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Emerald hack: Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0

spearmintz

spearmintz

  • Blue Heart Ultra Ball Great Ball Yellow Heart
    • 68
    Posts
    6
    Years
    • Seen Jan 13, 2026
    ___________________________[PokeCommunity.com] Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0___________________________​

    Intro
    I've wanted to dip my toes into the Emerald decomp, and pokeemerald-expansion specifically, so this project is my first pass at making something I hope is a little unique. I was sick and tired of replaying Emerald and seeing the same tiles over and over, so after finding leob0505's custom ORAS inspired tileset, I wanted to make my own hack with a new look and new features courtesy of pokeemerald and the pokeemerald-expansion. The goal of this project is to make a game that I would want to play, which means I added about 125 pokemon families that I personally like from future games to be caught and used in your Hoenn journey, as well as the QoL features made possible through the decomps such as ability and nature changing. I have also included a VANILLA version for you to download, where the only difference is that NO NEW POKEMON are added, it is just default Emerald encounters and pokemon. All other QoL features and moveset updates are in both the regular and VANILLA versions.
    [PokeCommunity.com] Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0[PokeCommunity.com] Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0[PokeCommunity.com] Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0

    Features
    - A brand new crisp and lush tileset, courtesy of leob0505
    - Modern Battle Mechanics (Gen 9)
    - New Pokemon from across all 9 generations to spice up Hoenn (Not included in VANILLA patch)
    - Updated Learnsets (Gen 9)
    - Following Pokemon
    - Physical Special Split
    - Pokemon types and type effectiveness shown in battle
    - Move relearner available through any Pokemon's "Summary" screen
    - Trade evolutions are all obtainable
    - Level caps for each gym to prevent steamrolling
    - Nature and Ability changing via respective items described below
    - Free rare candies (cannot be sold) to help when grinding gets boring
    - General QoL like running indoors, better fishing, item information on picking something up, no overworld poison, ability pop-ups etc
    - Gen 6 Exp. Share (Toggle-able)
    - Many pokemon who evolve late got their evos changed to be usable and fun (Like Volcarona)
    - As a personal bonus, Archen and Archeops got their abilities changed from Defeatist to Rattled/Tangled Feet or HA Tough Claws because I love them and it always felt unfair that they got Defeatist, vs Slaking who's OP and balanced by Truant for example

    Screenshots
    Spoiler:

    Resources and Credits
    pokeemerald - DizzyEgg and pret
    pokeemerald expansion - rh-hideout
    ORAS-Inspired Tileset - leob0505
    Team Aquas Asset Repo - Pawkkie
    RH Hideout Discord
    Youtube tutorial series - Team Aqua's Hideout

    Download and Documentation
    Contemporary Emerald v1.1 Patch File and Documentation
    Contemporary Emerald VANILLA version Patch File and Documentation

    Install Instructions
    Take the .bps patch file, and use a patching software to apply it to a clean Pokémon Emerald rom, Emerald (U) (TrashMan)

    Changelog
    30JUL2025:
    Fixed Oldale Mart bug, special items should be buyable whenever
    Fixed Fossil bug, now each fossil revives half of the fossil roster
    Changed evo levels for high level evolutions like Hydreigon (See documentation)
    Fixed some tileset issues

    Known Bugs/In progress
    Few tileset bugs on certain doors. Don't have time to learn and fix it right now
    Trying to implement new TM's is proving challenging as pokemon who should learn the TM's cannot
     
    Last edited:
    On another note:
    This hack looks very nice but there seem to be just a few spriting errors:
    The doors, when they open, appear to show some of the background layer in the in between frames, see attached:[PokeCommunity.com] Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0

    Furthermore, the tiles of the pokemon center roof and the lampposts in rustboro have the wrong background, showing the path instead of the rest of the city, see other attached:[PokeCommunity.com] Pokémon Contemporary Emerald v1.0
     
    One other bug, sorry to be like this, I'm trying to revive a fossil at Devon Corp, and when I do with one of the fossils that already existed, it works. But when I do so with a plume fossil in my inventory, it doesn't seem to register as a fossil? This feels really... buggy.

    Furthermore, one balancing thing/QOL thing: Maybe add a second pokemart attendant to the Mauville mart specifically? Having to go all the way back from Mauville to Petalburg/Rustboro pre-rock smash to get items takes a while.
     
    Windstorm6961 said:
    One other bug, sorry to be like this, I'm trying to revive a fossil at Devon Corp, and when I do with one of the fossils that already existed, it works. But when I do so with a plume fossil in my inventory, it doesn't seem to register as a fossil? This feels really... buggy.

    Furthermore, one balancing thing/QOL thing: Maybe add a second pokemart attendant to the Mauville mart specifically? Having to go all the way back from Mauville to Petalburg/Rustboro pre-rock smash to get items takes a while.
    Click to expand...
    Hmm, so newer fossils aren't registering, but the gens 1-3 ones are? Strange, I didn't alter any settings there, I'll mess around with it. And the tiling stuff should be fixed in the next patch, alongside the rare candies/exp share disappearing.
     
    spearmintz said:
    Which version are you playing? I downloaded and patched it myself and everything seems fine. You're positive you're playing a properly patched rom?
    Click to expand...
    It's happening to me too. I didn't download the vanilla one, just the standard. And all it shows is the regular items along with a one time purchase escape rope.
     
    Windstorm6961 said:
    One other bug, sorry to be like this, I'm trying to revive a fossil at Devon Corp, and when I do with one of the fossils that already existed, it works. But when I do so with a plume fossil in my inventory, it doesn't seem to register as a fossil? This feels really... buggy.

    Furthermore, one balancing thing/QOL thing: Maybe add a second pokemart attendant to the Mauville mart specifically? Having to go all the way back from Mauville to Petalburg/Rustboro pre-rock smash to get items takes a while.
    Click to expand...
    After looking into it, it seems despite all the fossils being included in the expansion, the game only recognizes the two official ones. To get around this, you can either write pages and pages of scripts to allow him to accept them all, or do the ghetto way which I did. I have patched this by making the Root fossil give you half the fossil pokemon, and the Claw fossil giving the other half. Should allow you to use any fossil mon except the weird galar ones.
     
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