What Pokémon Crippling Medical Debt Edition changes
How the game plays differently from Pokémon Emerald, then what it does to the Pokémon.
How the game plays
Crippling Medical Debt Edition opens with a truck accident, an uninsured trainer and a bill, and sends you at the Pokémon League to pay it off. Underneath the joke is a long, carefully built game: a rewritten story on a rebuilt Hoenn with four areas of its own — Vulcanus, Fulgora, Aquilo and Gleba — eight gym leaders who are not the ones you remember, and a Pokédex that runs the whole way to Pecharunt at #1025, with Mega Evolution available. Battles play by Generation 9 rules. The difficulty sits above a normal game and below a Kaizo hack: soft level caps and Set battle style are the defaults, and both can be changed, along with four settings for how hard the experience cap bites. Nuzlocke runs are expected rather than tolerated, with a whole conveniences menu for them. gmars built it alone over about two years, and published a documentation spreadsheet that every number on these pages is read from.
Soft level caps, and the four experience settings
The game caps how far ahead of the next big fight you can get, and lets you decide how strictly. Soft is the intended setting and allows a little overshoot. Hard stops you levelling past a gym leader or story battle at all. No Cap removes the penalty. EZ is No Cap with a 30% bonus to experience on top.
The creator never published the cap numbers themselves. The caps this guide shows are read off the gym leaders' own teams in the trainer log: 15, 22, 29, 36, 43, 50, 57 and 64 through the eight badges, then 68 to 71 across the Elite Four. That is the level of the strongest Pokémon you are about to face, not a number the game stores.
The Champion builds his team out of yours
The Elite Four are scouting for him. Every species you send out against them is recorded, along with the moves you use and any ability that visibly triggers — Levitate shows itself, Rough Skin only counts if it actually fires. Four moves are kept per Pokémon, and an evolution merges with its pre-evolution if you are not carrying both.
The Champion then picks six from a pool of about 500 sets, scoring each one against what was scouted: super-effective coverage, resistances, whether your team leans physically or specially bulky, a counter to whatever weather you set, common answers from competitive usage statistics, an answer to setup moves, an answer to sleep, and Trick Room or slow attackers if four or more of your team are fast. Orville also tells him what you led with, so the lead is picked to match.
That is why this guide has no team for him. The roster in the creator's own documentation is six question marks, and there is no honest way to print it. The scout data is wiped if you lose to the Elite Four, or once you enter the Hall of Fame.
Mega Evolution, and what the documentation does not say about it
Mega Evolution is in the game, minus the Megas introduced in Legends Z-A. The creator never published a list of which Pokémon have one, or what a Mega form's stats, types or ability become, so this guide does not have that list either.
What is published is where the machinery is. A person at the Mega Stone Factory hands over the Mega Ring, and another gives you a Mega Stone of your choice, repeatable — so the stone for whatever you are using is obtainable rather than hunted. Doing the factory's job perfectly also earns a choice of Choice item. The Elite Four use Megas themselves: Burton's Venusaur holds a Venusaurite and Mike's Alakazam holds an Alakazite, and those are on their pages like any other held item.
Secret codes
Twenty-three four-word passphrases, each unlocked by a Pokédex caught total from 25 upwards, open one of the game's areas and hand over a Pokémon or an item — Alcremie at 25 caught, Guzzlord at 50, Hoopa at 75, Jirachi at 100, and so on. The full list is in the creator's documentation spreadsheet, which is linked in the Made by card; it is a spoiler list by its nature, so this guide leaves it there.
One area in the encounter tables here is called Secret Area because the documentation never names it. It holds a standing Arceus, and a code is what gets you in.
What the game does so you do not have to
TMs are reusable. You never teach a Pokémon an HM to use it in the overworld: Flash fires by itself in dark places once you have the right badge, and Fly works with any Pokémon that could learn it once you have the HM and the badge — and if you have none of those, a different fast-travel option opens before the third gym.
The bag has no limit and sorts on Start. The Pokédex shows every Pokémon's evolution method and moveset and opens straight from the party menu. Pokémon relearn their level-up moves from the party menu and can be renicknamed there. Escape Rope never runs out. Repels work on anything up to seven levels above your lead. A key item heals your party four times between Pokémon Centers. Sleeping in your own bed changes the time of day.
No evolution needs a trade. Hyper Training fixes IVs, Mints change natures, and EVs and IVs are on the summary screen under L and R. Moves whose type changes, like Hidden Power, show what they actually are.
From the creator's own documentation spreadsheet and the game's release page.
The main changes
- Every Pokémon through Pecharunt, #1 to #1025, with the level-up, TM, tutor and egg moves and evolution methods for all 1,117 entries
- A rewritten story on a rebuilt Hoenn, plus four areas of its own: Vulcanus, Fulgora, Aquilo and Gleba
- Eight new gym leaders, four new Elite Four members and a Champion who builds his team out of yours
- Mega Evolution, minus the Megas introduced in Legends Z-A
- Soft level caps on by default, with four settings for the experience cap: Soft, Hard, No Cap and EZ
- Set battle style by default, changeable in the options
- A Nuzlocke Conveniences menu you can switch on for challenge runs
- TMs with unlimited uses, and HMs you never have to teach a Pokémon to use in the overworld
- Unlimited bag space, unlimited Escape Rope, EVs and IVs on the summary screen, Hyper Training and Mints
- Twenty-three secret codes that open an area and hand over a Pokémon or an item, unlocked by how much of the Pokédex you have caught
How the Pokémon change
This game's documentation doesn't publish base stats, so there is nothing here to set beside the official numbers. What it does publish is elsewhere: movesets, encounters and trainer teams.