"Pokemon Emerald Seaglass" A Beautiful ROM Hack for a Decent Game

 

    This review is going to be a little different, in the sense that I'm reviewing a rom-hack, but also because I'm just going to be reviewing Pokemon Emerald in general as well. Part of this is because I've been slowly (and I do mean very slowly) going through all of the older Pokémon generations again, and another part of it is because this game is very intentionally faithful to the original games. I don't really mind reviewing the game, after all when I first started out emulating Pokémon Emerald was one of the first games I played, and I've had a very on and off relationship with rom hacks in my life anyways. And because I just kept on playing variants upon variants of this game, I have very little recollection of ever actually finishing it. I'm pretty sure I must have at one point, but for some reason a memory of actually finishing this game eludes me. Let's talk about it.

    I'll start off with the "Seaglass" part. The art style is fantastic, I really do wholeheartedly believe that with my whole chest, and it really is just beautifully styled. When I was looking into playing this game again, I had to decide between this rom hack, and another one focused on more QOL-features, but with the original art style. Now, I'm not calling the original GBA art style ugly, it has some charm to it. But as someone who has played so many of these Pokémon rom hacks, it truly is a breath of fresh air to be able to play this game through a whole new lens. I truly do believe that the art style is fantastic enough to justify playing the game through once again, it just breathes so much new life into Hoenn for me personally.

    And even on the points in which this game diverges from the original, I feel like they were welcome additions. I played this game using the nuzlocke set of rules, and I was pleasantly surprised by how difficult the beginning was, especially brawly and that damn bulk up Heracross. I do agree that even with the "soft" level cap that decreases xp earned as soon as you reach the top level of the next gym leader, after about the third gym, your team reaches "max" level quite quickly with the new exp share, so you might want to turn it off depending on if you feel like your game is becoming too easy. I enjoyed being able to access the pokemon box anywhere, not feeling hamstrung by HM's was a great addition, I loved the variety of Pokemon scattered throughout the land too (like through eggs at the casino for Alolan forms).

    I will say, I know it can be controversial to change Pokémon typings, especially when it seems like the rom hack author is eager to make so many double typings, but I didn't mind. It made more pokemon feel viable than I thought. Like for much of this game I rocked this Shiny Ambipom I had caught, and even though I would have loathed to use this Pokemon in the mainline games, it was a surprisingly strong and fast physical attacker that helped me tremendously (especially against Tate and Liza). Some felt a bit more out there, like just adding more dragon types in general, or fairy types, and I for the love of me could not keep any of my flying types alive for more than like 5 battles, but still I thought all of the QOL changes were well done.

    Now, onto my review of the game of Pokémon Emerald itself. They really needed to make their "linear" game slightly more linear. I mean seriously I think I remember why 10 year old me hardly ever finished this game. Basically after Mossdeep and Tate and Liza the game just kind of hopes you figure it out with both diving and the constant back and forth involving both Archie and Maxie. It is such an absolute slog. Then Wallace asks me where Rayquaza is, and I'm wondering to myself how a child was supposed to know what the hell "Sky Pillar" is supposed to be without searching it up. Certainly not my favourite part of the game. Also I know everyone makes fun of that IGN review that says too much water, but as someone playing a nuzlocke it is very depressing for that mid-to-late game where you're just surfing everywhere and just have to throw another water type into your Pokémon Box, because what are you going to do with a team of six of them?

Final Score: 75/100

    Is this a rating of the rom hack itself, or the actual game? Uhhh I'm not sure, but it was still fun. I'm pretty biased and would have played this game regardless, but I do have to say this rom hack really helped me enjoy this game more than I thought I would have. The story really does drag on quite a bit in the middle, it's hard to ignore. I will say my starter was Blaziken and they stayed alive but I kind of felt like it limited my choice since it was also my fighting type. I just feel like I usually carry a fighting type on my team already so to have that slot also be taken up by my starter made me scramble to see what else would fill up that slot. Also I could not keep a dragon type on my team for particularly long either. My Trapinch died quickly, my Swablu died in record time, I think I even found a Beldum and a Larvitar but they all perished long before they could do anything interesting. Will I go do Sinnoh next? Probably not for a while, I heard a Metal Gear song recently and it was pretty good so if you see me review one of those games you know what happened.