Pokémon FireRed on Change 2 is a nostalgia-drenched dopamine hit, but it surely’s additionally a missed alternative that may very well be a lot extra.
Pokemon Fireplace Pink and Leaf Inexperienced are again, this time Change 2. Is the nostalgia definitely worth the value? (Picture: Nintendo)
It’s an odd feeling revisiting a sport that you understand so properly out of your adolescence that has been ever so barely tweaked. Like assembly your childhood finest good friend for the primary time in 25 years, solely to see that someway they’ve saved their youthful enthusiasm and appears and someway even enhanced their look to look much more vigorous.
For me, taking part in Pokémon FireRed on Nintendo Change 2 is a weird expertise. I bear in mind being eight years outdated, parading across the faculty playground with my Pokémon buying and selling playing cards as the primary in my faculty yr to have hopped on the development. It wasn’t for much longer that I used to be sneaking my crimson GameBoy Color into lecture rooms to play Pokémon Pink, Blue and Yellow throughout breaktimes.
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It is similar to you bear in mind… however brighter (Picture: Nintendo)
Again then, eight-year-old me would satisfaction himself on being a little bit of a Pokémon pioneer, introducing mates to the franchise that grew to become a worldwide phenomenon. However after finishing my favorite all-time Pokémon sport in Crystal by 2001, I had begun to look away from Pikachu and friends and each technology of Pokémon since handed me by.
As such, I didn’t personal and even play FireRed and LeafGreen once they got here out on GameBoy Advance. Regardless of being heralded by many because the definitive variations of the unique video games, I’d by no means touched them till this yr’s Change re-release.
So by lacking out on their unique 2004 launch, it’s an odd emotion to play what’s, on the floor, very a lot the identical sport I knew just like the again of my hand a few a long time in the past. However as quickly as you delve into FireRed and LeafGreen – in my case, it’s the Charizard-fronted model – you realise that there’s rather more than meets the attention.
Whereas it seems to be to be, on the face of it, a trustworthy, vibrant remaster of the enduring Nineties sport – albeit it a 2004-style remaster relatively than by 2026 requirements – there’s some hidden content material and under-the-hood tweaks that make it virtually a model new journey.
Exploring Kanto has solely ever felt and regarded higher within the Pokémon Let’s Go video games, launched on the Change again in 2018. Whereas that was very a lot a contemporary re-telling of the unique video games, FireRed is a nostalgia drenched expertise that instantly transforms long-term Pokéfans again to a happier, easier time.
Listening to that iconic soundtrack for the primary time in a long time, enhanced in comparison with the unique GameBoy model, was a pure hit of dopamine which will as properly have been delivered straight into my veins. However what actually gripped me was the twists FireRed has had all alongside that I’d missed out on.
FireRed and LeafGreen launched some late and post-game content material, together with the journey to Sevii Islands to search out some second and third technology Pokémon. There’s additionally the Coach Tower, which gives a number of recent battles to check your get together when you’ve accomplished every part else.
These are again in 2026, in addition to entry to Beginning and Naval Island the place you’ll discover extra legendary Pokémon. There are a number of extra of these super-rare beasts to be discovered, however I gained’t spoil how or who right here.
Roaming round Kanto by way of bike is as joyful as ever (Picture: Nintendo)
The upscaled visuals are a joyful addition and taking part in a ‘correct’, old style Pokémon sport each by way of the docked Change 2 and in handheld mode is a dream come true. Having not touched a mainline sport since Gen II, my final actual Pokémon expertise – aside from Let’s Go – was on a tiny LCD display screen.
This can be a trustworthy adaptation of the 2004 sport many Pokémon followers know and love. However in some methods, it’s too near the unique.
The black borders used to imitate the smaller GBA display screen are jarring while you realise that the broader Change 2 display screen isn’t used to full capability, and much more so on an even bigger display screen in docked mode. There’s additionally an enormous missed alternative to have discovered a strategy to incorporate Change On-line options, like GameChat, and buying and selling can solely be accomplished domestically which is a big disappointment when the times of LAN events are lengthy gone.
That wouldn’t be fairly so upsetting if it weren’t for the truth that these Pokémon video games historically relied upon buying and selling with house owners of the opposite sport. Attempting to ‘catch ‘em all’ is a logistical nightmare – in my case, finishing the Pokédex when the one different individual I do know with LeafGreen is 90 miles away would have been a lot extra interesting if we may do it on-line.
Buying and selling with others is sadly additionally caught previously (Picture: Nintendo)
The opposite particularly jarring side of this re-release is the truth that, on the day of Pokémon’s thirtieth anniversary, this was the best way Nintendo selected to rejoice. It’s not a correct remaster as a result of the unique – albeit enhanced – graphics are right here, and you may’t assist however marvel if there was one thing extra particular they might have pulled out of the bag.
Asking followers to pay £16.99 (or $19.99) a chunk is a little bit of a cheek from Nintendo, particularly given the GBA Nintendo Classics emulator out there free to Nintendo Change On-line Growth Pack subscribers. In case you don’t have anybody native to commerce with, it means spending the perfect a part of £40 for an enhanced model of a sport that got here out greater than 20 years in the past.
That’s to not say that FireRed isn’t good, or enjoyable, and even arguably one of the best ways to play these basic video games 30 years since we have been launched to Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle. All of this stuff will be true similtaneously there being a tinge of disappointment that we didn’t get one thing a bit larger; a bit extra formidable.
What FireRed did do, nevertheless – and also you’ll have to excuse the pun right here – is relight a burning want on this author to revisit the franchise that sparks such childlike pleasure inside. So if you happen to don’t thoughts, I’ve a Pokédex to fill.
VERDICT: 4/5
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