When Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee came out on the Switch, I lost my freaking mind. The story of Pokémon Red, on my Switch, with updated graphics and gameplay - what wasn't to love? I mean, the last version of it I'd had was Pokémon FireRed on the GBA, possibly the best game from the golden age of the GBA.
A dev called Kevin PokeFan made a ROM hack that brought the Switch versions of the game to the GBA a couple of years ago, way before AI was as prevalent as it is nowadays. He made it from scratch, but it was only released in Spanish. Now, there's an English translation of the game for players to enjoy Kevin's hack, though Kevin hasn't actually given his permission for it.
A Reddit user called logicalpuddings has completed the translation of the hack and put it up online for people to play. In their description of the project, they've stated that:
'Contact attempts were made several times via hack's Discord for translation permission, unfortunately I wasn't able to get any response from them, as they seem to have been inactive for months, and their hack's Discord server is completely ghost town atm. I'm sharing this simply wanting more people have the opportunity to experience this hack.'
Hackdex required uses to state whether AI has been used in their work, and logicalpuddings has done this translation without the use of AI which is very impressive. 99% of the text in the game dialogue, signs, battle text, Pokédex entries, and names/descriptions for Pokémon, moves, items, and abilities has been translated. Anything that Kevin PokeFan drew in Spanish as part of the artwork has been kept - this is simply a translation hack, and Kevin's work has remained untouched. The hack doesn't alter any of the bugs and glitches in the original Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee hack Kevin released either.
That being said, logicalpuddings clearly couldn't help themselves change a few things like making moves work properly and changing some side effects of moves. You can choose to play with small (1-3 byte) fixes added as well as the translation, or just keep the game as is. The changes won't make much of a difference, but they're there. Here's the full list:
- Bug Buzz can now lower Sp. Def (originally never did).
- Moonblast and Steamroller trigger their side effect ~30% of the time (was ~1%).
- Brine’s double power works correctly for Pokémon with 256+ HP.
- Battle box now shows “Lv” correctly for regular Eevee.
- Fixed some minor text inconsistencies that might confuse players.
You'll need a legally acquired version of the FireRed (Rev 0) ROM to patch the hack onto, and you can patch it via the Hackdex website!
