This review is part of the Pokéathlon, a Pokémon Marathon I'm running alongside @Dalf, @LunaCan2, @VSLazer, and @Ptcremisi! Funnily enough, VSLazer actually beat the game before me, which was super shocking and gave me the boost I needed to slog through the rest of the game.
Yes, I said slog. I'll make it no secret; I don't like FireRed at all, I think it's probably my second least-favorite mainline Pokémon title. It's hard to put into words what makes this game so unappealing to me, but I'll try.
I think the game loses a lot of charm from Gen 1. Now don't take this as me being some sort of elitist Genwunner because Gen 1 is far from being my favorite gen, but there was something that felt much more passionate about Gen 1. With Gameboy games, you have to use your imagination to a much higher degree than you do with a GBA title, and you lose a lot of the imagination and immersion in FireRed because of how sterile everything feels.
I think expectations also have a lot to do with it; when you go into Gen 1, you obviously temper your expectations and get into the mindset that it's an old game and there's gonna be some jank, that's fine. You're mostly there for the experience and mystique of playing an old game. When you go into Gen 3, that mystique is gone and you sort of expect the game to build upon what Hoenn introduced, which to it's credit, it somewhat does well by implementing Abilities and better movepools on multiple Pokemon.
However, I think FireRed makes the mistake of trying to be too faithful to the CODE of the original game instead of it's SPIRIT. Gen 1 was all about exploration and finding new Pokémon as you go! Hell, Gen 2 had shown that Kanto had new Pokemon like Murkrow around, so why not include them here? Hell, the game even acknowledges that Golbat has an evolution and they even FAKE YOU OUT during Golbat's evolution only to autocancel it, which is just a complete dick move tbh. It just seems like a lot of weird decisions went into making this game.
Instead of feeling that wonder of discovery you once had, you're kind of just left saddened knowing there's a ton of other Pokemon out there while you're stuck with just the Kanto mons.
I really do think they should've added at least some Johto mons to Kanto in FireRed; that's gonna be my hot take for the day, and I can already see the angry replies come in.
Well, that was a ton of negativity. I guess I should mention the positives.
For starters, the rival got a massive personality glow-up! At first, when I was playing the OG, my rival didn't really seem to be that much of a dick towards me, but here? Oh my god, he's an absolute prick and that's hilarious! This game is where your rival's personality gets to really show off without being limited to the tiny gameboy textboxes, and I think the rival is one of the few things FireRed has over the Originals.
Next, I can mention QOL changes, like how the bag is sorted this time and has much more storage space than the Gameboy one, meaning that you're not going to constantly be throwing away your items just to pick up another TM you're not using. I can also mention how you don't have to open up 3 menus just to cut down tree everytime you need to, which is also way nice!
Finally, I should also mention how much better the trainer fights are in this game. Both your and the enemy's movesets are improved drastically (the champion's Arcanine doesn't have ember for once this time), and it helps make fights feel a lot more tense knowing that more trainers can actually now stand a chance or at least put up a good fight.
Overall, I don't think I really like this game, but it's definitely someone else's cup of tea. Sorry I couldn't enjoy this game as much as you have, if you do enjoy this game.
Here's the team, as per usual:
- Centaurus the Clefable
Every time I make a Pokemon team, I always want a Normal-type because they're so reliable. For this run, that ended up being a Clefable, and she put in some good work! I gave her the Dig TM and taught her Mega Punch to completely dominate the earlygame and then I later on gave her Psychic for Koga, which ended up working out pretty well in the end.
- Sagittariu the Arbok
No, I didn't mispell it, I just ran out of characters. Funnily enough, the missing S sometimes appeared in prompts like "Sagittariu's DEFENSE decreased!", so that's funny. Arbok ended up being a cool mon to use! Shame that the Sludge Bomb TM was tied to the postgame, but hey, Glare + Bite for flinches ended up being a pretty solid gameplan that worked out pretty well for most of the game, even against Psychic types, believe it or not!
- Ophiucus the Jolteon
I kind of just... autopiloted to get the Eevee. I'm not sure how or why, but I realized "oh yeah the Eevee's here" when I walked into the Eevee room, and since I had enough space, I decided I wanted an Umbreon to cover my overwhelming Psychic weakness (since at the time, all my team was poison-type except for Centaurus), but then I remembered you couldn't get Umbreon in this game, so I decided to switch to a Jolteon instead who could get Pin Missile (which I never ended up using, funnily enough). Honestly, I don't think I need to elaborate on how good Jolteon is in this game. A fast electric type that can body a good chunk of the game's flying types (including two of your rival's pokemon) is just always good to have on your team.
- Hunahpu the Dodrio
Originally I wanted to stick with Golbat out of spite until I learned Golbat couldn't learn Fly, so I decided to get Dodrio on my team instead and it performed pretty well. I had experience using Dodrio in XY so I already knew Dodrio had the sauce.
- Orion the Hitmonchan
With the glow-up that Fighting-types received in Gen 3, I wanted to give Hitmonchan a go and... eh. Hitmonchan hit decently hard, sure, but it could barely take a hit if anything decently strong hit it. Having the elemental punches sounds cool on paper, but this was unfortunately before the physical/special split, so the elemental punches ended up being more like elemental wet napkins. Cool Pokemon, but definitely not the best.
- Cancer the Kabutops
Man, Kabutops.... What an awesome f*cking Pokemon, just look at him. Cancer ended up replacing my starter Venusaur, and let me tell you, I do not regret benching that fat green toad for the beast that was Kabutops. While they came in super late, they were definitely worth grinding in the daycare. Cancer carried my ass with both Surf and Giga Drain; they were a super fun mon to use, would definitely recommend using one if you have the patience to grind it from level 5.
Colorblindness Rating: A-
Shinies exist, I guess. They get a cool little sparkle and sound effect so you have other ways to tell a Pokemon's shiny if you're colorblind like me, so it's no biggie.
