Written by Gluxbox 4/29/10.

Kanto Comparison:  FireRed and HeartGold

In 2004, Pokemon FireRed (and LeafGreen) was released.  The story takes place in Kanto.
In 2010, Pokemon HeartGold (and SoulSilver) was released.  The story takes place in both Johto and Kanto.

When I reached Kanto, I immediately wanted to do a location comparison to see how things have changed in the past 5-6 years.  I haven’t explored every city in Kanto yet, but here are my findings so far:

This is Vermilion City in FireRed.  Notice there is an old man and a Machop that are working on a ‘construction area.’

Here is the same area of Vermilion City, only in HeartGold instead!  Quite the upgrade, if you ask me.

Now this is the Silph Co. building located in Saffron City.

Notice how I was taking these photos at night time and while you can obviously tell it’s night in HeartGold, apparently time has no effect on the graphics in FireRed.  I like how they kept the 4 stars on the Silph Co. building awning in both versions.

And finally, this is Lavender Town.  Notice the building on the right – in FireRed, this large building is called the Pokemon Tower.

In HeartGold, the building on the right is the Kanto Radio Tower.  I was somewhat shocked about this.  In FireRed, the Pokemon Tower is essentially a haunted, multi-level graveyard with the souls of dead Pokemon inside.  In HeartGold, apparently the citizens of the town decided it would be ok to dig up all those graves and move them to the south of the town and make a smaller mausoleum there instead.  I thought digging up and moving graves around was a bad omen?  lol  Oh well!

So those are my observations so far in Kanto.  Look for more comparison blogs in the near future!  😀