The Gen 3 Pokemon Lost To Time

Gen 3 of Pokemon made huge waves as a game for its massive improvements over the last games in the series, Gold and Silver, but it was still very much a transitionary period for the series. Pokemon had added in game time in Gen 2, and Gen 3 struggled and succeeded in some ways at keeping and reimplementing those elements into the games. Here we discuss the ways that time effected Gen 3 and the losses and gains that were made as a result! And if you enjoy the video, please give it a like and subscribe to the channel!
Thanks for hanging out yall, school is real tough on me right now and I love making the little things but when I have time to do a big video like this I am overjoyed! Let's GO
Gameplay comes from my Pokemon FireRed, Emerald, Colosseum, and XD cartridges and discs.
#pokemon #pokemonscarletandviolet #pokemonemerald

[@droomish1]

okay so hi since it seems to be coming up a lot I want to add I know how to solder, I have replaced the batteries on several of my gen 2 and gen 3 carts and gotten the clocks to come back but I only learned how to solder in the last year and thought it would be cool to consider the game state that is/was created if you don't have that ability or just picked up a game off the shelf. also the response on this one is blowing my mind, yall are amazing and hopefully what's to come doesn't disappoint

[@NearlyHatedForLife]

Hello , I was thinking if u wanna collab? It whould be cool

[@NearlyHatedForLife]

Like some battles in pokemon showdown , and i also have over 1k subs

[@NearlyHatedForLife]

If u have instagram , we will chat in private

[@stixoimatizontas]

tbh you dont even need soldering equipment or the knowledge on how to use it. You can do the same job with just a little knife or flat screwdriver and some tape. The two pins are stuck on the battery, but if you are careful and apply some force you can detach them. Then all you have to do is "fasten" the new battery between the pins with some tape, just make sure it's a tight one. Yes, it's not the cleanest job and you might need to try several times, but it can save you money and time if you don't have the equipment and lack the knowledge of how to use it.

[@superjew837]

Solid video, I too was watching it knowing how to replace the batteries in the cartridge but for people who only play original carts and don’t want to tamper with their $100+ game, this video is still totally accurate.

[@bluebaron6811]

The Liechi Berry being so rare in gen 3 actually resulted in an absolutely hysterical record; -some dude at GameFreak realized that the Liechi Berry was not only so rare that it was near impossible to obtain, but that if your battery died and you already used the berry, it would become permanently unobtainable. How did they solve this? By giving people Shiny Zigzagoon, of course! Every Shiny Zigzagoon distributed by Mystery Gift held a Liechi Berry, sort of as an apology for the poor game planning. The event lasted for a whopping *3 years.* That means that Zigzagoon has the honor of having the longest distribution period of *any* event Pokémon.

[@nickolaswilcox425]

that was the berry glitch patch event wasnt it? i believe its on two formats, rom cart and demo disk, both have been dumped and finding physical copies of either is nearly impossible. and its unusual as an event in that its repeatable on the same game, it just doesn't check if youve already done it. although linking with frlg will also apply the berry patch or so ive been told

[@RikkuEcRud]

That Zigzagoon wasn't compensation for dead batteries and the inability to get a Liechi Berry, it was enticement to come and get a glitch related to berry growth patched. That event was held well before the batteries started dying.

[@VirtualVirtuoso101]

You can still do it if I’m not mistaken. I’m gonna try when I get my GBA from my parents house.

[@seanscott2677]

@@RikkuEcRud same thing as the Jirachi event from the Colosseum bonus disc I believe?

[@bluebaron6811]

@@nickolaswilcox425 why yes it was. It was also a Liechi Apology event at the same time.

[@trumpeterjen]

The most frustrating obstacle for me was Milotic, or rather, evolving Feebas. This was before you could trade to evolve it with a Prism Scale. My battery was dead, so no berries would grow. I had to ration every berry I received to make sure I had enough to max out its beauty stat with Pokeblocks. This is all on top of the hell of catching a Feebas to begin with. You can bet I treasured that damn thing once I actually got it. EV trained it and everything.

[@dellonerf3140]

Hey but at least the Feebas spots won't change anymore :D

[@Justgottaadamup]

You can item dupe the berries in Emerald

[@GoXDS]

@@dellonerf3140 well back in Gen III, the spot doesn't change daily. it changes only if you do specific events (trending phrase in Dewford town)

[@SwateOpal]

@@GoXDS Actually it's both. It changes instantly if you mess with the Dewford phrase, and it also has a 1/16 chance to change when the day ticks over. (Credit: Sonikks' DTQ hunt) Of course, a dead watch battery means this 1/16 won't have a chance to happen. Record mixing also sometimes equates players' Dewford phrase, and two players who achieve the same phrase in this way will have the same Feebas tiles. So you and your friend could do that and start from opposite sides of the river searching for a tile. :)

[@GoXDS]

@@SwateOpal oh, I knew the mixing from experience. I was the first to find one by chance and I told all my neighbors, since we mixed records before and I knew that was a thing. what do you know, everyone found it there

[@StormwalkerNesasio]

One of the most memorable system clock events for me was being able to train an apprentice in Emerald. After beating the game and reaching the Battle Frontier, you could find a (randomised per save file) trainer in the Battle Tower that recognised you as the champion and would ask you for advice on how to build their team, asking you about what pokemon to use, what moves they should learn, items etc. You could answer one of these questions per day and after answering them all, they would leave. After doing this, you could then go on to encounter them as an opponent during the singles tower mode, or even battle alongside them in the multi tower mode, and in both cases they would be using the exact team you recommended them.

[@finalcountdown3210]

WHAT

[@dannyz5575]

I just now learned this!!

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

I absolutely loved that! I actually gave them bad advice do that I could have an easy win in the Tower. I really would love to see a modern implementation of it in a modern games

[@kevinrosario8363]

Whaaaaat?

[@radioactivebeverage]

that's actually insane, i would love it if they brought this back damn

[@lavenderlele]

archaeologists and historians failed to consider LOST POKEMON AND IN-GAME EXPERIENCES as a consequence of time's passage!! a global tragedy!! (also we do love a lil berry dance)

[@droomish1]

Like tears in rain!!!

[@readerrabbit6690]

🤓🤓🤓

[@Mrperson0]

Eh, you can replace the RTC battery on your own, start a new save, and you're all set. If you want to keep your save, you can use a GBA or DS flashcart to load a program to change the time on your GBA cartridge.

[@strangefeeling8901]

time was a mistake

[@KertaDrake]

Someone take some legal action against Dialga to get an injunction against time passing needlessly.

[@TwoBsTwoTs]

Thankfully my local retro game store does Pokémon battery replacements for the price of the battery. It’s like $3 max so I took my emerald and ruby in and clock based events work!

[@theblackguyfrommars4459]

That’s pretty cool

[@orrissonpereira1070]

I play them on PC with VBA, and the events work also. No money required.

[@TwoBsTwoTs]

@@orrissonpereira1070 yeah but I have a latias and latios themed gba with a backlight. It’s wayyyy cooler than playing it on my pc. It just doesn’t feel the same as the cartridge

[@timothymacpherson7452]

@@orrissonpereira1070 My local place is charging a ton of money to replace the battery

[@danr8267]

That's cool.

[@donkarasu-9644]

It's a bigger tease with Espeon since there's a trainer in the Trainer Tower that owns one... And a shiny one at that!

[@TheLegendOfRune]

I remember running into that trainer, and at the time I was devastated that I couldn't catch it.

[@hisaceinthehole3426]

​@@TheLegendOfRune you actually can, using the battle tower/latias glitch

[@jkattack2640]

Another victim of the death of berries is milotic. It can be verrry difficult to raise feebas' beauty high enough without being able to farm

[@kor8rok]

berry difficult

[@E4439Qv5]

I did it exactly once. Traded it to a genner who loved Milotic for a Shiny Jirachi (which I knew couldn't migrate to Gen IV).

[@AutumnGuiFei]

It is still technically possible to farm enough of them via the cloning glitch but you need to start out with at least one of the berries you want

[@SuperEljafru]

it’s not that hard. just get a feebas with the correct nature; that’ll boost its beauty stat gains from the berries. there’s a guide somewhere online if you you’re not confident. i managed to get one in my emerald file without any berry farming

[@duskullburner6457]

@@SuperEljafru same here I have one on sapphire right now and no berry farm whatsoever I believe I found it on a KZbin video too.

[@darian332]

If you get pokerus, there will no longer be a time limit to where it runs out. You can infect other pokemon and use the pokerus forever without fear of your pokemon losing it. I have abused this.

[@jonathansolorzano1981]

You can always just infect a bunch of mons and then just deposit them in the PC. Pokerus never goes away there.

[@danielserrano929]

@@jonathansolorzano1981I found out my black version Pokémon still have pokerus, 11 years and still going ✊

[@M3rtyville]

I still abuse it

[@_stealth_313]

My older brother got me a GBA SP and a legitimate copy of Emerald from a college student on his campus for I think around $70 a couple of years ago for my birthday and he put in the extra time to fix the internal clock for me. I’m so lucky to have him as a brother haha

[@Kat-mu8wq]

...I think I need to sell all my cartridge games to USA.. I have almost all of them from Blue and Yellow to the newest ones. (Obviously the GB and GBA will sell for more) Note: I also have the colosseum and pokemon box gamecube duo pack.. Im never selling that.

[@lucianofrancesco4742]

Truly an incredible brother.

[@pineconesnowstorm]

​@@Kat-mu8wq basically every one of the older pokemon games sell for a ton, which will only increase as time goes on and they aren't rereleased in their original forms. Remakes help bring down the price, but not by much. You're easliy looking at $1000+, but unless you're really strapped for cash I wouldn't recommend selling them, because it would be more expensive to buyback than to sell.

[@2810Mad]

He's humble bragging, "oh look i have all pokemon games"​. He doesnt intend to sell them. @pineconesnowstorm

[@baddragonite]

The Point about the shell bell is so true I remember thinking it was the coolest thing that you had to find the materials and "craft" the item in a one-off side quest. Made it feel so much more significant

[@hunterfisher6161]

there’s a particular one that pains people like me who try to get every ribbon on a pokémon. without the in-game clock, you can’t get the Artist Ribbon, one given to you pokémon after winning by a large margin in a pageant. someone in the museum paints a picture of your pokémon and gives you the ribbon. a real heart breaker.

[@webster1211]

I have a salamence (from xd) with all ribbons in Gen iii. My save file has a dead battery and I still got the Artist Ribbon. Still can get it!

[@thoopsy]

One other thing to consider is that all the GameCube games, AND FIRERED LEAFGREEN cannot trade until the postgame! Technically FRLG can trade with each other, but Colosseum and XD are locked in their own little worlds until you finish em. Imagine this scenario OP brought up. You have an Eevee that you love and want to evolve into Espeon, this Eevee is on LeafGreen. You have XD! You have the GameCube to GBA cable!! You need to complete both games to do anything with that.

[@dwaynesmith8300]

Oh I don't have to imagine it, it was my reality as a child LOL

[@potatoboy1517]

Even if you have Johto or Hoenn Pokémon in one FR/LG game, you can’t trade them into the other copy until you have completed the Sevii Islands side quest 😭😭

[@sorrenblitz805]

Think about how I felt looking at all the steps it wouldve taken to get my pokemon from Crystal to Any of the newer games.

[@xamergt]

One of the worst marketing moves of Nintendo literally for full Pokédex you have to have gc cables all games and finish them all. Thank god with 50 bucks i have gb operator and with a perfect save from online can be injected on my firered game.

[@notNajimi]

@@sorrenblitz805 you can’t lol. only on the 3ds vc can you bank any gen 2 Pokémon and transfer them up

[@pac-man-world-2]

I'm glad this randomly showed up in my feed - it was a really interesting watch! Seems like they really wanted to mess around with the in-game time events, but the physical limitations worked against them. It's nice that ORAS kind of let them truly thrive, to an extent.

[@chrism2081]

This video is a really good summary of why the clock is so crucial for the Gen 3 Hoenn games. Back in 2019 I got the battery changed on my childhood copy of Emerald after a decade of the dry battery message, restarted the save file and was absolutely FLOORED by how much more content there was in a game with a working battery. I woke up every day excited to see what random event would be on TV (swarms, sales, Blend Master, etc), or how many berries I would get in my daily berry rounds. The lottery, free daily items from NPCs, and Shoal Cave were also really cool to experience again. Still checking for Mirage Island every day! Overall this experience reminded me of why I loved Gen 3 so much back in the day, and now I'd probably list Emerald as the best Pokemon game when the battery's working.

[@kalkuttadrop6371]

Emerald doesn't change the Feebas tiles daily, that's Gen 4. It changes based on Dewfords Trendy Phrase

[@chrism2081]

@@kalkuttadrop6371 Ah right I got confused since I also got a copy of Sapphire fixed at the same time, you're right!

[@burryeezy8837]

Ahh I forgot about the TV announcements. Those were fun to see change

[@DakotaofRaptors]

Blazing Emerald is a good romhack to try

[@stargazer3003]

I played Gen III back in its heyday and someone told me that you had to talk to Daisy Oak and if you got the max friendship message it would trigger Eevee’s evolution. You can imagine my disappointment when that didn’t work.

[@phillipmartinez2436]

It took me a year or more to figure out how to evolve evee into Espeon or Umbreon. At first I thought it was a stone or an item. Then I thought maybe after I beat the Kimono Girls I would get to chose one evolution stone or item to evolve. Then my Evee I randomly evolved into Espeon after a random battle. I started over and over and I kept getting Espeon and wanted Umbreon. Then someone at school told me it depended on the time of day.

[@grubfriend]

I kinda have fond memories of my dad helping me replace the battery in my Sapphire when I bought it second hand when I was younger. The cart never quite went back on properly so it's somewhat held together with sticky tape, but I'm thankful dad helped me back then (and that I have a copy of sapphire that didn't cost hundreds of dollars)

[@RoeVaune]

My battery eventually died in Sapphire, but my most memorable moment related to dead batteries in old gen games was in Gen 2. I owned copies of Pokemon Silver and Crystal as a kid both of which i loved to bits. Crystal was the first game i found a shiny Pokemon in (Nidorina) and i was so proud to have trained my Feraligatr to Lv100. Then someday when me and my parents moved houses, the games both got lost in a cardboard box somewhere. I searched for them for years with no success until my parents rummaged through those same boxes looking for some christmas decorations. They gave them to me and i still had the same Gameboy i used to play them on so i plopped them right in. My Silver was on Gym 2 because i had used Silver to play the game from the beginning whenever i felt like it. My Crystal still had the shiny and the Lv100 Feraligatr when i checked and i was so happy. I then immediately called up my friend at the time who i played a lot of the games with and told him i found something he needs to see, so i grabbed both games and my Gameboy and ran all the way to his house. When i booted up Crystal at his house, "Continue" was an option nowhere to be found. I was sure i just didnt have the cartridge in right so i pulled it out, blew into it and slotted it back in, nothing. I didnt know at the time, but my battery had finally died after years of the games just sitting in a dusty attic. For people who don't know - dead battery in Gen 2 means your game can't save anymore and you lose your save file. It took me a while to process so since i couldnt show my friend, i told him what was on the cartridge before the save file poofed. Went home and tried to figure what i could do to get my precious years-old save file back, but couldnt find anything. Which makes it all the more surreal that it worked for just ONE more boot-up of the game, it's like it wanted me to be able to say good-bye to my most precious Pokemon at the time. I still think of that moment booting up Crystal and seeing those two sometimes because of how this happened. It's just a cool memory.

[@SkunkFarmer420]

Love/saddened by your story. Upset it doesn’t have more likes

[@SweaterPuppys]

I consider myself luck to have gotten to experience timed events as a kid and at that Shoal Cave is my favorite part of it because my friends had no idea how I got Glalie

[@Benji_4]

Most of my friends didn't know about it at the time either.

[@jasonreed7522]

I'm glad i experienced those times events, and you can still get snowrunt because on a new save you can set the in game time, which then never changes. Although the lack of berry growth makes me sad, one day i may try and replace the battery so the clock works again.

[@bunnyben5607]

I did the bulk of playing my sapphire with time, so I never understood exactly how the shoal cave changed even with my gba off, it was a mystery. I got back on it 5 or so years ago and low and behold: dead battery.

[@Slickcactus]

Whenever I play my Pokémon emerald it brings a tear to my eye to see my planted crops still at their first stage

[@gammathefool]

So, the point as to why FR/LG looked over Espeon and Umbereon may be due to another weird quirk of those games in they hard locked pokemon to the gen 1 dex, the best example is you can't evolve a Golbat to Crobat until after getting the dex expansion (though it will try and auto cancel once conditions are met)

[@GalCon99]

Wow. I have been playing LeafGreen for almost 11 years now and never knew that's how it responds to friendship evolutions before the National Dex.

[@Jotari]

Fire Red and Leaf Green did have a fix for that in the form of the Sevi Islands. They were the place where all the national dex stuff was shoved for post game. It actually would have been pretty cool if they gave one of the islands a day night cycle specifically for Eevee and other such things.

[@bunnyben5607]

Firered/Leafgreen stick to the original games almost obsessively. They don't have time mechanics even though they came out after Ruby and Sapphire because gen 1 didn't have time, and every gen 2 pokemon is locked behind the national pokedex, from crobat to stantler, and many of them have absurdly low encounter rates. This is why FR/LG get flak for being a bit boring, they don't offer anything new besides Sevii islands. Also why HG/SS are considered the best remakes, they accomplished everything FR/LG failed at.

[@l.n.3372]

​@@bunnyben5607 Were Magnemite and Magneton considered half steel types in Fire red and Leaf green? Or were they pure electric to keep with staying faithful to the original?

[@bunnyben5607]

@@l.n.3372 Yeah they were electric/steel type, that was one of the few things they did change. This was because ruby/sapphire already had magnemite at electric/steel and frlg had to be backwards compatible. Also some other stuff like movepools were changed, for instance giving non dragon rage dragon-type moves to dragonite because of ruby/sapphire. Though every pokemon's movepool had to be changed for rbysap compatibility, not just dragonite.

[@kaz9687]

Also another note about the berries. Having a Pokemon with the Pickup ability is the only method to get super rare berries like the Watmel berry in gen 3

[@watmelberry]

Watmel :)

[@SaphyMarie]

You know, I did know about the Snorunt issue, but I never thought about how it would affect someones perception of the pokemon... That fact was really interesting to learn from here, and I don't think it was one you intended, but it really stuck with me! And also, at the loss of your save data, whenever the game is reset, you have the opportunity to set your clock in R/S/E, and while some of those time based events still wont occur, you can lock if you get an espeon/umbreon or what tide the Shoal Cave is at. Its the only way to do a full Professor Oak's challenge on a battery-dry cartridge (depending on how you define the rules).

[@mariahs6]

I had no idea about the respawning items in FR/LG, that’s so cool! Berry Farming is my favorite side feature of Gen 3, being able to fly around the region and manage berries in this way is so much fun! I always like imagining that if there’s only two or three berries, wild Pokémon came to eat some and I returned a bit too late :P My favorite return of it is in Gen 7 with your own Pokémon helping you to manage the crops, it’s cute. I loved all the flavor text, especially “[Pokemon] is keeping pests away from the crop!” What a hard worker

[@SnoFitzroy]

RIGHT? I love USUM so much! Too bad my touchscreen isn't super functional, I can't really use PokePelago oof (but I can still battle online because buttons can be used to control battles so I like to flex a Thundurus with Double Team, Thunder Wave, Swagger, and Foul Play, with the ability Prankster. I call it "The Ragnarobb")

[@mariahs6]

@@SnoFitzroy Right! Ooh, love the name! That sounds like a really fun moveset! :D

[@EmeralBookwise]

From a preservation standpoint these games would have been better if they were all a little more like FR/LG. Rather, that is to say, if instead of in game clocks, all of them used step counters to track the passage of time. I mean, that's always been how eggs work in all the games, so it might as well have been how everything else worked as well.

[@kor8rok]

But it was so cool to open your game at night and seeing it was night there as well!

[@EmeralBookwise]

@kor8rok : not in gen-3. There was no visual day night cycle. The clock was only used for tracking berries and daily events.

[@flaviotzn9606]

@@EmeralBookwise what do you mean by "no visual day night cycle"?

[@smolbrendan5978]

@@flaviotzn9606 time will tick but the time of day won't change from pure sunlight all the time

[@0047sssss]

@@flaviotzn9606 In Gen2 the game's overworld view became darker and some of the wild pokemon that appeard changed after 6 pm, that wasn't implemented in Gen3

[@samuraispiritsx]

I love the way they reset the Pokédex in gen 3, it felt like a clean break and a fresh start. It also helps that the gen 3 games are so freaking polished even all these years later, I'm playing them now and they are so great. Still the only full 60fps mainline games in the series. It made the gen 2 Pokemon feel really special when you got to see them again.

[@Benny-tb3ci]

Honestly though, companies should take game preservation a whole lot more seriously.

[@bewilderbeastie8899]

Imagine Nintendo doing that.

[@ujiltromm7358]

Then again, what level of game preservation is enough? Is a game non-functioning as it should due to an oversight in its storage medium unacceptable? Or is the lack of game console due to all of them having failed with time unacceptable? If we are to follow all the way to "preserved eternaly", then PC emulation or even PC ports are the solution. Or, just make PC games, period. But that would mean the end of consoles... (but we can't have that, can we?) It is a fact that as consoles die and less and less of them are available, then someday there won't be any console to play those games, and in all legal ways to play them they will be lost. If you want companies to take game preservation "a whole lot more seriously", then PC is the way to go.

[@Crystawth]

​@@ujiltromm7358I wholeheartedly believe that there should be a stipulation put into place that after a certain number of years from its release of a console or game it should become legal to distribute and emulate that content. And if I were to pick an arbitrary number I'd say 15 to 20 years tops, and even that I feel is excessive. If you haven't made money off of your content in 15 years, then just let it go...

[@JakeB-Real]

The batteries can be replaced.

[@djraptorthetrashraptor7701]

@@JakeB-Real easier said than done as time goes on, unfortunately

[@Zelly_9191]

This is actually a really really good video. Would you consider doing a video on the lost features/mechanics in the gen 5 games due to the now inaccessible Pokémon Dreamworld?

[@THEGREATMAX]

Dreamworld is actually gone. This clock stuff can be fixed by replacing the watch battery inside the cartridge

[@Locormus2]

Damn way too long for discussing 3 to 4 pokemon.

[@briciolaa]

the pokemon project guys are trying to bring it back!!! @@THEGREATMAX

[@Dawn_of_the_Dan]

In Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green you can also get the common status/HP healing berries via the Pickup ability. I never knew about the regenerating hidden items though. Great video!

[@whosasking8839]

The one time-based event in Ruby/Sapphire that isn't affected by the battery running dry is, for some reason, Regice's cave, where you have to stand at the entrance and wait 2 minutes for it to open. Of all the things that depend on the clock, I feel like that would be the worst one to miss out on.

[@nateo200]

Dude I have always wanted to explore this issue myself but don't have a gaming channel haha. Thank you! I love how every pokemon fan is always super into the weird aspects of it.

[@shottysteve]

what a chill video. no screaming in my ear, no bad jokes, no 30 minute sponsors. nice and relaxing. good vibes.

[@droomish1]

pokemon gens 1-3 on the switch though? could be good

[@HydroArmor]

The trading system possibility has me so hyped

[@potatoman2580]

People were able to try them early and they work very well, I'm hyped

[@lancelee338]

I played FireRed and Emerald when I was little but I never had anyone to play with so I never got trade Pokémon like Gengar and Scizor, which are two of my favorites. Finally in high school I made a friend who still had their game and link cable so after all those years I got all the trade evolutions and starters in one profile. It was cathartic. I remember it so vividly too, it was while I was over at his house while watching the Super Bowl. Good times

[@steegen101]

there are certain decorations at the top of the Lilycove dept store that you can never get again if your battery dies. I loved building my secret base in Sapphire as a kid and it sucks that some of the staples of my first one are permanently inaccessible now.

[@Meteorite_Shower]

The fun little note about the lottery's grand prize of a Master Ball being 'okay i guess' hits me so good, since that was never my goal with the lottery either. Funnily enough, the big prize for me was always the PP Up, so trying to collect 99 IDs through WonderTrade had always been a sort of personal side-quest. It's a little sad that the lottery doesn't exist in Scarlet/Violet, but then again, I can just buy PP Ups there, and better still, I no longer have to corner off four boxes to keep the ID Pokémon in.

[@yoshibrothers9982]

My Emerald battery has been dry for roughly a decade, so I normally just avoid any time based events outright. Luckily Emerald has very few of them to begin with, arguably the biggest being not being able to grow berries. As far as regional dex mons go, that makes Milotic a hard ask to obtain, but I'm normally one to try and use it in generations where Prism Scale is possible. Espeon/Umbreon being unobtainable isn't as bad seeing as I really have no reason to be trading in the Gen 3 games in 202X.

[@nintonintendo1]

Can still get espeon and umreon if you have pokemon colosseum/XD

[@hcnhonor3239]

Could just replace the battery

[@mizukittyakinyama]

espeon is actually my favorite pokémon so if it was unobtainable in one of my games i would be sad

[@SEH_ARTGOLD]

I remember playing Crystal but Emerald was the game that sparked a lifelong collection. In Home my oldest Pokémon is a Blaziken from 2004. Sometime in 2005 I started a living dex at 8 or 9 yrs old & kept updating with every generation.

[@MattObviously]

Obtaining Umbreon - when I bought an authentic copy of Emerald (in case anyone is wondering, it costed around $90 in 2022 and came in amazing condition), I knew that this would be an issue when I initially started the game and saw the internal battery message. Therefore I did a bit of research beforehand on what time of day Eevee would evolve into Umbreon, because this was the evolution I wanted - you can set your clock at the beginning of the game, in other words, basically choosing whether you wanted Espeon or Umbreon. So I traded over from Leafgreen after beating the Elite 4 on Emerald, then doing the necessary post-game content on LG, and evolved it. Its a shame Umbreon kinda sucks before the Gen 4 physical/special split. As far as the cave ordeal, I actually had to buy separate Sapphire and Ruby copies (repros this time because I'm not rich) to complete the Pokedex anyways, because I wanted the cyndaquil Birch gives you for completing it. So I was able to set clocks accordingly to get the Pokemon that appeared in that cave during low/high tides. Seriously a pain in the ass but worth it because Emerald is my favorite and arguably the best Pokemon game in the entire franchise.

[@thevenom2731]

Why didn't you just get the battery replaced? Would have cost like a couple dollars.

[@MattObviously]

@@thevenom2731 As I stated above, it's really as simple as setting the clock at the start of the game

[@TA20017]

Loved this video, it’s a topic you hear about in passing but very rarely do people deep dive on the clock mechanic, just when I think I know everything about this series something new pops up! Keep up the good work!

[@GymLeaderEllie]

I never knew about those respawning items in FRLG. Thanks very much for showing that. Really the biggest takeaway for me from the video.

[@mikelevel9]

Normally I would skip vids like this but this was so well made I was sucked in

[@sebastiandelorey6562]

One of my favorite things is hear people’s childhood ignorance stories about Pokémon. It was a wild world back then. We all had to help each other. So much false information. Yet so beautiful to be ignorant

[@livelaughluvdisc]

as a dumb 10 year old in 2003 I spent HOURS at the space center in mossdeep city because there was a rumor that deoxys would somehow show up eventually. lol

[@skyguysZ]

Those days were something else lol. I remember back during the Gen 2 days, an old friend told me that once you reach Blackthorn city for the first time, Silver will show up and demand a battle. He'll have a level 70 Steelix, if you win, he'll give you all his pokemon and the police will come and arrest him. If you lose, then you'll have to give him all YOUR pokemon and your game whites out.

[@l.n.3372]

Crystal was my first Pokemon game as a kid, and there was so much that I didn't know. I thought training Pinsir would evolve into Heracross. I didn't know that certain Pokemon needed to be traded to evolve (like for Gengar and Alakazam). And I thought that Ho-oh was impossible to catch because I didn't know that you needed all 3 legendary beasts first (and I couldn't get all 3 because I used my master ball on Raikou, caught Suicine, and then Entei roared me away every time I found it).

[@TheBestestKitty]

Fun fact: If you have the right screwdriver and a replacement watch battery, you can swap out the cart batteries in about 2 mins. That goes for all GB, GBC and GBA cartridges, as well as any NES or SNES games that use them as well.

[@martinhill9561]

Just like to add that electric tape works just as well as soldering if your either too young or to afraid of damaging the cartridge (I’m terrified of damaging my games). I’ve replaced all the batteries this way with no issues.

[@Leto85]

This is where the GameCube games really helped us livingdex builders out: we have Espeon and Umbreon as starters, and even Snorunt is available. To top it all of, they offer Entei, Suicune and Raikou as well, which normally is one per copy of the game, which one depends on which starter you choose and to make matters worse; they're roaming legendaries. Colosseum and XD are life-hacks.

[@SpearMKW]

over time ive found a lot of ways to overcome these things. since i wanted a gen 3 living dex, i now own all 5 gba mainline games. i had emerald before i bought sapphire and ruby, so when starting sapphire i made sure to check my clock and tide in emerald, and set the clock in such a way so both the eeveelution and tide would be opposite to emerald, as sapphire is the game i host the livingdex on and wont restart it. on emerald i have a bunch of boxes dedicated to cloning, so i can still farm berries that way. ruby is the game i restart whenever i feel like playing through hoenn again, but i can also use it for rng maniping my trainer id at the start of the game, and theres ways to use rng manip on a new save to get to mirage island so i'll do that there eventually

[@joshuacaleau2328]

This is fascinating. On surface level, it’s a fun and funny video about a video game quirk. But on a deeper level, it can also spark further conversation about video game preservation, and the transience of these older games.

[@brandonwilliams6119]

As a person who has a huge attachment to Gen 3 being my very first generation and what got me into the Pokémon Franchise, I got those weird internal clock running dry messages too after a while of playing my copies of R/S/E but I never knew what they actually meant as a kid, the timed events were a bit complicated to understand but on repeat playthroughs you can probably grasp them, Feebas is another interesting case, I always ask myself “is Milotic worth it?”, as for Snorunt I don’t think ever got locked out of catching one and it’s insane how that can even happen.

[@ItJustWorksPodcast]

This video was awesome, thank you! Even though I started with Gen 1, Gen 3 is easily my favorite! This video also made me happy I have authentic copies of all the gen 3 games as of late and I just gotta finish my XD gale of darkness to trade mons over! Good times 😊

[@maneruloquendero]

Glalie is a staple of my Hoenn teams, and having the realization that people can forever be prevented from catching Snorunt makes me sad

[@DominatorLegend]

"50 day cycles have passed... Yet, I do not evolve... Time has lost its effect on me."

[@SupremeDirt]

i see this video pop up every now and then on my recommended (i watched it ages ago) and every time i feel so much joy at the sneaky meaning of the video title.

[@grlluigi]

losing access to physical media is sad, creating tech waste while continuing to mine for precious resources ... evil.

[@triplediplem]

I didn't even know about the ice cave until today. Mine froze with the shoal cave on high tide... I would have never found out about that cave if not for this video

[@MinecraftMike]

What about the sale events at the department store? I recall those being on certain days of the week, and those were the only way to get boards for the secret bases and slides and stairs.

[@zackcampbell1346]

My mans didn't even mention the department store so you can get stuff for your secret base namely the plank

[@breloommaster12]

7:31 "let me know how to pronounce it in the comments" *Pronounces it perfectly immediately afterward* Oh so it's gonna be like that huh

[@KratosAurionPlays]

While battery replacement is an option for the many of us who don't want to do that we sadly lose access to so many things with the clock dying.

[@ccsleepy8342]

“If you still have this game or took out a small loan to pick up a copy” lmfao

[@parasectkazuyabandicoot5360]

I recently cracked open my Gen 3 games and wanted to make a living Pokédex. I have 2 copies of Emerald. Praise Jebus; one clock froze at day and one froze at night. I can get whatever Eevee so need whenever I need ‘em! Also cool video

[@DanielYuStar_Pachirisu_Feet]

It is funny how scarlet and violet sorta brought back the item respawns on the ground from fire red

[@ItsPikablu]

I'd just like so say, my favourite border was also the neon/rainbow one. I've not seen many others use it! Congrats on the video blowing up.

[@AJadedLizard]

Huh. That explains why I never caught Snorunt. It's been 10+ years since I played Sapphire (I borrowed it) and looking through my Pokemon in Soul Silver it always seemed weird that specific line isn't present. I can get it in Sinnoh now no worries (not to mention in the Hoenn remakes) but it's still weird to think it's locked to this one area otherwise.

[@TheCrashbandicoot36]

Didn't know berries respawn in Kanto, I love how much you learn about pokemon games

[@renownerd.276]

I wanted snow runt so bad. . . . The Pokedex said it was in that cave, ice cave blocked off. I spent soooo many hours searching. . . Never found it. Never got shell bell either.

[@FungiWizard]

Fun video that goes over all of the time based events in Gen 3!! It’s interesting to think that old GB and GBA games relied so heavily for some mechanics on the internal batteries. With the Gen 1 and Gen 2 games just straight up not being able to save games if your internal battery has dried up. I remember going to a yard sale and picking up all of the Gen 2 games at a discounted rate because the internal batteries were run dry. That was finally my excuse to replace those as well as my gameboy internal batteries and now I get to play with all of the fun time based events again

[@bleh491]

I feel your eevee pain. I leveled a golbat wanting to use a crobat and it nvr evolved. Only found out later that I needed national dex before it could

[@absolutezerochill2700]

So weird... i could have sworn atleast some of my berries grew when i started playing versions of Ruby and Emerald, both of which had dead batteries when i started playing. Never got into the low tide ice cavern, never saw mirage island, but the berries... I swear i remember planting some, coming later and seeing the bouncing trees before planting them again.

[@JasonAndroid]

Yes KZbin this is *[POKEMON VIOLET AND SCARLET]*

[@ladyakkyn]

I bought a GB Operator a few weeks ago. It came two days ago, so my Sapphire playthroughs will never have these limitations again!

[@Mudkip971]

A good benefit to having no battery in Ruby and Sapphire is the RNG being broken meaning you can abuse the hell of it.

[@kermut]

This doesn’t have to do with the video per se but fuckin years ago someone on Supercheats convinced me that wild Charizard spawned on the second floor of Sky Pillar in Pokemon Emerald. I lost HOURS of time running back in forth waiting for one to spawn. I have no idea why I believed him, good times.

[@lucasweimanguitar7008]

You might find it interesting to know that you can replace the battery of a cartridge, and then if you are lucky enough to have a wii and a gba-gc cable, you can fix the clock so berries will grow again, without having to restart the game.

[@amberhernandez]

As far as I'm aware, there's a bug where the game's clock doesn't reset, and the new battery has to last as long as the old one did + extra time to get the clock moving again. Pikasprey did a soft-lock picking video relying on the Lottery to get a Master Ball and escape a game-end. This bug was one of the potential run-killers, but I can't be certain if the Wii-cable method will fix it.

[@lucasweimanguitar7008]

@@amberhernandez right. I was able to use the program on the wii myself to manually adjust the date and allow my berries to grow again. It takes a few tries but it's pretty easy to do once you figure it out.

[@lisiastar8441]

@@amberhernandez someone has made a video on that aswell,simply put you can still change no problem the batteries,but for the clock to actually start moving,having a flashcard with some programs on it can reset the timer the video was by yello's island

[@agathaperson8]

My first game was actually Colosseum, so I started off with Espeon and Umbreon! Trading them from GameCube to the mainline games was a pain in the ass, but they've followed me all the way to Gen 8.

[@truearea53]

Oh man so many memories when I attempt to try to evolve Eevee into Espeon or Umbreon in FRLG all the way to level 100 actually thinking that it’ll evolve by now. But it’s still haven’t, and I failed to realize that there’s not a time zone in fire red and leafy green, only in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald 😒

[@ChicagoMel23]

*leaf green

[@kokkiro]

when i was a kid, i played pokemon emerald on an emulator. i remember getting the mirage island to appear while i was wandering from the east of pacifidlog. the island has wobuffet's pre-evo (i forgot the name lol) in the grass! it was so lucky of me but also unlucky because, well, it was on an emulator anyway and i didn't know about the rarity of the mirage island back then...

[@Boñez42069]

I was so close to completing the Pokedex in Fire Red the only mons I don't have are Espeon, Umbreon and the Snorunt line, I was so salty to find out about the whole clock based events

[@ChicagoMel23]

Replace the battery

[@mattmorales4320]

Had a nice chuckle to myself seeing the Milotic named “Benjals.” COME ON BENJALS! GET LOOSE!

[@TheSkyrux]

or you can just replace the battery in your cartridge

[@LawmanRogers]

I'm so glad this video found its way to my timeline, I find these topics interesting so banger video

[@stixoimatizontas]

So here's the thing with espeon/ubreon and r/s/e frozen clock. Yes you CAN evolve eevee but only into one of the two, depending on the cartriges memory of time. I remember evolving one on my ruby (with an empty battery), but I could only get that one. Then I tried something, I borrowed a friends game which also had an empty battery and boom! I managed to get the other. Apparently, in r/s/e when time freezes it freezes during day or night. I was lucky enough that my friend's copy had its time frozen during day and my copy was frozen during night or vice versa.

[@CarboKill]

This is literally mentioned in the video.

[@SebiPoet]

last year I did the surgery of replacing the internal battery in my copy of sapphire, and I gotta say. I do love me the berry tree dance

[@owokayisee]

I have a copy of Pokemon Emerald and for the longest time, I kept hoping for a Surskit swarm so I could catch one for myself since apparently that's the only way you could get one without trading from Ruby or Sapphire. When the battery dried up, I was heartbroken. Still... I finally managed to get one in the Gen 6 remakes lol!

[@kalkuttadrop6371]

The Surskit Swarm needs to be transfered from Ruby and Sapphire via record mixing

[@jaxpool155]

whenever i start a new ruby or sapphire file (emerald is my childhood save so i'm never resetting that one), i double check my guidebook so i set the clock at the start for low tide just to make sure i can get snorunt, love that funky little dude

[@JWillicus]

You forgot to mention Feebas, which can only be found as a 50% encounter on 6 random water tiles along Route 119 in RSE. Every day, the tiles will randomly shuffle, so along with the lottery and Mirage Island (which the ID number is guaranteed 0000) a dry battery is also beneficial for encountering Feebas as the water tiles will always stay the same! The replies are saying that the tiles will shift anyways, so I guess this comment is actually irrelevant

[@delta5287]

It's 50% actually. The six tiles do shift after a while even if the battery is dead, and that's what makes it a pain in the butt to even find.

[@Ahlnie]

The tiles only shuffled when you changed the trendy phrase in Dewford.

[@delta5287]

@@Ahlnie I know they shuffle when the trendy phrase changes but what I was saying was that it doesn't rely on the battery for some reason.

[@mizukittyakinyama]

Actually there's only a 1/16 chance for the tiles to shuffle or so I heard from another comment

[@delta5287]

@@mizukittyakinyama that would explain it

[@WingedEspeon]

You could even put berry farming in with a steps based mechanic. Heck you could even have a day/night cycle simulated by step counts.

[@loltunips]

i changed the battery

[@nierven]

Man I remember when I got Ruby on release, it lasted a couple years until one day the battery alert came up. Luckily I ended up getting Emerald at some point in 2006 and continued my main game there. To this day that cartridge is still working amazingly.

[@pf9878]

I'll never forget the Eevee that I named LOVE ME in fire red as a kid, thankfully it wasn;t on my main team so it didn't get to an absurd level but god dude

[@peaches_vt]

I'm a about 5 minutes into the video and I've already hit subscribe. I was enjoying the content as it was and then my ears honed in on Meteor Herd in the background and that was it. Button clicked. Pure culture.

[@KariSuttle]

I agree. So much of the continued accessibility relied on having other games, or another console, and I didn't have a gamecube. So I couldn't get an umbreon or espeon in my favorite game at the time, emerald, and eventually was locked out of shoal cave on replays. The other big frustration was how hard they made catching Feebas. I never caught one. I absolutely loved the berry mechanic. I was so into farming I would just refuse to buy antidotes etc and just farm the berries instead. I think it was my favorite new mechanic aside from the secret base.

[@Kolbiashi]

I just wanna say that this videos title was amazing, i immediately knew the topic of the video and clicked anyway. wonderful video!

[@selinabirkin1344]

My love for gen 3 stems from how interconnected it was to its side games and remakes. What an incredible journey it was, completing the gen 3 Pokedex. Aw heck I'll do it again starting tomorrow.

[@joshsuk138]

just wild to me how “personalized” a playthrough of any pokemon game can be when you consider all of this. i remember the lower levels of shoal cave so vividly in my first play through of Sapphire back in 04. i had the paperback guides to Ruby/Sapphire and Emrald, but to this day I’ve never seen mirage island for myself.

[@Gewitt]

Damn this video is spot on with my experience even all the way down to mourning the fact that I couldn’t watch the berry dance ever again

[@wheatleythebrick2276]

always love these small channel vids about weird pokemon shit, not sure why but theyre nice

[@justmetal227]

Yoooooo, I played Saphfor 350 hours and now I am learning of these places that you are telling me, Shoal Cave, Mirage Island, Berry Forest???? Thats crazy how I ha d ever Heard of them you are awesome for bringing them up! I got a copy of emerald ready to go now with a new battery, because I know how crucial berries are to the game :)

[@baddragonite]

This was why I was so glad Colosseum and XD gave the eeveelutions to you

[@brycerush98]

You just unlocked some memories I didn’t know I had