Pokémon Legends: Arceus Pokedex Pays off FireRed & LeafGreen Reference
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is blowing fans' minds by paying tribute to an Easter egg that was over 10 years in the making, its seeds being planted in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. This pair of classic video games dropped onto the Game Boy Advance back in 2004 as remakes of 1996's Pokémon Red and Blue, which makes this reference all the more impressive.
Long before Nintendo and Game Freak changed gears with the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the publisher-developer team was making Pokémon titles exclusively for Game Boy handhelds. Game Freak would come out with a new Pokémon game every couple of years, but rather than just releasing one game with all of the content available, the developer would split the release into two versions that each featured very minor differences, such as the starting screen or, in the case of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, the color palettes. This release strategy has continued well into current-day Pokémon games, with the most recent example being Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, whose biggest differences are just a handful of Pokémon that can be traded between the titles. Pokémon Legends: Arceus breaks this trend by being a single release, but it is unclear if this will set the standard for the franchise going forward or not.
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What is clear, however, is how much reverence Arceus pays to the long-running heritage of Pokémon games, as evidenced by a cute Easter egg reported on by Dexerto. The reference relates to the Pokédex entry for Raichu, which in FireRed and LeafGreen states that "Careless contact [with Raichu]can cause even an Indian elephant to faint". In 2019's Pokémon Sword and Shield, a new
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