🐉 Emerald Legacy

Emerald Legacy

Emerald Legacy is the finale to 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.

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.

Lastly we wish to thank everyone who has joined us on our Legacy journey. The support has been amazing, and we love to see all of the people who play these games relive their childhood experiences. So thank you once again for all of your support!

🚲 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.

QOL

• 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 and 103 Cut trees that block the way to berries 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
• The wait time for rematches is significantly reduced
• Match Call teams have been revamped, including 17 “type masters”
• Gym Leaders can be rematched infinitely, after their final tier

• 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

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 calculation potential damage overflow
• Fixed contest AI only encouraging move if audience is impossibly close to full excitement on the first appeal
• 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
• 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 Pokéball catch/release animations breaking with a screen transition
• Fixed bug where nature calculations break the game if a stat goes above 595
• 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

👷 Trainers

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 earn all Silver Battle Frontier symbols and speak to Scott.
• 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)

💰 Items

Items

• Added the Brick Piece and Hitmontop’s Crystal Legacy evolution method

• Hitmontop also evolves by its normal method still
• Brick Piece sprite by Isona

• Repels cost $10
• The items acquired with the Pickup ability have been updated.

• The new table is in “Ability Changes” under the Pokémon Changes tab.

• 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
• An NPC in Slateport Market will sell Incense in the postgame in case you lose/sell yours
• The Secret Power shop in Slateport becomes available as soon as you get the TM, by any means
• The decorations in the Battle Frontier have had a significant price reduction
• Made all evolution items obtainable repeatedly, and some are available earlier

• 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

• After this, he will continue selling the items

• Beat Wattson’s postgame rematch for an Upgrade

• More Upgrades can be bought from the Game Corner

• 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 Island 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 yields increased across the board, so you are guaranteed more berries than you plant except on the rarest berries

• The Berry Master’s Wife’s special berries have had the biggest increase. Please use them.

• 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

Repeatable TMs

Whether from shops or rewards, the team aimed to give all TMs a repeatable location. These are;

🗡️ Move Changes

Move Changes

🦊 Pokémon Changes

Pokémon 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:

📊 Stat Changes

Stat Changes

Stat changes are something that we resort to only if improvements to a pokemon's learnset can’t fix its potential to be useful in a playthrough. We then take a look at what role it is trying to fill or what role it could fill and give it changes to better fit that role. We aren’t trying to make every pokemon an S tier pokemon because then we are back to the same point where we started off with everything being equal filling up the same roles. If everything's the same then nothing feels special.

🦕 Evolution Changes

Evolution Changes

Sometimes, we will adjust the evolution method of a Pokémon to be different from base. There are two types of Evolution changes in Emerald Legacy: QoL, and Balance.

NOTE FOR EEVEE: The time-based Eeveelutions, Espeon and Umbreon, are unchanged from Gen 3’s original system: Umbreon evolves in the AM hours and Espeon in the PM hours.

Quality of Life 

In the interest of promoting the single-player experience that ROMhacks favor, all trade evolutions are removed in favor of level-ups or, if the trade requires an item, using the item from your bag like a stone instead of the held method. As another QoL change from Crystal Legacy, Hitmontop has had its “balanced stats” evolution replaced with using the Brick Piece instead.

Balance 

Some Pokémon are strong enough to be valuable in a playthrough, but their evolution just comes too late to capitalize on that. In these situations, we use an earlier evolution level as a method of buffing that Pokémon so it can have an impact sooner. These same changes were also ported forward from Crystal Legacy as a parity measure, so some Pokémon have evolution changes despite not being usable until endgame.

💿 Learnset Changes

Learnset Changes

The moves at a Pokémon’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 a Pokémon entirely. The sheet below color-codes new changes for an easier understanding of what was changed at a glance; anything marked in purple is an existing move with a new learn level, while anything green is new to the Pokémon’s level-ups entirely. Follow the link to the original Google sheet to also see notations describing the original game info.

This sheet was designed to be viewed in Google Sheets. We recommend viewing it there, and making your own copy to keep on hand.