All 3GEN games with RNG manip!
I wanted to share with you guys the absolute journey this turned into.
I’d always wanted to own all of the original Gen 3 games on physical cartridges. After getting an Analogue Pocket, I decided it was finally time to buy the ones I was missing and start this adventure.
During the process I learned a lot about RNG manipulation, and ended up using it across all six playthroughs. Every game was beaten with fully optimized teams, either through captures or breeding, focusing on proper IVs and EVs, all done directly on the original cartridges with RNG manip. I also wanted every team to have at least one shiny Pokémon.
On top of that, I bought Japanese cartridges so I could experience the exclusive content from those versions too, like the e-Berries, Trainer cards, RegiDoll cards, and other event-exclusive stuff (like Emerald's Mew).
All of the original cartridges were rehoused into Boxy Pixel aluminum shells, because honestly these games deserve that level of unnecessary overkill.
Here’s the order I played through everything:
- EMERALD (US) – My main game. I wanted to beat this one first so it could serve as the trading hub for all the other journeys. I used several Pokémon I had never used before in any playthrough: Alakazam, Magneton, Ninjask, and Kecleon (which was a really pleasant surprise. I thought it was actually very good).
- LEAF GREEN (US) – My main Kanto playthrough. I also focused on Pokémon I had never used in a first run before. In fact, I had never used any of them at all.
- RUBY (JP) – My first Japanese game. The hardest part was trying to use items without being able to recognize the icons the way you can in Emerald. Swalot, Cacturne, and Altaria were all Pokémon I had never used in a playthrough before.
- EMERALD (JP) – Traumatized by the lack of item icons, I decided to go for a simpler run this time. The big highlight here was doing a shiny hunt for Spinda so that my Pokédex would display its pattern, just like in BlueBoyPhin’s video. I ended up loving the idea and even bred a Spinda egg specifically for the journey, manipulating the spot patterns on its face. I had also never used Spinda itself, Seviper (which is actually really good, by the way), Sableye, or Sharpedo before. EDIT: Another funny detail is that I intentionally built that team using only Pokémon whose names start with the letter “S.”
- FIRE RED (JP) – I wanted to try out some early-route Pokémon. Butterfree and Raticate were surprisingly fantastic. Rhydon and Electrode had also never been on any of my teams before.
- SAPPHIRE (US) – To finish everything in style, I decided to take advantage of the trade bonuses that Sapphire (and Ruby) offer. Right in Oldale Town, I released the starter and traded in one Pokémon from each of the already completed cartridges. None of these Pokémon had ever been used by me in a previous playthrough. The final team was Octillery (generated in Emerald JP), Ariados (Emerald US), Murkrow (Fire Red JP), Dunsparce (Leaf Green US), Cradily (Ruby JP), and Medicham, which hatched from an egg on the Sapphire cartridge itself.
Even though I’ve already beaten them all, there’s still a ton of cool stuff I want to do in each game. I still need to RNG manip all the legendaries from every cartridge, build a Secret Base on each one using the Regi E-Reader cards and then mix records so they appear across all the games, earn every gold symbol in the Battle Frontier on Emerald US, use the trainer battles with shiny Pokémon from the Japanese e-Reader cards (which I bought original copies of), get all the Contest ribbons, transfer the Eon Ticket into Emerald, and a bunch of other things too.