Pokémon Emerald takes place in Hoenn, which is based on the real Japanese island of Kyushu, just rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. Essentially, they turned it sideways. So, naturally, one fan has rotated it back, making for one of the most confusing ROM hacks imaginable.
"It kind of bothered me that Hoenn is the only region where north is left and not up," the Emerald Rotate description reads. "So I remade the entire overworld of Emerald but rotated 90 degrees, to match real life Kyushu more."
This is a ROM hack perfect for anyone who has played an ungodly amount of Pokémon Emerald, since all of your muscle memory will be working against you. But its creator has made a few other changes beyond simply spinning Hoenn around. Some Pokémon that normally can't be encountered in Emerald have been added as rare encounters across various areas, giving players a small incentive to explore the newly disorienting map. Still, let's be honest: nobody is downloading this for the new encounters.
There's just one, very fitting bug worth mentioning: “Indoors NPCs sometimes face the wrong direction, due to me messing some basic movement paths early on and not realizing until it was too late.” Honestly, I like to imagine the island suddenly shifted and a few of the NPCs are still adjusting.
It's a completely pointless change, but I have a feeling Emerald Rotate is going to become a must-play ROM hack soon enough. The responses to the announcement seem to agree, with players simultaneously horrified by the concept and desperate to try it for themselves. Just look at the Bluesky comments.
"I hate this so much. I need to play it now," said Connt1nu3.
"Somehow this hurts me more than any troll or horror hack could ever do," Gacel commented.
"While it's an incredible work of fan gaming, when I looked at it I went, 'This fels wrong... put it back,'" Frogman, Blood Dragoon said.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/pokemon-emerald-rotate-rom-hack/
