I’ll be honest right now. Pokémon is my favorite franchise of all time, and it’s been the biggest influence on me as a gamer nowadays. Aside from something I’d like to call smallish misstep in Gen 6 & 7 Pokémon has been a very consistent video game series in my life as well. Not accounting the amazing spinoff games, trading card game, and anime.
That being said, Pokémon has a ton of secrets and facts across all of the games that have been super fun to discover and figure it out. Be it by yourself or on the internet. Red, Blue, and Yellow I think have the biggest amount of secrets and other things that can be discovered just because they’re the first in the series and generally, uh, poorly made. From a coding standpoint, anyway. RBY is a bunch of spaghetti noodles tied together with glue, in all honesty. Not to say they still aren’t fun as heck to still pick up every now and then of course. But I’m definitely more of a FireRed and LeafGreen type of person myself.
I was never around for the Pokémania back in the day, but it must have been a sight to behold back then. Friends trading Machoke and Kadabra together… looking forever for Mew or whatever the rumors decided on that week. I personally started with PokémonPearl and was lucky enough to have a friend who picked up Diamond. Countless memories were had on those two DS along with Explorers of Time & Darkness. Let’s take a look back at Pokémon’s first games and see what secrets they held.
30 Steal Another Trainer’s Pokémon
This glitch is native to Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, so hang on to your Groudon and Kyogre! Brendan and May never strike me as Pokémon stealers, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything…
To perform the glitch you must lose to the trainer whose Pokémon you want to steal. Then you have to battle Latios or Latias and then lose to them. Finally, going back to the trainer you lost to will have their second -> sixth Pokémon up for grabs! Once you catch one, the battle ends, though. Go forward, Pokémon Snatcher!
29 Clone Your Pokémon
This method of cloning is one I used and is exclusive to X, Y, and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. It really saved my behind when I had no access to Powersaves or Action Replays or anything like that, lemme tell ya.
You need two consoles with both games installed on them.
Trade the Pokémon you want to clone to the target system. Wait for the trade, and then when the blue communication screen begins, cut off the 3DS you traded the Pokémon you want to clone from. Rinse and repeat for a box of UT Shiny Pikachu!
28 Use Braille To Find Pokémon
Now, this is something that was always really cool when it came to Pokémon. Using braille to find some Legendary Pokémon? Sign me up right now! The manuals for Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and LeafGreen all had a something added akin to the image above to help players who didn’t understand braille. It was oddly omitted in Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby though.
I guess the reasoning there is that the internet is readily available for something like this anyway or it was just forgotten about sadly. Regice for life, by the way.
27 Abilities: Helpful In And Out Of Battle
Abilities are seriously one of my favorite parts about collecting and using different Pokémon. There are just so many that make or break one in the long run if you think about it! Intimidate on Gyarados might’ve been the attack fall on your opponent that you need to win the match.
There are cool abilities like Flame Body that halves the amount of time an egg needs to hatch!
Or Pickup, an ability that gives you a chance to find better items the higher level that Pokémon is! No Guard raises the chance for a wild Pokémon encounter by 50%!
26 Pokérus: The Virus That Helps
Nono, this is nothing like the Heart Virus from Dragon Ball, I assure you. Pokérus aka: the Pokémon Virus is extremely beneficial and you must be on the lookout for it on every playthrough!
The Nurse at the Pokémon Center will say that there’s something up with your Pokémon. Lo and behold, it’s Pokérus!
You have a higher chance of seeing a Shiny Pokémon! What does it do? Basically, your Pokémon will grow at a doubled rate while they have it. Their stats will have a small boost after the virus!
25 The 25 Natures
Pokémon boasts an impressive 25 different natures that every single Pokémon you catch can be. You may be wondering what each of these natures do? It’s simple! Let’s say your Luxray has the Adamant nature.
That means he’ll get a 10% boost in his attack and a 10% decrease in his special attack.
Depending on the Pokemon, this could’ve been the difference between a win and a loss. The personality quiz from the Mystery Dungeon games has each nature tied to a Pokémon that you will become.
24 A Traded Pokémon Earns More Experience Points
Crazy huh? I always thought that this was a strange addition since a Pokémon would being to disobey you if you didn’t have enough Gym Badges. Of course, it was a way to counter trading overpowered Pokémon to yourself. But then why let me earn extra experience points?
As you can see in that pic, that Squirtle is about to have an extremely fun time evolving into a Wartortle with no effort at all. If only real life was that easy… Someday we’ll all have an Exp. Share to hold on to.
23 Mr. Mime: The Female Pokémon
Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever used a Mr. Mime in my many many many years of playing Pokémon. It’s bad, I know. But why a use a Mr. Mime when a perfectly good Gardevoir is right there ready for the catching?
Anyway, did you know that a female Mr. Mime isn’t called Ms. Mime? I know, it’s crazy! Good thing we can nickname our Pokémon. We could even have a Miss Mime on our hands! Delia Ketchum is gonna learn something about her partner Pokémon really soon…
22 Jackie Chan And Bruce Lee: Gen 1 Pokémon
Whoa, I didn’t know that Pokémon had a couple of celebrities in its midst! I was always a Hitmonchan fan myself, but I can see Hitmonlee’s appeal. Hitmonchan always had the elemental punches and it felt so cool to battle with him.
If it wasn’t obvious already, Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee are based on real-world people Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee.
If there’s a better way of being immortalized in video games then I haven’t heard of it. I just know Hitmonjones is upcoming in Gen 8!
21 Arcanine Was Meant To Be A Legendary Pokémon
Quite the revelation for some of you I’m guessing! Like most “early” things in a franchise, Pokémon has its fair share of odd quirks. As you can tell, Arcanine was most likely going to be paired along with Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres as the leader of the three or something.
Personally, I’m glad it didn’t happen since the trio already had a Fire-type and Arcanine is just too fun to play with and him being a Legendary would have severely cut off our access to be able to catch him and Growlithe!
20 Fish In A Statue?!
Yeah, pic aside this glitch was exclusive to Red & Blue. But I just wanted a chance to show off just how gorgeous the new gyms in Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee are gonna be. Ugh, such beauty.
Anyway, you can fish in the statues at the start of every gym simply because they are tagged as “water” by accident.
As I said, the original games are coded with spaghetti and we love them for it. Would be something to fish a Water-type out of Lt. Surge’s gym, wouldn’t it?
19 Diamond Dust: The Elusive Snow
Pokérus, Diamond Dust… the Pokémon games always have a surprise tucked up their sleeve, huh? I don’t remember ever remember finding the snow as a kid or even if I did I never noticed.
Diamond Dust is a snow that falls in certain areas in the D/P games and beyond if you’re on a certain date or it’s the player’s birthday. Sparkling snows falls instead of the flat white dots and it is a nice little treat to watch instead of the same stuff.
18 The Stealing Hypno
“It carries a pendulum-like device. There once was an incident in which it took away a child it hypnotized.” Noooo thank you. Most of the Pokémon have really unsettling Pokédex descriptions if you choose to look hard enough for them.
Hypno just so happens to be one who likes to put people to sleep and maybe take them away too…
Then again, his Japanese name is Sleeper so I don’t know what most of us expected to happen actually. I’ll stick with Alakazam or something instead.
17 A Protein Named After Pikachu
What a time to be alive. I did miss man going to the moon I was around for a protein to be named after a yellow rat. While nothing I can do will compare to knowing this, I can only pray to Arceus that my life will somehow reach some kind of fulfillment in other ways. It’ll probably be playing Gen 8 but I digress. Pikachurin was discovered in 2008 so we can only hope that more Pokémon will be named after bacteria and protein soon enough.
16 Your Rival’s Missing Raticate
I always wondered whatever happened to your rival’s Raticate after your battle on the S.S. Anne. Then we come to find out it isn’t in his part anymore when we see him in Lavender Tower, the resting place for Pokémon…
I’m generally not a fan of creepypastas since it takes one element of something from a show or whatever and takes it completely out of proportion. However, this does seem like one that could happen. Or Gary is just a jerk who boxed his Raticate. What’s the right answer? You decide!
15 The Legendary Truck
The truck that started it all. Some people honestly doubt that Red & Blue wouldn’t have been popular as they had been if it wasn’t for these rumors.
With the advent of the internet and technology, it’s hard to believe that such a rumor went around the USA and possibly the world in such a short time.
The elusive Pokémon that nobody could find ended up fueling the Pokémania in the west. I still find it really that Mew is in the game, it’s just he’s only accessible through a glitch!
14 Hop Around Using Splash
Have you always wondered why other Pokémon like Buneary got Splash and why it’s a Normal-type move? Have no fear, for Magikarp is here! Er, it’s because Splash is known as Hop in the Japanese release and explains the typing and the other Pokémon actually knowing something like a “splash.”
Fun fact, Z-Splash takes the useless move and raises the user’s attack by three whole stages! Talk about a clutch move when you one needs it. Still useless on Magikarp in the long run though…
13 From Level 1 To 100
This glitch is known as the “experience underflow glitch” and is exclusive to generations I and II. Basically, if you have a Pokémon that’s level 1 and doesn’t get enough experience to level up, the game will take those “negative” experience points and make them positive, leveling up that Pokémon to 100.
Pretty simple, really. The only downside here is that the Pokémon you’re leveling up won’t have any of its level-up moves. Oh well, the only moves my Charmander needed was Scratch and Growl anyway!
12 Walk Through Walls
I mean, I think the best glitches and cheats affect the overworld personally. There’s just something so fun at skipping everything in the game and somehow showing up at the fourth gym leader with level 5 Pokémon and 0 gym badges.
I remember trying the glitch in Diamond & Pearl to end up on the island where Darkrai resided. I don’t recall it working but those steps where my character was in the void was spectacular. I’m fairly certain I ended up just using it at the Elite Four anyway to skip them.
11 Clefable And Gengar’s Other Half
Ah, more cool Generation 1 stuff! So while both do look similar I think it’s interesting to point out that their typing (Normal and Ghost respectively) and the fact that Gengar is the “Shadow Pokémon” makes it fairly obvious what Game Freak was going for when they made these two.
Of course, all Clefable needs is a good Odor Sleuth to lay the smackdown on our boy Gengar right here… Oh well, Gengar can use the good ol’ Focus Blast to the face technique that I’ve grown quite fond of.
