Pokémon Fire Red & Leaf Green

Game Title: Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green
Console: Gameboy Advance
No. of Players: 1
Extras: Pokebox (Gamecube), Pokemon Leaf Green (GBA), Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (GBA), Pokemon Colloseum (Gamecube), and the already known soon to be released Diamond and Pearl.
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Genre: RPG/Adventure
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Age: Everyone

Story
75/100
Welcome back to the land of Kanto. Not much has changed since we were last here almost a decade ago. You’re a young trainer and you’re ready to take on anything, you’ll fight gyms leaders and capture rare pokemon and become a pokemon master. You’ll experiance (few) new things that weren’t there when we first conquered the land of Kanto, like the Sevii Islands and a new more powerful Elite Four. You’ll have to become a champion all over again in the region where it all started, so get those pokeballs ready. Look if you haven’t heard of pokemon yet I really don’t know where to start! I would literally have to start from the beginning. You play as a trainer and will take on gyms throughout Kanto to reach the Indigo Platue and face the strongest trainers in all of Kanto (and with Loreili Dewgong’s–her first pokemon–being the same evil of Lance’s Dragonite in Johto and the Salamance in Honen, the Kanto’s Elite Four might be the strongest in all of the regions). But along your way to Indigo you’ll have to stop Team Rocket (ah memories!) from completing their evil plans. So your hands are going to filled. The few additions that were made wasn’t enough to see why coming back to the exact place 10 years later was exactly what trainers wanted, while we’ll all agree that the story line in Kanto in Gold/Silver/Crystal was a damn shame they couldn’t changed it up a bit for this.

Gameplay
80/100
Pretty the same thing we’re all accustomed to by now. No new features added still simple but the simple-ness of pokemon is what makes it cool. You’ll have to play as a character name of your choice and you’ll progress in a story of a small town boy or girl (finally) that makes it to the top. You’ll have to enteract with other characters o progress the story. You’ll also have to battle gyms, which will unlock the Elite Four to challenge. You’ll have to catch other poket monsters to aid in you quest and build a team to challenge other poket monsters trainers and what not. Where as in the orginal games: Red/Blue/Yellow, where once you defeated the Elite Four you were basically done with game, Leaf Green and Fire Red have added a few things to keep you busy. With the ability to trade pokemon over from your Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald game you’ll be able to bring you team from one region to another.

Graphics
85/100
Not too much difference in terms of graphics compared to Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. A few of the pokemon received a bit of an upgrade, and to a certain extent the color looks a bit better. Overall there isn’t much improvement in this game but you certainly will like the clean smooth look to everything.

Music
75/100
It’s your typical Pokemon background music: “da dum da dum da dum” (the music when you’re fighting a Elite Four member), it’s very cheerful and perfect background music for the game.

Replayability
85/100
Ah this is pokemon’s greatest attribute, the fact that the game only starts to get interesting when you defeat the Elite Four. While compleating the Regional Pokedex might be a handful–152 pokemon shattered around the region can take some time to capture–but true pokemon master *goes into geek mode* goes after the mighty 378 mark. That will be a challendge and will require you to spend a lot money at your video game store. And then you’ll still have loads of sidequest and items to get and berries to pick, the fun never ends–ok maybe like after 3 months–with pokemon.

Overall
85/100
I’m very mixed about this game. I liked the fact that you were able to head back to the place where it all began but the fact that they kept everything the same was kind of a let down. They really could have added some new times to Kanto, changed the story for a bit, changed the gym leaders. Basically the only thing that was added was the Sevii Islands, and while they were certainly entertaining to play, they islands were small and after you ‘completed’ the island’s objective they were pretty much useless.
Kanto is still packing the same punch for being the toughfest of all the pokemon regions. Probably one of the best things to this game is teh Elite Four, eventhough your pokemon can be on Lvl. 100 it would still be foolish to enter the League with a few full restores. What’s even more awesome is that the Elite Four will actually be part of the storyline of the Sevii Islands, and you’ll fight the second wave of the Elite Four, who will have even stronger pokemon. But going back was still fun, being able to go into the orginal safari zone, face the original Team Rocket and so much more; the only thing is that it might be too much deja vu for 30 bucks. Pretty much reasons to play this Game are:
1. Re-Collect TMs and HMs for R/S/E
2. Get another ID number (Lottery chances inscrease in R/S/E)
3. Move Tutors (Special characters that teach your pokemon moves they might not have been able to learn else where)
4. New Moves (Some pokemon have been given new moves that they didn’t learn in R/S/E)
5. Catching (few) Johto pokemon that have been shattered around the Sevii Islands
6. Fighting Lance again at his true strength. Razz