At a Glance: Pokémon LeafGreen & FireRed (Switch)
- Price: £16.99 / $19.99 (Each)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch / Switch 2
- The Verdict: A bare-bones, nostalgic trip through Kanto that is unfortunately overshadowed by a steep price point and a lack of modern "Quality of Life" features.
- Pros: Authentic GBA-era gameplay; Sevii Islands included; Pokémon HOME support confirmed.
- Cons: No "Save States" or "Rewind"; overpriced for a 20-year-old ROM; missing NSO integration.
Pokemon Leaf Green and Fire Red have been released for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 consoles in time for the franchise's 30th anniversary. I have had the chance to play Leaf Green for about a week now and wanted to share some of my thoughts on the game as I reminisce about the past 30 years of Pokemon.
For me, Pokemon began on the original Game Boy in 1998, a whole year before the games would officially release here in the UK. A local store here would import the games from the USA and sell them at reasonable prices, and one random day I saw it staring up at me from the shelf: Pokemon Red.
I had no idea what the game was, but the cover art with Charizard drew me in and sold me right there and then. Of course, I had no idea what was in store when the franchise came steamrolling across the rest of the planet in the year ahead.
Having never seen the anime, I began the game and gave every single monster a nickname. Once the show hit TV screens here in 1999, I realised no one in this universe usually names their Pokemon - so I purged my save and restarted. My first of many playthroughs of the Kanto era over the next 30 years.
When the Game Boy Advance arrived, I never picked one up till years later, and a sale hit the Game Boy Micro. With my console purchase, I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy IV Advance and Pokemon Leaf Green.
In 2004, Game Freak released Leaf Green and Fire Red, remakes of the original Red and Blue games, using the Generation 3 engine from Ruby and Sapphire. The games included features not present in the original games, such as Abilities, Natures, and Pokemon breeding. There is even a whole new area not found in the original games - the Sevii Islands.
These islands finally let me bring one of the original playground myths to life - Pikablu, this was the name given to Marill before Generation 2 was properly introduced. In Leaf Green, you can catch a Marill (in the end game) and add it to your party, and of course, I name the first one I catch ‘Pikablu’ in every game since. Marill may not be the strongest Pokemon ever, but it is my all-time favorite to this day, and to have it in Kanto, my favorite region, is still very cool to see even now.
Besides the islands and some minor changes like breeding mentioned above, the game is just a straight-up remake of the original games. You have your gym leaders to fight, the iconic 151 original Pokemon (plus additional on the islands), the elite four, etc., etc. Despite promised compatibility with Pokemon Home eventually, these ports have no additional features from the original versions, no rewind, no graphical options, no save anywhere save states, nothing - just the game as you remember it on your chosen Switch console.
Anyway, I digress, we finally have a legit, modern way to buy and play Leaf Green and Fire Red after years of it only being available on GBA. This sounds great; however, the general reception isn’t positive for these ports. They seem to be straight-up ROMs with no upgrades/changes or proper online functionality, and charging £16.99/$19.99 for EACH is a bit much, considering they could have easily appeared on the NSO service that a lot of us already pay for.
Ideally, a collection of the Game Boy games (complete on cart) with Red/Blue/Yellow would have been a great way to celebrate the 30th. Instead, we have gotten a bare-bones dump-and-run of ROMs at quite a high price point for 2-decade-old games.
Pokemon and its fans deserved more than this, for as good as each game is and as nice as it is to have official modern versions, the price point and lack of polish are a bit of a downer. I would say wait for a sale, but neither is likely to drop significantly any time soon.
The fact that we are seeing other Pokemon games pop up in the NSO selection (like the upcoming Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness) gives a glimmer of hope that we may eventually see other titles, like the original GB Pokemon Red and Blue, appear down the road. As for now, these are your best options to legitimately own the older mainline titles on modern hardware.
It feels like a missed opportunity to do something really special. Nintendo often fumbles its chances to do things during anniversaries for its bigger franchises like Mario and Zelda - but I had hoped that Game Freak would have been able to get them to see sense and go all in for Pokemon’s 30th.
In the end Pokemon Leaf Green and Fire Red for Nintendo Switch are a sad, bare bones pair of overpriced ports of 22-year-old titles that feel like a slap in the face to all Pokemon fans.
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