Emerald hack: Pokémon CosmicEmerald Version [Updated! 12/24/2019]

[Vanagand]

So I'm having a pretty weird problem regarding the jirachi event. My rtc etc. is working perfectly and it is monday night in game and irl. But I didn't read the instructions thoroughly at first, and rested in the bed before getting the item from mossdeep, and now when I go back to the bed it doesn't do anything and is just a static object again. I feel pretty dumb but is there a way to fix this?

 

[SkyVortex]

So I'm having a pretty weird problem regarding the jirachi event. My rtc etc. is working perfectly and it is monday night in game and irl. But I didn't read the instructions thoroughly at first, and rested in the bed before getting the item from mossdeep, and now when I go back to the bed it doesn't do anything and is just a static object again. I feel pretty dumb but is there a way to fix this?

Some months ago a couple of others were having the same problem. I don't know (or remember at least) what caused it, but I made a patch that fixed it for them, I'll add it to the main post just in case. IIRC I changed the variables that are tied to the script tile where the bed is. Here's a link to download it, patch it directly to the game: Removed old link https://www.mediafire.com/file/wpr3p2xbn5inbc2/%5BCE%5D_Fix-BedScriptNotWorking_v2.ips/file

[Edit: Updated the patch, found out why it wasn't working in all cases]

Let me know if it's still not working and I'll try to figure something out for it.

 

[Vanagand]

So it is once again monday! I just tried it with the patch and the bed is still not clickable. Hmm...

 

[Chaltini]

Is there a patch where all the gen 3 sprites are updated to gen 4 or up?

 

[SkyVortex]

So it is once again monday! I just tried it with the patch and the bed is still not clickable. Hmm...

Yeah in this case I have no idea what is going on with it. Are you willing to send me your save file? It sounds like there's a problem with a certain flag/variable being already triggered. The patch was made to replace the whole script tile along with the variable, so it looks like this is more complicated than I thought.

Is there a patch where all the gen 3 sprites are updated to gen 4 or up?

No, not from me, but if someone else made one that works in regular Emerald it should work on this one too.

 

[JSepol]

SkyVortex, congratulations on the fantastic rom hack you've made. This Quality of Life Rom Hack truly captured 98% of what I felt Pokémon Emerald needed.

I've just completed the Hoenn Dex (including the Jirachi event) a few minutes ago and I want to thank you for all the hard work you've done and for all the fun (and challenges) you've provided to anyone playing this.

I really feel that the way you programmed the Kanto and Johto Pokémon to appear in the wild was very natural and logical throughout this game, from the extremely low encounter rates to how you made some of these Pokémon only appear in more "far away" places... It made perfect sense.

I also like how you programmed certain game events to only trigger based on the day of the week, the hour, and the overall completion status of the game. It really made me feel there was a reason to focus on the Pokédex.

I only have one question and two requests (an easy and a hard one):
- Question: what is the point of unlocking the Cave of Origin again after the Jirachi event?

- Easy Request: I play with the PSS patch. Is there a way of programming Acid to lower Special Def instead of Def when this patch is activated? Same thing with Crunch reducing Def. instead of Special Def.

- Hard Request: You're probably not interested, but I'll ask anyway - is there any chance you could implement some sort of IV perfector and Nature changer somewhere in the Battle Frontier? I wouldn't mind if you made these "services" cost a ton of BP. That would be fair game. It's just that I feel the Battle Frontier is inherently unfair if you don't have Pokémon with perfect IVs, and that's just something you can't control 100%, even if you breed creatures for hours on end. The other alternative would be to use cheats, but that's something I want to avoid it.

Anyways, I congratulate you once again for all your efforts! A huge thanks!

 

[SkyVortex]

SkyVortex, congratulations on the fantastic rom hack you've made. This Quality of Life Rom Hack truly captured 98% of what I felt Pokémon Emerald needed.

I've just completed the Hoenn Dex (including the Jirachi event) a few minutes ago and I want to thank you for all the hard work you've done and for all the fun (and challenges) you've provided to anyone playing this.

I really feel that the way you programmed the Kanto and Johto Pokémon to appear in the wild was very natural and logical throughout this game, from the extremely low encounter rates to how you made some of these Pokémon only appear in more "far away" places... It made perfect sense.

I also like how you programmed certain game events to only trigger based on the day of the week, the hour, and the overall completion status of the game. It really made me feel there was a reason to focus on the Pokédex.

I only have one question and two requests (an easy and a hard one):
- Question: what is the point of unlocking the Cave of Origin again after the Jirachi event?

- Easy Request: I play with the PSS patch. Is there a way of programming Acid to lower Special Def instead of Def when this patch is activated? Same thing with Crunch reducing Def. instead of Special Def.

- Hard Request: You're probably not interested, but I'll ask anyway - is there any chance you could implement some sort of IV perfector and Nature changer somewhere in the Battle Frontier? I wouldn't mind if you made these "services" cost a ton of BP. That would be fair game. It's just that I feel the Battle Frontier is inherently unfair if you don't have Pokémon with perfect IVs, and that's just something you can't control 100%, even if you breed creatures for hours on end. The other alternative would be to use cheats, but that's something I want to avoid it.

Anyways, I congratulate you once again for all your efforts! A huge thanks!

Hey JSepol thank you for all the kind words. What you've stated is by far my biggest motivation for turning this game into what it is now. When it came to where to place different Pokémon and the updated graphics, it all came from everything I knew about the series since I got into it back in 1997. It's a bit hard to explain in detail but I did my best to show it in this project. It's always awesome to see others appreciate that. One unfortunate thing is that those looking for huge changes right from the start tend to get disappointed. Many of the updates are subtle and easy to take for granted until much further into the story. I imagine that livestreamed playthroughs would be especially affected, since the viewers may not see much unless the streamer makes it into the post-game. I'm very happy that you went the distance and got to see the good stuff, so congratulations to you!

As for the Cave of Origin, I decided to make it available again, as I didn't like the idea of permanently closing it off to the player. Closing it makes it so you can no longer obtain Pokémon that have "Cave of Origin" as their Met Location. Aside from that, I just love the atmosphere of that particular map; the tileset and music are just perfect for it. I haven't added any new features there, other than the additional floors that were present in R/S (I think I tweaked the encounter list to include Mawile/Sableye but I'm not sure about that). For whatever reason the developers made it so that there are fewer floors to navigate in Emerald, yet oddly enough the 'extra' floor maps were still in the game. I decided to go ahead and reactivate them so there's more to explore. Later on I might add something really special there but just need to come up with some ideas first.

The easy request is a great idea actually. I can definitely change the Move effects, in fact all it would take is swapping Acid and Crunch's effects around. I'll make it part of the PSS patch as well, but for now I'll upload it here since it was quick for me to make. It only changes the move effects, so it will still need to be applied alongside the PSS patch: https://www.mediafire.com/file/dtl70vl1vsauejs/%5BEM%5D_Swap_Acid_and_Crunch_Effects.ips/file

Have to admit though the hard request is a good bit beyond my skillset right now. I'd be interested in adding it but would definitely need some help with it. It sounds like it involves lots of ASM programming and maybe use of the Emerald disassembly (which I have no experience with as of late). Were you able to find the EV/IV scanning device from the sidequest? It's probably the best bet as of right now, but if you can get Pokémon with at least 25 IVs in the desired stats and at least 15 in the others, you should stand a good chance. I agree, the Battle Frontier is inherently unfair, especially the Tower (I hate those 1-Hit KO + Quick Claw trainers, their strategy would never work the other way around, at least not for long). I also found the Palace to be extremely annoying. I completely agree with you not wanting to use cheats. It cheapens things for me and might even corrupt an otherwise great save file (though everyone is free to play how they want of course).

Thanks again for the compliments, and for playing this game all the way through!

 

[JSepol]

Hey JSepol thank you for all the kind words. What you've stated is by far my biggest motivation for turning this game into what it is now. When it came to where to place different Pokémon and the updated graphics, it all came from everything I knew about the series since I got into it back in 1997. It's a bit hard to explain in detail but I did my best to show it in this project. It's always awesome to see others appreciate that.

Yeah, I can really tell a lot of thought was put into every change and Pokémon location you came up with. By themselves, these small improvements may not sound so crazy but, yeah, they do add up to a very cool and plausible experience.

By the way, I forgot to mention the anecdote of me catching as many Pokémon as quickly as possible before next Sunday would come up because I just wanted to visit Mirage Island so badly. Of course, I could have just changed the current day of the week on my device, but I decided to go legit and wait for it... I remember waking up last Sunday morning super excited just to see what I could find at this location. It really gave me a sense of immersion, like in the early days of GSC.

As for the Cave of Origin, I decided to make it available again, as I didn't like the idea of permanently closing it off to the player. Closing it makes it so you can no longer obtain Pokémon that have "Cave of Origin" as their Met Location. Aside from that, I just love the atmosphere of that particular map; the tileset and music are just perfect for it. (...) Later on I might add something really special there but just need to come up with some ideas first.

Yeah, the Cave of Origin does feel like an eerie and special place... If you want a possible suggestion for something to do in this location in the post-game, why not add the Unown Letters in this place, instead of other locations where they are mixed with other possible wild encounters (especially at N.R.)? You could even make it so specific letters would appear on specific floors of the cave. This would give the Cave of Origin an even more "mythical" feel to it. Who knows? :)

Now that I think of it, programming Mewtwo to appear as an Event legendary here after the Jirachi Event could also be a nice incentive to revisit this place. Maybe it could make even more sense than Mewtwo appearing in the place where it does now? This way, the Cave of Origin could really work like a final dungeon with a final surprise waiting inside. And maybe you could even change the dialogue of the old man who is guarding the entrance and make this NPC say something about how suddenly a mysterious and powerful creature has decided to reside in the cave in order to better understand the meaning of its life and origins... Something eerie and philosophical that could go along well with Mewtwo's backstory :)

The easy request is a great idea actually. I can definitely change the Move effects, in fact all it would take is swapping Acid and Crunch's effects around. I'll make it part of the PSS patch as well, but for now I'll upload it here since it was quick for me to make. It only changes the move effects, so it will still need to be applied alongside the PSS patch: https://www.mediafire.com/file/dtl70vl1vsauejs/%5BEM%5D_Swap_Acid_and_Crunch_Effects.ips/file

Thanks for taking the time to implement this small change! Super appreciated! :)

Have to admit though the hard request is a good bit beyond my skillset right now. I'd be interested in adding it but would definitely need some help with it. It sounds like it involves lots of ASM programming and maybe use of the Emerald disassembly (which I have no experience with as of late). Were you able to find the EV/IV scanning device from the sidequest? It's probably the best bet as of right now, but if you can get Pokémon with at least 25 IVs in the desired stats and at least 15 in the others, you should stand a good chance. I agree, the Battle Frontier is inherently unfair, especially the Tower (I hate those 1-Hit KO + Quick Claw trainers, their strategy would never work the other way around, at least not for long). I also found the Palace to be extremely annoying. I completely agree with you not wanting to use cheats. It cheapens things for me and might even corrupt an otherwise great save file (though everyone is free to play how they want of course).

Yeah, I figured it could be hard. And yes, I've found the item you mentioned. I guess I'm gonna rely on the scanner to prepare some cool Mons for the Battle Frontier. Thanks again for taking the time to consider my suggestions. Keep up the awesome work!

Also, while playing the game, I came up with some other possible suggestions. Again, I don't know if they are doable or not, since I know nothing about rom hacking, but here they go:

- there are some NPCs (like the girl south of the Ruins where you can get Registeel) that give you a rare berry every single day, based on your ID number. The thing is, if you don't mix records with someone who has a different ID, you're stuck receiving the same berries every day and you'll never be able to get all of the rare ones in a single playthrough. That being said, would it be possible to program this NPC to give you a different berry every day of the week?

- NPC rematches: completing the Pokedex naturally involves a bit of grinding, especially if you don't want to redo the Elite Four over and over. So, I wonder if it would be doable to increase the level of the NPCs you can rematch through the PokeNav feature? From what I can tell, the NPCs from the western part of Hoenn can level their Pokémon up to around level 36, while the Eastern part of the region has rematches up to the mid-40s, I think...

Again, the focus of these suggestions would be to provide even more Quality of Life features to your rom hack. Please don't think of them as complaints :P

 

[SkyVortex]

Yeah, I can really tell a lot of thought was put into every change and Pokémon location you came up with. By themselves, these small improvements may not sound so crazy but, yeah, they do add up to a very cool and plausible experience.

By the way, I forgot to mention the anecdote of me catching as many Pokémon as quickly as possible before next Sunday would come up because I just wanted to visit Mirage Island so badly. Of course, I could have just changed the current day of the week on my device, but I decided to go legit and wait for it... I remember waking up last Sunday morning super excited just to see what I could find at this location. It really gave me a sense of immersion, like in the early days of GSC.

Yeah the immersion was what I was really going for with the time-based stuff, I always liked that element of the GSC games. My first Pokémon game was Crystal, and the day/night changes and special events really made it memorable. I still remember when I first battled Suicune it was nighttime in-game but was actually twilight outside (I was out in my backyard, and was maybe 8 or 9 years old). Caught it with a Great Ball.

Yeah, the Cave of Origin does feel like an eerie and special place... If you want a possible suggestion for something to do in this location in the post-game, why not add the Unown Letters in this place, instead of other locations where they are mixed with other possible wild encounters (especially at N.R.)? You could even make it so specific letters would appear on specific floors of the cave. This would give the Cave of Origin an even more "mythical" feel to it. Who knows? :)

Now that I think of it, programming Mewtwo to appear as an Event legendary here after the Jirachi Event could also be a nice incentive to revisit this place. Maybe it could make even more sense than Mewtwo appearing in the place where it does now? This way, the Cave of Origin could really work like a final dungeon with a final surprise waiting inside. And maybe you could even change the dialogue of the old man who is guarding the entrance and make this NPC say something about how suddenly a mysterious and powerful creature has decided to reside in the cave in order to better understand the meaning of its life and origins... Something eerie and philosophical that could go along well with Mewtwo's backstory :)

I wish I could have done better with the Unown situation, but the way the game handles generating them is a complete mystery to me. If it was possible (I'm sure with the disassembly it might be), I would put them in the Altering Cave, and make it swap them around based on what hour it is every day.

The Mewtwo thing is a brilliant idea, and is something I could totally do. I'd like to keep something at least in its previous location, since there's little reason to go back there otherwise. It may be some time still before I work on the game again, but I'll keep this in mind and credit you for it as well. I do still want to do at least one more release of CosmicEmerald, plus I recently made a sort of cool change to the title screen the past few days.

- there are some NPCs (like the girl south of the Ruins where you can get Registeel) that give you a rare berry every single day, based on your ID number. The thing is, if you don't mix records with someone who has a different ID, you're stuck receiving the same berries every day and you'll never be able to get all of the rare ones in a single playthrough. That being said, would it be possible to program this NPC to give you a different berry every day of the week?

Great idea, not sure why I never thought of that! Yeah I could program her to give you one of the ID-exclusive ones depending on day of the week, but with a rare random chance of giving one of the top-tier berries. On top of that, an even more rare chance of giving an Enigma Berry, of which only one will be possible per save file. Then again there's also the other couple of NPCs that always give you the same berries, I could maybe split the idea between them as well.

- NPC rematches: completing the Pokedex naturally involves a bit of grinding, especially if you don't want to redo the Elite Four over and over. So, I wonder if it would be doable to increase the level of the NPCs you can rematch through the PokeNav feature? From what I can tell, the NPCs from the western part of Hoenn can level their Pokémon up to around level 36, while the Eastern part of the region has rematches up to the mid-40s, I think...

Again, the focus of these suggestions would be to provide even more Quality of Life features to your rom hack. Please don't think of them as complaints :P

That's also a great idea and I figure it's worth doing too. I never liked how weak those trainers stayed, though I'd like to make increases depend on what areas they're in. Steven can actually be rematched, but I think I made it only possible once per day.

Don't worry, these are all well thought out suggestions you're making. Lots of amazing ideas that I'll gladly add to my to-do list. Thank you for sharing them with me.

 

[JSepol]

Yeah the immersion was what I was really going for with the time-based stuff, I always liked that element of the GSC games. My first Pokémon game was Crystal, and the day/night changes and special events really made it memorable. I still remember when I first battled Suicune it was nighttime in-game but was actually twilight outside (I was out in my backyard, and was maybe 8 or 9 years old). Caught it with a Great Ball.

Hahaha. Crystal was my second game, after Silver. I totally understand what you mean. And, from all the "Emerald improvement" hacks I've seen, no one comes close to yours in terms of night/day/weekly events. How much time did it take for you to program the scripts and events for things such as the Legendary Beasts?

The Mewtwo thing is a brilliant idea, and is something I could totally do. I'd like to keep something at least in its previous location, since there's little reason to go back there otherwise. It may be some time still before I work on the game again, but I'll keep this in mind and credit you for it as well. I do still want to do at least one more release of CosmicEmerald, plus I recently made a sort of cool change to the title screen the past few days.

Hmm... An "easy" answer to that dilemma would be to program exclusive Pokémon outbreaks / swarms in locations that were relevant to the plot during a certain part of the Story. Possibly with Pokémon from Gen I and II. Maybe you could even program each of those Pokémon to only spawn when its respective outbreak event would be happening?

I'm not sure if you've ever played Pokémon Gold and Silver, but - for instance - Remoraid could only appear in the wild whenever a specific NPC phoned you and told you they were biting. So, in this case, the outbreak mechanic was for a Pokémon whose encounter rate, under normal circumstances, would be 0% (not 1% or 2% like what happens with Seedot in vanilla Emerald).

Spoiler:

Magmar in Magma Hideout sounds like something that could work really well as an Outbreak-exclusive Pokémon. Of course, the way it works now is also very fine. In that case, Seel in Shoal Cave and maybe Mantine and/or Shelder/Cloyster in Seafloor Cavern could also be plausible reasons to go back to those locations. Also... Ghastly/Haunter as a swarm-only encounter at Mt. Pyre would be cool too.

Of course I'm suggesting this just in case you want to take things to another level, since the way you've set these encounters is already well done and plausible, as I previously said.

Don't worry, these are all well thought out suggestions you're making. Lots of amazing ideas that I'll gladly add to my to-do list. Thank you for sharing them with me.

I'm glad I could help :)

One last suggestion I would give you has to do with some retweaks (improvements?) to the learnsets of certain Pokémon. From what I understand, your goal with this Rom Hack was to give players the ultimate Gen 3 experience, so I totally understand why bringing moves and items from later gens would never cross your mind. But... what if you could use the tools that Gen 3 has and try and make certain Pokémon more balanced and interesting to use, under the rules of Gen 3?

Case in point: Vulpix / Ninetales. During my playthrough, I caught a Vulpix at Mt. Pyre and was super excited about using it on my team. That is until I realized that, in Gen 3, Vulpix can learn no Special Attack moves, other than Fire-moves and Hidden Power. I Googled its Gen 4 learnset and it learns "Extrasensory" (a move from Gen 3) by Level Up in every single Generation after that. And boy, does it need a move like that.

I made a quick search, and I was wondering what you think of adding these moves to the natural learnsets of these Pokémon species:

- Nuzleaf / Shiftry - Razor Leaf (maybe at mid 40s) and, possibly, Leaf Blade (lv. 60?) - it's a physical attacker, Shiftry has leaves for hands and it would be better than STAB Giga Drain.

- Vulpix - Extrasensory (lv 47) - Vulpix / Ninetales really needs a redemption story.

- Azumarill - Superpower (late 40s or early 50s) - Not as essential as the other cases, but it would be good in conjunction with the ability Huge Power

- Growlithe - Reversal (lv 25) and Crunch (lv 42) - Physical attacker in need of some coverage, I guess.

- Venomoth - Signal Beam (lv 37) - It would be a nice STAB. I believe this is available to it has an Egg Move in Gen 3.

- Hitmonlee - Blaze Kick (lv. 45) - Gen 3 had a terrible bias of giving signature moves to starters that could have also been given to other Pokémon. Hitmonchan has the elemental punches with PSS. So why not give this to Hitmonlee?

- Mareep - Signal Beam (lv. 32) - a special attacker, who "loses" the elemental punches if the PSS patch is used.

- Rapidash (lv. 49?) - Megahorn - Fire attackers always seem to have limited movepools

- Zangoose - Revenge (maybe mid 30s or early 40s) - Essentially for physical coverage.

- Jirachi - Meteor Mash (lv. 49) - This way, it gets a STAB other than Doom Desire, and stays loyal to the Cosmic theme.

- Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Articuno, Zapdos, Molters - Extrasensory (they learn it either via level-up in later Gens or by being purified from XD)

- Weezing - Heat Wave (the most recent generation gave Weezing this as a level-up move). Since Koffing is found at a fiery cave in Hoenn, and since the Japanese name for this move is "Hot Wind", this could be a nice coverage option for Weezing.

Note: All these moves are compatible with these Pokémon on later Gens and could make some of these Pokémon shine slightly more in a Gen 3 playthrough. Especially Ninetales and Nuzleaf/Shiftry - Pokémon I would love to use in a new playthrough of the game.

 

[SkyVortex]

Hahaha. Crystal was my second game, after Silver. I totally understand what you mean. And, from all the "Emerald improvement" hacks I've seen, no one comes close to yours in terms of night/day/weekly events. How much time did it take for you to program the scripts and events for things such as the Legendary Beasts?

Thank you!
I can't remember how long it took for those scripts, but by the time I wrote them I had gotten really proficient at scripting in XSE. I think it took me about 30 minutes on average for each of the Beasts, with maybe another 30 trying to narrow down their sprite movement patterns and sound effects. Had to revise their scripts a few times to replace some flags and variables too, since I changed which ones I used at one point.

Hmm... An "easy" answer to that dilemma would be to program exclusive Pokémon outbreaks / swarms in locations that were relevant to the plot during a certain part of the Story. Possibly with Pokémon from Gen I and II. Maybe you could even program each of those Pokémon to only spawn when its respective outbreak event would be happening?

I'm not sure if you've ever played Pokémon Gold and Silver, but - for instance - Remoraid could only appear in the wild whenever a specific NPC phoned you and told you they were biting. So, in this case, the outbreak mechanic was for a Pokémon whose encounter rate, under normal circumstances, would be 0% (not 1% or 2% like what happens with Seedot in vanilla Emerald).

Spoiler:

Magmar in Magma Hideout sounds like something that could work really well as an Outbreak-exclusive Pokémon. Of course, the way it works now is also very fine. In that case, Seel in Shoal Cave and maybe Mantine and/or Shelder/Cloyster in Seafloor Cavern could also be plausible reasons to go back to those locations. Also... Ghastly/Haunter as a swarm-only encounter at Mt. Pyre would be cool too.

Of course I'm suggesting this just in case you want to take things to another level, since the way you've set these encounters is already well done and plausible, as I previously said.

I never figured out how swarm mechanics worked in this game, but it's apparently tied to the the clock and Record Mixing. Changing that stuff would be pretty complicated but I may take a shot at it. I do like your idea, I think it would actually help clean up the encounter lists for each map I put Kanto/Johto Pokémon in.

[Learnsets]

The changes you listed are definitely much needed. Since I never really got into later gens, I didn't realize these kinds of changes were made. I did know about Extrasensory from XD: GoD (for the Bird Trio), but not the others. Totally agree on the point about Vulpix and Ninetales, they are also favorites of mine and really deserve a learnset upgrade. I'll keep this post in mind when I get back to working on the game. Thanks again!

 

[uZ1]

I have to say this is the best Emerald hack.
But one question: How can I leave the Moon after catching Jirachi and re-entering the area later again?

 

[SkyVortex]

I have to say this is the best Emerald hack.
But one question: How can I leave the Moon after catching Jirachi and re-entering the area later again?

Thank you, I'm glad you like it!

To leave the area Jirachi is in, you will have to interact with the spot where it used to be and you will get a dialogue that gives you the option to leave.

 

[Flagrare]

Really great mod. If it had the first pokemon to follow you on overworld would be perfect <3

 

[Icydestro1991]

So uh where do we get the maps for the islands? I am the champ I just don't know where to get the maps at

 

[SkyVortex]

So uh where do we get the maps for the islands? I am the champ I just don't know where to get the maps at

In the upstairs part of PokéCenters there should be a person in blue standing next to Teala (the receptionist) if you have Mystery Gift enabled. They will give you event tickets and stuff depending on different requirements, which are listed on the 'questionnaire' on the counter in Marts. Reading the list activates Mystery Gift automatically too.

 

[tobiaslundman1986]

Hey JSepol thank you for all the kind words. What you've stated is by far my biggest motivation for turning this game into what it is now. When it came to where to place different Pokémon and the updated graphics, it all came from everything I knew about the series since I got into it back in 1997. It's a bit hard to explain in detail but I did my best to show it in this project. It's always awesome to see others appreciate that. One unfortunate thing is that those looking for huge changes right from the start tend to get disappointed. Many of the updates are subtle and easy to take for granted until much further into the story. I imagine that livestreamed playthroughs would be especially affected, since the viewers may not see much unless the streamer makes it into the post-game. I'm very happy that you went the distance and got to see the good stuff, so congratulations to you!

As for the Cave of Origin, I decided to make it available again, as I didn't like the idea of permanently closing it off to the player. Closing it makes it so you can no longer obtain Pokémon that have "Cave of Origin" as their Met Location. Aside from that, I just love the atmosphere of that particular map; the tileset and music are just perfect for it. I haven't added any new features there, other than the additional floors that were present in R/S (I think I tweaked the encounter list to include Mawile/Sableye but I'm not sure about that). For whatever reason the developers made it so that there are fewer floors to navigate in Emerald, yet oddly enough the 'extra' floor maps were still in the game. I decided to go ahead and reactivate them so there's more to explore. Later on I might add something really special there but just need to come up with some ideas first.

The easy request is a great idea actually. I can definitely change the Move effects, in fact all it would take is swapping Acid and Crunch's effects around. I'll make it part of the PSS patch as well, but for now I'll upload it here since it was quick for me to make. It only changes the move effects, so it will still need to be applied alongside the PSS patch: https://www.mediafire.com/file/dtl70vl1vsauejs/%255BEM%255D_Swap_Acid_and_Crunch_Effects.ips/file

Have to admit though the hard request is a good bit beyond my skillset right now. I'd be interested in adding it but would definitely need some help with it. It sounds like it involves lots of ASM programming and maybe use of the Emerald disassembly (which I have no experience with as of late). Were you able to find the EV/IV scanning device from the sidequest? It's probably the best bet as of right now, but if you can get Pokémon with at least 25 IVs in the desired stats and at least 15 in the others, you should stand a good chance. I agree, the Battle Frontier is inherently unfair, especially the Tower (I hate those 1-Hit KO + Quick Claw trainers, their strategy would never work the other way around, at least not for long). I also found the Palace to be extremely annoying. I completely agree with you not wanting to use cheats. It cheapens things for me and might even corrupt an otherwise great save file (though everyone is free to play how they want of course).

Thanks again for the compliments, and for playing this game all the way through!

Thanks a lot lot lot for detailed support.

 

[SilverJooJ]

Gotta say, been loving the hack, it just makes stuff way more practical and better to play with and in general it's easily one of the best rom hacks I've played simply because it makes playing it a more enjoyable experience.

I have been having trouble with something however, mainly the fact Pokemon like Zangoose and Lunatone I can't seem to find in their would be places even after spending over a hour looking for them, notice that I was only looking for them during the day and afternoon time, does that means because of the night and day cycle that they only show up at night? Just wondering because I either have bad luck or there is something wrong(I have been using the updated version btw)

 

[SkyVortex]

Gotta say, been loving the hack, it just makes stuff way more practical and better to play with and in general it's easily one of the best rom hacks I've played simply because it makes playing it a more enjoyable experience.

I have been having trouble with something however, mainly the fact Pokemon like Zangoose and Lunatone I can't seem to find in their would be places even after spending over a hour looking for them, notice that I was only looking for them during the day and afternoon time, does that means because of the night and day cycle that they only show up at night? Just wondering because I either have bad luck or there is something wrong(I have been using the updated version btw)

It's either bad luck or some kind of glitch (though from other reports the Dex is able to be completed). Advance Map 1.95 shows the encounter rate for Zangoose to be 5% on Route 114, and 8% for Lunatone everywhere in Meteor Falls except for the Bagon Room (6%) and Steven's Area (13%). So the best bet would be to just keep trying for Zangoose, and use Steven's area for Lunatone. There's no day/night encounter switches unfortunately, though I'd like to add that feature. Also thank you for the kind words, I really did try to make this game like a definitive version of Emerald, without going too far into new stuff.

 

[Porygon 3]

Ehi SkyVortex, wanted to Ask you something:
-is the BF fully available?
-since i want to play this on 3ds injection, i have to patch the game with the cosmic Emerald rom and then with the file you posted some Pages before?
-the latest version Is in the First Page or should i look for updates in other Pages of the thread?
Sorry for bothering