4/5 ★ – Sharff's review of Pokémon FireRed.

For perspective I used to kinda dislike pokemon because of my experiences playing these games. I played yellow and got to that grind wall right before the elite four, I've almost beaten fire red before but got to the same place and lost my save. I also tried pokemon sword and I think you guys can already see where THAT direction would take me - did not like sword and shield at the time. So generally I just didn't have a good time with what I played. However I'm not one to give up on a franchise like this. Pokemon is so loved among many, even among my friends, so I really wanted to understand why. This game hasn't made me adore pokemon but I did enjoy my playthrough. Collecting Pokemon and making a proper team is incredibly satisfying. Its really cool that you can simply pick whatever pokemon you like and stick them into your party (mostly at least). And using your pokemon for the correct battles, seeing them evolve, and then seeing them become more and more powerful is very rewarding. I'm used to SMT where you need to swap out monsters for more powerful ones and I appreciate how this game differs from that with how committing to your pokemon is most beneficial. That said, there were times where some pokemon did need to be thrown into the PC so I could swap them out for one that was straight up better. You could argue that all pokemon are useful, even if some of them aren't as strong as others, and I'd agree to an extent but I wish all pokemon had the same potential as others. I had a raticate and a pidgeotto for a bit but after a while, I realized that these pokemon weren't as good as some of the other ones I could use, so the pidgey went into the PC and the raticate was religated to an HM slave. That last one was accidental, he just ended up being able to use the most HMs and so thats what he became helpful for. HMs are an entirely different issue, one that actually doesn't really bother me too much. Its not that the moves aren't useful, they can be even in battle, but my problem with them is how weirdly insistent the game is on making you keep them. Its not like they're permanent, you can eventually delete them by talking to an NPC, but that makes me question why I can't delete them normally. Again, its just weird but not a big problem. Returning back to positives, gym battles are also really satisfying to beat and I'm not sure if its just this remake or gen 1 in general but they're really well balanced out. I don't think I ever had to grind for them, I just needed the right pokemon. I guess its because I didn't over use repels, so my pokemon were just leveling normally. I appreciate that repels are even in the game to begin with and speed up has been super helpful for this game too. From the perspective of a remake, I really appreciate how close it is to the original game. Aside from the stats of the pokemon themselves and some post game content, not much has changed beyond some QOL stuff like adding the run button and giving Charizard the ability to use the fly HM. These are changes that make the game feel much better without changing the core of what this game is. Overall this game is enjoyable, for the most part. There is one massive problem with it for me though, and thats the grind wall I mentioned at the beginning. Six of my pokemon were at various levels in the 40s range when it feels like the game wants them in the 50 range. I fought all the NPCs in kanto, and like I said, I was careful with my repel usage. I know how situations like this come to be and despite my attempts to avoid it, I still ran into this. However I did it, I grinded up until level 55 for each of them, speed up made it fast. It wasn't terrible, but it definitely slows the pace down by a lot. Maybe its because I didn't do the new gen 3 islands, so the grinding was more annoying, but its a bummer that this game has this massive wall right before the elite four, when the game up until this point has been balanced out really well. The elite four itself is actually really good too. I don't think I over leveled, but if I did, they were still engaging with how I needed to use the specific types for pokemon. Just the right amount of challenge, so I enjoyed the final bosses, I just wish I could level up via a different means or that they were just lower in level. Aside from the one pace breaker, the game is still great. It was so good that I ended up getting all of the gen 1 legendaries. I did enjoy myself and while this game isn't the top of the line for me, I am gonna continue on and play the others. Right now I'm playing Emerald to continue the Gen 3 train, so if theres anything to say about this game, its that its convinced me to give this series another chance. My final team was Charizard, Raichu, Vaporeon, Snorelax, Alakazam (Yes I did trade with myself on an emulator), and Hitmonchan. I like all of them, though I wanted to try out Lapis. Perhaps next time I play!