[Layell]

Version exclusives have actually very little to do with why I put Sapphire rather than Emerald. Just look at my chart. While it could probably be very easy to switch the two. Emerald by its nature is just a longer game to run through, you have the Magma Hideout, the space station, Scott. I'm not sure that it's worth it for that. There is also the fact that getting Kyogre/Groundon in Emerald is a bit too random, and I've tried really hard to not let that happen. Plus all three of the trio are at level 70 and in this speed run I will probably have only a starter or something else get that level, the fact is the later gen games can handle fighting level 60+ legendaries because I can easily transfer my powerhouses from the other games. The gen 3 games are really stuck on their own in this format. I'd rather just catch Kyogre at the story point then push my way through the Sky Pillar and masterball Rayquaza.

While I'm a huge fan of the gamecube games I'd say they aren't worth putting in since most of the exclusives can now be fairly easily caught. Plus due to the nature of the game I'd argue that you have to purify the pokemon too in order for it to be considered yours, since if I remember correctly the ID isn't yours until you do. Also if you don't snag what you need to snag there goes some 20 minutes where you need to interrupt whatever you are doing and go fight in some Colosseum to get to resnag whatever you missed. If we've been intentionally missing snags too that essentially means a reset if we kill something we meant to snag because there is no way to know for sure if Miror B will have what you need. Double battles can also really beat down on a team. You can't skip animations in them either, it's not worth it.

I've started drafting out my drafts for routes and what needs to be caught where. I've started on gen 3 and already I've changed a decent bit of the FR run to ensure that I can get 60 kanto mons for the national dex. It's also a huge pain that I cannot always find information where one pokemon is easier to find in one game than another (ie Horsea in FR and Krabby in LG) which has resulted in some changes allowing me to get Krabby in SS and level it up once to evolve. I'll probably need to go through again and do HM's and what sort of HM slaves will be best. If that means capturing a mon outside of what is planned for each game I don't really mind since those are a bit more for utility.

Also I'm interested in Switching White to White 2, I'm just not sure if it's easier to beat one game over the other, although it may cause some minor things like the monkey trio needing actual effort to get. But the advantage is that I could get Latias here if the Sapphire one becomes too difficult along with all the other legends sitting around in the BW2 games.