New Pokémon FireRed Trick Is Rewriting FireRed & LeafGreen Speedruns

The recent Nintendo Switch ports of Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen have done more than bring two beloved Game Boy Advance remakes to a new audience. They have also helped uncover one of the most impactful time saves in modern Pokémon speedrunning: a simple menu interaction that cancels the lengthy fanfare that plays when catching a wild Pokémon. What looks like a tiny optimization at first glance is already reshaping routes, leaderboards, and strategies for both new and veteran runners.

This article explores how the trick works, why it matters so much for timing, and what it means for the future of classic Pokémon speedruns, especially in categories centered on catching as many Pokémon as possible.

From Retro Remakes to Fresh Discoveries

FireRed and LeafGreen have been staples of the speedrunning scene for years, often used as the definitive way to revisit the original Kanto region with more modern mechanics. When the games arrived on Nintendo Switch as part of a new wave of Game Boy Advance titles, the effect was predictable: a huge influx of curious players, returning fans, and potential new speedrunners.

That surge of interest had an unexpected side effect. With more eyes on the games, more people experimented with menus, options, and strange edge cases. During this wave of renewed attention, a speedrunner discovered that the in-game help system could interrupt one of the most time-consuming animations in these games: the victory jingle that plays every time a wild Pokémon is successfully captured.

Why FireRed and LeafGreen Attract Runners

Even before the discovery, FireRed and LeafGreen were popular choices for runners thanks to:

• Balanced pacing: The games are long enough to be engaging but short enough to be run regularly.
• RNG manipulation depth: For nearly a decade, RNG manipulation was the major frontier for saving time, providing layers of optimization for serious competitors.
• Iconic nostalgia: Kanto’s routes, gyms, and story beats are deeply familiar, making it easier for new runners to grasp the fundamentals.

With the Switch rerelease, these strengths collided with fresh enthusiasm, setting the stage for a breakthrough that no one expected.

The Core Trick: Canceling the Catch Fanfare

At the center of this discovery is a very simple action: opening the in-game help menu at the exact moment a capture is confirmed. When timed correctly, this input interrupts the lengthy fanfare and shortens the post-capture downtime, letting runners regain control much sooner.

How the Help Menu Interaction Works

FireRed and LeafGreen contain a contextual help system that can be opened during many scenes, usually with the L button or through a dedicated option. The trick hinges on triggering that help overlay at the moment the Poké Ball successfully captures the target.

In practice, runners:

• Throw a Poké Ball at a wild Pokémon under typical conditions.
• Watch for the ball’s final shake, or use timing cues learned through repetition.
• Press the button that opens the help menu precisely as the game registers the capture.
• Briefly display the help overlay, then close it to return to gameplay.

When done correctly, the celebratory jingle is effectively skipped or cut short, shaving off a significant chunk of time for each successful catch.

Why the Fanfare Matters in Speedruns

Casually, the catch fanfare is charming and barely noticeable. In speedrunning, however, every animation and jingle is a potential source of wasted time. Capturing a wild Pokémon typically includes:

• The Poké Ball shake animation.
• The confirmation text and fanfare.
• Additional prompts (nickname, party, or box handling in some titles).

The fanfare itself is a fixed duration that the player normally cannot interrupt. Canceling that segment turns what used to be a mandatory wait into a controllable window. That matters enormously in categories where dozens of captures are mandatory.

Estimated Time Save: Small Action, Huge Outcome

Testing by runners has shown that each successful use of the trick saves on the order of a couple of seconds compared to letting the catch fanfare play out fully. In speedrunning terms, especially for long categories, that is enormous.

In some existing categories, top leaderboard times are separated by mere seconds. A time save that can scale to over a minute under realistic routing conditions is effectively a revolution. It turns previously unbeatable records into soft targets and forces everyone at the top to learn and integrate the new technique.

Why This Is the Biggest Advance Since RNG Manipulation

Previously, the biggest leaps in Game Boy Pokémon speedruns came from mastering random number generation (RNG) manipulation, a set of techniques that allow runners to predict or control seemingly random outcomes such as encounters and critical hits. Community and scholarly work has shown that speedrunning tends to advance in waves whenever new skips or RNG insights are found, as players upgrade their strategies and push times lower.¹

By comparison, movement optimizations and menu clean-up usually provide incremental benefits—frames here and there, not entire minutes. The catch fanfare cancel stands out because it:

• Applies repeatedly throughout a run, not just once.
• Does not require tool-assisted setups or obscure hardware.
• Is available on both original and rerelease versions of the game, extending its impact beyond the Switch ports.

For many runners, the discovery is the most significant time save since RNG manipulation routes were first established close to a decade ago.

Where the Trick Works—and Where It Doesn’t

Not every fanfare or animation in FireRed and LeafGreen can be interrupted by the help menu. Testing across the community has identified specific situations where the trick is effective and others where it offers no benefit.

Effective Use Cases

The trick reliably saves time when used during:

• Wild Pokémon captures: The primary and most impactful application. Nearly every time a wild Pokémon is caught, the fanfare can be canceled.
• The early-game catching tutorial: Even though the player is not personally performing the capture, the same help-overlay timing can be exploited to cut down the tutorial animation sequence.

In categories where runners intentionally capture many species to fill the Pokédex or satisfy specific category rules, these repeated time saves accumulate quickly.

Scenarios with No Real Time Save

Players also tested other scenes that involve jingles or fanfares. The results show that opening the help menu does not meaningfully shorten:

• Item pickup jingles: The music can sometimes be interrupted, but the player remains locked in place for the original full duration.
• Pokémon Center healing: Healing animations and sound effects play out over a fixed period; the player regains control at the same time regardless.
• Gym badge ceremonies and similar events: The underlying freeze on player control does not change, even if some audio appears to be skipped.

In these cases, the trick is cosmetic at best. It may change what the player hears, but it does not reduce the amount of time before movement resumes, which is the only metric that matters to a speedrun timer.

Impact on Routes, Records, and Categories

When a new time save appears, speedrunning communities typically respond with a wave of experimentation, rerouting, and theorycrafting. The help-menu catch skip is no exception. Its discovery has already triggered several notable shifts in how FireRed and LeafGreen are approached.

Rerouting Capture-Heavy Categories

Categories that require catching a large number of Pokémon—such as those targeting a specific Pokédex threshold—benefit dramatically from the new technique. Route planners now have to reconsider:

• Optimal capture targets: Pokémon that previously felt too slow because of awkward catch timings may now be viable.
• Experience and resource routing: Since captures no longer carry as heavy a time penalty, runs may favor catching extra Pokémon that provide better experience or safer strategies.
• Risk vs. reward trade-offs: Runners might choose to go for slightly riskier captures if the time loss from extra successful catches is much lower.

The net result is a shift in how feasible certain categories feel, particularly for mid-level runners who benefit more from safety and flexibility than tightly optimized one-size-fits-all routes.

Leaderboard Shocks and Record Chasing

On the competitive end, records are already being challenged and, in some cases, fundamentally reset. When a trick can save up to a minute or more in a category where the top two or three players are separated by seconds, it effectively creates a new baseline for what is considered a strong time.

As is common after major discoveries, many runners are temporarily stepping back from full record attempts to:

• Practice the timing of the help-menu input.
• Update splits and segment expectations for new routes.
• Collaborate on documenting optimal use cases for the trick.

This pattern echoes previous eras in speedrunning history where new glitches or optimizations forced entire categories to reinvent themselves.²

How the Community Validates a Discovery

When a new technique appears in a high-profile speedrun, the community does not accept it blindly. FireRed and LeafGreen runners have followed a familiar process to verify and standardize the help-menu trick.

Reproducibility and Platform Testing

The first step is verifying that the trick works consistently and is not a one-off fluke. Runners and glitch hunters test it across:

• Original Game Boy Advance hardware.
• Legacy re-releases, where applicable.
• The new Nintendo Switch versions of FireRed and LeafGreen.

Community findings indicate that the trick is not restricted to the Switch environment; it appears to function on all main versions of the game. That broad compatibility is crucial for acceptance, especially because many speedrun leaderboards treat original hardware as the standard.

Timing Rules and Category Legality

Once a trick is reproducible, communities decide whether it aligns with existing rules. In this case, the help-menu skip uses only standard controls and in-game systems; there is no need for external tools, hardware modifications, or memory corruption. As such, it fits within the rule sets of most conventional categories, including “any%” and many Pokédex-oriented runs.

Speedrun leaderboards such as Speedrun.com use community moderation to manage categories, verify runs, and clarify rules. Site guidelines emphasize transparency and community consensus for how new strategies are judged.³ For the FireRed trick, this usually means documenting it in category guides and accepting its use in submitted runs.

What This Means for New Speedrunners

For newcomers drawn in by the Switch ports, the discovery may seem intimidating at first glance: a frame-tight trick that the best players in the world are already incorporating. In reality, it offers an opportunity for new runners to learn modern routes that are both faster and more forgiving.

Advantages for Beginners

New runners benefit from the help-menu trick in several ways:

• Lower time barriers: Because the technique offers such a large time save, newer players can achieve more competitive times without perfect execution elsewhere.
• Cleaner progression: Learning the trick early means beginners align with contemporary routes instead of mastering outdated strategies.
• More engaging practice: The input timing is challenging but not impossible, giving players a clear skill to practice that directly translates to better results.

For someone starting on the Switch version, the trick can be learned alongside basic movement, text mashing, and battle routing, becoming part of a modern FireRed/LeafGreen skill set from day one.

Practical Tips for Practicing the Trick

Players interested in integrating the trick into their runs can follow a few basic training steps:

1. Use a safe file: Create a practice save where wild encounters are easy to access without risking a personal best run.
2. Focus on visual cues: Watch the final shake of the Poké Ball and experiment with button timing until you develop a consistent rhythm.
3. Practice with different speeds: Try the trick against multiple species and at different HP levels to account for variation in battle context.
4. Review recordings: Record attempts and review frame-by-frame if possible to better understand when the game registers a capture.

Over time, the timing becomes muscle memory, and runners can apply it reliably even under the pressure of a full run.

Broader Lessons for the Speedrunning Scene

Beyond FireRed and LeafGreen, the discovery underscores how speedrunning continues to evolve even in games that have been studied for years. Research on speedrunning culture notes that communities are constantly hunting for new knowledge, sharing discoveries, and building tools that push games beyond their originally intended limits.² This catch-fanfare skip is a reminder that:

• Seemingly minor systems, like contextual help menus, can hide powerful interactions.
• New platform releases can catalyze discoveries simply by increasing the number of active players.
• There is still room for fundamental breakthroughs even in mature, heavily optimized games.

For developers, the episode also highlights how legacy design choices—like having help menus available during key cutscenes—can create unforeseen speedrunning techniques decades later. For players, it is a call to experiment: there may be more time saves lurking in places nobody has thought to explore.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the catch fanfare skip work only on Nintendo Switch?

No. Community testing indicates that the trick functions on all major versions of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, including original Game Boy Advance cartridges. The Switch ports helped popularize the discovery, but the underlying behavior is tied to the game logic itself, not to the platform.

Is this trick considered a glitch or just an advanced technique?

It sits in a gray area. From a technical standpoint, the game is responding to a valid input by opening the help menu. However, using the menu to cancel a fanfare in this exact way clearly goes beyond normal intended play. Most communities treat it as a legitimate advanced technique or minor glitch that is still legal in standard categories, since it does not corrupt memory or require external tools.

How much time can I realistically save in a typical story-speedrun category?

The exact time depends on how many captures your route uses. In a minimal-capture story run, you might save under a minute in total. In capture-heavy routes or categories that emphasize filling the Pokédex, the savings can climb toward a minute and a half or more if executed consistently.

Are there other games where menu tricks skip fanfares or animations?

Yes. Across many older console titles, speedrunners have found that pausing, opening menus, or triggering overlays at precise moments can interrupt cutscenes, fanfares, or slow transitions. Research into player-led optimization has shown that these sorts of emergent techniques are common in long-studied games, particularly where menu systems were layered onto fixed animation sequences.²

Will leaderboards split into categories with and without this trick?

Most likely not, at least for the main categories. Speedrunning communities typically create separate categories when a trick dramatically changes the game’s logic or content, such as major glitches that skip large parts of the story. In this case, the core route remains intact; the trick simply makes existing strategies more efficient. As a result, it is more likely to become standard practice rather than a dividing line for new categories.