For Pokémon Emerald's 20th anniversary, 130 artists got together and redesigned all 386 Pokémon and put them all into a playable romhack.

Pokémon Emerald ReSprited Trailer – YouTube

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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pokémon Emerald’s Japanese launch, a group of 130 artists joined forces and redesigned all 386 Pokémon from the game and put them into a romhack.

Pokemon Emerald is one of the most beloved Game Boy Advance games and fans generally consider its visuals to be timeless, but if you just want a new way to play a classic game, you might consider checking out Pokemon Emerald: ReSpirited, which replaces all of the original Pokemon sprites with newly drawn versions.

To celebrate Pokémon Emerald’s 20th anniversary, 130 artists came together to redesign the sprites of all 386 Pokémon and put them all into a hacked ROM! pic.twitter.com/Av5RhMVlukSeptember 16, 2024

There are two versions of Pokémon Emerald: ReSpirited. Vanilla is simply the standard game but with the new sprites, and the other, called Plus, swaps out the sprites and also makes all 386 Pokémon available on a single save file and makes changes to the trainers to represent the artists who contributed to the project.

Now, to be fair, I took a look at the Google doc that shows all the new sprites, and I will say that the quality of the art is… uneven. Another way to say it is that it’s very clear that some artists were just having fun and not taking anything too seriously. It seems like about half of the sprites are faithful and in some cases improved versions of the original art, and the other half are… less than that. Take a look for yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

Still, if you’re one of those Pokémon fans who’s still playing Emerald after 20 years and just want a change of scenery, ReSpirited is definitely worth a look.

Otherwise, here are the best pokemon games You can play now.