Gameplay Journal Emeralds in the sea: Emerald playthrough

(Yeah I don’t have as creative of a title for this one sadly... but I’m open to a better title...)

As the (boring) title suggests, this is a playthrough of Emerald. (It’s also “in the sea because you know, there’s a lot of water in Hoenn...) I’ve already gotten pretty far in the game. I “recently” defeated Winona and went through the trouble of going through the Aqua hideout, which was frustrating. I ended up going online to figure out how to do it. Anyway, with that out of the way, I was able to progress to Mossdeep City to challenge the Mossdeep gym. But first, I definitely needed some grinding.

Spoiler: My team

My team before grinding. Neuf, the Vulpix, is holding the Exp Share because it’s a Fire type and I’m not using it against Water types.

I desperately wanted to evolve Vulpix, so I looked it up again. Turns out there was one in the Fiery Path, so I took a break from grinding in the sea around Mossdeep and went to the Fiery Path.

Spoiler: Grimer spotted!

I found and caught a Grimer, which if I’m not mistaken, is harder to find in Emerald. Here’s me naming it SludgeLord.

I was a bit confused on the little Strength puzzle at first, but after a solid minute, I got the Fire Stone (and the TM for Toxic which I happened to find there too).

Spoiler: Vulpix evolves!

Yay! At some point I swapped the move Imprison for Grudge, which may help at some point.

I was sick and tired of grinding against just Tentacool and Wingull, so I healed up my team, bought some Super/Hyper Potions, and went in the gym. I knew Tate and Liza fought in doubles, but I didn’t realize everyone in the gym fought in doubles. Yeah I made it through fairly easily. I healed up my team and saved right in front of them, in case I lost.

I lost badly. My team was also severely underlevelled, everyone being at least 3 or 4 levels weaker than theirs. Luckily I saved in front of them, so I reset and tried again. I lost again. I kept trying and kept losing. But I was figuring out their patterns, and started planning for it.

Spoiler: Plan

So here was my master plan. It was very difficult to decide who to lead off with, and what to do. I originally wanted to save Sableye for later, since it is a Dark type, but it wasn’t working out for me. After 5-7 attempts to battle them, I decided on this as my setup.

Fortunately for me, after I wrote out my plan, I got lucky. Sceptile got a crit with Leaf Blade and down went the Claydol. Its Earthquake easily tore through my team, so that was good. Out came Solrock, and Xatu went for Sunny Day as opposed to Calm Mind, which would also rip through my team. Sableye went for Shadow Ball and got its health down to red. Sceptile fainted unfortunately to a Psychic from Xatu.

Then came out Gardevoir, who used Calm Mind to set up, and Sableye with the Shadow Ball again, to rip through the Solrock. Then Gardevoir used Shock Wave, which annihilated the Xatu. Last was Lunatone! I never got to the Lunatone! So I used the aforementioned Shadow Ball and Shock Wave to finish off the Lunatone and win me the Mind Badge, for the first time. I also got the TM for Calm Mind, which I probably won’t be using any time soon. I decided to stop here.

Spoiler: Final team (for now)

Right after the gym battle. I’m honestly surprised only Sceptile fainted, considering the other 6 or 7 tries, everyone fainted.
Everybody healed up! As you can see, my team is still pretty weak at this point in the game, so next time we’ll have to go grinding again. Also I really want Lairon to evolve!

That’s all I have for now. I would’ve posted this on Monday (when I originally started playing) but I had to go to my brother’s graduation and never got a chance to challenge Tate and Liza, which I was about to do. Tune in for the next post (which won’t be for a while). And feel free to come up with a better title!

 

Mmkay, I’m back. This time things got a little wild because I forgot to save at one point (I’ll explain later). This took place over 2 days.

Spoiler: Day 1

So I just recently defeated Tate and Liza and didn’t really know what to do next. (Again, I’ve never gotten further than Winona’s gym in previous attempts to beat Emerald.) I figured it had something to do with Dive. I had to look up where to get Dive and it said you get the HM after battling with Steven against Team Magma. So I looked around Mossdeep City and found them at the space station.

I didn’t like battling in doubles with Steven because I only got to pick 3 Pokémon to use. I brought Flappy (Pelipper), Stefan (Sceptile), and Gemmy (Sableye). And guess whose team was underlevelled again? Maxie’s Camerupt was level 43, meanwhile I had a level 34 Pelipper, level 39 Sceptile, and a level 37 Sableye. I started “singing” to Maxie’s theme, which was basically me just saying my thoughts to the tune of the song. (I don’t remember any of what I said, except at one point I was saying something about the RNG, and another point I was probably saying something about “please don’t kill me”.)

Yeah we did eventually win and I got the Dive HM. So I dove down and found a Team Aqua submarine, and later found my way into Sootopolis City. I don’t like the layout of Sootopolis City, or how to access it. I find it ridiculous that you have to dive into the city. It took me long to figure that out. I found a good stopping point and closed the VBA tab on my computer... but I forgot to save. I froze within seconds, realizing the grave mistake I just made.

No pictures for day 1 because my ipad was charging in another room.

Spoiler: Day 2

So today I set out to catch up to where I was the other day. I started with some massive grinding. I actually managed to surf all the way to Pacifidlog Town, where I came across this iconic quote:

Spoiler: Iconic quote

Then I surfed down the currents to Slateport City, flew back to Pacifidlog, and surfed all the way back to Mossdeep, grinding all the Tentacools and Wingulls. My team all got to at least level 38 (except for Pelipper, but oh well). I looked in the space center, but Team Magma wasn’t there. I went to Steven’s house and he gave me the HM for Dive. So I must have saved after defeating Maxie (thank goodness). So I went back to Sootopolis City and stopped there.

Spoiler: My team for now

Note that Azumarill is only on the team because it’s my Diver, and Pelipper (Flappy) (level 35) will replace it when I don’t need to dive.

I don’t know what to do from this point. Do I challenge the gym? Am I supposed to find Rayquaza?

 

Yee haw, I got a big chunk done today. So here was my team where I left off:

Spoiler: Starting point team

Again, the Azumarill is only on my team for diving. It will be replaced with Pelipper when I don’t need to dive.

So I had to grind again. I was grinding mostly underwater today because I was sick of all the Tentacools and Wingulls. I was especially focused on raising my team members above level 40, and evolving my Lairon.

Spoiler: Lairon evolves!

I got it to level 41 and then used a Rare Candy. Now everyone on my team is fully evolved.

While underwater, I was determined to catch a Relicanth, which has a 5% chance of appearing. (I didn’t bother catching a Chinchou or a Clamperl.)

Spoiler: Caught Relicanth!

Relicanth are really hard to catch for some reason... it took a few Dive Balls but I caught one and named it the same name I give to every Relicanth.

I was looking all around for trainers to battle, but I already fought most of them. I found some on the way to Ever Grande City, which I couldn’t enter because of the waterfall in front of the city. I kept checking the map of Hoenn and looking at the routes. (Why are there so many water routes? And they’re all so small and right next to each other.) As I was looking at the routes, one of them said there was something called “seafloor cavern” and I was like “ok, I’ll go check it out”. Turns out that’s where I was supposed to go, not the Sootopolis gym. So I went in and what do you know, that’s where Team Aqua was hiding. I went through the hideout (SO MANY STRENGTH PUZZLES...) and defeated Archie. Then the Red Orb woke up Kyogre and then it and Groudon started fighting in Sootopolis.

Spoiler: Strength puzzle

This is what I mean by “strength puzzle” where you have to use the HM Strength and push the boulders in a certain way. This one took a few tries but then I figured it out.

So then I went to the Sky Pillar, where Rayquaza was, and then went back to Sootopolis, where Rayquaza stopped Groudon and Kyogre from fighting.

Spoiler: The weather bois

I’ve never seen these cutscenes before... I didn’t even know this game had cutscenes.

So after that whole thing was done, I went to the Sootopolis gym. I didn’t understand the puzzle at first. Then I realized that you were supposed to step on each tile without stepping on the same one twice.

Juan’s team was fairly easy, definitely easier than the last gym. I actually only used Sceptile once, for the Whiscash. Sableye took care of the Luvdisc, and Gardevoir was the MVP. Calm Mind was very helpful, just one and she was able to take out Sealeo with 2 Psychics, and then Crawdaunt in one hit with Shock Wave. I kept her in for Kingdra, thinking I could just spam Psychic. But no, Kingdra used Double Team and it kept missing... then I remembered that Shock Wave never misses. So I kept using Shock Wave, and I used Calm Mind when I knew he would heal the Kingdra. Then I finished the battle by spamming Shock Wave.

Spoiler: Getting the Rain Badge!

Sorry, I must have shaken the camera when I took the picture.

After that, I healed my team up (no one fainted this time!) and saved my game.

Spoiler: Final team

I know Pelipper can’t learn Waterfall from experience, so I will have to substitute it for Azumarill to get to Ever Grande City.

 

Yeah, I usually use Sableye on my team for the Fighting gym. I wanted to keep it on my team and it has been a great member.

 

Hey kids it’s been a while. My apologies for lack of updates, I didn’t have much time to play before quarantine started. Now that I finally have time to play, my computer doesn’t want to load the emulator :p

Anyway, this happened a few months ago. I got to Ever Grande City with my HM slave Azumarill (it knows Surf, Waterfall, Dive and Rock Smash). I went to Victory Road, where I battled Wally, and made it to the other half of Ever Grande City. I saw a Poké Ball somewhere and tried to get it, then I proceeded to get lost in Victory Road for an hour. (I looked up maps of Victory Road online, but I kept confusing myself because I couldn’t find where it was located.) I got the Poké Ball eventually. Turns out the entrance and exit of Victory Road are on the same floor, but they are separated by some rocks.

Here was my team, after initially making it through Victory Road.

Spoiler: My team before Elite 4

I go into the Elite 4, feeling confident after making it through Victory Road. I’m starting the battle with Sidney. I’m bopping to the theme (I love the original elite 4 theme, and it’s a shame that they did it dirty in ORAS), and I’m feeling good. He sends in a Mightyena which was level 46. My smile faded instantly- as you can see, my team was hilariously underlevelled. I managed to beat him, but I got my team handed to me early on in Phoebe’s battle. I had to go back to Victory Road and continue to grind there.

I lost track of the amount of times I’ve re-attempted the Elite 4, but after a few tries I beat Phoebe (those Dusclops-es are annoying af) and Glacia wasn’t too hard (especially with a Ninetales, who was definitely the MVP). Then I was up against Drake, and I knew I didn’t have a chance against him. My team was level 46s and 47s, but his team was all in the 50s if I remember correctly. I still battled him anyway, just to see how far I’d get. His Salamence absolutely destroyed my team.

Sorry I don’t have a final picture of my team- my computer doesn’t want to load either of my emulators at the moment. I do believe my team is in the range of level 46-48 though.

EDIT: I got my emulator working again, so here’s my final team.

Spoiler: Team

There’s more grinding to go, but my team is getting stronger. Challenging the Elite 4 over and over helps too, and I switch around who holds my 1 and only exp share between battles.