With a week until the 30th Anniversary livestream, The Pokémon Company surprised players with the announcement of FireRed & LeafGreen ports for the Nintendo Switch. However, the long-awaited reveal has been met with pushback from fans.
Pokémon players have been waiting for ports of classic Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games for years. Original titles from Gens I, II, and III have struggled with accessibility issues as their original consoles have faded into obscurity, leaving many of the best adventures in the series lost to time.
In a surprise move by The Pokémon Company, it has been revealed that Pokémon LeafGreen and FireRed will be released for Pokémon Day on February 27, 2026. However, excitement has been marred by the pricetag and how the games are being distributed by region.
Pokemon Fans Baffled By Localization “Tax”
While the return of FireRed & LeafGreen is exciting, the price tags for the games are less so. Each title will cost $20, but it doesn’t stop there. Instead of including a language option in a base game, players will be forced to buy a copy for every language they want to play.
In a Reddit thread on the r/Games Reddit board, players have jumped in to discuss this issue, pointing out what a strange and unfortunate situation it is that players will have to pay for every language when most games offer an option to set the language in the main settings.
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One player has stated, “Everyone is talking about the price (which does suck), but the actual crazy thing is that they're selling every language version of the game as a separate purchase instead of having them just have a language select at the beginning. They say it's to replicate the original way it was released, but there's zero upside. Not to mention there's already a gen 1 game on switch, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to bring back FRLG specifically instead of a region you can't go to, like Hoenn.”
As stated by the player, there are no positives to this function, and it creates a situation where those who speak multiple languages will have to fork $20 out for each version of the game. It has also cluttered the eShop thanks to how many languages the game is available in.
At this time, it isn’t known why The Pokémon Company chose to go this route, but it isn’t ideal for those purchasing the game.