Modern Emerald Move Changes: New Moves and Buffed Moves

Modern Emerald adds 15 new moves from Generation IV and later, chosen to fill gaps in the Gen 3 movepool — Dark Pulse exists here because Dark had no special move worth using, and the same logic applies to the others.

The new moves

That is 14 new moves by direct comparison with vanilla Emerald's move data; the hack's notes describe 15, the extra one likely being a renamed or replaced move rather than an addition.

Changed moves

• HM01 Cut is Grass type instead of Normal.
• Night Shade does a flat 50 damage rather than equal to your level — much stronger early, much weaker late.
• Hidden Power does a flat 60 damage and shows its type in the summary screen and in battle, so you no longer need an external calculator.
• Move buffs and nerfs from later generations are included where they make sense in a Gen 3 engine.

The physical/special split

The Gen IV split is optional and enabled by the Modern preset. With it on, moves are physical or special based on the move rather than the type — Crunch becomes special on Dark types, the elemental punches become physical, and so on. With it off, you get the Gen 3 behaviour where the type decides.

This is the setting that most changes how a team plays, so decide early: a special attacker with Ice Punch is a different Pokémon depending on this option.

Also new

• A move information submenu — press START while choosing a move to see what it does.
• Fairy type and 4 new abilities, for Sylveon, Regidrago, Regieleki and Arceus.
• Modern learnsets are optional, and mix Gen 3 with later generations.

Move lists read from the extracted game data and compared against vanilla Emerald (moves.json); documented changes from the hack's official documentation.