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Pokemon Emerald Imperium
I am here to announce the release of version 1.0 of the romhack I've been working on for the last year or so, Pokemon Emerald Imperium! I'll try to cover the most important points up front: this is a difficulty/QoL hack of Emerald that is fully complete and beatable through the Champion battle with some post-game content. The download for the current version of the game has been linked above, and I plan to keep past versions of patches there as well as I make updates in the future.
My goal in creating this hack was pretty simple: I wanted to create an experience in Emerald that is as close to the experience that Pokemon Radical Red delivers as possible by porting all of the balance changes from RR into a new game and by creating a whole bunch of new battles with increased difficulty. These balance changes include new abilities, stat changes, type changes, learnset changes, evolution method changes, etc. I want to be clear here that I am NOT affiliated with RR in any capacity; I am merely a person who has spent many hours playing RR, and who, like many other romhack players I've encountered, wished for more games just like it in other regions. I want to give full credit to its creators for all of the ideas behind the balance changes mentioned, QoL changes, and many other features that I brought over into this game. With all that being said, let's get into the features and changes you can find in Pokemon Emerald Imperium!
Features
Spoiler:
Almost all Pokemon from Gens 1 - 9 available (still need to add some Legendaries)
Vastly improved battle engine with modern mechanics and much smarter AI
Configurable Minimal Grinding Mode (MGM, described later)
Built in Difficulty Modes: Easy and Normal for now, would definitely be open to adding more options if there is interest (described later)
Built in Randomizer with configurable species and ability randomization (described later)
Built in Level Caps
Mega Evolution
New custom Megas added for several Pokemon, including Gen 4 starters, and several Gigantamax forms converted to Megas
Several Gen 4 characters added, including Dawn as an additional rival, all the Gym Leaders (only Roark is a required battle), and more!
DexNav
Toggleable following Pokemon
Gen 5 style party menu and Pokemon summary screen
Includes built in functionality to view EVs and IVs
Type icons displayed in battle
Move power calculator in battle
Sleep Clause
Heart Gold / Soul Silver style Pokedex
Form-changing Key Items for Rotom, Genies, Shaymin, and Hoopa
Form-changing NPC scripts for Silvally and Genesect (still requires their held items)
Cheat code system (available cheats listed in documentation)
Increased difficulty of trainer battles, with focus on Gym Leaders/Elite 4, Rivals, Team Aqua/Magma battles, route Mini Bosses, and optional Mini Bosses (over 100 of these battles in total!)
Several additional optional Boss Trainer battles (with hopefully good enough rewards to incentivize the player to actually want to do the battles!)
Some music from Gen 4
Balance updates for Pokemon to match Radical Red, which includes type-changes, stat updates, ability updates, learnset updates, etc. Differences from the RR balance changes are explicitly noted in the documentation, but the goal for this was to be able to match the data on https://dex.radicalred.net/ and to be able to reuse the damage calculator at https://calc.radicalred.net/.
Some fairly small story tweaks, mostly with the goal of lining up difficult battles
Post game Legendary events including access to Mystery Gift locations from vanilla Emerald
QoL Improvements
Spoiler:
Not needing to teach HMs to use them, and they are forgettable if taught
Reusable TMs
Held Items are restored after battles
Expanded Bag pocket size, added Mega Stones pocket
Bag sorting by Name and by Amount per pocket
Capability to register multiple Key Items
PokeVial with infinite uses to heal your party from anywhere
Access to the PC from anywhere
Time changer
Stat Editor (for EVs and IVs) given in Mauville
IV Perfecter NPC in Mauville
Hidden Power type changer NPC in Mauville
Toggleable Infinite Repel
Toggleable Auto Run
Hold R to speed through NPC dialogue
Option to rename a Pokemon in the party menu
Option to relearn level-up moves and egg-moves for a Pokemon in the party menu
Move Pokemon around in the party menu more easily with the Select button or the R button
Move-tutor moves converted to TMs so they can be taught anywhere, no more move tutors in game
Item care packages
Includes Infinite Candy, type-boosting Hold Items, type-resisting Berries, plus many more
Ability Capsules and Ability Patches to easily change between abilities for a Pokemon
In every Pokemon Center, a 2nd Nurse has been added who can:
Change Pokemon's natures
Swap genders for Pokemon with gender-specific evolutions
Set Pokemon directly to the Level Cap
"Quick throw" option for Poké Balls in battle
Can scroll through options easily by holding the L button
Minimal Grinding Mode
Spoiler:
It's the same as RR's. With MGM enabled, all Pokemon are guaranteed to have perfect IVs, and EVs are not obtainable for the player nor for NPC trainers. With MGM disabled, IVs are random, EVs are obtainable, options for instant EV and IV customization are still provided, and NPC trainers will still have perfect IVs and will be EV trained.
Difficulty Modes
Spoiler:
Normal: the intended difficulty of this game, and the one it was balanced for. Boss battles will be difficult, you cannot access the Bag during trainer battles, and the battle style is forced to Set.
Easy: this experience should still be harder than a vanilla Pokemon game, but should be considerably easier than Normal mode. All Boss Pokemon will be 2 levels lower than in Normal mode. Additionally, you can access the Bag during trainer battles, and you can change the battle style to Shift if desired, but it will still be Set by default.
Randomizer
Spoiler:
Accessed in game.
The player can choose between normal species randomization (fully random), scaled species randomization (Pokemon randomize into Pokemon with similar base stats), and Legendary-aware species randomization (fully random, but ensures Legendaries get randomized into Legendaries), all of which applies to encounterable Pokemon as well as regular NPC trainers' Pokemon. Boss NPC trainers will never be randomized.
Ability randomization is also configurable and is independent from species randomization.
List of abilities that are included/excluded from the randomizer is in the documentation.
Info for Stat Editor, IV Perfecter NPC, and Hidden Power type changer NPC
Spoiler:
In Minimal Grinding Mode:
IV Perfecter NPC is not enabled, you can just use the Stat Editor to perfect your IVs
Stat Editor can only change IVs, can change them freely. Cannot change EVs.
Hidden Power type changer NPC can change HP type freely, no limitations.
NOT in Minimal Grinding Mode:
IV Perfecter NPC: You get to perfect the IVs of 5 Pokemon per Gym Badge earned. After all 8 Gym Badges are obtained, you can use the IV Perfecter NPC freely.
Stat Editor: You can edit EVs of any Pokemon freely. You can only change IVs of a Pokemon who has had their IVs perfected by the IV Perfecter NPC, and you can change those Pokemon's IVs freely.
Hidden Power type changer NPC: can only change the HP type of a Pokemon who has had their IVs perfected by the IV Perfecter NPC.
Credits and Special Thanks
There are SO many people that I need to credit and give special thanks. The full credits can be found here which lists all of the artists, feature creators, and people who have helped me along the way, but I will specifically credit here:
pret, for the pokeemerald decomp
RHH, for the pokeemerald-expansion hack base
The Team Aqua's Hideout Crew, for everything :)
Pokemon Radical Red and its developers, for being the inspiration for this game and for the ideas behind the majority of the balance changes made in this game
Future update plans
My general approach to updates is going to be to prioritize fixes and polish of existing content before adding any more new content. With that in mind, the plan for future updates that I foresee is something like:
I definitely want to spend the first few updates fixing bugs that get discovered. That will be my top priority, and I'm sure the most bugs will be found upon initial release, so I will try to be very active with those updates.
Address immediate feedback for the game's balance as necessary.
Add the rest of the unobtainable Pokemon, with potentially more areas to make the encounters feel less crammed.
Add new custom regional forms, I already have a few ideas in mind.
Add a harder difficulty mode if there is interest.
Break save compatibility as little as possible, but I know in the future I want to expand the number of Pokemon storage boxes, and that change would break saves.
Steps for patching the ROM and playing the game:
1) Download the patch file (.bps) from the link at the top of the post or from the Discord server.
2) Provide your own unmodified Pokemon Emerald ROM (which is a .gba file). I cannot provide a download link for that.
3) Go to the online ROM patcher and enter your unmodified Emerald ROM and your patch file there, then click "Apply Patch".
Please do NOT use VBA or MyBoy, as they are known to have some visual bugs and crashes running this game.
The recommended emulators are: mGBA on PC, PizzaBoy/Lemuroid/RetroArch+mGBACore on Mobile.
In case you missed it, the link for the download is at the top of the post, as well as the link to the Discord server and the link to the Google Drive that has all the info about the game (documentation for the Boss battles, wild encounters, items, walkthroughs, known bugs, differences between this game and RR, etc).
Final note, my project is open source, so if you are a romhacker and you see anything in this game that you like, feel free to grab it for your own project. Please just be sure to credit appropriately, especially in the case of any artwork, and feel free to message me on Discord for any questions about that!
Hi, it's my first time playing an romhack and i have a problem. I use retroarch and when i run the game, as soon as the thumbnail show up, everything freezes and stats making noises (i'm italian sorry for my english)
Hi, it's my first time playing an romhack and i have a problem. I use retroarch and when i run the game, as soon as the thumbnail show up, everything freezes and stats making noises (i'm italian sorry for my english)
Made an account just to post this. Bought an anbernic at the start of the year and was looking for a Pokemon rom to play. Happened to come across yours. 35 hours later and I've just beat the champ (you're a monster for what you did at the end there...)
All in all, an outstanding rom and a genuine challenge. Not ashamed to say I had to cheese and save scum through some fights (well a lot of fights). Loved all the minimal grinding options. MVP of the run was Annihilape. Thanks for the many hours of frustrating fun.
minor issue: how do I evolve Tandemaus to Maushold? the dex says the method is unknown, even though it only needs to reach level 25 (not the worst problem since I can use other mons, but it's one of my favorites
major issue: when I do damage to a roaming legendary and it flees, if I encounter it back the HP bar is empty, and if I try to catch it the game bugs (it starts spinning endlessly until I restart). it's either a one-way or I never catch it
suggestion: after 3 puzzles the Trick House returns to its original levels, which kinda devalues the effort of clearing it beforehand. if it's possible to work on it, just to make it coherent to the first levels, go for it (even though we'll suffer through it if it happens)
This may be out of your hands, but I wanted to note some potential cheese- it seems the AI won't use sucker punch at all if you use a stat boosting/non damaging move while that pokemon is in the battle. It's probably to preserve PP, but I wasn't sure if this was intended. This got my Ceruledge past a bunch of dark types who would have otherwise executed it.
When selecting a starter, if a Pokemon typically has 1 normal ability and 1 hidden ability (according to the radical red dex), you can actually keep re-rolling until you magically get a 2nd ability.
In the in-game Pokedex, every Pokemon will be shown to have 2 abilities and 1 hidden ability, but if that Pokemon actually only has 1 ability, you will onyl find 1 ability when encountering it in the wild on the DexNav.
So for some reason, the Starter Selection bypasses that, and will actually give you 2 abilities per Pokemon.
(I just got an Iron Crowd as my starter and it was giving me 2 ability options)
Seemed good right until I realised the creator gave random Pokemon random moves. For example he gave a Nosepass Spark. It's possible to create difficulty within a romhack without giving Pokemon random moves they can't legally obtain but I guess the creator doesn't know how to do that. Functionally a good hack but mechanically awful. 5/10
If you wanted to make a point about unfair fan-made edits to Pokémon you gave a terrible example. Nosepass has been learning Spark and other Electric moves by level up in the official games since when it was still a 2d sprite.
Seemed good right until I realised the creator gave random Pokemon random moves. For example he gave a Nosepass Spark. It's possible to create difficulty within a romhack without giving Pokemon random moves they can't legally obtain but I guess the creator doesn't know how to do that. Functionally a good hack but mechanically awful. 5/10
That's not exactly new, most romhacks have updated movesets, different abilities etc. to buff/rebalance pokemon. There's documentation so none of that ends up a surprise, too.
I think it's pretty fair as far as difficulty hacks go, you don't run into trainers with legendaries until you also have a chance to catch a few, which is more gracious than a few kaizo style hacks I've played.
If you are that put off by a nosepass using spark instead of just rotating to a fighting type, sounds like a skill issue... it's ok if it is too hard for you, that doesn't mean the creator "Doesn't know how to make their hack". It is silly to download a rebalancing hack and then insult the creator for rebalancing, why not just play a Vanilla+ hack if that is what you are looking for?
Seemed good right until I realised the creator gave random Pokemon random moves. For example he gave a Nosepass Spark. It's possible to create difficulty within a romhack without giving Pokemon random moves they can't legally obtain but I guess the creator doesn't know how to do that. Functionally a good hack but mechanically awful. 5/10
Anyone know how to access the mirage tower? I want a few pokemon from there but i've left the desert route and returned a ton already and it won't spawn.
Anyone know how to access the mirage tower? I want a few pokemon from there but i've left the desert route and returned a ton already and it won't spawn.
1) be on route 111, but make sure the mirage tower spawn is off screen
2) save your game using the in game save, not a save state
3) close and reload the game
4) profit, you have summoned mirage tower
So I have been playing for a while and its quite fun however I want to ask about some mon placement. Why are burmy and stunfisk so late? like for burmy especially. It being post Norman when you can already find UBs and the previous badge you can get Paradoxes feels odd to get a mon that can evolve relatively early and has a low bst.
Another thing is I was checking stunfisk and on RR dex it appears to learn volt switch through TM, however in here it cant learn it.
I continued a bit more and beat norman and got Burmy. I think you havent changed the stats of the wormadam line to be the same as RR or the dex doesnt show it. The learnset is the same as the RR but wormadam sandy has 79 atk instead of the 59 atk it should have like it has in Radical Red.
Excellent work on the hack and best of luck.
Hello I'm playing your hack with normal difficult and no grinding mode (ivs perfect, no evs), i wanna ask if with this mode, trainers still have their perfect ivs but evs? I mean i try to attack Dark-type or ghost-type gym trainer at route 117, I have test several pokemon with Jolly or Timid with base high speed, include quick claw, higher lvl (mine 36, her 35) but i always take 2nd turn, i wonder why? I love the way we change pokemon team to battle, but type effective or move effect is not that balance if they always take 1st turn with 4 different type moves, I know we can use trick room later but...