Switch's FireRed and LeafGreen versions censor trainer names with swear words in them

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen released on Nintendo Switch on Friday to ring in the franchise’s 30-year anniversary celebrations. Remakes of the games that started it all, they were originally released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance and have now been faithfully ported to more recent Nintendo hardware. Well, almost faithfully ported.

Anyone who grew up in the ’90s or ’00s surely has fond memories of defeating their rival DICK or PUSSY. Perhaps they ventured throughout the world simply as ASS, and were called as such by Professor Oak, the Elite Four, and anyone else who referred to the player character by name.

As shared by players on X and spotted by Kotaku, the Switch ports of FireRed and LeafGreen have removed that rite of passage in part. Gone are the days of conquering the Kanto Region as PUSSY and defeating your rival SHITBAG in Pokémon cockfighting. Instead, the ports have filtered out some four-letter words, with Professor Oak instead asking if your name is Mina or Leaf or something else that’s banal when you try to slip a naughty word through. Even something as inoffensive as “crap” is rejected.

Naming a trainer a bad word in Pokemon FireRed LeafGreen

Not all curse words are caught by the games, though. Pokémon LeafGreen, the version I’m playing, has let “fart” and “butt” work out. “Buttfac,” because “Buttface” would be too long, escaped the clutches of censorship, as has “hell.”

“Ass” is snagged by the filter, but, lo and behold, I can name my trainer ASSMAN. Perhaps this is the game where I break my long-standing tradition of naming my trainer Glitch and instead embrace a random-ass Seinfeld reference. (“So, you’re The Assman?” rival trainers will say as word gets out of my victories across Kanto.)

I tested dozens of naughty words, based on some of the curse words included in Wikipedia’s running list of English swear words. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of swear words you can name your trainer and rival, for when you feel like channeling your inner eight-year-old: