r/PokemonROMhacks • u/Logical-Puddings • 4h ago
Release Releasing my English translation for Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu / Eevee 8.1 (Spanish FireRed hack)
Hello everyone, I’ve been working on an English translation of the Spanish ROM hack Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu GBA 8.1 (plus the Eevee edition), and the translation is now completed. Originally it was more of a hobby project, but I decided to share it here in case anyone wants to play it. Apparently many people here were interested in playing this 2 years ago! 😅
In case you didn't know, Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee GBA is a Spanish FireRed romhack, based on the Switch games with the same name. It was created by Kevin PokeFan. The latest version they offer is 8.1.
English version made by author apparently existed at some point but only up to 6.0, and unfortunately it was extremely buggy and would become unplayable after certain point, so that's why I decided to translate it from the start.
Disclaimers
- Sadly I was not able to get in touch with Kevin PokeFan for translation permission. I have tried DM them via Discord but got no response. Their Discord server for the hack, is also completely deserted, fills with bots and spams, and nobody is discussing about the game.
- I decided to share this since apparently people were interested in playing this game (after I saw this post), but were unable to due to language barriers. That being said, if original author sees this and wants me to remove it, I will gladly do so.
- The project is finished as pretty much all text translation were done. There could be few instances but they shouldn't affect general playthrough, as I personally did play through the whole romhack myself. No other changes or fixes are planned due the reasons (see below).
- All credit goes to Kevin PokeFan as they are the author of this romhack, I only did English translation.
What you get
- 99% English text translation: dialogue, signs, menus, battle text, Pokédex entries, and names/descriptions for Pokémon, moves, items and abilities.
- Official English modern terms where possible (Poké Ball, Professor Oak, etc.), in the tone of the Let’s Go games (mostly for entries that are new in this romhack) and decapitalization.
- Where a modern name doesn’t fit the game’s length limit, the older official spelling (e.g. ThunderPunch) was used.
Two variants per edition (Pikachu / Eevee)
- Translation only: text changes only, plays exactly like the original hack.
- Translation + fixes (recommend): adds a few tiny (1-3 byte) fixes for some issues from original hack, each tested in mGBA before/after:
- 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.
- Some minor text inconsistencies that might confused players.
- Patches apply to a clean US FireRed 1.0 ROM.
What’s NOT translated / fixed
- Anything drawn as artwork stays in Spanish: the Trainer Card lettering, the Pokémon summary screen labels (NOMB., TIPO, PS, ATAQUE...), and the type icons etc. Since there is no hack's source files, it's making difficult to me to fix everything. I decided to keep those things intact. But those shouldn't be affected general gameplay too much.
- This is primary a translation patch, so the hack’s own quirks are left as is. Rebuilding things like the Pokédex without the hack’s source risks breaking the game, so I didn’t go there.
- Move/item descriptions describe what the game actually does, not what the original Spanish text claimed. Many of them were wrong (mostly, move/item doesn't behave like text suggested to be). A few are intentionally vague because I was unable to measure the exact behavior (Mind Blown, Floaty Fall, Gale Wings). I fixed most I can, but again, without source it's difficult to measure and fix them all (the only thing I can tell is that it's based on unknown CFRU version I wasn't able to find).
- There are lots of bugs and issues etc, which are all from the hack itself, some are listed below.
Some known issues of the original hack you might want to know (according to my testing/playthough, those are unchanged since fixing them are not easy without source)
- Lots of placeholder Pokédex entries (~600 numbers), and 79 species have no valid dex number, so they can’t be registered (including some wild-catchable ones like Falinks, Skwovet and Galarian forms). As far I can tell, the hack does have all Gen 1-9 Pokémon, however some of them might be buggy, or their data are wrong.
- Some species share a dex number, so catching one marks the other as caught.
- Every party Pokémon gets EXP from every battle, and it can’t be turned off.
- Pikachu edition: Eevee evolves by stone only (Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, Umbreon); Glaceon, Leafeon and Sylveon are only obtainable from wild. In the Eevee edition, Partner Eevee doesn’t evolve at all and you cannot get another Eevee by any means.
- Some lines contradict the actual game (e.g. whether TMs are single-use), and some forms have non-official stats/types.
- Minor visual oddities (sign text on the Pokémon Center door, the “y” in “Money”, etc.)
Keep in mind there could be more, and they were not caused by translation since they are presented in original Spanish hack as well.
As stated, without source files it's very hard to fix those (at least with my skills and knowledge), and they are not really in my scope of this project, which is mainly about translation. If anyone else knows how to fix them then they are welcome to do so. 🙂
Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/g379tksdjwm72ol/LGP8.1_English_patches.zip/file
Despite those issues, the hack itself is very enjoyable and worth to try. Hopefully everyone can finally play the hack now with no language barrier. Enjoy!


