The
start of a longstanding remake tradition.
Console: GameBoy Advance |
Your "friendly" rival Blue. Back in the days when using quotations with friendly was necessary. |
It does
have one significant change and that has to do with the brand new post-game
content. FireRed & LeafGreen introduces the Sevii Islands, a group of small
islands located south of Kanto. A group of islands akin to the anime’s Orange
Islands. These are first introduced at the end of the campaign, briefly
interrupting your gym challenge at a point in which the originals didn’t have
anything going on. The added post-game story and area is welcoming, it gives
you something to do after becoming champion, but its sadly also disappointing.
The post-game story is really short and not that interesting. It’s more a means
to introduce the Sevii islands than anything else.
The gameplay of FireRed & LeafGreen is, well, it’s
Pokémon through and through. It is split into two sections: journeying across
the overworld and the battles. In the overworld section, you travel across
Kanto using your trust running shoes and later bike. You get from city to city,
talking to people, getting into battles finding items etc. You know how it
goes. The HM’s is one of the ways the game hinders your progress. To keep you
from entering area’s you aren’t supposed to go yet. A Pokémon needs to have
learned a specific move to, for example, cut down a tree and progress. This
system has always been annoying with fans as the system feels archaic and
outdated these days. There are many downsides to this system, not least is the
fact that these HM’s can’t easily be removed from a Pokémon’s move set. FireRed
& LeafGreen are almost 20 years old, so while the HM system is annoying and
hindering, you do have to get that in mind.
That said, FireRed & LeafGreen does offer the player
free-er exploration than most Pokémon games. Even more so than Pokémon Sword
& Shield, in a way at least. Just like the original Red & Blue, you can
tackle the middle-section of Gym Leaders, in any order you want. The level caps
for the gyms aren’t really adjusted for this for all gym leaders, so do keep
that in mind.
When encountering a Pokémon in the tall grass through a
random encounter or enter a trainer when coming in their line of vision, you
enter a battle. The battles are quite simple and as such, I won’t go into them
too deeply. It’s a turn-based battle system in which you, well, take turns
attacking your opponent. A Pokémon faints AKA is defeated when its HP is
reduced to zero. Who defeats all of the opponents Pokémon first is the winner
simple. When encountering a wild Pokémon, you can also try to catch it by
throwing a PokéBall at it. The lower the HP of the Pokémon, if they are under a
status condition and the effectiveness of the PokéBall all factor in if the
catch is successful or not. There are more nuances to it but this is the gist
of it. I’m fairly certain most people knew all of this already but it’s a
review after all. Got to at least explain it a little bit.
A typical wild Pokémon battle. |
Also: it
provides a good jumping point for something I want to highlight. Yes, the Dark
& Steel types are now present in the game, unlike the originals. However,
this doesn’t have too much of an effect as there are very few moves and Pokémon
of these types available during the main campaign. It’s more something for the
post-game. No, what I mean are the changes that have been made to the battle
system. More accurately, the changes that have been since these games released
and how that makes the battles different here then they are in, let’s say,
Sword & Shield. One of the changes is that the special/physical split
hasn’t happened yet for the moves. That one is less important to a
general audience I feel as the lack of this change won’t be affected by this.
Some Pokémon will be more or less useful then you remember them being, but
that’s about it. No, it’s the change in how attack effectiveness that I want to
talk about.
One of the biggest complaints about modern Pokémon games is their difficulty. Many feel that they are way too easy. Yes, the Pokémon Company have indeed taken steps to make the games more approachable but FireRed & LeafGreen aren’t really any more difficult I find. What difficulty is there is more so due to the lack of polish/lack of quality of life updates. For example: even when my Pokémon were heavily under level, I still managed to get one-hit KO’s when I had the type advantage. The difficulty more came from large level gaps and such, requiring me to do some heavy grinding to keep up. Modern games have made steps to make certain aspects less difficult. But, they've also adjusted others in the opposite direction, like reducing the bonus you get for landing a super-effective move, to balance it all out.
So in short: FireRed & LeafGreen aren’t necessarily more difficult than the modern Pokémon games, they’re just difficult in a different way.
As the Pokémon themselves are always the main attraction for many for these games, let’s briefly talk about them. The 151 Pokémon that make up the Kanto region are the original and by now iconic ones. From Bulbasaur to Mew. The original 151 have never been my favourite crop of Pocket Monsters but they’re designs are all strong. Basic, but good. Not much to be disappointed about.
After you’ve finished the game, you’ll be able to evolve Pokémon into their ‘new’ evolutions as well as find Johto Pokémon in the Sevii Islands. That’s were another criticism of mine lies. That the evolutions of Pokémon from the original 151 that were released in Gold & Silver are only available after the main game. It’s a decision I don’t understand, but I digress before I start a rant. I feel it’s unnecessarily limiting is what you need to know.
The graphics of FireRed & LeafGreen matches those of the other Pokémon GBA titles, Ruby, Sapphire & Emerald. It runs on the same engine as those games after all, so there not that different from those games. The games are far from taxing for the hardware, so they run very smooth. No staggering or screen tare or anything like that here. The entire look of the game is sprite based, unlike the 3D models you see nowadays. The graphics are a marked improvement over those of the previous generation of games, Gold & Silver, with much better colour and more details. The Pokémon sprites aren’t yet animated sadly, so that’s a nit-pick of mine. The moves are still fully animated though and are remarkably better then they have been in previous titles.
A look at Pallet Town, you're starting point, in the GBA engine. |
Finally,
the soundtrack is OK. It’s not my absolute favourite though for two reasons:
one is that almost the entire sound design is lifted from Ruby & Sapphire.
These tracks have a distinct sound that doesn’t match with the Kanto region.
The tracks that have been re-recorded form the original Red & Blue also
suffer from, in my opinion, trying to match which it does so poorly.
Conclusion
Are Pokémon
Fire Red & Leaf Green worth playing nowadays? Yes, they are. Unlike the
original Red & Blue, the game looks much better and are much more stable.
None of those weird bugs and glitches here. They also offer the traditional
Pokémon experience and not the simplified, Pokémon Go-style gameplay that the
2018 Let’s Go games have as well as unique content, most prominently the Sevii
islands. This content might not be as good as it could have been, but it’s
still nice to have. If you want to play through Kanto with the original 151
crop of Pokémon, then FireRed & LeafGreen are the way to go.
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