Got inspired by Robby's pokemon playthroughs and I'm gonna do something I wanted to do for many years, but couldn't due to money and me being a cheap-ass gamer. That being a full Hoenn National PokeDex! I even set up some rules to go along with it.
All Pokemon in the Gen 3 National Dex must be in possession regardless of being shiny or not.
Hardware does not matter, physical or emulated though official hardware systems are preferable to prevent cheats.
I cannot use Pre-Existing Gen 3 saves, this means no multiple year long saves prior to the start of the run to boost progress.
Upon completing one game, all the pokemon captured in that game are to be moved to Pokemon Box immediately. Until this is done, no pokemon from the current game can be used in any other game. This also applies to pokemon obtained via bonus discs or event distributions.
No cheat codes to change spawn rates, shiny rates, or spawn locations of pokemon. This rule also applies to save stating. The only cheat code allowed is the code used to enable the JP Bonus Disc content of Pokemon Colosseum on US copies, as I am still required to purify all the shadow pokemon and the data is still legitimately created by Nintendo.
Event distribution Roms/E-Reader Cards are allowed as they are legitimately created by Nintendo. (I.E Aura Mew, Aurora Ticket Deoxys, Eon Ticket)
Obviously I won't be doing this on entirely 100% original hardware as I will be emulating these games, however I will be using mostly 100% official hardware by Nintendo such as my 3DS for the GBA games and my Wii U for XD and Colo. The only time I won't be is when I use dolphin to move pokemon to Pokemon Box. This might change later on down the road should I come into possession of original hardware and games.
I'll try to keep people posted about this, but don't expect constant updates about it lmao. Hell I'm more than certain this shit's gonna take a few months or so but hey, would it be fun if it was done so quickly?
Last edited by Arlisbloxer05 on Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ruby day 1: Started with a Torchic, got my PokeDex, and I captured a Wurmple and a Poochyena near Oldale town. Then I proceeded to load the Colosseum Bonus Disc to get a Wishmaker Jirachi, Loaded the Aura Mew Distribution, and then the Berry Update Program to get a Shiny Zigzagoon (and update my berry program so the clock won't break on me later on)
So we've already got a good start with a full team before Petalburg Woods AND completed. Speaking of Petalburg, we made our way there while battling some schmucks for their money, met dad, "Helped" Wally catch a Ralts (that was all you buddy, you did good) and ofc healed up our team. Our next targets were a Seedot, Ralts, and Sirskit. Seedot thankfully wasn't too hard with a 20% encounter rate but Ralts and Sirskit were gonna be a little more harder to find off the bat, with Ralts having a 4% encounter rate and Sirskit having a 1% encounter rate. Thankfully as this is Gen 3 and the game is in 60 FPS, running around to find them was a breeze and I eventually got them. I captured 2 Ralts however as we're going to need to get both a Galade and Gardevoir for a full living dex.
After getting those 4 mons, it was time to dive into Petalburg Woods and get some bug pokemon. Now thankfully we can get Silkoon and Cascoon here which is great. However like an IDIOT I forgot to buy more pokeballs so with only 2 balls and 1 great ball I'd be getting later after the Magma Grunt fight, I was only able to capture Shroomish and Silcoon, sadly I wasted my Great Ball on a Cascoon that despite being nearly KO'ed, broke out of. So much for that I suppose.
I also got some berries along the way to Rustboro, and planted the berries that Jirachi and Zigzagoon had so I can have plenty for later should I choose to tackle some contest for some rewards, and got the Wailmer Pail to help speed growth. Now I've hit Rustboro City where today's journey ended after a brief stop to the shop to buy more balls (with a premier ball as a bonus) and healing items and a mandatory stop to the Pokecenter. Soon we'll be tackling Roxanne to get the first badge.
Ruby day 2: Rustboro city time! First thing I did was head to the house with HM01 cut so I can get some items I missed along the way like some Paralyze Heal and Antidotes, but we wouldn't get those until we beat Roxanne, Rustboro's Gym Leader. However there's a SMALL problem I overlooked. Right now my Torchic is my strongest mon, and that's gonna be a problem considering she's a rock type gym leader, so we need to grab ourselves a water type pokemon, and the only one I can find right now would be a wingul so it was time to head back to route 104 really quick. Along the way I also caught a Slakoth from petalburg woods to finish off collecting every mon from that area.
Speaking of new mons, I like an idiot, forgot that gallade wasn't a thing until Gen 4. I don't exactly know why I thought it was in Gen 3, but maybe that was because of ORAS? I don't know. Anyways after grabbing wingul, I headed back to the gym to grab the first badge and get wingul some EZ EXP. And it was at this time that I realized Jirachi was going to STEAMROLL the entire gym thanks to him knowing confusion, unfortunately as soon as I got to Roxanne, the game realized that I had a legendary, and suddenly both Jirachi and Mew wouldn't exactly listen to me. So, against my better judgement I sent out torchic to finish the job. Surprisingly I managed to pull it off, but I knew Jirachi and Mew were going to be a bad call later on, so we deposited them into the PC and it was back to catching more mons. After seeing a Magma Grunt run off with some Devon Corp. papers and stopping by the shops to restock our potions and pokeballs (and selling a nugget that Zigzagoon picked up for an extra 5k cash) I hit up route 116. Along the way to the Rusturf Tunnels, we captured a Nincada, Wismur and a Tailow, which all went super smoothly! After getting them and taking on some trainers for some more EXP, I head into the cave to take on the grunt, recover the papers, and save a wingul belonging to Mr. Briney.
Once I got that all done, now it was time to head to Dewford town to take on Brawly and deliver a letter to Steven. And as this is a shoreside town, that means one thing: FISHING FISHING FISHING! So I get the Old Rod from a friendly fisherman and immediately get myself a Magikarp and a Tentacool. 6 mons in a day is pretty damn good! Only one problem: Granite cave is dark, so I need to beat Brawly to get access to HM05 flash outside of battle, except for the entrance which thankfully has some encounters! So while there, I managed to get myself Makuhita, Zubat, Geodude and an Abra! 10 mons in a single night? What could go wrong from here!?
Well, BRAWLY apparently. Turns out he's tougher than I remember so after taking on the trainers in the gym for some extra EXP, getting torchic to evolve to combuskin, grinding wild mons for EXP, I... still kept losing to him. Now granted this was mainly due to Brawly healing WAY TOO MUCH, but still, it was strange how I was getting my shit caved in so easily, so after figuring out a strat, I managed to BS my way to beating him and got the 2nd badge along with the ability to use HM05 out of battle.
Overall day 2 was tumultuous but super worthwhile as we got a lot of progress done. Current Pokedex count: 23
Last edited by Arlisbloxer05 on Wed Nov 29, 2023 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Totally forgot to write down what happened the last few days as I caught covid AGAIN somehow so not a WHOLE lot of things happened, but I'll tell you guys what happened.
Ruby day (technically) 3: So from what I remember, I finally got through Granite Cave while capturing an Aron and a Mawile along the way, after getting to Route 110 we got ourselves a Minun, We also got ourselves the Mach Bike from Mawville City so now we can freakin SCHMOVE!
Another thing we got recently is an egg! Now this egg is special. How you may ask? Well, this egg came from Pokemon Box, and you get this egg the first time you connect a Gen 3 game to Pokemon Box, and It does this for EVERY game you connect, meaning you can get quite a few of these special pokemon. What's in the egg? Only time will tell!
'side from that though, not a whole lot happened considering I was recovering, but now I'm all good to go!
Current Pokedex Count: 26
Sidenote: I'm updating my rule in regards to cheats. Nothing crazy, in fact this is more a QoL change that's going to make the entire process MUCH easier.
EXPLANATION TIIIIIIIME!
So Pokemon Box, despite being pretty damn useful for both storing pokemon and playing Ruby and Sapphire on the big screen without the need for the Game Boy Player, IS A BIT OF A PRICK. How so? Well basically if you're trying to withdraw a pokemon from ruby to sapphire, you can't transfer pokemon out of box UNLESS you have at least 100 owned (not seen, OWNED) pokemon in the pokedex. That's HALF of the Hoenn Dex for R/S/E And in the case for FireRed and LeafGreen, more than what you need to unlock the National Dex. And even then, you STILL can't transfer pokemon out of box for FR/LG until you also complete the Sevii Islands post-game quest where you deliver the gems to Celio. Emerald THANKFULLY only needs to have the E4 and Champion fights completed but its still super restrictive. TL;DR version: YOU NEED TO BEAT THE ENTIRETY OF FR/LG AND EMERALD TO USE BOX.
Now I know what you're thinking: "ew, no, stop that, I don't like that. eoughhhhhhhh" and thankfully there IS a way to fix both of those problems. Someone created a patch/set of cheat codes that nullify these restrictions, along with making the entirety of box REGION FREE (AKA, JP GBA game will work on US box) This patch will MASSIVELY help speed the process of building up a national living dex as we'll be able to deposit pokemon into box as we play and not worry about needing to complete the games to extract them for later to do egg breeding. (looking at you, future ditto)
As a personal aside I do like the patch, buuuuuuuut I feel like the person who made it could have changed one thing about it. See the way they did it is to make the game recognize every game as ruby. Basically if you know anything about nintendo handheld games, each game has a ID in the header, comprised of a 3 letter code, followed by a regional indicator (I.E. AVXE for a US copy of Ruby, or AVPI for an Italian copy of Sapphire) now, logically the easy thing to do would be to go into the code and just yeet the regional indicator. And yes, that is exactly something one could do! But for SOME REASON the patch maker only made it so the game was looking for a game ID of "A" which causes Sapphire to be recognized as Ruby, which YES also affects adventure mode and could lead to corrupted saves.
Anyways TL;DR, we're using that patch from here on out to make stuff easier.
