Pokémon Phoenix Red Is A Surprisingly Dark Kanto Sequel

2 hours ago 6

Pokemon FireRed LeafGreen promotional image featuring charizard and venasaur

Published Mar 21, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT

James is a gaming writer from London who has spent thousands of hours exploring titles from every genre. Though he has a particular affinity for multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft, Destiny 2 and League of Legends, he has also put thousands of hours into single-player experiences, from deep RPGs to epic PC strategies. When he's not playing or writing, he can usually be found supporting his beloved Brentford FC.

The Pokémon franchise has been through so many different guises over the years that everyone will have their own particular favorites and highlights, whether it's the iconic Pokédex from the first couple of generations or the open-world formular adopted in the more recent games.

Though Game Freak has continued to pump out new games with impressive regularity, particularly compared to other AAA developers, not all of them have hit the mark with fans. At the same time, there's really only so much they can do, and there are inevitably long gaps between mainline official releases.

Fortunately, the dedicated community is there to fill in the gaps, whether that be via ROM hacks, or entirely original creations made in engines like RPG Maker. One great example of the former has just released a full 1.0 version, and it's considerably thematically darker than anything we've seen from the franchise so far.

This Pokémon ROM Hack Has A Pretty Dark Backstory

Pokémon Phoenix Red is a ROM hack for the similarly titled Pokémon FireRed, which originally released back in 2004 as a remake of the original Pokémon Red, alongside Pokémon LeafGreen. They were brilliant re-imaginings of the games that started it all, and this latest fan-made effort builds on those successes even further.

Phoenix Red takes place 20 years after the great war between Kanto and Johto, in which original protagonists Red and Blue did not manage to survive. Players step into the shoes of Red's child, with Blue's progeny serving as your direct rival throughout the experience. Tensions between the two regions are once again at a boiling point, and it seems as though another war is essentially an inevitability.

It's a very dark premise, and a nice change of pace from the usual happy-go-lucky style that Game Freak has traditionally favored. The ROM hack also changes a lot about the base experience from a mechanical perspective, dialing up the difficulty, changing Gym Leaders and giving them teams of six, reworking Victory Road, and adding the Fairy-type to proceedings early.

If You Love FireRed & LeafGreen, Check This One Out

If you're a fan of the original FireRed and LeafGreen, then this is definitely one for you to experience, but even if you aren't, so much is changed here that it's well worth looking at anyway. Equally, if you're a fan of shiny hunting, all the Pokémon have been redesigned, so they will be pretty unrecognizable when you do come across them. It's easily one of the most complete ROM hacks released to date, and it's well worth downloading while we wait for Pokémon Winds and Waves.