Pokémon Emerald Rule-ette
The original Emerald's own story and map, with one twist: every trainer battle rolls one or more of 26 random rules, and breaking one costs you HP.
More about the game
Emerald Rule-ette keeps Pokémon Emerald's story, map and Pokédex exactly as they are — Roxanne through Juan, Team Aqua and Team Magma, the Elite Four, Champion Steven — and builds a whole new challenge on top of it: the Battle Rule System. Every trainer fight rolls one or more of 26 possible rules at random, from a banned type or move category to a permanent Trick Room, an always-on Perish Count, or every one of your moves dropping to 1PP. Break the active rule and your Pokémon takes damage for it, so half the fight is figuring out what you're not allowed to do before it costs you. Two ready-made presets set the tone: Mystery Mode hides the rule and only docks half your Pokémon's HP per violation, while Mastery Mode shows you all three rules running at once and takes the whole HP bar for a mistake. Underneath the rules sit hard, badge-gated level caps enforced from the moment you leave Littleroot, and an option to swap every Gym Leader, Elite Four member and the Champion's team for a tougher, competitively built one. A built-in Nuzlocke mode adds permadeath, a dupe clause, a met-location clause and a bag lockout in battle, and a quick-access menu handles healing, PC access, move reminders and levelling without leaving the field. The game is built on pokeemerald-expansion, so the Pokémon data on these pages — stats, types, abilities and learnsets — is the engine's own current-generation values, not the original Emerald's 2004 originals; Rule-ette itself does not touch any of it.
What's different, point by point
- A Battle Rule System: every trainer battle rolls one or more of 26 possible rules at random — banned types and moves, no critical hits, a permanent Trick Room, an always-on Perish Count and more
- Breaking the active rule costs your Pokémon HP, and which rule is active is never fixed to a trainer — it is different every time you fight them
- Mystery Mode (a single hidden rule, half damage) and Mastery Mode (three known rules at once, full damage) as ready-made presets, or mix your own settings
- Hard, badge-gated level caps in effect from before the first gym, the same numbers the creator's own level-cap sheet lists
- An option to give every Gym Leader, Elite Four member and the Champion a tougher, competitively built team
- Gym Leaders can be rematched at their own gym after the Elite Four, for a string of progressively harder teams
- A built-in Nuzlocke mode: permadeath, a dupe clause, a met-location clause and no bag use in trainer battles
- Keeps Emerald's own story, map and Pokédex — Brawly's badge is mandatory, and Champion Steven stands in for Wallace
- Reusable TMs, a battle speed-up option, and a quick-access menu for healing, the PC, move reminders and levelling
- Built on pokeemerald-expansion, so abilities, moves and Pokémon data reflect the engine's current generation, not Emerald's 2004 originals
wiz1989
This guide is built from wiz1989'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 in the game, by area and method, read from the game's own encounter file. |
| Encounter rates | From the game itself | Slot percentages are the game's own, and cover every table. |
| Wild levels | From the game itself | Level ranges are the game's own, per slot. |
| Stats, abilities and movesets | From the game itself | Types, base stats, abilities, level-up moves, egg moves, TM and HM compatibility and evolution methods for every Pokémon this game's own tables use — the engine's current-generation data, not Emerald's originals (see the notes below). |
| TM and HM compatibility | From the game itself | All TMs and HMs the game ships, with what each teaches and which Pokémon can learn it. |
| Where TMs are found | From the game itself | Every TM and HM location comes straight from the game's own maps. |
| Trainer and boss teams | From the game itself | Rosters are complete for every fight the maps place — species, level, held item, ability and four moves — on both the Normal and Hard boss settings, plus the Gym Leaders' post-Elite-Four rematch chain. |
Credits
- Pokémon Emerald Rule-ette — implementation and creative lead: wiz1989
- The original idea for the Battle Rule System: Astroid Videos
- The game's source, which every number on these pages is read from: wiz1989
- The battle speed-up option: Pokabbie
- Isolating the battle speed-up option so it could be added: Rain
- Field move usage and the multi-page options menu: devolov
- The dual-mode bike: Lunos
- Levelling up a whole box at once from the quick-access menu: Hedara
- Title screen design: magdraws
- Title screen text: Shachar
- The trainer spreadsheet template, adapted from Inclement Emerald: howlingstarr
- Testing: Phantonomy, regrt.exe, Kithri, uvula and hunarpg
- Special thanks: DizzyEggg, Rain, Jamie and the Team Aqua Hideout community
- Porymap, the map editor: GriffinR and contributors
- pokeemerald-expansion, the battle, Pokémon and item engine: Rom Hacking Hideout
- pokeemerald, the Emerald decompilation the game is built on: the pret team
- Sprites via PokéAPI; base move and TM data from PokéAPI and Bulbapedia.
Reading the tables
RulesThis game's whole point is its 26 Battle Rules. Which one applies is rolled at random for every trainer battle, so no trainer's page can list it; all 26 are described, with what each one forbids, on the page of everything this game changes.
DifficultyMystery Mode is the game's original idea: you're never told which rule is active, and a violation costs half your Pokémon's HP. Mastery Mode runs three rules at once, tells you all three up front, and a violation costs the whole HP bar. Both are presets for a longer options menu — reveal the rule after a violation, announce every active rule at the start of a fight, run more than one rule at once, and more — so a reader can mix a harder or gentler run than either preset. Separately, the "Gym Leaders/E4+" option swaps every boss's team for a tougher, competitively built one; both versions of every boss fight are on this site, labelled Normal and Hard.
CapsLevels are capped by badge, enforced from the very start: Level 5 before you even approach your rival for the first time, 15 once you have, 19 after the first badge, 24 after the second, 29 after the third, 31 after the fourth, 33 after the fifth, 42 after the sixth, 46 after the seventh, and 58 once you hold all eight, until the postgame lifts the cap entirely.
RematchesEvery Gym Leader can be rematched at their own gym once you've been through the Elite Four, for a team pulled from one of four progressively harder tiers. Which tier you actually get depends on how strong your own party is when you walk back in, so all four are on this site, in order, alongside the original fight.
NuzlockeA built-in Nuzlocke mode is one of the four options pages: permadeath, no bag use in trainer battles, a dupe clause and a met-location clause, plus automatic skipping of a dupe or already-caught encounter on a map so you're not stuck grinding for the one slot you can still use.
StoryThe story, map and Pokédex are the original Emerald's own, with a handful of named changes: Brawly's badge is mandatory before Mr. Briney will sail you off Dewford, the first rival fight is a tutorial battle, and Champion Steven stands in for Wallace at the end of the Elite Four. Many trainers were repositioned on the map to close off optional fights, so a battle's place in this guide's story order is read from where the game actually puts it now.
SpeciesThis game is built on pokeemerald-expansion and does not touch the Pokémon data itself, so the stats, types, abilities and learnsets on these pages are the engine's own current-generation values — the physical/special split, modern abilities and the rest — not the original Emerald's 2004 originals. The wild tables add a scattering of Generation 4 and 5 Pokémon to routes and cities on top of Emerald's own roster.
TrainersRosters are complete for every fight the game's maps place — species, level, held item, ability and four moves — on both difficulty settings. Natures are always randomised by the game itself rather than fixed, so none is listed; where a trainer's Pokémon carries IVs other than the default 31 across the board, they're shown beside it.
TMsTMs are reusable in this game. Locations are read from the game's own maps; a small number of TM slots were changed from the original Emerald's, so check the move before assuming an old TM number still teaches the same thing.
EncountersWild tables carry no day-or-night split in this build — one table per method, per area.