This year was the 30th anniversary of the initial release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan.

As a nod to that anniversary, for the Switch, Nintendo re-released the Gen 3 remakes of those 2 games and with a bit of a lull in my life on games, it seemed a nice chance to relive those games now with the knowledge I do on the franchise.

Fire Red and Leaf Green are part of the third generation of Pokémon. The overall layout of the world is the same as that of the original generation, mostly. You start out at Pallet Town where you are given the choice of Charmander Bulbasaur and Squirtle before moving on through catching Pokémon and beating Gym leaders till you gain access to the Pokémon League, fight the Elite 4, beat the Champion and thus complete the game.

Since this is the 3rd Generation you get access to the GBA graphics so visually it’s a lot nicer to look at than those originals but there’s more to it than that for those that have experienced the originals. With the coming of 3rd Generation 2 major details to me, outside of graphics, made me look forward to this. Pokémon Natures affected the stats of Pokémon which would be higher and lower, but more importantly was the introduction of Abilities. These were special passive powers the Pokémon had, some like Levitate meant they were immune to ground attacks despite not flying, while the Legendaries had some massively powerful ones. So I was excited to find out what the Classics would have and they do shake up which Pokémon are more viable now.

Further changes come with new moves you didn’t have access to in the Original Gen 1. As well as new move pools that they learn from levelling up which fixes elements like the Charmander line learning Flamethrower far earlier, there are also different TMs you can learn.

The easy way to describe it is it’s the first Pokémon games, but with the mechanics of the 3rd Generation. But there is more to it than that.

While some Pokémon are in slightly different places, such as the welcome move of Mankey to be acquirable before Brock (making starting with Charmander much easier), there are whole new locations. After you beat Blaine, Bill shows up and leads you to the Sevii islands. This is a set of Islands away from Kanto that are exclusive to this version. While initially it’s just 3 islands, the second one will give you access to move relearning, which unlike  modern games has to be done by a specific NPC and for a currency, so learn a move that can steal items and go beat up Paris’s with it in Mount Moon.

However after you beat the Elite 4 the first time you gain access to additional story that will take you to yet more islands and regions that contain Pokémon not found in the original games, notably from the Second Generation. Worth noting on starting this, you can’t face the Elite 4 again till you beat it, but when you do they have stronger and different Pokémon, including held items for the real final challenge in battling.

For this run I didn’t use any Legendaries when facing the Elite 4 the first time as I wanted a real test of how much more I understood playing the game. This made put me face to face with how much quality of life improvements modern games had. TMs were one use only, you could change Natures and no EV training. This made me rather paranoid of messing up a Pokémon at the very start. I was often hit by how much harder the game was because of it. Misty when starting with Charmander is a beast with high level Pokémon and considerably stronger move-pools than you have access to for some time (did both of them need to recover) resulting in me having to use far more status moves than I do in modern games. And that is something you will see a lot of, expect more moves increasing evasion and decreasing accuracy on a play through.

Because this is an earlier Pokémon game, gaining EXP only happens to those Pokémon taking part in the fight, not in the whole team. I honestly prefer this as it helps prevent your team from easily over levelling things. The EXP share is in the game but it’s a held item that only affects the Pokémon holding it. You will need to be more strategic and planning on approaching Gym Leaders who are much harder here than they are in modern games, and there is a good chance the Elite 4 and Champion will have Pokémon over 10 levels higher than you. A way to help though is the VS Seeker, a key item you get that when used outside will activate Trainers you have already beaten and they can face you again, some will have stronger teams, so grinding late on won’t mean facing Pokémon, and helps get money too.

I did use one Legendary in the second harder Elite 4 challenge. Because in a nice welcome move, the re-release for Switch when you beat the Elite 4 gives you the items to visit the two Event Islands: the one containing the Johto cover Legendarys, and Deoxys. I decided I would use Deoxys as it would be nice to give it a go for the first time, never having had a chance before. I also moved in a Tyranitar I breed Dragon Dance into. You gain the access to breed Pokémon on the 4th Island, after the Elite 4.

The remake is not without its flaws, it’s if anything too dedicated to the original. Because of this, features that have become standard were limited or omitted. While move re-learning or breeding is pushed back to later in the game or post game, items for holding are often incredibly hard to find, many on extremely low rates on wild Pokémon. A bigger early notable issue is the day/night cycle is completely absent. Because of this it is completely impossible to get Eevee to evolve into Umbreon and Espeon. While other Pokémon like Golbat Chansey’s evolutions auto cancel until the National dex is acquired, the two Eeveelutions are completely unobtainable. There is one other issue but I’ll leave that to my series on Event Pokémon, and it’s sadly one this rerelease didn’t fix.

FYI – they didn’t implement internet connectivity for these, so if you want to battle people or trade, they need to be near you. Much like it was in the original, this was the game that gave us wireless trading though, so at least you don’t need a link cable.

These two games are still the best way to experience the original Pokémon story however. The main issues from the first Gen are gone, and after you beat the Elite 4 and open up the National dex you gain access to a lot of the features introduced since then which help the experience further. During this run I knew more of which Pokémon I’d want to use for full advantage of and what moves I wanted to give them, something I needed to do since I wasn’t going to be throwing Articuno and Zapdos at the Elite 4 this time. I even caught Mewtwo without the Master Ball, something that was a good idea, since I encountered a roaming Suicune right after that. I ended up spending more than 40 hours on this rerelease and the only reason I haven’t been doing more is waiting for a friend to be able to breed their Starters so I can have a shot at getting all 150… shame there isn’t a way to get 151 in this game…well back to writing about the many problems with that.

Rating: 🎮🎮🎮🎮