Trivia / Twitch Plays Pokémon TriHard Emerald

• Developer's Foresight:
  • If the player does somehow manage to win the Hopeless Boss Fight against Groudon and Kyogre, the game skips ahead a bit and the player no longer needs to find Rayquaza. And several bits of dialog going forward will change regarding the altered outcome of the fight. Needless to say, TPP didn't manage to see this ending.
  • In the raid on the Weather Institute, the Aqua Admin will tell the player (as she's handing the player a Castform, if the player has room for it) to use Castform in battle and report back how it fares. In the battle with Logan that follows, if the player doesn't use the Castform, the Aqua Admin will comment as much. Her comment changes depending on what the Castform does in battle.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the earlier draft of the game, Pokémon would've been able to go into negative HP, and Permadeath would've occurred when said HP got too low. This had to be dropped however, as having negative HP proved to cause a number of issues, particularly during Double Battles.
  • Darker-skinned Trainers were planned to be included, but the limited palette of Emerald's overworld prevented it from happening.
  • During the battle against them on Route 110, the rival's starter Pokémon was originally supposed to be killed by a critical hit. This would have caused them to return to Littleroot Town for the remainder of the game; there would not have been any more battles against them, and their mother would kick the player out if they attempted to visit. Due to time constraints and other developers disliking the idea, it ended up being abandoned.
  • Upon reloading after a whiteout, an idea was to include a short line of dialogue that implied the protagonist was waking up in a panic, as if the events preceding the reset had been part of a nightmare. The same lines of dialogue would've had a chance of showing up upon saving the game, thus having the protagonist occasionally dream about erased timelines.
    • Another plan for the "dreams" mechanic was to include dreams about the character's past life in Alola, specifically recalling events pertaining to their parent's divorce and their disqualification from the Islands Trial.
  • One planned cutscene involved the player character experiencing a Nightmare Sequence before healing and saving in Ever Grande City for the first time.
    The player dreams they're in an infinite graveyard, full of all the Pokemon they've lost over the course of the journey. The player eventually finds Steven, who challenges the player to a battle. The player sends out a Pokemon, but there's no ball and he has no team. "Player is out of useable Pokemon!" "Steven: Do you often challenge trainers in just your underpants?" and the screen goes white, and screen suddenly cuts to the player in one of the Pokecenter beds.
  • There was at one point plans to make Scott (a character added to Pokemon Emerald to introduce and run the Battle Frontier) either evil or subject to the protagonist's ire, but those were eventually scrapped and he was simply removed instead.
  • Upon fainting a Pokémon currently using Surf or Dive in the overworld, the player character was initially supposed to end up "washed ashore"; this however proved difficult to implement, meaning said Pokémon in the final product just keeps surfing/diving until reaching land or going back to the surface.
  • The tombstones in Mt. Pyre were planned to feature names of Pokémon that had died during the course of the run, with one spot dedicated to the rival's Pokémon.
  • The player would have received letters from their mother in Alola after earning Badges, which would have included a gift item and some alimony, but this was scrapped due to time constraints.
  • There were plans for an "EXP Redistributor" item that could be turned on and off, and would redistribute any EXP earned among team members according to their needs, based on their deviation from the average level of the party.
  • Implementing the soaring mechanic from Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire was considered to replace the Fly map, as it had already been recreated in Gen III.
  • A few options were considered to allow for healing without saving the game, including occasional large trees where the player could take a nap, or bed decorations for the Secret Base.
  • Scout James, a reference to Lorekeeper James from Twitch Plays Pokémon Alpha Sapphire, was supposed to use the Lorekeeper battle theme from Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but the hack's creator forgot to import it.
  • One idea was to have Gabby and Ty's encounter theme play every time the player watched TV, referencing the chat's obsession with watching the news during runs taking place in Orre, as said theme sounds very similar to the news jingle from those games.

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