Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen Finally Fix Issue That Has Haunted Pokémon Fans for 22 Years

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen on Nintendo Switch finally fix an issue of the original games that has haunted Pokémon fans who have played the original games over the last 22 years. Recently, Game Freak and Nintendo released Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen on the Nintendo Switch, and it’s nothing fancier than a simple port of the classic Game Boy Advance Games. Yet, there are apparently some fixes the aforementioned pair quietly made for the new release.

To this end, it has been discovered by Pokémon fans that the infamous “roaring roar” bug has been fixed. For those unfamiliar with the lore, if you chose either Squirtle or Bulbasur as your first Pokémon at the start of the game, either Entei or Raikou would show up first in the post-game. Whatever the case, when you encounter either, if they use Roar, they would flee the battle. The problem is that the game registered this not as either fleeing but being knocked out, leaving Pokémon fans permanently locked out from catching either due to no fault of their own.

22-Year-Old Infamous Bug Finally Fixed

The good news is that this bug has been completely fixed. It took Pokémon fans a little bit to discover this because they had to make it to the post-game, but it has been confirmed by multiple users to have been fixed. What hasn’t been fixed, unfortunately, is the IV’s bug involving the legendaries, suggesting this is less the result of a bug and more the result of bad coding that proved too complicated to fix.

If this has been fixed, it suggests other glitches and bugs that plagued the GBA games back in the day have also been fixed, which is a pleasant surprise, as many assumed these ports were going to be the most bare minimum ports possible, but this is clearly not the case.

Read Next

New Pokemon Game Is the Highest Rated in the Franchise’s History

Pokémon LeafGreen and FireRed are available via the Nintendo Switch for $20. They are not available via Nintendo Switch Online, like other Game Boy Advance games, and they are not natively available on Nintendo Switch 2, though they are playable on the console via backward compatibility.

All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum.