I beat Pokemon Yellow years ago, and even managed to actually get quite a few of the rarer critters. Then I never touched the series again until Pokemon Go.

After building a Freeplay Zero, I decided to give the GBA remake of the first gen games a playthrough. It's a fun way to kill an hour or so (though emulating the game can lead to hours of wasted progress due to Bad Eggs & other glitches -- so save often, and then restart from time to time).

The 16bit graphics hold up well, and the tweaked gameplay (especially the eventual Exp Share item) makes the whole process a lot smoother. While Pokemon Go focuses on collecting Pokemon, the main series is more about training the little beasties. Some of the game paths are a bit cryptic if you're used to newer games that always give you an "X" on a minimap that you know is your target; and the grind can be somewhat of a chore (especially when preparing to fight the Elite Four). I managed to get all eight badges in about 35hrs, and saw the "The End" screen at the 42hr mark (and I'm now casually poking around at some of the added post-game content).

Overall, it's fun. Enough fun that I actually just bought a New 3DS XL and the trio of newer Pokemon generation games to play on it.

THIS IS A REVIEW OF Pokémon FireRed Version NOT LeafGreen

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

3/5

Would Recommend

Played on a Anbernic 35XXSP.

Finally got to this game after years of it lingering on the backlog list. Playing this on a retro handheld that mimic the GBASP just felt right on so many levels. Even though I can run this on my steam deck, I never could get into it.

Updated graphics are beautiful, the quality of life improvements, including the running shoes and other enhancements are really appreciated. I think the addition of the extra content is also reasonably well done. Even if they hadn’t included that though this would’ve been a gem just for preserving and improving Pokémon red and blue, which were so fantastic.

I could nitpick around certain things such as how long it takes you to get the running shoes, some of the interface choices, etc. but overall this is a really excellent game and good introduction to the world of Pokémon. Though I still would recommend people check out the originalsI have a low threshold to recommend that they play this version of those games first so that they are not bogged down with some of the challenges in those original games. When my sons are old enough to play, I’m actually not sure which ones I would recommend they play first, which is a testament to how good of a remake these games are.

After Pokémon GO got it's hooks into me years ago, I wanted to play the games that inspired the whole shenanigan and start at the beginning of the story. The Red/Green/Blue/Yellow Editions seemed a bit too dated, so I went for the remakes. Since I got no Gameboy or any other handheld Pocket Monster compatible device, I chose you, emulators. I played the FireRed version and had a blast, yet grew tired of the grinding and the fact, that I can't really use my dream pokémon teams due to limitations of the games. There are a bunch of Pokémons you can't catch due to trade evolutions, version exclusivity or just being event Pokémons. That's not right for a game, where the slogan is gotta catch them all, yet you can't really do that alone. So I took a break and pretty much forgot about the whole thing for a while.

Then after a few years came the idea of using hacked ROMs. There was one specific, which is 95% FireRed, 5% awesomeness, and that is UltraViolet Edition. It combines everything good in both of the editions and adds some changes to make your life less miserable. You can catch/evolve all Pokémons from the first 3 Generations, so you can build any team you want. You can catch multiple starters or even chose something different then the 3 classic ones and catch those Gen III. Pokémons on a brand new island, which were only obtainable through trading from Ruby/Sapphire. This includes even legendaries, so you will have plenty to do post-game.

I know it seems like I started talking about a whole new game, yet the basics are still the same. The story is still awesome, beating Giovanni, the Elite 4 and Blue are still an exhilarating feeling and filling the Pokédex still feels like tremendous effort. What is also there are the annoying and outdated mechanics, like HMs, bad Pokémon organizing system and a bunch of grinding if you want a decent team, and not just beat the Elite 4 a second time with Charizard and Mewtwo, like I did :D

Despite all it's lackings, even the base FireRed game could offer you a great time, but if you want something different, I can really recommend UltraViolet Edition. Hopefully in the future, they will make an official Pokémon game where you can really catch them all (not in the near future, since they just announced Scarlet and Violet, staying with the 2 editions formula, which is ridiculous at this point). Next stop, New Bark Town!