Post
I don't plan to talk much about how Pokémon FireRed / LeafGreen Switch version works emulation wise. I still did a little look though:
- Still using Sloop as the GBA emulator
- The ROMs are actually heavily modified and rebuilt
- Seems to have heavy code changes with reliance on emulator hacks
1:45 AM · Feb 28, 2026
Don't ask me questions about the specifics of those changes: I don't know and I cannot be bothered to look any further, I'm not a Pokémon fan.
The only other information I will put out is that the emulator explicitly recognizes ROMs of Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald alongside FireRed and LeafGreen.
I found this alongside the initialization code that is related to enabling emulator hacks for specific games.
Also, a huge warning regarding datamining: What we see is a snapshot of current code at the moment it was built.
It's not an oracle. Maybe it means RSE is next, maybe it's never actually happening. It just means they had intentions at one point and nothing else.
A fair point, every game has unused data and scrapped elements, but it’s nice to know there’s a chance, though I won’t be holding my breath either
Can confirm that there is apparently a bad word filter present in the Switch releases not present in the original GBA releases. For instance attempting to nickname a Pokémon a curse word will result in the name getting reset to the default.
So yeah they definitely tweaked certain aspects.
Huh, meanwhile I saw ppl on reddit say "the game has zero content changes because doing so would require a re-rating and get it dinged for the casino"
Several vague questions arise but I'm not invested enough to actually figure out how to ask them or who to ask them to lol
The ESRB already re-reated it and dinged it for the casino. That's why it's E10+ on the eShop. Dunno about other regions.
Oh so what I saw was either outdated or just straight up wrong lol
Any screen filter options available like NSO? Or is it just gonna be raw pixels blown up to my 4k TV
there’s no emulator menu at all, it just boots straight to the game
Man, I don't get why they can't just copy the NSO filter but I guess a lot of people probably don't care about it 😔
I really like the GBA filter! sad to see the option gone at the very least
One change i just noticed is that if you turn on L=A mode in the options, it also makes the D-pad buttons on the left joycon function as the face buttons instead of the D-pad
And i just noticed it also sets the right stick to act as the left stick, so you can fully play one-handed with either hand without having to remap anything.
I imagine they modified the games to remove the mail glitch. Can’t have people generating a bunch of Pokemon when they can be transferred to their competitive focused title
Sloop runs at 59.7275005696058 fps and passes every accuracy check, right?
hell no it doesn't pass literally everything, but it's above mGBA in accuracy
I'm wondering if they modifed the title screen to say 1996-2026 Pokemon Company since this was supposed to be released during their 30th anniversary.
Do you know if the roms play on other emulators or even real hardware? I'm gonna hazard a guess that a lot of the "emulator hacks" are related to the wireless adapter stuff.
They will absolutely not run on real GBA. On emulators though, like mGBA, if you don't use a BIOS file, it does run to some extent, but I have no idea if it would become buggy after a while.
Huh, what does a real GBA do for bad syscalls? Just read out of bounds and jump to lala land, or is there actually a handler?
That's super interesting that they did work on the ROM instead of just modifying it externally. Have any differences been noted yet?
Just as I thought, and since Sloop is LLE, and because the ROMs are bound by AGB limitations, there'll be a lot of ACE generated Pokémon xD
Really odd they chose not to support online if they were going to use Sloops. Also wonder if anyone can SAV swap
So... if the ROMs are extracted from the "Launcher", will they be the same ones that have been on the internet for years, or are they new ones to improve things like events/censorship??
Hey, i opened bsky precisely looking out for this. Thank you for looking it up :3
Would it be possible without playing through the entire game to determine if the Navel Rock and Birth Island events are available? In Crystal VC, the Celebi event would only activate after defeating Red IIRC. Nobody seems to know for sure if they’re in yet.
you get the items on your bag as soon as you beat the E4