Pokémon Emerald: Double Edition
releases on TBD
A mod for Pokémon Emerald Version
A ROM hack of Pokémon Emerald, which changes almost the entire game to be exclusively double battles, modernizes several mechanics, and makes all 386 pokémon obtainable.
Reviews View More
Emerald Double is a pretty cool ROM hack, adding many more species and events to Hoenn, as well as many appreciated mechanical updates (reusable TMs, phys/spec split, fairy type, etc). I am rather impressed by the mostly consistent balance Emerald Double provides, with custom trainers sporting strong pokemon at higher levels, keeping me on my toes without being so strong to leave me feeling impotent. Overworld changes in this hack are minor but very thoughtful, such as the inclusion of important TMs like weather, protect, and toxic in early PokeMarts, which made for a significantly more fun teambuilding experience.
While I did enjoy my time with Emerald Double, a few unfortunate bugs in the game disrupt what I see as the main appeal of a Pokemon game with such a heavy emphasis on battling. The biggest bummer is that the trainer AI just doesn't work correctly. Many times throughout my playthrough there were situations where opponent trainers would make moves that the AI should never make. Things like using a move that has no effect on the target or targeting the wrong pokemon on my side of the field. Even gym leaders made these sorts of blunders! Not being able to anticipate what move the opponent will make completely undermines the value of switching and using protect, some of the most satisfying parts of double battles. This led to me feeling cheesed in situations when protecting with a 'mon who should have been double targeted by the opponent, but the trainer inexplicably chose to use resisted attacks into my partner instead.
While I did praise the game for a well balanced difficulty level throughout most of the game, the elite 4 were a pretty massive level jump that required a serious revision to my team. Because I had to keep an HM slave in my party for the three water HMs of the game and due to high level opponents requiring some thrifty exp management, I only had 5 actual party members after getting out of victory road. After a few attempts of the elite 4 I realized it was unrealistic to win with my current setup and I eventually decided to catch Lugia and grind a couple levels to makeup the difference. This final stretch of the game felt a little too hard in my opinion. My team was Swampert, Weezing, Flygon, Flareon, Celebi, and Lugia; while my team definitely could have been improved in ways other than including Lugia (Flareon was clearly a weak link), I felt like my team was still pretty well built with diverse typings, earthquake synergy, and a fire/water/grass core. I can only imagine the rude awakening you'd be in for if you tried to beat this game with some less optimal pokemon.
I wouldn't really recommend Emerald Double due to the previously mentioned trainer AI bugs. If it weren't for that unfortunate problem I could see myself playing this ROM hack multiple times. If that doesn't sound like it would bother you and you want to play a doubles focused pokemon game other than Colosseum/XD, then you'd probably enjoy this game.
While I did enjoy my time with Emerald Double, a few unfortunate bugs in the game disrupt what I see as the main appeal of a Pokemon game with such a heavy emphasis on battling. The biggest bummer is that the trainer AI just doesn't work correctly. Many times throughout my playthrough there were situations where opponent trainers would make moves that the AI should never make. Things like using a move that has no effect on the target or targeting the wrong pokemon on my side of the field. Even gym leaders made these sorts of blunders! Not being able to anticipate what move the opponent will make completely undermines the value of switching and using protect, some of the most satisfying parts of double battles. This led to me feeling cheesed in situations when protecting with a 'mon who should have been double targeted by the opponent, but the trainer inexplicably chose to use resisted attacks into my partner instead.
While I did praise the game for a well balanced difficulty level throughout most of the game, the elite 4 were a pretty massive level jump that required a serious revision to my team. Because I had to keep an HM slave in my party for the three water HMs of the game and due to high level opponents requiring some thrifty exp management, I only had 5 actual party members after getting out of victory road. After a few attempts of the elite 4 I realized it was unrealistic to win with my current setup and I eventually decided to catch Lugia and grind a couple levels to makeup the difference. This final stretch of the game felt a little too hard in my opinion. My team was Swampert, Weezing, Flygon, Flareon, Celebi, and Lugia; while my team definitely could have been improved in ways other than including Lugia (Flareon was clearly a weak link), I felt like my team was still pretty well built with diverse typings, earthquake synergy, and a fire/water/grass core. I can only imagine the rude awakening you'd be in for if you tried to beat this game with some less optimal pokemon.
I wouldn't really recommend Emerald Double due to the previously mentioned trainer AI bugs. If it weren't for that unfortunate problem I could see myself playing this ROM hack multiple times. If that doesn't sound like it would bother you and you want to play a doubles focused pokemon game other than Colosseum/XD, then you'd probably enjoy this game.