Never did I think Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen would get re-releases... But on the day Pokemon turned 30 (27 February 2026), that finally became a reality as they went live on Nintendo Switch.
As the inimitable introduction played, I was instantly grinning from ear-to-ear and was once again transported back to being nine-years-old when the games initially released on Game Boy Advance in 2004.
I've played through both of them a number of times since but it felt so good firing it up on the Switch docked to the TV in my living room.
The problem is - it's got me hungry for more releases like this from Pokemon.
I've played through the first few hours of Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen and I'm simply a sucker for the older Pokemon games and their style.
These are the games I grew up playing and I must have put in 1,000 hours or more across the franchise through the years.
Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen on the Switch are seemingly straightforward releases - they're just the Game Boy Advance ROMs that have been ported to the Switch with a bit of a bump in resolution.
And that's fine. It's great to play these classics on more modern hardware. It would have been nice to have a bit more as this was released on the day Pokemon turned 30 but to have these releases on the Switch at all is something.
The problem is now, as this is something that we've been shown can happen, I want more.
How amazing would it be to have Pokemon Sapphire, Ruby and Emerald on the Switch? Or perhaps even ports of SoulSilver and HeartGold, remakes of Gen 2 which are arguably the greatest Pokemon games of all time?
I can't wait to carry on playing through Pokemon FireRed on the Switch, building up my team, taking on the Elite Four, catching all the legendaries and clearing the Sevii Islands.
But now we've got this on the Switch, I'd love to see Pokemon go all out for its 30th anniversary and do more releases like this.
Elsewhere from indy100:
How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel
Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
