Pretty hyped for this. I never owned a copy of either game growing up, so the fact that I can now play FR/LG without having to track down and pay ~US $120 for an original cartridge is very nice. The lack of online play and other modern functionalities is annoying but not a deal breaker.
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SPOILERS! 2026 FireRed/LeafGreen Switch rerelease announced (standalone purchase)
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By a "Mystery Gift" for Gen 1, we basically just mean hosting a local in person event to trade with a staffer with a "Mew Trading App" (aka savestate to bring Mew back in the party) on the other side. Now they could do the same for FRLG like how MYSTRY Mew was distributed via trading with a save file full of boxes of Mew but I don't think that would be received too well.
Honestly Gen 3's native Mystery Gift system is kind of weird with how it can tie into either the e-Reader (only in JP)/Wireless Adapter and only saves one wondercard at a time so who knows how that's all going to be handled. Even the Nintendo Music image for the Mystery Gift song still shows Wonder News on the menu, and I guess it's supposed to represent the original more so than the rerelease but I would expect Wonder News to be the first thing to be omitted if they had to rework the whole thing to go through a Switch menu or something.
Speaking of Nintendo Music I just noticed a little thing that annoyed me while checking it. Technically this is not necessarily related to the FRLG rerelease, but it's particularly relevant and the tie-in is the main reason why it's here on Nintendo Music to begin with so I'm posting it here.
Anyway, here's the thumbnail for the Hall of Fame song in Nintendo Music:
On the surface we have Pikachu, Lapras, Snorlax, Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise, a seemingly innocuous reference to Red's HGSS team in party order, or so you may think if you just look up his sets on Bulbapedia since actual party order of enemies isn't really shown ingame other than Pikachu being his lead.
However when shown in motion, the party in the Hall of Fame is not displayed from left-to-right then top-to-bottom order. The first party slot is shown in the top middle, then followed by the top left, top right, bottom middle, bottom right, and bottom left.
This would imply that Nintendo Music entered the champion battle with a team order of Lapras/Pikachu/Snorlax/Charizard/Blastoise/Venusaur for the intent of matching the aesthetic of HGSS Red based on appearances for this screenshot to presumably match the order that Bulbapedia or whatever else presents Red's team in a 3x2 format. I might be overthinking this but I had to point it out because it just bothered me but I understand why they showed it this way.
Also unpopular opinion but I think Espeon (or even Eevee) should have been there if we're already showing a party of 3 starters just because GSC was the latest game released at the time and not HGSS if we want to represent FRLG in the context of its GBA release, but arguably you could say this screenshot is now representing 2026 Switch FRLG in a post-HGSS world.
Anyway, here's the thumbnail for the Hall of Fame song in Nintendo Music:
On the surface we have Pikachu, Lapras, Snorlax, Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise, a seemingly innocuous reference to Red's HGSS team in party order, or so you may think if you just look up his sets on Bulbapedia since actual party order of enemies isn't really shown ingame other than Pikachu being his lead.
However when shown in motion, the party in the Hall of Fame is not displayed from left-to-right then top-to-bottom order. The first party slot is shown in the top middle, then followed by the top left, top right, bottom middle, bottom right, and bottom left.
This would imply that Nintendo Music entered the champion battle with a team order of Lapras/Pikachu/Snorlax/Charizard/Blastoise/Venusaur for the intent of matching the aesthetic of HGSS Red based on appearances for this screenshot to presumably match the order that Bulbapedia or whatever else presents Red's team in a 3x2 format. I might be overthinking this but I had to point it out because it just bothered me but I understand why they showed it this way.
Also unpopular opinion but I think Espeon (or even Eevee) should have been there if we're already showing a party of 3 starters just because GSC was the latest game released at the time and not HGSS if we want to represent FRLG in the context of its GBA release, but arguably you could say this screenshot is now representing 2026 Switch FRLG in a post-HGSS world.
After giving this some thought, my current perception is mixed.
I'm glad GF are making these games more readily available, and while I think $20 is a bit too high given the age of these games, it could have been worse. I was expecting $30 minimum, myself.
That being said, no online multiplayer is a big bummer for me. I don't have a single local Pokemon friend anymore. All of mine are in online circles now. Gen 3 is also my favorite competitive gen and it would have been cool to play that in a brand new way. With no online wi-fi, we can't conveniently play that on real hardware, and that's a shame.
Navel Rock and Birth Island would be tempting features to differentiate it with older copies, but I don't know if that'd be enough to sway me. I currently own an EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition cartridge for my SP and I have FR, LG, and Emerald loaded on there, and I can enable the events through ACE. However, it'd be nice to have these events officially integrated so I can have legit FRLG Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Deoxys.
I think if there's anything that'll get me to buy these, it's Home support. If Home's going to have a FRLG Pokedex, I want to complete it. Dex completion is one of my favorite things to do with Pokemon games next to shiny hunting. The lack of ingame online trades is whack, but at least we'd have trading in Home to help fill the gaps with version exclusives, starters, fossils, etc.
Depending on what we hear next week, I likely won't get this Day 1, or maybe never. Time will tell.
The issue is you can't get Espeon or Umbreon in FRLG because there's no time of day feature.
I'm glad GF are making these games more readily available, and while I think $20 is a bit too high given the age of these games, it could have been worse. I was expecting $30 minimum, myself.
That being said, no online multiplayer is a big bummer for me. I don't have a single local Pokemon friend anymore. All of mine are in online circles now. Gen 3 is also my favorite competitive gen and it would have been cool to play that in a brand new way. With no online wi-fi, we can't conveniently play that on real hardware, and that's a shame.
Navel Rock and Birth Island would be tempting features to differentiate it with older copies, but I don't know if that'd be enough to sway me. I currently own an EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition cartridge for my SP and I have FR, LG, and Emerald loaded on there, and I can enable the events through ACE. However, it'd be nice to have these events officially integrated so I can have legit FRLG Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Deoxys.
I think if there's anything that'll get me to buy these, it's Home support. If Home's going to have a FRLG Pokedex, I want to complete it. Dex completion is one of my favorite things to do with Pokemon games next to shiny hunting. The lack of ingame online trades is whack, but at least we'd have trading in Home to help fill the gaps with version exclusives, starters, fossils, etc.
Depending on what we hear next week, I likely won't get this Day 1, or maybe never. Time will tell.
The issue is you can't get Espeon or Umbreon in FRLG because there's no time of day feature.
not that there's any surprise here but the preorders for FireRed and LeafGreen are already #1 on the Switch eshop best sellers list
Personally I'm pretty happy with the FRLG port, primarily because it means that people (in the USA anyways) won't have to fork over $120+ for the original cartridges and consoles. It also shows that GameFreak isn't against putting their older games on the Switch. Hope this means we get Ruby & Sapphire later on.
There are some interesting perspectives of modern mons fans from the official Pokemon forums who have never played FRLG or RBY and kind of just assume that the more infamous Gen 1 jank could still apply to FRLG. I guess it's a reasonable assumption since the marketing is more about Gen 3/Kanto nostalgia and less so about explaining how Gen 3 differs from Gen 1, but it seems like the main takeaway to that audience is closer to "RBY with updated graphics" and it might not even be clear that this was based on the RS engine or was even going to have the Johto mons.
It may sound like a bizarre way to think about these releases that I never would have considered as a long term fan, after personally taking Gen 3 for granted as completely different games standing on their own and the beginning of the divide between the GB era and modern day system mechanics, but there do actually seem to be Let's Go fans who are going to play their first original/pre-EXP Share game just because it's coming to the Switch.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/22637/i-want-to-talk-about-frlg/p1
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/22640/list-of-version-exclusives-in-firered-and-leafgreen#latest
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/22599/guys-fire-red-and-leaf-green-are-on-the-switch/p2
It may sound like a bizarre way to think about these releases that I never would have considered as a long term fan, after personally taking Gen 3 for granted as completely different games standing on their own and the beginning of the divide between the GB era and modern day system mechanics, but there do actually seem to be Let's Go fans who are going to play their first original/pre-EXP Share game just because it's coming to the Switch.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/22637/i-want-to-talk-about-frlg/p1
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/22640/list-of-version-exclusives-in-firered-and-leafgreen#latest
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/22599/guys-fire-red-and-leaf-green-are-on-the-switch/p2
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I already own both of these games as original cartridges and therefore have no reason to buy them, but I am glad that more people who don't want to pay ludicrous amounts of money and also just so happen to hate playing on an emulator will get to experience these games.
Gen 3 is a delight, regardless of cartridge game.
To those of you who will experience FR/LG and perhaps even a 3rd generation title for the first time, I hope you have fun!
What I wonder is whether a small competitive meta will form around this, since you will not be able to access anything from R/S/E, until they probably make standalone eShop titles for them too, anyway. I am personally doubtful, due to the lack of online play and seemingly more casual-oriented target audience. It is nice to imagine things, though!
Gen 3 is a delight, regardless of cartridge game.
To those of you who will experience FR/LG and perhaps even a 3rd generation title for the first time, I hope you have fun!
What I wonder is whether a small competitive meta will form around this, since you will not be able to access anything from R/S/E, until they probably make standalone eShop titles for them too, anyway. I am personally doubtful, due to the lack of online play and seemingly more casual-oriented target audience. It is nice to imagine things, though!
That first person really liked their enter key lol.
Also it's so surreal seeing people uninformed about the older games to this degree. I understand not being in the weeds and having gaps in knowledge like what the deal is with the Sevii Islands or specific battle mechanics, but bro there are like 5 websites that you can check to see if Gyarados can learn Fly in Gen 3. Or at all.
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Woot! Some good pokemon news.
Now just need more good Champions news (more clarification on how mons from home can be used.) That way I can have two good options for just casual playing/getting mons to use in battle. (FR/LG (assuming these can at least deposit into home as they likely will be able too) and BD/SP) And hopefully champions for good battle platform...assuming it supports 6v6 singles even if it is just through friendlies. Would still be stuck either physically going back to 3ds and older games to train some mons or even worse new gen switch titles ~shudder~ to level some mons if the rental system sucks with home.
Either way, happy to be able to play one of my favorite titles on the big screen again. And hopefully they got the event tickets in them >:3
Now just need more good Champions news (more clarification on how mons from home can be used.) That way I can have two good options for just casual playing/getting mons to use in battle. (FR/LG (assuming these can at least deposit into home as they likely will be able too) and BD/SP) And hopefully champions for good battle platform...assuming it supports 6v6 singles even if it is just through friendlies. Would still be stuck either physically going back to 3ds and older games to train some mons or even worse new gen switch titles ~shudder~ to level some mons if the rental system sucks with home.
Either way, happy to be able to play one of my favorite titles on the big screen again. And hopefully they got the event tickets in them >:3
I’m confident that these will have HOME compatibility as initially stated, and that the blurb was only removed because that will be a HOME update announcement that could happen on Pokémon Day.
Assuming these will connect to HOME, I’d say it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll be able to move Pokémon from other games into the GBA save. If I had to guess, FRLG’s compatibility with HOME will work just like it does for LGPE, where the game will be able to deposit and withdraw Pokémon that are still formatted for FRLG, but once they move to another game, they will be unable to return to the GBA games.
This would also make it possible for HOME to have a Dex completion reward for FRLG, in the form of a shiny Mew. I always thought it was strange that a shiny Meltan was the reward for LGPE instead of Mew, but maybe this was the reason all along.
Assuming these will connect to HOME, I’d say it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll be able to move Pokémon from other games into the GBA save. If I had to guess, FRLG’s compatibility with HOME will work just like it does for LGPE, where the game will be able to deposit and withdraw Pokémon that are still formatted for FRLG, but once they move to another game, they will be unable to return to the GBA games.
This would also make it possible for HOME to have a Dex completion reward for FRLG, in the form of a shiny Mew. I always thought it was strange that a shiny Meltan was the reward for LGPE instead of Mew, but maybe this was the reason all along.
I think it's very unlikely to be Mew, for the same reason I said before we knew the LGPE reward: shiny Mew is pretty much the "blue chip" of mythical Pokemon, and not something I expect Game Freak/Nintendo would want to be infinitely and indefinitely available (and certainly not for less effort than it takes to obtain shiny Keldeo, Meloetta, or Enamorus). IMO it's far more likely to be Deoxys, which is associated with FRLG due to the fact it effectively made its debut in those games.
I'm sure some of you guys must be so sick of my rants on this topic but genuinely, what is happening with old game rereleases? There's absolutely no conceivable way lack of interest or unprofitability is the problem: Pokemon Crystal was consistently the top-selling game on 3DS Virtual Console right to the day it shut down. Pokemon is such a titanic brand that in a world of retro subscription services with hundreds of classic games they can dump the most middling, forgettable Game Boy outing for 20 dollars and achieve this result. The rising theory that the old titles' Game Corners were jacking up the age ratings has also seemingly been crushed: As others have observed, the ratings for this rerelease mention "simulated gambling", so evidently there's a grandfather clause at play.
Are there are other major game franchises whose back catalog accessibility is this bad? I just looked up the first five Call of Duties as an experiment and they're still on Steam and the Xbox Store so I guess not, right? The only parallel that comes to mind right now is the infamous Disney Vault, wherein their classic animated films only saw new home releases roughly once every ten years to cash in on FOMO. But I can't complain about unfair pricing or exploitative sales practices if there is no merchandise being sold to me! If they were doing a system like this we'd be talking about a Sun & Moon rerelease right now! A vast swathe of the fanbase was not alive the last time you could buy Pokemon Emerald!
Is making these games transfer compatible really such an absurd struggle to the point it's bottlenecking more of these? I can't imagine that being the case but if it somehow is then genuinely just stop, don't bother. This company was fine with putting Stadium of all things on NSO with no Home compatibility, so why does it matter now?
If the roadmap hypothetical I mentioned in my last post plays out, pretend I never said anything.
I honestly think some higher up at either Game Freak or TPC is either blocking or resisting old game re-releases due to a bizarre bugbear they have with the idea. There is no for-profit explanation I can think of for Pokémon to just sit on its legacy titles when releasing them again with the bare minimum effort is clearly a high RoI and proven to be basically free money. It's not even like they'd have to invest in R&D for emulators when Nintendo has already made them for NSO (and is probably working on more), with the GBA one in particular being basically perfect.
This kind of thing isn't even entirely unheard of, as the now-dead composer for Dragon Quest kept blocking the games from having orchestrated soundtracks. But iirc it was at least driven by some sort of profit motive so he could make money off of concerts or whatever.
Yeah, my best guess is also that it’s some kind of arbitrary ideological thing within the minds of the company leads. I feel like the shot-callers must just have some kind of personal opposition to porting the old games (and since it’s Game Freak, that opposition may not even necessarily make coherent sense — there’s a lot I like about Game Freak’s ideas, but lord knows they’ve had some… odd rationales in the past).
Making their money back clearly isn’t an issue, and I’d believe it could be a technical problem if we were talking about the dual-screen games (though I’m sure they could engineer some kind of workaround for those), but especially for Gens 1-3, there’s really no good reason for them to not be readily available on the Switch.
I also just realized that 2027 is the 25th anniversary of Ruby & Sapphire. Kinda reinforces my belief that no matter how good FRLG sell, it might still be a year or more before we see the rest of the GBA games, just like the gap between Gens 1 and 2 on the 3DS…
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Several other companies have re-released DS games on modern hardware and found workarounds when necessary. They aren't always strictly perfect workarounds, but they do exist and are possible. Plus mainline Pokémon games on DS don't even use the bottom screen for anything extensive outside of a minigame or two, and some of those could easily be mapped to normal controls anyway.
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Hear me out, I have the conspiracy for you:
The reason they don't release the game people actually would instabuy if re-released is cause they're a "Break glass in case of issues".
Need emergency money? Just release Crystal on Switch.
Need more? Quickly release VC gen 1 on Switch 2.
(Half sarcastic, Half serious. I made it sound as a meme, but I wouldn't exclude the possibilities of them saving the potential "big sellers" for when it's necessary.)
The reason they don't release the game people actually would instabuy if re-released is cause they're a "Break glass in case of issues".
Need emergency money? Just release Crystal on Switch.
Need more? Quickly release VC gen 1 on Switch 2.
(Half sarcastic, Half serious. I made it sound as a meme, but I wouldn't exclude the possibilities of them saving the potential "big sellers" for when it's necessary.)
I think part of the reason they don't really rerelease their old games that often is because the remakes in their mind might take the place of that while actual ports are something they only do for special occasions. Is it something they will always do? Who knows? If these sell well... ok, when they sell well, it could motivate them to do other rereleases, or they might just still not see the need to rerelease the older games. I don't know. They don't have to go full Skyrim about it, but it would definitely be nice to be able to play those games on new hardware and not have to worry about dead batteries or aging consoles.
Certainly. Though again I could also see this being an ideological barrier too — if you’ll pardon me role-playing as a Game Freak exec for a moment, I wonder if they would consider that too much an alteration of the “intended” experience? They strike me as the sorts to be more particular about that kind of thing.
You know, I did have a thought that re-releasing old games could be a way to alleviate release gaps in the event that they move to having longer dev cycles for the big new generation games.
Another thought I had is that maybe it is transfer compatibility that's at fault, but in more of an indirect corporate politics kind of way. I have to imagine the team at Nintendo in charge of NSO Virtual Console must've been filled with consternation at the prospect of the Game Boy killer app series not being on the Game Boy service. Maybe this required a bunch of tedious negotiating between Game Freak and Nintendo to get a carveout for FRLG and whatever else they have planned.
If it's not something like that, though, then yeah it's gotta be ideological nonsense. My recollection is hazy but I remember a few years ago there was an interview with some Sony exec circulating where they were asked about playing old entries of I think either Gran Turismo or Forza and the executive was just baffled. Like, they sincerely didn't understand why anyone would want to play the older games, aren't they ugly and outdated?
If it's not something like that, though, then yeah it's gotta be ideological nonsense. My recollection is hazy but I remember a few years ago there was an interview with some Sony exec circulating where they were asked about playing old entries of I think either Gran Turismo or Forza and the executive was just baffled. Like, they sincerely didn't understand why anyone would want to play the older games, aren't they ugly and outdated?
this would make sense given that iirc gen 2 virtual console on the 3DS were announced at a nintendo direct in June of 2017
I do also remember that Nintendo wasn't exactly doing so hot with the 3DS back then so I assumed at the time that they only released the virtual console of Gen 1 and Gen 2 as a like emergency money making scheme, lol
the spinoffs being on the NSO services are likely because of the 3rd party company that made them, like Hudson Soft in the case of Pokemon TCG gbc, Pokemon Stadium because of HAL Labs, etc.,
has to be some sort of weird ideological obsession with their brand image and/or not understanding the appeal of the older titles they worked on? like outside of the pokemon devs the nintendo associated dev I think of is Sakurai and the weird comments hes made over the years of people still playing or wanting to play older versions of smash bros
I was actually thinking about this the other day. It would be ADV OU minus Hoenn staples and a weird quirk.
You’d still have some of the metagame titans like
, 
, 
, 
,
, and 
, but icons like 
, 
, 
, 
, and 
wouldn’t be in. The game would be lacking in key rock resists like the aforementioned Metagross and Swampert, but also 
and 
, so I can see and 
just being menaces to society in this hypothetical FRLG meta. I could see 
being the off-brand Swampert lmao, and perhaps 
rising in usage as a key rock-resist that's also electric-immune. Depending on how common Quagsire becomes, you might see much less Hidden Power Grass since that's an anti-Swampert tech. 
might take Salamence's place as the resident Dragon-type, but it'd be worse in key ways (no Intimidate and a lot slower). With no Celebi and Claydol, Tyranitar might drop HP Bug entirely. Even Dugtrio wouldn’t have a use for it since that was used to trap Celebi.Unless they somehow fix this for the port, you’d also have the legendary beasts
and 
with 0 IVs in most of their stats.Some egg moves might also not be available because of needing certain Hoenn Pokemon. One example is Will-o-Wisp.
and 
can't learn it without breeding with the Shuppet and Duskull lines, making 
the sole user of the move in FRLG. If they modify Altering Cave to include 
, and therefore
, that'd be another WoW user since it can breed with Ninetales to get it.
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Shoutouts to the physical bundle that doesn’t actually come with a game and instead comes with a redeem code for your eshop. Marketing practices aside as someone who owns nearly every Pokémon game including these 2. I’m happy that they’re not fully committing the FRLG games into abandonware, although the $20 price point is a bit of a yikes. Considering that Pokémon games can already be played through the retro systems that’re already implemented on the Switch it’s a bit of a let down that the games have such a high price for a generation thats Pokedex and a lot of other trading requirements cannot be completed. But I’m happy that they’re making the games more easily accessible for newer users to the games as a whole.
Also doing a giveaway for 2 copies in my tournament cord
I don't like the image going around showing the exclusives since it includes post game johto pokemon in it so I made an alternative one quickly in a tier list maker
I always thought the exclusives in these games were fairly balanced, although one of the best ingame pokemon ever is exclusive to LG (Starmie)
I always thought the exclusives in these games were fairly balanced, although one of the best ingame pokemon ever is exclusive to LG (Starmie)
I already own these games and all the hardware necessary to play them, so the only way they could appeal to me would be to offer some amazing new functionality or a new way to play them.
$20 for a download-only port of a GBA game is not sufficient. Direct Home compatibility is nice and convenient, but I am not paying $20 just for that.
I had hoped that these ports would offer a lot of quality of life features. If they were really bold they could have added gameplay features from newer games, like Fairy types and the physical-special split. That would have at least provided a new experience.
They could even go the other way. Let us toggle between gen 1 graphics and gen 3 graphics. Let us play gen 1 with gen 3 graphics. If they added enough, the experience could easily be worth more than $20.
As it stands, unless they announce something amazing in the Direct, I will be skipping these. If I want to play through them again, I have the old cartridges.
Good for people who never owned the originals, but I think we all know that those people haven't been doing without for the past two decades.
$20 for a download-only port of a GBA game is not sufficient. Direct Home compatibility is nice and convenient, but I am not paying $20 just for that.
I had hoped that these ports would offer a lot of quality of life features. If they were really bold they could have added gameplay features from newer games, like Fairy types and the physical-special split. That would have at least provided a new experience.
They could even go the other way. Let us toggle between gen 1 graphics and gen 3 graphics. Let us play gen 1 with gen 3 graphics. If they added enough, the experience could easily be worth more than $20.
As it stands, unless they announce something amazing in the Direct, I will be skipping these. If I want to play through them again, I have the old cartridges.
Good for people who never owned the originals, but I think we all know that those people haven't been doing without for the past two decades.