Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen Review: Still Classics, But Not Aged Quite Like Wine

It's surreal reviewing Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen in the present day, considering they came out over twenty years ago at this point. For those who are weary of the latest entries in the franchise, this modern dusting off of Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen will give them a chance to see whether those rose-tinted glasses are as comfortable as they remember, as this is a retro Pokémon game, warts and all.

It really didn't take long for Game Freak to remake the Gen 1 titles on the Game Boy Advance, though this was partly a necessity. It was impossible to trade between Gen 1–2 and Gen 3 games due to hardware changes, so it wasn't possible to catch 'em all anymore.

The gameplay systems also received updates across generations, with the introduction of Dark- and Steel-type Abilities, held items, etc. For this reason, Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen can be considered superior starting points for the franchise, at least compared to Pokémon Red & Blue, as they better reflect what's to come.

With the next mainline Pokémon game still a year away, The Pokémon Company has brought back Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen for the Nintendo Switch & Switch 2. But did they just dump a ROM file onto the consoles, or is this something new and special for fans to enjoy?

Going Back to Kanto (Again)

From the second that classic theme kicks in and Gengar starts fighting Nidorino, you know you've gone back home. Pokémon knows how to hit the nostalgia part of your brain, and this was present even back when Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen launched. Now, after thirty years, it hits even harder. There's a sense of going back to the old days, to your childhood, whenever you boot up an old Pokémon game.

Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen follows a young Pokémon trainer canonically known as Red for guys and Leaf for girls, who goes on a journey throughout the Kanto region in order to become a Pokémon Master. This involves traveling across the land, searching far and wide, defeating eight Gym Leaders, foiling Team Rocket, battling the Elite Four, and, finally, overcoming the existing Champion.

Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen are mostly true to the Gen 1 games, but with some new content thrown in. Aside from the mechanical changes, there's a new map called the Sevii Islands, which has its own mandatory section after defeating Blaine. Once the player completes the main story, they can revisit the Sevii Islands for a post-game storyline, with more high-level content to tackle.

The story is basic, but that's not the draw for the Pokémon games. It's all about the collecting and the battling, growing more connected to your team over time. Once Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen get going, then that old addictive gameplay loop starts gnawing at your brain, and you grow more and more attached to your digital monsters.

Are the Switch Versions of Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen Just ROMs?

Nintendo Switch Online is home to numerous retro games, which are no different from their source titles, save for the shell they're put in. These games feature rewind, save states, and, in some cases, online multiplayer, all thanks to the app used to access them.

Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen are different from the Nintendo Switch Online games. We know from dataminers that these are altered ROMs, but there is new stuff here, rather than just throwing them into an emulator and charging twenty dollars. They're not remakes or even remasters, just tailored ports.

The emulation quality is top-notch, with visuals that look crisp and clear, even when stretched to a massive TV. The audio quality is also perfect, though that was likely a much easier task for the developers.

Notably, the Game Boy Advance's wireless functionality is here, allowing players to trade and battle with each other, but only if they're nearby. This works perfectly, as if it were on the original hardware. There are plans to add Pokémon Home functionality to the game, but this wasn't available at launch. It will almost certainly be handled through the Pokémon Home app itself, rather than within Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen.

While only a small addition, the Nintendo Switch & Switch 2 versions of Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen give players the Aurora and Mystic Tickets once the game is finished. In the Game Boy Advance versions of Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen, these were given away at real-life events, granting access to Deoxys, Ho-Oh, and Lugia. In the new versions of the game, you receive them without needing to leave the house.

Right now, it's currently impossible to catch them all in the game, as this requires the ability to connect to Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire. This means Pokémon like Espeon and Umbreon will be inaccessible until the other Gen 3 titles are released on Nintendo Switch.

The QoL Features of Modern Pokémon are Sorely Missed in FireRed & LeafGreen

There are some amazing retro Pokémon games that still hold up today. Unfortunately, Pokémon FireRed has a bunch of issues that drag down the experience. For one thing, it takes way too long to unlock the ability to run, with the player needing to finish Brock before they're given the Running Shoes. This makes the opening hours extremely tedious for no real reason.

There's also TMs being single-use items, limited space in the inventory, HMs needing to be used by Pokémon while taking up move slots, and the backpack only having three sections. There are a lot of small things that were changed in later games, things that players forgot, but are still present in Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen, ready to annoy me.

The fact that the game locks the Gen 2-3 Pokémon in the post-game is also a huge wasted opportunity. This means that there's only a relatively small pool of enemy Pokémon to face, especially with the rival trainers, and even more so with Team Rocket. Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen missed out on a huge opportunity to have more interesting Pokémon choices, all for the sake of being true to the Gen 1 experience.

It's not as if these complaints are new: people were bellyaching about them back in the '00s. They're just more annoying now because everyone has experienced Pokémon games with better systems.

People love to complain about the terrible performance and visual quality of the Gen 8-9 Pokémon games, as well as how they stray from the core experience. Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen are the opposite, as this strips down the visuals to the core of what Pokémon is, yet it has many niggling little design flaws that you just have to ignore.

You Can Go Home Again

It's odd that The Pokémon Company chose to put Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen on Nintendo's new consoles instead of Pokémon Red & Blue, especially as they had already done so back on the Nintendo 3DS. While Pokémon Red & Blue have the nostalgia value, Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen are the superior titles, even with the annoyances.

Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen are still enjoyable games, and the underwhelming modern Pokémon titles make that return to Kanto feel more special than it should. The core gameplay loop of Pokémon is so solid that these older games are still worth playing, and I can't deny that I had a ton of fun playing these remakes. I haven't played them again since their launch, so the new content was still new to me, having forgotten them over the decades.

The price is certainly off-putting, with the games feeling like they should have been ten-dollar purchases. The fact that Pokémon Winds & Waves aren't launching until 2027 means the higher price is likely a calculated move, especially with Pokémon Legends: Z-A's DLC on the market and Pokémon Scarlet & Violet wrapping up their competitive seasons. Anyone who wants new Pokémon experiences on the Switch & Switch 2 is going to be stuck with over-priced retro titles until 2027.

This doesn't mean Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen are rip-offs. They're still the easiest way to play the games and considerably cheaper than secondhand physical copies of the originals. The main storyline can be wrapped up in under twenty hours, but people who want to finish the post-game and complete the Kanto Pokédex will find a lot more content, so there's plenty of gameplay here for the price.

Pokémon fans have been begging for classic titles to come to Nintendo Switch for a while now, and they finally got their wish. The lack of standard emulation features seen in Nintendo Switch Online titles (like save states) is an intentional choice to stop save-scumming. This is the rawest Pokémon experience, just like it was back in the day, and your enjoyment will likely be affected by how nostalgic you are for the Gen 3 era.

Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen have their fair share of annoyances, especially for people who have only played the modern games, but once you get adjusted to them, there's a solid and fun Pokémon experience to be had. Anyone with a nostalgia for Kanto will be right at home here, but the slower pace might make it trickier for newbies to get on board. Just be ready to take off the rose-tinted glasses.