Modern Emerald Walkthrough: Gym Order, Levels and Level Caps

This is the spine of a run: which gym comes when, what level its ace actually is in the game's data, and the cap you are held to at that point if you enable level caps.

Gym order and levels

Caps are indexed by badge count, so the row for gym #1 is the cap you are under after earning that badge (index 1). With no badges you can reach level 15 on Normal caps and 12 on Hard caps. The full four-table breakdown, including how Hard mode shifts the numbers up, is on the level caps page.

The route, roughly

1. Littleroot to Petalburg — starter, the catching tutorial, Wally's Ralts. Nothing here can kill you unless you are careless.
2. Petalburg Woods to Rustboro — the Devon researcher, Team Aqua's grunt, then Roxanne. Cut comes from the Cutter's House in Rustboro once you have the badge.
3. Dewford — the ferry from Mr. Briney, Brawly, and Granite Cave for Flash.
4. Slateport and Route 110 — Team Aqua at the museum, then the rival on Route 110, then Wattson in Mauville. Rock Smash is a house in Mauville.
5. Routes 111–113 and Fallarbor — the desert, the Fiery Path, and Team Magma/Aqua at Meteor Falls.
6. Mt. Chimney and Lavaridge — the cable car, the Maxie fight, then Flannery.
7. Petalburg and Norman — Surf from Wally's house unlocks the southern half of the map; Norman is the difficulty spike of the mid-game, especially in Hard mode where his Slaking loses Truant.
8. Routes 118–119 and Fortree — the weather institute, the rival on Route 119, Fly on Route 119, then Winona.
9. Lilycove, Mt. Pyre and Mossdeep — the department store, the orb, Dive from Steven's house, and Tate & Liza in Mossdeep.
10. Seafloor Cavern and Sootopolis — the Aqua/Magma finale, Waterfall in Sootopolis, then Juan.
11. Victory Road and the League — Strength from Rusturf Tunnel, the Wally fight at Victory Road, then Sidney, Phoebe, Glacia, Drake and Wallace.

Between-badge jobs

• Level caps block progress, not just levels if you leave the option on, so evolve and train before each cap rather than after.
• Rematches unlock 50% of the time after 10 wild or 5 trainer battles won — a reliable way to catch up if you are under-levelled.
• HM moves do not need teaching if you hold the HM and the badge, so field progress never costs a party slot.
• If you are short on levels, the EXP Share page covers the fastest routes; the training spots that matter are Victory Road, the Chansey trainer in Lilycove Gym (postgame) and daily rematches.

Leader levels read from the extracted trainer data; cap tables from the hack's src/caps.c via the extracted level cap data.