Full Review

After playing through Pokemon Emerald I wanted to get another game where I could trade with so I could assemble a superior team to put on my Emerald cart for the Battle Frontier. The only way to unlock certain evolutions like Alakazam and Steelix is through trading, which this second cart would serve to do. The one aspect that I didn't like is I needed to beat the story mode in both games in order to enable trading. It would have been nice to import over a balanced group with good natures to take through the entire story mode, but that's alright by me. That way I can see what kinds of teams I can assemble with the pokemon I am provided.


Story

Like most Pokemon games, you are an aspiring trainer looking to make an impact in the land of Kanto. At the outset of the game you are aided by Professor Oak, which makes his grandson Gary very jealous. Still, I find it odd that the Professor favors you more than his own grandson. This is also very similar to the plot line in Castlevania Circle of the Moon as well. I guess blood isn't thicker than water in video games these days. Anyway, you head off while trying to keep up with Gary all the while battling each other along the way. You meet up with new people all around the Kanto region, making new friends and catching pokemon. Aside from Gary, you'll also be the rival of Team Rocket, who seek to use pokemon as tools for their own evil plans. Overall the story isn't very deep. Gary really doesn't develop much, neither does anyone else in the story. Your own character is void of any personality as well, so those of you looking for an roleplaying game that stresses a deep story, should look elsewhere.


Gameplay

Pokemon Firered (and Leafgreen for that matter) is a remake of the first set of Pokemon games for the original Gameboy (Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Red respectively). The difference between Firered and Leafgreen is there are roughly a half dozen pokemon unique to each of the two games. In addition there are some slight dialog changes, but nothing major. Pokemon is a very basic roleplaying game or RPG that pits captured fictional creatures called pokemon against each other. You catch wild pokemon and train them to do battle against other wild or trained pokemon. While it sounds like cockfighting, Pokemon stresses friendship and love of your pokemon instead of expendibility, which I guess makes it acceptable right? Anyway the general premise of the game has you capturing as many pokemon as possible and using a team of six to battle against other trainers and eventually win a league championship.

Battling is one of the major components of the Pokemon games and Firered isn't any different. It's a turned based battle where one or two pokemon on your team are placed in the field of play. They attack your adversary's pokemon in a turn-based combat system using one of a maximum of four different moves. When a pokemon loses all of its hit-points, instead of dying it faints and is removed from battle. Once all the pokemon from one side are eliminated the battle is over and experience is doled out. If you're facing another trainer, you'll get cash you can use for equipment or items. In a battle against wild pokemon, you can weaken it through lowing its hit-points and/or inflicting it with a status condition like poison or paralysis. The result makes it weak enough for you to catch in a pokeball. If you defeat it instead or by accident, your participating team members are given experience for the battle.

The battle system while simple on the surface becomes much more complex when you factor in the diverse makeup of the pokemon in general. There are almost 200 obtainable pokemon species in Firered. However, among pokemon of the same species the two pokemon can vary wildly based on other factors. There are natures that can boost or decline one of the six stat values of a pokemon (speed, hit-points, attack, special attack, defense, and special defense). Also pokemon can have a different collection of moves and passive abilities from special training or breeding techniques. For instance, the same species can deal out tons of damage, or take in a ton of damage based on all these factors. Thus simply having a specific species of pokemon doesn't necessarily dictate which role it serves on your or another's team. Finally pokemon and their moves can be qualified among 17 different types including ground, poison, fire, and dark. Certain types are weaker or stronger against other types, but no one type is overly dominant.

As you play through the story mode, you'll be exploring most of Kanto. You're ultimate goal is to reel in a Pokemon Championship, but the way to do that is to get badges passed out from gym leaders after defeating them. These gym leaders have usually one or two types of pokemon, but they have diverse and well throughout movesets making them the default bosses of the Pokemon series of games. These badges not only allow you into the Pokemon League, but also allow the pokemon you've obtained to become stronger and use abilities that enable you to reach many new areas of Kanto through flying, surfing, or other means. Aside from battling gym leaders, you'll also be battling Team Rocket, while trying to thwart their attempts to subjugate the pokemon of Kanto. While exploring caves or buildings in town, you'll also have some rudimentary puzzles like rock moving and multilevel mazes to solve. Transporters are a frequent device in Pokemon Firered to make a maze seem more complicated. There's also ice sheets and conveyor belt puzzles too. Overall these puzzles aren't terribly hard to figure out, but might give some kids in grade school a slight run for their money at times. I can imagine a small child getting frustrated with the transporters in the Silph Co. building.

After you finish the main story, you can still continue on many other side quests. Most of them involve obtaining rare items or Pokemon only available once you finish the main story. Also other activities like breeding, and rematches against gym leaders and Pokemon League members become available. However, one of the biggest things that I disliked is that much of the really fun activities (especially for those who already played through a Pokemon game) open up after you finish the main story. Thus you're seem handicapped throughout most of the beginning of the game trying to level up a team of Pokemon that you'll end up discarding later on in exchange for a more powerful team.

Overall the gameplay is pretty simple, but it's also really deep and rewarding. You can assemble a wide variety of pokemon teams to battle against characters in the game or other people through the link cable. Pokemon Firered isn't a tough game by any means. However, you do have to invest a lot of time into it in order to at least finish the main story. It takes time to level up your pokemon, even when fighting against superior foes. Still, there is a lot to do in this game and amounts to a lot of quality gaming hours in my opinion.


Controls

The controls are pretty standard for an RPG. The dpad moves your character, while the two face buttons enable actions like running, or searching The start button brings up the menu, while the select button can be assigned to a particular item to use like a fishing rod or map. It would be nice if the shoulder buttons could be assigned items as well, but that's a minor inconvenience. The only other nuance I wasn't familiar with is the dpad can change directions of the character without moving. This is nice because of all the puzzles and it allows you to search a particular spot without trying to align yourself correctly.


Graphics

The graphics in Pokemon Firered are pretty simplistic. Images of pokemon in battle are displayed in static sprites that only oscillate, but show no true animation. Your character really doesn't have any animation either except when hurling a pokeball at an unsuspecting wild pokemon. Outside of battle, characters and pokemon have some rudimentary animation, but it's nothing fancy. The sprites of the characters and environment is so small and compact that animation must also be simple. There are some basic layering effects too, but nothing to really push the graphical capabilities of the Gameboy Advance. Overall, the graphics like the game in general is pretty simple.


Sound

Like the graphics, the sound doesn't try to do too much either. The music has some good themes, but can also have some really annoying ones as well. They sound better when using the Gameboy player instead of through the Gameboy Advance's speakers but it's not award winning music either. The sound effects are also rather basic and even crude at times. Creatures have their own distinctive call, but if you're used to the Pokemon cartoon, you'll be disappointed to find out that the creature calls from the game sound nothing like the cartoon. That means if you have a Pikachu, you won't be hearing any "pika pika"s. Still most of the calls are acceptable, although some of the electric creatures have some real shrill sounds emanating from them.


Replay Value

If I just had Pokemon Firered, I would say that the replay value is rather low for a Pokemon game. You can breed pokemon to create create a better team, while rematching trainers. However, once you've finished the main story and all the side quests there really isn't much to do in this cartridge alone. Just about the only major replayable aspect within this cartridge is the trainer tower which allows varied trainer battles in succession. Still, it's nothing as diverse as the Battle Frontier in Pokemon Emerald. However, if you link up with any of the Emerald/Ruby/Sapphire games, you can add new pokemon to your team as well as open up to some new species through pokemon evolution. Also, you can battle against human trainers who are frequently tougher than most of the computer controlled trainers in the game. You can also link this game up with Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD for the GameCube. This allows you to play in bigger arenas and obtain different pokemon. Generally, it makes sense to play this game if you have friends who like to play and are competitive battlers. It makes it all the more worthwhile to attempt to assemble a powerhouse team. But aside from that, there isn't much else.

Overall Pokemon Firered is a decent game, which takes advantage of the Pokemon series strengths. Still, it seems like this game was more of a money grab than anything else. It isn't as feature rich as the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald games, and it seems like its purpose is only to allow you to obtain all 351 pokemon to date. I almost feel as if I would have been better served to get a cheating device like Gameshark to put the remaining pokemon I'm missing on my Emerald cartridge instead. But that's alright, it's not that bad of a game, it's just the bar has been set a little higher.