Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen - Game Review

By
Adonis Monahan
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Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen

The Pokémon franchise, being one of the largest media franchise around today, in both revenue and popularity perspectives, has an extremely large fanbase. Games like Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, being relatively old entries in the franchise, have received heaps of reviews and commentaries in the past.

This review, as a result, won’t be from a typical franchise follower perspective, but will instead review FireRed and LeafGreen from the perspective of someone trying to enter the Pokémon franchise, but never actually played any of the games.

This review won’t focus on comparisons to previous entries in the series, or the nostalgia of playing FireRed and LeafGreen in the early 2000s, when they were first released, but will instead comment on the phenomena of playing FireRed and LeafGreen for the first time.

To being with, FireRed and LeafGreen are actually advanced remakes of Pokemon Red and Blue and not original games. FireRed and LeafGreen were first released in 2004 (as opposed to Pokemon Red and Blue being released in 1996) on the Game Boy Advance. The game’s release obtained positive ratings from most critics, scoring 81/100 on Metacritic.

In the game, players control an unnamed protagonist, who explores his home continent visiting various towns and regions to collect animal-like creatures, called Pokémon. This Pokémon can then be used to battle other players and non-player characters (NPC). The protagonist, in their exploration comes across Pokémon Gyms, which is a building where the player can train their Pokémon, and upon defeating the leader of the gym can acquire a special badge.

Acquiring badges from all the gyms in the region qualifies the player to battle the Elite Four, the greatest Pokémon trainers in the region, generally considered the climax of the game. The player also encounters Team Rocket, a shadowy criminal organization that traffics Pokémon, who the player must defeat in order to progress.

For the uninitiated, the game is released in the two versions, FireRed and LeafGreen, containing the exact same content; the only difference being the availability of some Pokémon with greater frequency in one version than the other.

FireRed and LeafGreen are played in an overhead, 3rd person view, with a 2D background. The player can see a decently sized area around the protagonist. The player can move their character around freely, up, down, left, and right. Thus, players can explore their surroundings and move to interact with NPCs, from whom they can get information, advice, and even items.

Most of the environment is static, but NPCs can, and often do move around in set tracks. When the player encounters a wild Pokémon, by walking through tall grass or exploring a cave, the gameplay changes to a turn-based combat scenario where players pick the actions of their Pokémon from a menu.

While most of this seems relatively simplistic in comparison to modern-day Pokémon games and modern-day games in general, it’s actually quite easy for players to get immersed in the gameplay. The movement is simple and understandable, and the game’s map is large enough for players to comfortably move around and explore, with mechanics like running shoes and a bicycle, introduced midgame to speed up movement.

The combat, although appearing quite simplistic, is actually incredibly complex, with players needing to take into account several factors. Examples include the level of their Pokémon (Pokémon used more often in combat gain experience which, after accumulation over time, lets statistics like the Pokémon’s “attack” and “health points” increase), its current health, its type (Pokémon are divided into type groups like “flying”, “dark”, and “fire”) and its type’s compatibility with the opposing Pokémon, the items the player has and can use and the condition of the arena around the playing Pokémon.

For such a small game released in 2004, that is quite impressive, and many players may face difficulty in challenging gym leaders if they progress through the region too quickly without leveling their Pokémon accordingly.

For players like myself, whose first exposure to Pokémon is through FireRed or LeafGreen, the biggest gameplay issue will likely be the pace of the game. While, the events may chronologically proceed quite quickly (getting your first Pokémon, training it, battling your first gym, and so on) FireRed and LeafGreen are fundamentally designed as casual games; that is, they are slow.

Character movement is slow, animations are slow, and text displays are slow. It’s not that they’re done in a visually displeasing manner, but more the fact that if I’d played at the normal pace of the game I’d have very quickly lost interest. Purely out of the feeling that I was being restrained from moving around, exploring, and getting all the Pokémon I wanted.

To be completely honest, I’ve never played either game on a Game Boy Advance. In our modern-day and age, players will most likely be playing the games on emulation software, which is available for both PC and mobile devices, and that is exactly what I did. Fortunately, most emulators have a turbo, or fast-forward, options that, frankly, made the game playable.

As soon as I got past that hurdle, the game became a breeze, and I set off on my adventure exploring the various wildernesses in Kanto (the region where the games take place) and finding all the Pokémon that could be found.

The most important thing to remember when considering a game like FireRed, for example, is that the game is never just the sum of its parts. To the modern player, FireRed without a question has inferior graphics, sound, and story compared to a lot of modern games, but nonetheless it manages to create a gaming experience that hooks players and keeps them engaged for hours on end.

The visuals, while not spectacular, are colorful, vibrant and above average compared to visuals found in most mobile games today. The cast of Pokémon, in FireRed and LeafGreen, are also engaging, with each one having a unique character design for a complete 151 unique Pokémon.

Although FireRed and LeafGreen are capable of wireless, online play, as well as communicating with other games in the franchise such as Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, the lack of this ability due to playing on an emulator doesn’t detract from the game’s experience. Players enjoying modern-day games will definitely be satisfied with Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.