11 Tips If You’re Playing Pokémon FireRed And LeafGreen For The First Time

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, are remakes of the original games that kicked off the franchise 30 years ago. While they are relatively simple for turn-based RPGs, if you’ve never played these remakes or the original Red and Blue, there are a few things worth keeping in mind as you head into Kanto on your Switch. From a decades-long veteran, here are a few tips to help you on your way to Victory Road.

The starters are a hidden difficulty setting

The first big decision you’ll make in FireRed and LeafGreen is which Pokémon you pick up from Professor Oak at the beginning of the game. Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle each have their own perks and weaknesses, but who you pick will determine how easy your first few gym battles are before you’ve so much as captured a second monster. The first three gym battles are based on the Rock, Water, and Electric types, and as a Grass-type, Bulbasaur weakens the first two and is resistant to the third. Squirtle’s Water typing is good against the first gym and at least resistant to the second. Charmander, meanwhile, is weak to both Rock and Water attacks as a Fire Pokémon, so it’s at a disadvantage for the first two gyms. FireRed and LeafGreen does throw the little guy a bone, however. It can learn the Steel-type move Metal Claw, which will weaken Brock’s Rock-type team in the first gym. You’ll have to grind up to level 13 to learn it, but it will get you past that first gym easier than you would’ve been able to in the original games.

There’s one other thing to consider when you’re picking a starter

Much, much later in FireRed and LeafGreen, you’ll encounter one of the Legendary Beast trio roaming around the game. Whether Entei, Raikou, or Suicune show up in your save file is determined by which starter you pick. The legendary that shows up will be the one who is strong against your starter’s type. So Entei shows up if you pick Bulbasaur, Raikou shows up for Squirtle, and Suicune will be running around if you pick Charmander.

This is before the physical/special split

One of the more grandiose changes Pokémon made in the games after FireRed and LeafGreen is splitting what are considered “physical” and “special” attacks up on a case-by-case basis, rather than having that determined by the move’s base typing. Prior to this change, for example, Normal moves were all considered physical attacks by default, regardless of their nature. So an attack like Hyper Beam, which is a big energy blast, was considered a physical attack in any game before Diamond and Pearl, as if it was a simple punch or kick. Pokémon have separate physical and special attack stats, so there are some examples of monsters having stat spreads that might not be compatible with their base typing. Future games added nuance to the system, but keep this in mind while building your team and their movesets, as certain monsters may have better physical or special capabilities that are incongruous with other aspects of their kit. The full physical/special breakdown is as follows:

Physical

• Normal 
• Fighting
• Flying  
• Poison  
• Ground  
• Rock  
• Bug  
• Ghost  
• Steel

 Special

• Fire
• Water
• Grass
• Electric 
• Psychic
• Ice
• Dragon
• Dark

Don’t accidentally reset your game

We wrote a separate post about this one, but it bears repeating here that the Switch versions of FireRed and LeafGreen have a shortcut to soft reset the game by pressing all four face buttons at the same time. This is great for Shiny hunters trying to find a rare monster, but for anyone else, it’s a hazard that can lose you hours of progress without saving. You can avoid this by going into the Button Mapping menu in the Accessibility settings on your console and disabling X or Y. You can still use the plus and minus buttons to do the same input.

Save often

On that note, FireRed and LeafGreen are older games, and that means this was before autosaving became pretty much standard across the board. You have to manually save after every big catch, gym leader beaten, or Team Rocket plan foiled. Don’t let yourself get screwed over by an unexpected reset or your Switch’s battery dying. Make a habit of saving whenever you can.

Each game has a set of exclusive monsters

Like all Pokémon games that release in a pair, FireRed and LeafGreen have some Pokémon you can only catch in one game or the other. The idea is for you to trade with people who have the other version so it can be a social experience, but it does mean you should be aware of whether your favorite is a version exclusive. Do keep in mind, however, that any Pokémon beyond the original 150 won’t be available until the post-game, regardless of which game you’re playing.

FireRed’s exclusive Pokémon

• Ekans
• Arbok
• Oddish
• Gloom
• Vileplume
• Psyduck
• Golduck
• Growlithe
• Arcanine
• Shellder
• Cloyster
• Scyther
• Electabuzz
• Bellossom
• Wooper
• Quagsire
• Murkrow
• Qwilfish
• Scizor
• Delibird
• Skarmory
• Elekid
• Deoxys’ Attack Forme

LeafGreen’s exclusive Pokémon

• Sandshrew
• Sandslash
• Vulpix
• Ninetales
• Bellsporut
• Weepinbell
• Victreebel
• SlowPoké
• Slowbrow
• Staryu
• Starmie
• Magmar
• Pinsir
• Marill
• Azumarill
• Slowking
• Misdreavus
• Sneasel
• Remoraid
• Octillery
• Mantine
• Magby
• Azurill
• Deoxys’ Defense Forme

You’ll need HMs, but there’s some hidden functionality to them

If you’ve not gone back to some of the older Pokémon games, you might be unfamiliar with Hidden Machines, or HMs. These are traversal moves that your Pokémon use to help you get around the world, such as  Surf which lets you ride through bodies of water and Flash which can light up dark caves. Sometimes there are hidden advantages to them, though. Cut, for example, is used to slice down trees that get in the way of certain paths, but it can also be used to cut tall grass where wild Pokémon roam in case you’re running low on potions or are just trying to get through an area without being bothered by random battles. These moves are taught through HMs, can’t be forgotten manually, and must be deleted by the Move Deleter NPC you’ll meet in Fuchsia City. They can clutter up a team’s movepools, so some players will catch designated HM users for their team that they don’t use in battle, but can dump these moves onto so they aren’t getting in the way of their actual team’s limited moveset.

The EXP. Share isn’t given to you early, and you have to find it

Most modern Pokémon games spread battle experience across your team, but in the old days, you had to train each one manually, or use an item called the EXP. Share to spread the love. In FireRed and LeafGreen the EXP. Share comes a little late, once you reach Fuschia City. It’s given to you by one of Professor Oak’s aides in a building on Route 15 after you capture 50 Pokémon. This will help with some of the grinding in the latter half of the game.

It’s easy to get rich early, but it’s tedious

An exploit that wasn’t patched out of FireRed and LeafGreen lets you get infinite Nuggets, which are items that can be sold at a high price. If you repeatedly lose at the end of a battle gauntlet in Cerulean City, you can get a Nugget every time you talk to a trainer at the end of the challenge. You just have to keep letting him beat you over and over until you’re satisfied with all the gold in your pack, and then take your spoils to the Mart and sell them for a ton of cash. Alexia Raye on TikTok illustrates the whole thing in the video below:

Unfortunately, there’s no online play, which makes trade evolutions harder

Some Pokémon like Golem, Alakazam, and Gengar are only available if you trade their pre-evolution to another player, which will cause their evolution to trigger. These days, you can easily trade with a friend online, but FireRed and LeafGreen only support local multiplayer, so you’ll need to find an IRL friend to trade these Pokémon back and forth. That’s a pain in the ass, especially as a certified Golem Enjoyer who’s hoping to get one in my playthrough. So be aware of that if you’re hoping to get some of those trade-evolution monsters.

You can find advice for true Pokémon gamebreaking, minmaxing sickos around the internet

Pokémon fans have spent decades breaking apart old games and putting them back together again to min-max the process in ways that we only imagined with the wild rumors our friends all told each other back in elementary school about what was possible in these games. So if you’re looking for tips from folks who know the finest details like when you should check under a Pokémon for items that may have spawned, you can find them on subreddits and in years-old forum posts.