9 March 2026

How to Soft Reset in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

By newsgame

In the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 versions of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, players can soft reset the game by pressing A, B, X, and Y at the same time. On the other hand, in the Game Boy Advance version of the game, you can Soft Reset by pressing A, B, Start, and Select at once.

Soft Resetting allows players to return to the title screen without having to exit out of the game manually, and rebooting it from the main menu. This is a faster, more efficient method of reloading an earlier save, frequently used when shiny hunting static encounters.

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How to Soft Reset in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 Version

To Soft Reset on the Switch/Switch 2 version of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, here’s what you need to do:

Make a hard save.
Press A + B + X + Y buttons on the Joy-Con controllers simultaneously.

If done correctly, you’ll be taken back to the title screen. Press A to open the saves menu and press A again to load the save you just made in Step 1.

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen do not have an auto-save function like the later Pokemon games, which means if you accidentally press A, B, X, and Y, you may lose hours of progress (or more) if you did not make a hard save beforehand.

Game Boy Advance Version

To Soft Reset on the Game Boy Advance version of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, here’s what you need to do:

Make a hard save
Press A, B, Start, and Select at the same time.

If done correctly, you’ll be taken back to the title screen. Press A to open the saves menu and press A again to load the save you just made in Step 1.

Why Should You Soft Reset in Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen?

In Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, Soft Resetting is mainly used for the following two reasons:

Rerolling Pokemon Natures to get a desired outcome for static encounters.
Rerolling the shiny odds when shiny hunting static encounters.

If you’re shiny hunting Pokemon like the three starters in Professor Oak’s lab, or legendary Pokemon like Zapdos, Articuno, Moltres, Mewtwo, and others, you’ll need to reload from a save over and over again to get lucky with the 1 in 8,192 odds. Soft Resetting is faster than the traditional method of exiting out of a game and starting up a new session, which is why it is so useful.