So this is a crazy rabbit hole I ended up going down. Buckle up because it gets kinda crazy and goes deep into OCD/Autist territory. Basically the game Pokemon Colosseum has 48 Pokemon you can purify and a few bonus Pokemon for beating the game/various challenges. Then if you have a GameCube to Game Boy Advance Link Cable (that's right a GameCube Controller port to Game Boy Advance link cable existed) you can trade those Pokemon to your copy of Ruby/Sapphire as long as you have beaten the Elite Four. Several of those Pokemon are massive time saves or downright unobtainable in Gen 3 without this method.
Here is where things get complicated. You thought using a cable most people have never heard of to trade between a GameCube and a GBA was complicated? Ha! The game came with a pre-order bundled Bonus Disc. The Japanese one checks your save file to make sure the game is complete and then gives you Celebi and a Pikachu. The US Bonus Disc doesn't check your save file at all and gives you a Jirachi just for having the US Bonus Disc. So if you want a legit copy of Celebi in Gen 3 you need to beat the Japanese Pokemon Colosseum game, insert the Japanese Bonus Disc AND you have to play it on a Japanese GameCube which can only trade to a Japanese copy of Ruby/Sapphire WITH the Elite Four beat. (You also need a US GameCube to play the US Bonus Disc if you want Jirachi). Then you need a second GBA to trade from the Japanese GBA game to your US GBA game. Crazier still was the fact that the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum had the Japanese Bonus Disc content in the game! It simply never set a trigger for the event and didn't translate like 5 text boxes into English but still has the data on the game. So I made a patch that enables that flag and translates those lines. Now if you beat a US copy of the game you can claim your Celebi and Pikachu and still use the US Bonus Disc to get Jirachi and they will all trade right to your US GBA game.
Without the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-JPN GameCube (unless your US GC is region free)
-JPN Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum with completed save (unless you beat the US version and converted the save)
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-A second Game Boy Advance to trade from your Japanese Game to your US Game
-GBA Link Cable
-The ability to understand some Japanese or memorize which buttons to push
With the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-A way to play a patched US Pokemon Colosseum rom
Ofc you can replace all the hardware with emulators as Dolphin supports trading between the GC and GBA games and you can download completed Japanese save files for Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire but if you are editing save files or downloading completed ones I don't think that qualifies as a vanilla run anymore. The games are identical in both languages except for two rewards being left out and the data is even on the disc. This romhack changes nothing except for enabling an event flag and translating a few text boxes and in exchange you can beat the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum and the US copy of Ruby/Sapphire and get all the rewards you would get for playing the exact same games in Japanese and the rewards weren't even added to the disc because they were already on it. This is a 99.999% vanilla run, vanilla-ish if you will and the only way to complete the Gen 3 dex without learning Japanese/memorizing Japanese menu options, playing Ruby/Sapphire TWICE (once in Japanese), and having thousands of dollars worth of Japanese Games + consoles. It's good enough for me.
I mean look at this nonsense:
Here is where things get complicated. You thought using a cable most people have never heard of to trade between a GameCube and a GBA was complicated? Ha! The game came with a pre-order bundled Bonus Disc. The Japanese one checks your save file to make sure the game is complete and then gives you Celebi and a Pikachu. The US Bonus Disc doesn't check your save file at all and gives you a Jirachi just for having the US Bonus Disc. So if you want a legit copy of Celebi in Gen 3 you need to beat the Japanese Pokemon Colosseum game, insert the Japanese Bonus Disc AND you have to play it on a Japanese GameCube which can only trade to a Japanese copy of Ruby/Sapphire WITH the Elite Four beat. (You also need a US GameCube to play the US Bonus Disc if you want Jirachi). Then you need a second GBA to trade from the Japanese GBA game to your US GBA game. Crazier still was the fact that the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum had the Japanese Bonus Disc content in the game! It simply never set a trigger for the event and didn't translate like 5 text boxes into English but still has the data on the game. So I made a patch that enables that flag and translates those lines. Now if you beat a US copy of the game you can claim your Celebi and Pikachu and still use the US Bonus Disc to get Jirachi and they will all trade right to your US GBA game.
Without the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-JPN GameCube (unless your US GC is region free)
-JPN Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum with completed save (unless you beat the US version and converted the save)
-JPN Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-A second Game Boy Advance to trade from your Japanese Game to your US Game
-GBA Link Cable
-The ability to understand some Japanese or memorize which buttons to push
With the patch you need:
-US Ruby/Sapphire with Elite Four Beat
-Game Boy Advance
-US Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disc
-GameCube to GBA Link Cable
-US GameCube
-A way to play a patched US Pokemon Colosseum rom
Ofc you can replace all the hardware with emulators as Dolphin supports trading between the GC and GBA games and you can download completed Japanese save files for Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire but if you are editing save files or downloading completed ones I don't think that qualifies as a vanilla run anymore. The games are identical in both languages except for two rewards being left out and the data is even on the disc. This romhack changes nothing except for enabling an event flag and translating a few text boxes and in exchange you can beat the US copy of Pokemon Colosseum and the US copy of Ruby/Sapphire and get all the rewards you would get for playing the exact same games in Japanese and the rewards weren't even added to the disc because they were already on it. This is a 99.999% vanilla run, vanilla-ish if you will and the only way to complete the Gen 3 dex without learning Japanese/memorizing Japanese menu options, playing Ruby/Sapphire TWICE (once in Japanese), and having thousands of dollars worth of Japanese Games + consoles. It's good enough for me.
I mean look at this nonsense:
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