Finished the Emerald chapter a few days ago, and as usual, here are my thoughts.
A sequel to both the RS and FRLG chapters! That's like... twice as much sequel as usual. Shoz999's description of it as a love letter to competitive battling is spot-on. Who hasn't read this chapter and immediately wanted to go and tackle the Battle Frontier? It's very cool that Adventures was completely unafraid to show the Frontier in all its brutal (and often grindingly tedious) glory, rather than the wussy pseudo-Gym challenge the anime turned it into, and all of Emerald's fights against the Brains rank alongside any of the other major fights of the series.
Though I don't think it would have been so egregious for Wally to tackle the Battle Frontier (and indeed, Adventure's version of Wally is just about the only incarnation of the character I can stand) I'm glad the writers chose to change tack and create a brand new character instead, because Emerald is probably my favourite Dex holder we've seen yet. His intriguing physical appearance and unexpected depth, coupled with his uncanny brilliance at battling, combines to create a character quite unlike any of the others and the perfect complement to Ruby and Sapphire. It's all the more rewarding when you realise his arrival was seeded as far back as the GSC chapter. My only issue with his backstory is that it all comes out in a rush right at the arc's end; I wish it could have been incorporated a little more neatly.
But this arc's distinctive coolness isn't just down to its protagonist. Guile Hideout is a very cool villain, with an equally cool sidekick to match (I have an enduring fondness for Surskit and didn't think anything could make it seem evil). The reveal of his true identity and of what happened to Maxie is dark in the suggestive, understated way Adventures does so well. This chapter contains so many individual memorable moments: the shock capture of Jirachi, the reveal of the enormous Kyogre monster, the clash of Emerald's team against the Regi trio. And of course, we get the moment when Emerald rescues the five petrified Dex holders. After the shocking ending of the FRLG chapter, seeing them restored is a great payoff - and seeing all ten Dex holders together is so both epic and emotional moment.
It's this moment that ends up being the high point of the arc and of the final battle, because the Kyogre monster is defeated way too easily, which takes a lot of the impact out of what should have been an incredibly epic moment - all nine starters (and the Pika trio) using the ultimate moves together. In fact the final battle as a whole is a considerable anti-climax, with none of the buildup of the GSC or RS final battles - in particular, the way that Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald managed to learn the ultimate moves in about ten minutes felt like a total ass-pull. Not to mention the way Emerald effortlessly gets handed three new members who just happen to be a match for the other Dex holders and have Gen IV baby forms - would it have been such a stretch for him to have gotten that Mawile instead? Suits him much better, and the eventual Sudowoodo, Mantine, and Mr Mime pairs never ended up producing Eggs like we were all expecting. (Or Red's Vee and Blue's Ditto, come to that - wonder who the hypothetical resultant Eevee egg might have gone to? None of the Dex Holders ever got a Leafeon or Glaceon. Potential LGPE arc theories abound...) Kind of feels like a wasted opportunity to pointlessly give two different Dex holders Mr Mimes right at the very end of this arc, since either Pearl or Platinum would have been ideal to have Mime Jr.
Anyway, the Emerald chapter is still ultimately a very satisfying read, and a fitting end to the Gen 3 chapters. The ten Dex holders united is a moment of triumph that makes me want to read the older chapters all over again. (Which, of course, I'll eventually do - I'm leaving the RGBY chapters for last.) Now, onto DPP - but not just yet. The Emerald chapter ends on such a positive note, and with so few loose ends, that I want to let it sink in a while.
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Just as a side note, the only original print volume of PSPcl I ever read was the original 26, which included the final chapter of FRLG as well as the first batch of Emerald chapters, and I much prefer their translation. There's a lot more charisma and nuance to the dialogue ("time to dance to another tune!" Emerald says, upon switching out - in this version, he says "oh no, I'd better switch") and the most obvious fatality of the updated editions is the bowdlerisation of the scene where Emerald takes a whizz off the side of the Battle Factory (seriously? When did toilet humour suddenly become inappropriate for a family audience? Must have missed the memo).