10 Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen Moments That Felt Huge When You Played as a Kid

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Published May 15, 2026, 1:48 PM EDT

Daniel Trock is a Writer at DualShockers specializing in PC games, lists, and reviews. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and covering games since 2020, with previous work spanning guides, news, lists, and reviews across multiple publications.

Before joining DualShockers, Daniel contributed guides to GamerJournalist and lists to TheGamer. He currently covers tech topics for SlashGear and BGR. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Marist College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen were released in 2004, about eight years after the original Pokémon versions released in Japan and six years after the release of Red and Blue in the United States. It’s odd to realize that any Pokémon game could be someone’s first, but just as Red and Blue were the start of it all for so many of us, so too were FireRed and LeafGreen for many younger players. In fact, I knew someone with a younger sibling who specifically convinced them to play FireRed because he played the original Red as a little kid.

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From its inception, Pokémon has always had this very distinctive secret sauce that appeals to younger audiences. Brand recognition from the anime helps, but it also goes a little deeper than that. For those taking on a Pokémon adventure for the first time, FireRed and LeafGreen were as close as you could get to that initial spark of PokéMania without actually being there, and many of the originals’ legendary moments still maintain their same impact. Maybe these games seem simple and low-tech by today’s standards, but back then, for younger players, they hit just as hard as the most elaborate narratives.

10 Getting Your Starter

It All Starts Here

Pokemon FireRed LeafGreen Squirtle starter

I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in the world of Pokémon without a critter by your side. Nobody wants to talk about anything else, and they won’t let you out of town through the tall grass without one to protect you. To get your first Pokémon is to get your entry into the world at large, not to mention receive a potential best friend for life, or at least the next however many hours.

Choosing your starter at Professor Oak’s lab sets the tone and pace for the entire early stretch of your Pokémon journey. Do you try to make a meta pick, plan for type advantages? Or do you just go with your gut and grab whichever Pokémon really speaks to you? As Pokémon was already firmly entrenched in pop culture by the time FireRed and LeafGreen were released, either path was much more viable than they once were, but that just meant there wasn’t a definitively correct answer. You just had to commit to a decision and pick one, followed by stomping Blue’s face into the dirt after he challenges you with the one it’s weak against. Now that’s a team-building exercise.

9 Battling Team Rocket at Silph Co.

Full-On Criminal Activity

Pokemon FireRed LeafGreen Silph Co exterior

Saffron City is the home of Sabrina’s Gym, and the sixth major stop on the Indigo League board. By this point in the game, you’ve had multiple run-ins with Team Rocket, but they’ve mostly been confined to quick skirmishes with a handful of Rocket Grunts. However, when you arrive in Saffron, something is very wrong: the city is in the iron grip of Team Rocket, who won’t even permit entry into Sabrina’s Gym, and have taken the entire corporate headquarters of Silph Co. hostage.

This is the largest, most overt attack by Team Rocket on the Kanto region so far. This isn’t just a few Grunts making trouble, this is full-on terrorism, and you’re smack in the middle of it. It feels like something the cops should be handling, but you’re the only competent Trainer on hand, so it’s up to you to battle to the top of the Silph Co. building and drive these punks out of town. This isn’t like a cave full of Zubats or a Gym maze; you are basically pulling a Die Hard here.

8 Receiving the Master Ball

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

After successfully driving Team Rocket out of Silph Co. and Saffron City as a whole, the President of Silph Co. asks to speak to you. The entire reason Team Rocket attacked this company, which specializes in making Poké Balls, was to swipe its latest and greatest prototype: the Master Ball, a Poké Ball that can catch any Pokémon without fail. Being a magnanimous sort, and perhaps also a bit irresponsible, the Silph Co. President rewards you by giving you the Master Ball prototype, the only one in the world.

To hold a Master Ball is to hold unapproachable power and responsibility in your hands. With this device, the entire core loop of battling and catching wild Pokémon goes out the window. You can catch anything in the world, and you don’t even need to bother weakening it first. However, assuming you don’t have a friend who knows the item cloning trick, you will only ever receive this single Master Ball. You have to make absolutely, positively sure you use it only at the right time, and never, ever, click on it accidentally when battling a random Pidgey. Trust me on that.

7 Fully Evolving Your Starter

The Peak of What They Can Do

Pokemon FireRed LeafGreen Charizard evolution

All three of the original starters have the same evolution thresholds: second stage at level 16, final stage at level 36. Evolving your Pokémon is always a fun occasion, but fully evolving your starters feels a little different. After all, they were the very first Pokémon you received; they’re almost like a living pedometer, showing how far you’ve come since setting off on your journey.

Whenever you finally get your starter up to level 36 and see them evolve into Charizard, Venusaur, or Blastoise, you get the distinct impression that you’ve finally hit the big times. After all, in the specific case of Charizard and Venusaur, you’ve got one of the Pokémon that are on the cover of the game! If that’s not a point of pride, I don’t know what else you’d call it. They have reached their full size and strength after numerous battles and journeys by your side, and while they won’t reach their actual full potential until level 100, you at least feel like you’ve reached the point where you really understand what they’re actually capable of and how they can help you through the tough battles to come.

6 Fighting Giovanni at the Viridian Gym

He’s Not Happy with You

By the time you do a complete loop around Kanto, making your way back to Viridian City to challenge the last Gym you couldn’t get into the first time around, you’ve encountered Team Rocket’s leader, Giovanni, twice. In both the Rocket Hideout and in Silph Co., you get the distinct impression he’s not really taking you seriously. After all, why should he? You’re just some kid with some Pokémon, whereas he’s a grown man and a career criminal. By all accounts, the odds should be against you.

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After getting stomped by you both times and having Team Rocket’s plans completely scuffled, though, Giovanni now recognizes you as the genuine threat that you are. He’s not out of the criminal business just yet; he’s just lying low in the Gym while he builds up Rocket’s resources again. Even so, he’s not content to let you walk away with that badge for free, coming at you with the full strength of his Ground-Type team, the biggest encounter of the Indigo League before the Elite Four.

5 Making it Through Victory Road

It Feels Like It’ll Go on Forever

Pokemon FireRed LeafGreen Indigo Plateau

So, you’ve gotten all eight badges, dealt with Team Rocket, and have a team of Pokémon ready to take on all comers. Time to battle the Elite Four, right? Ha, no. First, you have to surmount every Gen 1er’s eternal waking nightmare: Victory Road. It’s a massive, sprawling dungeon cavern with multiple floors and points of entry and exit where you’re beset on all sides by constant random encounters and high-level Trainers around every corner. It is quite possibly the most consistent assault on your senses in the entire game, and it feels like it goes on forever.

Rather than Victory Road itself, the huge moment is when it finally comes to an end. You walk through another generic hole in the wall, unsure if there’s even more pain on the way, only to enter blinking into the sunlight of the Indigo Plateau. There are no more random encounters, no more jobber Trainers standing in your way, no more boulders to shove around with Strength. Nothing between you and the Elite Four but a quick walk up some stairs and a momentary stop at the pre-league Pokémon Center. It’s like getting off a plane after a 20-hour flight with a kid kicking your seat behind you: unparalleled relief and excitement.

4 Fighting Champion Blue

It All Comes Down to This

All throughout the game, your Rival, Blue, has been a consistent thorn in your side. He pops up at the most random moments, drops some trash talk in your face, and doesn’t even have the courtesy of being a graceful loser every time you stomp him. When you arrive at the Pokémon League and battle your way through the Elite Four, you’re not thinking about him. You already have your hands full battling Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, and Lance.

After defeating Lance, though, you discover that not only did someone already defeat the Elite Four before you, but they’ve assumed the throne of its Champion, the most powerful Trainer in all of Kanto. Unfortunately, it’s Blue, once again determined to one-up you. Irritating as he is, though, you can’t deny that he’s the real deal. He’s got a full team of fully-leveled, carefully-specc’d Pokémon, and he would very much like to hold onto his newfound title, not to mention get one definitive W over you. He is your last obstacle to overcome before you can call yourself a Pokémon Master, and you will overcome him something fierce.

3 Registering in the Hall of Fame

You’ve Made History Here

With Blue successfully dethroned as the Pokémon League Champion, you’re greeted by none other than ol’ Professor Oak himself, who congratulates you for fostering a truly one-of-a-kind relationship with your Pokémon. Leaving Blue to lick his wounds, Oak escorts you into the back room of the League, which I’m not actually sure he has the authority to do, but whatever. In here is a single, large computer, within which is housed the Hall of Fame. It is here that every League Champion, alongside their Pokémon team, is enshrined as a testament to what Pokémon Trainers are capable of.

In addition to the awesome music that plays during this sequence, you get to see all of your final Pokémon team lined up together and honored, as well as you yourself being presented alongside them. Your Pokémon’s levels are also recorded, and your total playtime is displayed as well. It’s a visual record of the fruits of your journey, unassailable proof that you and your beloved Pokémon became the very best there ever was.

2 Encountering Mewtwo

The World’s Strongest Pokémon

After you’ve defeated the Elite Four and registered a sufficient number of Pokémon (and if you haven’t, what have you even been doing), Professor Oak will reward you with the National Dex, which allows you to locate and register Pokémon that aren’t native to Kanto. Ironically, you need the National Dex to clear the way to the very last Pokémon in the Kanto Dex, not counting Mew. That’s right, it’s Mister 150 himself: the man-made Legendary Pokémon, Mewtwo.

Just getting through Cerulean Cave down to where Mewtwo hides is a headache and a half, necessitating a full stock of Max Repels at the minimum. When you finally encounter him, though, he comes at you with full strength. He’s level 70, much higher than the Elite Four’s teams were, so if you come at him half-cocked, you’re going to get your clock cleaned. Granted, you could use that Master Ball you’ve been holding onto this whole time to catch him right away, but while it would be thematically appropriate, it wouldn’t be very sporting. Just imagine how much cooler you’d feel catching the world’s strongest Pokémon in a regular Poké Ball.

1 Unlocking the Postgame

You’re Not Quite Finished Yet

In the original Red and Blue versions, after you beat the Elite Four and caught Mewtwo, the game was pretty much over. There was literally nobody else you could challenge, nowhere else for you to adventure. However, FireRed and LeafGreen went the extra mile. Remember that guy I mentioned who got his younger sibling to play it? He had no idea there was a post-game, and both he and his sibling were caught completely off guard.

FireRed and LeafGreen feature a new area, the Sevii Islands, where Pokémon from the Hoenn Dex can be found. While you can technically visit before finishing the main game, they only open up in earnest after defeating the Elite Four, as you’re brought there specifically to look for Lorelei after she flies the coop. Not unlike Ash visiting a new region in the second part of the Pokémon anime, there’s something gratifying about realizing that your Pokémon journey is not yet over. Even if you have become a master in the eyes of the Pokémon League, you never really stop growing as a Trainer.