Trading Pokemon In An Emulator

Completing a Pokedex in a Pokemon game is something I've never done.

In recent weeks I've been playing through Pokemon Ruby and I think I'm at a point now where completing the Pokedex might actually be possible.

I've been playing via by favourite emulator OpenEmu and as usual the emulation experience has been great. But OpenEmu lacks one feature that's critical for completing a Pokedex; trading.

Without trading you:

• Can't do evolution trades
• Won't be able to access Pokemon that are exclusive to one game
• Can only access 1 of the 3 starters

Luckily another emulator mGBA has a multiplayer window feature which opens up the possibility of "single player" emulator trades.

To do this I needed to:

• Download and open the mGBA app
• Have a .gba and .sav file for 2 different Pokemon games, for me it was Ruby and Sapphire
• Make sure you're at least past the first gym in both games, this opens up trading
• Open up the first .gba file in the emulator (Pokemon Ruby for me), then go File > New multiplayer window to open up a second window, in this second window open up the second .gba file (Pokemon Sapphire for me)
• You will likely need to go File > Save games > Load temporary save game and select your .sav file to actually access the save state in the multiplayer window
• In both games go to the trading location in the Pokemon Center
• Thanks to emulator magic the 2 different games are able to connect and you'll be taken into the trading room where you can trade Pokemon
• Once you're done just save to create a new .sav file