History YMMV / PokemonRadicalRed

* HypeBacklash: The game was incredibly hyped up when it released due to how impressive it was on a technical level. However, several players found the game's difficulty to be more annoying than genuinely challenging, causing some to turn against it. The release of other Custom ''[=FireRed=]'' Upgrade Engine-based hacks like ''VideoGame/PokemonUnbound'', many of which had more diverse difficulty options, only served to exacerbate this.

* TearJerker:
** The Return TM is given by a girl near Lavender Town, saying that she doesn't need it anymore. Given how Lavender Town is the graveyard of Pokémon and Return is a move based on ThePowerOfFriendship, this poor girl lost a dear companion and is still grieving her loss deeply.

** Snom in the Viridian Forest, Buneary on Route 3 and Riolu in the Mt. Moon Basement Floor. What do these have in common? These are ''friendship'' evolutions, meaning they can evolve incredibly early, made even easier with an in-game cheat code that provides infinite friendship-raising Pomeg Berries. Their evolutions Frosmoth, Lopunny and Lucario all come with stats that are incredibly overpowered for the early game and it's all too easy to bulldoze through trainers with them. As of Version 4.1 Riolu has been nerfed to evolve at a fixed level of 30 rather than friendship, preventing you from acquiring Lucario before beating Misty, though Frosmoth and Lopunny remain untouched.

** Snom in the Viridian Forest, Buneary on Route 3 and Riolu in the Mt. Moon Basement Floor. What do these have in common? These are ''friendship'' evolutions, meaning they can evolve incredibly early, made even easier with an in-game cheat code that provides infinite friendship-raising Pomeg Berries. Their evolutions Frosmoth, Lopunny and Lucario all come with stats that are incredibly overpowered for the early game and it's all too easy to bulldoze through trainers with them.

** Getting a Nincada grants you both Shedinja and Ninjask, the latter guarantees an Erika victory. Two Swords Dances against her lead Rillaboom ensures Dual Wingbeat KOs everything on the team, even the Meganium that can boost it's Defence and the Mega Venusaur.

* CheeseStrategy: Prior to Version 4.0's nerfing, the Totem Alolan Marowak fight in Lavender Tower can easily be cheesed if you catch a Qwilfish with the [[ActionInitiative Prankster ability]], make sure it knows [[TakingYouWithMe Destiny Bond]], and then use it to win the battle without much of a struggle.

** Mega Sceptile received lots of love in ''Radical Red''. For [[AccidentalPun starters]], it got a boost to its Attack at the cost of its Special Attack, already making it stronger since it has more good physical moves than special. However, ''RR'' gave it an even bigger blessing in the form of Technician, as well as plenty of good moves to take advantage of it. The biggest example of this is Scale Shot, which gets an immense power boost from Technician by virtue of being a multi-hit move ''and'' boosts Mega Sceptile's already high speed to insane levels. To top it all of, Sceptile and its Mega Stone are quite easy to get. You can either pick Treecko as your starter in the beginning of the game or receive one from Brendan in Silph Co., shortly before you get the Mega Ring. Similarly, the Sceptilite can be obtained by showing a scientist on Route 16 your own Sceptile.

** Qwilfish had Destiny Bond and Prankster, and [[OutsideTheBoxTactic there's nothing stopping you]] from bringing a low leveled Qwilfish to boss fights to ensure that the opponents will always go for an offense move to knock Qwilfish out, rather than setting up hazards. Especially notable in Hardcore mode where you pretty much can't stop hazards from being set up because of the inaccessibility of moves like Taunt or Defog, or straight up preventing you from removing hazards anyway.
*** This is no longer possible due to the nerfs in 4.0.

** Qwilfish has Destiny Bond and Prankster, and [[OutsideTheBoxTactic there's nothing stopping you]] from bringing a low leveled Qwilfish to boss fights to ensure that the opponents will always go for an offense move to knock Qwilfish out, rather than setting up hazards. Especially notable in Hardcore mode where you pretty much can't stop hazards from being set up because of the inaccessibility of moves like Taunt or Defog, or straight up preventing you from removing hazards anyway.

* CheeseStrategy: Prior to Version 4.0, the Totem Alolan Marowak fight in Lavender Tower can easily be cheesed if you catch a Qwilfish with the [[ActionInitiative Prankster ability]], make sure it knows [[TakingYouWithMe Destiny Bond]], and then use it to win the battle without much of a struggle.

* FandomRivalry: With ''VideoGame/PokemonUnbound'', though most of the hatred comes from the ''Unbound'' side, as fans of that hack view ''Radical Red'' as an unpolished, unnecessarily-frustrating game. This did lessen somewhat with the release of 2.3, which saw the introduction of an Easy Mode and a Minimal Grinding mode, but not much.