It seems that someone over at Nintendo might have hit a button for some beloved ports of Pokémon games to go live a little early. Out of the blue in the middle of the night, both Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen have appeared in the coming soon section of the Nintendo Switch eShop, available to pre-order now. Both versions of the game cost $19.99 and appear to only be for purchase, with no connection to the Nintendo Switch Online Game Boy Advance library. The games are available on February 27, the same day as Pokémon Day, where a Pokémon Presents would seemingly officially announce them.
Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen Pre-Orders Available Now
If you go to look at the coming soon section of the Nintendo Switch eShop, you will notice that there are multiple versions of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. The only difference between these is the language in them. At the bottom of the page, the listings explain, “Because this version replicates the way the game was originally released, each language version is separate and there are no in-game options to change the language.”
So these appear to be the original Game Boy Advance ROMs just made playable on Nintendo Switch. The screenshots show black bars on the side of the screen, indicating the original GBA aspect ratio is in play.
While this is great for a lot of people who want to relive these games, there are a couple of catches. There appears to be absolutely no internet support for these at all. While you can wirelessly trade with someone around you, you will not be able to trade or battle with others unless you’re in the same room. Additionally, there is no cloud backup save support, so if you get a new Switch, you will lose all of your progress.
