Pokemon Emerald Legacy (v1.0.0) GBA Download

Pokemon Emerald Legacy is a Completed GBA Rom Hack made by TheSmithPlays. Explore a revamped version of Emerald with tons of QoL improvements, battle tweaks, Pokemon changes, and a complete game overhaul.

Pokemon Emerald Legacy Completed GBA Rom Hack

Author: TheSmithPlays
Hack Off: Emerald
Language: English
Latest Version: v1.0.0
Released on: December 12, 2024
Status: Completed

Description

Pokemon Emerald Legacy is meant to serve as a finale to the trio of planned projects in the Legacy Trilogy. It is made using the Pokemon Emerald Disassembly made by the Pret team. This game is focused on refining a game that is considered a classic by many people into a nostalgic but improved experience with 20+ years of hindsight. Emerald is a great game with a ton of flaws when you use that experience to really look at it under a lens. Terrible pokemon pool, Weird team building choices, A great story idea executed poorly, baffling rival decisions, and one of the worst E4s. This game with all of these problems manages to shrug them off with memorable dex additions, fantastic gym leader ace choices, abilities, no more stat xp, Battle frontier, original ideas to the series, and overall a solid game. The Legacy Project aims to take what is good in a game and improve it while bringing its flaws up to that same level.

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 Pokemon Emerald. So please enjoy Pokemon Emerald Legacy.

Quality of Life Changes

Pokedex upgrade
Can now remove hm moves
Fast save
Fast heal (first use gives full text)
Fast surf
Can now sprint 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 delay between faint cry and faint)
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)
Coloured stats by nature in summary screen
- Like modern games, Red is raised and Blue is lowered
5th Trainer Card Star for completing the national dex
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 just show up in your pokenav now
- Some characters, like Gym Leaders, may still call you
Removed the “trainer registered in the pokenav” 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 dots

Battle/Pokemon Changes

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 mons to the hoenn dex.
- They should show up at the end and only once caught or seen
- They are required to get the johto starter/hoenn dex completion stuff
Removed trade evos
- 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 without trade
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
Physical dark and special ghost
Houndoom’s battle sprite has been adjusted (sprite by zuperZACH)
Regirock, Regice, and Registeel now have new overworld sprites (created 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 Changes

Added the brick piece and Hitmontop’s Crystal Legacy evolution method
- Brick Piece sprite by Isona
Cheap repels
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 rod or no balls to prevent Pacifidlog 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
  - Flower shop berry store post Norman – Same as before + Sitrus and Lum
  - Berry master sells berries post game – Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, Iapapa, Razz, Bluk, Nanab, Wepear, Pinap, Cornn, Magost, Rabuta, Nomel
  - Battle Frontier Berry Shop – Leichi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, Apricot, Pomeg, Kelpsy, Qualot, Hondew, Grepa, Tamato
Mirage island berry tree now gives the Enigma Berry
Switched “Use” and “Check Tag” on the berry menu
Less Annoying Berry harvesting and planting
- Originally it took lots of A button spam to plant each berry, so message prompts have been reduced
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 cap 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

Bug Fixes

Fixed dual type non immunity bug
Fixed AI checking users type instead of opponents for foresight
Fixed AI checking type-resistance to weather chip
Fixed AI checking opponent for status effects instead of user for facade damage calc
Fixed AI calc potential damage overflow
Fixed contest AI only encouraging move if audience is close to full excitement on the first appeal (which is impossible)
Fixed contest AI reading move effects incorrectly
Fixed contest AI encouraging move if a prev mon has not begun a combo
Fixed battle dome opponent cheating on score
Fixed dodrio picking being able to start before all players are ready
Fixed dodrio picking memory leak
Fixed egg crack animation
Fixed “object event pal none” potential infinite loop
Fixed bug with movement ground effects being able to happen when the camera alone moves
Fixed bug where player appears over the grass when stepping onto the grass from surfing
Fixed fortree bridges not being lowered when stepping on from anything that isn’t another bridge
Fixed bug with cut collision check
Fixed frontier pass color overflow
Fixed frontier pass playing the sound an extra time
Fixed bug where for one frame, the item you scroll to in the Bag menu will have an incorrect palette and may be seen as a flicker.
Fixed sprites not doing the shrink animation if they have an affine animation
Fixed fishing encounters using the land encounter table count and potentially overflowing
Fixed poke ball catch/release animations breaking with a screen transition
Fixed bug where nature calcs break the game if a stat goes above 595 (shuckle can do it with defense and sp defense)
Fixed route 129 displaying route 125 when diving if marine cave is there
Fixed roamer’s status field is u8, but SetMonData expects status to be u32
Fixed roulette animation not being terminated properly
Fixed RTC status reset and switch to 24 hour mode function bug
Fixed bug using gPlayerCurrActivity instead of sPlayerActivityGroupSize in the union room

New or Changed Trainers/Events

Steven is the Champion
Wallace is the Sootopolis Gym Leader
Brawly level scaling badge 2-4 (very difficult to do out of order in hard mode)
Added new trainers around dewford for extra experience gain
- 2 hikers in granite cave
- 1 fisher in dewford town
- 1 blackbelt in dewford gym (won’t light up the gym any more)
Courtney exists
Aqua and Magma Admins now have custom overworld sprites (created by zuperZACH)
Wally VR music
Rustbro rival fight always shows up in the boat hut if you skip the fight, rather than if you don’t speak to them at all
Rayquaza can’t be brought into the first E4 on hard or hardcore mode, but can in normal mode
Added dev battles (but you’ll have to find them yourself)
Zinnia fight and custom music
- Appears at the bottom of the sky pillar only in the post game. If you don’t catch rayquaza in the main game, she will be blocking it, but if you catch it in the main game, you can go back to fight her post game.

New gym leader rematch system

First rematch becomes available throughout the main game
Second rematch becomes available once you are champion
- Automatically goes to this rematch on beating Steven whether you have fought first rematch or not
- Norman calls for his rematch after Sootopolis.
Third rematch becomes available once you beat the battle frontier
Fourth rematch becomes available once you beat all third rematches
Rematches become available without having to enter a battle to trigger them
Leader rematch prizes (1st postgame rematch / 3rd total fight)

Pokemon Changes

The core of the Legacy games’ updates has always been the Pokemon themselves. Our aim is to find each Pokemon’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 Pokemon an S-tier monster; that presents the same issue that the base games fall into, where every Pokemon 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 Pokemon 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 Pokemon, we primarily use the following changes to tune their capabilities. Note that all of this info (except evolutions) is also in the Changedex.

Learnset: The moves at a Pokemon’s disposal can make or break their role in a team. We start here first, because often just gaining access to a few more options can redeem something.

Stats: If an updated learnset can’t quite cut it, we then turn to a Pokemon’s stats. Usually 20 points here or 10 there can give something just the edge it needs, but in rarer cases a heavier buff or a rebalance of stats entirely is necessary.

Evolution: Most of our Evolution changes are for QoL purposes, to make playing solo easier. However, sometimes we’ll also change an evolution level just to make a Pokemon better fit the game’s difficulty curve with its power spikes.

Location: Much like real estate, location is everything. A mid-power Pokemon in Victory Road is a sorry addition to your team, but if it was available to help you before the second gym it can really shine. Many Pokemon have had their availability adjusted so they appear at a more suitable time in the game to stand out against the crowd.

Abilities: Gen 3 offers a new and powerful wrinkle in Pokemon design that gives us one more method to power up a Pokemon. We tried to be reserved in our approach to changing Abilities, but we did give the following Pokemon some new options.

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.

Gym Leaders: Hoenn features some of the most iconic Gym Leader battles in the franchise, from Wattson’s Magneton to Norman’s Slaking, Flannery’s Torkoal, and Tate & Liza’s… whole team, honestly. We’ve aimed to preserve these legendary battles while making them even better!

Brendan and May: Your new neighbor from Littleroot goes from mentor, to friend, to fan as you progress as a trainer, but they still feature some powerful Pokemon of their own. Follow along to see the teams they’ll prepare as they collect and research the Pokemon of Hoenn.

Wally: A truly determined young rival, this sickly child who you teach to catch Pokemon has a lot of potential behind him. What new places will his journey take him? And what new chances do you have to watch his progress?

Elite Four: Emerald’s Elite Four has some soaring heights and depressingly repetitive lows. We expanded the Hoenn Pokédex just enough to add some new twists and challenges to these team members, and make them truly feel like the final boss battle Emerald deserves. Oh, and… Steven’s back.

Teams Aqua and Magma: There’s more to the oceans than Water, and much more to the land than Ground and Fire. We sprinkled in some new variety to these teams to break up the monotony of the same Pokemon from their Grunts – plus, Courtney has rejoined Team Magma, Archie learned how to double battle, and both teams’ storylines have fresh new dialogue to help bolster the soundness of their causes.

Post-game Battles

Post Game Trainers are designed to make up the hardest fights in the game, where the player can truly put their team to the test. These teams are designed by Aerogod223 & TheSmithPlays to show off so many features and quirks of the battle system of Generation 3. With Pokemon and movesets that maybe aren’t always the most powerful in a specific circumstance, each team aims to bring the unexpected and show off the niche capabilities of the system while demanding the player to bring their all.

Gym Leader Rematches: The gym leaders of Hoenn are raring for another chance to battle the new Champion. How well does your team stack up to their second rematch? Third? How about when they pull out all the stops? All those battles are covered here.

Elite Four Rematch: You’ve proven yourself the best and become the Champion – but now, a familiar challenger has arrived. Defend your title as the full might of the Elite Four is brought to bear, and prove to Wallace who the real Champion is.

Assorted Trainers: New friends, old rivals, and a familiar trio of developers await you within the caves and ruins of Hoenn. You’ll want to bring your A-game for these top-tier trainers.