Okay so I finally got around to trying out this Pokemon FireRed Rocket Edition hack everyone’s talking about. Wanted a different vibe from the usual hero stuff, you know? Becoming a Team Rocket grunt sounded hilarious. But man, just getting started wasn’t as straightforward as I thought. Here’s how it went down for me, real messy at first.
Getting the Game Running Was Half the Battle
First thing I learned the hard way: you don’t just download the finished game ready to play. Nope. You need the original FireRed ROM and the Rocket Edition patch file. Finding the patch was easy, finding a clean FireRed ROM that actually worked with it? Took me like an hour of clicking around sketchy sites and getting weird errors.
Finally found one that seemed legit. Then came the patching. Downloaded this little program called NUPS. Almost messed that up too. You open NUPS, select the patch file, select your FireRed ROM, hit apply… and pray. First try it crashed. Second try, my antivirus freaked out. Third try finally worked! Got my patched .gba file. Loaded it into my emulator (using VisualBoyAdvance, seems the most stable). Deep breath. Time to start.
Creating a Criminal Mastermind… Sorta
Right off the bat, it’s different. You’re not Professor Oak’s grandkid. You’re just some dude chilling in Viridian City who bumps into another guy who’s basically like, “Hey kid, want a job? Steal some Pokemon?” Uh, sure? Why not!
Character creation is the same though. Picked a name – called myself “Sticky” seemed fitting – and chose the little guy character sprite. Then bam! Professor Oak catches you breaking into his lab before you even start your first day! He’s yelling, your new “boss” is panicking… classic. Told Oak my name was Red, just to mess with him.
Right away, the game teaches you the new core mechanic: Stealing Pokemon. Forget catching wild ones with Pokeballs you buy. Nuh-uh. Your starter? You steal it! You get this TM called “Snatch” right at the beginning. Before you even battle your rival – who is BLUE, the actual hero this time! Weird.
My First Heist:
- Blue picks Charmander (classic).
- I got thrown into battle right there in Oak’s lab.
- Instead of “Fight”, I hit “Snatch”. Had no clue if it would work! It did!
- Stole Charmander right out from under Blue’s nose. He was PISSED. Ran off crying to Oak.
Felt kinda bad, man. Poor Blue. But also, kinda awesome? Charmander was mine now!
Getting My Grunt On in Viridian City
Okay, starter stolen. Now what? Your boss is outside, tells you to head to Viridian City and meet Giovanni’s secretary. Except Viridian City is… super locked down? Guards everywhere. Had to walk west first, almost walked into the guard, remembered I couldn’t go there yet. Felt dumb.
Made it back to the city. Found the Pokemon Center. Nurse Joy wouldn’t heal my stolen Charmander! Said I had to prove I wasn’t Team Rocket! Had to talk to the secretary first – up in the top building past the pokemart. Walked past the guard like I owned the place. The secretary gave me this badge thing. Now Nurse Joy would heal Charmander. Progress!
Early Lessons Learned
Playing as Rocket is tricky at first:
- Don’t Talk to Cops: Seriously. Found an Officer Jenny near the exit. Talked to her. Bad move. Insta-battle, her Mankey wrecked my Charmander before I could steal it.
- Watch the Morality: There’s this Karma meter. Stealing Pokemon? Yeah, that lowers it. Got a warning after I stole a Rattata later on. Wondering how bad Karma messes you up later.
- Snatch Failures: Tried Snatch on a wild Pidgey that was higher level than Charmander. It failed! You gotta make sure you can actually beat the Pokemon in a fight before Snatching works reliably. Takes some getting used to.
- Pokeballs Still Exist… For a Reason: They let me buy Pokeballs in the mart? Why? I can’t catch wild Pokemon! Figured out later you need them to actually use Pokemon you steal properly. Gotta catch them in a ball to make them obey you better, I think?
Spent like 20 minutes just wandering around Viridian figuring out who I could steal from without getting my butt kicked. Challenged this kid with a Pidgey near the school. Won the fight, hit Snatch… Pidgey was mine! Felt like an actual successful grunt. Just needed a black uniform.
Why am I writing this? Because I spent more time figuring out the setup and basic mechanics than actually playing the first hour! Almost gave up. But that first stolen Pokemon feeling? Worth it. Wanted to save you other beginners some hassle. It gets fun once you lean into being the bad guy.
