The official Japanese Pokemon Twitter account has seemingly teased the leaked re-release of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
Following the massively successful re-release of Fire Red and Leaf Green on the Nintendo Switch last year, fans are expecting even more retro games on the modern handheld. So far, Nintendo has added official support for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulation on the Switch family of consoles, which would allow for three generations of Pokemon on the machine.
According to leakers, Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald are all set to launch on the Nintendo Switch later this year. The leakers claimed that these ports would be launching sometime in early October and would benefit from the same minor bonuses as Fire Red and Leaf Green such as native event tickets, minor bug fixes, and a basic profanity filter.
Adding fuel to the fire, the Japanese Pokemon account has shared a video of the Hoenn-era games in a new 30-second video. The video shows the player running around Mr. Briney’s house chasing his Wingull, Peeko.
Fans noticed that this video shows the same emulation differences as Fire Red and Leaf Green running on Nintendo Switch. The colours are more slightly more vibrant than the GBA originals and doesn’t match the footage the official Pokemon account previously posted for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
If the leaks are to be believed and Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire are coming to the Nintendo Switch in October, that would line up with updates to the aforementioned Fire Red and Leaf Green games.
In October, the previously released GBA Pokemon titles will be updated with Pokemon Home support, allowing players to bring their creatures into even more games. This is an essential feature for many players, and it would make sense to bring the same feature to Ruby and Sapphire as well.
The only other question is whether or not Pokemon Emerald is also included in the mix. As the evolved version of the Gen 3 games, many players would likely buy Emerald instead of Ruby and Sapphire. Although, a large number of Pokemon fans may simply buy all three.
If the games release at the same price as Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green, they won’t be cheap pick-ups, either. The other GBA games cost $19.99/£16.99 per game when they released, and we’d expect to see the same prices here.
