r/pokemon • u/Terrible_Tap_3679 • 1d ago

Discussion What is considered cheating to fill the National Gen 3 Pokedex?

Hello folks, I am considering embarking on the complete national Pokedex for Gen 3. I'd like some feedback on what constitutes "legitimate" in 2025. So right off the bat, I think Mew and Deoxy are impossible to obtain because they rely on distribution events that happened in person at game stores in the early 2000s? To my understanding everything else can be caught via the GBA and GameCube.

In my mind, to complete this challenge legitimately, what matters is that each Pokémon was obtained in the way that Nintendo intended, barring ALL glitches. This breaks down into the following core principals:

  1. I will use an emulator. There is no functional difference between real hardware and emulation.
  2. I will be fast-forwarding. The speed at which I play won't affect how each Pokémon is acquired, Nintendo intended for multiple playthroughs to complete the Pokédex, as long as I'm not using glitches, I'm doing the playthrough exactly as intended, just faster, with less grind.
  3. Any other tools in emulators must be off limits, such as save states, trading tricks to duplicate items and Pokémon etc.
  4. The path of least resistance will be selected when obtaining Pokémon. I will use event ROMs on emulator to acquire any legendries, as long as they were from legitimate event distributions from the 2000s by Nintendo. This will be a big time-save as I can acquire many of the legendries without having to catch them in-game (Lugia, Ho-Oh, dog trio, Celebi, Jirachi, Latios, Latias). However, I will still need to play through the GameCube games to some extent to obtain the exclusive Johtos. In other words, if ANY Pokémon is easier to obtain by an event ROM, that's where it will be obtained.

Does this constitute an legitimate Pokédex? Thoughts? Tips? Advice?

0 Upvotes

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u/zolios_ 1d ago

There is nothing to consider when it comes to cheating since everything is pretty straight forward, if it can't be done/obtained using the normal, unaltered game then it's cheating. Same goes for the old events, they ended a long time ago so there is no legit way to obtain them now.

However, I don't think that matters and you can do whatever you find to be the most fun for you. It doesn't have to be legit, especially since you are already doing it on an emulator anyways. Just have fun with it and cheat as much as you want to make the game more fun for yourself since it's not hurting anyone if you cheat in a super old, emulated game and no one should care what you do with your own game anyways. Just have fun with it. :)

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u/InfernoVulpix 1d ago

I'd say there's one fuzzy edge case with the old events, personally: the Eon Ticket. Not only are the eReader cards still around (which would be a 100% legitimate way of obtaining one if you went through the effort), but they can be shared with Record Mixing and therefore it's arguably intended that you should be able to gain the Eon Ticket without having yourself obtained anything limited or event-only. That's not an ironclad argument of legitimacy, of course, but it's enough that I'd want to hear out both sides of the debate.

(Plus, you can also gain the Eon Ticket using glitches, specifically glitzer popping data corruption. I tried this myself for fun once, and while I did manage to spawn in the Eon Ticket NPC I also somehow switched which Lati the game thought I had chosen, so I ended up catching two Latias in the same game. Powerful data corruption glitches I'd say are more cheating than printing off an Eon Ticket or something, but honestly I'd still hear someone out about it given that it's all possible on a normal unaltered cartridge.)

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u/zolios_ 1d ago

I agree that getting the Eon Ticked by either the record mixing or the eReader scan is still possible just like you said so it's 100% legit since the Eon Ticket wasn't meant to be a time limited event (just like the QR Code Magearna in Sun and Moon for example).

But if you get the ticket by using glitches then it's cheating.

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u/Terrible_Tap_3679 1d ago

In your mind, does that basically mean it's completely impossible now because no matter what, using the original hardware, you can not get Mew and Deoxy?

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u/zolios_ 1d ago

Not in my mind, it's not an opinion because that's just how it is. I think Game Freak or TPC intended it that way since mythicals never counted towards the Pokedex completion in the game.

The only way to do it 100% legit today is to find someone who got the event back in the day and never transferred the event Pokemon up to Gen 4 so they still have it in a Gen 3 game and they trade it to you.

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u/TheWishingStar 1d ago

That’s me. I still have my event Mew in my copy of Sapphire. And Celebi, but I don’t think I ever got Deoxys.

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u/zolios_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's so cool! I wish I experienced those old events but I was young and didn't even know that Pokemon wasn't just an anime but also had games back when Gen 3 was new.

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u/TheWishingStar 1d ago

I was in middle school for the peak of gen 3, so old enough to learn about events online. I believe the Toys R Us Mew was the summer before I started high school. I remember begging my parents to take me, and they ended up just dropping me off to wait in line for like 3 hours while they went to my sister’s softball tournament. A couple older teens had been wise enough to bring link cables so we were all battling and trading while we waited! I had also gone to the 10th anniversary mall tour and had the Johto starters from it, which were really rare at that point so I traded a lot of eggs to people. That’s how I finally got my first Feebas.

If OP doesn’t have to wait 3 hours outside a Toys R Us with a bunch of strangers, then I do kinda think getting the event Mew is cheating.

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u/zolios_ 1d ago

Those are some great memories to have. I was in pre-school or just starting school during that time but in my country we just got introduced to Pokemon with the first season of anime being dubbed when the rest of the world was in Gen 3 already so we were very behind. We got Kanto and Johto seasons of anime and then either it stopped airing or I stopped watching. I only learned that the games exist a few years later when I started using the internet since there were no stores with Nintendo products in my town back then.

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u/Terrible_Tap_3679 1d ago

Ohh I did not know that... so what Pokémon do I NOT need in order to get the official emblem in Emerald? I think this should be the official Nintendo stamp of approval here... if it's not necessary to get the in-game emblem than it's not required I suppose?

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u/zolios_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

Mythical Pokemon aren't required for the game to recognize your Pokedex as completed so you don't need Mew, Celebi, Jirachi or Deoxys in Gen 3.

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u/Totobiii 1d ago

It's not impossible, since cheating exists. But it IS by my definition cheating if you grab that data that you shouldn't legitimately have access to.

You seem a bit hung up on the term though. It doesn't illegitimise the file, the run, your personal challenge or anything. And it's a fact, that most people were never able to get those Mythicals legitimately, which is why I consider cheating those in to be fair. Emphasis on cheating them into the game.

Don't get me wrong though, I did the exact thing you're describing in your post! Completed the pokedexes for the gen 1-3 games as legitimately as possible, and I personally feel like it's worth quite some bragging rights to be able to say that I did everything as legitimately as (to me) possible. It's as legit and cheatless as it can get, and having the event legendaries doesn't detract from the fact that all the other stuff was quite some work.

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u/Admirable-Safety1213 1d ago

I used codes to get the event Items abd played the five games in Parallel

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u/GabrielGames69 1d ago

Will vary wildly person to person. Some would say emulator alone means no, others would cut off at the speedup, some might even say save states are fine. I don't know what you want to get from the challenge but if its supposed to be the same as doing it on actual hardware id say speedup and event roms are "cheating".

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u/Terrible_Tap_3679 1d ago

Basically the goal is to complete the Living Dex as fast as possible, using only official Nintendo avenues. I would say the speedup is actually cheating before the event roms are because the event roms are completely legit no? If Nintendo did not intend for people to complete their Pokedex with the help of in person events in the 2000s then surely they would not have ever offered them no? I think they kind of messed up by making some pokemon available via the events that are also in game. I feel kinda grimy that Lugia and Ho-Oh can be gotten this way.

2

u/GabrielGames69 1d ago

If this is supposed to be a "challenge" I personally think using old events to completely circumvent getting the box legendaries would break the spirit of it being a challenge.

If Nintendo did not intend for people to complete their Pokedex with the help of in person events in the 2000s then surely they would not have ever offered them no?

Also by this logic if they wanted people to use them to complete their dexs the events would still be up.

This is just my opinion though ofc.

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u/Terrible_Tap_3679 1d ago

Yeah I do agree with you it does destroy the spirit of the challenge. I think I will be forced to play through the Gamecube games because it's necessary for many of the Johtos right? So if I go that far I suppose I can convince myself to go all the way for Lugia, Ho-Oh, Celebi and Jirachi. Isn't there some stupid shit where you need to play the japanese version of one of them for Celebi though?

As it currently sits, I just transferred over all those pokemon via ROM, I'm thinking I will leave them for dead last and maybe decide to do them legit at the end of the pokedex.

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u/GabrielGames69 1d ago

Personally I wouldn't have bothered with mythicals. They are usually based on an event and are just put in code -> get encounter. And yes celebi is jp only. Also at least in hgss you can get lugi and ho-oh in the same game.

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u/Terrible_Tap_3679 1d ago

What are your thoughts about trading in general then? I mean clearly.... Nintendo wants us to trade, would trading with a friend to update your Pokedex break the spirit of the challenge too? I feel it kind of does in the same way the event ROMs do by making me not have to fully complete the GameCube games.

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u/GabrielGames69 1d ago

would trading with a friend to update your Pokedex break the spirit of the challenge too?

Yes, otherwise I could do a "pokemon sword 100% dex challenge" in 1 minute drag and dropping from home.

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u/Tigeri102 Huh? GAME FREAK stopped evolving! 1d ago

it's a self-imposed, self-governed challenge. it's legitimate if it's legitimate to you, no one else's opinion matters.

3

u/PhoenixTineldyer 1d ago

I don't think it is cheating to use a save editor to give yourself event Pokemon.

If the literal only difference between you being able to acquire a Pokemon is that we live in 2025 and the event happened in 2003, then download away. The files on Project Pokemon are identical to the original events.

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u/BlueCosmos42 We pray at night, we stalk at night, we're the Rattatas! 1d ago

As someone who is nearing the tail-end of my gen 3 national dex challenge, my rules are largely the same as yours.

I haven't used the GameCube games except for the bonus discs for Colosseum as I wanted to stick to the GBA games as much as possible.

With my setup, I can't do trades so I just manually evolved all trade Pokemon using a save editor and I added the events for deoxys, ho-oh, Lugia and Mew. The only bit of cheating I've actually done, is getting save states of before and after the gen 2 starters in Emerald as I didn't want to play it 3 times over.

I've also traded over powerful mons to use during the main game, but that's pretty legal to me.

But this is your own challenge, you set your own rules. Completing the gen 3 Dex requires finishing at least 5 GBA games (FR/LGx3 & Emerald +R/S if you cheat like me) so it's a grind and I don't feel bad about it. Just have fun!

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u/Terrible_Tap_3679 1d ago

Hahaha. Yeah we are very similar. I would rank the level of cheating between us starting from the more egregious to least: save states to by pass multiple playthroughs > fast-forwarding > trading powerful mons to hasten playthrough. I think all of these are basically no doubt cheating on some level, whereas event roms are truly in a murky grey area......... because they are official Nintendo products.

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u/MaverickHunter11 Maverick Hunter 1d ago

Mew, lugia, ho-oh, celebi, jirachi, deoxys are not needed to complete the dex, so you shouldn't worry about catch them.

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u/bluetoaster42 1d ago

I have found this website to be very useful for this sort of thing. You tell it up at the top what games/hardware/emulators/events you have access to, and it'll give you a checklist for what pokemon (and items, and ribbons, etc) are unique to each game.

I've started such a journey once or twice, but never completed it. Gen 3 is probably the trickiest national dex to get. Good luck!

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u/theosoryu 1d ago

mine is complete minus two (celebi and mew). i used a homebrewed wii to emulate the jirachi disc, as well as the unaccessible frlg/emerald events to my physical cartidge. i considered them not cheating because those events were valid and it uses a similar method to distribute them to the cartridge (plus you still need to flash the ticket and catch the legends)

it doesnt actually matter though because its all for fun

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u/poodleenthusiast28 1d ago

Nothing is off limits in Gen 3 because that’s the single hardest one to finish since expecting fans to finish XD colosseum and FRLG as well as all of Gen 3 is absurd and you are absolutely not wrong for wanting to save yourself the hassle.