Pokémon Black Pearl Emerald
Hoenn's own story, replayed with eight brand-new gym leaders, an Elite Four that includes the game's own developers, a Cynthia rival fight, and wild Pokémon from every generation through nine.
More about the game
Black Pearl Emerald keeps Emerald's map and its story beats, then rebuilds almost everyone standing on it. Every gym leader and Elite Four member is new, Team Aqua and Team Magma keep their original leadership, and Cynthia — not a hometown rival — steps in as your rival across five battles from Route 103 to Victory Road. The Trick House is rebuilt between the fourth and fifth badges, and Victory Road ends in a boss rush of trainers pulled in from other regions before the Elite Four. Wild Pokémon are drawn from every generation up through nine, including regional forms, and the built-in Nuzlocke (Expert) mode marks every catchable Pokémon with an on-screen icon and enforces its dupe and shiny clauses in code. Quality-of-life changes carry through the whole run: the Old Rod and Fly are already in your bag, gym leaders hand out reusable TMs instead of a single-use one, a Pocket PC and a Picnic Table that heals your team travel with you, and EVs are removed entirely so a Pokémon's stats come from its species and level alone.
What's different, point by point
- Eight new gym leaders and an Elite Four built entirely by the creators, on top of Emerald's own map
- Cynthia as your rival, fought five times from Route 103 through Victory Road
- A rebuilt Trick House between the fourth and fifth badges, and a Victory Road boss rush before the Elite Four
- Wild Pokémon and trainer teams drawn from every generation through nine, including regional forms
- A built-in Nuzlocke (Expert) mode: an on-screen icon marks what you're allowed to catch, and the dupe and shiny clauses are enforced in code
- An optional, badge-gated level cap running from 15 up to 90
- Nine starters to choose from, not three
- Reusable TM packages from gym leaders, the Old Rod and Fly from the very start, and EVs removed entirely
Captain Cole, CD and Wake
This guide is built from Captain Cole, CD and Wake's own documentation. The game, the ideas and the work are theirs — the site just makes the numbers searchable. Play it from the official page, and send them the feedback and the thanks.
What this guide covers
Every guide here is built from the game's own documentation. Where a ROM hack changed something but never published the numbers, this says so rather than quietly filling the gap with the original game's — which would be worse than leaving it out.
| Section | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Wild Pokémon by area | From the game itself | Every wild table the game's own encounter data compiles, plus 27 stationary encounters read from the map scripts that place them. 84 areas, 338 tables in total. |
| Encounter rates | From the game itself | The game's own slot weights, added together where the same Pokémon fills more than one slot; * marks anything at 5% or less. |
| Wild levels | From the game itself | Every level range is the game's own, read from its encounter tables. |
| Stats, abilities and movesets | From the game itself | Base stats, types, abilities, level-up learnset, TM/HM and tutor compatibility, egg moves and evolution methods for every one of the 967 Pokémon the game places. |
| TM and HM compatibility | From the game itself | 250 TMs and HMs, read from the game's own list. |
| Where TMs are found | From the game itself | All 250 read from the map scripts that hand each one out, including the TM every gym leader gives for beating them. |
| Trainer and boss teams | From the game itself | 514 fights, 29 of them bosses — every one a map script actually starts, with real levels, items, abilities and movesets. |
Credits
- Pokémon Black Pearl Emerald: Captain Cole, CD and Wake
- The game's source code, which every number on these pages is read from: blackpearlemerald on GitHub
- The team's own guide spreadsheet — encounter rates, item and TM locations, evolution methods and the Nuzlocke rules: The BPE Family
- Graphics: Yogurcomins
- Cynthia's trainer sprite: Aveontrainer
- The IV viewer and the expanded starter roster: Archie
- The start-menu clock: Pawkkie
- Move info: PCG
- Additional development and testing: Mudskip, Ravepossum, Josh (shinydragonhunter), Iriv24, Alex (rainonline), Kasen, AsparagusEduardo and Devolov
- The battle engine the game runs on: Rom Hacking Hideout (pokeemerald-expansion)
- Sprites via PokéAPI; base move and TM data from PokéAPI and Bulbapedia.
Reading the tables
SourceEvery table on these pages is read from the creators' own published source code, pinned to the exact v1.0.1 release tag: species data, learnsets, moves, items, wild encounter tables with their own slot rates and levels, the full trainer roster, and the numeric level-cap table. The team's own guide spreadsheet fills in what the code doesn't spell out as plainly: encounter-rate percentages as friendly slot rates, item and TM locations, the evolution list, and the Nuzlocke rules.
Species967 Pokémon are listed: everything a wild table, a trainer, a starter pick or a stationary encounter actually places, plus everything those evolve into. The game's engine compiles Pokémon from every generation through nine; only the ones the game actually uses are shown here.
StatsEvery trainer Pokémon in the game — all of them, checked one by one — carries the same 15/15/15/15/15/15 IVs, a Quirky nature, and no EVs at all. That never changes from one Pokémon to the next, so it isn't repeated on every roster line; it's simply how every Pokémon in this game is built. Base stats, types and abilities are each species' own.
TrainersEvery trainer a map script actually starts a fight with is listed, with real levels, held items, abilities and movesets read from the source. A handful of Pokémon carry no fixed moveset in the source at all; the game picks their moves automatically from what they'd know at that level.
RivalCynthia is your rival throughout, standing in for the usual hometown rival. Her team is the same no matter which starter you picked — the game's own scripts don't branch her roster on it.
StartersNine starters are offered at the very start, not three: Treecko, Torchic, Mudkip, Honedge, Porygon, Paldean Wooper, Ralts, Eevee and Alolan Vulpix, all at Level 5.
NuzlockeThe built-in Nuzlocke (Expert) mode, in the creators' own words: an on-screen Poké Ball icon during battle marks whether that encounter is one you're allowed to catch; your starter doesn't count as your Route 101 encounter; the dupe and shiny clauses are coded in, not just requested of the player; a cave or similar area counts as one encounter with a few exceptions — Steven's Room at the end of Granite Cave, and each of the Trick House's eight rooms and Victory Road's three floors, all count separately. The creators suggest registering the Picnic Basket so you can heal anywhere. The creators mark this page a work in progress on their own sheet.
CapsThe level cap is optional and badge-gated: 15 with no badges, then 24/33/42/51/60/69/78 as you earn each badge, and 90 once you hold all eight. It only limits how far your own team can grow.
Legendaries27 stationary Pokémon — legendaries and a few others — are placed by the game's own scripts, not by a table anywhere in the creators' documentation; their own guide sheet says plainly that everything on its legendary list spawns only after your eighth badge, which is shown here as their requirement.
TMs250 TMs and HMs, every one of them with a location read straight from the game's own scripts — gym leaders each hand out a TM for beating them, on top of what's sold or found lying around.
ModesStandard and Nuzlocke (Expert) mode don't change what any trainer carries — only which wild Pokémon the game lets you keep. So there's no mode switch on the trainer pages; Nuzlocke's rules are written out above instead.