What Pokémon Spirits of the Storm changes
How the game plays differently from Pokémon Emerald, then what it does to the Pokémon.
How the game plays
Spirits of the Storm is a bite-sized, story-first double-battle hack built on pokeemerald-expansion. You play Looker, partnered with Anabel, investigating a mystery in the port city of Porta Bella and its forest — a few hours long, winner of the TARC 2 hack jam. There is no tall grass to search and no TM economy: Looker starts with a handful of Pokémon and no Poké Balls, then builds a team by helping the townsfolk through 25 main and side quests plus four secret quests and a final secret, unlocking moves, items and abilities as the story moves forward. Every named trainer in the game — 39 fights — is a double battle, and every one of those fights is documented twice: once for Hard mode's full natures and EV spreads, once for Normal mode, where every trainer is locked to a Serious nature with no EVs. A new "Turn Preview" screen shows the opponents' speed order and their chosen move and target before you act, the AI is tuned to punish a bad matchup and go for the kill, and every move's PP is rescaled to between 1 and 10 for the whole game, with a full heal after every fight.
The main changes
- Every trainer fight is a double battle — 39 named trainers, each documented twice (135 Pokémon on Hard, 114 on Normal)
- No wild routes: your team comes from 22 catchable and 50 story-gift Pokémon, each with a full build — item, ability, nature, EVs and move pool
- One 9-species wild table exists, and the documentation marks it uncatchable — those Pokémon are wild battle opponents only
- No TM system — moves unlock through story progress instead, and the documentation's move list (PP, power, accuracy, effect) stands in for a TM table
- "Turn Preview": hold L or R in battle to see every Pokémon's speed order and the opponent's chosen move and target before you commit
- PP is rescaled per move to between 1 and 10 for the whole game, and you're fully healed after every battle
- 25 main and side quests plus 4 secret quests and a final secret, all spoiler-free in the creators' own walkthrough
- Winner of the TARC 2 hack jam; built on pokeemerald-expansion
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.