Pokémon Emerald 3DS, Monomyth, PokeDaisy and Fulldex: Retro Pokémon's Busiest Month

Retro Pokémon had a busy October and November. A native 3DS port of Pokémon Emerald with an optional voxel 3D world appeared, the Emerald hack Pokémon Monomyth came out after six years, PokeDaisy gave dual-screen Android handhelds a live Pokémon companion, and Fulldex put every DS Pokémon game onto a single widescreen. YouTuber IsaacOS toured all of them in "Retro Pokémon Is Exploding Right Now", published on 11 November 2026, which passed 111,000 views by the next day. This page covers what each project does, what you need to run it, and where the video found problems.

All four are free fan projects and none of them includes a game. Each one asks you to supply your own copy.

IsaacOS's 21-minute tour of the projects on this page. The War Thunder segment is a sponsor read.

The projects at a glance

Emerald 3DS: Pokémon Emerald as a real 3DS game

Emerald 3DS is a fan port of Pokémon Emerald that runs natively on a Nintendo 3DS. Its GitHub page describes it as built on the pret/pokeemerald decompilation with a 3DS backend on top, using the libctru, Citro2D and Citro3D libraries, so no emulator sits in between. A browser-based builder at emerald-3ds.com makes the files from your own clean Emerald ROM. English, Spanish, French and Italian cartridges are supported, with German and Japanese marked experimental. You need a 3DS or 2DS with custom firmware, plus the console's DSP firmware file for sound.

Emerald 3DS with the optional voxel overworld on top and the touch menu below. Image: ZallaxDev, from the project's GitHub page.

The bottom screen replaces Emerald's START menu with a touch menu for the map, party, bag, Pokédex and PokéNav. Everything else is optional and switched off by default: a voxel 3D overworld that works with the New 3DS's 3D slider, 3D battles set in that voxel world, day and night lighting, visible wild Pokémon, follower Pokémon drawn with HeartGold and SoulSilver sprites, and experimental local wireless play for two to four consoles.

The project is open about how unfinished the 3D mode is. Its README says "large parts of the map and most interiors are still shown flat", and calls the Battle Frontier "only an early start". IsaacOS had the same experience. He found the 3D battle system "probably the most buggy thing" he tried, while the voxel overworld "barely had any issues". He called it the best way to play Emerald on original hardware.

The 3D settings sit in Emerald 3DS's own options menu. Image: ZallaxDev, from the project's GitHub page.

Fulldex: every DS Pokémon game on one screen

DS Pokémon games split their picture across two screens, which leaves a single-screen handheld or phone showing two small boxes with black bars. Pokémon Fulldex rearranges them into one 16:9 picture, with the touch-screen buttons placed beside the action. Retro Handhelds reported on 7 November that the repository passed 700 GitHub stars within two weeks of release.

Castelia City in Black 2, filled out to 16:9 by Fulldex. Image: mamesj, from the Fulldex GitHub page.

The project page says plainly that Fulldex is "not a native port". It runs the games on a built-in melonDS core and adds a layer that knows whether you are in a battle, a menu or the overworld. It covers Black, White, Black 2, White 2, HeartGold, SoulSilver and Platinum, with Diamond and Pearl marked experimental. It also handles Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen and the FireRed hack Ultra Violet through an mGBA-based widescreen build. The page advertises 60 fps by drawing in-between frames over the DS's 30 fps 3D, and lists the 3DS games (X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon) as coming soon.

A HeartGold battle with the touch-screen menu moved beside it. Image: mamesj, from the Fulldex GitHub page.

IsaacOS liked it most on a phone, where DS layouts usually look worst. He also said it is "not seamless": there are moments where the bottom screen is obviously pushed into the frame, and fast-forward worked badly with touch controls. He saw it as built more for DS than GBA games.

The video also tried WideMelon, an experimental widescreen build in the melonDS family. He found it buggy and limited to widening 3D scenes, with 2D screens and battles still boxed in. He also pointed out a setting in melonDS-based emulators, a "conservative coverage" fix in the video options, that he used to remove black bars in the DS Pokémon overworld.

PokeDaisy: a Pokémon companion on your second screen

PokeDaisy is a free, open-source Android app from developer Lidor Itzhari. It plays Game Boy, Game Boy Color and GBA games on mGBA and DS games on melonDS, then reads the Pokémon game you are playing. On a dual-screen handheld the game runs on top and the companion fills the bottom screen with your party, bag, map, Pokédex and guides. On a single screen the companion appears as a window or panel. The GitHub page lists the AYN Thor as "tested, made for it" and the Retroid Pocket 6 as tested in single-screen mode. It needs Android 8.0 or newer and is GPL v3 software.

PokeDaisy's own artwork, showing the companion on one screen and on two. Image: PokeDaisy.

Notebookcheck covered it on 18 October, noting fast-forward up to 10x, save states, rewind and remappable controls. It also reported that the project is in active development with AI assistance. The app goes further than a stats panel. The GitHub page lists Fly from the companion's map, a PC button you can open anywhere, a widescreen mode that draws GBA overworlds past the screen edges, and box, bag and trade editing between your save files.

IsaacOS called it the Ditto of the group: it does a little of everything the other projects do, and so it is "not really the best at any of those specific features". The bottom screen is less polished than Emerald 3DS's, and the save editing is shallower than PKForge's. He still expects it to be where most people end up, because one developer keeps adding to it quickly.

PKForge: one Bank for every emulator save

The video's third exhibit is PKForge, the Android save editor and Pokémon Bank built on PKHeX. It reads the save folders of the emulators you already use and moves Pokémon between any mainline games from Red to Scarlet. We covered it in detail in PKForge brings a Pokémon Bank to Android handhelds, with a setup walkthrough in how to use PKForge. Download it only from the developer's GitHub releases page.

Pokémon Monomyth: the six-year Emerald hack is out

Pokémon Monomyth's title screen, starters and Athanto region map. Image: Team Monomyth, from monomyth.jp.

Pokémon Monomyth is a Game Boy Advance hack of Pokémon Emerald set in a new region, Athanto. Retro Dodo reported on 2 November that it had arrived after six years in development, with more than 75 hours of play. The official site at monomyth.jp lists more than 360 new and returning Pokémon, a soundtrack of over 200 tracks, Contest Halls, Trainer Hill, a Battle Frontier, and Link Cable trading. It is a patch you apply to your own Emerald ROM, not a full download.

Searches show the interest. US searches for "pokemon monomyth" went from 10 a month in early 2026 to 14,800 in October, according to Google Ads data from DataForSEO.

IsaacOS is playing it on the KONKR Pocket Advance, an Android handheld he describes as "basically an RG34XX on steroids". Monomyth is a GBA game, so any handheld that runs mGBA well will play it. Retro Handhelds' preview from May is a good look at what the region offers.

Which handheld for which project

• Emerald 3DS: a Nintendo 3DS or 2DS with custom firmware. A New 3DS is needed for the stereoscopic voxel mode.
• PokeDaisy: a dual-screen Android handheld gets the full companion. The AYN Thor is the device its developer tested on and built for. Our dual-screen handheld guide compares the current options.
• Fulldex: any single screen, including a phone, the Retroid Pocket 6 or a Steam Deck. Its point is to make two screens fit on one.
• Monomyth and other GBA hacks: anything that runs mGBA. The Anbernic RG34XX was $54.11 in Anbernic's 11.11 sale on 11 November.

For a wider view, our Pokémon emulator guide covers each generation and the hardware that suits it, and /devices lists every handheld we track.

What to watch next

Fulldex lists the 3DS Pokémon games as coming soon, which would bring X, Y and the Hoenn remakes to its single-screen layout. Emerald 3DS's README names the flat interiors and the Battle Frontier as unfinished 3D work. IsaacOS says a separate video on ROM hacks is coming in a couple of weeks. We will add dated updates to this page when any of these ship.