$20 for Pokémon ports - is this actually a big deal?

If you're somehow unaware, recently it was announced that Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are to be rereleased for Nintendo Switch. What was going to happen with Pokémon rereleases has been a big question mark over the Switch ever since the Gameboy and Gameboy Advance were added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service, and now we have our answer - not through their subscription service at all, but rather as standalone ports. This caused controversy amongst the Pokémon community, but this is the Pokémon community, that community can find controversy out of a tree.

The controversy here, though, is quite interesting for a few reasons. The first is because Nintendo has done almost exactly what people have been asking - they released their old games away from Switch Online. This seems great... so why is everyone still up in arms about it? The obvious answer is that, actually, there are probably a lot more fans of Nintendo Classics and how it's been built up than you might have thought before this, but I don't think that's the entire set of people complaining about this now, so what's their problem? It probably lies in the price tag of $20. Now, to be fully transparent, I'm not American, so the price here is £16.99, but I'm gonna go ahead and use the $20 value for the rest of this post because, frankly, I'm too lazy to type out £16.99 several times.

$20 is absolutely not the same price we usually get games for. Some games, especially on the Switch 2, can fetch a price of $70, so these games being $20 is a fraction of that price. But at the same time, why should they be $20 at all? They're old games, completely unchanged from the original, is $20 really a fair price? Honestly, that's a little hard to judge. After all, they've had to do very little to actually create these versions, practically nothing, and yet it wouldn't really seem reasonable for them to give it away for free, or rather it wouldn't seem logical for them to bother making it at all at that point.

The reality is that no one is breaking the bank with this release, and you probably end up getting your money's worth. They are old, but they're full length Pokemon games, other than graphics there really isn't much that differentiates this release from a modern release, and I'd say that in terms of content (which I personally feel should be the main determining factor in price of a game) this game is on par with the likes of Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet. So being around a third of the price of those games, to account for their age, doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me. This is probably a title comparable to some indie games of the same price, too.

And yet, even I still feel something in me that stops me being eager to actually buy these ports. It's not a bad price on paper... but for me it still feels too much. A lot of this is personal - I've never played FireRed or LeafGreen, though Yellow was my first game, and I tend to find myself uninterested in returning to games before the physical-special split. If it was maybe $10, that would feel worth my purchase. This just feels a tad high for me for a game I'm not convinced I'll enjoy as anything more than a novelty. But, of course, there was always another way I could have enjoyed it, and that's through Nintendo Classics.

I have been, and will continue to be, a defender of Nintendo Classics. The Switch Online service itself has a few nice perks, but Nintendo Classics, which gives you access to hundreds of classic games, is absolutely the best part. The price is pretty rock bottom for the amount of content it's offering, and I've found that having inherent access to such a vast library really makes you want to try all sorts of things you never would have bought on virtual console. I feel like most people would easily get their money's worth using it, as most of the games they want to play are there, or will be, and it's likely that they'd be cheaper in the long run to have the subscription than to have to buy each individual game. There are other concerns, of course, such as the issue of ownership, but unless Nintendo decides they're going to discontinue Nintendo Classics or the Switch Online service we'll be fine, and Nintendo has made explicitly clear this isn't something that's on the cards. Don't get me wrong - obviously having the option of either Nintendo Classics as a subscription or being able to buy the games outright would be better, but if it's only going to be one or the other, I think Nintendo Classics, on balance, is the better option.

So this service, to me, has been pretty incredible... but now we have a game that, by all accounts, should be on the service, and yet it isn't. This is incredibly disappointing to me, because now, if I want to play this one singular game, I have to pay an extra $20 on top of what I'm already paying. That kinda sucks, the fact that they've set up this expectation of the service means that these sorts of releases undermine it altogether. And more to the point, imagine if it was on Nintendo Classics - this would inevitably lead to the rest of the gen 1-3, and likely eventually 4-7 as well, games being added to the service, which would absolutely be the cheapest way we could have access to the games. That's just not going to happen now.

I also think it's a shame that they've split it into the two versions rather than making the package include both. I feel like this sounds like entitlement, and yeah, it kind of is, but with the price tag and the fact that these are old games, and that the differences are minute, I feel like it would have generated a surprising amount of good will for this $20 price to include both FireRed and LeafGreen. For what it's worth, I might have actually considered buying this - I always had a sort of far flung dream that, one day, when all the mainline Pokémon games were added to Nintendo Classics, I could nuzlocke every single one, including each different version. I think that would have been cool, but if this is the release structure for older games then I'm not particularly interested. 

I really can't talk about this topic without mentioning the elephant in the room - emulation. Now, emulation is not something I do much, although Pokémon is actually an exception for me, entirely because I enjoy a randomised nuzlocke from time to time and emulation is the only way to do that. But I think the idea that emulation is the alternative everyone should take is missing the point. Sure, I could emulate these games instead, but the convenience is why I would want Pokémon games on Switch, especially as it's the only system I really use at all these days. I own a copy of Pokémon White, but using my Switch is so much more convenient than finding where my 3DS is so I stick to playing mostly Sword these days, if I replay a Pokémon game at all. I could emulate it, I suppose, but that's just nowhere near as convenient or comfortable as just taking my Switch out of the dock, or holding the home button on my pro controller, and being straight in the game in seconds. I've also heard the argument for phone emulators but I can't cope with games that were designed to have buttons not having physical buttons. Besides, suggesting emulation for everything feels really weird. Like, yeah, I could end up squatting in an abandoned house to avoid rent, but is that really worth the hassle? I don't mind paying for something as long as I'm getting my money's worth, there being a free (though legally dubious) method to do it feels like it defeats the point.

Overall, this announcement is disappointing for a variety of reasons... but I've been deliberately skirting around the question I posed in the title of this post. Is it actually a big deal? And the answer, predictably, is no. Of course it isn't. Don't get me wrong, there are things to criticise here - the fact that it isn't part of Nintendo Classics, the actual price feeling expensive for what it is, the splitting of versions - but the reaction I've seen is vastly overblown compared to how bad the situation actually is. That's not surprising, unfortunately, and I've actually taken a step back from Nintendo social media recently, partially because of how exhausting it's become in recent years, but it's still worth noting that the anger and vitriol seems more akin to what you'd expect if they had a series of sexual abuse allegations levelled against them. But no, it's just that they've made a few weird decisions about porting an old game. As I hope I've demonstrated here, I have my criticisms, and I think they're worth stating, and I won't be buying the game... but I think that's as far as it really needs to go. "Oh, that kinda sucks because A, B and C, I won't buy the game." I want to be very clear that I'm not saying anyone should stop complaining about it or has to suck it up and buy the game because I will not be doing either of those things. But I do think it's important to react proportionally. 

The Nintendo community has always had some bad apples, but for a long time I found it a very positive place to be, and it genuinely enhanced my experience as a Nintendo fan. If ever I seem to defend Nintendo, it's not because I want to defend the corporation, but rather because I want to defend this community. Because bad faith arguments, misinformation and overreactions just make the entire thing feel like a chore, and no community should feel like that. When there's something to complain about, we should all be able to complain about it together, but the current trend of making a massive deal out of very little stops that from happening. That I feel the need to defend a thing that I don't like because there are people being that incredibly overzealous about hating it is ridiculous, but that's the state of things right now. At the end of the day, if you don't think the game is worth buying, then don't buy it, that's what I'm doing. And if you're angry enough that you can't play it that you dedicate this much rage to it... well, maybe all that shows you is that it means enough to you that it's worth the $20.