Tama's Pokemon Generation 3 (RSE + FRLG + ColoXD) 100% Completionism Checklist (Patreon)

Last time we went over how to 100% complete Gen 2 and all the mileage you can get out of a really thorough Gen 2 playthrough. Now it is time for Pokemon Emerald and the 6 other games that go along with it, aka Gen 3! Gen 3 is a huge departure from Gens 1 & 2. The entire battle system and Pokemon data structure was overhauled, your collection of Pokemon from the past couple games is cut off from moving forward into the future, and you have to start from scratch. Not only are Gen 3’s challenges much tougher, but so is getting good Pokemon, thanks to many of the new features focusing on specializing each mon to play a unique role. Gen 3 introduced abilities, many of which have out of battle functions as well as in battle, natures, and limited EVs and hugely expanded IV ranges that really made the gap between good and mediocre Pokemon much wider. In addition to this, the huge number of games that could all interact with eachother brought tons of new multiplayer focused content, like mixing records, secret bases, and wireless connectivity features. And if you think that isn’t enough, wait until you hear about Contests, ribbons, Pokeblocks, berry growth, and  trainer card stars. Between the Battle Frontier, the GameCube games, Trainer Hill, and even hundreds of eReader cards, you’ve got your work cut out for you. And your wallet.

If you are willing to abuse ACE via the Pomeg Glitch, you might only need one game to get everything, but IMHO, that defeats the purpose of doing a 100% run. Pomeg can be used creatively however as a substitute for buying as much stuff or in order to skip games you don’t have, or doing content that is otherwise inaccessible. Sky's really the limit with programming and executing code. How strict you want to be is up to you.

Because there are so very many things you need to buy to do absolutely everything in Gen 3, and so very many of them are extremely expensive on the aftermarket, I have broken the checklist down into different configurations of things you can get to accomplish various content goals without having to buy every single thing. Of course if you want the full 100% experience, plan to get nearly everything that was released in the Gen 3 era.

GEN 3 CHECKLIST: 

Supplies: Minimum 4 gameboy advances with link capability, GBA link cable, 4 way GBA link cable, Pretabbed CR1616 batteries and soldering tools, tri wing GBA screwdriver, Nintendo GameCube or Wii (Wii is preferable), GBA to GameCube link cable, 3 wireless adapters, GBA E-Reader, Japanese E-Reader +, E-cards for various cases (see below), GameCube Action replay or Wii Homebrew for region unlocking, or if desired a Japanese GameCube or Wii also works. Multiple GameCube Memory cards - 2 English, 1 Japanese. RTCread program on the DS or burned to a GBA game.

Fewest possible games required for Pokedex Completion including GameCube games, excluding mythicals: LeafGreen, Emerald, Colosseum & XD (this will not cover all the content in the games themselves, so you will need another copy of Emerald for wireless minigame stars and exclusive Emerald-to-Emerald content. You will also need to completely beat Leaf Green multiple times to trade out of Kanto into other games in order to obtain all 3 Kanto starters with no other Kanto games to trade with.)

Fewest games required for dex completion, excluding GameCube games and mythicals: FireRed, LeafGreen, Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire (if you ignore Emerald-to-Emerald exclusive content, this will also cover your bases for wireless minigame stars. You will also need to completely beat one Kanto game more than once and completely beat Emerald to the point of completing the Regional Dex 3 times.)

If you want to do absolutely everything: Colosseum, Colosseum Bonus Disc and/or PAL Pokemon Channel, XD, LeafGreen, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, another Emerald. PAL or NTSC Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire. Japanese Ruby or Sapphire. Japanese Emerald. Japanese Colosseum, Japanese Colosseum Bonus Disc, Japanese FireRed or LeafGreen

ALL GameBoy Advance eReader Content: English e-Reader, Japanese e-Reader +, English Eon Ticket, Japanese Regi Doll Promo card, English Battle e Series 1 (60 cards), Japanese Battle e Series 2 (54 cards), Japanese Colosseum Double Battle e (24 cards), Japanese Battle e FireRed and Leaf Green (44 cards), Japanese Pokemon Emerald Battle e (83 cards), Japanese Fire Red or Leaf Green, English Promo Trainers for Battle e (2 cards), Japanese Promo Trainers for Battle e (16 cards), Japanese Double Battle e Promo Trainers (2 cards), Japanese Battle e FireRed and LeafGreen promo cards (6 cards), Japanese Emerald Battle e Promo Trainers (2 cards)

Most important e-Reader cards are: Japanese Regi Doll Promo cardIn the video I mention the Nutpea Berry a lot, but SirToastyToes on bluesky contributed recipes for max contest stats that don't require it! See in ribbon master planning section in Objective 1 below.

If RNG Manipulation is desired: Eon Timer, PokeFinder, Japanese Colo/XD RNG manip programs.

OBJECTIVES:

1. Plan all teams for all battle modes: Emerald Frontier, Orre Colosseum, main teams for each play through if desired

These do not have to be raised during the story and you can breed for them after, but if you want specific encounter Pokemon in the story to have specific natures, in either the GameCube or GBA games, you should know ahead of time.

Because you will need to pool resources from all of your Gen 3 games together and Gen 3 introduces single use Move Tutors as well as single use TMs, you will need to plan your Emerald teams for Orre Colosseum, Battle Frontier, and FRLG Battle Tower BEFORE you begin playing any of these games. 

Because of trading restrictions, most games will need to be fully beaten (credits roll AND post game/additional content in some cases) in order to swap items, tutors, Pokemon

Gen 3 introduces limited EV caps, necessitating EV training, and IVs ranging from 15 to 31. It also introduces immutable characteristics such as Natures and Abilities, which makes the gap between “bad” and “good” Pokemon much more noticeable in outcome than the previous generation.

The Frontier at least requires EV training, correct beneficial nature/ability and stats in the upper range from 20-30 in order to get the higher streaks required for Gold Symbols. I’ve tried it with Pokemon with IVs under 20 and it was noticeably worse to try to compete with the Frontier Pokemon since once you reach certain streaks the opponent Pokemon start getting perfect IVs.

Sub-objectives:

Emerald Battle Frontier:

Team of 3 for Battle Tower, Dome, Arena

All frontier teams must meet the following requirements:

Species clause: Only one of each species allowed

Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Celebi, Mew, Jirachi, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza and Deoxys Speed Forme are banned.

You may also plan a doubles team if you would like to try the challenge for doubles mode in order to get a record, but the symbol is only awarded for singles.

Latios and Latias cannot be holding Soul Dew but are permitted without it.

There are level 50 and Open Level modes for each facility. Pokemon must be level 50 and under to compete at level 50 (recommend exactly level 50 since opponent Pokemon will be). Open Level mode matches your highest Pokemon’s level, but will not be below level 60.

Prioritize planning for the Battle Tower as you will need to earn a 100 streak to unlock a secret base decoration and this will be the most difficult thing you will raise a team for. The same team can then be used to easily get symbols for the Dome and Arena.

Alternates for Battle Pike, Pyramid

In the Pyramid, held items are banned and must be found/equipped during the challenge.

The ability “Run Away” does not work in the Pyramid.

May want bulkier Pokemon to swap in for survival in these challenges, like Pokemon with recovery moves or status healing abilities.

Team of 3 for Battle Palace

Natures determine a Pokemon’s behavior in this facility, see chart on Bulbapedia.

Will want to prioritize attacking movesets without moves that will fail/not be useful when chosen at random.

For this reason you will want to raise Pokemon and plan movesets specifically for this challenge.

TOTAL: At most, 6-9 Pokemon for all 7 facilities

Emerald Trainer hill requires unique low level Pokemon, eg taking advantage of in-game-trades

Goal is to clear Trainer Hill with the fastest time: under 12 minutes

Pokemon will scale to your strongest Pokemon.

Two options: Multiple Smeargle at level 5 with Dragon Rage, or Electrode with Sonicboom/Shock Wave at level 3 and other level 3 Pokemon. Shock Wave is TM 34. Can obtain this by doing the in-game-trade in FRLG. Obtain level 3 Pikachu in Viridian Forest, evolve with Thunderstone, trade to man in Cinnabar Island lab.

XD & Colo:

Doubles team of 6 for Orre Colosseum, Colosseum’s Battle Mode Content, and Mt. Battle in both games.

Same team can be used for all

Can be made up of Pokemon caught in-game as long as purified, but you may want to trade in Pokemon from other games as well

Will most likely be putting this team together using resources from R/S and FR/LG but not Emerald due to order of games in the run.

PokeCoupon Penalty for using Legendaries (Suicune, Entei, Raikou, Lati’s, etc) - avoid! You don’t need them

Pokemon must be purified, otherwise these battle modes don’t have unique restrictions to account for other than meeting the level requirement. So plan the team to do the level 50 Battle Modes first and then raise them to 100 for the level 100 modes.

Orre Colosseum in XD matches the level of your highest Pokemon.

Ribbon Master planning:

In Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness, there are unique ribbons for Purifying Shadow Pokemon and clearing Mt. Battle. So for the ribbon master, you will want to pick a Shadow Pokemon from one of these two games.

Keep in mind that the nature should be conducive to winning all contests, preferably not a -speed nature

Also keep in mind that this Pokemon will eventually need to take up 1/3 team slot for the Battle Tower 50 streak at levels 50 and 100.

Plan a Battle Tower moveset and contest movesets for every Contest and make sure you save Tutors: Rest/Snore or Rest/SleepTalk are good combos, but Sleep Talk is a single use Tutor in Emerald and Snore costs 24 battle points at the Frontier.

If you want your Ribbon Master to be a shiny Pokemon, you will need to shiny hunt for them in Colosseum.

If you want your Ribbon Master to have a unique move (EG Sing on Meowth), you will want to catch them in XD Gale of Darkness, but in that game they cannot ALSO be shiny. 

In both games, you will want to avoid Pokemon who are also banned in challenges that award ribbons in the series, so it can’t be Shadow Lugia.

SirToastyToes on Bluesky contributed the following Pokeblock Recipes that do not require ANY rare berries and will result in maxed contest stats. If you don't recognize the icons, check the list of berries in the resources section on bulbapedia.

Team Raising Notes:

How breeding works in Gen 3

In Gen 3, Pokemon hatched from eggs will know all moves from level 5 or below in their learnset.

If both parents know a move the baby can learn via level up, the baby will be born with that move. 

If the father knows any moves that are TMs or HMs that the baby is also compatible with, it will inherit the move.

From Pokemon Emerald onward, if either parent is holding a Light Ball, a bred Pichu will know Volt Tackle. Volt Tackle cannot be passed down as a normal Egg Move

In Pokemon Emerald, if the Mother is holding an Everstone, it has a 50% chance of passing down its nature.

Ability inheritance is random in Gen 3 and cannot be influenced.

Ditto is not available in RS, it appears in Emerald in the Desert Underpass after beating the game or in FRLG.

In Emerald only, having a Pokemon with the Flame Body ability in your party allows for faster egg hatching.

In RS/FRLG, stats inherited cannot overwrite eachother. In Emerald they can, meaning as few as 1 stat can get passed down at a time from both parents. However, there is no IV checker in RS or FRLG, and the Everstone does not help with passing down natures, so I still recommend breeding in Emerald. The faster hatching, ability to check for IVs using the judge, and nature inheritance to me outweigh that you have worse odds for getting stats passed down.

IVs: In Emerald, there is an IV checker in the Battle Frontier in the building directly north of the Pokemon center. It’s an old man sitting on a couch to the left.

He will first give a rating of the Pokemon’s IV stat total: 

Average = 0 to 90

Better-than-average = 91 to 120

Quite impressive = 121 to 150

Wonderfully outstanding = 151 to 186

Next he will tell you of the Pokemon’s best stat and give that a rating. If the Pokemon has multiple “best” stats that are all tied, he will randomly tell you one, and you will have to talk to him multiple times in order to possibly hear about all of the best stats.

Relatively good = 0 to 15

Quite impressive = 16 to 25

Outstanding = 26 to 30

Flawless = 31

Since he is not useful for determining exact stats, I recommend looking at Smogon’s list in part 2 of their Breeding Guide linked below to see what a “flawless” Pokemon of the species stats look like at level 5, cross checking with the nature chart to account for additions/subtractions, and then checking Pokemon who have improvements in key stats with the IV judge in the Frontier to see if he notes any new stats among the best.

Swap in parents with stat improvements, you will be swapping the male parents more often due to female parents needing to be the correct nature to hold the Everstone to pass it down. If good stats overlap between the parents they are more likely to be inherited. 

Using the information from the stat judge and the level 5 stats, you can then enter that info into an online stat calculator in order to get a better idea of what the Pokemon’s overall stats look like.

Aim for “quite impressive” to “wonderfully outstanding.”

Taking notes about which babies had which ratings will help, unfortunately only 4 markings in the PC and 6 stats.

RNG Manipulation

Emerald’s RNG does not function properly. This is a really lay person’s explanation that might not be fully accurate, but basically so that you understand, RNG has 2 different components, the seed and the advance. The Seed is supposed to change every time you turn the game on under normal circumstances, for example in live battery Ruby and Sapphire, this is the case. The RNG advances to different states linearly every 1/60th of a second, so on the same seed, the same RNG states will be called every single time when the same amount of time has passed. So when you turn on Live Battery Ruby and Sapphire, you will get different seeds and therefore see different RNG states every time, simulating true randomness. When the clock in Ruby and Sapphire is dead, the Seed is frozen, so the RNG states that advance every 1/60th of a second become really predictable. In Emerald, even if the clock is working, due to a glitch, the seed will never change. This means you can’t reset encounters like your starter or legendary Pokemon in order to get a specific nature or if you want a shiny Pokemon because your first few frames will always result in the same RNG states generating the same Pokemon every time. Additionally, Synchronize’s secondary function of influencing the natures of wild Pokemon was introduced in Emerald, but it for some reason doesn’t work on Stationary encounters like the legendary Pokemon. This means that Live battery Ruby and Sapphire is the only way to truly full odds shiny hunt or even attempt with legitimate means to reset stationary encounters for things like different natures. In Emerald you can shiny hunt static encounters by fleeing from the Pokemon assuming it's a Legendary, leaving the room, and coming back, but you won’t be able to easily hunt for a nature you want this way since you won’t be able to tell what nature it is without catching it. It is up to you whether you want to learn to RNG manipulate in order to find the natures you want on specific Pokemon and how you feel about that. If you don’t look up specific RNG states you want to aim for using a searching tool like PokeFinder, you would need to manually force yourself to wait different amounts of time on each reset to get different results.

If you do want to manipulate the RNG, note that some encounter methods vary between dead battery Ruby/Sapphire and Emerald, so it might be useful to have both available to try different methods.

In order to RNG manipulate for shiny Pokemon, you will need to know your Secret ID. To determine this, you have a couple options:

Option 1: You can reverse engineer this by doing a full odds shiny hunt and then using the SID calculator tool to figure out what your SID is from the IVs of the shiny Pokemon you caught.

Option 2: You can begin the game by RNG manipulating for a specific TID/SID, so that you know from the start what your SID is.

For dead battery Ruby Sapphire only, you can put your TID into Pokefinder and see the possible SIDs, and then guess based on how long it probably took you to set your game up. If you didn’t take long pauses during character creation, most likely it’s a state under the 2 minute mark and there shouldn’t be that many to test. Can test by attempting to hit shiny states for each SID and seeing which one actually results in a shiny. 

Other than RNG manipulation, there are no methods for increasing shiny odds in Gen 3. So there is no strategy other than using repels to rule out certain Pokemon for wild encounters, Smoke Ball and a fast Pokemon at the start of your party that’s the correct level to only get the spawn you’re looking for in that particular area. Can also use White Flute to increase encounter rate.

TMs you can get more than one of:

In Emerald only, Pickup Ability can get unlimited Rest, Focus Punch and Earthquake TMs if you raise a Pickup Pokemon to level 100. Recommend having a party of 4-5 Linoones at level 100 to carry around when you are EV training or otherwise grinding encounters. After every victory, every Linoone has a 10% chance to pick up an item. Good way to farm TMs and Rare Candies.

Slateport Market: Hidden Power, Secret Power

Pacifidlog Town: Return/Frustration once a week

Mauville Game Corner: Double Team, Psychic, Flamethrower, Icebeam, Thunderbolt

Celadon Game Corner: Icebeam, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail, Shadow Ball

Lilycove Dept Store: Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Hyper Beam, Protect, Safeguard, Reflect, Lightscreen

Celadon Dept Store: Roar, Hyper Beam, Dig, Brick Break, Secret Power, Attract

Colosseum PokeCoupon Shop: Icebeam, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Double Team, Psychic

XD PokeCoupon Shop: Icebeam, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Psychic, Shadow Ball

XD Realgam Tower Shop: Hidden Power, Blizzard, Hyper Beam, Light Screen, Protect, Safeguard, Thunder, Reflect, Fire Blast

Use Aerial Ace TMs wisely - only one per save file in each game, no tutors.

How to cheese the game corner/farm money

Bet max on the roulette table on the same tile until all rounds are used up and the board resets. If you win, save the game. If you lose, reset. There are also random events in Emerald where you can be notified of Service days with better odds, these are good days to do this on.

Rich Boy Winston and Lady Cindy on Route 104 will give high cash payouts for beating them. Use the Amulet Coin to double this. Also use Covet on Linoone to steal the Nuggets that their Zigzagoons are holding and sell them. They can be repeated in Emerald quite frequently and you can grind money this way should you need to.

Single use Move Tutors (no cost)

FRLG: Body Slam, Counter, Double-Edge, Dream Eater, Explosion, Mega Kick, Mega Punch, Metronome, Mimic, Rockslide, Seismic Toss, Softboiled, Substitute, Swords Dance, Thunder Wave, Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn, Hydro Cannon

Emerald: Double-Edge, Dynamic Punch, Explosion, Fury Cutter, Metronome, Mimic, Rollout, Sleep Talk, Substitute, Swagger

XD Gale of Darkness: Mimic, Seismic Toss, Thunder Wave, Icy Wind, Substitute, Dream Eater, Swagger, Body Slam, Nightmare, Sky Attack, Double-Edge, Selfdestruct

Repeatable Tutors 

Emerald (costs BP): Softboiled, Seismic Toss, Dream Eater, Mega Punch, Mega Kick, Body Slam, Rockslide, Counter, Thunder Wave, Swords Dance, Defense Curl, Snore, Mud-Slap, Swift, Icy Wind, Endure, Psych Up, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch

XD (costs PokeCoupons, plus other restrictions): Mew Move Tutor, exclusive moves are Faint Attack, Fake Out, Hypnosis, Night Shade, Role Play or Zap Cannon

Use the betting house to farm Battle Points

Once you have earned 3 symbols (easiest 3 are silver Pike, Dome and Arena), there is a house south of the Battle Pyramid where 4 people are betting Battle Points.

The Betting Man chooses a facility and battle mode at random each day to bet on (or it can be changed by mixing records with another Emerald)

When the Betting Man chooses an easy facility/mode with a low streak, bet 15 and then go earn that streak and he will award you 30 BP.

This can be repeated for easy Battle Points.

Move Deleter/Relearner locations

Move Relearner in FRLG (costs 1 Big Mushroom or 2 Tiny): Two Island

Move Relearner in RSE (costs 1 Heart Scale): Fallarbor Town

Move Relearner in XD (costs PokeCoupons): Mt. Battle Lobby

Move Deleter in FRLG: Fuschia City

Move Deleter in RSE: Lilycove City

Move Deleter in XD: Mt. Battle Lobby

Leveling to level 50, 100:

In FRLG, using the VS Seeker, the trainers in Seavault Canyon on Seven Island reward good EXP for leveling. You can just use these any time you want by trading the Pokemon you want to level over to FRLG.

But if you want to go the extra mile, AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLETED ALL OTHER CONTENT THAT REQUIRES MIXING RECORDS IN THE OBJECTIVES BELOW, using these trainers, raise a team of 6 Blissey to level 50 (make sure to delete Growl and give them no attacking moves)

Trade these 6 Blissey to each of your RSE copies to mix records with your Emerald version and register those Secret Bases. (note that Japanese copies of RS can only mix with Japanese Emerald, but then can be transferred to English Emerald by mixing English Emerald with Japanese Emerald)

These bases can then be used in combination with the Lucky Egg daily to earn EXP once the Elite Four is defeated.

Once all training at level 50 is done, raise the Blisseys to level 100 and repeat these steps.

Lucky Egg only available in XD and FRLG.

EV training in Gen 3

Macho Brace can be used to double EV yield.

PokeRus can be used to further double EV yield, but it’s very rare to obtain and cannot be RNG manipulated. Helps, but not necessary.

Can use guides linked below for good locations to EV train each stat within FRLG and RSE

Additionally, you can set up Secret Bases in RSE to provide EVs for a certain stat, repeatable daily.

Other options: Certain areas of Mt Battle in XD are designed to give certain EVs - The first half of round 7 is speed EVs. The second half is special attack. In round 8, the first half is special defense EVs. The second half is attack. In round 9, the first half is HP EVs. The second half is defense EVs.

The Desert Underpass in Emerald gives you access to wild Ditto after beating the game. Ditto can be used to transform into a Pokemon that gives high yield (for example, Groudon), then can swap in the Pokemon that needs to EV train.

2. Beat Ruby & Sapphire

Ruby & Sapphire have unique story modes compared to each other and to Emerald. Complete all story content and make sure to return to Mt. Pyre after the climax to return the Red/Blue Orbs.

Will need these Pokemon for the Pokedex: Surskit (either game, or swarm sent to Emerald via mixing records, but can also be obtained in XD), Meditite (either game or Colosseum or XD), Roselia (either game or XD), Zangoose (Ruby only or XD), Lunatone (Sapphire only or XD)

Pick different starters than you will choose in Emerald in order to obtain all 3 Hoenn starters.

Make sure to take the Scanner from the Abandoned Ship to Captain Stern in Slateport to get either the Deepseatooth or the Deepseascale, so that you can grab the opposite item in Emerald.

Pokemon that evolve via Day or Night (Espeon/Umbreon) or are time sensitive (Spheal, Snorunt) can be evolved/caught in these games with a working battery, and you will also want to use these games to farm exclusive e-Reader berries for making PokeBlocks, so make sure that before you start your game, you replace the clock battery.

You will also need to be strategic about which trainer ID your RSE games have in order to coordinate multiplayer content that is tied to ID number, including 2nd copy of Emerald. You may need to reset a spare game a few times to get everything via mixing records/linking up:

Prioritize TIDs that end in 2 or 3 for the Hipster, 4 or 5 for the Trader. 0 or 1 results in the Bard, 6 or 7 results in the Storyteller, and 8 or 9 results in Giddy.

There are 3 berries that can only be gifted to the player on Route 120 with certain TIDs: Wiki Berry for IDs that end in 1 or 6, Mago Berry for IDs that end in 2 or 7, and Aguav Berries for IDs that end in 3 or 8. The rest of the ID specific berries can also be gifted randomly by Kiri in Sotopolis City.

Almost all the content in Ruby and Sapphire is also in Emerald, so unless it was exclusive to Ruby and Sapphire or it should be done in multiple Hoenn games, the objectives were noted in the Emerald section instead, since that is the “main” game for this run.

Sub-objectives:

Stock up on extra berries in copies with live batteries in order to blend berries for contest stats

Start a Berry Route through Hoenn that can be repeated each day to farm/plant new berries until you have built up a good collection of each type of common berry. 

Starts on Route 102 after flying to Oldale to begin the Route each day. There is 1 berry patch here.

Continue to Route 104, there is one berry patch before Petalburg Woods and 2 located on the northern half of the route after passing through the forest.

Pass through Rustboro and exit North to Route 115, surfing up to find 2 berry patches (1 requires Rock Smash)

Return back south to Rustboro and then east to Route 116 for one more berry patch that requires Cut to reach. From here, either fly to Mauville or pass through Rusturf Tunnel to reach Verdanturf.

Run just south of Mauville onto Route 110 for a berry patch, then to just west of it onto Route 117 for another. Then go north to Route 111. 

Cut through the desert and grab the berry patches just outside of Firey Path on Route 112, and then go north to the patches on the northern tip of Route 111.

Pass through Route 113 and Fallarbor Town into Route 114 where the final berry patch on this leg is. Then fly back to Mauville again.

Surf East to Route 118. Collect the berries from the patch just north of the beach, then continue east to Route 123 where the Berry Master’s house is and the berry farm patches.

From here return to Route 118 and head North to Route 119. Pass through the tall grass to the berry patch near the stairs onto the mountain, just below the bridge.

Continue through the route past the Weather Institute and on towards Fortree. Just outside of the city is another large berry patch.

After continuing through Foretree, head south on Route 120. There are two berry patches in close proximity in the southernmost area with the puddles and pond. Heading west towards Lilycove onto Route 121, there are two more along the way, one to the north and one to the south.

Instead of entering Lilycove, surf south past Mt Pyre onto Route 123. Near the route entrance is one more easily accessible berry patch.This is the end of the berry route!

If you plant one of each berry in each of these patches, water it and then harvest it and replant the next day, for most berries it will only take you 3 days to get about 100. This yield can be maximized if you set a timer and water the berry at its optimal time each day.

Visualization of the berry route courtesy of seacreature. Different legs are drawn in different colors for clarity.

Opportunities: Create Blissey or EV training Secret Bases in these games to mix records with Emerald, as described above. Will be easier to do once FR/LG is complete.

Will need to use the Trader in New Mauville to transfer either the Red or Blue Tent and Seedot Doll decorations to Emerald.

The Trick House in RS contains unique puzzles from the one in Emerald, so make sure to clear all 8 levels, which you need to do anyway to obtain the Red/Blue tent

Seedot Doll is obtained on Route 117 in Lanette’s House in Ruby only

Pickup item table differs in Ruby & Sapphire from Emerald. Use a Zigzagoon or two or six to get some easy money and rare candies.

Do the contests in order in each town since this experience is absent from Emerald. Contest Pass can be obtained in Verdanturf Town and PokeBlock Case in Slateport.

Prize for winning a Master Rank contest with a Pokemon that had already won a contest in the same category: Luxury Ball

Contest hall order: Verdanturf > Fallarbor > Slateport > Lilycove

Do all in-game trades for unique Trainer IDs for the Lilycove lottery: Makuhita, Skitty, Corsola

Unique Dialogue that isn’t in Emerald:

Speak to the NPC in Petalburg Town that says Norman and his family moved from Johto, since this dialogue is changed in Emerald.

In the upper floor of the Oceanic Museum, there are Water Samples from Kanto and Johto, which was changed in Emerald.

The Regi Quest that starts in the secret chamber on Route 134 is different in RS than Emerald, so do it in this game as well. I have opted to link a Braille Alphabet rather than directions for completing the quest, so in case you weren’t aware, the chambers are on Route 111, 105 and 120.

E-Reader Content will be done here since English Emerald has e-Reader disabled:

Enigma Berries: Scan the berry cards to receive special berries from Norman in Petalburg Gym. Requires two gameboys and a link cable. For good measure, implement this new berry into your berry route to harvest a ton of them. This berry can never be traded to another game, so this save file will need to link up for multiplayer Pokeblock mixing whenever it needs to be used. Previously in this section I recommended scanning the Nutpea berry but it is no longer required! So choose your favorite berry to scan in. You can only have one at a time.

Pokemon Battle e card series 1: Do all (or as many as you can) of the Battle e card trainers in Mossdeep by scanning trainers. You will want to use your Frontier Battle Tower team, so you can save this for after you have completed other games and have more Pokemon and items at your disposal.

Scan the Eon Ticket and mix records with Emerald to send it over to that save file.

While playing Ruby and Sapphire, make sure to do the following things in order to see TV programs talking about your exploits once you mix records with Emerald:

Change a nickname at the Name Rater in Slateport (or go to do that and then cancel changing the name)

Participate in an interview at the Pokemon Fan Club in Slateport

Make it a goal to catch many Pokemon in one day (make it an impressive number for a good story)

In one shopping trip, buy >10 but <100 of one item.

In one shopping trip, buy 100 of one item.

Give nicknames to all the Pokemon you catch.

Battle Gabby & Ty and use one move to knock out both of their Pokemon.

Go fishing and catch Pokemon hooked by a rod.

Talk to the interviewer after completing a Contest.

Talk to the interviewer after participating in the Battle Tower.

Talk to the interviewer at the Oceanic Museum.

Get all the Trainer Card stars (will be easier to do if you come back to this after completing LeafGreen and Emerald)

Beat Elite Four

Win all Master Rank Contests and Earn a Painting for Each

Get a streak of 50 in the Battle Tower (use the Emerald Battle Tower Team)

Complete Regional Pokedex

Novelty: Get Tuber Charlie on the Abandoned Ship and Aroma Lady Rose on Route 118 to walk through walls to challenge you. 

Novelty: Skip getting Dive and trade a Pokemon in that already knows it, so that Steven leaves the HM in his house in Mossdeep for you in the post-game.

Novelty: Hatch an egg in the silent room of Origin Cave

3. Beat Leaf Green

Will need Slowpoke line specifically for Pokedex in Leaf Green, and all 3 Kanto Starters, as well as Mewtwo.

If you ONLY have Leaf Green (or only one copy of a Kanto game in Gen 3), you will need to beat the story mode and post game in order to trade each Kanto starter into Hoenn before resetting for another starter.

Make sure to get both Fossil Pokemon (Omanyte and Kabuto) as well, since you can only get one per Kanto save file.

There is another objective later on the list to beat the game in Japanese to do the eReader content, so if desired your 2nd Kanto game to trade the starters and fossils to avoid resetting and playing again can be a Japanese version of the game. See objective #10.

If you have multiple Kanto games, you can reset one game for a starter, play to Viridian CIty, trade it to another Kanto game, and then reset and repeat for the other starter. Then you only need to beat one copy’s story and post game to trade out and into Hoenn.

If you don’t have access to the GameCube games, you will need to beat Gen 3’s Kanto 3 times in order to obtain all 3 roaming legends, Entei Suicune and Raikou.

One copy should be your main Kanto Gen 3 game for all completion goals for this game.

You can full odds shiny hunt in this game if desired since the RNG is properly functioning in this game.

There is no real time clock so you can’t evolve Espeon or Umbreon here.

Sub-objectives:

Watch The Wizard of Oz, or if you’re French, Taxi, Lord of the Rings and Silence of the Lambs

Catch all Pokemon in each area to work on the Pokedex as you go. One of the trainer card stars is to complete the Kanto Pokedex. You will need to either trade with another Kanto game or XD to accomplish this.

You will eventually move Pokemon back into this game to complete the National Dex after other Gen 3 games are completed.

You will need to trade for Ekans, Oddish, Psyduck, Growlithe, Shellder, Scyther, Electabuzz, Wooper, Murkrow, Quilfish, Delibird, and Skarmory

There are several trade-only evolutions as well

Catch the roaming Entei, Suicune or Raikou. These know Roar, and if they use it they will never show up again. Save before hunting. Also their IVs are bugged and stuck quite low so these are not good to use for the Battle Tower. Strategy for tracking/catching will be similar to the one used in Crystal, although now you can take advantage of Shadow Tag.

Get Mewtwo! Cerulean Cave is not open until after completing the post game quest on the Sevii Islands.

The Kanto Starter Pokemon and the Kanto Fossils are also only available in this game.

Find all items on each map: Use guides and itemfinder to find ‘em all if needed. In Kanto, returning to previous areas once HM moves are obtained is necessary. Each time a new HM move is acquired, sweep back through all previous areas to get missed items. 

Some items only spawn every 1500 steps and may not always be there, such as hidden items on Route 20, One Island’s Treasure Beach, or Three Island’s Berry Forest. These items have a chance to respawn as well after being collected.

Get the secret Lava Cookie near the SS Anne Truck - Will need to trade in a Pokemon with Cut to bypass the SS Anne until Surf is unlocked later in the game. Can then return after getting Koga’s badge and Surf around the ship to the right side where there is a hidden Lava Cookie.

Important note from ShadowMario3 via YouTube: "I do not recommend bypassing the S.S. Anne entirely if you care about completion. The reason for this is, if you skip the Rival fight there, then enter Lavender Town, the Rival in the S.S. Anne can no longer be battled. Due to this, if you have the ability to look at your save file's event flags, the Rival battle in the S.S. Anne will never be marked as completed. Luckily, in FRLG, you can enter and leave the S.S. Anne at will before talking to the Captain, so you can complete everything (Rival battle, other trainer battles, etc.) without getting Cut and leave with no issue. You still need to trade over a Pokemon with Cut, but you will be able to enter the dock later with Surf as long as you never talk to the Captain."

You can hunt for a Lucky Egg in this game, or get one in XD Gale of Darkness.

Talk to all NPCs, read all signposts, etc.

Watch all Teachy TV tutorials

Check every slot machine in the Celadon Game Corner

Return to Fuchsia City after entering the Hall of Fame to talk to Janine

Complete the Fame Checker entries for all possible characters

Make sure to return to the first 3 Sevii Islands after beating the Elite Four for new content on each

Bring a max friendship Pokemon through the Water Labyrinth on Five Island and receive a Togepi Egg. Keep this Togepi as it is required in order to get one of the Fame Checker entries.

Bring a Lemonade to the grave of Tectonix the Onix in Memorial Pillar (Five Island) in order to receive the TM for Facade

Battle all trainers in the game

Rebattle all trainers with the VS Seeker at least once.

Pickup item table differs in FireRed and LeafGreen from RS. Use a Meowth or two or six to get some easy berries, money and rare candies.

Do each in-game trade in order to collect unique Trainer IDs for the Gen 3 lotto: 

Leaf Green has Nidoran male & Nidorino, Fire Red has Nidoran female & Nidorina. Both of these sets of exclusive trades share the same trainer IDs, so it ultimately doesn’t matter which version you do them in.

Both have Mr. Mime, Luckitung, Jynx, Farfetch’d, Electrode, Tangela, and Seel

Make sure to save the Electrode trade in Cinnabar Island’s lab for a level 3 Raichu to get a low level Electrode to use in Trainer Hill.

Obtain all trainer card stars.

Defeat the Pokemon League

Jump 200 times in Jumping Minigame, collect 200 berries in Dodrio berry picking. These must be accomplished in one sitting. Will need at least one other person for Pokemon jump and at least 2 other people for berry picking. They don't have to have the game if you supply the other copies, gameboys and wireless adapters, but one person can't play well enough manning 3 games to do it alone. Must link up with other copies of FRLG advanced far enough in the game to do the Minigame or copies of Emerald that are at Mossdeep and have a Dodrio. If this is confusing, you essentially need to earn 2,000 points in each game.

Complete the Kanto Pokedex, minus Mew

Complete the National Pokedex, minus mythicals.

Obtain all trainer card stickers, awarded by the Braggart on Four Island.

Enter Hall of Fame 200 times - Visit Lorelei’s house on Four Island every 25 wins to see her room fill with Pokemon plushes

Hatch 300 Pokemon Eggs - Use Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire to move all eggs into this game to hatch until you hit this number, or just grind them out by breeding something that has a low step requirement to hatch.

Win 100 Link Battles - Back up your save data before doing this. FRLG does not have any safeguards to protect save data in the event that link battles or trades are interrupted. Make frequent backups.

Elite Four Rematches - This will happen while you are working on getting all the Trainer Card Stickers

Get a photo of your team on your Trainer Card at the Celadon Game Corner

Give the Ruby and the Sapphire to Celio to unlock trading freely between Kanto and Hoenn

Mix Berries into Powder using the Wireless Room to set a record in the house in Cerulean City, can exchange powder for vitamins. This won’t be as lucrative as doing it later in Emerald where you can grow more berries.

Complete all Trainer Tower modes in under 12 minutes (use the same team as you made for Trainer Hill)

Single mode

Double mode

Knockout mode

Mixed mode

Optional: After obtaining a Deoxys in Emerald, trade it here to change it into Attack or Defense Forme

Optional: Catch all of the Unown in Tanoby Chambers including the new ! ? Unown

Novelty: Get a Softboiled Clefable by teaching a Clefable Softboiled via the Move Tutor

Novelty: Say “Mystery Event is Exciting” to the girl at the Pewter City Pokemon Center

Novelty: Obtain multiple Nuggets from the Rocket on Nugget Bridge by losing to him

Novelty: Magikarp Size Guy on Route 12 - Catch a big one and beat the default record!

Novelty: Heracross Size Lady on Water Path (Six Island) - Catch a big one and beat the default record!

Novelty: Show Selphy in Resort Gorgeous a Pokemon enough times to receive a rare reward (non-Luxury Ball)

Optional: Use ACE or other distro methods to obtain the Mystic Ticket and set the event flag in order to travel to Navel Rock if you would like to do the event.

4. Beat Pokemon Colosseum

If you want your Ribbon Master to be shiny, hunt them in this game. First ribbon is obtained once purified (National Ribbon).

This is the only game in Gen 3 in which you can get Entei/Suicune/Raikou without their IVs being low. If you want to use one for any of your other activities in Gen 3, this is the place to get them.

This game is necessary only for Ho-Oh although it will also help you get the three Johto Starters and three roaming Legends without having to beat Emerald and FRLG multiple times.

Sub-objectives

Watch Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace & Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones

Catch all the shadow Pokemon - 48 of them

Purify all 48 shadow Pokemon

My strategy for this doesn’t involve any additional grinding: Use Espeon as your only non-Shadow Pokemon in the game (reset for +Special Attack nature). Catch all the Shadow Pokemon as you go throughout the game - save before each one and reset if you fail or knock it out to avoid having to rebattle entire areas for 2nd chances to catch later. Then add all new Shadow Pokemon to your party as you get them, and rotate them through your 2nd active battling slot with Espeon. For catching new Shadows, Noctowl and Misdreavus have Hypnosis (usable by Dakim) and Altaria has Sing (usable by Venus/Ein). Espeon can tank pretty much everything and also gets Morning Sun. Only 3 fights will require more strategy than just spamming Psychic on Espeon and occasionally wasting turns healing your sleeper.

For Dakim you will need to use Slugma, Mantine, Noctowl, Quagsire and Misdreavus in order to survive all the Earthquake spam and knock out his other Pokemon before they kill Entei. Lead with Slugma holding a quick claw and Mantine. Bubblebeam on Golem/Marshtomp first turn, Flamethrower on Metang. 1st turn the 2nd Pokemon will protect and the Metang will use Earthquake. Slugma dies 90% of the time, but if 10% Quick Claw procs it kills Metang. Send out Misdreavus. Confuse Ray on Marshtomp, Bubblebeam on Metang (or if Golem is out, Bubblebeam Golem and Confuse Metang). Next turn Bubblebeam Metang, it dies. Shadow Ball Marshtomp, it dies. Next it will be Camerupt and Entei. Bubblebeam Camerupt, Hypnosis on Entei. Quagsire, Noctowl and Espeon are there for backup. This fight is extremely predictable but bring some hyper potions and revives in case something goes awry. Noctowl has surprisingly high special def and will survive a Fire Blast.

In the final Colosseum at Realgam Tower, there are two trainers that use Dark types, Delan and Nella. For these two fights you will want to use Shadow Sneasel and Skarmory, keep them in hyper mode, and spam critical hits. These are the only two trainers in the game that Espeon can’t solo. Bring lots of heals and your tankiest purified Pokemon. Also be prepared to do these end game fights a few times if the RNG just doesn’t go your way.

Continue this strategy into the post game or trade in some level 100s from LeafGreen to continue to purify the last few mons and catch the new ones in the post game.

The alternative option is to set up a team of 6 Pokemon, usually people choose Espeon, Umbreon, a Johto starter and the three legendary Pokemon, purify them and then don’t use any Shadow Pokemon for the story. This is undeniably a more pleasant way to play this game but it will take much longer to grind 42 Pokemon at Mt. Battle after the game is over to purify them, and you will likely need to stop and grind rematches to keep 6 Pokemon caught up with the level curve in the story as well, VS only focusing on leveling Espeon and using Shadow Pokemon that can’t grow but are caught at progressively higher levels throughout the story.

Beat the game and post game content

Find all items on each map: Use guides to find ‘em all if needed. This game is a good opportunity to farm TMs for Emerald.

Eagun calls you to give you a Master Ball when you’re inside Realgam Tower, so make sure you go back and get it before you move on and fight Dioge in Dome 5.

Make sure to bring the Steel Teeth to the old man in The Under using the F-Disk in the post game in order to receive the Amulet Coin

Talk to all NPCs, read all signposts, etc.

Battle all trainers in the game

Enter and win all the Colosseums in in-game mode (different from Battle Mode, different rewards)

Clear Mt. Battle in in-game mode (different from the Battle Mode you will be doing it in for Ho-Oh, different rewards)

Before entering Pyrite Colosseum during the story, re-enter the Pyrite Building and fight your way through it a 2nd time for a secret boss battle with Mirakle B.

Return to the Pre-Gym in Phenac City after defeating Venus to battle Justy

Several trainers have rematches that are only doable at certain points in the story, so make sure to find and do all the rematches

Complete Mt. Battle in Battle Mode - Trade over the team you planned for the Colosseum Battle Modes. Register the party as your “story mode” team for Mt. Battle. Select Mt. Battle from the main menu and use this team that way to obtain Ho-Oh.

Do singles and doubles battle modes from the main menu using this team. It is most efficient to again use the Pokemon traded to Colosseum and registered as a “story mode” team, since otherwise you can’t pool your PokeCoupons between your in-game save and your GBA game

  Phenac Singles lv 50

  Phenac Doubles lv 50

  Pyrite Singles lv 50

  Pyrite Doubles lv 50

  The Under Singles lv 50

  The Under Doubles lv 50

  Orre Singles lv 50

  Orre Doubles lv 50

  Realgam Singles lv 100

  Realgam Doubles lv 100

  Orre Singles lv 100

  Orre Doubles lv 100

Save up the PokeCoupons you earn from completing all this content to purchase the 4 unique berries you can only get from the item shop in this game to trade over to Emerald - Ganlon, Selac, Petaya, and Apicot. Total required: 60,000. Trade these to your Emerald by trading them as held items on Pokemon in order to plant and grow more of these.

You can also use PokeCoupons to purchase TMs or useful Battle held items.

After you finish Pokemon Colosseum, use the Bonus disc to get a Jirachi for each of your save files.

5. Beat XD Gale of Darkness

If you want your Ribbon Master to have a unique XD Gale of Darkness move, catch them in this game. 1st ribbon for purification (National Ribbon).

This game is necessary only for Lugia but if you do not have FireRed it will fill in many other pages in your Pokedex as well and is the easiest source for a Lucky Egg in this generation.

Unlike Colosseum’s confusing system, there is no separate “Battle Mode” in this game, all content is accessed from within Story Mode. So if you’d like to use your Battle Mode team from Colosseum for this games battling content, it must be traded into the game.

You can also use PokeCoupons to purchase TMs or useful Battle held items.

Sub-objectives:

Watch Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith

Catch all the shadow Pokemon - 83 of them

Purify all 83 shadow Pokemon

In this game you can put together a team of anything you want to use and raise them like a real team with no penalty - Purification is passive and done outside the party. Hyper Mode is also replaced with Reverse Mode which isn’t helpful (no crits) so there’s no benefit to not using purified Pokemon this time.

The main gist of the passive Purification Chamber in this game is to align Pokemon so that one of their typings is technically super effective against one of the next Pokemon’s typings in the circle. To cheese this you can catch a ton of Hoppip at Pokespots since they are all technically super effective against each other (Flying > Grass). Or you can think about it for 2 seconds and move your captured Shadow Pokemon around enough to do it without catching anything extra. It’s not rocket science.

XD001 requires you to have every chamber aligned to the max purification power in order to purify it.

Beat the game and post game content

Find all items on each map: Use guides to find ‘em all if needed. This is a good opportunity to farm TMs for Emerald.

Solve a couple extra overworld puzzles - Gateon Port’s moveable catwalks, the ceiling scaffolding in Chobin’s basement, the pushable crates on the wreck of the S.S. Libra. You will need to do some areas more than once to collect all the Battle CDs.

Every so often the man on the northeast ledge in Agate will give out one berry at random

Talk to Acri at the parts shop in Gateon Port after Phenac City to get a gift

Talk to all NPCs, read all signposts, etc.

Actually read the Krane memos

Battle all trainers in the game at least once

Battle at each in-game Colosseum as they become available to you. You will be awarded a TM for clearing each round at each Colosseum

Several trainers have rematches that are only doable at certain points in the story, so make sure to find and do all the rematches

When you visit the Pre-Gym during the story, you have to exit and then re-enter in order to get Justy to actually battle you

You’ll have to respond to your Mirror B. Radar and go to his location to find him and snag his Shadow Pokemon, he will also have any Shadow Pokemon you fail to catch

You can rematch Gonzap at Snagem Hideout in the post-game, but if you lose to him the game will behave as though you had won.

Collect all Battle CDs and complete them all

50 obtainable CDs total, many of which you need to go out of your way to obtain

Rewards for beating each CD, plus 15,000 PokeCoupon reward for beating all 50

Win every Battle Bingo Board and unlock and beat the secret boards. Good source of PokeCoupons. May need to use a guide, boards have a set solution

Novice Bingo

Dragonair Card

3 Type Card

4 Type Card

Regular Bingo

Charmander Card

Pikachu Card

Rock Vs Flying Card

Expert

SOS Magikarp Card

Waterproof Card

Counter Card

Extra

Psychic Card

Special

Bonsly Card

Clear Orre Colosseum - This game’s Pokemon Stadium mode! It’s fun and difficult!

7 Rounds with 4 matches each, culminating in a boss fight against a former Cipher Admin

Each time you clear a round you win a TM

Rounds get progressively more difficult

Complete Lucky Egg sidequest, begins after defeating Luvrina in Orre Colosseum

Complete Mt. Battle

Do so 3 times in order to obtain all 3 gift Pokemon, Ancient Power Chikorita, Reversal Cyndaquil and Crunch Totodile with the signature starter moves as well, Fenzy Plant, Blast Burn and Hydro Cannon. 

Use your ribbon Master on your team to complete this challenge at least once for 2nd ribbon (Earth Ribbon)

Exclusive XD Gale of Darkness Mew Move Tutor - Use this once you have obtained a Mew (see Objective #11 for details)

Do the in-game trades for unique trainer IDs for the Gen 3 lotto: Elekid (Optional because you need to give up Tri-Attack Togepi for it which you can’t get any other way), Meditite, Shuckle, Larvitar (these three all come from Duking so you only get one unique TID)

6. Beat Emerald

If you want to see absolutely everything there is to see in Gen 3, you will need 2 copies of Emerald in English, one will be your main playthrough, the other will be played up until Lilycove for the Pokemon Center lady and then to the Battle Frontier in order to see Emerald exclusive TV shows. 

For Emerald, Prioritize IDs that when divided by 6 have a remainder of 0 or 1 for the Quiz Lady, 2 or 3 for the Favor Lady, and 4 or 5 for the Contest Lady. EG: Trainer ID 00007 divided by 6 leaves a remainder of 1, thus that ID gets the first lady that corresponds with 0 and 1.

3rd copy of Emerald is later in the run, so you will only need to get one TID for one lady in one copy and a 2nd TID in the 2nd copy.

If you do not have the GameCube games, you will need to play Emerald to the point of completing the regional dex 3 times in order to obtain the Johto starters, so a 2nd copy is useful for that as well.

If you want to use non-native Pokemon for your main play through, you can now use Pokemon Colosseum to trade them into Pokemon Emerald to bypass trade restrictions.

Sub-objectives:

Watch the movie Big, referenced on the TV in the Player’s house downstairs.

Catch all Pokemon in each area to work on the Pokedex as you go. One of the trainer card stars is to complete the Hoenn Pokedex. 

Obtain one Fossil in Mirage Tower and another in Desert Underpass in the post game, use the Scientist in Devon Corp in Rustboro to revive them.

Find all items on each map: Use guides and itemfinder to find ‘em all if needed. In Hoenn, returning to previous areas once HM moves are obtained is necessary. Each time a new HM move is acquired, sweep back through all previous areas to get missed items. 

Hoenn requires the use of Cut and Rock Smash to reach all items until the very end of the game, so if you don’t keep these in your party, you will need to make an extra pass with them to access all items.

You will also need to make passes through the region with the Mach and Acro bikes to explore every area. The Safari Zone will require visits with both bikes.

Use the itemfinder on the beach on Route 104 and behind the Pretty Petal Flowershop

Re-explore Petalburg Woods after obtaining Cut and look for all the hidden items there

Return to Granite Cave after obtaining the Mach Bike and Flash to obtain hidden items

Talk to all NPCs, read all signposts, etc.

The researcher blocking Route 102 in Oldale Town will have dialogue you can miss if you don’t talk to him before beating Brendan/May on Route 103

Fill out your Trainer Card info by talking to the NPC in the Petalburg Pokemon Center

After entering Rusturf Tunnel from the Verdanturf Town side, there is a secret area of 116 that can be accessed by going directly to the left of the entrance. Out there talk to the man looking for his glasses. Use the itemfinder or just walk around and press A until you find a hidden Blackglasses. Talk to the man again.

Return to Littleroot and talk to your mother after defeating Norman to get the Amulet Coin

Return to Rustboro’s Devon Corp after delivering the Ship parts to Captain Stern in Slateport to receive an EXP Share.

Return to Dewford Hall after obtaining the Balance Badge to receive the TM for Sludge Bomb from an NPC.

Take the Scanner from the Abandoned Ship to Captain Stern in Slateport to receive a Deepseatooth or a Deepseascale.

Take a Pokemon with 150 Friendship to the woman in the Pokemon Fan Club in Slateport to obtain the Soothe Bell

Bring a Harbor Mail (purchased at Slateport’s Pokemart) to the woman in Mauville City to obtain a Coin Case.

In Trainer Hill, there is different dialogue before and after the Hill opens (after beating the Elite Four)

Return the Meteorite to Professor Cosmo after retrieving it from Mt. Chimney to receive the Return TM.

Fossil Maniac has different dialogue before beating the game, after obtaining the national dex, and after getting a fossil.

Make sure to return to Mt. Pyre after the climax to see Maxie and Archie returning the orbs.

Make sure to talk to Scott, sleeping in the Cove Lily Motel in Lilycove before Team Aqua steals the submarine.

Return to the Pokemon Trainer Fan Club in Lilycove after entering the Hall of Fame. Also check back after winning a link battle.

Pass the Contest Lady back and forth between two copies of Emerald enough times to see the outcome of her contest. Do the best outcome, or try for all three.

During the wild weather of Kyogre/Groudon during the climax of the story, there are places that will comment on it throughout the game. Check the weather institute, Lilycove Dept Store, Mossdeep (the Space Center is closed) and Sotopolis City residents

The Slateport/Lilycove Shipyards have different dialogue before unlocking the SS Tidal and after.

Press A on the portholes in the SS Tidal to watch the ship sail from Slateport to Lilycove and then back from Lilycove to Slateport. Watch both entire routes to the end once!

Old Pokemon Center Guys and Pokemon Center Ladies

Mix Records to rotate between the 5 Old Guys in the Mauville Pokemon Center and the 3 Ladies in the LilyCove Pokemon Center (Emerald only) until you have them all. Between all your Hoenn playthroughs in this run you should have them all.

Get the Hipster enough times from other games to learn every single quick chat word. Keep passing him back until he runs out of words to teach you.

Do each of the things the Storyteller can talk about an impressive number of times so that when you mix records, he talks about you. Most of the things on his list are things you will do naturally to accomplish other objectives in the game, but you may need to go out of your way to do some of these repeatedly to get numbers worth bragging about. You can pass him back and forth between games until he has records for all of the following:

Save the game an impressive number of times

Use cut on trees an impressive number of times

Move your secret base to a new location an impressive number of times

Ride the cable car to Mt Chimney an impressive number of times

Do interviews at the contest hall/oceanic museum/pokemon fanclub/battle tower an impressive number of times

Go into the Safari Zone an impressive number of times

Bathe in the Hot Springs an impressive number of times

Try to change the trendy phrase at Dewford an impressive number of times. Does not need to be successful.

Enter contests an impressive number of times.

Win contests an impressive number of times.

Catch Pokemon by fishing an impressive number of times.

Smash an impressive number of rocks.

Catch an impressive number of Pokemon.

Heal your Pokemon at your house in Littleroot an impressive number of times.

Jump down ledges an impressive number of times.

Use the move Splash in battle at all. You may never do this without going out of your way for it.

Enter routes where rain is falling an impressive number of times.

Check the pokedex an impressive number of times.

Make an impressive number of Pokeblocks.

Watch TV an impressive number of times.

Check the clock in your room in Littleroot an impressive number of times.

Swap bikes an impressive number of times.

Use Struggle in battle at all, you may never do this without going out of your way to.

Battle all trainers in the game

In Emerald, you have the option with over half the trainers in the game to take them on individually or set them up as Double Battles. Try to do as many Double Battles as you can!

Return to Meteor Falls after E4 and battle Steven

Return to Mt. Chimney’s peak after reaching Lavardige Town in order to battle the trainers there and get the Lava Cookie.

Use trainers eyes to rematch all trainers you register at least once

Rematch the Gym leaders the maximum amount of times to battle all their teams

Rematch Wally the maximum amount of times to battle all his teams

There are two swimmers on Route 103 that are easy to miss

In Norman’s gym, go through and open the doors to all the rooms and battle all the trainers before battling Norman.

Clear all 8 levels of the Trick House (last one is unlocked after the Elite Four)

Battle all trainers on the interior floors of Mt. Pyre.

Do each in-game trade in order to collect unique Trainer IDs for the Gen 3 lotto: Seedot, Plusle, Horsea, Meowth

Get a special box wallpaper by creating a custom code for Walda in Rustboro Apartments, upstairs

Ribbon Master:

Max out the contest condition for your ribbon master by collecting and mixing certain berries with 4 players.

Win all contests with your ribbon master, obtain all special scarves and get all portraits in the art gallery.

EV train your ribbon master to get the effort ribbon.

Use your Ribbon Master in the Battle Tower for your 50 streak at levels 50 and 100 for the final ribbons in Gen 3

Obtain all trainer card stars

Beat the Elite Four

Complete the Regional Pokedex

Win all Master Rank Contests and unlock the paintings

Win all Gold Symbols in the Battle Frontier

Visit Mirage Island - This either needs to be a dedicated grind, or you will need to RNG manip for it.

Obtain all special eggs from Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire

In order to accomplish this, you will need to deposit Pokemon into Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire from all games in this run. Then withdraw them all into Emerald until every PC box is full. Make a new save file in Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire on another memory card, and deposit all of the Pokemon in your boxes. Exit and load the other memory card, fill up your PC boxes, and then deposit them into the new save on the 2nd memory card until one memory card is empty and the other is full. This will count as you depositing all the Pokemon from a single save game and will result in the following prize eggs being awarded:

False Swipe Swablu Egg - for starting a new save file

Extremespeed Zigzagoon Egg - for depositing 100

Payday Skitty Egg - for depositing 500

Surfing Pichu Egg - for depositing 1499

In addition to all the Pokemon you catch during all of these playthroughs, you may need to grind more Pokemon in order to reach 1499. Make sure to store all the leftovers from breeding for IVs and if necessary, use net balls to catch tons of low level Wurmple to fill it up.

Complete item collections:

Contest scarves, awarded for showing the Pokemon Fanclub Chairman in Slateport a Pokemon with over 200 points in each respective contest stat:

Pink scarf - Cute

Red scarf - Cool

Yellow scarf - Tough

Blue scarf - Beauty

Green scarf - Smart

All unique non-consumable held battle items

Lucky Egg will need to be traded in from XD Gale of Darkness and/or FRLG

All Secret Base Decorations 

The sculpture for earning paintings in all contest categories in Lilycove City

Battle tower trophies for 50 streak and level 100 streak

Some that you will need to trade with other games to get using the Trader NPC in the Mauville Pokemon Center and mixing records - the alternate color Tent, the Seedot doll from Ruby, and the Regi dolls from Japanese games

Glass table and chair from collecting volcanic ash in the soot sack on Route 113

The plants can be purchased from the Pretty Petal Flowershop on Route 104 after obtaining Dynamo Badge

There are 3 PokeDolls that can only be purchased with coins from the casino.

There are shops for more decorations in Slateport Marketplace, Fortree City, and Lilycove Dept Store.

You will need to wait for a rare random event TV news story for the Lilycove Dept Store sale in order to get many decorations that are only available in the rooftop store. After beating the Elite Four, each time a standard or wild battle is completed there is a 1/100 chance of it occurring.

Many decorations can only be purchased at the Battle Frontier with points, use the betting house to grind enough

All TMs

All Berries - With a live battery, farm each berry until you have 100

Figgy, Ipapa berries can only be obtained from Kiri in Sotopolis

Aguav, Mago, and Wiki berries can only be obtained from gift on Route 120 with certain Trainer ID numbers

Corn, Magost, Rabuta, Nomel berries only obtained as gifts from Berry Master or as prizes from Dodrio Berry Picking

Spelon, Pamtre, Watmel, Durin, Belue only obtained through giving specific phrases to the Berry Master’s wife, with easy chat words that are only unlocked after beating the Elite Four

Liechi Berry is only available on Mirage Island

Ganlon, Selac, Petaya and Apicot berries are only available from Colosseum/XD Pokecoupon shops

Lansat Berry gifted after obtaining all Silver Frontier Symbols

Starf Berry only obtained after obtaining all Gold Frontier Symbols

Implement the same daily berry route from the Ruby/Sapphire section to cultivate these berries

All volcanic ash items - flutes

Blue Flute

Red Flute

Yellow Flute

Black Flute

White Flute

Clear each Battle Tent as you find them. These can be cleared with in-game party Pokemon. Beat them by winning 3 battles in a row.

Slateport - Battle Factory Tent. Prize: Full Heal

Verdanturf - Battle Palace Tent. Prize: Nest Ball

Fallarbor - Battle Arena Tent. Prize: Hyper Potion

Receive all Gift Pokemon

Wynaut egg in Lavaridge Town

Castform at the Weather Institute (holds Mystic Water)

Beldum in Mossdeep after entering the Hall of Fame

Johto Starter in Professor Birch’s lab after completing the Hoenn Regional Dex

Participate in all daily/weekly events. Do each at least once, but if you want to, you can participate in all of them whenever they are occurring multiple times for true slice-of-life gameplay.

Farm Berries daily - use the berry route

Get gift berries each day from the trainers in Pretty Petal Flowershop, Lilycove, Sotopolis, Route 111, Route 114, the Berry Master’s Wife on Route 123

Enter the Lotto each day

Check for Mirage Island each day

Visit Shoal Cave at high and low tide to get all Pokemon spawns and the shell bell

Battle your Secret Base trainers once a day for Exp, only available after beating Elite Four

TV Events - Lilycove Dept Store Sale, Berry Master, Service Days at Mauville Casino, Swarms. These have a 1/100 chance of occurring every time you win a wild/standard battle after beating the Elite Four.

Check Weather Institute Daily for Mirage Cave

Go to Marine and Terra Cave to catch Kyogre and Groudon

Fully explore all optional routes

Surf north of Rustboro to Route 115 & 116 to battle hidden trainers

Explore the deeper levels of Meteor Falls after obtaining Surf and Waterfall

Surf onto Route 104, 105 & 106 south of Petalburg, exploring the whole area and finding all items and trainers there.

Surf onto Route 107, 108, & 109 east of Dewford, exploring the whole area and finding all hidden items and trainers here.

Explore the Abandoned Ship on Route 108, which requires Dive to fully explore.

After beating Norman, return to Mauville to talk to Wattson and complete the quest to shut down the generator in New Mauville

Explore Mirage Tower on Route 111, requires Mach Bike and Rock Smash, tower disappears and reappears randomly

Explore the Desert Underpass on Route 114 in the Fossil Maniac’s house after beating the Elite Four

Explore Route 123 twice, once for the northern path and once for the southern path

Fully explore all of Route 119 with the Acro Bike and Waterfall

Return to the Safari Zone after beating the Elite Four for new areas, enter with both Mach and Acro Bikes to see all areas.

Make sure to fully explore all ocean routes with the ability to dive for treasure: Routes 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131

Fully Explore Seafloor Cavern with Rock Smash/Strength

Return to Sky Pillar after the climax to catch Rayquaza with the Mach Bike

Explore Route 132 - 134 multiple times, from the top, top middle, bottom middle, and bottom routes

Make a Secret Base and show off all your rare and strange treasures. Can display 16 decorations at once.

While playing Emerald, make sure to do the following things in order to see TV programs talking about your exploits once you mix records with other games:

Change a nickname at the Name Rater in Slateport (or go to do that and then cancel changing the name)

Participate in an interview at the Pokemon Fan Club in Slateport

Make it a goal to catch many Pokemon in one day (make it an impressive number for a good story)

In one shopping trip, buy >10 but <100 of one item.

In one shopping trip, buy 100 of one item.

Give nicknames to all the Pokemon you catch.

Battle Gabby & Ty and use one move to knock out both of their Pokemon.

Talk to the interviewer after completing a Contest.

Talk to the interviewer after participating in the Battle Tower.

Talk to the interviewer at the Oceanic Museum.

Additionally, do the following things in Emerald to see them reported on TV in your other English copy of Emerald once you mix records:

Try and fail to change the Trendy Saying in Dewford Hall

Use a “not very effective” move in battle, may need to go out of your way to do this.

Have a wild encounter with a shiny Pokemon

Win the top prize from the Lilycove Dept Store lotto

Have a Pokemon with more than one ribbon on your team when you mix records

Win a link Pokemon Contest

Win a link Pokemon Battle

Do the Regi Quest after opening the secret chamber on Route 134

Crush Berries into Powder Using the Wireless room - Obtain Powder Jar from Slateport Marketplace, and then exchange Berry Powder for Vitamins

Get all Silver & Gold Battle Frontier Symbols

Battle Factory - Silver: 21, Gold: 42

Battle Arena - Silver: 28, Gold: 56

Battle Dome - Silver: 5, Gold: 10

Battle Pike - Silver: 2, Gold: 10

Battle Palace - Silver: 21, Gold: 42

Battle Pyramid - Silver: 3, Gold: 10

Battle Tower - Silver: 35, Gold: 70

At win 50, have your Ribbon Master in your party of 3 for the Ribbon, at level 50 and again at level 100

Get a streak of 100 to win the Gold Battle Tower Trophy decoration

Optional: Participate in all Battle Frontier modes in each facility: Single, Double, Multi, level 50 and Open Level in order to get records in every event in the record hall

Clear each Trainer Hill mode in under 12 minutes

Normal Mode

Variety Mode

Unique Mode

Expert Mode

Optional: Obtain PokeRus! It’s not necessary for any reason, and it may be impossible since it is very rare. But if you’ve gotten lucky enough you’ll really have 100%ed this game and it will speed up EV training.

Hunt for Feebas the old fashioned way, and then evolve it the old fashioned way. The guides all recommend Sticky Hold to increase encounter rate, but another option is to have a +SpA Synchronizer at the front of the party to ensure it’ll like Blue Pokeblocks.

Novelty: Play with irl friends and swap mail, mix records. Pokemon in the daycare holding mail will exchange mail when records are mixed.

Novelty: Don’t talk to the outdoor PokeMart Attendant in Oldale Town until you can return with a full item pouch in your bag

Novelty: Decorate your room at the player’s house in Littleroot by placing plushies

Novelty: Grind the cable car rides in order to see the Hiker and Picknicker climbing Mt. Chimney, which has a 1/64 chance of occurring.

Novelty: Beat Gabby and Ty 255 times

Novelty: Seedot and Lotad Size guys in Sotopolis - Catch a big one of both to beat the default records!

Novelty: Breed a Pichu with Volt Tackle

Novelty: Use Cut to remove all the grass at Mimic Circle

Novelty: Get a time on Cycling Road going south under 12 seconds with no collisions. See if you can get 9 seconds!

Novelty: Do Gyms out of order - Skip Brawly until after Flannery, Skip Winnona until after Juan.

Novelty: Use a Pokemon with Guts in the double battle with Steven at the Mossdeep Space Center and get Steven’s Skarmory to use Toxic on you.

Novelty: Enable Mystery Gift by entering “Mystery Event is Exciting” on the Petalburg Pokemart questionnaire

Optional: Use ACE or other distro methods to obtain the Mystic Ticket and set the event flag to obtain the Aurora Ticket. This item was distributed in the US, so it is not considered cut content for the English games, and therefore if you want to do it, you can do it in the English copy of the game.

7. Beat Pokemon Ruby or Sapphire in Japanese

You will need this game in order to participate in exclusive e-reader content and to receive prize Pokemon from Japanese Colosseum

Will work best if you reset to have the Trader in your Mauville Pokemon Center, TID ending in 4 or 5

There is also a Japanese RS-only item duplication glitch that can be useful for RNG manipulation or even just checking IVs while breeding, but that’s up to personal discretion. 

You cannot mix records directly from Japanese Ruby or Sapphire to English Emerald, need to mix with Japanese Emerald first which can then mix with English Emerald.

Sub-objectives:

Use the Japanese e-Reader and Regi Doll Promotional e-Reader card to obtain the 3 Regi-Dolls. 

Give one doll to the Trader in Mauville Pokemon Center, mix records with Japanese Emerald. Then mix Japanese Emerald with English Emerald. Then mix again from English to Japanese Emerald to send the Trader back, then once again mix from Japanese Emerald to Japanese RS. Repeat.

Obtain Celebi and other Colosseum Pokemon from Japanese Colosseum, trade to Emerald.

Battle all the trainers in the Japan Only eCard Battle Series 2.

8. Beat Japanese Colosseum

Necessary for using the Celebi Bonus disc to obtain Celebi since it requires having caught and purified all the Shadow Pokemon in the Japanese version of the game. 

Make sure to do this on a Japanese formatted memory card only.

Additionally it is possible to do exclusive Japanese eReader content in this verison

Sub-Objectives

Do it all again! Catch all the Shadow Pokemon and purify them all again!

You must meet these requirements in order to get prize Pokemon from the Japanese Colosseum Bonus disc:

Celebi - Catch and Purify all 48 Shadow Pokemon

Light Ball Pikachu - 5,000 PokeCoupons earned

Master Ball - 30,000 PokeCoupons earned

If desired, you can trade Pokemon from your other playthroughs over to make earning PokeCoupons easier, or you can just do Mt. Battle with your in-game Pokemon. The Double Battle e content rewards PokeCoupons as well.

Use the Japanese eReader to participate in Pokemon Colosseum Double Battle e card content. There are additional Shadow Pokemon you can obtain this way as well, although they do not count towards the 48 total:

Clear Panel Mode on Easy, Difficult and Hard

Catch and purify the reward for clearing Easy mode: Shadow Togepi

Catch and purify the reward for clearing Difficult mode: Shadow Mareep

Catch and purify the reward for clearing Hard mode: Shadow Scizor

Get a high streak in Endless Mode

Move all the gift and purified Shadow Pokemon into your Japanese Ruby/Sapphire game, and from there it can be traded into Emerald.

9. Beat Japanese Emerald

Japanese Emerald is less expensive than English Emerald, and having it allows you to mix records in order to get the decorations from Japanese RS to your English Emerald game. 

Use this Emerald to get the 3rd and final Pokemon Center Lady in Lilycove by Mixing Records

Use this Emerald to send the Regi Dolls to your main Emerald via the Trader via Mixing Records

Sub-Objectives:

Participate in the Japanese Battle e Emerald eReader card content if you own it.

Optional: Use ACE or other distro methods to obtain the Mystic Ticket and set the event flag to obtain Old Sea Map. This Map was never distributed in the US, so it is considered cut content in the English games. It is not cut content in the Japanese games, so if you want to do it, do it here. 

10. Beat Japanese FireRed or LeafGreen

This is only necessary for runs that include all e-Reader content, as it otherwise has no unique content from the English version and is not necessary for any other purpose.

If desired this can be your 2nd Kanto game used to obtain the starters and other exclusives like the other Fossil, so make sure to get whatever you didn’t get from Leaf Green using this copy.

Sub-objectives:

Beat the game in order to access the e-Reader content in the Sevii Isles (Seven Island)

Japanese FRLG Battle eCards:

Use the Japanese eReader cards and clear all Tower configurations and extra trainers.

The same strategies that worked in Trainer Hill for Emerald will work for Trainer Tower for fast times under 12 minutes.

You can choose to attempt it with stronger Pokemon such as your Doubles Battle Tower team for Emerald if you want it to be actually challenging to clear.

Either way this will not require additional team planning, existing Pokemon will work fine for this.

11. Complete the National Pokedex

After completing the above content, you should have every Pokemon except Deoxys and Mew. Shuffle them around between your main Emerald, Pokemon Box, and LeafGreen games in order to get all of the trainer card stars.

Deoxys and Mew can be considered fully optional because they’re mostly unattainable without glitches, outside of Virtual Console versions or homebrew distributions. You can also go get the Deoxys and Mew save data from Project Pokemon, burn it to a cart and trade it over. 

You can also use the Pomeg glitch to do ACE in order to participate in the in-game events using the tickets. It is not enough to just obtain the tickets however, you must also do ACE to activate the flags in order to travel to the islands using the tickets. It might be ideal to do this on another copy of the game than your main save file since it requires a lot of empty PC boxes and cloning Pokemon. Personally I recommend sticking to what was officially released for the most era accurate experience:

Event items with official English Distribution: Mystic Ticket, Aurora Ticket

Event items with official Japanese Distribution only: Old Sea Map

There’s also a burnable distro program on github.

There’s also options for distro programs via Wii and DS Homebrew

Optional: After you’re all done with everything, transfer Pokemon up to Gen 4

Resources/Further Reading:

Setup and supplies:

https://www.gbxcart.com/ 

An inexpensive cart/save dumper for GameBoy/GameBoy Advance games. If preferred, you can use the GameBoy Operator instead, these do the same thing. 

https://www.instructables.com/Pokemon-Sapphire-Battery-Replacement/

A walkthrough on how to replace the batteries in your cartridges.

https://github.com/megaboyexe/GBA_RTCRead

A flashable program that can reset your real time clock in Gen 3 games if you need to replace the clock battery on a game with an existing save file.

https://wii.hacks.guide/

A guide for installing Wii Homebrew, which has many utilities, among them being able to play PAL and NTSC-J GameCube games on a North American system.

https://github.com/Admiral-Fish/PokeFinder

A link to Admiral Fish’s PokeFinder, which allows you to search for and determine RNG states for the purposes of manipulation. This doesn’t interact with your cart or save data at all, you figure out the states by inputting the stats of your Pokemon, or in reverse by finding a state in the program and using a timer to narrow down the state in the game manually.

https://github.com/DasAmpharos/EonTimer/releases

A link to DasAmpharos’ EonTimer, a program that is a very precise and calibratable timer to help you land exactly on desired RNG states.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Battle_eSeries1

A list of all the cards in Pokemon Battle e: Series 1.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Battle_e_Promotional_cards

A list of all the promotional cards that exist for the eReader with in-game functionality.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Battle_e

A list of all the different series of cards that exist for the eReader with in-game functionality.

Team Planning:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_breeding#Passing_moves_down

An overview of how passing moves down through breeding works.

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon/Breeding

Another breeding guide, it covers all gens but goes over some basics that are applicable to Gen 3.

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon/Breeding

A list of the different egg groups in Gen 3 and which Pokemon are in them, as well as a more detailed explanation of move inheritance with an example. It also lists how many steps each species of Pokemon requires to hatch.

https://www.serebii.net/colosseum/pokecoupon.shtml

A list of TMs and battle items available from the PokeCoupon Shop in Pokemon Colosseum.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/ribbon_master_guide

A guide for your Ribbon Master quest in Gen 3 by Light Sanctity on Smogon including recommended Tower Teams to make getting the Battle Tower Ribbons easier.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/921905-pokemon-emerald-version/67314753

This team by ice_phoenix is the exact one I used to get 100 wins in the Battle Tower in order to earn the Secret Base trophy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npo6Q_tIe80

Video tutorial by im a blisy that explains how to abuse a glitch in Japanese Ruby & Sapphire to clone items easily in case you want to abuse glitches.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/emerald_ev_manual

Guide by Jubilee on Smogon that covers good locations to EV train in Emerald as well as a refresher on how to use the Macho Brace.

https://marriland.com/guides/ev-training/ruby-sapphire-emerald/

Another EV training guide with some alternate suggestions on good Pokemon to farm for certain stats since trying to EV train for attack on Route 121 isn’t always ideal.

https://marriland.com/guides/ev-training/firered-leafgreen/

A guide for EV training in FRLG instead, should you wish to do it there.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/bc/xd-orre

A walkthrough of Orre Colosseum in Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness by Minority Suspect that includes some team building tips and strategies. 

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/emerald-battle-frontier-guide-please-help-developing.3579762/

A thread by StoneDos95 on teams they used for each facility in the Battle Frontier. In the replies are more teams.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-iii-battle-frontier-discussion-and-records.3648697/

A comprehensive Battle Frontier thread by Valentino23, in the replies many people post teams they used to clear various facilities.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-iii-battle-frontier-discussion-and-records.3648697/page-45#post-8859661

A reply to the above thread by dgice that breaks down the various threats you can encounter in the Battle Palace, one of the more difficult Frontier facilities.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Frontier_(Generation_III)

A page on the Battle Frontier that includes a list of the Stats Judge’s evaluations and what stat totals they translate to, info on the Betting House, and which moves are available from the move tutors and for how many Battle Points.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_in-game_event_Pok%C3%A9mon_in_Pok%C3%A9mon_Ruby_and_Sapphire

List of in-game-event Pokemon in RS should you want to shiny hunt them.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_in-game_event_Pok%C3%A9mon_in_Pok%C3%A9mon_FireRed_and_LeafGreen

List of in-game-event Pokemon in FRLG should you want to shiny hunt them.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_in-game_event_Pok%C3%A9mon_in_Pok%C3%A9mon_Emerald

List of in-game-event Pokemon in Emerald should you want to shiny hunt them.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_in-game_event_Pok%C3%A9mon_in_Pok%C3%A9mon_Colosseum_and_Pok%C3%A9mon_XD

List of in-game-event Pokemon in Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Colosseum_Battle

Hub page for the Battle Modes of Pokemon Colosseum, click through to each one for more information.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/breeding_guide_part1

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/breeding_guide_part2

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/breeding_guide_part3

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/breeding_guide_part4

An extensive four part breeding guide by X-Act and Peterko. Part 1 is a very comprehensive overview of everything you need to know about breeding, including which natures do what to which stats, how to quickly estimate a Pokemon’s IVs from their level 5 stats, what the Stat Judge’s phrases translate to in terms of numbers, and what other options you have for investigating the stats of your newborn Pokemon (IV calcs, etc). It also goes over how stat inheritance works in Gen 3.

Part 2 has a table of every Pokemon in Gen 3’s level 5 stats with a neutral nature and 31 IVs in every stat, so you can look up the species of the Pokemon you are breeding and cross check it with the nature to compare. It also covers move inheritance, and Everstone and Flame Body mechanics. It includes a break down of the Egg Groups, the steps required to hatch each egg, and helpful methods for hatching.

Part 3 & 4 get more into the weeds, covering probabilities of inheritance and Hidden Powers. You can read these for even more information.

https://shinyfinder.github.io/tools/iv-to-pid/index.html

If you catch a wild shiny Pokemon, you can use this tool to determine from the wild shiny Pokemon’s exact IVs which SID you likely have.

http://www.metalkid.info/pokemon/calculators/iv.aspx

A webbased IV calculator that allows you to enter information such as Stat Judge ratings (although the phrasing is from Gen 4, you can choose one that is equivalent to what the rating was in Gen 3). Because it has these extra values, it makes it easier to determine possible IVs at level 5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5feON9zDy6g&list=PL4o9bTT3px_h08zUFb3oChEFku_jG6zyt

Im a blisy’s Gen 3 RNG manipulation tutorial playlist, with guides for every type of RNG manipulation you might want to do, in any game you might want to do it in. Everything from shiny starter Pokemon to TID manipulation to Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness manips.

https://discord.gg/fnNrjvzP

A link to join Im a blisy’s RNG help discord server, linked here with their permission. If you need help, many people in there can help with troubleshooting and setup assistance. 

https://pokemondb.net/mechanics/natures

A handy reference table for Natures, displayed in list and grid format.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-sss9giRHo

A guide by Junior on the Smeargle strategy for Trainer Hill

https://youtu.be/mXK8kIyxf7I?si=w6FQfsV0OuMibyO2&t=12289

A commentated speedrun of Trainer Tower in FRLG by Werster, using the Esphere level 3 Electrode strategy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShinyPokemon/comments/azckbp/discuss_a_guide_to_shiny_hunting_in_pokemon/

A guide by polydoregon on Reddit for how to shiny hunt in Pokemon Colosseum. 

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Shadow_Pok%C3%A9mon

A list of all Shadow Pokemon, which game they are in, and which special moves they get.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Contest_combination

A list of contest combinations in Generation 3 for each category of contest.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Move_Tutor#Generation_III

A list of all move tutors in generation 3.

https://www.serebii.net/fireredleafgreen/movetutor.shtml

https://serebii.net/emerald/movetutor.shtml

https://www.serebii.net/xd/move-tutor.shtml

Lists of move tutors by game including screenshots of where each one is to make it easier to locate them.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pickup_(Ability)#Generations_III_and_IV

The Pickup ability item tables for each game in Gen 3.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mew_Move_Tutor

Info on the bizarre Mew-only Move Tutor in XD Gale of Darkness.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonEmerald/comments/mjpjsb/most_efficient_way_to_grind_coins_in_mauville/

A winning strategy for grinding coins reliably in the Mauville Game Corner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKb-yHo0V8

A winning strategy for grinding money in Emerald. Requires Amulet Coin and Thief/Covet

https://forums.serebii.net/threads/mt-battle-ev-training.312135/

Another option for EV training using Mt. Battle by Congo Kong in the Serebii forums.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-doubles.3666831

Thread by zee on Smogon detailing the ADV Doubles meta game, but these sample teams may be good options for Orre Colosseum in XD Gale of Darkness, since it is primarily doubles based and there are not any good guides out there for Orre Colosseum team building specifically and I can’t recommend the team that I used.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/1896nfa/easiest_way_of_finding_the_lucky_egg_in_firered/

Strategy by TechnoTrainer for hunting the Lucky Egg in FRLG.

https://pokemonlp.fandom.com/wiki/Appendix:Pok%C3%A9mon_XDGaleof_Darkness_Walkthrough/Part_14

Guide to complete the Lucky Egg sidequest in XD Gale of Darkness.

Gameplay Resources:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_decorations_in_Generation_III

A list of all Secret Base decorations in RSE and how to obtain each one.

https://serebii.net/fireredleafgreen/trainercard.shtml

Trainer Card Star objectives for FireRed and LeafGreen.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Four_Island_(town)#Braggart's_House

Trainer Card Sticker objectives for FireRed and LeafGreen.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Trainer_Card_level#Emerald

Trainer Card Star objectives for Emerald.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonribbons/comments/11su8j/pok%C3%A9block_recipes_to_give_a_pok%C3%A9mon_perfect/

A 4 player PokeBlock mixing guide by peterpansexuell on Reddit that involves using rare berries such as the Liechi and eReader exclusive Nutpea to get absolutely max contest condition on one Pokemon.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonribbons/comments/11t9vo/pok%C3%A9block_recipes_for_good_conditions_for/

A 1 player PokeBlock mixing guide by peterpansexuell on Reddit that involves using easily obtained berries available in the postgame to get really good contest condition in one to three categories. Should have no problem evolving Feebas using this guide.

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/bc/battle_pyramid

A guide to how wild Pokemon work in the Battle Pyramid by Expert_Evan.

https://youtu.be/ubWRg6JnsQw

My own video about how I used RNG manipulation to beat the Battle Factory, and in the description are the resources I used to do it. The Battle Factory is similar to Challenge Cup in Pokemon Stadium 2 and is one of the two hardest facilities to beat due to it being pretty buggy and not functioning super well.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Tower_(Generation_III)

General information on the Battle Tower, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Factory_(Generation_III)

General information on the Battle Factory, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Arena

General information on the Battle Arena, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Dome

General information on the Battle Dome, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Pike

General information on the Battle Pike, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Palace

General information on the Battle Palace, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_Pyramid

General information on the Battle Pyramid, win streaks required and Frontier Brain.

These three pages will help you identify which Pokemon you are facing in the frontier, what its moves, held items, evs, abilities and natures they have:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Battle_Frontier_Pok%C3%A9mon_in_Generation_III

This first list is a list of the individual Pokemon, sorted by group, which is useful for the Battle Factory.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Battle_Frontier_Trainers_in_Generation_III/Aroma_Lady

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Battle_Frontier_Trainers_in_Generation_III

These two pages are ways you can identify which Pokemon in the pool can be used by the exact trainer you’re facing, which was incredibly useful at high streaks in the Battle Tower where you had to be super careful about every play. In the first link, click at the bottom of the page the trainer class you’re facing and narrow it down. Or on the 2nd page, search the exact name of the trainer and click on their name to be taken to their possible Pokemon.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_Eggs_from_in-game_events#Generation_III

A list of all the gift eggs within the Gen 3 games, including the gift eggs from Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire and how many Pokemon you need to deposit to obtain them. The totals are for depositing from one single save file.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Box_Ruby_%26_Sapphire#Bonus_Eggs

More info on Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire, the bonus eggs, and all the features of the game.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/In-game_trade#Generation_III

A list of all the in-game-trades in Gen 3 so you can collect all the unique Trainer IDs for the Lilycove Lotto.

https://www.serebii.net/xd/togepi.shtml

Description of the single in-game-trade in XD Gale of Darkness, in which you sacrifice a Tri-Attack Togepi for an Elekid with Cross-Chop and one more unique Trainer ID.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Trainer_Hill

General information on Trainer Hill in Emerald, including differences between the English and Japanese versions, the trainers, and the prizes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XQpw--pUog

A guide by im a blisy on how to RNG manip to make Mirage Island appear.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonribbons/comments/hw0z86/a_guide_on_how_to_hunt_mirage_island_in/

A guide boy paulydoregon on how to grind for Mirage Island the long way without any RNG manip.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-iii-pokemon-contest-discussion.3644419/

A thread by Golden Blissey, detailing some winning strategies for Pokemon Contests in Gen 3

​​https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Volcanic_ash

A page on Volcanic ash and how much you need to make each flute and the two glass secret base decorations.

https://pokemonexperte.de/smaragd/geheimwort.php?language=en

The generator for creating a PC wallpaper using Walda in Rustboro’s funny saying

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Walda

Info on Walda and which wallpaper was ever legitimately released through the Daisuki Club

https://www.perkins.org/how-the-braille-alphabet-works/

Guide for reading braille.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_items_by_pocket_in_Pok%C3%A9mon_RubySapphire,and_Emerald

A list of all the items in RSE, categorized by bag pocket.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Berry_Master#Berry_Master's_wife

Info on the Berry Master’s wife and which phrases to tell her to get which berries.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/lettfp/generation_3_feebas_guide_also_applies_to_gen_4/

Guide by flipflipshift on Reddit on the best strategy for hunting Feebas.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Berry#Generation_III_onwards

The underlying mechanics in berry growth.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Fame_Checker

A list of all the Fame Checker quotes and where to find them. Click on the sprite of the character whose quotes/quote locations you want to see.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Trick_House

A page detailing the Trick House, what the challenges are across the games, and what TMs you need to bring for each one.

https://pokemonlp.fandom.com/wiki/Appendix:Pok%C3%A9mon_Colosseum_Walkthrough/Part_1

A comprehensive walkthrough of Pokemon Colosseum which includes all rematches and when they are available. You won’t miss anything following this guide. Unfortunately I don’t know who originally wrote it or if this was copied from another site, so please let me know if you know who the author is so I can credit them.

https://pokemonlp.fandom.com/wiki/Appendix:Pok%C3%A9mon_XDGaleof_Darkness_Walkthrough

A similarly comprehensive walkthrough of XD Gale of Darkness, which includes all rematches and when they are available. Again, you’ll get 100% easily by following this guide. Info on who wrote it is welcome!

https://www.serebii.net/xd/disc/01.shtml

List of Battle CDs in XD Gale of Darkness, their locations and featured Pokemon.

https://pokemonlp.fandom.com/wiki/Appendix:Pok%C3%A9mon_XDGaleof_Darkness_Walkthrough/Battle_CDs

Another list of Battle CDs, listed by number and location, to make it easy to find them all.

https://pokemonlp.fandom.com/wiki/Appendix:Pok%C3%A9mon_XDGaleof_Darkness_Walkthrough/Battle_Bingo

If you struggle with Battle Bingo in XD, this page has the solution to each board.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/TV_Mauville

A list of all the TV programs you can get by mixing records.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Easy_chat_system#In_Generation_III

A list of all the easy chat words in the game.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_overworld_glitches_in_Generation_III#Oldale_Town_Pok%C3%A9_Mart_promotion_gift

A description of the Pokemart Attendant Glitch in Oldale Town.

Pokedex Completion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pokemonguide/comments/l0bwym/how_to_complete_your_pok%C3%A9dex_in_generation_3/

An infographic by Reddit user Poison-Powder that breaks down which Pokemon come from which games for Pokedex Completion

https://github.com/Goppier/GEN3PokemonDistributions

A flashable Event Pokemon Distribution program by Goppier that will send event Pokemon to your GBA games via link cable. Requires a burnable cart, and sends the Pokemon itself, not ticket items.

https://pokemondb.net/firered-leafgreen/exclusive

A list of which Pokemon are exclusive to FireRed and LeafGreen, categorized by which ones come from each game.

https://www.serebii.net/emerald/missing.shtml

A list of Pokemon not natively found in Emerald that would need to be traded in.

https://www.serebii.net/colosseum/pokemon.shtml

A list of all the Pokemon available in Pokemon Colosseum and where in the game you get them.

https://www.serebii.net/colosseum/ho-oh.shtml

A list of the requisites for obtaining Ho-Oh from clearing Mt. Battle in Pokemon Colosseum.

https://www.serebii.net/xd/pokemon.shtml

A list of all the Pokemon available in XD Gale of Darkness

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_other_event_distributions_in_Generation_III

A list of all the item event distributions in Gen 3 and which territories they were in.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_game-based_Pok%C3%A9mon_distributions_in_Generation_III

A list of which gift Pokemon you can obtain from which additional games in Gen 3, including bonus discs.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Roaming_Pok%C3%A9mon#Generation_III

The mechanics of how roaming Pokemon work in Gen 3, including details on the Roar glitch.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_battle_glitches_in_Generation_III#Roaming_Pok%C3%A9mon_IV_bug

The other roaming Pokemon glitch in Gen 3, the one that makes it so that their IVs are set.

https://projectpokemon.org/home/files/file/3277-pokemon-generation-iii-event-compilation-savefiles/

Downloadable save files for Gen 3 that you can flash to a Gen 3 game and trade yourself every event Pokemon ever.

https://projectpokemon.org/home/files/category/65-english/

The individual event saves in case you only want one single event mon and not all of them.

https://e-sh4rk.github.io/EmeraldACE_web/doc/IAN_Obtaining611.pdf

A guide by rileyk64 on how to use Pomeg glitch/ACE in Emerald in order to obtain event tickets AND activate the flag in the save file that makes them usable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwOIOzczs8w

A video by Sleipnir17 on how to use Pomeg glitch/ACE in FRLG. In the description are more resources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45kwOEhKbUg

A video by PapaJefe on how to use Pomeg glitch/ACE to get to Faraway Island in Japanese Emerald.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonrng/comments/owcs5m/guide_all_generation_3_mystery_event_tickets/

A guide to using NDS Phat Homebrew or Wii Homebrew to give yourself the event tickets and set the event flags easily.

This can keep you busy for at least a full year even without full odds shiny hunting. I started my own 100% run of Gen 3 in 2019 in no rush to finish and as of December 2024, writing this guide, I am still not done, although I am pretty close to the end. I took several prolonged breaks during the run due to things like the Frontier and RNG manipulation requiring much more focus and brain power than I could afford to spare. So mileage will vary depending on your own bandwidth and how strict you are about doing everything totally by the book. 

Now doing all of the above is a pretty thorough gen 3 experience, I think you may be sick to death of Gen 3 by the time you have gone out of your way to do all of this. But if you want to really live the Gen 3 life, eat sleep and breathe the games, and fully relive the Gen 3 era, here are a few extra things you can do just for the vibes:

Extra hard core additional objectives:

Play Pokemon Channel, Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red & Blue, and the early DS titles Dash & Trozei.

Get a Pokemon Mini and all of the games?? https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_mini

Enjoy other nostalgic early aughts things while you work on this, 00s anime (rewatch Pokemon The Series: Ruby & Sapphire, Advanced - Battle Frontier and movies 6-9 ), 00s movies, music, other 00s games, read the Hoenn arc of Pokemon Special Adventures, etc. Feed your inner child or if you’re a fetus that was born after the early 00s, consider it an anthropological exercise in imagining what the time period was like historically

Collect all the Gen 3 eReader TCG cards and try every minigame?? https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/E-Reader

Draw your team to commemorate your playthrough or commission an artist to do it

Take a field trip and play the game outside in nature for full immersion

UPDATES ON 12/28/24: SirToastyToes on Bluesky contributed Pokeblock recipes for max contest stats that do not require the Nutpea Berry, no longer making the Nutpea Berry a required eReader card.

LunarWingCloud on YouTube pointed out stat inheritance is bugged in Emerald so I added that info to the guide, but I still personally recommend breeding in Emerald.UPDATES ON 1/4/24: ShadowMario3 on YouTube provided some important information about how to come back to the S.S. Anne later after getting Surf without missing the rival fight on the ship, which disappears after doing the rival fight in Lavender Town.

UPDATE ON 5/16/24: Fixed a typo in the berry route for clarity and added a visualization of the Berry Route created by seacreature to the page.

kamilocastillo5816 on YouTube pointed out that for Trainer Hill/Tower, the Smeargle strategy requires that it be level 5, not level 10. It will still know Sketch at that lower level, but it is necessary to be as low a level as possible or Smeargle will not be able to KO Blissey with Dragon Rage.