Emerald hack: Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]
- Thread starter BrandonXL
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While the former isn't implemented as of now, there is a small questline that upgrades your vial charges. You should have access to it now!
Spoiler:
I appreciate the feedback and the fact that you gave this one a try; hope you revisit it and find enjoyment some time in the future :)
There's a small questline you can initiate to do so! See below.
Spoiler:
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![Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]](https://i.imgur.com/pfTbriT.png "Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]")
Now that I finally beat this hack (all quests completed), time to give my full thoughts. Let's start with the positives:
The EV/IV/Nature System
Honestly the strongest point of this hacks, as this can offer mixed sets to be more varied without thinking too much about EV distribution as well as preventing grinding over these stat related parameters. Granted over the years, hacks have implemented multitudes of features to fix the grind, I would still have to give credit where credit is due as this one eliminated many grindy aspects found in Pokemon games.
The Quest System
The quest system offered a lot of unique boss battles, and I'm a sucker for these battles, especially if they reward you with items. Although, some notable battle items are still missing such as the Black Sludge which left me slightly disappointed.
The negatives will be:
The questionable QOL decisions
Seriously why are the HMs still required to be taught? It's flabbergasting that the game is inspired by Unbound and RR, yet this still forces you to teach HMs, its genuinely a hassle. Now they would be fine if the game did the Pokemon Clover approach of buffing the HMs, but no. Seriously the game needs HM key items or a system similar to IE. The Level grinder is blocked by a price and its genuinely counter intuitive as there is a level cap to prevent you from overlevelling, then why do I have to still pay for the services even tho the level grinder will just help me train Pokemon? I would also like to add that level grinding before the level grinder really sucks, it's so slow which makes beating the early bosses a slog as they are packing very strong moves that are too good for the early game. Oh ye the PokeVial sucks too majority of the game, you are only allowed one charge despite the multitude of strong trainers you have to face later on.
The reverse difficulty curve and terrible team building
This game is only ever hard in the early game, mid to late game its a cake walk, never had I truly struggled past Slateport City and the team building is just legendary spam later on, making these fights look uncreative and totally boring, add in that they are still very easy. Seriously, you have to take a look at Unbound and RR's book (more on the former I suggest) as Unbound's team building is very good and doesn't spam legendaries.
The lack of "something new"
This game is also lacking in the wow factor department, something that makes it stand out from all the other enhancement hacks. A few days after this game released, Elite Redux came out and it totally overshadowed this game with its multiple abilities, its amazing team building and so on and so forth. It also lacks new areas like IE and most features felt copied from its contemporaries, now this isn't a huge problem but it seriously needs more for this game to standout. The lack of this makes the game feel like just another enhancement hack that is bound to be in the shadow of RR and IE.
The increase in prices of certain healing items
Seriously what's the point of making healing items slightly costly? especially if bag access in battle is not possible. If anything healing items should be less expensive as you can't spam them anymore. Add in that you can't rebattle trainers for money, makes grinding money tedious without Amulet Coin. Add in the fact that route trainers are very challenging which means you'll be going back and forth to the PC just to heal. This is probably the most glaring issue of the game, as this makes going through route a slog fest and an unfun experience.
All in all, despite the problems, it still gave me a fun time overall. However, I really can't recommend this over IE or Elite Redux, as those games are just better and doesn't have questionable decisions that makes the experience unfun in some regards.
This game is totally a 6.5-7/10 - it's just your typical decent enhancement hack, nothing new to offer but at least can still be a fun time.
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Now that I finally beat this hack (all quests completed), time to give my full thoughts. Let's start with the positives:
The EV/IV/Nature System
Honestly the strongest point of this hacks, as this can offer mixed sets to be more varied without thinking too much about EV distribution as well as preventing grinding over these stat related parameters. Granted over the years, hacks have implemented multitudes of features to fix the grind, I would still have to give credit where credit is due as this one eliminated many grindy aspects found in Pokemon games.
The Quest System
The quest system offered a lot of unique boss battles, and I'm a sucker for these battles, especially if they reward you with items. Although, some notable battle items are still missing such as the Black Sludge which left me slightly disappointed.
The negatives will be:
The questionable QOL decisions
Seriously why are the HMs still required to be taught? It's flabbergasting that the game is inspired by Unbound and RR, yet this still forces you to teach HMs, its genuinely a hassle. Now they would be fine if the game did the Pokemon Clover approach of buffing the HMs, but no. Seriously the game needs HM key items or a system similar to IE. The Level grinder is blocked by a price and its genuinely counter intuitive as there is a level cap to prevent you from overlevelling, then why do I have to still pay for the services even tho the level grinder will just help me train Pokemon? I would also like to add that level grinding before the level grinder really sucks, it's so slow which makes beating the early bosses a slog as they are packing very strong moves that are too good for the early game. Oh ye the PokeVial sucks too majority of the game, you are only allowed one charge despite the multitude of strong trainers you have to face later on.
The reverse difficulty curve and terrible team building
This game is only ever hard in the early game, mid to late game its a cake walk, never had I truly struggled past Slateport City and the team building is just legendary spam later on, making these fights look uncreative and totally boring, add in that they are still very easy. Seriously, you have to take a look at Unbound and RR's book (more on the former I suggest) as Unbound's team building is very good and doesn't spam legendaries.
The lack of "something new"
This game is also lacking in the wow factor department, something that makes it stand out from all the other enhancement hacks. A few days after this game released, Elite Redux came out and it totally overshadowed this game with its multiple abilities, its amazing team building and so on and so forth. It also lacks new areas like IE and most features felt copied from its contemporaries, now this isn't a huge problem but it seriously needs more for this game to standout. The lack of this makes the game feel like just another enhancement hack that is bound to be in the shadow of RR and IE.
The increase in prices of certain healing items
Seriously what's the point of making healing items slightly costly? especially if bag access in battle is not possible. If anything healing items should be less expensive as you can't spam them anymore. Add in that you can't rebattle trainers for money, makes grinding money tedious without Amulet Coin. Add in the fact that route trainers are very challenging which means you'll be going back and forth to the PC just to heal. This is probably the most glaring issue of the game, as this makes going through route a slog fest and an unfun experience.
All in all, despite the problems, it still gave me a fun time overall. However, I really can't recommend this over IE or Elite Redux, as those games are just better and doesn't have questionable decisions that makes the experience unfun in some regards.
This game is totally a 6.5-7/10 - it's just your typical decent enhancement hack, nothing new to offer but at least can still be a fun time.
Heya, thanks for giving the game a try and congrats on clearing everything! In spite of the things you didn't enjoy, I'm glad you saw some good and had the willingness to keep playing! The constructive feedback is always helpful, as it helps me take steps to make this game better. I'll continue to make changes in conjunction with community feedback. Thanks once again!
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oh ye I forgot to mention that the TM list is severely lacking and is missing some notable moves, as well as the game needing an egg move tutor badly, and the addition of this would definitely increase the QoL features of the game immensely
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![Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]](https://i.postimg.cc/DfJqjzxT/2.png "Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]")
I had a blast playing this game, it honestly exceeded my expectations. The minimal grinding was very appreciated, not having to worry about EVs, IVs, or natures. I also really enjoyed the boss battles/quests. I have three suggestions that I think would make this game near perfect. The first one is the easiest, I would have liked an increase of uses for the Pokevial, 6 uses like RR or even more would make the minor route trainers a lot less of a hassle to manage. That being said, with the amulet coin I always had a abundance of healing items, it's just going through my bag after every few battles is a bit tedious. The second suggestion is the HMs, for a competitive game based on difficulty, having to use move slots for HM moves is not ideal to say the least. But again, the fact that they are forgettable and that there is a move relearner in the menu helped make it not as bad as the original games. Finally, I do agree with RenElite that the legendary spam felt a bit unfair and jarring. Seeing Lugia and Enamorus for example in the 6th gym was a bit too much imo. As for the difficulty, I thought the game was difficult for someone who likes to use the same team throughout. None of the fights were too difficult I don't think, the only fight I got stuck on for a bit was Phoebe E4. However, I wouldn't mind if the game was slightly easier at the cost of less legendaries but with teams that are still difficult with good synergy. Like I don't mind some legendaries here and there but again it feels like a tad too much right now. Also, using screens and blaziken speed probably skewed my experience with the difficulty but I feel like it could feel even more difficult for those who don't like using cheesey strategies. But yeah, for me this game is like 9/10 and with some of these suggestions I think this game would be perfect. I didn't run into any bugs or game breaking glitches either which I really appreciated (besides my staraptor not being able to learn double-edge). I can tell you've worked hard on this game and it's nice to see a creator being so responsive and open to the community which is partly why I wanted to give it a try. Hope to see more updates in the future!
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I had a blast playing this game, it honestly exceeded my expectations. The minimal grinding was very appreciated, not having to worry about EVs, IVs, or natures. I also really enjoyed the boss battles/quests. I have three suggestions that I think would make this game near perfect. The first one is the easiest, I would have liked an increase of uses for the Pokevial, 6 uses like RR or even more would make the minor route trainers a lot less of a hassle to manage. That being said, with the amulet coin I always had a abundance of healing items, it's just going through my bag after every few battles is a bit tedious. The second suggestion is the HMs, for a competitive game based on difficulty, having to use move slots for HM moves is not ideal to say the least. But again, the fact that they are forgettable and that there is a move relearner in the menu helped make it not as bad as the original games. Finally, I do agree with RenElite that the legendary spam felt a bit unfair and jarring. Seeing Lugia and Enamorus for example in the 6th gym was a bit too much imo. As for the difficulty, I thought the game was difficult for someone who likes to use the same team throughout. None of the fights were too difficult I don't think, the only fight I got stuck on for a bit was Phoebe E4. However, I wouldn't mind if the game was slightly easier at the cost of less legendaries but with teams that are still difficult with good synergy. Like I don't mind some legendaries here and there but again it feels like a tad too much right now. Also, using screens and blaziken speed probably skewed my experience with the difficulty but I feel like it could feel even more difficult for those who don't like using cheesey strategies. But yeah, for me this game is like 9/10 and with some of these suggestions I think this game would be perfect. I didn't run into any bugs or game breaking glitches either which I really appreciated (besides my staraptor not being able to learn double-edge). I can tell you've worked hard on this game and it's nice to see a creator being so responsive and open to the community which is partly why I wanted to give it a try. Hope to see more updates in the future!
I definitely need to incorporate the HM thing; I think that has been mentioned far too many times to ignore and it just makes sense haha!
Thank you so much for the kind words and seeing this game through to completion! I also really appreciate the comment about bugs or glitches, as anything like that needs to be patched out ASAP. This was really a passion project of mine, so thanks for taking the time to play it when there are so many great options out there. I hope it was worthwhile and I am happy to have another Elite Four screenshot to add :)
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Well, some players actually prefer rom hacks that are updated but more in line with the official games, not everyone is a fan of drastic gameplay twists and tons of fan-made changes to typings, stats, movesets, and mechanics. So being more conservative in this area isn't really a problem but a mere design choice / prefference thing. Not every rom hack needs to go creatively overboard for the sake of standing out.
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nah I'm not refering to stat changes and what not, I'm talking about general features overall, such as introduction of better QoL (such as IE introducing PokeVial), or anything that would make the game different than all the enhancement hacks out there.
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Fair enough, you mentioned Elite Redux's Multi-Ability system, and RR/IE which make an insane amount of changes, so just saying that I don't think this rom hack needs to that kind of things. I agree on the QoL and other aspects like the level/difficulty curve though, I have not made too far into the game but if it's certain that the game is more grindy/difficult early on that could definitely use some rebalancing.
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Just finished with my playthrough. Finished the Elite Four and all the quests except the Regis. I want to address some of my general thoughts regarding my experience
1) Game difficulty: I see a lot of comments with regard to the difficulty of the game. Personally, I think the reason for this more has to do with your initial description where Difficulty was not an emphasis of the hack. To be honest, the game is definitely on the harder side for the average player. However, more than the boss battles, I think the real difficulty issue has to do with the regular trainer battles. While the Pokevial was a great solution to make traversal a lot easier, the execution wasn't great as you're stuck with only 1 vial for nearly 80% of the game until the special quest toward the end. It would ideally be better if you started off with 3 vials right from the start and the special quest has an alternate reward.
Removal of IVs, EVs, and natures: I would say this is the biggest change incorporated in the hack and one of the major reasons I decided to play it. As someone who always optimizes and plays competitively, it was a rather nice change to play the game through more of "Anime" kind of approach while being able to catch random Pokemon and immediately start using them. However, the general issue with this is that there's far more incentive to now only use Pokemon with Greater Base stats and less emphasis on strategy. This is very obvious as we see most boss battles becoming Legendary spam as these Pokemon would just be considerably more powerful than what is available to the player. Either way, I do think this is a unique experience and nice for a ROM hack to have as you get a genuine anime-like experience of being able to catch whatever Pokemon and start using it straight away, and the significant number of Pokemon available really couples well with this feature.
Additional "Quest" System: Personally, the Quest System seemed forced and something very Radical Red-like by having additional important trainers for you to battle. I personally don't really consider these as quests and just additional battles thrown. Frankly, the quest option taking away the pokenav from the menu was frustrating as I wasn't able to access a Map remotely until I had access to Fly (P.S Note sure if there's an alternate way to access the pokenav which my dumb self didn't figure out).
General Playthrough experience related
I think the HM-related issue is a common problem that has been addressed already. Additionally, I found the Dexnav to be more frustrating more than game-enhancing. Would have preferred a simpler execution of the same. Another random issue I observed is the general level scaling of Wild Pokemon during the playthrough. Once you finish a boss battle (increasing your level cap) and exit to a new area, you observe wild Pokemon are higher in level (Coupled with the difficult trainer battles ahead). This mostly made me visit the Audino Grinder to level up a bit post every gym before entering the new area. Don't think it's that big of an issue, but more of a general annoyance I guess?
Lastly, another random bug is that the game does not let you use a Z-Move after Mega Evolution. The reverse seems to be possible. While personally, I don't really think it's that big of a deal, I, unfortunately, ended up figuring this out only in the Drake fight at the Elite Four in an attempt where the Z-Move was supposed to get me the win. Regardless, minor issue. Outside of these, I think the game experience was positive.
In conclusion, I think the real selling point of the hack is the Lack of EVs, IVs, and natures as you get to truly experience using Pokemon in their absolute true form. Additionally, I personally think you should amend your points regarding the "Difficulty" related comments you've added in the description as I think this is influencing the player's expectations before their playthrough.
1) Game difficulty: I see a lot of comments with regard to the difficulty of the game. Personally, I think the reason for this more has to do with your initial description where Difficulty was not an emphasis of the hack. To be honest, the game is definitely on the harder side for the average player. However, more than the boss battles, I think the real difficulty issue has to do with the regular trainer battles. While the Pokevial was a great solution to make traversal a lot easier, the execution wasn't great as you're stuck with only 1 vial for nearly 80% of the game until the special quest toward the end. It would ideally be better if you started off with 3 vials right from the start and the special quest has an alternate reward.
Removal of IVs, EVs, and natures: I would say this is the biggest change incorporated in the hack and one of the major reasons I decided to play it. As someone who always optimizes and plays competitively, it was a rather nice change to play the game through more of "Anime" kind of approach while being able to catch random Pokemon and immediately start using them. However, the general issue with this is that there's far more incentive to now only use Pokemon with Greater Base stats and less emphasis on strategy. This is very obvious as we see most boss battles becoming Legendary spam as these Pokemon would just be considerably more powerful than what is available to the player. Either way, I do think this is a unique experience and nice for a ROM hack to have as you get a genuine anime-like experience of being able to catch whatever Pokemon and start using it straight away, and the significant number of Pokemon available really couples well with this feature.
Additional "Quest" System: Personally, the Quest System seemed forced and something very Radical Red-like by having additional important trainers for you to battle. I personally don't really consider these as quests and just additional battles thrown. Frankly, the quest option taking away the pokenav from the menu was frustrating as I wasn't able to access a Map remotely until I had access to Fly (P.S Note sure if there's an alternate way to access the pokenav which my dumb self didn't figure out).
General Playthrough experience related
I think the HM-related issue is a common problem that has been addressed already. Additionally, I found the Dexnav to be more frustrating more than game-enhancing. Would have preferred a simpler execution of the same. Another random issue I observed is the general level scaling of Wild Pokemon during the playthrough. Once you finish a boss battle (increasing your level cap) and exit to a new area, you observe wild Pokemon are higher in level (Coupled with the difficult trainer battles ahead). This mostly made me visit the Audino Grinder to level up a bit post every gym before entering the new area. Don't think it's that big of an issue, but more of a general annoyance I guess?
Lastly, another random bug is that the game does not let you use a Z-Move after Mega Evolution. The reverse seems to be possible. While personally, I don't really think it's that big of a deal, I, unfortunately, ended up figuring this out only in the Drake fight at the Elite Four in an attempt where the Z-Move was supposed to get me the win. Regardless, minor issue. Outside of these, I think the game experience was positive.
In conclusion, I think the real selling point of the hack is the Lack of EVs, IVs, and natures as you get to truly experience using Pokemon in their absolute true form. Additionally, I personally think you should amend your points regarding the "Difficulty" related comments you've added in the description as I think this is influencing the player's expectations before their playthrough.
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![Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]](https://data.pokecommunity.com/attachments/21/21532-7e25d9b3bc286eac995e185e041ad8f4.jpg)
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Hey, thanks so much for playing and congrats on a completed run :)
I've amended the master post to more explicitly detail the difficulty aspect of the game, per your suggestion.
Also, and rather unfortunately, I've confirmed the Z-Move bug you mentioned on my end as well. Looking to fix that up as I work on v1.01 today, but thank you so much for identifying that. Ironing out these kind of issues is really important to me.
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Even then, outside of Hardcore difficulty (which deliberately stacks the odds against you), I'd say Radical Red is easier than this game by a long shot. It's not even close.
It's why I don't agree with the initial assessment of Rad. Red being a 10 compared to this being a 6- I'd reverse it and knock the latter number down by 1: Radical Red (Normal) is a 5, and this is a 10.
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This was only an issue on the initial release for a few hours; the current patch amends all of that, so as long as you're using the .bps provided on the drive, you should be good to go.
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![Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1122728935613022238/1144694409997320202/Screenshot_20230825-110048.png?width=1125&height=562 "Pokémon Emerald Horizons - Emerald Difficulty Hack [Complete, v1.11d ft. New Rocket Storyline, Boss Gauntlet, Gen 1-8, Side Quests, and QoL features]")
TL;DR: Lots'a good; lots'a bad; 9/10 difficulty; 9/10 enjoyment.
I've just beaten the champion, so I now feel justified in sharing my 6+ pages worth of thoughts as someone who's new to this whole romhack thing.
This was all done on the 1.0 version.
My Thoughts:
A very common criticism of this romhack is its absurd difficulty. What I've observed is this only remains true in the early game. Emerald Horizons remains some form of difficulty throughout its course, but the early game where you've got very little options is where it shows most. I'll use the aqua grunt in that one forest as a commonly cited example; the pooch' moveset evades me (it has been 50 hours of playtime since then), but the carvahna with poison fang cannot be forgotten. The early game is usually seen as the calm before the storm. You can relax all ya want, and still do pretty good, so bringing a basic grass type or two against the aqua grunt is what I'd expect someone to do. This leads to my first problem: the absurd type coverage most pokémon trainers have. This specific carvahna should not have such good coverage before your first gym badge. I had to grind up a team of 6; rely on misses, and confusion to beat this guy with two pokémon at the same level as mine. This much effort to beat a measly grunt this early on in the game where a grass type or two should take out a single pokémon that is weak to their STABs is unacceptable, and is the biggest blemish on this game. Thankfully, the game doesn't deserve any harsher criticisms than this if you played like I did.
Speaking of how I played:
Save states:
For transparency sake; I did not find out about this strategy until winonas gym battle. Save states give you a leg up so big that it honestly kinda feels like cheating looking back. I understand if anyone reading this would be inclined to disregard anything I have to say on difficulty. Being able to rewind the clock a bit and make a switch when your pokémon would've fainted is so significant that I probably would still be playing right now if I hadn't figured this out. I will play devils advocate for a moment and state why I used them throughout the entire playthrough, and in every single major trainer battle since figuring it out. Firstly, some of these would just not be fun at all if i had to reset every time I'd get in a bad position. This will be expanded upon in a later point, but; losing the big battles can make you lose so much money to the point of not being able to afford different avenues of approach. That and the fact that I wanted to have fun playing this game are what made me use save states so often. If you're struggling like I was; maybe you should try save stating before trying to land a clutch supersonic?
Post-Wattson:
During and after Wattson is where I find the difficulty starts to smooth out into what I believe the author intended the difficulty to be, excluding a little spike up in your first encounter with Maxie. Fun fact: you can get a Sneasler before Maxie, and Flannery. Isn't that crazy? I didn't, but its pre-evolution hisuian sneasel is good enough to be a menace. Emerald Horizons hands out way too many crazy powerful mons for literally nothing; like the above mentioned. You really wanna tell me:
Spoiler:
This isn't to say having these pokémon made the game worse; just that the methods of obtaining them is lacking. In fact; my next point goes on about how having these pokémon around is a good thing!
A wide variety of options:
Access to many cool pokémon (many of which i have not seen before) is really cool. The variety of pokémon after the early game makes teambuilding very fun to do. I was changing my team around so often that I had to take off the items from my pokemon so I wouldn't forget them in the box. As of me writing this I have made the following teams: Sand Offense; Rain Offense; Screens HO; a basic Offense team; Sand balance; Hazard stack Offense, and Rain Balance. I could probably make a stall team if I felt like it. Unfortunately the variety of teams I made has lead to an unfortunate downside: no money.
I'm broke:
I said I'd get to this eventually, so here it is. Making many teams requires many resources to make them function. The XP grinder honestly costs way too much for its service; even after obtaining the amulet coin, and doing the mewtwo quest with it. I had to run an amulet coin lead in almost every trainer fight to afford things, which lead to opposing trainers having a leg up against me; possibly leading to me losing more money than I would've earned from winning. The resulting frenzy to balance what my money, and the fact that your bag is disabled in trainer battles made healing items like potions and revives really not appealing over PP ups. ability capsules/patches, and just more level grinding. Not having room in my budget for good healing items (hyper potions are in their nerfed form) made the journey to lavaridge town a total chore; taking multiple irl days trying different strategies and going to the pokémon center to get past Maxie, his goons, and other trainers; while also going from there to slateport by bike over and over.
I should probably talk about that journey from slateport to lavaridge, huh?
One last thing before we get to that though; a small problem I've noticed with the introduction of easy XP is that route trainers matter so much less. Before; I'd have to strategically plan out what to train to have the best chance at the gym. Now; you just gotta go to the grinder and all your worries are gone. The problem comes in when specifically the optional trainers are more annoying than worth battling. A lot of these guys are like 1500 on PS ranked ladder and it shows. If I didn't need money; I'd probably just skip past all of them.
Accessibility:
Now, this is more subjective criticism as it has more to do with who I am instead of the game itself, but I am of the belief that any good developer should be open to how they can make their games more accessible. No remote map access is totally bogus. I am a disabled gamer, and part of my disabilities is having difficulty remembering places (this is true for irl and in games). Getting to lavaridge town, and through east Hoenn in my recent playthrough of sapphire wasn't much of an issue, as I had easy access to a map that could tell me where I was; where I was going, and the names of their locations (to repeat in my mind) whenever I needed. I had to look up a map of Hoenn online multiple times to figure my way around before getting fly in Horizons. Imagine a town map key item that Brendan or your mother gave to you early on, or a tab in the dexnav; which would bring up the pokémon center map of Hoenn on command. Literally just any way of having remote map access at any time would go a long way for many people like myself.
Teambuilding and EVs:
I find that the lack of EVs and natures are both detriments, and benefits to Emerald Horizons, leaning more towards the benefit side. Could you imagine if the trainers in this game also had max EV trained pokémon on top of their frequent smogon forum usage? No need to EV train, or breed pokémon for good natures if EVs and natures don't exist! Big ups for that. I speak from experience when i say that EV training in gen 3 is a total pain. However; no EV training restricts the creativity of teambuilding slightly. An example for what I mean: Tyranitar is known in the earlier gens for its flexibility on teams due in part to the EV system. I needed a special attacker on one of my sand teams at one point, and tyranitar seemed like it fit the bill better than anything else I had at the moment. Unfortunately, it could not fulfil the role I wanted it to, as a lack of EVs made its special attack stat not worth considering for the role. Overall; I am in favour of EVs not being a thing in this romhack, however; those small problems do still exist.
Another small problem with teambuilding I have that wasn't mentioned yet: some pokémon lack their best abilities, and it's so lame.
Spoiler:
Also quick sidenote about IVs: I like them all being set to 31, as it made damage calculating slightly easier.
The bosses:
No, I'm not talking about the aqua grunt here. This goes into spoiler territory, so a lot of it will be put into spoiler text for those that haven't beaten the game.
These trainers are crazy.
Spoiler:
Conclusion:
Pokémon Emerald Horizons is a romhack with a lot of fun to be had if you can stomach the rough early game, and the various issues it has along the way. It's totally worth a shot if you have competitive experience, or are just smart in general. I'm stoked for the post game!
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Mlopry, thank you so much for taking the time to do such a thorough playthrough of everything. I appreciate the genuine thought you put into your critiques. Accessibility for all audiences is something I didn't take into consideration when I originally developed the game, and it's something I'll want to work through as I continue to refine the game.
I've been busy doing a lot of testing and work to prepare v1.01, and I'm happy to share with the community that v1.01 is now live and compatible with existing saves.
The major changes include:
- The only HM you'll need to teach is Fly! You can summon helper mons to do the rest!
- Level Cap Window
- Fixed Z-Moves not working after Mega Evolution
- Access to Red Orb and Blue Orb
- Wild Rotom (previously unobtainable)
- No more fishing minigame
- Six new battles in the post-game Boss Battles gauntlet for a total of 30 Battles!
The full changelog (not including the above, obviously) can be found below:
Spoiler:
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Unfortunately, those items are held by Kyogre and Groudon, so you wouldn't be able to get the Orbs on your current save. Sorry for the inconvenience!