Download Pre-Patched Pokemon Emerald Legacy GBA ROM Hack
- Creator: TheSmithPlays
- Version: 1.0
- Hack of: Emerald
- Released: December 12, 2024
- Language: English
- Status: Completed
Pokemon Emerald Legacy is a GBA Rom Hack by TheSmithPlays based on Pokemon Emerald in English. And it is now available to download. It was released on December 12, 2024.
Also, be sure to check out Pokemon Yellow Legacy
Description
Emerald Legacy is the finale of the three planned projects in the Legacy Trilogy. It is made using the Pokémon Emerald disassembly made by the Pret team. This game is focused on refining a game considered a classic while using 20+ years of hindsight to improve the experience. Emerald is a great game with a ton of flaws when you look at the game critically; poor Pokémon availability, odd team-building choices, a great story executed poorly, baffling rival decisions, and an Elite Four in dire need of improvement. Despite these flaws, Pokémon Emerald has maintained a positive reputation with memorable Pokédex additions, fantastic gym leader ace Pokémon, abilities, the Battle Frontier, and overall being a large step forward for the series. The Legacy Project aims to improve what makes this game great while improving its flaws.
Keeping that nostalgic feeling is a key part of the project and thus requires us to temper our changes into things that improve the experience but don’t take you out of that original Generation 3 mindset. Things like the Physical/Special Split, adding moves, adding new evolutions, or adding the fairy typing are not things you will find in this game. Instead look for improvements to the Rival storyline, Team Magma & Aqua storyline, Tons of Pokemon balancing using the tools given to us in this generation, a robust post-game, improved boss fights throughout the game, adjusted level curve, and so much more. We are not trying to create a new game, nor are we trying to create a “Kaizo” game that is insanely difficult. We wanted to create a modern but nostalgic version of Pokémon Emerald. So please enjoy Pokémon Emerald Legacy.
General Changes
Quality of Life Changes are changes that we feel the developers would have added to the game if they had the hindsight, time, and resources to do so. A list of those changes are below.
Quality of Life
- Pokédex upgrade
- Can now remove HM moves (adjustments have been made to prevent softlocks)
- Fast save
- Fast heal (first use gives full text)
- Fast surf
- Can now run indoors
- Optional fast-travel after Meteor Falls, after Flannery, and after getting Surf
- Post-game bike upgrade by speaking to Rydel
- Can switch between Mach and Acro bikes using R
- The Acro mode can jump up ordinary ledges while bunny-hopping
- Repeated Field Medicine Use without screen auto-closing
- Bag expansion
- Bag sorting
- Items automatically go to PC if Bag is full
- Made Key Items that cannot be used in the field not show a Use or Register option
- Improved the pace of battles (can press A or B to advance text faster in-battle like normal text, and shortened the delay between faint cry and animation)
- Pressing Start on the clock screen lets you change the time
- Match Call Pokénav tutorial is now skippable
- Route 111 rocks stay gone once smashed
- Route 116 Cut trees stay gone once cut
- Faster text
- Show IVs and EVs in Summary Screen (Press A to cycle)
- Colored stats by nature in summary screen
- Like modern games, red is raised and blue is lowered
- 5th Trainer Card Star for completing the National Pokédex
- Everstone upgraded to have higher chance to keep similar natures going to Eggs
- Free move tutors become infinitely reusable in the post-game
- Removed match calls, they show up in your Pokénav now
- Some characters, like Gym Leaders, may still call you
- Removed the “Trainer registered in the Pokénav” text for non-gym leaders
- Made the gender of the person biking across the screen in the intro match the gender on the save file
- Added a Wrong Save Type Error Screen
- Added Legacy text to the hall of fame screen
- Fishing can’t have multiple rounds of “…”
Battle/Pokémon
- Magma Armor now also reduces water damage, and is exclusive to magcargo. Camerupt gets Flame Body instead.
- Illuminate now prevents accuracy drops and ignores enemy evasion
- Now says new legendaries that can’t fly ran away instead of flew away
- Added new Hoenn Pokémon to the Hoenn Pokédex.
- Hoenn Pokémon show up at the end of the Pokédex only once caught, or seen
- Hoenn Pokémon are required to get Hoenn Pokédex completion and the Johto starters
- Removed trade evolutions
- Alakazam and Gengar evolve from Kadabra and Haunter at level 42, and not by trade
- Golem and Machamp evolve from Graveler and Machoke at level 38, and not by trade
- Slowking, Steelix, Politoed, Kingdra, Scizor, Porygon2, Hauntail and Gorebyss evolve like stone evolutions using their respective trade item
- Pinch berries heal 1/4 instead of 1/8th
- 50% defense boost for ice types in hail + Blizzard 100% accuracy in Hail
- 50% special defense boost for Rock types in sandstorm
- Dark Type is now Physical, Ghost Type is now Special
- Houndoom’s battle sprite has been improved (art by zuperZACH)
- Regirock, Regice, and Registeel now have new overworld sprites (art by zuperZACH)
AI Changes
- Modified AI flags for major trainers
- Improved AI switching logic
- Fixed Will-O-Wisp AI script
- Fixed AI not recording traced abilities in battle history
- Fixed ‘prefer baton pass’ AI script
- Fixed AI spamming protect
- Fixed AI spamming recover moves
Items
- Added the Brick Piece and Hitmontop’s Crystal Legacy evolution method (Brick Piece art by Isona)
- Repels cost $10
- The items acquired with the Pickup ability have been updated. View the new table here.
- Fishing NPC in Pacifidlog will give you an Old Rod and/or Pokéballs if you have no Fishing Rod or no Pokéballs to prevent a soft-lock
- Added more Shards so that you can easily get enough evolution stones
- Sun Stone added to Meteor Falls
- Metal Coat added to frontier held items shop
- Petalburg Max Revive changed to a Water Stone
- Added a Sun/Moon stone mart in post-game space center
- Stern gives you the other deep sea item post-game
- Several Berry availability and usage updates
- Berry Shops
- Flower Shop Berry Store – Oran, Pecha, Cheri, Rawst, Aspear, Leppa, Persim, Chesto Berries
- Flower Shop Berry Store post-Norman – adds Sitrus and Lum Berries
- Berry Master sells berries post-game – Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, Iapapa, Razz, Bluk, Nanab, Wepear, Pinap, Cornn, Magost, Rabuta, and Nomel Berries
- Battle Frontier Berry Shop – Leichi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, Apricot, Pomeg, Kelpsy, Qualot, Hondew, Grepa, and Tamato Berries
- Mirage Usland berry tree now gives the Enigma Berry
- Switched “Use” and “Check Tag” on the Berry Menu
- Less annoying Berry harvesting and planting
- Reduced amount of message prompts to plant Berries
- Berry trees don’t disappear after 10 uses
- Originally if you leave a berry growing past its last stage, it regrows, but after 10 uses it stops growing and vanishes. This behavior is removed.
- Route 120 Berry Girl gives you a random Berry each day rather than basing it off Trainer ID
- Expanded Kiri’s 2nd Berry pool
- Previously she only gave two of the five pinch-healing Berries. She can now gift all of them.
- Berry smoothness and other changes for easier Pokéblocks
- See contest changes
- Berry Shops
- A Lot of Buf Fixes
- New or Changed Trainers/Events
- New gym leader rematch system
Pokemon Changes
The core of the Legacy games’ updates has always been the Pokémon themselves. Our aim is to find each Pokémon’s role, whether existing or implied, and give it changes to better fit that role so the player has the most interesting options as possible for their team. We are not trying to make every Pokémon an S-tier monster; that presents the same issue that the base games fall into, where every Pokémon is vying for the same roles and you’re locked into just picking the same things every time. If everything’s the same then nothing feels special.
Additionally, we absolutely do not change Pokémon types, as this is a slippery slope we feel quickly takes away from the “the way I remember” feeling that Legacy strives to preserve.
When balancing Pokémon, we primarily use the following changes to tune their capabilities. Note that all of this info (except evolutions) is also in the Changedex.
Boss Battles and Game Plot
We feel that the story of Emerald is an overall solid recontextualization of Ruby and Sapphire, themselves full of novel ideas, but many elements are mishandled. Generation 3 sought to differentiate itself from previous entries with a surprise storyline for your rival, a pair of evil teams who share their own rivalry, and other story beats that were daring for the series at the time.
We’ve gone through each of these key story arcs and built out dialogue, added events, and even additional battles to help the existing story of Emerald shine through even more. These changes are meant to only enhance the story, not completely overhaul it; if you are looking for an all-new story for Emerald, you may leave disappointed. Still, there are enough new turns and story beats to keep the plot fresh even for veterans.
And of course, the milestones of this journey are marked by the key boss fights you’ll encounter along the way. Click below to explore these plot updates and the battles that tie them together.
Sidequests & Postgame
The Post Game has been massively built upon and expanded to make the things that you can do actually matter. Everything in the game now has purpose to it and these areas of the game that you normally never would go actually have purpose to them. New Rewards, More Challenge, and some added QOL will make the experience easier to achieve in most cases even with the added difficulty of our games.
Gameplay
Useful Stuff
Downloads
Credits
Special thanks to:
- Project Leader: TheSmithPlays
- Lead Programmer: cRz Shadows
- Video Designer: Weebra
- Discord Admins / Lead Playtesters: Aerogod223, zuperZach, Regi, & Karlos
- Playtesters & Discord/Reddit Moderators: Isona, Obelisk, Disq, and JanitorOPplsNerf
- Playtesters: Flint’s Infernape, Alakadoof, Awqweird, Mungi, Shaun Duz Stuffs, RevRush, Kewaun, Dabrikishaw, PotatoMan, SliferTheCanadian, Reader Dragon, Rwne, Talos, SoulXCross, EliteGrove, Sam1oq, Nootathotep, and Flashbang
- Special thanks to the Pret team and other members of the Romhacking Community that have assisted us in our process. Please Refer to Credits to see links to what they did, tutorials, and links to their own Romhacks.
