A few years ago I lost my beloved
Emerald Version to a jerk (sad violin music playing in the background). My brother grew sick of his Firered and
decided to give it to me since I lost my Emerald (thanks Alex!). This is a cut and paste review for Firered
and Leafgreen because the games are almost completely the same.

Story/ Goal: The goal of the game
is to basically go on an adventure working your way to being the best is the
extremely shorted idea of the game.

Now for those who have absolutely
no clue what pokemon is this is what it is; A young boy decides to go on an
adventure and dreams to be the Pokemon Master but on the way he has to confront
obstacles and an evil crime organization named Team Rocket.

Pokemon are magical creatures that
people catch (using pokeballs) and use in battle. Each Pokemon has their own strengths and
weaknesses based on the type they are, it’s almost like a game of rock, paper,
scissors. The most common and most obvious example is the water, fire, grass
combination, water douses fire, fire burns up grass, and grass drains
water. To strengthen your pokemon you
need to battle and battle and battle, there is no other way to get them
stronger (besides one or two exceptions if you are a technical nerd.)

You start off your adventure at the
famous scientist’s lab named, Professor Oak in which he will allow you to
choose one of three pokemon. When you
set out you have two goals: Get all the badges so you can fight the Elite Four
and become the champion, and the second goal is to catch all of the
pokemon.

To reach the top you need to find
and capture pokemon, once you’ve done that and have strengthened them to where
they can challenge the Gym Leaders you go fight the Leaders. You require all eight of the Gym badges but
once you have them all you are given permission to challenge the Elite Four.
Battling is strategy based and doesn’t require any reaction time so no need to
worry about that. When you enter a battle
you are given four choices: run away; which you can’t do at trainer battles and
some other occasions, items; which range from healing your pokemon to catching
the wild pokemon (not trainer pokemon), party; which allows you to see all of
your pokemons’ stats, health, moves, and more, and obviously battle; where you
have a choice of four moves to make your pokemon weaker and/or give you a
higher advantage.

One of the biggest things that
makes this game addicting for many is the concept commonly know as “Gotta catch
em all!”. It’s addicting because other
than having to find pokemon you also have to do two other things to get them
all; first you need to evolve, second you need to trade. Evolving is when a pokemon has become strong
enough it will transform into a stronger form of the original. Also, you need to trade. The way the game and it’s counterpart,
Leafgreen, are set up you need to have both games or you need to find someone
with the opposite game. One game has
some pokemon the other doesn’t and vice versa.

Also for those who have played the
originals, there is an addition to the original story that you will find at the
end of the game.

Graphics:
Though it is obviously improved from older games it’s not quite what I would like
in a new game, especially when the slightly older games Ruby, Sapphire, and
Emerald have a slightly better graphics.
Where there is dust storms and puddle reflections in these game there
are none in Firered and Leafgreen.
However I did notice that (at least for me) the writing in these games
are slightly easier to read and aren’t so sharp and tall.

Sound:
You can now hear the classic pokemon music in an updated version. It would be nice if I could have a little
radio of other games music from the past.
Pokemon cries are still using the same style as the original games and,
frankly, is not what I want.

Addictiveness:
The Pokemon games are probably the most addicting videogames in the world
because of it’s one of a kind play type and idea and for it’s sometimes
frustrating addicting need to catch all
of the pokemon. This will keep you
playing for a very time.