Pokémon Pokemon Firered & Leafgreen being released... not on Switch Online

[Dim]

Considering they sold the gameboy games as a 3DS port for $10, It's not too bad imo. They could have charged $30 if they really wanted to bw greedy. This is just a completely optional thing for players to me. It is disappointing how we can't play online with friends or family but at least we don't NEED log into switch online in order to play, right? I do wish physical copies weren't so exclusive though. From what my friend at work told me, more and more companies are going that route, clearly to save themselves money. I hope Pokemon games don't go this way going forward.

 

[LambdaDelta]

Or also disappointed they won't be included in switch online?

what person is disappointed it isn't tied behind a glorified rental service?

anyways, I wonder if they'll incorporate home transfer support, either on release or later

also, emerald when

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

This feels like the bare minimum for a rerelease. I wish GameFeak put them on both the NSO app and the eshop so people had the choice to choose how they played the game.

Charging money just to play in different languages is also aggravating. Being able to swap between languages in games is a basic free feature in nearly every game these days, even terrible games.

$20 is considerably cheaper than buying original copies from people off eBay, but it’s still steep for 22 year old games that are almost entirely unchanged. They could’ve at least made them widescreen or added backgrounds to fill up the screen.

I will likely buy these anyway since the games themselves are good and my only physical copy is an old bootleg, but I totally understand other people’s choice to not get them.

A majority of the copies of FRLG are bootlegs. They’ve actually gotten do good at looking legit that they’ve figured out the correct shades of red and green got the cases and a way to print out an accurate label on top. They’ve even managed to use the Nintendo stamp on the back of the cart to not be blurry or have any errors.

 

[Anine]

I'm really disappointed that there's no physical release at all. Would be nice to own one of them again, I gave my original copy of leaf green away to my sibling back in the day.

The price tag for an old game is also a bit off putting, and I don't like the decision to keep them off NSO. Could've done something akin to the Zelda upgrade backs and tied it to the expansion pass version of NSO.

I'll probably get them eventually, because I loved those games, but, it went from being an instant buy to a "one day it'll be on sale" kinda deal to me personally. Mostly due to the lack of a physical release in all honesty.

 

[DarthGohan1]

what person is disappointed it isn't tied behind a glorified rental service?

me, and many others

i will always choose physical media over digital. i prefer to own things i buy. 100%.

that said, switch online is a pretty fair deal tbh. online play + a pretty good sized classic library to play through and especially if you share with family/friends, the price isn't bad. i imagine most of the millions of people paying for Switch Online would have liked the classic Pokemon games to be included

 

[LambdaDelta]

they added the aurora ticket (birth island, deoxys) and mystic ticket (naval rock, lugia/ho-oh) as free rewards after you beat the main game

so that's a neat little bonus


(also, home support is happening for the future, if anyone hasn't seen. which makes sense, but is still nice to have hard confirmation for)

 

[Halloqueen]

I'm not interested in these two being released since I don't really feel like playing any Pokémon games prior to the physical/special split anymore, though if I did, I have copies already. Happy for those who want to play them.

If I were hypothetically interested, though, I'd be happier that they went this route for making them available. Reason being, while the price is kinda steep for what such old games and especially if you want both of them, I always preferred the Virtual Consoles on the Wii and Wii U where you had a wide variety of different games from different consoles to choose from which you could buy individually. I preferred the freedom of choice compared to the catered selection route they went with for the Switch. I've steadfastly refused throughout the years to shell out more money for the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack since it costs more annually than I'd want to spend when I can just get a standard year of Nintendo Switch Online for $20. Honestly, the only appeal the Expansion Pass has had for me over the years has been the icon components for your profile picture that they sometimes have available for a limited time that are tied to games from the Expansion Pass; they had a Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones selection recently and it was kind of a bummer to not be able to get those.

But yeah, I digress, I hope the people who are interested have a good time with these games.

 

[Anine]

I'm really disappointed that there's no physical release at all. Would be nice to own one of them again, I gave my original copy of leaf green away to my sibling back in the day.

The price tag for an old game is also a bit off putting, and I don't like the decision to keep them off NSO. Could've done something akin to the Zelda upgrade backs and tied it to the expansion pass version of NSO.

I'll probably get them eventually, because I loved those games, but, it went from being an instant buy to a "one day it'll be on sale" kinda deal to me personally. Mostly due to the lack of a physical release in all honesty.

So this was a lie, I got LG day one LMAO I am weak and it was shiny.

Not had much time with it yet, but it feels very nice to play them again and in a "proper" way on a console, not emulation. Looking forward to Home compatibility down the line too.

 

[Geoni]

The only appeal to not just emulate the game is that you could more easily have a gen 1 experience where you can trade evolve Graveler/Kadabra/Machoke/Hunter were there online features but seeing as that's not the case I don't think it will sell well when most phones can run a GBA emulator at this point.