Pokemon Emerald: The Official Strategy Guide (UK Version) Paperback – 7 Oct. 2005

Having played every other Pokemon game quite a lot and having only played Emerald once (and Ruby/Sapphire never), I really needed some sort of direction. This was perfect. Fully illustrated and with steps in each place so you know where to go if you get stuck.

After playing the game for near on 110 hours, I decided that I'd discovered everything that was obvious, and that I should check out this book. Overall, I wasn't disappointed.The maps are good, the instructions are clear (it includes both a basic walkthrough of the game, and a more detailed step-by-step guide of exactly what can be done in each location) and there are lots of nice little illustrations to go with it. Even better, there are comprehensive lists of exactly what moves each pokemon can learn, and what action each move has, and where you can buy just about every item, and all sorts of things like that - as well as a strategy guide to beating the Frontier champions, which was one thing that I hadn't managed yet.There are a few things that I'd like to have seen, and I feel could have made it a better book. Firstly, although there is a full (or almost full - I'm sure I saw Salac and Petaya berries at the Battle Factory, but they're not mentioned here) list of the berries and where they can be obtained, it isn't always detailed enough. For example, it says that two of the rarer berries (Mago and Aguav) can be obtained on Route 120, yet there are none to be seen and the girl who hands out berries only ever gives me a Wiki. Likewise, it says that Pamtre, Watmel, Durin and Belue berries can be obtained from the Berry Master's house, but I can only assume that you get them by giving a special password to his wife - I've visited him a couple hundred times and he's never given me any of these - and I have no idea what that password might be. Allegedly you can get a couple more on Mirage Island or at the Battle Frontier, but I haven't found them yet, and the book doesn't give you any real hints.The other major thing was that the pokedex only covers the pokemon actually found in Emerald. This I can understand, but I have to admit that after the disappointment of the Fire Red / Leaf Green guide, I was hoping that this one would tell me where to get Chikorita / Cyndaquil / Totodile, as well as some of the legendaries.All in all, it's a good guide, although there are a few things that I felt could have improved it without taking up much space or causing undue problems to the authors. Perhaps they feel that we should work these things (like which pokemon allows you go visit Mirage Island - who on earth could it be? I think I've tried everyone) out for ourselves, but for people like me who prefer to have reassurances that we're on the right track, it could be a little more helpful.

I always buy guides for my games... And seeing as I hadn't played a pokemon game in 4 years, I thought buying one would be a good idea. The best bit of this book is the Pokedex at the back, but being an original player, I found the random order and missing 200-odd pokemon quite infuriating. On the whole, though, this section is reasonably thorough.However, the actual walktrough I found was very disappointing. Trying to follow it made me very confused, as it was constantly jumping ahead to bits further on in the game. The information on the gym leaders was almost none existant, which was very annoying, and some of the extra information was inaccurate (at least, as far as I'm aware).I may be being harsh, however, I compare all pokemon guides to my original Nintendo blue-red version... which is possibly the best game guide ever! Being honest, I would recommend buying the 10th Annerversary Pokedex book rather than this one, as it has all the information and more that this guide does without the walkthrough (though the walkthrough really is poor).

This book tells you evrey thing about pokemon emrald and all the pokemon that you can catch on so overall I recamend it!