Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen
Also known as: Pokémon Version Rouge-Feu et Vert-Feuille (FR), Pokémon Feuerrote Edition und Blattgrüne Edition (DE), Pokémon Edición Rojo Fuego y Edición Verde Hoja (ES), Pokémon Versione Rosso Fuoco e Versione Verde Foglia (IT), Pocket Monsters FireRed and LeafGreen (JP/KR) Developer: Game Freak Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy Advance Released in JP: January 28, 2004 Released in US: September 9, 2004 Released in EU: October 1, 2004 Released in AU: September 23, 2004 This game has unused areas. This game has unused code. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused text. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this.

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are remakes of the first two Pokémon games, Red and Green. Aside from the graphics and interface being upgraded to that of Ruby and Sapphire, the games received many new elements, most notably the Sevii Islands.

To do: There may be more unused or normally-unseen text. A text dump can be found here. Apparently, the Japanese version has an unused spin trade function [1]. Document ROMs from the September 30, 2020 leak, especially the Wireless Union Room ones

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Untranslated Text Dump Text found within the game that wasn't translated, including some leftovers from Ruby and Sapphire.

Debugging Functionality

To do: Search for more.

Sound Check

Sound Check

At least Japanese FireRed v1.0 has the Sound Check like Ruby and Sapphire, except it was removed in localizations this time around.

To access it, patch 0x12f342 to 00 00 00 00 and 0x12f35c to 01 FF 09 08 in a Japanese FireRed v1.0 ROM to replace the New Game entry on the main menu with a call to Sound Check (this has the effect of running Sound Check after the title screen if there is no save file).

The misspelling of the word "stereo" in the Driver Test from Ruby and Sapphire was fixed in the equivalent of FireRed and LeafGreen as well as of Emerald, being now correctly spelled in katakana (ステレオ) instead of hiragana (すてれお), and the entry itself was also moved to the bottom.

Unused Maps

Houses

• 18.1, 27.0, and 29.0 are three identical unused houses without event data on Routes 6, 19, and 23 respectively. The one on 19 is where the Pikachu's Beach minigame was in Yellow, so it is possible that they wanted to remake it as well.
• 31.1 is the room hidden behind boxes in the old lady's house on Seven Island. It only has a warp to the room above.
• 31.5 is an unused house map for Seven Island that lacks event data. It's possible that this could have housed an NPC who would check how big a certain Pokémon is due to the poster on the wall.

Sevii Islands 8, 9, 22-24

Sevii Isle 8.

Sevii Isle 9.

There is data in the game for Sevii Islands 8, 9, 22, 23, and 24, as well as what are probably early versions of 6 and 7. Interestingly, all of their names have a different syntax than the final islands (ex. Island Eight is called Sevii Island 8 rather than Eight Island.)

• The early 6 and 7 are blank and only one tile big. Expanding the map size reveals one tile each of their original map intact, with collision data to boot; 6 has a Surfable sea tile, and 7 has the impassible upper-left corner of a sea border rock. This implies that these were fully collisioned maps at some point, but they were "deleted" in the laziest way possible.
• 8 and 9 still have intact maps with collision data, though they are obviously incomplete.
• 22, 23, and 24 do not have maps, only headers. They were probably cut early on in development.

Unseen Areas

To do: Evaluate Bulbapedia's picture of the overworld of Diglett's Cave with much more space than what can be seen in-game, just like the area around Trainer Tower here presented.

The vast ocean.

The truck.

• The area around Trainer Tower on Seven Island has a lot more ocean than what's visible in-game. Its meaning is anyone's guess.
• The infamous truck near the S.S. Anne is present, although not technically unseen, as it can be accessed fairly in the game by getting a Pokémon with Cut through trading and skipping completing S.S. Anne, so that it doesn't leave, while returning later with Surf to the dock. In the original games trading wasn't required to see this area as it became mandatory in these remakes, as a poisoning outside of battle blackout trick allowed fleeing S.S. Anne after obtaining the Cut move on it without causing it to leave. There's a Lava Cookie (an item here accessible much earlier than normal) on the truck.

Additional Maps

Several other maps, some of which are corrupted leftovers from Ruby and Sapphire, also exist in the game's coding. Some of these seem to be early versions of other maps in FireRed and LeafGreen, too garbled to identify, or just duplicates. A complete list can be seen on Bulbapedia here.

Ruby and Sapphire Leftovers

Key Items

Since key items cannot be transferred with a Pokémon, they're unused and most have no effect in FireRed/LeafGreen. The Mach Bike and Acro Bike do work, but act like the normal Bicycle. HM08 (Dive) also works and can be taught to Pokémon, but unlike normal HMs the move can be deleted freely.

Trainer Sprites

A lot: Archie and Team Aqua, Maxie and Team Magma, Beauties, Cyclists, Hex Maniacs, Gym Leaders, the Elite Four and Champion, etc. While you can battle them in-game through hacking, their Pokémon data is gone, so they don't have any Pokémon to battle with.

Additionally, the backsprites of Brendan and May in battle with their send-out animations remain in the game, only able to be seen in normal gameplay by partnering with a player using Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald in a four-player link Multi Battle.

Weather

Most overworld weather goes unused, except for regular fog.

Since rain no longer occurs naturally, the related battle message is now unused.

Japanese	English
あめが　ふっている	It is raining.

Scripts

Multiple scripts starting at 0x1638EC in the US 1.0 version remain as leftovers from the first Braille chamber, with the alphabet inscribed in groups of three (ABC, DEF, GHI ...). A room similar to it was likely planned but then scrapped in favor of having a Braille table included in the booklet.

Music and Sound Effects

To do: Confirm that the PokéNav and Contest effects are in fact unused and not repurposed.

SE-TRACK-MOVE (sound effect 2B)

SE-TRACK-STOP (sound effect 2C)

SE-TRACK-HAIKI (sound effect 2D)

SE-TRACK-DOOR (sound effect 2E)

MUS-ME-KINOMI (music 106), used for Berry picking from trees.

Unseen Text

While not technically unused, this text requires cheating to be seen. If the player interacts with the TV on the ground floor of their house from the sides or back, the same text string from Pokémon Red and Blue appears.

Oops, wrong side...

Unused Sprites

Hacking a TM move to be Bug-type will cause the disc in the TM case to change color accordingly, suggesting that Bug-type TMs were originally planned to appear in Generation III (though it's a bright shade of yellow, rather than green as it is in later games). Colors for nonexistent HM types also exist, though ???-type has no color and defaults to Normal-type.

Unused Overworld Sprites

Pokémon

These Pokémon overworld sprites are never used in-game.

Sprite	Pokémon
	Mew
	Raikou
	Entei
	Suicune
	Celebi
	Deoxys (Attack forme)
	Deoxys (Defense forme)

Surfing

To do: Keitaro posted this on the Jul forums. Investigate and document this further.

There are unused sprites for the player surfing that use a Lapras-like blob instead of the generic blob from Ruby and Sapphire that ended up being used in the final release.

Unused Music

A chiptune-like version of the MUS-ME-ASA (music 0100), the "Pokémon Healed" theme, which sounds like the original from Red and Blue. It has the label MUS-KAIHUKU in Sound Check and its ID is 0119.

Shiny Celebi

For the sake of consistency, every Pokémon in every game is given a Shiny variant, and Celebi is no exception. However, because the only way to obtain it legitimately was through distributions, the Shiny version of Celebi was left unobtainable through normal means. This sprite may still be seen (in a lighter hue) if a Shiny Pokémon Transforms into a Celebi.

Like "standard" Celebi and many other Pokémon, the sprite is identical to that of Ruby and Sapphire, where it was similarly unobtainable.

Altering Cave

Mareep, Aipom, Pineco, Shuckle, Teddiursa, Houndour, Stantler, and Smeargle were meant to replace the Zubat found in Altering Cave after using Mystery Gift. The event distribution was probably scrapped because these Pokémon can be obtained from Pokémon Colosseum or Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, as well as in Emerald on the extended area of the Safari Zone (except Smeargle, which is found in Artisan Cave instead).

Thank you for using the MYSTERY
GIFT System.

Recently, there have been rumors
of rare POKéMON appearances.

The rumors are about ALTERING
CAVE on OUTCAST ISLAND.

Why not visit there and check if
the rumors are indeed true?

Unused Held Items

Some Pokémon, when found in the wild, have a chance of holding an item. But some of the Pokémon that have assigned held item data can only obtained via evolution or other means, so their potential held items are never seen during normal gameplay. Notably, Kanto and Johto Pokémon in FireRed/LeafGreen use a different list for held items then what Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald use, as well as all future games.

#	Pokémon	Held Items	Notes
012	Butterfree	(5%) Silver Powder
015	Beedrill	(5%) Poison Barb
024	Arbok	(5%) Poison Barb	Available in FireRed.
027	Sandslash	(5%) Soft Sand	Available in LeafGreen.
036	Clefable	(5%) Moon Stone	In Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, they also have a 50% chance of holding a Leppa Berry.
037	Vulpix	(50%) Rawst Berry	Available in LeafGreen.
038	Ninetales	(50%) Rawst Berry
040	Wigglytuff	(5%) Oran Berry	This is the only game until Sun/Moon where they can hold any items.
058	Growlithe	(50%) Rawst Berry	Available in FireRed. 100% chance in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald.
059	Arcanine	(50%) Rawst Berry	100% chance in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald.
065	Alakazam	(5%) TwistedSpoon
068	Machamp	(5%) Focus Band	Only game where they can hold this item until Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire.
075	Golem	(5%) Hard Stone	Holding an Everstone in all other games.
083	Farfetch'd	(5%) Stick	Available by in-game trade.
085	Dodrio	(5%) Sharp Beak
090	Shellder	(5%) Big Pearl (50%) Pearl	Available in FireRed.
091	Cloyster	(5%) Big Pearl (50%) Pearl
094	Gengar	(5%) Spell Tag	Has no held items in any other games.
120	Staryu	(5%) Star Piece (50%) Stardust	Available in LeafGreen.
121	Starmie	(5%) Star Piece (50%) Stardust
149	Dragonite	(5%) Dragon Claw	Holding a Dragon Scale in all other games.
151	Mew	(100%) Lum Berry
170	Chinchou	(5%) Yellow Shard
171	Lanturn	(5%) Yellow Shard
173	Cleffa	(5%) Moon Stone	In Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, they also have a 50% chance of holding a Leppa Berry.
174	Igglybuff	(5%) Oran Berry	This is the only game they can hold any items in.
186	Politoed	(5%) King's Rock
199	Slowking	(5%) King's Rock
203	Girafarig	(5%) Persim Berry	Available with the Japan-only e-Reader cards.
208	Steelix	(5%) Metal Coat
213	Shuckle	(100%) Berry Juice	Available with the Japan-only e-Reader cards. Holding an Oran Berry in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald.
216	Teddiursa	(5%) Sitrus Berry (50%) Oran Berry	Available with the Japan-only e-Reader cards. This is the only game they can hold any items in.
217	Ursaring	(5%) Sitrus Berry (50%) Oran Berry	This is the only game they can hold any items in.
227	Skarmory	(5%) Sharp Beak
230	Kingdra	(5%) Dragon Scale
233	Porygon2	(100%) Up-Grade	This is the only game they can hold any items in.
241	Miltank	(100%) Moomoo Milk
242	Blissey	(5%) Lucky Egg
251	Celebi	(100%) Lum Berry
261	Poochyena	(5%) Pecha Berry
262	Mightyena	(5%) Pecha Berry
263	Zigzagoon	(5%) Oran Berry
264	Linoone	(5%) Sitris Berry (50%) Oran Berry
267	Beautifly	(5%) Silver Powder
269	Dustox	(5%) Silver Powder
284	Masquerain	(5%) Silver Powder
293	Whismur	(5%) Chesto Berry
294	Loudred	(5%) Chesto Berry
295	Exploud	(5%) Chesto Berry
297	Hariyama	(5%) King's Rock
300	Skitty	(5%) Leppa Berry
301	Delcatty	(5%) Leppa Berry
304	Aron	(5%) Hard Rock
305	Lairon	(5%) Hard Rock
306	Aggron	(5%) Hard Rock
315	Roselia	(5%) Poison Barb
316	Gulpin	(5%) Big Pearl
317	Swalot	(5%) Big Pearl
322	Numel	(100%) Rawst Berry
323	Camerupt	(100%) Rawst Berry
327	Spinda	(5%) Chesto Berry
328	Trapinch	(5%) Soft Sand
331	Cacnea	(5%) Poison Barb
332	Cacturne	(5%) Poison Barb
337	Lunatone	(5%) Moon Stone
338	Solrock	(5%) Sun Stone
351	Castform	(100%) Mystic Water
352	Kecleon	(5%) Prisim Berry
353	Shuppet	(5%) Spell Tag
354	Banette	(5%) Spell Tag
355	Duskull	(5%) Spell Tag
356	Dusclops	(5%) Spell Tag
362	Glalie	(5%) Never-Melt Ice
366	Clamperl	(5%) Blue Shard
369	Relicanth	(5%) Green Shard
370	Luvdisc	(50%) Heart Scale
371	Bagon	(5%) Dragon Scale
372	Shelgon	(5%) Dragon Scale
373	Salamence	(5%) Dragon Scale
374	Beldum	(5%) Metal Coat
375	Metang	(5%) Metal Coat
376	Metagross	(5%) Metal Coat
385	Jirachi	(100%) Star Piece

Unused Code

To do: Isn't this in Ruby and Sapphire?

Diagonal Movement

The movement table, located at 3A64C8, contains the directions the player or an NPC must move in. However, after the first five entries (steady, down, up, left, right), four more follow, resulting in diagonal movement when activated. Using them results in some glitches with warps and map rendering. It should be noted that the games feature buildings with otherwise strange diagonal corners, contrasting with the buildings of the original games.

This feature was not implemented in any final version until the X and Y releases.

Wild Double Battles

Some data suggests wild double battles were originally planned for this generation, but were delayed until Generation IV. For example, a string "Wild [buffer1] and [buffer2] appeared!" is located at 3FD2BF, and setting only bit 0 in the battle type flag at 02022B4C in the RAM results in such a battle, if used at the right moment.

As with the previous feature, it isn't finished and may result in some bugs.

Build Dates

Version	FireRed Location	LeafGreen Location	ASCII String
Japanese v1.0	0x1CDE34	0x1CDE10	2003 12 29 23:17
Japanese v1.1	0x1C9704	0x1C96E0	2004 03 01 16:45
US/English v1.0	0x1E9F14	0x1E9EF0	2004 04 26 11:20
US/English v1.1	0x1E9F84	0x1E9F60	2004 07 20 09:30
Spanish	0x1E575C	0x1E5738	2004 07 20 15:50
French	0x1E43FC	0x1E43D8	2004 07 21 13:50
German	0x1E9EC0	0x1E9E9C	2004 07 26 17:40
Italian	0x1E3094	0x1E3070

Build Information

To do: There's more source paths, and more interesting text.

Near the build date info is a plain-text string showing the build path and a few build variables. The Japanese 1.0 revisions use relative paths instead of the full paths, both English revisions (1.0 and 1.1) have this line in full, and the Japanese 1.1 revisions no longer have this information.

• FireRed JP 1.0 (location 1CDE8A) and LeafGreen JP 1.0 (location 1CDE66):

../gflib/malloc.c
 0
 p != NULL
 pos->magic_number == MALLOC_SYSTEM_ID
 pos->flag == TRUE
 pos->next->magic_number == MALLOC_SYSTEM_ID
 pos->prev->magic_number == MALLOC_SYSTEM_ID

• FireRed US 1.0 (location 1E9F68), LeafGreen US 1.0 (location 1E9F44), FireRed US 1.1 (location 1E9FD8), and LeafGreen US 1.1 (location 1E9FB4):

C:/WORK/POKeFRLG/src/pm_lgfr_ose/source/gflib/malloc.c
 0
 p != NULL
 pos->magic_number == MALLOC_SYSTEM_ID
 pos->flag == TRUE
 pos->next->magic_number == MALLOC_SYSTEM_ID
 pos->prev->magic_number == MALLOC_SYSTEM_ID

Revisional Differences

These changes apply to the English version of the games.

• Version 1.0 of the American release does not show "PRESENTS" on the Game Freak logo screen, although the tile graphics are present in the ROM. This was likely due to a bug introduced during the localization process, as the original Japanese versions do display this.

US v1.0	US v1.1

• In v1.0, species names in the Pokédex only display the first word due to the game incorrectly interpreting the space character as a null terminator. For example, Pidgey's species name is listed as "Tiny" rather than "Tiny Bird".
• In v1.0, Chikorita's FireRed Pokédex entry refers to its "leaves". In v1.1, the entry instead refers to a singular "leaf".
• In v1.0, Tyranitar has the same Pokédex entry in both FireRed and LeafGreen. In v1.1, Tyranitar has a new Pokédex entry in FireRed.
• In v1.0, the Pokédex help menu advises the player to select "AREA" to display a Pokémon's habitats on the Town Map. In v1.1, it instead advises the player to select "NEXT DATA".

Regional Differences

Title Screen

Other than the logo graphics being altered (resulting in Charizard/Venusaur being moved down), the Japanese versions have "PUSH START BUTTON" at the top while the English ones use "PRESS START" in the lower-middle-left side.

The Japanese versions format Game Freak's name as "GAMEFREAK inc.", which is occasionally used by the company. The international releases instead use the regular "GAME FREAK inc." formatting of the name.

Japanese	English

Name Entry Screen

The Japanese versions' name entry screen allows for five-character names with hiragana, katakana, and alphabet tables. The English versions allow for seven-character names with uppercase, lowercase, and symbol tables.

Japanese	English

Bedroom

The player's bedroom has a Famicom in the Japanese version, but a front-loader NES in the international versions. The text displayed when pressing A in front of it was also changed in order to reflect this.

Japanese	International

Battles

The Japanese versions use a font for the "Lv." text and numbers which are very similar to those of Red and Green. The localizations change these to the same font as everything else and move the "Lv." to the right edge of the box due to the longer Western words.

The "♂" and "♀" symbols were also changed slightly.

Japanese	International

Text

Japanese	International

The Japanese version only uses blue or pink text on the title screen menu for the player's progress entry, depending on whether they are playing as the male protagonist Red or the female Leaf. The international versions use this too, but it is still interesting due to a version difference described below.

Japanese	International

The Japanese versions use black text when talking to people. The fonts used are slightly different between male and female NPC dialogue: for male NPCs a cleaner, computer-ish look is used, while female NPCs use a slightly more wiggly, handwriting-esque font. For example, compare the か and の characters in the sample screenshots.

The international versions use blue or red text when talking to male and female NPCs, respectively, running contrary to the Continue screen's use of pink for Leaf. This was also seen in some pre-release media of the Japanese version. As it is also a Japanese superstition not to write people's names in red ink (due to its association with red-marked gravestones), this may have also been changed for good taste.

Poké Mart and Pokémon Center Signs

Japanese	English	French/Spanish	German/Italian

Trainer Tower

In the Japanese version, Trainer Tower was used to fight trainers downloaded from Pokémon Battle-e FireRed & LeafGreen cards. These cards were not released outside of Japan, and so the e-Reader compatibility was stripped from the US and European versions. Instead, Trainer Tower became an area similar to the Battle Tower in Ruby and Sapphire, with the majority of the trainers from the e-Cards integrated into the game itself.

Seven Island House

Ever wondered what that door in the house on Seven Island that had boxes over it was used for? In the Japanese version, the old woman hosted battles with trainers after players used the Mystery Gift, an element which was not carried over to the international versions.

To do: Take screenshots of this. This may not have even been used in the Japanese version: see here.

Nugget Bridge Rocket Grunt Glitch

The Rocket Grunt at the end of Nugget Bridge gives the player a Nugget before the start of the fight.

In both versions 1.0 and 1.1 of the Japanese and English releases of FireRed and LeafGreen, each time the player loses against the grunt, his script is repeated, thus the player receives another Nugget and battles the grunt again. This suggests that the event flag indicating that the Nugget has been given is not being properly set before the battle.

In European localizations, this was fixed to set the event flag properly, matching the behavior in Red and Blue.

Clear Save Data Areas screen

Pressing Up + Select + B on the title screen opens a prompt to clear the game's flash memory (or as the game words it, "clear all save data areas"). In the Japanese version, this prompt had a different background color between FireRed and LeafGreen. All the other releases use another background color that is the same for both games.

Japan (FireRed)	Japan (LeafGreen)	All the other releases