It’s only been a few days since Nintendo re-released Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen onto the Nintendo Switch eShop, but fans have discovered that these ROMs aren’t exact copies of the original GBA games. In a rather massive fix, the infamous “roaming roar glitch” has been patched, which is huge for anyone looking to collect all 251 Pokémon.
For some quick background, the roaming roar glitch is a problem with the original release of FireRed and LeafGreen that can make Legendary Pokémon permanently disappear. During the latter portion of the campaign, the Legendary Pokémon Raikou and Entei can be found at various points on the map roaming around. If you don’t catch them during a battle, they’ll swap locations, and you’ll need to track them down again. While that would function was normal, if either of them uses the move “Roar” during the encounter, they’ll then become unavailable without trading as their spawn point never resurfaces.
The Roar Glitch in the Switch version of Fire red and Leaf Green is fixed this is huge!#Pokemon pic.twitter.com/lNnDtKXOeJ
— Jarrod (Iris) Vtuber/ Virtual Content creator (@OmegaJarrodX) March 1, 2026
As people have discovered with these re-releases, however, Nintendo has patched out this glitch. On Twitter, users have shared videos where one of the Legendary beasts used roar in battle, but still appeared on the map in a new location. Previously, they would have vanished from the game as if you KO’ed them. For years, the conventional wisdom was to keep a Master Ball in your inventory for when you encountered one of these critters, allowing you to nab them without fuss. Now, you can play the game as it was originally intended.
While that might not be enough to justify the $20 price tag, it’s certainly nice that Nintendo isn’t leaving unintended bugs present in its re-releases.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
