It took a while, but I finally got to play the Emerald version. I used the same randomizer settings as the OP, and this time it was a Dragon monotype. I had Flygon, Altaria, and Kingdra. It was super quick and pretty easy. I was overleveled for most of the game, I wasn't for Steven, but I still beat him. Speedup was used a lot, but it was still very short. I finished it within a day. Maybe the randomizer screwed me over, but I couldn't find anyone in the Dratini and Bagon line. The room where Bagon normally is in Meteor Falls, I found Vibrava. I found 2 of my Dragon-types on Route 103, Vibrava and Altaria. You kind of buffed the latter by giving it Lovely Kiss. I went through most of the game with Vibrava and Altaria, forgetting about the Rare Candy evolution system. So then I had Flygon, which I prefer over Vibrava because of the extra little bit of power. Speed wasn't the defining factor, despite Vibrava being crazy fast. It wasn't until Route 124 and the Super Rod that I got a Seadra, evolved it quickly to Kingdra. That turned out to be just enough for the rest of the game.
As far as this hack's attempt at making not-fully-evolved Pokemon viable, I didn't see much of that in the second half of the game. In the first half, it's a bit of a moot point because I had Vibrava, trainers had their own NFEs. Late-game, they all had fully-evolved. The one trainer that stood out in the last leg of the game was Wallace, he was the only one with an NFE, Sealeo. Drake had a Farfetch'd, but that was easy to take out. Sealeo was kind of bulky, and it crushed my team in the first attempt, as well as spam Rest like the AI does sometimes. On the second try I beat Wallace thanks to setting up Dragon Dance on Ludicolo with Altaria.
As far as the Legendaries, the Weather Trio and Ho-Oh/Lugia gave the most problems, but that's just because they were level 70 and I was in the high-60s. Kyogre was the hardest to take down, obviously because of Ice Beam and Sheer Cold.
Steven's team wasn't randomized at all, weird. He required a couple of tries, I was underleveled (high-60s). Anyway, the same general statements made on the FR Pokeluv apply to here, but I like this version more. That's just because Emerald Final's a superior hack to Throwback (that one's great too). I used the Moemon patch that is used for Emerald Final on this. That particular patch might've caused Kingdra to not have any ability, as I know it's supposed to have Swift Swim, but no big deal. I love Moemons, so that patch had to be applied.
The early-game was a bit of a problem, but that's mainly because Vibrava and Altaria didn't get good moves until later, so KOing boss trainer Pokemon would take a long time. Roxanne had a Shuckle, that took ages to take down for example. Aside from that, it was a very smooth experience, and I enjoyed myself.
