Pokémon Emerald: Hoenn's third version, Rayquaza and the Battle Frontier

Some games you don't buy to discover a region, but to live in it a second time. Pokémon Emerald is one of them: the "third version" of Hoenn takes the map of Ruby and Sapphire, puts the two criminal organizations face to face again, wakes a dragon sleeping at the top of a tower and adds, once the League is beaten, the most generous competitive playground the Game Boy Advance ever saw. Here is the complete rundown: release context, reworked story, new features, starters, legendaries, Pokémon you need to trade for, and what's left twenty years later.

Contents

• The console and its release context
• The story and the Hoenn region
• What the game brings to the series
• The starter Pokémon
• The legendaries: Rayquaza, the titans and the golems
• Version exclusives: what you need to trade for
• What players remember
• The numbers: sales and commercial legacy
• The legacy of Emerald
• Pokémon Emerald at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The console and its release context

Pokémon Emerald — whose full title is Pokémon Emerald Version — is a game for the Game Boy Advance, developed by GAME FREAK and published by Nintendo. It's the fifth game in the main series released on this console, after Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed and LeafGreen.

The game was announced in Japan in July 2004, in the pages of CoroCoro Comics, and much of the promotion already revolved around its big addition: the Battle Frontier. A playable demo followed a few days later, at that year's Pokémon Festa.

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The release dates tell of a bygone era. Japan got the game on September 16, 2004, North America on the 1^st of May 2005, Australia on June 9, 2005, and Europe not until October 21, 2005. Thirteen months separate the Japanese release from the French one: by the series' standards, it's one of the longest waits ever imposed on European players.

That gap explains part of the game's reputation in France. When Emerald arrived in France, the Nintendo DS had already been out for several months, and many players experienced this title as the magnificent swan song of a console they were about to put away.

The "third version" concept wasn't new: Pokémon Yellow had complemented Red and Blue, Crystal had complemented Gold and Silver, a tradition traced in our history of the Pokémon generations. But Emerald takes the idea much further than its predecessors, to the point of rewriting entire sections of the plot rather than just touching it up.

The story and the Hoenn region

The adventure takes place in Hoenn, the maritime and volcanic region of the third generation. You start in Littleroot Town, climb Mt. Chimney, dive beneath the sea routes, cross a desert and end up facing the Elite Four and then the League Champion. The map itself is identical to Ruby and Sapphire's.

What changes is everything else. In Ruby, the player faced Team Magma; in Sapphire, Team Aqua. In Emerald, both of Hoenn's organizations are there at the same time: they take the stage in turn and also fight each other. The conflict stops being a duel and becomes a three-way war.

The result is spectacular. After the seventh Badge and the Seafloor Cavern episode, Kyogre and Groudon are both awakened and clash above Sootopolis City, in a sequence punctuated by brand-new cutscenes. The sky tears open, and the city is caught between deluge and drought.

☔ Kyogre and Groudon's duel leaves Sootopolis City caught between deluge and drought; your own sky is less spectacular, but those are exactly the days you keep one of our Pokémon jackets on your back.

It then falls to the player to climb the Sky Pillar to awaken Rayquaza, the only one able to calm the two titans. So the dragon on the box isn't a decorative bonus: it's at the heart of the story, whereas it was only an endgame curiosity in Ruby and Sapphire.

The League has changed too. Wallace, the former Gym Leader of Sootopolis City, has become the Champion of the Hoenn League, and it's Juan, a brand-new character the anime would adapt a few months later, who takes over his Gym. Steven Stone, the former Champion, has retired to Meteor Falls, where he waits for the player after the League for a far tougher battle.

Finally, a recurring character bridges the adventure and what comes after: Scott, a talent scout, crosses the player's path several times and holds the pass that opens the Battle Frontier.

What the game brings to the series

The most visible new feature fits in a single sentence: the battle sprites are animated. Ruby and Sapphire had dropped the entry animations inherited from Crystal; Emerald brings them back, and every Pokémon shakes itself off as it enters the field.

The real monument, though, is the Battle Frontier. The island that housed only a Battle Tower in Ruby and Sapphire becomes a complex of seven facilities: the Tower, the Dome, the Factory, the Pike, the Arena, the Palace and the Pyramid. Each one imposes its own rules, and each one is guarded by a Frontier Brain, the post-game equivalent of a Gym Leader.

This content is reserved for those who have beaten the League and is reached aboard the S.S. Tidal, from Lilycove City or Slateport City. There, the Trainer Card becomes a Frontier Pass, which records the Symbols you've earned and the Battle Points you've built up. Quite concretely, this is the birth of the modern competitive post-game.

Pokémon Contests, meanwhile, are refocused: they're now held only in Lilycove City, and the other contest halls give way to Battle Tents. The PokéNav swaps its Trainer's Eyes feature for Match Call, a calling system that notably lets you rematch Gym Leaders.

📱 Match Call replaces the PokéNav's Trainer's Eyes so you can call Gym Leaders back for rematches; your own phone can already call anyone it likes, it's just missing one of our Pokémon iPhone cases.

Several tweaks benefit breeders, and they've stuck around. The Abilities Magma Armor and Flame Body halve the number of steps needed to hatch an Egg. A female holding an Everstone passes on her Nature half the time. And a Pokémon with Synchronize at the front of your party gives you a 50% chance of running into a wild Pokémon with the same Nature.

Two field details complete the picture: the fossils are now found in the Mirage Tower, in the middle of the Route 111 desert, and the second fossil — until then lost for good — can be recovered after the League in the Desert Underpass. Finally, the player can run into two Trainers who team up against them, a feature later reused in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum.

The starter Pokémon

The trio is Hoenn's own, unchanged since Ruby and Sapphire: Treecko for Grass, Torchic for Fire and Mudkip for Water. Professor Birch hands them to the player right on Route 101.

The opening scene, however, has been reworked. It's no longer Machoke but Vigoroth that help with the move, and the wild Pokémon threatening the professor is no longer a Poochyena but a Zigzagoon. The professor himself no longer roams the routes and stays in his lab in Littleroot Town.

Each of the three lines is worth a look. Sceptile goes all in on Speed, Blaziken becomes a Fire and Fighting type that left its mark on a whole generation of players, and Swampert gains the Ground type, a combination that leaves it with a single weakness. To see how they compare with their cousins, our guide to the starters from every region reviews all nine trios.

Emerald above all adds a gift Ruby and Sapphire didn't offer: once the Hoenn Pokédex is complete, the player receives one of the three Johto starters, Chikorita, Cyndaquil or Totodile. A real collection goal, for a real reward.

This regional Pokédex has 202 entries in the third-generation games, from Treecko at number 001 to Deoxys at number 202. Completing it means trading, combing the Safari Zone and searching every corner of the seabed.

The legendaries: Rayquaza, the titans and the golems

The box art belongs to Rayquaza, the ozone dragon. Unusually for a box legendary, it can be caught even before the eighth Badge, since awakening it is a mandatory step in the story.

Kyogre and Groudon can both still be caught, but only after the League, in two caves with shifting locations. A detour to the Weather Institute gives you hints about where they're currently hiding: it's the first time the series asks for a little weather detective work to catch a legendary.

The golem trio is still there, sealed behind the puzzles of the Desert Ruins, the Island Cave and the Ancient Tomb: Regirock, Regice and Registeel. Solving them remains, to this day, one of the most cherished rituals for fans of Hoenn.

Then there are the guests of honor, reserved for the Nintendo events of the time. Southern Island was home to Latios and Latias, Birth Island to Deoxys, Faraway Island to Mew, and Navel Rock hosted Ho-Oh and Lugia.

These islands could only be reached with a ticket handed out in stores or at events. Suffice it to say that, for a French player in 2005, running into Jirachi or Deoxys had less to do with gameplay than with a community treasure hunt. These creatures still fascinate — our guide to legendary and mythical Pokémon puts them in context — and our legendary figures and plushies owe them a great deal.

Version exclusives: what you need to trade for

Emerald is a standalone version, with no twin: so there are no Pokémon "exclusive to Emerald" as opposed to another cartridge. The game does, however, apply the reverse rule, one that's often forgotten: seven species can't be found in it, and require a trade from Ruby or Sapphire.

Those seven are Surskit and Masquerain, Meditite and Medicham, Roselia, Zangoose and Lunatone. So the regional Pokédex remains, as always, a two-cartridge project — a principle explained in our guide to version-exclusive Pokémon.

The game more than makes up for it elsewhere. The Safari Zone expands with two areas opened after the League, where you can catch Johto Pokémon that are absent from Hoenn. Every Gym has been reworked, if only in the makeup of the opposing teams, and the passage between Verdanturf Town and Route 117 has been widened, while Route 118 was slightly redesigned.

The game also remains compatible with the wireless system of FireRed and LeafGreen, a blessing in the days of the Game Link cable.

One last detail, tiny yet symbolic: the items found through the Pickup Ability depend on the level of the Pokémon that picks them up.

What players remember

What everyone remembers is the Battle Frontier. Seven facilities, seven philosophies: the Dome and its tournaments where you study your opponent's profile, the Arena and its three-turn battles judged on points, the Seviper-shaped Pike where you move from room to room by lottery, the Factory that lends you teams, the Pyramid that empties the player's Bag.

🎒 Of the Battle Frontier's seven facilities, the Pyramid is the one that empties the player's Bag; nobody touches yours, and it may very well be one of our Pokémon sports bags.

This content gave rise to a whole culture. People played it for the Symbols to be won, brought finely tuned teams, and discovered there that a Pokémon is built — Natures, items, Abilities — rather than simply caught. Many competitive players trace their first real apprenticeship back to it.

The other lasting memory is the showdown at Sootopolis City. Watching Kyogre and Groudon face off in the middle of a city, under a sky swinging from one extreme to the other, had a rare intensity on the Game Boy Advance, and the climb up the Sky Pillar that follows remains one of the most talked-about sequences in the series.

Then there's all the patience the game demanded: the golem puzzles, the Pokédex to complete to earn a Johto starter, the hunt for Kyogre's and Groudon's shifting caves. Emerald embraces being a game you keep playing for months.

Critically, the reception was solid without being triumphant: the Metacritic average stands at 76 out of 100, IGN gave it 8 out of 10 and Jeuxvideo.com 15 out of 20. The press praised the content while pointing out, naturally, the repetition of an already familiar adventure.

The numbers: sales and commercial legacy

According to the cumulative sales data published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, Pokémon Emerald sold roughly 7.06 million copies worldwide. That's well below Ruby and Sapphire's 16 million, but it makes perfect sense: a third version is aimed first and foremost at people who already own the game.

That figure still ranks it among the best-selling Game Boy Advance games, across all series, just behind the console's two other Pokémon pairs: Ruby and Sapphire on one side, FireRed and LeafGreen on the other.

The hardware side deserves a mention: in Japan, a Game Boy Advance SP in a special Rekkūza edition (Rayquaza's Japanese name) was produced for the game's release, sold at the usual price of ¥12,500 and available only through Pokémon Center pre-orders. It was never released in the West.

The French manual, for its part, bears the code AGB-P-BPEP-NFRA: collectors still check it to authenticate a complete box.

The legacy of Emerald

The most obvious legacy is structural: the Battle Frontier spread. Platinum would reuse the model with five facilities, and HeartGold and SoulSilver would inherit that same Frontier, replacing the Battle Tower carried over from Crystal. The post-League complex became a series standard.

The second legacy is narrative. By bringing both Teams together and rewriting the clash of the titans, Emerald established that a third version can rewrite its story instead of copying it. Platinum, four years later, would apply exactly that lesson with Giratina.

The game also left behind an embarrassing technical legacy: its internal save battery ran the clock, and once it runs dry on original cartridges, time-based events freeze. Generations of players learned the words "CR1616 battery" because of it.

Finally, there's the affection. Hoenn never got a remake of Emerald: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, released in 2014 on 3DS, adapt Ruby and Sapphire, and the Battle Frontier's island becomes the Battle Resort there, reduced to a single facility. The Frontier has never been recreated as it was, which explains much of the nostalgia surrounding this title.

Twenty years later, Emerald remains the benchmark for a successful enhanced version. If you want to take the adventure beyond the screen, our Pokémon figures and our products dedicated to the starters cover a lot of ground, from Rayquaza to the three starters of Hoenn.

Pokémon Emerald at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is Pokémon Emerald a remake of Ruby and Sapphire?
  No. Emerald is an enhanced version, what the series calls a "third version," just like Pokémon Yellow or Pokémon Crystal. It reuses the map and engine of Ruby and Sapphire on Game Boy Advance, but reworks the story: Team Aqua and Team Magma are both present, and Rayquaza becomes a central part of the plot.
• When was Pokémon Emerald released in France?
  On October 21, 2005, as part of the European release. The game had been available in Japan since September 16, 2004 and in North America since May 1, 2005: thirteen months therefore separate the Japanese release from the French one.
• Can you catch Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza in Emerald?
  Yes, all three. Rayquaza is caught at the Sky Pillar, and it's available even before the eighth Badge since its awakening is part of the story. Kyogre and Groudon become catchable after the League, in two caves whose location changes; the Weather Institute gives hints about where they're currently hiding.
• What is the Battle Frontier in Emerald?
  It's the game's big post-League complex, set on the island that housed only a Battle Tower in Ruby and Sapphire. It brings together seven facilities: the Tower, the Dome, the Factory, the Pike, the Arena, the Palace and the Pyramid. Each has its own rules and its own Frontier Brain, and access is reserved for Trainers who have beaten the Hoenn League.
• Which Pokémon can't you get in Emerald without trading?
  Seven species require a trade from Ruby or Sapphire: Surskit, Masquerain, Meditite, Medicham, Roselia, Zangoose and Lunatone. In return, Emerald adds two areas to the Safari Zone after the League, where you can catch Johto Pokémon that are absent from Hoenn.
• How many copies did Pokémon Emerald sell?
  About 7.06 million copies worldwide, according to the cumulative sales data published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. That's less than Ruby and Sapphire's sixteen million, which is normal for a third version, but it still ranks among the best-selling Game Boy Advance games.

In short

Pokémon Emerald still holds up because it didn't settle for recoloring Hoenn. It reshuffled the story by bringing the two Teams together, it gave Rayquaza a real role, it gave the Pokémon back their animations, and with the Battle Frontier it invented the post-game model the series would go on to copy for years.

It's also a game of its time: a thirteen-month wait for Europe, legendaries locked behind tickets handed out at events, a battery that eventually gives out. None of this has dented its reputation, and the lack of a dedicated remake has only deepened its legend.

If you want to keep a piece of Hoenn in sight, take a look at our Pokémon plushies and our section for legendaries: the ozone dragon naturally has its place there.