Pokemon Has Finally Allowed Me to Overcome My Gen 3 Blind Spots Over 20 Years Later

With 2026 being the Pokemon series’s 30th anniversary, it’s never been a better time for me to finally fill in the missing gaps of my childhood by playing the Gen 3 games I missed out on 20 years ago. Thankfully, the recent Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 releases celebrating this anniversary have helped me tremendously with this goal. Between the FireRed and LeafGreen Switch ports and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness dropping on Nintendo Switch Online, I’ve been able to reconnect with my inner child and make them proud by fulfilling a longtime goal.

I Finally Can Acces the Gen 3 Pokemon Games I Missed as a Kid Thanks to the Switch 2

Like a lot of kids, I had some pretty dumb or straight-up incorrect beliefs about video games. While I understood that Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen were remakes of the original Red and Blue games, I hadn’t played those at the time these remakes released, so it was an obvious chance to experience the Kanto Region for the first time in my eyes. I ended up picking FireRed purely because I thought Charizard was the strongest Pokemon, which I feel like was a pretty common belief a lot of kids held back then.

When it came to Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, I was less informed about what the game actually entailed, believing it was just a remake of Pokemon Colosseum, which I had already played, just with a few new features. Since I didn’t realize Pokemon XD was a full-blown sequel to Colosseum, I never paid any mind to it. As I grew up, I learned what I was missing out on, hearing about how Pokemon XD fixed a lot of the issues Colosseum had, and I was kicking myself for missing out on it when GameCube games were easily accessible.

I Recently Played LeafGreen for the First Time After Growing Up with FireRed

Since I never had the chance to play LeafGreen as a kid, I decided that it would be the version I picked up when the Switch ports released. After playing Pokemon FireRed as a kid, I became jealous of LeafGreen players once I realized that LeafGreen has the better version exclusives, and I always missed not being able to get those whenever I replayed FireRed. Now that I’ve had the chance to play through LeafGreen, I’m not sure if I can go back to FireRed since I vastly prefer the version exclusives for this version of the game.

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen Version Exclusives

Aside from LeafGreen technically having one more exclusive Pokemon than FireRed, I think it has the superior roster of exclusives due to the presence of some of my favorite Pokemon. I love Slowpoke, and I was devastated that it was never available to me in FireRed, instead leaving me with Psyduck and Golduck, which I was always disappointed when I remembered they aren’t Water/Psychic like they should be. Additionally, I prefer Sandshrew and Sandslash to Ekans and Arbok, so I was glad to finally have access to them as well. While I like both Arcanine and Ninetales equally, I made it a goal to use Ninetales on my team, since I never had the chance to use it in any of my FireRed playthroughs.

Playing Through Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness for the First Time Makes Me Wish I Hadn’t Slept On it as a Kid

Having finished my playthrough of LeafGreen with my version-exclusive Slowbro and Ninetales being part of my Hall of Fame team, I moved on to playing Pokemon XD for the first time. Back in the day, I struggled with Pokemon Colosseum‘s drastic difficulty jump compared to the main series, largely due to the way it limits Pokemon catching to only Shadow Pokemon. After finally beating Pokemon Colosseum as a kid, I wasn’t too eager to jump into Pokemon XD when I saw it announced, as I believed it was essentially more of the same, and I wasn’t ready to go through that challenge again.

How Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness Differs from Colosseum

• An all-new story set five years after Colosseum
• Improved purification mechanics for Shadow Pokemon
• Expanded roster of available Pokemon
• Shadow Lugia

If I had paid more attention to game releases as a kid, I would have realized that Pokemon XD fixes nearly all of my problems with Colosseum. The story of Pokemon Colosseum never really grabbed me as a kid, but I immediately feel more engaged with Pokemon XD‘s story playing through it now for the first time. I also found it really tedious to purify Shadow Pokemon and make them usable on my team, and Gale of Darkness makes this process so much quicker with the Purify Chamber.

Those improvements alone would have made me so much more interested in the game as a child, but I’m also just discovering how expanded Pokemon XD‘s roster is as well. Having Eevee from the start and getting to choose which Eevelution it evolves into makes it much easier to build a team around instead of being locked into Espeon and Umbreon initially like in Colosseum. Shadow Lugia is also such a cool box art Legendary for the game that I can’t believe I slept on the game when it originally came out. Thankfully, I’m getting to appreciate Pokemon XD a lot more now than I likely would have as a kid, and it’s caused me to want to revisit some of the other games I bounced off when I was younger as well.

Systems

Released

September 7, 2004

ESRB

Everyone 10+ / Mild Fantasy Violence, Simulated Gambling

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

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