Pokemon Flora Sky

Pokemon Flora Sky is one of the best-known early Emerald hacks, made by a creator who goes by 12345 (or SKY). When it came out, the main draw was simple: it put Pokemon from Sinnoh and Unova into a Gen 3 game, years before tools like the Dynamic Pokemon Expansion made that easy. To fit them in, Flora Sky keeps the Gen 3 limit of 386 Pokemon slots and replaces part of the roster with Gen 4 and 5 species, all with updated sprites.

The story starts where Diamond and Pearl left a thread hanging. After a battle between Dialga and Palkia, the barrier between the real world and the Torn World, Giratina's dimension, breaks open. Giratina begins causing trouble, and your job is to close the portal. Meanwhile Team Magma and Team Aqua are still after the legendary Fire and Water Pokemon, so you will also have to calm Groudon and Kyogre before things spiral further.

Flora Sky goes well beyond swapping sprites. It has a new map, new characters, new items, moves and HMs, a minigame, two missions and eight side quests. A day and night system with daily events was a big deal for a GBA hack of its time. Several older Pokemon get new evolution methods so their Gen 4 evolutions can work, for example Gligar evolving at max happiness at night or Electabuzz evolving at level 48.

There are two builds. The main version is the full game, and the Complement Dex version adds every Pokemon that was missing from the main one, rebalances a few legendaries and raises trainer levels after the League. The last changelog entry, from August 2011, also fixed a shiny palette and adjusted a couple of base stats. Development has stopped since then, so treat Flora Sky as a finished classic rather than an evolving project.

• Gen 4 and Gen 5 Pokemon added to an Emerald engine, with new sprites
• Story about Giratina, the Torn World and the aftermath of Dialga vs. Palkia
• Team Magma and Team Aqua chasing Groudon and Kyogre
• New map, characters, items, moves and HMs
• Day and night system with daily events
• Two missions and eight quests, plus a minigame
• New evolution methods for older Pokemon
• Story legendaries Shaymin, Giratina and Dialga; Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Mew and Arceus after the Elite Four
• Complement Dex version with the missing Pokemon and higher post-League trainer levels

Flora Sky plays at a classic Pokemon pace. The difficulty is moderate, closer to an official game than to modern challenge hacks, and the Complement Dex build raises trainer levels after the League for a tougher post-game. Some players find the first hour's wild Pokemon a bit repetitive before the variety opens up.

It suits fans of Gen 4 legendaries and story, and players curious about the era of GBA hacking before CFRU. It has no physical/special split or modern mechanics, so competitive players should expect Gen 3 rules.

• Use a clean US Emerald (BPEE) ROM and the UPS patch for the version you want: main or Complement Dex.
• Set your emulator's save type to Flash 128K and enable the real-time clock, otherwise saves can corrupt and the day/night events will not work.
• Start with no old .sav file in the folder from another Emerald hack.
• Avoid No$GBA; it hides some mist areas. mGBA or VBA-based emulators work better.
• Do not decorate your Secret Base heavily, and go easy on cheat codes — both are linked to glitches and Bad Eggs.

The Complement Dex release in April 2011 added all Pokemon that the main version lacked and trimmed the stats of the 580-base-stat lake trio and Heatran to 520. The August 2011 update fixed Magmar's shiny palette and Uxie's stats, lowered Darmanitan's HP and Special Attack by 10, and increased trainer levels after the Pokemon League. Known leftovers include grammar mistakes, PokeNav and some move descriptions showing wrong info, and the VS bar showing only Cynthia in Elite Four rematches.