Pokemon Pink - Special Clefairy Edition ROM

Pokemon Pink – Special Clefairy Edition is a GB ROM Hack by JcFerggy based on Pokemon Yellow. It was last updated on June 07, 2026.

Description

This project is what I imagined a hypothetical ‘Pokémon Pink’ would look like when rumors of one were first mentioned in the Giga Leak™. Along with the trivia of Clefairy once being the potential mascot for the series before Pikachu, and the often overlooked Pocket Monsters manga where Red chooses Clefairy as his starter; there is plenty of good reference material for such a project.

With that said, it was thanks to seeing Sindorman’s animation on Instagram back in 2022, which then lead me to finding Artsy-Theo’s posting of these four emotion portraits on Tumblr shortly afterwards, and everything else has just been me starting and stopping over the years, having never coded in assembly before starting this project; though I have gotten tones of assistance from the lovely people on the pret Discord.

(Did YOU Know? Pokémon Green had its own exclusive Super GameBoy palette? The international releases of Red & Blue were built off of Jp Blue, which itself was built off of Jp Red; but the devs forgot about this small detail, and Pokémon Red’s palette was used twice internationally across both versions. Every town across Kanto had their colors slightly shifted between the original Red and Green, but most notable was the colors used for Pallet Town (and Lorelei Room) being teal or purple in Red or Green respectively.

Cinnabar Island does use the same base colors, however the background shade of white had been tinted in each versions respective color, so no screen goes untouched acorss the game. Point being, Pokémon Yellow was built off Green, and used Green’s palette and tileset as a base for its own. You can see the shared purple hue in Pallet town, but what also stands out is the drastic change in brightness and saturation between the colors used for Yellow’s Super GameBoy mode and GameBoy Color mode.

I believe in their attempt to tint the game in yellow hue, they decided to really crank up the exposure on the Super GameBoy palette. On the other hand, they likely needed to overly saturate the colors for the GameBoy Color just to be noticeable outdoors on the GameBoy’s non-backlit display. In Pokémon Pink, all palettes across the game have been modified to heavily to reference the colors of Pokémon Red wherever possible, while matching the tinting for both SGB and GBC palettes.

This includes restoring the old blueish cave palette (also used for Bruno’s Room and Trainer Card badges), while retaining Yellow’s brown cave palette for Cerulean Cave (arguably the old palette would fit better for Cerulean Cave since it is more bluish, but Yellow has its own layout for Cerulean Cave, so it felt appropriate). Select tilesets from Pokemon Red & Blue (Jp Blue) have been brought over to tiles that Yellow left unmodified from Jp Green (cuttable trees, grass pattern), while others have been modified to be a mix of Blue and Yellow (Roof tiles are a mix of designs, Safari zone hut signs are from Blue).

I also have reverted the drastic changes to the Generic mewmon and greymon palettes that affected Pokémon like Tauros and Rattata (Gamefreak borrowed the Generic palette for Pikachu’s Title Screen colors for some reason, which is also used for party sprites, trainer cards, and much more. Meanwhile the grey palette was also used for Lavender’s Pokémon Tower and Agatha’s Room). Though since some Pokémon benefited from the change like Geodude and Jynx, I have separated these into their own palette lines so we can enjoy the best of both.

Note that some sprites had to be altered to better take use of their appropriate colors (Rattata, Tauros). While unrelated, some back sprites have also been edited to better represent their official designs, while retaining their Gen 1 resolution and stylings. Generic trainer parties that were edited in Yellow to reference specific Pokémon anime episodes have been reverted to their Red & Blue encounters. (Though Jessie and James are still present, having integrated themselves much more heavily in each map’s scripting.

I just thought it best to leave them for the time being, but who knows? Maybe in the future I might attempt something. No promises.) Meanwhile, unlike Red, Blue, or Yellow, I have chose to forgo any attempt at rival starter type balancing, and decided instead to stick close to the rival’s Pocket Monsters manga counterpart in Green and his Charizard (even slightly breaking established patterns in subsequent fights and allowing the rival to swap out their party, giving wider access to their manga team).

Gym Leader encounters have as well have been edited to reflect their Pocket Monster manga teams while respecting the progression and level curve (manga Gym Leaders don’t all stick to one type, so be prepared). One thing sometimes overlooked about Pokémon Yellow was its removal of all Pikachu across the region, leaving only your partner Pikachu as the one and only; including both wild and trainer caught alike, with the only exception being Lt. Surge’s Raichu.

To reflect this, all Clefairy and Clefable have been removed across the region, previously removed Pikachu have been restored, and Elite Four Agatha’s team has been edited to contain the only Clefable in the region. Pokémon with recognized version pairings have had their wild encounters flipped, while version exclusive Pokémon have been swapped with their respective counterparts.

Features

• Clefairy fully replaces Pikachu.
• Clefairy’s learnset has been edited to more closely match Pikachu’s progression.
• Clefairy can now learn HM03 Surf (also TM39 Swift) and can play the Surfing House mini-game while knowing Surf.
• Slot Machine graphics to fit the Clefairy aesthetic.
• The Linking Cable can be purchased at the Celedon Department Store for 8,000P to allow evolving trade Pokémon (necessary in this world of solo emulator play).
• You can now fly from the Celedon City Department Store and Mansion roofs.
• The S.S. Anne now will redock after beating the champion. (No new trainers or parties, this is just for those who might have missed an item or wanted to read the restored harbor sign).
• Two new cuttable trees have been added to ease backtracking in Route 4 and Fuchsia City without breaking the flow of progression.
• There is a warp tile on Silph Co. Floor 11 that will take you back to the lobby.
• Pokémon Mansion tiles have been edited to make it easier to understand you can jump down a floor.
• I let Prof. Oak heal you when registering your team in the Hall of Fame after always forgetting to heal afterwards.
• Due to plot related reasons, Mewtwo has been replaced with the Virtual Console Event Mew, and will have the proper OT and ID number when caught.

Updated Clefairy’s Learnset

• 06 Defense Curl
• 09 Sing
• 12 Doubleslap
• 16 Double Team
• 21 Headbutt
• 28 Psychic
• 31 Minimize
• 37 Metronome
• 42 Mega Kick
• 48 Light Screen
• HM03 Surf
• TM39 Swift
  

In-game Trades

• Pikachu > Starmie named “Astral” (Route 2)
• Voltorb > Kadabra named “Houdini” (Underground Path 5-6)
• Ditto > Dodrio named “Stooges” (Route 11)
• Rhyhorn > Chansey named “Cheryl” (Route 18)
• Kingler > Kangaskhan named “Genghis” (Pokémon Lab 1)
• Vulpix > Seel named “Cadet” (Pokémon Lab 2)
• Tauros > Weezing named “Smokey” (Pokémon Lab 3)

Global Changes

• Sandshrew > Ekans
• Sandslash > Arbok
• Grimer > Koffing
• Muk > Weezing
• Venonat > Meowth
• Venomoth > Persian
• Drowzee > Mr. Mime
• Growlithe > Vulpix (Growlithe is still obtainable from the Game Corner)

Super Rod

• Horsea < > Krabby
• Seadra < > Kingler
• Poliwag < > Goldeen
• Poliwhirl < > Seaking
• Staryu < > Shellder

Added Wild

• Weedle/Kakuna/Beedrill
• Pikachu
• Magmar
• Electabuzz
• Jynx

Removed Wild

• Clefairy/Clefable
• Venonat/Venomoth
• Tangela
• Seel/Dewgong (still obtainable from In-Game Trade)

Useful Links

Pokecommunity

Reddit

Github