Emerald Safari Zone / Battle Record RNG

Overview

While learning RNG Manips in Emerald, you may have noticed that, generally, the process is the same for everything. Save the game, reset, try and get your target.

But there's certain areas in the game that you cannot do this in, most notable of which is the Safari Zone! In Emerald, the extensions grant you the ability to catch a lot of Pokemon that are pretty rare in gen 3.

You might think the technique to Manip here would be to save outside the Safari Zone & run to your desired location. However, running over grass tiles & randomly moving NPCs will cause you to have inconsistent results.

We have a solution, though! And it's the Battle Record feature from the enhanced trainer card you get once you reach the Battle Frontier.

This tutorial will serve as a basic use case for this feature, which will let you hit target Pokemon that would otherwise seem unfeasible to RNG Manip, or difficult to get in cases where you cannot save.

Recommended Setup

Hardware Requirements

• Pokemon Emerald

• GameBoy Advance, Gameboy Player, Nintendo DS / DS Lite, GBA Emulator

• Windows 10/11 PC

In-Game Requirements

• Enter the Battle Frontier once so you have the Battle Frontier Trainer Card.

• A Pokemon with Sweet Scent

• At least one free space in your party.

• 5-10 Rare Candies. (Not 100% Needed, but helpful).

• 3 Pokemon who know Explosion / Self Destruct (Not 100% Needed, but helpful).

Tools Used

• PokeFinder 4.2.1

• Eon Timer 3.0.0-rc.6

Video Examples

im a blisy ._.

The Guide

Pick your target

The first thing we have to do is pick our target Pokemon. Open PokeFinder, and select Wild from the Gen 3 main window.

A new window will open up and by default be on the Generator tab, which is where we want to be. Before inputting any settings, make sure you select your profile.

In the RNG Info section set Method to Method Wild 2.

Your profile should automatically set the Seed to 0..

Leave Initial Advances, and Delay at their default values.

Max Advances, change to 500,000.

I will not be using any Lead in this guide. But if you're using Cute Charm, Synchronize, Hustle, or any other Lead ability, set it as well.

Before we change our Settings, we need to decide on a Target Pokemon. I will be aiming for a Shiny Heracross.

In Settings you will choose your Encounter Type. I will be choosing Grass in this example, since that is where Heracross is, but the Safari Zone has Grass, Surf, Rock Smash & Fishing available.

You can find which Encounter Type your target Pokemon uses in the Encounter Lookup tool. I've covered how to use it here.

The Safari Zone also has several zones, it's not just one location in PokeFinder. The Encounter Lookup tool does tell you which zone the Pokemon will be in, but it can still be confusing. Below is a visual of which zone is which.

After your location is selected, select your target Pokemon you want from the dropdown menu.

Lastly is the Filters section. This again, is personal choice. Select the IVs, Nature, Gender, Hidden Power, Ability you want. And also select if you want a Shiny.

I will just be going for a simple Shiny.

Shiny is set to Star/Square, which will show every potential Shiny. Star vs. Square doesn't matter in any game other than Sword & Shield, but Pokémon transferred from Gen 3 up to those games will retain their Star/Square Shiny status.

Once your Filters are set, click Generate. You should get several results, and have a window that looks like this:

You might notice that for Heracross, a rare Pokemon, we got quite a lot of available targets! That's because we expanded Max Advances to be 5 times higher than normal.

I will be aiming for Advance 162,770. This is roughly a 45~ minute wait.

There is an earlier Heracross available, but it has the ability Swarm, which I don't like.

It might seem crazy at first to wait 45 minutes per attempt, but this is where the Battle Record feature comes into play!

Once we set it up, we only have to do this wait once!

What is a Battle Record?

So what is a Battle Record anyway? Once you beat Pokemon Emerald you gain access to the Battle Frontier. And the first time you enter it, your trainer card gets upgraded to the Frontier Pass. So now, when you click on your trainer name in the start menu you'll see this screen.

Battle Record is a selectable option on the Frontier Pass that lets you view a replay of a battle that you had, either in multiplayer versus another player using Emerald, or from a battle versus an NPC in the Frontier.

This replay isn't a video, though, it's an actual battle the game is doing. To save space, gamefreak stores the trainers' teams, the moves they selected, and uses that data to recreate the match!

In order to make sure the luck is the same, the current state of the RNG is also stored!

In short, when we load a Battle Record, we set the RNG to what it WAS at the start of the battle!

This means for my 45~ minute wait Heracross, yes, I have to wait 45 minutes ONCE, but from then on I can try as many times as I'd like simply by opening the record again!

This can be very useful for hitting specific targets who have rare encounter slots. For example, Heracross here is on encounter slots 11 & 9.

We could use this same Battle Record for a 1% encounter Seedot!

You can also use it to aim for outrageously faraway advances! I once waited a month for a Latias. There's better ways to do this now, though. But that's for the Advanced section!

Now that we understand what a Battle Record is, let's set one up!

Setting up a Battle Record

Consider a Battle Record similar to what soft resetting your game does-- It resets the position of the RNG. But instead of 0, it's to a position we choose.

We can't make it exactly our target, though! Otherwise by the time the video was closed, our target advance, and therefore Pokémon, will have passed us by.

What we have to do then is aim for an advance BEFORE our target.

I find that around 2000~ Advances before our target is a nice sweet spot. If you accidently over advance, you'll have a bit of wiggle room. If you are dead on, your wait is still pretty short.

In my case, I'm aiming for Advance 162770, so my Battle Record target will be 160770!

Once you know what your Battle Record Target is, set it up in Eon Timer.

Your Eon Timer should look something like this, but with your target advance instead. By this point in the tutorials, you should be comfortable setting Eon Timer up on your own. If you need a refresher on it, see the Beginner Courses.

Also make sure to double check your console in Eon Timers settings!

I selected GBA, since I am doing this on a Gameboy Player.

For a Battle Record attempt, we want to quickly end a battle in any facility without clicking Run. The quickest for this is the Battle Tower. You can do Level 50 or Open level.

You can win or lose, it doesn't matter. If you win, though, you have to click Retire before your next battle to end your streak.

I bring 3 Pokemon with Explosion / Self Destruct to make sure the match is always over as fast as possible.

At this point, it's time to actually get the Battle Record!

Save in front of the Battle Tower Clerk and we can begin!

Click Start Eon Timer, and when the pretimer finishes on the 6th beep, soft reset the game.

Once you're in the game, talk to the clerk and mash through their dialogue. Go all the way up into your opponent trainer shows up, and has their dialogue. But DO NOT start the battle.

It should look like this.

Now we wait for Eon Timer to count down! My wait is about 44 minutes. I recommend doing something else during your long wait. Have you cleaned your room lately?

Then, when Eon Timer gets near the end of its countdown, it will beep 6 times. The goal is to press A on the 6th beep to start the trainer battle.

Once you're in the battle, do not worry about time AT ALL. You can end the battle as quickly or slowly as you need.

I lost the battle, so I do not need to click Retire.

Once you lose or click Retire, you'll be back in the Battle Tower Lobby.

The clerk will ask if you want to record your last battle on your Frontier Pass. Say YES to this.

It looks like this. Once you say yes, you also must save the game regularly, or your Battle Record will not stick.

At this point, we're done making the Battle Record! Now we have to attempt our target!

Battle Record Manip

To get started, I'm going to head to the North Safari Zone, where Heracross is located! I'll also swap out my 3 exploders, since I do not need them anymore.

Also remember to bring your Sweet Scent user with you!

Now, in Eon Timer, we're going to go to the Custom Tab. Here, set the Unit to Advances, and input how many Advances you subtracted from your target. I did 2000.

We don't know for certain that we're 2000 advances away exactly. In fact, we're probably not! So our first attempt will be us trying to figure out where we actually hit!

At this point, we're ready!

What we're going to do is open the Battle Record, then, while the intro to the battle happens, close the Battle Record with B, and press Start on Eon Timer at the same time!

I closed it around here. The RNG doesn't advance until a Pokemon makes an attack, so you don't have to rush.

While Eon Timer counts down, I go to the Pokemon Menu and hover over the field move sweet scent, waiting for it to finish counting down.

Then, when Eon Timer gets near the end of its countdown, it will beep 6 times. The goal is to press A on the 6th beep to start the encounter.

I got a non-shiny Phanpy. If you catch it, we can move on to Adjustment! If not, that's fine. Just repeat from Battle Record Manip.

Battle Record Adjustment

To find out which Advance we hit, we're going to have to figure out its IVs and use that to search.

First, though, let's set up Generator for a search.

In RNG Info we'll leave Seed and Method alone, but we are going to change 'Initial Advances'. To be about 2000 advances before our target.

In my case, I am aiming for 162770. So I set it to 160770. Also set Max Advances to 4000. This will generate Pokemon spreads from 2000 Advances before your target, and 2000 after it.

For Settings, set Encounter to Your Encounter Type, mine is Grass. Location to your Location, in my case it's Safari Zone North. And select which Pokemon you received. In my case it's Phanpy.

Then, for the Filters section, clear everything out to their default values. All IVs should be 0 to 31, and all of the drop downs should say Any, except Nature and Gender. Set those to what the Pokemon you received had. In my case it's a Hardy, Male Phanpy

After that, click the IV Calculator Button.

A new window will pop up called IV Calculator. Here, you input a Pokemon's stats, which get converted into IV Ranges for Generators IV Filters.

In the Pokemon drop down, select the Pokemon you are manipping. And in the Nature box, select its nature.

Then, at the bottom, put in the Pokemons Level and all of its stats, and hit Find IVs. You will see the Results section populated with IV Ranges.

If you have Rare Candies to raise the Pokemon's level, we can make the IV Ranges even more Precise. We aren't keeping this Pokemon, so it's safe to use them to gain info. They will come back when we soft reset!

You should be used to doing this by now, if you need a refresher on how to more precisely calculate the IVs, re-read one of the previous courses!

Once you have clicked Find IV's, it also fills that info out within the Wild Generator in PokeFinder.

At this point, hit Generate. You should only get one result. If you get more than that, you can narrow down the results further by doing more levels in the IV Calculator.

If you do not have ANY rare candies and have more than one result, it's generally fine to assume you hit the closest Advance to your target.

If nothing comes up, make sure to check the other wild Methods, like 1 and 4.

If you still have no results, expand your search range by decreasing Initial Advances by 1000, and increasing Max Advances by 1000, and click Generate again. Do this until you get at least 1 result.

In my case, I hit this Wild 2 Phanpy.

Now we need to calibrate. You may notice this is quite a distance away from your target! I was aiming for 162770, but this Phanpy spawned on 163422! That's a 652 Advance difference.

You have to calculate this yourself by subtracting the higher number from the lower number. IE, if you hit later than your target, like I did, you subtract your target Advance from what you landed on.

If you were early, let's say I hit 161770, I'd subtract that from my target Advance.

If you were late, add the number you got to the Number you have in Eon Timer. If you were early, subtract it.

I was 652 Late, and have 2000 in Eon Timer.

So I add those together and put the result in the Hit box in Eon Timer. Then, I click Update.

You'll notice the calibration changes!

I would also recommend you reset the filters section of PokeFinder back to default values, incase you miss your Target again!

Now repeat the process from Battle Record Manip & Battle Record Adjustment

Eventually, with enough attempts, you will land on the Pokemon you are aiming for. I tend to only adjust if I am more than 2 off, or I land on the same Advanced repeatedly.

Here it only took me 4 attempts once I calibrated to land on my target Heracross!

And remember, this Battle Record is REUSABLE. I now have a calibrated Eon Timer for 2000 advances away from a shiny, that I can use whenever I please!

And it's on encounter slots 11 & 9, which are rare Pokemon! I could use it for Chimecho, or Volbeat, etc! You can see what encounter slot a Pokemon is by selecting them in the dropdown, then looking in filters.

So use the Battle Record as much as you can & get those rare Pokemon!

Next Steps...

At this point you're all done with the Intermediate course! Next up is Advanced. In there we'll cover some complex, multi step Manips that will focus on not only getting SHINY Pokemon, but Pokemon with good stats. So if you like competitive play & you feel like you've mastered the basics, check out our Egg RNG and Painting RNG guides!