Pokemon Ruby – Land Water Sky is a difficulty hack without being one. It’s mostly a “Have Fun Hack” while being a “Bosses Aren’t Pushovers Hack” at the same time. For example, when you first fight the Magma Leader, he has the same team, but if you fight him like you would fight the vanilla version, you might take a kick to the family jewels.
This hack replaces traditional starters with Larvitar (Land), Wailmer (Water), and Tropius (Sky). Players can capture all Hoenn starters on the very first route, ensuring they aren’t stuck with limited types (like Wingull or Taillow) for early gym battles. From the third gym onward, most major encounters, including Gym Leaders and the Elite Four, are Double Battles.
Features
- More Pokemon are available, particularly in the early grass. I always found RSE to lack choice in early game (or to only have a choice between terribad Pokemon with not so good designs). Here you will get options early for each gym, you won’t be stuck at Wattson for lacking ground types, you won’t be stuck between Wingull, Taillow and Zubat to beat the 2nd gym leader. All Hoenn starters can be captured on the first route.
- Different starters that have their strengths and weaknesses: the Land starter is Larvitar, the Water starter is Wailmer and the Sky starter is Tropius.
- Some Pokemon have been modified to be viable and bring diversity. Treecko’s evolutions become Grass/Ghost, a rare double type that doesn’t exist in gen 3 and makes up for its’ frailty while being more justifiable than Grass/Steel. Voltorb is Electric/Grass based on a regional form. Plusle is Fire/Electric and Minun is Ice/Electric. Aron loses it’s F*in’ rock type. The Bagon line becomes Dragon/Fire. Whismur is pure steel (hard rock/metal themed). Some Abilities have been changed too in order to fit the new and original roles of the Pokemon.
- Gym fights have been changed: 3rd gym onward (I think with the exception of 5th gym due to its’ strong Pokemon) are Double Battles. The Elite 4 also has Double Battles. Each fight brings its’ twist on the Monotype concept, which very much draws from the Monotype Teams in online battles, with enough strategic elements to have to think about the approach to take. Our favorite Fire Gym Leader has a Sun Team with Pokemon that make up for each other’s weaknesses. Our favorite Fighting punching bag has a dangerous ace for those who come unprepared. Wattson is still a major road block, but instead of being that because it’s got a Magneton (and a Manectric) before you’re supposed to be able to counter it reliably if you didn’t pick Mudkip, he’s a road block because his team features 4-5 types which compliment each other and a lot of fast Pokemon that can exploit your team’s weaknesses, on top of being the first Double Battle of the Gym Challenge, which means you can’t just send Marshtomp and spam Mud Shot any longer (good luck with that, Bullet Seed will eat your Marshtomp’s HP very fast).
- The Wild level curve has been altered, grinding is less time consuming, alongside the modified encounter tables it means faster pacing than a subpar nuzlocke team would allow in vanilla.
- Even Fishing Encounters have been modified. You can even get a Milotic in your team the same way you get a Gyarados, but you will have to backtrack a little for that, and t far from Magikarp’s counterpart, you can fish Luvdisc at a time when it is relevant. Fish everywhere and discover the new encounter tables (for Each Rod). Also the fished Pokemon are of a level more appropriate to the area they are found in (10, 15, 20/20, 25, 30/30, 35, 40).
- Pokemon of previous Gens have been incorporated into the encounter tables. Gen 2 has some cool mons that we never really got to play because they were lategame or postgame and severely underlevelled with garbage tier movepools. I say No More! Make Pokemon Great Again!
- Most movepools have been brought to a higher standard. I didn’t touch every single mon, some already had great movepools, some I was so uninterested in that I didn’t know what to do with them.
- This is a difficulty hack without being one. It’s mostly a “Have Fun Hack” while being a “Bosses Aren’t Pushovers Hack” at the same time. For example, when you first fight the Magma Leader, he has the same team, but if you fight him like you would fight the vanilla version, you might take a kick to the family jewels. His Golbat thrashed some of my Pokemon that would have clapped the vanilla Golbat. Think of it as a Platinum version of the Pokedex and bosses. Hell I got swept by an Aroma Lady with a single Roselia despite having a Gulpin in my team.
- TMs are distributed where needed. TM03 is located in the place of the Poke Ball North-West from Dewford, where it’s more useful than in the lategame.
- Moves have been updated to gen 6 or 7, some moves have been customized to be more viable and bring variety to their users’ movepool. Rollout and Flame Wheel are now single turn moves with 60 BP that raise the user’s defense by 1 level. Dive and Dig have decent PP and 70 BP. More types have access to 90+ BP moves. Steel and Rock types no longer have trash tier moves. The raise all stats attacking moves have been buffed within reason. The Always Hit moves have been buffed to be more viable in a game without Technician. Priority moves have been buffed and diversified (notably Waterfall becoming water Extreme Speed to compete with Surf). Accuracy has been buffed all around. Accuracy reduction has been switched to attack or speed reduction for the most part because I hate missing and cheesing by lowering accuracy is a tactic that relies on luck rather than skill. Cut and Rock Smash have been buffed (Cut changed types and got 60+ BP, Rock Smash is 60 BP with 50% chance to lower defense) because they were trash moves.
