3rd Gen HOW I would have done Emerald

Now, RSE are my favorite pokemon games as well as Colo/XD. But there were some things in Emerald i didnt like because it didnt make the changes i was hoping it would make. On the other hand, it changed things that i felt they were fine the way they were. Here is how i would have designed Emerald:

1.Keep the orgiginal outfits for Brendan and May. They were fine and felt like a natural progression from Gne 2.

2.Keep Steven as the champion

3.Instead of Battle Frontier, I would add Johto, or at least some parts of it and have the play visit the Battle Tower IN Johto. I always felt RSE needed a connection with Johto but Johto was completely cut off gen 3.

4.Dislike Scott

5.Reduce Rayquaza's level so that it can be caught during the main story (they fixed this in Platinum with Giratina being lvl45 instead of 70)

I think Emerald is fine for the most part. The one thing that I disliked about it that Ruby and Sapphire did better imo: the way the phone was handled. In RS the phone was just an optional feature, you didn't need other people's numbers and more importantly: they don't randomly stop you in your tracks and call you just to tell you "I just got your number and just wanted to let you know that I did, even if you don't care".

This must have been the point when GF started to textbox bloat their games <_<

Megan said:

I think Emerald is fine for the most part. The one thing that I disliked about it that Ruby and Sapphire did better imo: the way the phone was handled. In RS the phone was just an optional feature, you didn't need other people's numbers and more importantly: they don't randomly stop you in your tracks and call you just to tell you "I just got your number and just wanted to let you know that I did, even if you don't care".

This must have been the point when GF started to textbox bloat their games <_<

Click to expand...

i thhink they wanted to bring back the phone the way it worked in GSC

unfortunately if they brought Johto back, they'd also bring Kanto back.

And I don't think there's a good enough level curve for 3 regions.
Half way through Kanto you'd be Level 100 no doubt and it'd be too easy to just shovel through everyone.

It would have been cool to see a Gen 3 Johto though, I won't lie.~

_pheebs said:

unfortunately if they brought Johto back, they'd also bring Kanto back.

And I don't think there's a good enough level curve for 3 regions.
Half way through Kanto you'd be Level 100 no doubt and it'd be too easy to just shovel through everyone.

It would have been cool to see a Gen 3 Johto though, I won't lie.~

Click to expand...

They could bring only a part of Johto, Olivine which had the port in order to establishn a connection through sea. But yeah i see your point, Johto and Kanto go hand in hand since Johto's league was basically the same as Kanto's.

yamibakura95 said:

They could bring only a part of Johto, Olivine which had the port in order to establishn a connection through sea. But yeah i see your point, Johto and Kanto go hand in hand since Johto's league was basically the same as Kanto's.

Click to expand...

Having just Olivine, for me at least, would feel a bit of a poor attempt tbh. I can imagine fans would not enjoy it because they'd prefer the whole of Johto/Kanto

I agree with points 4 and 5, but i disagree with the first three. i personally like the emerald outfit and i like the fact that is different than the original games. Steven is cool and you can still battle him later in emerald, but i think Wallace is a worthy opponent as well. Also, even tho it's pretty hard, i found battle frontier to be one of the coolest things in the pokemon series and also the main way to introduce the competitive part in the games.

_confused_piplup_ said:

I agree with points 4 and 5, but i disagree with the first three. i personally like the emerald outfit and i like the fact that is different than the original games. Steven is cool and you can still battle him later in emerald, but i think Wallace is a worthy opponent as well. Also, even tho it's pretty hard, i found battle frontier to be one of the coolest things in the pokemon series and also the main way to introduce the competitive part in the games.

Click to expand...

Battle frontier was cool but i would also like it if there was some connectivity to johto

Ehh, I understand why they wouldn't want to do Johto.

Not only would having a Johto connection open a precedent that every new region needs a connection to an earlier one, which is a bit creatively stifling, Gen III was the one that broke compatibility with Gen I and II.

Having a small slice of Johto when you just said "your stuff from Johto isn't allowed in with the new kids" would probably come across a bit as rubbing salt in the wound, I think. Better to make a clean break and not even mention it.

Besides, if any Gen III game had to have some connectivity to Johto, FRLG were the most logical choice. Johto could have replaced the Sevii Islands and have the game do a reverse GSC journey (although that would introduce the level jank we all know from Gen II into the game)

The only thing I wouldn't sign off on is replacing the battle frontier with Johto. As I've grown older I've come to like Johto less and less, while the battle frontier is one of my all time favorite additions.

I strongly agree that Steven should of stayed the champion. Wallace is just too easy... he feels like a downgrade.

yamibakura95 said:

3.Instead of Battle Frontier, I would add Johto, or at least some parts of it and have the play visit the Battle Tower IN Johto. I always felt RSE needed a connection with Johto but Johto was completely cut off gen 3.

Click to expand...

Instead of that, I would have the Battle Frontier... in space! Simply because the Mossdeep Space Center has no purpose at all (other than in OR/AS), and that would give it one. The Battle Frontier facilities could be spread out in a few different planets that would work like the Sevii Islands in FR/LG, you would find many pokémon from Kanto and Johto there (including legendaries), which would make a pretty extensive post-game.

And I agree that Steven should've been kept as the champion.

But other than that, Emerald is my favorite pokémon game and I certainly wouldn't remove the Battle Frontier, which I consider to be its best feature and the best post-game content of any pokémon game (although I haven't played BW2, which apparently has a great post-game).

everything here feels like a downgrade imo except for maybe scott and keeping steven as champion. i barely remember scott all that much so really, if he was removed altogether or replaced with another NPC, it wouldn't make all that much of a difference to me.

steven is fine as champion, but i also like wallace. i'm in a "eh, who cares?" kind of mood here. wallace being champion in emerald and being replaced with juan was rather random i think, but i shrugged my shoulders and didn't really question it much. didn't impact my overall enjoyment of emerald because i could still battle steven later, regardless.

emerald's battle frontier was one of the most fun i've had in pokemon gaming. i get it, a lot of people want it and it's become (soooort of) a "hot take" thing to be like "yeah battle frontier sucks, actually", but the facilities, in my eyes, offered really creative takes on battling and (for me, anyways) kept things fresh and interesting. it's the exact sort of post-game that i wish every subsequent pokemon game had, even if it doesn't have BF itself. it's really something i can jump on and do time and time again for the creativity and the theme and the challenge. alas, every game having a battle tower clone (with the exception of hgss/b2w2) most certainly didn't help things.

brendan/may's emerald outfits are, imo, WAY better than their r/s outfits. but hey, subjectivity, here. different strokes for different folks.

002c and whatnot.

The one thing I think I do agree with was keeping Steven as Champion. He was just so....champion-like and fit really well. Missed him a lot. Wallace on the other hand never seemed like a champion to me, and his Pokémon were a lot easier to beat since many of them share similar weaknesses. I do like him but.. :(

Agree with Lv45 Rayquaza and Steven as the Champion. Didn't make sense to have a Water Gym Leader and a Water Champion in the same game, not really fair on Fire types imo. Having a Lv70 Rayquaza makes the end of the game far too easy if you decide to catch it with the Master Ball before then.

Personally, I prefer the Emerald Protagonist designs to the Ruby/Sapphire designs, and having the Battle Frontier offers something different to just bringing back older regions in every game.

I actually liked that you could catch a lvl 70 Rayquaza before the league. It's stupidly overpowered. But that's what I find so hilarious about it.

I wouldn't be surpised if they just forgot to either close the door of the tower or to level it down.

I would have expanded the Pokédex, adding at least around 50+ Pokémon from Gen 1/2 to spice things up.

That (and the champion replacement) were the main reasons why Emerald was the most underwhelming and pointless "upgrade" to me.

Hoenn has a pretty awful type distribution, bloated with options for Water and Psychic types, but if you wanted a Fire type that didn't suck you only had Torchic and Vulpix (you had more options in Kanto, having only 151 Pokémon)

Megan said:

I actually liked that you could catch a lvl 70 Rayquaza before the league. It's stupidly overpowered. But that's what I find so hilarious about it.

I wouldn't be surpised if they just forgot to either close the door of the tower or to level it down.

Click to expand...

so you like bad game design?

yamibakura95 said:

so you like bad game design?

Click to expand...

I like when a game throws you for a loop and doesn't strictly adhere to some godly entity called "game loop". This is just a very small instance and for all I know it might have been unintentionally. But it's still different.

Megan said:

I like when a game throws you for a loop and doesn't strictly adhere to some godly entity called "game loop". This is just a very small instance and for all I know it might have been unintentionally. But it's still different.

Click to expand...

what do you mean when you are saying "loop"?