Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen

If you approach FR/LG as remakes, they're terrible. They added abilities, natures, and the updated IV/EV system from RSE, and slapped that onto the original game. Not a lot of gen 1 pokemon actually got interesting abilities or moves in-between gen 1 and 3. Other than Magnemite/Magneton being part steel, and Haunter/Gengar being significantly better (although still not able to reliably kill Alakazam in most cases), you are basically playing the same game with RSE's ugly graphics and tinny music. They seemed to slap a bandaid over half of the major issues with RBY, and only actually put effort into fixing glitches. Glitches that were one of the best things about RB (Missingno, for example). Other than the bug with certain moves hitting certain types incorrectly, the biggest problem with RB was probably that the game was shockingly void of variety in terms of both pokemon you could reliably catch and fight. Despite having two other generations to draw from at this point, this problem is still here. Post game content is incredibly limited and mostly serves as a base for the trading with Coliseum.

If you approach FR/LG as remasters, they're still not very good, although they benefit more from this approach. The game world doesn't particularly benefit from the improved graphics, since Kanto was never something that required more than your imagination to understand. If anything, the stylization of like Mt. Moon and Seafoam Islands probably makes the game harder to look at.

RBY's glitches were never the biggest problems with the gen, but nothing else is fixed here. If you utterly hated Charizard being weak to Ice in the first game, you'll probably like FR/LG more. Otherwise, I'd pass on it.

Decided to go for a bit of a different approach to this Pokemon game after having truly understood that one of the aspects of this series that I appreciate the most is the option to play strategically while still having the game be extremely comfortable to play through if you want, along with the feeling of connection to the world that the layer finds themselves in. As such I decided to go into this game doing a Nuzlocke to try and really get to the heart of how interesting the core gameplay loop actually is to me, and honestly, it was pretty damn revealing, further heightened by the fact that I now actually have knowledge about the ins and outs of Gen 1. I feel it's pretty commendable, the way that this essentially takes a lot of the vibe and conventions of those gen 1 games and updates them to fit extremely nicely into the gen 3 engine without really losing anything meaningful in the process. While there are certainly some fundamental flaws that would be rather difficult to fix without performing some more drastic overhauls, the amount of broken, poorly balanced and conceived nonsense that was removed from this game ended up making for a much smoother and more entertaining experience.

The adventurous feel that Red and Blue had thanks to their general lack of direction to give the player the feeling of carving out their own path is an especially important thing that was preserved in this game, and is one of the strongest aspects of it. It still feels like a very old-style RPG in a lot of respects but with more reasonable information about where to go, along with generally not wanting to focus too hard on the player have to grind for unreasonable amounts of time to actually do anything. The setting feels suitably detached from the player's every move while demonstrating an incredible amount of charm to each location, which culminates in a rich, engaging world for the player to explore. What minor changes were made to this also felt far better across the board in making for a much smoother experience that wasn't held up by some older RPG game conventions. That said though, I personally felt like some elements of this felt rather unfortunate still, particularly with the way that the building setpieces that essentially acted as dungeons still kinda sucked, especially the Silph Co. tower, which is a miserable experience that sees the player warping around 14 floors of what's essentially a giant maze of teleporters with the only actual path to success being pure trial and error. I feel like stuff like this really should have been revamped to some degree because my god was it tedious.

I also appreciate that the inventory system was greatly improved at this point, and immediately I could tell that the game was so much more engaging when I wasn't having to constantly worry about picking up too much stuff and having to throw some of it away, which allowed the game to have a much nicer focus around the idea of having all of these hyper-situational items and understanding a suitable time to finally use them, rather than just not interacting with anything beyond the bare essentials without having to go through a whole lot of tedium. With that said, I don't think this game really makes full use of this either, as while you can theoretically hold a bunch of items, it still feels lacking in some more strategy through what feels like an almost complete lack of held items, since the locations of items was mostly carried over from gen 1, so while there were a few isolated cases of these spread around, they were still a lot of the most bare minimum, uninteresting ones that functioned closer to a direct boost rather than something that could provide further strategic depth. This results in the game feeling a bit repetitive and simplistic towards the end as the strategy is pretty consistently just "hit with the strongest move", even if there were some genuinely amazing moments that required more in depth team building and some additional clever strategies being utilised, particularly with the Pokemon League, as is to be expected.

The additional post game content really reveals just how much the main game would have benefitted from more integration of later generation mechanics and ideas, as the moment it opens up and is now entirely new content, not being confined by having to fit within the confines of the main Kanto region and bringing forth a lot of more advanced held items and berries and the like. The way that the depth of team building absolutely skyrockets after this is just a testament to this idea, which makes it all the more disappointing that this additional content is so anticlimactic for the most part, with the overworld exploration being full of strangely obtuse puzzles and the combat being easier and less exciting than even the "climactic" moments in GSC. This is ultimately one of the biggest drawbacks for me, as even when doing a Nuzlocke and needing to more carefully consider any interaction due to the insanely large consequences of misplays, there were still an extremely small handful of times where I actually felt like I needed to develop any kind of higher order strategy to increase my chances, as I simply didn't have the tools at my disposal to be able to make such decisions.

This really isn't a dealbreaker since the few moments it did provide were absolutely amazing and some of the best moments I've had in a Pokemon game and having a breezier time with a bunch of awesome battle pets is just inherently neat, but it definitely stopped it from having the lasting appeal I was hoping for. In any case, this is still a good game and easily the best way to experience the kanto region, it's just a shame that even at its best, kanto just has a few too many issues with it to truly make for a game I'd consider great, even if this is totally the cultural icon it is for a great reason. I've also got to stress how the whole design philosophy of making a game that encourage the players telling stories to one another and forming a community is absolutely awesome and I respect such an unconventional angle so much, which is why certain extremely odd or unbalanced elements with the core combat system are easily forgivable to me, as it leads to some strong emergent narrative and gameplay and I adore that, it's just that these ideas could be even further bolstered with these additional strategic options. Basically at the end of the day, despite its flaws, so much of the game is compelling enough that I'd happily dive in again, albeit probably one a bit further down in the timeline where it merges its unique appeal with more refined gameplay.

Pokémon FireRed is a remake of the very first Pokémon game, Pokémon Red for the Game Boy. Everything from the story, to the Pokémon you catch, are brought over but with a few tweaks. FireRed is more of a remaster for the most part. The visuals were drastically overhauled and look more like the Generation 3 games, Pokémon Sapphire and Pokémon Ruby. A lot of the famous glitches are removed, and some Pokémon aren't version exclusive like they use to be while others are.

Now I never got that far in Pokémon Red. I played the first hour or two, (Around when you get to Mt. Moon before putting it down. But damn this is good. The music isn't changed, but instead is remade and it sounds beautiful. New features were added to take advantage of the Game Boy Advance's features and Double Battles are featured. You can also finally decide to be a female trainer if you want which I didn't. I always loved OG Red but it's nice that the feature is available

The majority of the game is pretty much the same to the original and it's mostly a remaster when it comes to the main story. The Remake Aspect doesn't show up until after the game. Unlike the original, the end game doesn't consist of catching the rest of the original 151 Pokémon to complete your Pokédex. It's that, and even more Pokémon. After beating the Elite 4, you can catch Generation 2 and 3 Pokémon and even experience a end story that allows you to catch Mewtwo. I caught all three legendary birds and Mewtwo and it was extremely fun. That's when the Remake part of Pokémon FireRed really kicks in. I love it

Pokémon FireRed is an amazing remake of the very first Pokémon game and is a must-play for anyone who wants to get into Pokémon

Its a remake of the original title, except with much better pixel art and sprites and a completly rearranged stat system. Oh and they also removed the Mew glitch, which is a bummer. To make it up they expanded the post game content to include a brand new, if yet small, island, that even has a few pokemon outside of the original 151. There are a few more add ons from gen 2 and 3 that were added to the base game, like new moves and running shoes and move teachers and deleters. Just quality of life updates to make the experience all that more enjoyable.

I dont think the changes are enough to make someone who has played the original go through it one more time, but i would definitly recommend this one over the original for newcomers. I obviously have much more nostalgia for the originals, but these are objectively better.

Never finished either games cause I was dumb stupid child. 10/10