You're running around Celadon City. You've got a pocket full of dreams and a desperate need for that TM for Ice Beam or maybe a Porygon. But there's a problem. The guy in the restaurant—the one who usually hands over the coin case radical red players need to actually use the Game Corner—is acting like he’s never seen a Pokémon trainer in his life.
It's frustrating.
In the vanilla FireRed and LeafGreen games, getting the Coin Case is a total breeze. You walk into the diner, talk to the disgruntled gambler in the back, and boom, you're ready to waste your life savings on slots. Radical Red isn't vanilla. It's a massive overhaul by soup251 that flips the script on basically everything you thought you knew about Kanto. If you’re looking for that case in the diner, you’re looking in the wrong decade.
Why the Coin Case Moved
Let's be real: Radical Red is a "difficulty hack," but it’s also a "quality of life" hack. The developers realized that making players trek to a specific diner just to play a minigame wasn't "hard," it was just tedious. So, they moved it.
They moved it to Vermilion City.
Wait, why Vermilion? Because that’s where you actually start needing the utility items that the Game Corner provides. By the time you hit Celadon, the game expects you to have your team's foundational items sorted. If you wait until Celadon to get your first major utility items, you're going to get absolutely shredded by Erika or the mid-game Boss fights like Giovanni in the Game Corner hideout.
The coin case radical red location change is one of those small tweaks that catches veterans off guard. You’re playing on muscle memory. Your brain says "Celadon Diner," but the game says "Go talk to the Chairman."
👉 See also: Why Every TTRPG Group Needs a Reliable Star Wars Dice Roller
Tracking Down the Chairman
You need to find the Pokémon Fan Club. It’s that building in Vermilion City, tucked away near the gym. Inside, you’ll find the Chairman. He’s the guy who usually drones on about his Rapidash or his Fearow until your ears bleed.
In Radical Red, he’s actually useful.
He won't just give it to you for free, though. You have to listen to him. You have to sit through the dialogue. It’s a rite of passage. Once he’s done rambling about how much he loves his Pokémon, he’ll hand over the Coin Case. Honestly, it’s a fair trade. Five minutes of clicking through text for the ability to buy some of the best held items and TMs in the entire game? I’ll take that deal every day.
What You Actually Do With the Coin Case
So you’ve got the case. Now what?
The Game Corner in Celadon is where the magic happens. In most Pokémon games, the Game Corner is a place where you go to lose money. In Radical Red, it’s a vital resource. Because this game is tuned to be so difficult, you need specific items to survive.
- Focus Sashes: Essential. Without these, half the boss fights in the game will one-shot your lead Pokémon.
- Choice Items: Choice Band, Choice Specs, Choice Scarf. These are the bread and butter of competitive sets.
- Powerful TMs: We’re talking about the heavy hitters that aren't easily found in the overworld.
The prices are steep. You aren't going to get these by accidentally finding a few coins on the floor. You’re going to need to grind. Or, if you’re playing on certain versions or using certain "cheats" (the built-in ones, not the GameShark kind), you might find ways to expedite the process.
The "Cheat" Codes
Radical Red has a built-in "New Game Plus" style system. If you talk to the NES in your room at the start of the game and enter specific codes, you can change your experience.
The code "SO2Toxic" is the big one people talk about. It gives you a bunch of care packages throughout the game. While it doesn't give you the coin case radical red version directly, it provides the resources that make the Game Corner grind almost non-existent. If you’re tired of grinding for coins, just use the built-in DexNav features to hunt for items or use the money codes to buy your way to victory.
Common Mistakes and Glitches
Some players report that the Chairman doesn't give them the case.
Usually, this is because they’ve already triggered a different flag. Check your Key Items pocket. Seriously. Open it up and scroll. It’s easy to mash through dialogue and not realize you already picked it up.
Another common issue is people playing older versions of the hack. If you are playing Radical Red 2.1 or something ancient, the locations might be different. But if you’re on 3.0, 4.0, or 4.1 (the latest as of now), the Chairman in Vermilion is your man.
If he still isn't giving it to you, make sure you have at least one Pokémon in your party that has a high friendship level. The Fan Club is all about loving your Pokémon, after all. It’s rarely a requirement in the code for the Case specifically, but it’s a good rule of thumb for Fan Club NPCs in any Pokémon game.
The Strategy of the Game Corner
Once you have the case, don't just buy the first thing you see.
The meta in Radical Red shifts constantly. If you're heading into the mid-game, you might be tempted to spend all your coins on a Porygon. Honestly? Don't. Porygon-Z is great, but you can find equally powerful encounters in the wild using the DexNav.
Spend your coins on held items.
A Life Orb or a Choice Scarf can turn a mediocre Pokémon into a sweeper. In a game where the AI reads your inputs and has perfect IVs/EVs, you need every mathematical advantage you can get. The coin case radical red provides is essentially your ticket to the "competitive" tier of items.
Actionable Steps for Your Playthrough
- Get to Vermilion City: Don't even bother looking for the case until you've reached the port city.
- Visit the Fan Club: It's the building directly above the Gym/waterfront area.
- Talk to the Chairman: Listen to his story. Don't spam the B button too hard or you might accidentally reset the dialogue loop.
- Verify the Item: Open your bag, go to the Key Items pocket, and ensure the Coin Case is there.
- Head to Celadon: Once you have the Fly HM or have cleared the Rock Tunnel, get to the Game Corner.
- Check the Exchange Rates: The NPCs in the houses next to the Game Corner are the ones who swap your coins for prizes. Look at the TMs and Items list before you start grinding so you know exactly how many coins you need.
- Use the Care Package Codes: If you're on a repeat playthrough, use the "SO2Toxic" code at your house's NES to save yourself hours of unnecessary coin farming.
Getting the coin case radical red isn't hard, it just requires you to unlearn what the base games taught you. Radical Red rewards exploration and talking to everyone. If you treat it like a standard Pokémon game, you'll hit walls. If you treat it like a complex RPG where every NPC might hold a key item, you'll breeze through—or at least, you'll have the items necessary to not get destroyed by the first trainer on Route 11.