Pokémon Emerald decompilation and its ports (pokeemerald, Emerald 3DS)

This site is not affiliated with pret, the port authors, Game Freak, The Pokémon Company or Nintendo. We do not host any files and only link the projects’ official repositories.

What it is

Pokémon Emerald came out for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 (2005 outside Japan). Nintendo has never released it on PC.

The pokeemerald project, started in October 2015, is “a decompilation of Pokémon Emerald” that builds a ROM byte-for-byte identical to the original US release (pokeemerald README). Its C source is readable and editable, which is why most current Gen 3 ROM hacks, such as randomizers and difficulty hacks, start from it. The repository declares no licence; it is public, not open source in the legal sense.

A decompilation on its own still produces a GBA game. The ports below take that code further and compile it for other machines.

The ports built on it

Emerald 3DS (Nintendo 3DS)

Emerald 3DS is “a native Nintendo 3DS port with a touch interface and an optional voxel overworld”. It runs directly on the 3DS’s processor with no emulator. Its README lists:

• the game on the top screen, a dedicated touch interface replacing the START menu;
• an optional voxel 3D overworld with adjustable camera and real stereoscopic 3D on a New 3DS (still under construction);
• an HD battle interface, optional follower Pokémon and day and night lighting;
• experimental local wireless play: trades, battles, the Union Room, contests;
• optional enhancements such as the physical/special split, visible IVs and EVs, infinite TMs and faster speeds;
• seven languages, each built from a cartridge in that language (Brazilian Portuguese is a fan translation built from the English one).

v0.5.0 (30 October 2026) is the first beta, with most interiors and gyms now modelled in 3D. You generate the game data from your own ROM with a Windows builder or the web builder on emerald-3ds.com, then install it on a 3DS with homebrew. The Windows download is only the builder; it is not a PC version.

pokeemerald-wasm (browser, macOS, Linux)

pokeemerald-wasm is “a recompilation of the original pret/pokeemerald decompilation to WebAssembly, with a browser frontend”. The same code also builds:

• a native desktop version with a Raylib frontend for macOS on Apple silicon and Linux (make native-raylib);
• a Kindle Scribe frontend for jailbroken e-readers, with on-screen controls.

There are no releases or hosted site: you need a development setup to build it, and the asset build follows pokeemerald’s own requirements. The author also has a 3D renderer, pokeemerald-3d, built from this port.

Others

• EmeraldRecomp: a static recompilation experiment using gbarecomp, part of the R.A.I.D. community.
• pokeemerald-rogue: a roguelike remix of Emerald made on the decompilation; a ROM hack rather than a port.
• G1R Deluxe, the native Red and Blue recreation, lists Emerald among its supported games, in beta.

What you need

• For Emerald 3DS: a dump of your own Pokémon Emerald cartridge in a supported language, and a 3DS that runs homebrew (or a 3DS emulator).
• For pokeemerald-wasm: a Mac or Linux machine with Clang, Python 3, Raylib and the decompilation’s build tools, and the willingness to build from source.
• For the decompilation itself: the toolchain described in pokeemerald’s INSTALL.md; the result is a GBA ROM you play on an emulator or flash cart.

We do not link, host or explain how to get a ROM.

The other Pokémon games pret has decompiled (Ruby, FireRed, Diamond, Platinum, HeartGold) have no PC port yet: see Pokémon decompilations for the status of each.

Is any of this official?

No. These are fan projects. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have taken down other fan Pokémon projects in the past; the pret decompilations have stayed up for over a decade, but there is no guarantee. Download only from the projects’ own GitHub pages, and be wary of sites offering a ready-made “Pokémon Emerald PC download”: none of these projects distributes one.

Unofficial. This page is written by an independent directory. It is not made by, endorsed by or affiliated with Nintendo / The Pokémon Company (developed by Game Freak) or pret (decompilation); ZallaxDev, tripplyons and others (ports) (Pokémon Emerald decompilation and its ports (pokeemerald, Emerald 3DS)'s author). We do not host any files, and we never link to game files, ROMs or ISOs.