Journey's Journal: grumbles in Pokémon Modern Emerald #1

Some weeks ago, after watching a couple of AOKCraig’s videos on Pokémon and falling in love with his accent, I felt a strong urge to play some of the games again. At first I thought about the remakes for Game Boy Advance. However, I’d played Kanto so much it didn’t sound as enticing. The last region I’d visited was Johto, on a ROM hack called Pokémon Crystal Clear. Then it hit me: why don’t I try to find a fan-improved version of Emerald?

Sure, the 2005 game was impressive on its own, with its colourful detailed graphics and greatly improved internal mechanics. Its Advanced Generation epithet was only fair. Nevertheless, some of its little quirks annoyed me no end. There was no visual night and day cycle. The type of a move still determined whether it would be physical or special, hindering battle strategies. Not to mention version or trade exclusives, deterrents for emulator players like me.

When I mentioned I was looking for a ROM hack that could fix this, a very good friend whom I’d met on a web forum 15 years ago introduced me to Pokémon Modern Emerald. The more I read about it, the more it became clear that it had everything I wanted and more. Its settings were highly customisable, and added outstanding Quality of Life features, notably enhancing the player experience.

For instance, I picked up the hard mode, set all Pokémon to have perfect IVs, let the gym teams’ level rise progressively, and allowed the battle mechanics to be similar to the contemporary games. There would now be Fairies, the physical and special move split, improved learnsets and other small changes. Modern Emerald also allows for in-game Pokédex completion, a relief for loners like me.

They even added newer monsters, as long as they were part of the evolutionary line from Pokémon that already existed on the Emerald’s National Dex. That means the player need not settle for Roselia, Dusclops, Magmar, Magneton or Nosepass anymore. At long last, Masquerain could be on my team. The same goes for the sea serpents Milotic, Huntail and Gorebyss — there are in-game trades and we might turn off Feebas’ insane catching mechanics.

Anyhow, it’s clear I’m quite excited about it. So much so, I’m yet to make up my mind about my champions. I’ve been even considering using Pokémon as awful as Delcatty and Sableye. Who knows. Well, you will, if you keep reading here. I plan to keep journaling about how it goes. For now, it’s been less than optimal: arriving in Slateport city and pushing Team Aqua away was hard.

My current team is but a mild female Surskit called Marquis and a naïve transgender Kirlia named after Psyche, both at level 20. The two grunts’ Dark-type Carvanha rendered my queer Psychic useless, and all Marquis has is Bubble and Quick Attack. The battle against Roxanne was also quite the challenge, a little more so than facing my rival right after, back in Rustboro. Things are a little better now Psyche’s evolved, but Marquis’ poor movepool and low defensive stats are still troublesome.

On my way to Slateport, I caught both Sableye and Skitty, but I’m not entirely sure whether I’ll keep them round or not. The plan now that I’m bound to Mauville is to catch a Volbeat. It learns Moonlight at level 13, which means I could breed a Sableye that knows that move. Skitty is more complicated. I want mine to have Wish. However, to do so, I’ll have to find a Togetic during the late game, train it, and breed them. Eh, I reckon Kurt Cobain would have a lot to say about those eugenic plans.

Jæja, we’ll see about that. Stay tuned for more rock and roll!