[twillight]

Ok, I'm weak.

To make this run I needed yet another emulator. It lacks the ability of instant save, multiple save slots etc., so gives a "real pokemon experience" . Darn them. The one used for the gold lacks memory to run it stable unfortunately, but might use that for the League, as it can run...

So for Red used: VisualBoyAdvance Emulator 1.80-beta 3
For Gold used: GBE+ 1.2
For Emerald used: No$GBA 2.8d (crashes if you press B-button, can't properly create fog-effect, so looking for a substitute). UPDATE: 2.9d seems to have the same problem.

The graphic is updated to the level of Baldies, though the size of the game got noticeably bigger.

No real idea about my team. Seems there are no given away pokemons anymore, and the charts just didn't help (unless I want the exact same group as before).

You can't name your rival, and the basic story is: here is a bioweapon, now go and play outside, amongst murderous beasts!
It will be a weird experience if you chose female as your gender, and named yourself Pussy. Things like "now I understand why my dad has en eye for you", or "I bet you have easy way with all the pokemons" get weird second meaning.

The game feels now less of a handheld quartz-game than some jrpg, without the rpg part of course.
The real problem here is, you don't get quests, so when the story and fighting parts follow each other, they don't feel intervowen. Needs better pacing next time. Also, the intro sectionat the beggining is the most annoying thing since a long time.

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walkthrough:
- start with sceptile. It is an ok pokemon, and grass isn't common around while water is. And fire sucks.
- get yourself a Ralts if you are lucky, or have the patience. It is psychic, so by definition is a good pokemon.
- get yourself a lotad too, and level it in random encounters to lvl 14. It'll be your prime HM-slave, not even needed to upp it to its final form. Give it when it comes Surf, Waterfall, Dive, and one more from strength/flash/rock smash. Make it rock smash Don't be too hasty giving it moves though, I have no idea when HM-remove will be available. Wouldn't want to waste such a good slave.
- get yourself a slakoth as third. With lotad -> lombre learning surf, flash, waterfall, dive and slakoth learning cut, strength, rock smash, you only need to teach fly to your permanent team, what is the Fast Travel function, soyou want it on you!
- try to avoid two trainers noticing you, because double battles are problematic.
- don't explore too much, the exp-share (doubles the exp as usual) is near
- passing the 2nd city get yourself a nincada. It'll serve as slave for a while, as it can learn cut (not mandatory for now), and flash (first demanded HM).
- on the way delivering the letter, in the cave capture yourself an aron. It is a good pokemon for fighting.
- after delivering the letter, GO BACK TO PETALTOWN for the exp-share! Now you can backtrack if you want cutting trees.
- the electric gym is a problem. The mons are too tough, and deal hugh damage. Oh,and don't even hope to outlevel the buggers. If gen2 (Gold/etc) had EXP-problems, this gen has even more. I have a lvl 22/20/20 team, and there's nothing else to do!
Ah, I see what's the problem: THE STARTER YOU'D'VE NEEDED IS MUDKIP. Fuck this shit.
NOTE: managed tofind the quicksave feature, so fuckyou Nintendo. With that could avoid the fucking shockwave where it was cruical, and the fucking random factors,and the fucking criticals. Made the voltorb selfdestruct as first move, then got rid of the 2nd enemy, then for the last two my strategy was to send out my sceptile screeching and fainting, then with enough weakened my mudshot could eliminate the enemies. That ment revive on sceptile to be able to do its stuff on manectric. There some Soda Pop for healing was necessary too.
What you actualy would need here is a bloody ground type. Big news: there are only fokin' two up to this point: mudkip, or nincada. If nincada evolves, you getfokin' screwed, just tellin'. And it doesn't get any ground move which you're looking for to cause any damage until lvl 31, and believe me, manectric can hurt you hard with its quickattack whatis normal type damage! And no, there is no TM (teachable move) in the game in ground element, so you're fucked in the arse without lube.
There might be SOMETHING though. An easter egg. Fok it, I go and check it out.
SUPERNOTE: Seriously, I sometimes wonder if people played these games. So, what I did was lvl up my nincada to 20, which made my aron to almost lvl 30 (during the gym-battle it became 30). Took like 1-2 hour grinding, but it did worth it. What is important here is you get Sedinja, the 1 HP pokemon.

Coorection: ok, there's Geodude. There are maybe halfa dozen gen1 mon reappearing, I just couldn't care for those.


Here is how the gym-battle goes:
#1 Voltorb: it has rollout, and can blow up. I had a lvl 20 Sableye to hold it up, but it actualy doesn't matter. If it gets hurt, especialy if it got healed by a potion, bring in aron because it'll selfdestrruct, and that hurts ca. everyone but aron. The problemhere it can do rollout, what is super effective on Sedinja.
#2 it's a midle-diff thingy which you are not allowed to touch. This later part is the problem, because if you touch it'll paralyze you,what you don't want. Aron can deal with it pretty good with mudshot. Will likely get healed by a potion, but it realy isn't the hard part.
#3 this is a magnemite. Start here with sceptile. If you chose torchic, that's your fault. If you have the mud-thingy, this whole conversation never comes up, move along. Do as many screech as you can. Let sceptile faint, or if aron has enough HP (heal in sceptile's turns)/you have ton of supplies, just switch pokemon. Simplest thing is to let sceptile faint, especialy if your team is around lvl20. Then mudshot the bugger. It hits hard, and has some nasty tricks, but you should be able to defeat it after the screeches.
Do NOT bring in Sedinja yet, because it has a tendency to counfuse yourt units, and that's lethal.
#4 this is where you bring in Sedinja. Manectric can't do squat against your bug-husk-mon. And despite nincada had 2 HM on it, the remaining 2 slots were good enough: screech and bug-fury.

For the fire gym they told all kinds of strategies - mine was simple. Lvl 35 aron's 2nd form headbutt first. Has enough HP to survive the first overheat, just patch up via potion or something when that happens. This gym again has thatbuggy fog-effect, but that's why maps on the net are for.

Until now the puzzles practicaly missing with the exception of the annoying mach-bike feature. The rival is mostly missing, actualy every character seem to do its own stuff just like you. It is a bit boring, but I get the concept. Also seem to have some daddy-issue.Btw,daddy isa cheater. His linoon knows a lvl 53 move...
His mons are no problem though, only slaking which has immense amount of HP. So I sent out Sableye to leer to the point of fainting, then brought back aron. That mon practicaly carried me throw all the game until now!
My crew is at lvl 20 or below, except the main three. Gardevoir reached its final form, aron and sceptile are working on that.

NOTE: if you need some reasoned grinding,don't forget that the first two lute might be ok to have. Justdon't use repel. Never use repel.

pros:
- no day/night cycle harassment to the player

cons:
- the AI just luves to abuse superstrong items, like healing its mons from 1 HP to max, just because it can.
- the extra content, like making that kid laugh, fishing feebas, and other crap are waaay to random to have any interrest aside the most hardcore.
- super low chance to capture pokemons. There are 3-5% capture chance, meaning 1:20 ball average for those!
- not registering all the pestering NPCs is impossible. Deleting their annyoing calls is impossible. Good news though: they don't call that often as in gen2.

neutral:
- seems I can't get the poison status. But life isn't easier, as instead regularly get paralyzed.