A unique ROM hack that has entered the ongoing, long list of new Poke'Hacks recently is one called Pokémon Emerald Arena, a fan-made ROM hack that adds a new real-time battle experience to catching and fighting Pokémon inside the traditional Emerald experience. We covered it a couple of weeks back, and it seems like the AI-assisted developer has been hard at work making some upgrades.
The original patch was good, but certainly needs some refinement due to the obvious AI mishaps and lack of attention to detail. Germanburgardt has started refining those, polishing the bugs and odd mishaps alongside the addition of a few new features such as the ability to now catch Pokémon using Pokéballs in the Arena itself, which then adds the Pokémon to your team.
There's still only a select few Pokémon that can battle in the Arena at this moment in time; I think over 20 are available now, and the rest use the traditional Pokemon battle sequence if you use a Pokémon that isn't Arena-available yet. The four latest Pokémon added are:
- Treecko
- Grovyle
- Sceptile
- Torchic
- Combusken
- Blaziken
- Mudkip
- Marshtomp
- Swampert
Credit: German Burgardt
Germand Burgardt has also added the ability to change your Pokémon's moves on the fly, offering more ways to real-time battle. You simply bring up the menu that pauses the screen to then quickly switch between which move you have as active, which is a neat touch and one many of the community have requested.
Though, we did get in touch with German to ask if he would be willing to replace the Gen-AI visuals of the ROM hack with human-made art, and although he said he'd look at it, it still uses generated art using AI to create many of the assets in the battle arena, which, as you know, we're not fans of. So I am still hoping that he does indeed get these assets removed or changed to make this more appealing to retro gamers who don't like the theft of creatives' work. Only time will tell!
