You Can't Fully Beat Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen Because of Your Trainer Card

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen have been available on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 for almost a full month now, and players are getting creative with ways to prove themselves when it comes to going up against the Elite Four. Whether you’re trying to shiny hunt Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen‘s starters and you’re still stuck inside Oak’s lab (trust me, I know), you’re about to beat the game for the first time, or you are experimenting with new challenges, there are some limitations to how likely it is that you will complete 100% of these games. As strange as it sounds, a big problem may arise from your trainer card.

There are several hidden challenges in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, such as beating the Elite Four 200+ times in order to unlock all the Pokemon plushies inside Lorelei’s home on Four Island. Some of these are never mentioned in the actual game at any point, meaning they’re more universally known because these titles came out in 2004, so there’s a long history of fan theories and first-hand experience. In the case of the trainer card, Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen make it customizable to some degree, but you are required to have two or multiple players together to fully get everything you can, if at all possible.

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen Player Defeats the Elite Four Using Just 1 Caterpie

A clever Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen player manages to defeat the Elite Four using just a single Caterpie.

Say Goodbye to 100% Completion in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen‘s version exclusives already prevent solo players from actually completing the Pokedex, but even if you can get around this with two Switch consoles and trade on your own, you can’t really do this with every aspect of the game. Your trainer card can be “upgraded” with both stars and stickers, and these are:

Trainer Card Stars in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen:
Trainer Card Stickers in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen:
- 1 sticker for entering the Hall of Fame in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen
  - There are four levels of the sticker, requiring 1, 40, 100, and 200 completions to achieve
- 1 sticker for hatching Pokemon eggs
  - There are four levels of the sticker, requiring 1 egg, 100 eggs, 200 eggs, and 300 eggs to achieve
- 1 sticker for Link Battles
  - There are four levels of the sticker, requiring to win 1 Link Battle, 20, 50, and 100 to achieve

Who’s That Character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Who’s That Character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)

If you’re familiar with the way Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen function, you probably already know that you can’t complete all these secret achievements. For starters, the National Dex would require trading with Gen 3 games to complete, as Pokemon Home only allows you to transfer Pokemon to it from FireRed and LeafGreen, not from it. On top of that, there are some online requirements, but since these games don’t have online functionalities, you can only complete them locally with other players.

Why It’s Virtually Impossible to 100% Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

pokemonn hall of fame pokemon firered leafgreen-1

This means you would have to trade all the exclusives from your version with the ones of the other version just to complete the Kanto Dex, and you’d also need three players to do this because of the starters. Then, you need at least two players to play Pokemon Jump, and you need to jump 200 times in one sitting, and you need at least three players to play Dodrio Berry Picking and pick 200 berries. Finally, you need to win (not play) 100 Link Battles to get the highest level of the corresponding sticker, which means that if you have a friend to do it with, you will need to sit through the process for 200 battles, assuming you reciprocate the favor. This is a massive ask, and considering that completing the Pokedex in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen is currently impossible, it won’t be truly worth doing for completionists until Gen 3 games are also released on Switch.

So, even if you beat Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, you can’t really beat the whole game for the time being. You could skip stars and stickers on your trainer cards entirely, if you so wish, and you wouldn’t be to blame, considering the requirements.