remember the mirage island shit in pokemon r/s/e how fucked was that nonsense
you had to talk to an old man once per day. then the game would generate 2 random number bytes. those bytes would have to both match the also random and unseeable personality values of one of your party pokemon. assuming you had a full party of 6 that was roughly a 1/10000 chance. thats rarer than finding a shiny. and this wasnāt once per random encounter this was once per day. this was the only way to find liechi berries and get gold pokeblocks
this literally sounds like some fake forum post from 2004 but it was 100% real they really put this in the game un fucking believable
between this, feebas, and the regis im beginning to think the fucking riddler played a part in the development of r/s/e
For those who are unaware, Feebas could only be found in one location by fishing in a pool of water. However there are 400 tiles of water, and only 6 random tiles will allow you to fish up a Feebas. These tiles are randomly generated when you begin the game so they differ between all other players. The Regiās, (Regirock, Regice and Registeel), all had a puzzle to unlock their domain. Written in Brallie, in some hidden caves. The puzzles required you to: Find the Pokemon Relicanth and Wailord and have them in the first and last slots of your party. (In Emerald version these instructions were reversed, Wailord first, Relicanth last.) This unlocks the other 3 puzzles. For Regice: Wait 2 minutes with the game on without moving your player. (In Emerald the instructions had you run a lap of the room while touching the outer wall.) For Regirock: The instructions had you move right twice, then down twice, then have a pokemon use the move Strength. (In Emerald it was left twice, down twice and then Rock Smash instead.) For Registeel: Walk to the center of the room and have a Pokemon use the move Fly, which is a move that would usually let you fast travel around the map, and doesnāt work indoors except for this one single puzzle room. (In Emerald Version, they had you use the move Flash instead.) Footnote: There was also a misprint in the original Ruby Sapphire Guidebook which showed the Pokemon Trapinch as having no evolutions, making the Vibrava and Flygon unobtainable to those who didnāt accidentally levelup Trapinch until it evolved seemingly for no reason.
R/S/E were scarier than most creepypasta.
That comment about The Riddler having a hand in making these games, the puzzle ridiculousness didnāt stop there. Because there WAS a Riddler IN GAME.
On Route 110, on the end closest to Slateport, there was a house to the left of Cycling Road called the Trick House. Inside this house, an older man lived, who called himself the Trick Master.
This guy, upon walking in, seems invisible, but is just hiding. There are several random locations he can be hiding in, although these locations were set for everyone, but changed every time you returned. If you manage to find the man, heāll then disappear into the deep pits of his hell house and sayĀ āCOME FIND ME AT THE ENDā and then you had to traverse through eight different puzzles, each one unlocking after a new badge was obtained.
Now hereās where it gets crazier because three out of eight of these will require HMs. Puzzle #1 requires Cut. Puzzle #2 required Rock Smash, and #3 required Strength. But to make this WORSE, Rock Smash isnāt given to you by any significant character. It was given to you by an npc inside of a house in Mauville City on the southeast corner of the city. If you didnāt find him, you could never progress because Rock Smash is required to reach the next city, as well as many other locations, including Mirage Tower on Route 111.
And speaking of that neat but fucked up place! Another puzzle would be the return to Sky Pillar, and the visit to Mirage Tower. Mirage tower was Emerald only, but acted as training for Sky Pillar. Sky Pillar was a location in R/S/E where you could go to find Rayquaza at level 70 either post game (R/S) or after the Sootopolis Incident with Kyogre and Groudon (Emerald). Mirage Tower was a tower located on Route 111 that appeared only once in the game, the first time you visit it after getting the Goggles from your rival and friend.Ā
Now what is so upsetting about these places? The fucking floors. At many segments throughout the towersā floors have cracks in them. To get over them, you had to ride your Mach Bike at max speed and if you stopped, slowed down, or hit a wall while still on a cracked tile, you fell to the first (or previous) floor. The patterns and difficulty of each cracked floor increases as you go up. One example of this is the 2nd floor for Mirage Tower, which forces you to go through the whole room at max speed without stopping or else you failed, and requires sharp turns.
For Sky Pillar, wellā¦ look at this and tell me this isnāt the devilās work.
YET ANOTHER PUZZLE! Was Shoal Cave. At predetermined times a day, every six hours (YES THIS STOPPED WORKING IF YOUR INTERNAL BATTERY STOPPED WORKING), the tide will shift. Because of this, half of the cave is unavailable during either time of this. If your schedule didnāt match up with the time frame, youāre SOL.
The entrance room at the different times.
AND FINALLY, FOR MY LAST INPUT! Remember how you needed both Relicanth and Wailord to get the Regis? Well that isnāt the whole of it. Routes 132, 133, and 134, where you go to GET to that place, were almost totally covered in tide tiles. Long story short, you had to Surf going west from Pacifilog and had to follow a very specific path which took several tries to remember. And if you failed to get the right path? YOU ENDED UP IN SLATEPORT! WHERE YOU HAD TO FLY ALL THE WAY BACK AND TRY AGAIN! Look at THIS shit and say that isnāt some Riddler shit.
Something Iāve noted in the past was another gen III oddity: the Altering Cave
Found on Route 103 in Emerald (did not exist in R/S) and Outcast Island in FRLG (off Six Island), this is a cave with nothing but Zubat in it. No explanation is ever given as to why itās there, itās justā¦THERE.
Hereās the thing with it: it was originally intended to have its wild encounters change when using the Mystery Gift feature at a Wonder Spot, hosted by Nintendo. Only problem is, no country ever held such an event to make use of that feature.
Had it been used, it would have been possible to catch a Shuckle holding a Berry Juice there, making this the only legitimate way to get that item in Gen III (while you CAN catch a Shuckle in Emeraldās Safari Zone, giving it a Berry doesnāt work as it did in Gen II, and a Shuckle caught this way will never be holding one as in later games). Thus, Berry Juice could never be legitimately obtained in Gen III, and there was still the matter of this weird ass cave full of Zubats that never gets explained anywhere.
