience. There's hard and then there's pointlessly hard.Insane that before the 2nd gym I have random fights against people with Psychic and advanced tactics.
 
108
Posts
13
Years
  • Seen Sep 30, 2020
Here is a Pokémon Emerald Kaizo Post Game Guide. More videos will come.
You will have to find random heartscales and conserve them carefully until Post Game.




NOTE: I found some bugs in postgame. I also got some requests to lower Wild Pokémon.
So, an update can be expected
 
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1
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 21
  • Seen Sep 2, 2020
Anyone else stuck with what to do after beating Norman and getting surf? Route 119 is blocked, nearly everywhere else is blocked. Been an excellent time so far, would love it to continue.

Edit: Realised you can't jump down on the bike when the emulator is in fast forward!!
 
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368
Posts
5
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen yesterday
Spent 8 days on this ROMHack, only using the emulator for grinding and catching, which made up a small percentage of the overall gameplay, over 80 hours for me. The majority was on the long battles, especially at the point where every freaking Team Magma/Aqua member had 6-mon teams. All the times I left to go to the Pokemon Center, whether by losing or just to heal up before the next battle, due to not buying items until the E4. That slowed down gameplay, and that was the most surprising thing about the game, and where a good chunk of the difficulty comes from, pure endurance. Also, the weather conditions often working against me, the fact that almost every trainer had a Lum Berry, so my Gardevoir's Hypnosis was virtually useless. Couple that with not having access to any setup moves, while most boss trainers have such access in at least one pokemon. Mons I dreamed of helping me due to their access to setup moves, were not as appealing. The E4 was a nightmare that I had to overcome with savestates, but I wasn't satisfied with that, so I rematched them, replacing Manectric with Metagross and that was a complete 180.

This is without a doubt the hardest Emerald hack I ever played, the longest I've spent on an Emerald hack too. I think the longest I've spent on a hack in 2019, Vega would count but I just stopped playing that out of frustration and such. At least with this game, I didn't want to give up. So it's more forgiving than Vega, but I got flashes of hardcore difficulty and some unfair stuff. Not as much as Vega though. The Trick House puzzles are mostly ridiculous, but very doable. So I finished the game, by my standards. I don't want to wait for more gym leader rematches, having already done Winona and the twins, and I'm not fussed with catching the legendaries. I got my fill of this game, and now I want to play easy ROMhacks for the rest of this month. Definitely awesome for what it is, but extremely exhausting and often frustrating.

My final team: Swampert, Gardevoir, Ursaring, Salamence, Tyranitar, Metagross. This game taught me that Ursaring was a beast, it was so over-leveled bcause I kept using it. Obviously that was neutralized by the E4. Mons I used a lot during the playthrough and eventually had to give up: Vileplume, Manectric, Donphan, Farfetch'd, Magmar, Spoink and Cubone. You can tell that the latter helped in the early part of the game but had to go.
 
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3
Posts
5
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen Jul 15, 2019
Hi! I just noticed that TMs at Mauville Game Corner are bugged! TM32 Double Team is actually TM31 Brick Break, and TM24 Thunderbolt is actually TM30 Shadow Ball, is this on purpose?
(Is there an actual place to get Tbolt, or should I use a Tpunch Gengar with Heart Scales? ♥)
Thank you :3
 
3
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Nov 3, 2022
Finished the game today! Had a lot of fun, coming from crystal kaizo it was definitely easier than I expected, but still truly kaizo in my opinion, especially compared to other gen 3 hacks.
Final team was: Blaziken, Milotic, Dugtrio, Alakazam, Dragonite, Sceptile.

I'm almost done with the postgame, but still got some questions regarding the location of some pokémon. I have no idea where Ditto, Mewtwo, or Latios/Latias (Eon Ticket) are, I thought I had been pretty thorough but I must have missed something. Sableye seems to be on Mirage Island, any way to get there (without absurd luck)? Also, is Aerodactyl missable ? Since you can't go back to Cave of Origin after the Rayquaza event.

side note: some random pokémon have really dumb encouter rates. it took me hours to find taillow, meditite, and zubat.
 
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1
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 23
  • Seen Jul 17, 2021
Me and my friend finished playing through this hack yesterday, after a long couple weeks of playing
It was super awesome! It was insanely difficult, and as a super casual player it completely kicked my butt, but every single battle I pulled through felt so satisfying and I am so glad I found and decided to play this hack, I feel so much better at pokemon in general after doing this (even if some of the battles destroyed me for hours) , and I've definitely gained patience from it. We're planning on doing Kaizo Blue next and super looking forward to it! Thanks so much for the content, wish you the best with whatever you do next, and I hope you find time to work on a Platinum kaizo, if you want to of course.

Also PS. There's a bug in the trick house, I'm not sure if it's reproducible or if my game just messed up but when I saved and reloaded in the room with the quiz robots my control took over one of the robots which offcentered my screen and almost softlocked me. I got out though!
 
5
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 25
  • Seen May 6, 2020
Is there anyway I can catch Mudkip/Marshtomp/Swampert if didn't choose it as a starter? I noticed some Grovyle is available in the safari zone but I can't seem to find Marshtomp...
 
1
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 27
  • Seen Sep 8, 2019
Hey, I just finished the league, and I really enjoyed the hack, so here are my two grains of salt on it :

The stuff I really liked :
- The level curve. It's perfectly balanced, and that's not something a lot of hack have success with. My team was always within 3~4 level range of the enemy averages with no grinding, excet for the victory road where I was about 5 level under the average enemy mon. I really appreciate a hack that don't make me grind for hours.
- The game is (brutally) hard but for all the right reasons. I love the way you made the computer use underhanded tactics like toxic stall and such, and the difficulty comes from enemy team compositions and movesets rather than high level and stats. Also I appreciate the fact that the game is not made hard due to non-canon BS mechanics ala reborn or rejunevation. It feels like a Drayano hack cracked up to the eleven and that is great.
- The enemy teams. I really appreciated the fact that each enemy team tended to have a gimmick or theme of sorts. Like the perish song and explosion double battles in the psychich gym. The team comp of the leaders of that gym in particular was also legit perfect, the opening duo matching the leaders so well.
- No item in battle, that goes with point 2, but the fact that neither you or the opponent can use item in battles makes so many move relevent (recovery, status, etc...) and also prevent skipping a hard battle through item spam or such.
- Every mon has a good movepool. Even though that doesn't mean every mon is viable, they're all at least usable at some point (looking at you 4 altarias team to get passed flaennery)
- Trade evo by level up. Always a nice touch.
- No EVs. Lets the mons BST define what it does, and you get what you see on the stat screen when you catch a mon. Also lets you replace mons for specific fight/areas much more easily since you're not loosing stats. Although some mons are hurted quite a bit by this (stuff like gardevoir really enjoying the extra hp).

The stuff I don't really know if I like or not :
- The bycicle roadblocks. Sure its annoying to have to go back to get the right bike, but that's all it is, annoying. Just makes the game slightly longer for no real reason.
- Weather abuse gyms. My issue with it is not the weather abusing itself but the way it's done. I'm okay with sun/rain being permanent near groudon/kyogre, but why would it rain inside a gym ? Give drought/drizzle to ninetales/politoed and slap them in front of the teams. Make it CPU only ability if you don't want a drizzle mon to roll over the drought areas. Flaenery already has a ninetales so that wouldn't be an issue.
- The steven pair-up battle : really punishing, and especially susceptible to RNG BS due to the fact that 3 mons out of 4 are out of your control. Not the battle I had the most trouble with, but certainly the most annoying one.
- Thief not working : I understand the logic of giving the CPU mons an advantage via competitive item spamming (those f***ing lum berries), and that thief would undermine that due to giving player mons access to an unlimited supply of good items, but then remove thief, because the move is useless. Or replace it with knock off (gen 3 version) : bad move but gets rid of the item, it can open some strategies.
- Low encounter rate : good when you just want to advance, crap when you're trying to catch mon, depends on the situation really.

The stuff I didn't like :
- Removing set-up move. The whole reason thos moves are busted in the original game is that you can bulk up then potion then sweep. Here the potion is removed. Hence the competitive trade-off of setup moves : you can set up but you're not attacking for a turn and you're paying for those extra stats in hp. Of course you can run a recovery move too but then you have to do massive concessions in terms of coverage. I think removing the items would balance it out and removing them just closes posibilities for no superior reason.

Things that prolly need to get fixed :
- There's a solarbeam slaking in a double battle on the road before meteor falls with solarbeam. Issue is that he charges turn one and slacks off turn two, the charges turn three, etc... Basically he's useless as long as there is a water mon deployed by the player.
- There's a fisherman with a level 20 gyarados on the road north then left of slateport city that can soft-lock you in a 2 square space in which there is a pokeball.

Also I have to agree most boss battles don't feel quite as climactic as in other hacks, save for the max and archie (those battles are probably the hardest ones imo along with watson). That's probably due to the fact that said bosses are surrounded by trainers with full or next to full teams of mons with excellent movesets. I know the levels, mon quality and movesets are all slightly higher but the difference is only that, so it feels less "bossy" than in a game where the average trainer has a team of 3 mons of varying quality and the boss has a team that would qualify as a grunt in emerald kaizo. Since in that game, starting at around the weather research center, every other trainer and every grunt has a team that would be a boss team in any other game, the boss teams themselves don't really feel out of the ordinary. Then again it's not a complaint, just what I think makes this game what it is (and honestly the reason it's way harder and very enjoyable).

So yeah sorry for the wall of texte, in short thanks for having made that hack, it's great, and good luck for the future
 
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368
Posts
5
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen yesterday
The stuff I didn't like :
- Removing set-up move. The whole reason thos moves are busted in the original game is that you can bulk up then potion then sweep. Here the potion is removed. Hence the competitive trade-off of setup moves : you can set up but you're not attacking for a turn and you're paying for those extra stats in hp. Of course you can run a recovery move too but then you have to do massive concessions in terms of coverage. I think removing the items would balance it out and removing them just closes posibilities for no superior reason.

Great review, I've played the hack as well and agree with you on all the points. I do have to say that I've been getting into setup moves a lot, and in all my playthroughs for the last 6 or so months, I haven't used items during battles. I could still sweep a team and not need recovery to protect me while setting up. One amazing strategy I adopted recently is Metagross with Agility. I had a Metagross for Emerald Kaizo, but all it had were attacking moves. The Agility + Meteor Mash combo would've been great for this hack. Status inflicting moves were rendered useless on my end because of Lum Berries, incredibly annoying. I intended for Gardevoir to be an MVP because of Hypnosis, but I was dead wrong.
Anyway, still enjoyed this hack.
 
1
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 28
  • Seen Sep 9, 2020
I played for about 20 minutes and then suddenly wild pokemon stopped appearing. I think it happened after I saved the game? Any help/fix with this issue?

edit: actually the rates were just super super low. Had to speed up the emulator and had to run about 30 seconds before seeing a wild pokemon
 
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1
Posts
6
Years
  • Age 26
  • Seen Mar 20, 2020
Does anyone know how to evolve Seadra in this hack? Mine is level 55 and it still hasn't evolved, does it have to hold a dragon scale or something? Where would I even find a dragon scale too?

Also when exactly can I catch a Feebas? I've been surfing and fishing at the places it's at but no luck. I guess I need a super rod?
 
1
Posts
6
Years
  • Age 35
  • Seen Oct 20, 2019
Hey SHF, thank you for posting the movepool changes. Would you be willing to post the pokemon base stat/move base power/ability/any type changes as well?
 
3
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 60
  • Seen Jan 10, 2020
the learnsets are outdated, aren't they? cause I've already noticed several things not going as planned, like my lvl 36 gardevoir still has not learned phsychic. Also I'm sad because my arcanine apparently won't get morning sun now (though i'm already sad cause it has amazing attack but physical fire attacks don't exist yet).

Anyway, while the level curve seems perfect, the encounter rate is so low the game would be unplayable since you would take forever to catch any specific pokemon you're looking for, and training them up on par would be nearly impossible even on an emulator...but thankfully sweet scent saves the day.
I'm saying this because unless you plan your entire run, it's very possible you'll get stuck at a particular gym your initial setup just cannot beat and you'll have to adjust. Particularly true early since you have absolutely no good TM and trainers basically cheat with amazing movesets ahead of the level curve. Personally, I spent a couple days trying to get past the third gym, it had type coverage vs or immunities from most of my pokemon, and all of them would spam thunderbolt or surf (or worse, earthquake, all moves you can't get that early) which could usually OHKO my level ~30 pokemon even at neutral typing.

Additionally, I love the fact items can't be used in battle..for the most part. However, at times status moves and *especially* paralysis seem overpowered. Being paralyzed and fascinated at the same time is something that made me almost quit the game a few times, since I had an all male party (big mistake, but how could I know in advance). I also had paralysis skipping my turn so frequently that I started suspecting you increased its activation chance, though it's perfectly possible it was just extensive bad luck. Ofc, I soon started deploying anti-paralysis berries on my entire squad, but even that somehow didn't seem to be enough against 6-thunderwaves spam. Not sure what would be the best way to balance it though, maybe reduce hit chance of thunder wave a little?
Ofc, you could say the player gets to use the same strategy too...if not for 90% of pokemons having lum berries and me not having enough pokemojsn with status move to make fighting that worthwile. However, for the few that did not, I did find using hypnosis very strong - except it means relying on rng way too much for my liking (which tempts me to just replay the fight till I hit that 70%, and they don't instantly wake up).

Anyway, I have a question - where on earth is dratini? Judging from the pokedex, It's supposed to be either in route 115 (which has NO grass) or the moon cave (i tried for literally an hour with sweet scent on emulator, it's not there). Exhausting other options I had to consider you decided to make it something you have to either fish or encounter in water, however I still couldn't fish it in route 115 in countless tries. Do i need a better rod (which requires surf by itself afaik)?
 
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368
Posts
5
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen yesterday
Anyway, I have a question - where on earth is dratini? Judging from the pokedex, It's supposed to be either in route 115 (which has NO grass) or the moon cave (i tried for literally an hour with sweet scent on emulator, it's not there). Exhausting other options I had to consider you decided to make it something you have to either fish or encounter in water, however I still couldn't fish it in route 115 in countless tries. Do i need a better rod (which requires surf by itself afaik)?

Route 115 does have grass, if you surf north, there's a couple of trainers there, and you can find Kelpsy Berries. I didn't bother looking for Dratini, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was in the room where you normally find Dragon Claw. In Meteor Falls, that room where Bagon is exclusively at.
 
3
Posts
4
Years
  • Age 60
  • Seen Jan 10, 2020
Ah, so I do need surf, ty.

Edit: finally managed to beat Dad. Man it was hard lol. It seems every gym leader's pokemon in this hack has earthquake, which destroys half my team.
And...still no dratini in the grass unlocked through surf. I guess I need waterfall for climbing the water in meteor falls...I think I'll end up finishing the game (if ever) before I can get my damn dragonite. I was really counting on it to round my up team lol, ended up spending most of the game trying to catch it.
I could go for salamance, technically, I'm just partial to dragonite. But that might not be the optimal strategy in such a hard hack :D
 
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