Pokemon Emerald’s ultimate challenge took seven months and thousands of dollars
The Pokemon CompanyA Pokemon fan has wowed other players by managing to complete Pokemon Emerald’s ultimate challenge, taking them seven months and thousands of dollars to do so.
Pokemon as a franchise is no stranger to unbelievable feats. From rare Shiny encounters to spectacular speed runs, there’s not much the community hasn’t managed to do.
However, they pale in comparison to what one trainer shared on Reddit, revealing that they completed a 100% legitimate Living Dex in Pokemon Emerald.
The post elaborates, “I completed the Living Dex in Pokémon Emerald. After a 7 month, several-thousand dollar adventure crossing 8 different games and 5 different consoles, I finally caught them all. I even flew out of state for a limited Event distribution in 2024.”
A Living Dex is the ultimate Pokedex for trainers, requiring them to own a version of every available Pokemon in the game. Owning a Living Dex is an incredible feat in any Pokemon game, but what makes this particular challenge so impressive is that it was done in Pokemon Emerald.
Pokemon Emerald is notoriously difficult for this challenge as collecting all of the 386 available Pokemon requires playthroughs of several titles, a huge variety of hardware, and even event items that were only ever released in Japan.
Acquiring everything needed for this challenge isn’t just logistically difficult, but also expensive. To complete a Living Dex in Pokemon Emerald, this player spent $4,850 USD, and that was with them already owning a lot of the required items.
From scratch, you would have to spend a lot more than that, making this challenge impractical for the overwhelming majority of fans.
This incredible feat left the Pokemon community stunned, with the most upvoted response commenting, “Insane. Probably the hardest feat to achieve in pokemon ever. Congratulations”.
Others praised OP, admitting that their attempts fell short: “I accomplished 381/386 back in 2012. I could never get the special event Pokemon: Celebi, Jirachi, Lugia, Deoxys, Mew.”
This isn’t the only unbelievable Living Dex the community has shared over the years. A duo took on a four-year journey to collect every available Pokemon in Sword and Shield, while only capturing them in the oldest games they first appeared in.