All Gym Leaders In Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen, Ranked

A critical component of any Pokemon title is always going to be taking on the gym challenges in whichever form they present that generation, and Kanto’s Indigo League that we revisit again in Pokemon FireRedf & LeafGreen was the very start of it all.

With eight gym badges to obtain in the Indigo League before you can cross Victory Road and head off to challenge the Elite Four and the region’s Champion, you’ve got your work cut out for you! Not all gym battles in Kanto were made equal, though, and any gen one Pokemon player undoubtedly has their favorites.

8

Lt. Surge

If you’re not ready for Lt. Surge’s gym leader battle at the Vermillion City Gym in Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen, then he’s likely going to sweep the floor with a team that isn’t prepared to use type effectiveness against his powerful Electric-types.

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Thankfully, Vermillion City is right near Diglett Cave, so you’ll have plenty of time and opportunity to catch a Diglett, one of your best options for a Ground-type Pokemon that’ll be super-effective against the Electric-types ahead. Train it to a high enough level that it can reasonably deal with Pokemon between the levels of 18-24, and you’ll be good as gold.

7

Brock

If you remember him from the anime, then you know Brock as the affable, girl-crazy chef, but Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen players know him as the very first gym leader they faced when they arrived in Pewter City at the end of their very first meaningful trek through the wilds to get there.

Anyone who chose Squirtle as their starter had absolutely no problems defeating Brock and his team with a collective Water-type weakness, but Charmander or Bulbasaur fans will need to have caught and trained up a Pokemon on the way there to clear the battle effectively. Even then, the first gym in a Pokemon game is never going to be one of the most challenging, to help ease you into things.

6

Erika

While we love that LeafGreen gives the Bulbasaur evolution line its time in the spotlight in a way it didn’t get in the western released of the first generation Pokemon titles, we’d be lying if we said Grass-types were the most imposing. Erika’s gym can be something of a challenge, but it’s relatively easy to clear.

Anyone who picked Charmander as their starter need not worry about Erika’s battle at the Celadon City Gym (unless it hasn’t evolved into Charmeleon by now, somehow), but Squirtle and Bulbasaur fans need to catch a Pokemon that can handle the Gym effectively. Your best bet will be a Flying-type Pokemon, which are in ample abundance in Kanto – we know you fought a Pidgey or two before getting here.

5

Blaine

If you went with Squirtle for your starter Pokemon in FireRed & LeafGreen, then you and the Blastoise into which it’s evolved ought to have no difficulties handling the fight with Blaine once you finally reach the Cinnabar Gym. If you chose Charmander or Bulbasaur, you’ll be at a disadvantage there, but that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty of time to find a Water Pokemon of your own.

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Being amid a chain of islands, the Cinnabar Gym being a Fire gym almost feels a bit unfair. Sure, Blaine’s Pokemon are a higher level than you’ve fought so far and his use of Hyper Potions can be a pain, but any strong Water Pokemon ought to have an easy enough time here.

4

Giovanni

Giovanni is the gym leader that tips us over into the top half of our ranking of the Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen gym leaders by difficulty, with his team being both more Pokemon than you’ve fought in a gym battle yet and being the highest-level Pokemon you’ll be facing by the eighth and final gym in the Indigo League.

Team Rocket’s leader has battled you before the Viridian City Gym, and he’ll do it again when you come knocking for the Earth Badge toward the very end of the main game. As a Ground-type trainer, you’d be wise to fight Giovanni using the strongest Water-type Pokemon in your roster. There’s plenty of time to train them up before reaching the final gym, but it’ll still prove challenging to beat Giovanni in Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen regardless of who you bring.

3

Koga

Poison has always been a rather intriguing Pokemon type, with few weak points to exploit to sway battles in your favor and plenty of lingering effects the Pokemon are able to leave on yours to keep the hurt going even after they’ve fainted themselves, and perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in the gym battle against Koga at the Fuchsia City Gym.

You can give yourself an offensive boost with a Steel-type Pokemon, which resist Poison moves entirely, but even with the addition of Psychic as a foil to Poison on top of the singular counter of Bug-types in Generation One, Koga’s a tough battle to win.

2

Misty

Though we put the other starter-type gym leaders a bit lower on our list of the toughest gym leader fights in Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen, fighting Misty in the Cerulean City Gym can be a challenge even if you did choose Bulbasaur as your starter, since she’s one fierce Water-type trainer. If you chose Squirtle or Charmander, you’ll need to prepare ahead of time by training a

The challenge with Misty comes from her infamous Starmie, a dual-type Water and Psychic-type Pokemon whose type weaknesses can be a little hard to exploit. Bug and Electric-type Pokemon may be a good choice, but with how early her gym occurs in the Indigo League in Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen, you barely have time to adjust to the steep level spike that occurs between Misty and Brock before her. Train hard and come prepared to duke it out!

1

Sabrina

While she definitely got a bit easier to handle in Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen than she was in the original Pokemon Red & Blue, Sabrina still goes down in history as Kanto’s most challenging gym leader battle. Even after Psychic-types got a bit less advantageous in the gen three remakes, Sabrina’s difficulty didn’t budge enough to knock her out of first.

When the Pokemon games first came out, Psychic was maybe the toughest type to handle. Eventually, we did get the addition of the Dark and Steel-types to try and balance things with a type that had few weaknesses, as well as making a handful of other moves effective against Psychic-types. Making them weak to Ghost instead of immune to them was a big boost, too, but even if we had an easier time fighting Sabrina in Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen, it was far from a walk in the park.

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