New Pokémon Emerald ROM Hack Contains Redrawn Sprites From 130 Artists

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pokémon Emerald for the GBA, 130 artists have collabrated on a project to redraw the sprites for all 386 Pokémon included in the game (thanks, gamesradar).

Not only that, but the revised sprites have been implmented into a fully playable ROM hack called Pokémon Emerald: Respirited, so you can try it out yourself and check out the new representations (we won’t provide a link to the download directly here, but locating it won’t prove particularly difficult).

Two versions of the download are also available: ‘Vanilla’ is effectively the original game but with the new redrawn sprites; ‘Plus’ allows for all 386 creatures to be obtainable on one save file while also editing the in-game trainers to represent the artists who contributed to the project.

Some of the redesigns here are spectacular, though others have clearly been done for giggles more than anything else. Heck, Charmander has been made to look like Agumon from the Digimon franchise, while Mew has been designed to have just one eye – weird stuff. You can check out the full roster via a Google doc.

So yes, while the designs aren’t exactly consistent, this is nevertheless a fun and charming project that celebrates one of the strongest entries in the series (in this writer’s humble opinion). Well worth checking out if you have the capability to do so.