Let's Play! Pokemon Engrish Emerald - What Do? COMPLETE

[QuentinQuonce]

Part Fifteen - Afu and Abu

Time to take on the next member of the Top Four Kings.

The room after Geyue is a dim and gloomy one, with cracked brick visible through the holes in the floor (why are those there, anyway? Someone could have an accident). But the woman in here is dressed in a strangely incongruous manner - a bright floral skirt that looks kind of Hawaiian. Takes all sorts, I guess. She introduces herself as Afu, a Ghost-type trainer, and our battle commences!

​

She opens with the bulky-looking Ghost Shalu. Well, I've got a plan to deal with that. I lead with -tT and use Grow to increase my power as it protects itself. After that, even as it uses the Curse attack to try and drain my HP, my souped-up Plot is a solid 2HKO.

She sends out another Shalu next. I get in a quick hit with Plot, but it annihilates -tT with a powerful Electro. Darn. Time to try something else. It falls to Tory to trade blows with it. Though Shalu's Electro rapidly whittles Tory down, it survives with less than 33% HP remaining, and the boosted power of its Riptide ability means that Surf is powerful enough to take it down.

Undaunted, Afu sends out her next mon, Storm. I decide Labor can take this one.

As I hoped, Storm's Shallow and Plot moves barely leave a dent. Before I KO it, though, it annoyingly uses Pray, and Labor's Air loses all of its PP. Darn. Now I've lost the most powerful move I had that could hit Ghost-types. What to do against Afu's second Storm...?

I revive -tT and send it back out, but it gets promptly KOd by Storm's powerful Spiri attack. How annoying. I switch back to Labor and manage to get an accuracy drop with Conf, but it attacks back with Volt and KOs her, too.

Only Tory can get this done, I think. I heal her back up to full HP and send her back out, and she survives a strong hit from Shallow to get a KO in return.

One foe left. Afu sends out Yamil, a tricky-looking mon I know to be both Dark and Ghost type, meaning that it has no weaknesses. I opt to stick with Tory and see what I can do. It starts to use Slip and my attacks all promptly begin to miss. Ugh, why do all the hardest battles seem to go like this...?

But it's okay. Just like always, patience is the key. Yamil starts chipping away at Tory, bringing her down to low HP, but just when I think all hope is lost, Tory connects with Surf and gets a critical hit!

Two down, two to go.

What do you mean "again"? I only met you like five minutes ago.​

Afu congratulates me for how well I get along with Mons, and graciously opens the door to the next room. I take a moment to fully heal my squad before continuing.

Woah, tonal shift. The next room is bathed in icy blue light, and blocks of solid ice can be seen on the floor below us. The lady in here is a stately-looking woman dressed in fine clothes, who introduces herself as Abu. (Abu and Afu? Wow, that must get confusing for the people who work here.) She tells me that she specialises in the use of "the freeze skill".

I'd never have guessed. Let's begin, shall we?​

She opens with the blubbery blue Seal. Given how bulky it looks, I'm expecting it to survive any hit I can throw at it, but unexpectedly LibDm's Stone attack knocks it out in one go!

But she has another one, a couple of levels more powerful, and this one does survive a hit from Stone. It counterattacks with a frosty Snow attack, and LibDm instantly faints.

Not to worry. I send out my sacrificial lamb... uh, horse... gQ- and heal LibDm while Abu restores her Seal. Time for Labor to take over, I think. It takes a chunk out of Abu's Seal with Rush, but unfortunately it responds by making it hail using... a move also called Snow. Ever more confusing.

But no Ice-type, no matter how bulky, can stand up to a powerful Steel-type like Labor for long. It takes a few tries for the splendidly inaccurate move to connect, but eventually a couple of strikes with Air send it on the way to faint town.

Abu is prepared, though, and sends out her ace mon - the big and bulky evolution of Seal, Vseal. This ain't going to go down easy, I can tell. I switch to LibDm, but I'm not intending to use Stone. Instead, I use Species and get it seeded. As expected, Vseal promptly wrecks me with Electro.

I need to stall it to get its health down. So, it's -tT's time to shine. It gets a flinch with Dream, thereby wasting a turn. I intend to attack it on the next turn, but it gets in first and KOs me. Crap, it's faster than one would assume a big fat seal to be. So we'll need Tory to slow it down. It survives a hit and manages to strike with Force, lowering Vseal's speed by one stage.

UKIP hasn't accomplished much thus far, so I think it's his time to shine. It gets in a solid hit with Shock, but Vseal uses its most wicked move - Degree - and scores a cheap and dirty one-hit KO. Crap crap crap!

Only Labor is left now. I don't trust Air to hit in a pinch, so I opt for Rush instead and finally manage to knock it out. Holy cow. That really was everyone's win.

But now my team is in tatters, and Abu still has two mons left. She sends out her next one, the big icy orb Nigul. Well, it's just a regular Ice-type - no Water. Labor can deal with this, I think confidently. But then it freezes me.

Luckily, I took my old scoutmaster's advice and came prepared. The Recovery item in my bag restores Labor's HP and cures its status condition. Fully restored, Labor strikes with Air and cleanly knocks out Nigul. Abu follows this with a second one, more powerful, but it goes the same way.

Another win in the bag! Three down - just one more to go.

Abu rather sharply tells me to move ahead, so I do just that. The last, and most powerful, member of the Top Four Kings awaits us. Let's get ready for a no-holds-barred clash next time.


Current team:
Tory the Swampert - Level 47
Labor the Aggron - Level 47
LibDM the Breloom - Level 46
UKIP the Kadabra - Level 46
-tT the Nuzleaf - Level 46
gQ- the Horsea - Level 30

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Part Sixteen - The End! Or, um, not.

We enter a deep, blood-red room, with ominous-looking spikes visible beneath us. Or maybe they're teeth, who knows? An old and rather ferocious-looking man stands in wait before us, so eager for our challenge he doesn't even bother telling us his name.

​

His name, as it turns out, is Yashi - but he wasn't lying about being tough, though.

He opens with Gaoli, a rather curious little creature unlike any Dragon - or, indeed, any mon - I've ever seen. Unusually, it protects itself rather than attack, so I take the opportunity to boost -tT's power with Grow and then strike with Plot.

However, when it does finally attack, it damn near KOs me in one hit. Enough with this. I know that Steel is defensively strong against Dragons, so I switch to Labor and shrug off its impressive Cut attacks with ease.

However, Yashi cleverly switches Gaoli out for a Hipdr. Oh darn, this thing again. I have a feeling it'll absolutely destroy Labor, so I switch gQ- in to be a meatshield while I ponder what to do next.

I figure LibDm will stand a good chance against Hipdr, so I send it out and use Species to ensure its demise. Hipdr attacks me with Surf (which, considering it also knows a Normal-type move, is really dumb) but it doesn't do enough to stave off its impending doom.

First raping a seal and now a seahorse. I really have hit rock bottom.
​

Undeterred, though, Yashi sends out his next mon - the powerful Ground-and-Dragon type Laiyi. It cuts through my team like a hot knife through butter, burning up LibDm and -tT with its powerful Fire moves.

However, I did in fact plan for this. Thanks to my little jaunt earlier, Tory knows the Ice-type Electro - Laiyi's special weakness. Laiyi's Ear does a tremendous amount of damage, but Tory - like a champ - survives the beating and responds in kind, sending Laiyi to an icy grave.

Next up is Blark. Well, we've fought this before. And it's also weak to Electro, though it manages to survive a hit. Unfortunately, it doesn't come close to KOing Tory, and a second hit from Electro finishes it off.

Gaoli comes back out, looking to finish the job from earlier. I'm ready, though, and a revived LibDm is able to swiftly knock it out.

Now we come to Yashi's final mon - the fearsomely strong-looking Mada, very obviously the final evolved form of Djima and Gaoli. It completely eviscerates LibDm - the poor thing keeps getting knocked out by everything! - but that's okay. All I needed was a little time to fully heal Tory. I send my starter mon back out, and it lets loose a devastating Electro, bringing Mada down and winning me the match.

And that's it. We've done it. All four of the Top Four Kings defeated. Am I the greatest trainer in Hoenn, or what?

Yashi concurs, telling me that I deserve the title of MON trainer. Well, it's no "top four king" but I'll take it. He adds "you are so great!" as the door behind him opens up.

​

So, I imagine through here is the party room, then? Big celebration inbound? Massive gold trophy, confetti, cocktails, lots of beautiful women in bikinis...? My mind is racing with the possibilities as I ascend one really, really, really, really, really, really, really long staircase glowing with lights. At last we make it to the top and another door.

...what. What the hell is this? No one told me I had to face another trainer! What the fuck, noooooooooo-


Current team
Tory the Swampert - Level 48
-tT the Nuzleaf - Level 46
Labor the Aggron - Level 48
UKIP the Kadabra - Level 46
LibDm the Breloom - Level 46
gQ- the Horsea - Level 30

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Part Seventeen - A Totally Expected Ending

Having defeated the Top Four Kings, I'm expecting to be hailed as champion, but there's someone here ahead of me. It's... Jianze, the guy we met in the Juexing Temple and who was so unhelpful during the whole Mumu affair.

Jianze tells me well done for getting here, then declares that we shall do battle to see the smartest strength in Fangyuan. (Is that what they're calling Hoenn? I feel like I've heard that name before but I can't think where.)

Anyway, with that said, our battle begins in earnest.

Jianze starts off by sending out the colossal blue Whale! Though I'm able to flinch it with -tT's Dream, it promptly lets loose a devastating Snow attack and annihilates me. UKIP takes a chunk out of it with Shock, but it KOs in return with Kick. Damn, this thing is strong (and way ahead of me in levels).

I use Tory's Force to slow it down while it sets up rain, but Janze shrewdly switches it out for Imon, the dancing pineapple. Hmm, well at least I got a Speed drop in on the switch. But with Grass and Water attacks, this thing is going to annihilate me. I figure I need to stall it out of rain turns, so I revive -tT while it drains Tory's health. Amazingly, Tory survives the 4x effective attack with a shred of health left, allowing me to also revive UKIP.

However, it's LibDm who gets the win, finishing it off with Stone. Whale comes back out and misses once with Snow while I revive Tory, killing LibDm with Snow the next turn. But now it's out of Snow PP! None of its other moves can put a serious dent in Tory so I make good use of the time I have and revive and restore my whole squad. Eventually, Whale wears itself down with the recoil damage from Kick and I go for broke with Rush, dropping it for the win. Two down, four to go.

Unfortunately, the poisonous squid PoAca is up next. Tory should be capable of taking this on, but I want her at full health to be certain - which means I have to sacrifice Labor. Thankfully, Tory's Force attack is super-effective and deals a merciless 2HKO, though it badly poisons her before it dies.

Dlaoc is up next. Having fought one before, I know that it's a dual Water and Ground type, and I have two Grass-types. LibDm drains its health with Eye as it fails to hit me. Finally an easy kill. We're in business now!

Unfortunately, Janze chooses this moment to send out his most powerful mon - BSmon. Knowing it's unlikely I can beat it through sheer force, I'm hoping to use Species to gradually weaken it, but it gets in first with Electro for a KO. Damn, it's fast. I need Tory to slow it down - but oh crap, Force is out of PP. I replenish as it poisons me and hit a couple of times with Force - I don't trust that only one use will make it slow enough.

That's a rather unfortunate acronym, but surprisingly apt.​

It works. LibDm gets KO'd again, but not before seeding BSmon with Species. Now it's all about that waiting game, and no-one's better at that than -tT. A quick Dream gets some chip damage and then I strike with Seed, which somehow does even less! Perhaps I should have evolved it by now, but I wanted to wait until it had learned all its moves. Ah well.

It's just Labor and UKIP left standing. What to do? I'm running low on healing items. I decide to go for broke and heal the whole squad - only Tory can stomach repeated blows from BSmon, anyway. After a few turns of rotating team members in and out, Tory is back in the game and fully healed. We seem to have ran down BSmon's PP, as it starts repeatedly healing using Self rather than attacking. So that's something. But this thing ain't going down. Any attack I can land on it won't do anywhere near half of its health. Out of concession, I start blasting away with Electro hoping for a lucky freeze. But no joy.

We trade ineffective blows back and forth, BSmon frequently restoring its own HP. I hit it so many times with Force that its speed stops lowering. It poisons me again and again, and each time I cure myself. The whole while, I can feel Jianze judging me. I'm stronger than you. Just give in and die.

Nah mate. Stubbornness is what got me here.

And sure enough... it works. Finally out of Self PP, BSmon starts frantically trying to poison me over and over. But you can't poison something already poisoned (he said, profoundly) and all the damage proves too much for it to handle.

​

That feels like it should be the end... but Janze has one mon left: Vdrag. This is one damn fearsome-looking mon, and with few weaknesses to boot.

Luckily, UKIP has one of them - it knows the Electric move Shock. It won't be enough to KO outright, though. Mercifully, it proves faster and gets in good chunk of damage before Vdrag responds with Surf, KOing it. I send out Labor and revive UKIP again - Vdrag drops it in a single hit. Okay, one more hit is all I need.

But to my dismay, UKIP's second Shock falls just short of a KO. No! That was my last Revive. What to do now? It probably outspeeds the rest of my team, and it'll annihilate most of them in a single hit.

There is something. Of course, -tT knows Dream, which will hit first. It'll likely only deal a tiny chip of damage, but it might just be enough. But if Janze heals Vdrag - I have no idea how many items the NPCs hold - it'll be for nothing. Have to risk it.

I send out -tT and use Dream, and it deals just enough damage to KO.

One to tell the grandkids: the day I beat a Gyarados with a Nuzleaf.​

Good one, -tT. It finally levels up for what feels like the first time in forever.

Gracious in defeat, Janze calls me a real mon trainer, capable of defeating even him, the Champion. The door behind him swings open, and...

...in walks Yuki. Oh god, don't tell me I have to battle YOU as well? Let's be clear, based on past experience I'm not doubting I'll win easily. I'm just tired. Please just leave me alone.

But, it turns out he's only here to offer some tips on how to beat Jianze. Ha. Listen, chump, the day I need advice from YOU is the day I retire from this series and take up golf or watercolour painting or something.

​

But Yuki quickly realises that he's too late, and I've already beaten the champion.

Then Dr Odd enters as well! Without even commenting on my splendid victory, he asks if I've completed the mon map. Oh, that. Yeah, I've been kind of neglecting that. My count stands at a rather miserable Seen: 149 and Caught: 22. Hey, what with everything going on - terrorists wreaking havoc on the nation, big green dragons swooping around everywhere - I guess you could say I've had other things on my mind.

Well, he wishes me congratulations, anyway, and tells me to go to the inner room. Jianze (who the in-game script clumsily calls Daihou in a thoroughly not-shocking goof) tells me to follow him in. But Yuki proceeds to follow us, too. Jianze reprimands him and Yuki says that he doesn't know what to say.

Well, there's a first time for everything (but hopefully not the last).

The inner room turns out to be a large chamber with a beautiful glass floor, which Jianze informs us is the place to record all the successes of a mon trainer. You mean like some kind of... hall of fame, perhaps? Nah, that'll never catch on.

Jianze registers my team and I at the machine at the back of the hall, and we are officially inducted as champions!

Congratulations, Champion Chizz! Continuously catching creatures cheerfully.
​

The credits roll, the names of designers, programmers, and concept artists reduced to indecipherable scrawls of nonsense.

​

Well, that's it. The game completed... or is it? After all, Pokemon Emerald has a famously good post-game, and while not all of it can be accessed in this build, I'm excited to explore the bits that can...

...or not, as it turns out. Because when I started the game up again after the credits, this happens:

​

I was hoping that this wouldn't happen, but it's not a shock. Yes, in this build the save data often corrupts upon reaching the Hall of Fame. Why exactly this is the case I'm unsure, but it's a risk that has to be factored in. In the past, I've made it past this point a handful of times. Occasionally, for whatever reason, the save data will remain intact and you can continue playing. But it's never guaranteed.

In any event, the Battle Frontier is inaccessible in this build without a save manipulator - for some reason, the game locks up when Scott disembarks the SS Tidal. That memory of that still makes me shudder when that sequence plays out in the official versions.

I was hoping to get my five loyal squad members off this cart, like refugees from a dying planet, and onto safe cartridge space, but that's not possible now. A moment of silence, please, for my dependable team who made it all the way with me - Tory, Labor, LibDm, UKIP, and -tT.

RIP, guys. You did great.​

This was fun, though. Emerald is one of the best titles in the series, and frankly it's only improved by this often-hilarious version. I've always been hugely interested in demos and beta versions of games, and while this game is more or less finished it's fascinating nonetheless to see which parts still needed some touching up - Carvanha's sprite, the PokeNav jingle, and the aforementioned lockup glitch.

To everyone who's followed and engaged with this thread, thank you - I hope you've enjoyed it. This has been my second challenge thread on this forum (check out my first one if you haven't already), and it's been lots of fun. I'm hoping to do another challenge run soon enough, so I hope you'll check that out when it starts.

Bye for now.

 

[SamuraiCelebi]

Congratulations on finishing this entertaining run!
I was hoping that you wouldn't see that save data corruption screen either, but at least the team completed the main story!

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Congrats on finishing the game! Too bad your save file got deleted, I know that feeling all too well...

I have read through all of your posts in this thread, this was my first time doing so for a Let's Play here on the forums. I wanted to follow this one because it seemed interesting, and because as said earlier, I have played through the game myself in the distant past. I wanted to see if reading through your playthrough of the game would make me remember things from my own playthrough of the game back in 2005. It did not really make me remember a lot, but some things at least. Notably, the language in this game. It is just so bad. I think that when I played through the game, I had a very hard time understanding pretty much everything. The combination of the game having really bad language, English not being my first language and my English skills being pretty bad back when I was 14 made it rather difficult for me to understand things in the game.

I wanted to comment on some things, using your images from earlier in the thread:

In reality, you just change shoes, but the translators changed it to clothes for some odd reason. Not sure how they screwed that up in such a weird way.

The way they worded the effects here are just plain bizarre.

It is really odd how Carvanha's sprite is distorted, while everything else seems fine (relatively speaking).

Don't know why they changed Overheat to "Super Magic Force", but it sounds really cool. Makes me wish there was an actual move with that name.

I was also surprised to see swearing and foul language in the game. I know it is a very poorly done translation, but even so, the target demographic is still children. Though I feel sad for the poor children who get to play this garbage instead of a real version of the game...

I also wanted to share one specific memory from my playthrough of the game. Don't know if you ever tried it in any of your previous playthroughs, but I remember that the fifth puzzle at Trick House was an utter pain. The reason being that the answers to the questions are just a lot of dots and stuff, similar to everything in the simple chat system. Basically this (using another one of your pictures as an example):

This, combined with the fact that the same person could ask you different questions, but the answers would seemingly be the same, made it completely luck-based to complete since one answer could be correct one time, but incorrect the next time. I remember that I got so annoyed when I did it. Not sure how many times it took before I finally managed to complete it. I was thinking about suggesting you to do it as well, but I didn't really want to make you experience that pain (again, in case you have done it before).

Once more, congrats on completing this playthrough! I can't promise I'll follow your next one in such deep detail as I did for this one (if I even end up following it at all), but I will take a look at it when you start at least.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Congrats on finishing the game! Too bad your save file got deleted, I know that feeling all too well...

I have read through all of your posts in this thread, this was my first time doing so for a Let's Play here on the forums. I wanted to follow this one because it seemed interesting, and because as said earlier, I have played through the game myself in the distant past. I wanted to see if reading through your playthrough of the game would make me remember things from my own playthrough of the game back in 2005. It did not really make me remember a lot, but some things at least. Notably, the language in this game. It is just so bad. I think that when I played through the game, I had a very hard time understanding pretty much everything. The combination of the game having really bad language, English not being my first language and my English skills being pretty bad back when I was 14 made it rather difficult for me to understand things in the game.

...

Once more, congrats on completing this playthrough! I can't promise I'll follow your next one in such deep detail as I did for this one (if I even end up following it at all), but I will take a look at it when you start at least.

Thank you! This comment makes me really happy, I'm glad it's been interesting. Given how well I know the game by now, the confusing translation isn't a problem for me, but I can imagine it was a nightmare playing this back in the day.

I wanted to comment on some things, using your images from earlier in the thread:

View attachment 342325
The way they worded the effects here are just plain bizarre.

I guess "rape the strength" does... technically speaking make sense, but... blarrrggh. It's just kind of context-ignorant more than anything else. Most of the moves do more or less make sense in terms of being loose synonyms (like Sheer Cold being called Degree, or Recover being called Self) though sometimes being a native speaker might make it easier to spot.

There are still some weird ones like Banette being called Storm, though, and a fair few Pokemon names that don't seem to be words (though might be abbreviations, like Voltorb being Thunder Ball).

View attachment 342327
It is really odd how Carvanha's sprite is distorted, while everything else seems fine (relatively speaking).

Yeah, to the best of my knowledge nothing else has this. On the rare occasion my save data lasted beyond the Hall of Fame, I've traded a few non-native species like Aerodactyl and Cyndaquil to this game and they all seem fine.

View attachment 342326
View attachment 342330
View attachment 342323
View attachment 342324
I was also surprised to see swearing and foul language in the game. I know it is a very poorly done translation, but even so, the target demographic is still children. Though I feel sad for the poor children who get to play this garbage instead of a real version of the game...

It mostly made me laugh, but then I was a very rude child.

I also wanted to share one specific memory from my playthrough of the game. Don't know if you ever tried it in any of your previous playthroughs, but I remember that the fifth puzzle at Trick House was an utter pain. The reason being that the answers to the questions are just a lot of dots and stuff, similar to everything in the simple chat system. Basically this (using another one of your pictures as an example):
View attachment 342329
This, combined with the fact that the same person could ask you different questions, but the answers would seemingly be the same, made it completely luck-based to complete since one answer could be correct one time, but incorrect the next time. I remember that I got so annoyed when I did it. Not sure how many times it took before I finally managed to complete it. I was thinking about suggesting you to do it as well, but I didn't really want to make you experience that pain (again, in case you have done it before).

Once more, congrats on completing this playthrough! I can't promise I'll follow your next one in such deep detail as I did for this one (if I even end up following it at all), but I will take a look at it when you start at least.

I actually meant to do the Trick House as I thought it'd be particularly funny, but it actually slipped my mind until around the 5th gym and by then I didn't want to rush through a bunch of challenges at once.

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[King Feraligatr]

Well, congrats on finishing this bizarre mess of a translation. You earned your victories.

On this note, are you considering LPing any other bad translations, like Vietnamese Crystal?

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Well, congrats on finishing this bizarre mess of a translation. You earned your victories.

On this note, are you considering LPing any other bad translations, like Vietnamese Crystal?

If I can find a copy I'll certainly consider it!