Quick Overview:
Emerald Azure is a rom hack for Pokémon Emerald. Emerald Azure brings an entirely new story for you to enjoy. There are new locations, NPCs, and gyms. Emerald Azure is also difficulty-focused. The Rom Hack uses the Radical Red dex as a base (all stat changes, abilities, movepools, etc, from the Radical Red dex are present here). The Rom Hack also currently contains 109 variant forms (counting all evolutions), 9 new Eeveelutions, 26 new Mega Evolutions, along with a plethora of custom signature moves for the new variants. You can find more information further down. The download link can also be found below.
Last Update:
1/9/26
(View the changelog for details. The Download links have been updated.)
Story Overview
Without spoiling the story... here is a little introduction to what you can expect! I'm being vague with this to avoid my story plans being spoiled since I want the story of the rom to be part of the experience.
All sorts ofevil organizations have arrived in Hoenn! Team Rocket, Team Plasma, Team Galactic, and more! A few of these groups have allied with one another to achieve... something! Rumors have risen that this plan has something to do with Darkrai and Cresselia, who have become corrupted and taken on a new form. Oh... and Team Aqua and Magma are involved, of course. Team Skull is also lurking about.
All sorts of
All Features:
- New Story (Currently up to Gym 5) [Rustboro, Woody Woods, South Dewford, Dewford, Slateport City gyms]
(The story ends after the Aqua grunt fights in Slateport for now)
- New Gyms & New Locations
- Difficulty (Like Radical Red)
- Unique Enemy AI
- Level Cap Progression
- 109 Variant Pokémon Forms
- 9 Eeveelutions
- 26 New Mega Evolutions
- Radical Red Dex as a base (Buffs & changes)
- Gen 1-9
- New Signature Moves
- New Signature Abilities for variant form Pokémon
- Overworld Static Encounters
- Optional Bosses (with rewards) [Some of them are tricky to find!]
- EV / IV Allocation from anywhere!
- Infinite Candy to get your Pokémon to the level cap!
- Emerald Expansion features (following pokemon, sleep clause, type icons, move effectiveness, etc)
- And so much more!
Discord:
https://discord.gg/NfBcTjQFGD
Updates and feature previews will be announced on Discord before any updates are posted here. Discord is the main source for information on the rom-hack's development. You can also make suggestions there or help test upcoming updates.
Screenshots:
Keep in mind this is a work in progress project. Content shown is subject to change.
Help Wanted:
Recruitment to join the team is open for the following positions:
- Testers: Test out the game and find bugs. Also provide suggestions and insight on how to strengthen the overall gameplay.
- Artists: Design variant sprites, design overworld sprites, and trainer art, etc.
- Audio: Create music! As well as sound effects.
- Writers: Assist with story development and plot progression
- Mappers: Help plan out new locations, static encounters, etc.
Reach out to me through this project's Discord if you would like to assist.
I am also interested in feedback! Do you enjoy the ROM? Do you hate the ROM? Let me know!
Difficulty Disclaimer:
I loved playing Radical Red's Hardcore mode, and I loved playing Emerald Imperium. So... you can expect this rom hack to be difficult, but it will be fair. Enemy teams will not use legendary or mythical Pokémon unless there is a story-relevant reason for them to have that Pokémon. All gym leaders will follow a specific theme and will not contain random off-types. For example, Rustboro's gym uses Rock & Ground types. South Dewford's team is entirely Dark type. Dewford's gym is entirely fighting type. Wattson's gym will be Electric Steel themed (race-car theme), and so on.
All trainers have EV-trained Pokémon. You have access to stat-editing, so you are expected to assign EVs to your Pokémon. All trainers (with custom teams, which is 90% of them) have smart AI. Their Pokémon will also be at the level cap (this isn't the case for all trainers in the first few zones, to help ease the player in)
A few general difficulty points:
All trainers have EV-trained Pokémon. You have access to stat-editing, so you are expected to assign EVs to your Pokémon. All trainers (with custom teams, which is 90% of them) have smart AI. Their Pokémon will also be at the level cap (this isn't the case for all trainers in the first few zones, to help ease the player in)
A few general difficulty points:
- Trainers (both enemy and you) can not use healing items (like potions) in trainer battles
- Set battle mode is forced
- The Enemy AI will never cheat and know what Pokémon you are switching into. The enemy DOES know your entire Pokemon team, so it can make smart predictions. It'll never know 100% though.
- Enemy trainers will have access to TM, Tutor, and Egg moves. I keep this to a reasonable amount early on. The player also has a good amount of TMs they can find early on to help counter this.
Nuzlocking:
- I've designed the game with Nuzlocke challenges in mind. I currently do not have a Nuzlocke Mode to enable or anything, but you can self-enforce the rules if you would like. One of my play testers will ONLY play through self-enforcement of nuzlocke rules, so I've designed the game with this style of play in mind. There are static encounters you can find early-game, as well as patches of grass in places that normally wouldn't have it. (You'll definitely need the increased encounter options if you do a Nuzlocke challenge)
Known Bugs:
These will be fixed with the next update:
- Doubles Battles can soft lock. It is rare, and I am not quite sure what causes it. I fixed the majority of these cases but it is possible it may still soft-lock under rare conditions. I am not able to replicate the bug, but I would suggest saving before double battles.
- Exiting the Stat Edit UI will take you to the Start Menu UI.
- Stat Edit UI doesn't show what buttons do what. (L and R will cycle party mons)
- Various AZ variants need to have their battle sprites polished. The same goes for a few trainer battle sprites.
Download:
- Base Emerald Patch Download (patch file for base Emerald roms)
- Trashman's Rom Version (Patch file if you use Trashman's Emerald rom)
(You can get early access to updates through the Discord)
Typing "Pokémon Rom Patcher" into Google will bring up a website you can use to do this.
Changelog:
1/9/26
- AI upgrades to make the AI perform better.
AI thinks about status effects / setup states and plans around them better. AI thinks about item/ability procs (Focus sash, gems, orb activation) and how to plan around them. This changes the turn score when evaluating a line to chose, it will value multi-hit moves more to break focus-sash for example. AI switch logic upgraded.
(Note that the AI upgrades will cause a bit of lag at the end of each battle turn. I suggest using the speed-up button for this part of battle. It's about a 20second delay while the AI thinks about its next turn)
- Fixed location tags for South Dewford & Dewford Cave
12/27/25
- Demo Release (Yay!)
- Looker's Post Sewer Quest dialogue updated + a reward given
- New overworld NPC sprites added for various characters
- Custom music added to South Dewford (and interiors)
- Custom music added for when you battle Jerry
- Custom music added for when you battle Roxane's gym
- Custom music added for Fennel's gym
- Custom music added when battling Nyhehe
- Custom music added in Rocket Cave
- Custom music added when fighting gym leader Mars
- Custom music added inside of the South Dewford Gym
- New Tileset added
- Added Triple Layer Metatiles (code by smithk200)
- Rustboro Sewers layout updated
- Custom music added to Rustboro Sewers
- Petalburg Woods edited
- Woody Woods added
- AI upgrades to make the AI perform better.
AI thinks about status effects / setup states and plans around them better. AI thinks about item/ability procs (Focus sash, gems, orb activation) and how to plan around them. This changes the turn score when evaluating a line to chose, it will value multi-hit moves more to break focus-sash for example. AI switch logic upgraded.
(Note that the AI upgrades will cause a bit of lag at the end of each battle turn. I suggest using the speed-up button for this part of battle. It's about a 20second delay while the AI thinks about its next turn)
- Custom music added to Littleroot
- Reduced Dwayne's team from level 65 to 36 in the seashore house (oops)
- Custom item, Sweet Treat, added. (Held item consumable. Heals 1/4th HP and gives +1 defense.)
- Door animations fixed for the ORAS animations (Thanks Leob050)
- Static Morelull encounter added, can you find it?
- New battle background added for the new zone (this took 10+ hours of working through crashes and bugs!)
- Various overworld palette fixes for NPCs
- Minor battle UI updates
- Optional Boss Battle added in WoodyWoods. Winning gets some nice rewards
- Added in 'quiz' NPCs for the 2nd gym 'puzzle'.
- New Battle Background for Gym Battles (this time it was easier to add!)
- Redesigned my original Woody Woods layout. Added a poke-center, Poke-mart, and a new house.
- Static Chatot encounter added. (Can you find it?)
- Additional Move Tutor NPC added.
- Overworld Map updated to include Woody Woods.
- New Pokemon Center tileset added (used in Woody Woods & South Dewford)
- Special Pokemon sidequest added. Starts in Woody Woods.
- Additional battle AI tweaks to try and combat the lag (It didn't help too much D:)
- Pokemart Vendor in Woody Woods sells two TMs
- Nyehehe added to WoodyWoods Mart
- Petalburg Woods tile fix
- More Overworld Sprite fixes
- Emulation VRAM Corruption issue fixed
- Fixed the follower pokemon getting stuck in Littleroot Town during the tutorial sequence
- Fixed rival dialogue overlapping in Rustboro City
- Level of wild pokemon raised on various routes to match level-cap
- Various encounter pool updates on different routes
- Pokemon Center added to South Dewford (and fixed the tiles for the roof)
- South Dewford redesigned
- Region Map updated, South Dewford now appears on it (and has a town dot)
- Fishing encounters added to South Dewford
- Fixed location names for South Dewford interiors
- Trainers on route 110 now have Pokémon parties. (One of them gives you a mega-stone when defeated)
- Collision fixed for the locked house in LittleRoot
- Dialogue fix for the secret shop vendor in LittleRoot
- Team Rocket (Jessie, James Meowth) added to Route 102
- Softlock fixed when going to switch pokemon in a double battle and canceling the switch (this took forever)
- Egg Wonder Trade & Normal Wonder Trade code added - not used yet though
- Trade NPC added to South Dewford
- New Music added to the Ghost Room in Petalburg
- A new (another) location has been attached to Petalburg Woods. There is a strong trainer waiting within but the encounter pool is very strong.
- Team Rocket (Jessie, James, Meowth) added to Woody Woods
- Intro cutscene added
- new Stat Edit UI
- New Party Screen UI
- New Title Screen UI
- Looker Quest #1 created in the Sewer Access building (Work in progress)
- Jerry's dialogue in Petalburg Woods has been updated. He no longer talks about Kanto instead of Hoenn (woops)
- Fixed the location tag in Rustboro Sewers
- Fixed location tags for South Dewford & Dewford Cave
12/27/25
- Updated Jerry's overworld and trainer sprites
- Added in a new recurring character.
- Modified how overworld sprites have their palettes assigned to better support additional custom NPCs.
- Weedle-az can no longer be found in Littleroot Town (This was from the previous update but forgot to note it). Beedril-az is too overpowered in the early game, having it in the encounter pool was a leftover bit from testing if variant sprites loaded correctly during wild encounters.
- Brawly has unique dialogue when first interacting with him.
- Fixed Jerry's text in the starter-select room. Part of his dialogue was not fully displaying properly.
- Defeating Brawly raises the level cap to 36.
- A new character appears in Dewford Town with story dialogue and a very difficult battle. Only appears after Brawly is defeated.
- Added custom parties to 3 trainers inside of Dewford Gym
- Added a trade NPC in Dewford Town (They want a Luxray in exchange for Mawile)
- Jerry has been added to Dewford Town (Battle + Dialogue)
- Granite Cave no longer requires FLASH to see, since you are required to go there BEFORE the gym.
- Route 109 trainers have unique teams
- Added in Sage Power ability (from Radical Red).
- The house on route 109 has unique trainer teams. If you beat them all you get the usual reward + a TM (and something special)
- Added in more missing RR abilities (Bad Company, Oraorao, raging boxer)
- Double checked every pokemon to make sure they have correct abilities assigned (some didn't). Fixed that
- Shiny Token item created. Use it to turn a pokemon shiny. One time use.
- Rustboro Sewers location added (Work in progress location, but you can find some pokemon there)
- Added in various new trainer sprites for usage
- Updated Granite Cave encounters to give some stronger pokemon (each level has its own encounter pool)
- Route 110 Encounters updated
- Slateport encounters updated
- Added Pryce into Slateport. He is a boss battle. Defeating him gives you some really useful TMs to help with the Slateport Gym. You can only challenge him if you have not yet beaten the Slateport Gym
- Slateport City Gym added.
- Lapras variant added
- Added a blocker in Slateport that will prevent you from starting the museum quest until after the Slateport Gym has been defeated.
- Fixed mega Tsareena's battle sprites
- Added a level cap rise after Slateport Gym
- Mega Glalie and Mega Froslass battle sprites fixed (AZ variants)
- New minor NPCs added to Slateport
- Updated Aqua Grunt teams in the Museum
- Looker can be found in the Sewer Access building. He has placeholder dialogue until a future update
- Fixed Mega Meganium battle sprites
- Move Token item added
- Egg Move Vendor added to Slateport (charges move tokens)
- TM Vendor added to Slateport
- Jerry added to Slateport (in a new house) [Gives story dialogue... A lot of it]
- Bugsy's team has been updated
- Bugsy now only has one team. He will go away after the player defeats Roxanne, making him a limited time boss battle.
- Bugsy dialogue has been updated to reflect the above changes (and his rewards updated too)
- Nyehehe dialogue updates in South Dewford
- Fixed the CHARM NPC to show how much the TM costs when buying
- Fixed Nyehehe in Rustboro City, you can now actually battle him
- Changed how overworld object sprites are loaded to remove sprite corruption
- Added Leo's tilesets to replace vanilla ones. Every location looks different (if they used a vanilla tileset)
- Route 104 and Route 116 now have custom trainer teams. (For Route 104 I added two more trainers in that were missing unique teams)
- Added interiors to the two houses in Dewford that were missing them.
- Fixed RocketGruntM's overworld palette (no longer miscolored)
- Added collision to the RocketToll in Dewford (collision near the bottom). You can no longer skip the toll event without paying!
- Demo Release (Yay!)
Development Roadmap:
Updates will be released once per month until the full release of the game. Previews of upcoming additions, changes, and updates are posted in the linked Discord.
Credits:
Official Team Members:
- Kacey_ (Creator)
Pokemon Variant Graphics:
Kristal, Skallhati, Marix20, Anarlaurendil, Geno, Steelman2004, EndlessTGX, Tibjib, PurrfectDoodle, Nico.
jos_louis (Soulstones Dev) for letting me use his variant designs!
Tilesets:
leob0505, PurpleZaffre, Ekat99, spaceemotion, Phyromatical, Amethyst, Crim, Smeargletail, Princess-Phoenix, Heartlessdragoon, Vurtax, M,agiscarf, Kyle Dove, Kane89, Aveontrainer, Rejuvenation Team
Trainer Sprites:
OgJazz, Elinthind, aveontrainer, Galaxeeh, Black Fragrant, Pawkkie, RavePossum, Horo, RBRNNova, DiegoWT, Kyledove
General:
Radical Red (for their dex changes and inspiration)
Emerald Imperium (Inspiration)
Pokemon Soulstones (Sprite contributions)
Pokemon Reborn & Blazing Emerald (Inspiration / ideas)
Emerald Expansion Team (For using Emerald Expansion!)
The Great Nyehehe (inspiring the Nyehehe character being added)
Eevee Expo Community (Assistance & motivation)
Beta Testers (Non-Team Members):
lyokuu, lone_nomad, sheep1shly
Audio:
Blue Warrior, Total Yosh, King Meteor, Matt Furda, Mike, Dr. Fruitcake, Blue Boo, SNN, Dentelle, Shadow, Paper_Luigi, Matthew Seldon, Alluro95, Fluff, Sean Handwek, Mark Jansen, Britan Grimmer, Susan Carriere, Chibi Vegito, DoctorJ, Jarel Jones, Robert Smith, Tyler Prevost, Temjin, Anubis, Crono, Cyber Buddha, Joshua Kaufman, Ryan J. Bury
Miscellaneous Code / Graphic:
Silvergold
Archie (UI contribution), Mudskip (Graphic contribution), Ghoulslash (UI shell code for save-game select), Grunt Lucas, Pret, Rioluwott.
Ruby
Ibsbezerra (Falling leaf code)
Everything Else:
Me! (Coding, mapping, story stuff, etc etc)
(This should be everyone so far. If I accidentally forgot someone, please let me know!)
- Kacey_ (Creator)
- Hammy (Lead Tester)
- Blitzydragon (Sprite Artist)
- Yogggi (Sprite Artist)
- Kristal (Sprite Artist)
- Kaien (Pineapple Man)
- n1gh7bl4d3 (Tester)
- Jerry (Tester)
Pokemon Variant Graphics:
Kristal, Skallhati, Marix20, Anarlaurendil, Geno, Steelman2004, EndlessTGX, Tibjib, PurrfectDoodle, Nico.
jos_louis (Soulstones Dev) for letting me use his variant designs!
Tilesets:
leob0505, PurpleZaffre, Ekat99, spaceemotion, Phyromatical, Amethyst, Crim, Smeargletail, Princess-Phoenix, Heartlessdragoon, Vurtax, M,agiscarf, Kyle Dove, Kane89, Aveontrainer, Rejuvenation Team
Trainer Sprites:
OgJazz, Elinthind, aveontrainer, Galaxeeh, Black Fragrant, Pawkkie, RavePossum, Horo, RBRNNova, DiegoWT, Kyledove
General:
Radical Red (for their dex changes and inspiration)
Emerald Imperium (Inspiration)
Pokemon Soulstones (Sprite contributions)
Pokemon Reborn & Blazing Emerald (Inspiration / ideas)
Emerald Expansion Team (For using Emerald Expansion!)
The Great Nyehehe (inspiring the Nyehehe character being added)
Eevee Expo Community (Assistance & motivation)
Beta Testers (Non-Team Members):
lyokuu, lone_nomad, sheep1shly
Audio:
Blue Warrior, Total Yosh, King Meteor, Matt Furda, Mike, Dr. Fruitcake, Blue Boo, SNN, Dentelle, Shadow, Paper_Luigi, Matthew Seldon, Alluro95, Fluff, Sean Handwek, Mark Jansen, Britan Grimmer, Susan Carriere, Chibi Vegito, DoctorJ, Jarel Jones, Robert Smith, Tyler Prevost, Temjin, Anubis, Crono, Cyber Buddha, Joshua Kaufman, Ryan J. Bury
Miscellaneous Code / Graphic:
Silvergold
Archie (UI contribution), Mudskip (Graphic contribution), Ghoulslash (UI shell code for save-game select), Grunt Lucas, Pret, Rioluwott.
Ruby
Ibsbezerra (Falling leaf code)
Everything Else:
Me! (Coding, mapping, story stuff, etc etc)
(This should be everyone so far. If I accidentally forgot someone, please let me know!)