Pokémon Firered & Leafgreen In-Game Tier Discussion (2024)

Approved by DHR-107
OP adapted from Merritt's RSE Tier List and Random Passerby's GSC Tier List
Original on-site Tier List
Logo by Stellar

What is an In-Game Tier List?

In-Game Tier Lists rank Pokémon by their performance throughout the main portion of the game -- for FRLG, the main portion is defined as ending at your first time becoming Champion. In-Game Tier Lists essentially give players a general overview of how you can expect a Pokémon to perform in-game with general regards to how quickly and effectively they get you through the story.

What are the tiers?

In this In-Game Tier List, due to the relatively smaller amount of available Pokémon compared to most other games in the main series; there will be six tiers -- S being reserved for the best of the best, and E reserved for Pokémon that have extremely little or no use at all.

- S-Tier
- A-Tier
- B-Tier
- C-Tier
- D-Tier
- E-Tier

How are Pokémon ranked?

Broken down, there are 5 important criteria to consider for a Pokémon's rank:-

Availability: At what point in the game can you find the Pokémon, and how rare are they? Essentially, the earlier in the game the Pokémon is and the easier they are to obtain, the better. The level the Pokémon comes at or a notable evolution level can also fall under this category; ie availability is considered even worse for a late-game Pokémon if it comes at a significantly lower level, or a Pokémon evolving extremely late would be considered a negative here.

Typing: To what degree does the Pokémon's typing match up against the wealth of in-game opponents? For instance, Psychic-types are considered great in Kanto due to the large amount of Poison-types and very few resists; but Grass-types are generally much less useful due to a lack of notable advantageous matchups past the early-game.

Stats: How well does the Pokémon damage opponents, outspeed them, and take hits? Naturally this is extremely important, and as you'd expect a Pokémon with higher stats that complement its role and typing will help its ranking. It should also be noted that for the purposes of in-game tiering, Pokémon with high speed and offensive prowess are considered the best as opposed to tanks, walls etc due to clearing battles much more quickly.

Movepool: Does the Pokémon have useful moves that work in tandem with their stats, typing and/or coverage? How easily can they obtain these moves, and in specific reference to TMs; is there any major cost to getting them and is there high competition for the move? In particular, Pokémon that require Game Corner TMs to work well would be considered heavily disadvantaged due to needing a lot of money to obtain them.

Major Battles: Is the Pokémon able to take on significantly more important and difficult battles? Your rival, Gym Leaders, Giovanni, the Elite Four and their Champion are all opponents that warrant attention based on how well your Pokémon can handle them. It is very notable if the Pokémon in question can get their way around very difficult fights such as Misty, Sabrina and Lance who would otherwise be a roadblock to your progress -- significantly less so than if the Pokémon is most capable of beating Team Rocket Grunts and Hikers.

These 5 criteria also make up the body of a Pokémon's write-up; which will take place after rankings have been decided. An example below:-

Name: Spearow

Availability: Spearow is a fairly common encounter first found on route 3 at levels 6-8; and is later available at many other places throughout the game. It is very easy to catch and is best caught either immediately on Route 3, or very soon after at Route 4 due to being found at levels 8-12. Spearow also has a notably very low requirement for its final evolution; reliably evolving at Level 20 around the time of Misty.

Typing: Spearow's Normal/Flying type gives it a decent dual STAB as well as a useful immunity to ground moves.

Stats: The Spearow family has pitiful Special Attack at 61 and fairly low bulk at 65/65/61; as such, its main role is using its 90 Attack and 100 Speed to quickly dispatch opponents.

Movepool: Spearow will immediately come with Peck and receive Fury Attack very soon after for its dual STAB at earlygame. These are very quickly replaced by TM43 Secret Power on Route 25 and TM40 Aerial Ace after beating Misty; and later still by TM27 Return near Lavender Town, HM02 Fly near Celadon City and Drill Peck at Level 40. Fearow unfortunately has no coverage to note of outside of TM47 Steel Wing from the Safari Zone, at which point in the game it will have very little use -- its main strength is in having a better Flying STAB than most flying-types in the game, with which it has a good neutral STAB for most of in-game.

Major Battles: Fearow's best matchups are naturally in Erika and Bruno with its type advantage; effortlessly sweeping the former and being capable of breaking through the bulk of Bruno's fighting types -- it will however not be able to OHKO or take a hit from his Machamp, while also not being able to do anything to his two Onix. Misty, Koga, Sabrina, Blaine, Giovanni, Agatha and Blue are all opponents that Fearow can fire off a strong neutral STAB against to knock out at least one Pokémon, and has a big advantage against certain individual team members (such as Blue's grass-type and Sabrina's Venomoth). Its glass cannon nature however means it is not very capable of taking a hit and if it can't outspeed the opposing Pokémon, the battle can easily go from risky to dangerous. Surge, Lorelei and Lance are all major battles it has a very disadvantageous performance in.

Additional Comments: Spearow has the option of holding off evolving until Level 25 to learn Aerial Ace naturally, but this is not recommended as Fearow's Secret Power is easily able to deal with anything Aerial Ace can before you can get your hands on TM40.

What is and isn't being tiered; & general guidelines

- A Pokémon is not tiered if:-

It is exclusive to postgame or events: this goes for every single Pokémon in the Pokédex after Dragonite; including Mewtwo and Mew who are a postgame boss and an event respectively.
It is an evolution exclusive to postgame -- for instance, Seadra and Golbat are completely fine; but their evolutions Kingdra and Crobat are unobtainable until the postgame and will not be considered.

- Pokémon with Trade Evolutions will have two separate entries, one entry for 'with trading' and one for 'without'. It is reasonable enough to assume someone will simply not have access to the means for trade evolution, especially for a 17-year old game on a 19-year old console that requires yet another piece of hardware for trading. This effectively means that we have separate entries for Kadabra, Alakazam, Machoke, Machamp, Graveler, Golem, Haunter and Gengar. In a similar vein, there are of course three separate entries for each of Eevee's evolutions.

- With the sole exception of Trade Evolutions, Trading is not allowed.

- Naturally, glitches and hacks are not allowed either. Exploits such as the Infinite Nugget Bridge are technically excusable, but if it's too time-consuming it would simply be considered inefficient.

- Pokémon within ranks are ordered alphabetically. This is meant as a general overview, so there is no ranking within ranks as that would get extremely finicky and subject very quickly.

- We do not decide the tiering of a Pokémon based purely on if another outclasses it at its job. We rank Pokémon as individuals, so even if a Pokémon does the same job as another and is worse at that in every way than said other; that itself would not effect the ranking. (ie, Pikachu is a better Electric-Type than Jolteon, therefore instead of both being B Pikachu should remain in B and Jolteon should be E). This also applies to 'opportunity cost' of using a Pokémon when you have a choice of using one over others, such as starters -- Hitmonchan is not considered worse because it precludes you from using Hitmonlee; it is judged on its own terms.

- Following on from the last point, please try and be professional, reasoned and considered in your arguments.

- While there is naturally a lot of crossover and similarity between two things about beating Pokémon games quickly, efficient runs are not speedruns and should not be judged by the same metrics -- otherwise, the only thing on this list would be 1/3 HP Squirtle.

- This isn't the place to talk about the games in general. Firered & Leafgreen is a fantastic remaster of Gen 1, and one of my favourite games in the series; hence part of why I wanted to do this! But general discussion is best served in other parts of Orange Islands.

- The rankings follow in the next couple posts; have fun and feel free to mercilessly beat me up if I have wrong opinions!