How Collecting Every Pokémon Emerald Decoration Solved a 20 Year Old Mystery

The mystery was how the Rooftop Sale/other timed events spawn, which hasn't been fully documented since Ruby and Sapphire released in 2002 :)

What gets me is how much better looking the Regi dolls are than the overworld sprites of the actual Pokémon. I feel like a toy being more on-model than the real ingame thing is some kind of paradox

I was always fascinated by the old guy who changed with every playthrough. I couldn't find anyone talking about him, thanks for explaining how he works

I love how the 20 year secret was broken ON 3RD TIER OF DIFFICULTY OUT OF 6

Man game freak must’ve thought children had way more friends than they actually do. Because I can firmly believe you’re the first person to actually do this. And for a child to do it they’d have to have a lot of willing friends. I had my brother and a neighbor kid to bother into these kinds of tasks in Pokémon, it was not as fruitful as a result.

I find it extremely validating to know that the rooftop department store was spawned by such an absurd mechanic. My friends all said "I don't know, it just spawned randomly for me," until one of them looked up the solution online and said "oh, it just spawns on Saturdays." I never got to the rooftop marketplace :(. Excellent research!

Time travel needs to be invented so that this guy can go back to 2004 and blow everyone's minds

Fun fact: if your team is shiny and you mix records, when your friend battles your team of shinies, they will lose their shininess and become regular colored Pokemon. Was pretty lame to find out for me and a shiny hunting friend

For all our Regiguy enthusiasts, 15:02 says "This card cost me 278, so be grateful"

I really love these super niche Pokemon deep dives. Something about getting into the nitty gritty of Pokemon games is just really fascinating to me.

I must have been one lucky freak in my original Ruby playthrough. I must have gotten the Lilycove sales lady early, because I have no memory of it, yet I have the exclusives she sells. Breakable door and slide were always part of my secret base. What I do remember getting, however, is to Mirage Island. I got there, got the liechi berry and caught some Wynaut, because why not? I then planted the Liechi berry and went to do something else. ... And I could never come back to harvest it. I said I was lucky, not clever. :D

I remember if you record mixed, you could save your friend's secret base into your world, where you could battle them with the team they had at the time of the mixing. The best summer vacation of my life, like 20 years ago, my cousin from across the country visited and we spent a week together doing dumb kid stuff, hanging out, and just playing pokemon and other videogames side-by-side. We were like rivals, since our saved games were in the same places and we kept battling. It was so fun, but I haven't seen him since. Anyway, I was digging through my gameboy games a few years ago and came across my old copy of pokemon Sapphire. I booted it up and rode around until I found what I thought was my secret base. Apparently it wasnt, but instead had been my cousin's secret tree base. His npc with his name was there and everything. And talking to him threw me into a battle, which was a feature I completely forgot existed. I got goosebumps when it was his old party and everything. Like a snapshot in time from what I was little, as if only a few days had passed. Obviously I trashed his team. He couldnt beat me at the time, and definitely couldn't later. Also his base looked like garbage compared to mine which was filled with tons of stuff, including stuff I had got on the rooftop sale.

It's crazy to learn I got the clearance sale completely randomly, I remember getting those decorations

It's amazing how much weird, random stuff they crammed into these games back in the day. You'd never find something so elaborate yet so pointless in a modern Pokemon game.

back in 2008, i used to search through all the possible forums just to find out how to fill those gaps in secret bases. not being able to understand english properly was a problem too, but the worst thing was that everyone just shared the myths they heard so you couldn't find any reliable information. you, sir toasty, just relieved my 11 year old self from a big headache. thank you and congratulations on completing your collection :D

"For the sake of narrative buildup..." I love this kind of unnecessarily honest, meta, and easy to miss commentary.

As someone who took the time to get all 7 gold frontier badges in emerald, I can appreciate the determination & patience it must’ve taken you to accomplish such a feat that most won’t even fully understand. Cheers to you mate.

As someone who put 1K+ hours into Emerald.... I love this. There were so many things I didn't do despite playing over and over and keeping the same save file for years. I love learning new things about one of my all time favorite games.

I agree that the Point payouts in Emerald are hilariously bad, but here is one trick that will significantly speed up the process: Once you get to three Silver Symbols, you will be allowed to bet on your Battle Frontier performances in a house in the eastern region of the Frontier. So you just lose your streak in whatever facility they want to bet on first, then bet the maximum amount and beat the first set of trainers there. I managed to get to the Venusaur doll without much effort in about one or two days if I remember correctly.

You know we're in for a hard one when the EASIEST group includes getting another copy of the game and an specific trainer ID just to get a free plushie.