#frlg

FireRed and LeafGreen are kind of weird to me sometimes. Like I can't think of another Pokemon game that begins by telling you the controls and explaining what Pokemon is like this. Like this screen comes before the Professor Oak. It feels like they were afraid that kids wouldn't understand?

There are other weird things about FRLG. The Trainer TV. The idea of playing an animation every time you use an HM (very cumbersome and I'm glad they removed that). Introduced walking up to text to read it (I think this showed up in a few other games? But they did not end up keeping it.) Adding wings to the map to show towns you can fly to. I really do wonder if they were thinking seriously about how to change the games' presentation & UI for future games, and this remake was considered a safe place to experiment with. The idea of TMs being CDs seems to come from FRLG after all and stayed for later games.

shiny charizard. ✨

Daily Red #36