So I was going to start
posting Generation II’s reviews, they’re all done and ready to go up when it
dawned on me that there was a set of Pokémon that were both Generation 1 and 2,
and I hadn’t covered them. A set of Pokémon that for us completely absorbed in
Pokémania during the Generation 1 era of the franchise were as big and
important (if not more so) than the original 151, a group of Pokémon that we
spent hours after hours hunting down, a group of Pokémon that didn’t exist but
in fact did and would. What the fuck am I on about?
The PokéGods of course!
The PokéGods
A group of Pokémon beyond
number 150 that had complex or secret methods to obtain and that were
exceptionally powerful, more powerful than the Legendaries even! Though not all
of them started out having such lofty stats, most would at one point or another
be considered a PokéGod, even if they didn’t necessary look like one or have
that role in the official media that was translated at that point. These were
rumours spread across the internet of supposed supermons lurking in the depths
of Pokémon Red and Blue’s code. Only 1 was actually there, well more if you
count MissingNo and its brethren and people often did.
Each had a ‘code’ or
step-by-step instructions in how to make them appear that of course varied and
varied over time as they were posted, reposted, copied, pasted and rewritten
across hundreds if not thousands of crude fansites all over the interwebs. Most
complicated enough so that when they failed (as nearly all did) you’d be left
questioning your ability to perform the task, not the task itself. Of you could
try the fake Game Genie and Game Shark codes but given my own personal issues
with long strings of numbers and letters for me the end result was the same,
mind you I blame myself for lots of things I didn’t do so all in all I was a
perfect victim for the PokéGods.
Despite the bullshit
complex ways of catching them, despite the fact that no-one seemed to have an
actual screenshot of one they’d caught, despite the fact that not everyone who
played Pokémon was 8, a lot of people were suckered in, I tried several codes
(amongst them for Pikablu, Pikaflare, Mew, Tricket and the Mist Stone), even my
most sceptical of friends attempted to get Togepi in Red & Blue.
Obviously part of the
reason for this was because a lot of players actually were 8 but to really understand how we all could have been so
stupid you need to understand the confused timeline of Pokémon during those
early years. As a reminder you shouldn’t need; Pokémon was (and still is)
developed almost entirely in Japan – the games, the cartoon and even most of
the merchandise is made by Japanese companies and then has to be translated
into everything but Japanese and released overseas and this takes a little
while. Today we’re more used to worldwide release dates but you don’t have to
go back very far for this to become a rarity, even a novelty, when Sonic the
Hedgehog 2 received a worldwide launch (‘Sonic Twosday’) in 1992 it was
considered a big promotional gimmick and worldwide release dates for films,
even those originally filmed in English, was so rare that I still can’t get
used to the idea. Generally you had to wait a year or more to get something in
America and longer to be able to buy it in the UK because we were often
recipients of a ‘multi-purpose’ European release meaning we had to wait for the
game to also be translated in German, French, Spanish or whatever else (never
Welsh though, racism?). But even by the standards of the time Pokémon took an
ungodly long time to get to the west and went through some unusual stages
before it did, helping us believe that there was lot more to Red and Blue than
there really was.
Pocket Monsters Red and Green were released in February 1996 – yes, 1996 – then in spring ’96 Game Freak
used Corocoro Comic to make Japan
aware of Mew, the hidden 151st Pokémon added after the removal of
the debugging tools allowed enough space for one more ‘mon and in April Mew
became the first ‘Event Pokémon’ with it being made available as contest
prizes. Pocket Monsters Blue was then
released in October 1996 (as a mail away with CoroCoro Comic), the Japanese Blue was a predecessor of ‘third
versions’, the likes of Pokémon Crystal and Pokémon Platinum; it fixed glitches
and improved graphics and a few other changes were made, including what Pokémon
were available for capture and what Pokémon were traded with NPCs in-game. Pokémon Monsters 2: Gold & Silver
was first previewed in April 1997 in MicroGroup
Game Informer where the Pokémon we now know as Ho-Oh, Ampharos, Donphan and
Slowking were shown, then fully revealed in November 1997 (at the Nintendo
Space World ’97 convention, held November 21–23) in a very early beta form as a
game for the Game Boy with Super Game Boy compatibility and early new Pokémon
were shown including Mariru (Marill), Ho-Oh and unused characters like
Honoguuma and Kurusu (this version has subsequently been made available online,
I’ve mentioned it a few dozen times), the release for the game was set for the
end of that year. The first episode of the Pocket Monsters anime aired in Japan
on 1st April 1997 meaning the anime was actually in development at
the same time as Gold & Silver not Red & Blue, this allowed the team to
put in a Pokémon that wouldn’t debut until Gold & Silver (Ho-Oh) in that
first episode and add another (Togepi) as a recurring character with the
episode ‘Who Gets to Keep Togepi?’ - first broadcast in Japan on June 25th
1998. Very little information was made available on Gold & Silver after the
initial reveal until it was confirmed as delayed in March 1998 (a bit late
there lads) and the next Pokémon game released was another variation of Red
& Green called Pocket Monsters
Pikachu, released on September 12th 1998. I don’t know why Gold
& Silver was delayed but I can surmise that a switch in platform (to the
Game Boy Colour), work on Yellow (Pocket Monsters Pikachu) and preparing the
now very successful little franchise for foreign releases probably all played
their part. However promotion for the new games was still ongoing when it came
to the anime people, in July 1998 Pocket
Monsters: Mewtwo’s Counter-Attack was released, the first feature length
film for the franchise and it and it’s preceding short featured more Pokémon
that wouldn’t debut in-game until Gold & Silver (the Pokémon we’ve come to
know as Marill, Snubbull and Donphan) as well as the anime debut of Mew.
If you know your Pokémon
history (and why wouldn’t you?) you may have noticed that this is nearly all
happening before the franchise was released in America. On the 8th of September 1998 the first
episode of the Pokémon anime aired in the US, 20 days before Pokémon Red &
Blue Versions were released there, and the anime showed a mythical golden
Pokémon that couldn’t be caught in those games, which itself wouldn’t be very
noteworthy if not for Mew. PLUS Pokémon Red & Blue Version were not simply
Red and Green translated into English but rather ‘merged’ versions taking
things from both Red & Green and the Blue version released later, leading
to one noticeable mistake caused by taking the script from Blue but not the
changes in what Pokémon were available for trade with NPCs, resulting in one
saying that a Raichu you just traded him had evolved – Raichu does not evolve.
Who Gets to Keep Togepi
aired on Marcy 27th 1999 in English and three months later in June
1999 the CD Pokémon 2.B.A. Master was released in the US, containing songs from
and inspired by the dubbed anime, it was crap, but Kids WB aired a special
promo video for it before its release that featured, amongst other things,
clips from Pikachu’s Summer Vacation, the as-of-then untranslated short that
predated the as-of-yet untranslated movie Mewtwo’s Counter-Attack, featuring
shots of Marill and Snubbull. In July 1999 Pocket Monsters: Revelation Lugia
became the anime’s second feature film in Japan debuting Gold & Silver
Pokémon like Lugia and Slowking. Pocket Monsters Gold & Silver wouldn’t be
released in Japan until November 1999, a month after Pokémon Yellow Version:
Special Pikachu Edition was released in America and the same month that Pokémon
the First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back hit theatres
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| click to enlarge |
What comes from all those
facts is that the Pokémon Anime and first movie were developed alongside the
sequel games Gold & Silver made for an audience who already knew to expect
a sequel to a game that had been out for over a year and that anime included
elements planned for that sequel to promote it. But in the rest of the world
the anime was used to promote those regions’ Red & Blue, the first game(s),
with few, especially few of the target audience, knowing that a sequel was on
the way and with no reason to think one would be coming any time soon; after
all the first one had just come out.
You also need to understand
that this is all taking place in 1998/1999 and technology and the internet was
very different and far more rudimentary; mobile phones could not send pictures,
most didn’t even have a colour display; there was no blog culture; no wikis
(including Wikipedia itself); no MySpace, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram,
Tumblr and YouTube and no way to instantly share information as you learned it;
there was no file hosting sites; video game emulation was in its infancy,
GameFAQs was tiny compared to what it would become and ROM hacking was a small
niche hobby; search engines were still in their stone age and wouldn’t (and
couldn’t) show all results and there was no Google Images. What was around
instead was a wild west of amateur-quality fansites and personal sites that
search engines couldn’t catalogue properly, plus MSN and P2P services like
KaZaA and Napster - all on slow connections with most of the world still using
Dial Up – and a fraction of the number of users we have today. We didn’t even
have the internet in my house when Pokémon first launched in the UK, I used to
go to a friend’s house to use it to look up hints, codes, pictures and rumours
– including the PokeGods. Also a lot of Pokémon fans were 8; children,
pre-teens, and children are if not more gullible than more susceptible to
believing things, especially when they want them to be true and very few of
them can speak Japanese (unless they are, of course, Japanese).
So who were these bloody
PokéGods dwitefry and how could you ‘catch’ them?
Catching wise each ‘mon
typically had its own ‘code’ unless that code was just ‘use the Mist Stone on
X’ or a Game Shark/Genie code but there were common elements that were worked
into many codes, some seemingly derived from the Missingno cheat and others
just incorporating fan rumours and things of interest: amongst them was talking
to a random NPC (‘Mr. Psychic’ the man who gives you the TM psychic was
particularly popular) undoubtedly because Old Man Weedle was so important to
the Missingno glitch; having a certain group of Pokémon in your party (often
with three Geodudes to make up the numbers); beating the Elite Four a certain
number of times; doing god knows what else a certain number of times including
trading the same Pokémon; having a certain group of Pokémon in a box on your
in-game PC; merging multiple Pokémon; talking to/fighting Professor Oak; using
secret HMs; using the Mist Stone (again) or visiting certain areas, three of
the more common being:
The ‘PokéGods City’ (though
I remember a PokéGods Island being rumoured too) which is notable only because
there IS a hidden city in Gen 1, the Glitch City. We were unknowingly
looking for a real thing!
Bill’s Secret Garden:
And the long grass either
side of Pallet Town:
These two were inaccessible
areas that can be never-the-less be seen and seen from locations you HAVE to go
to (the town you start in and Bill’s house) so it shouldn’t be too surprising
why these were so enticing, and fans latched onto these are locations that
would hold super-secret Pokémon because, really, they should. Game Freak missed
a trick. Sadly ROM hacking has proven that there’s nothing beyond that one tile
behind Bill’s gaff and there’s no Pokémon programmed into the long grass by
Pallet Town – dream crushers.
Why, however, Game Freak
haven’t added a Secret Garden for Bill in either sets of remakes for Gen 1
baffles me.
As for the ‘Gods themselves?
Read on.
Mew
But Mew is real, dwtiefry.
EXACTLY.
Fittingly for a Pokémon
that was said to be the ancestor of them all, Mew is really the beginning of
the PokéGods and was the best argument for them - because Mew was real and you could in fact find it through complex methods (or through using a
Game Shark or Game Genie); most of the beats for the stupid-complex methods for
obtaining the fake PokeGods was true for obtaining Mew – talking to a random
NPC, going to a seemingly random place, doing things over and over, these were
part of the MissingNo glitch which could produce Mew if you had the right
characters in your name (that’s how I caught mine).
Mew wasn’t under a truck
though.
What? You missed this? One
of THE Urban Legends (of Zelda) in video games? Mew under the Truck. There was
a long standing, very commonly believed rumour that Mew could be found under
the random pick-up truck that you can find at the S.S. Anne’s port. this:
It’s the only motor vehicle in the whole game and you can’t get to it without
using Surf (which you don’t have and can’t use when you get to this city). The
most common version of the rumour was that if you prevented the S.S. Anne from
leaving until you got Surf, surfed to the truck, used Strength to move it,
beneath would be Mew. Why the shit Mew would be under a pick-up is anyone’s
guess but many (including me) tried it. It became so well known that developers
started making references to it, there’s references in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen and
the Pokémon: Let’s Go games!
If only there were so many
references to Bill’s Secret Garden, Bulbasaur HAD a secret garden in the anime,
it would have been perfect for Let’s Go! Perfect!
The Gen 2
‘Mons
That’s Pikablu, Togepi,
Houou, Bruno and Denryu
But aren’t these all real too, dwitefry?
EXACTLY
Again, these five acted as
further reason to believe in the rumours (though in Bruno’s case, only very
late in the day) because these were also real, and also not in the original
151, they were proof that there were ‘mons beyond that number that officially
existed, they were in the anime, hell, Ho-Oh was in the very first episode! The
reason for this, of course, is because Gold & Silver were in development
but we didn’t know that. And if they weren’t amongst the 150, and there wasn’t
a sequel coming up, they had to be SOMEWHERE in the original games, right?
After Mew (who I don’t
really count because it was real) Pikablu (Marril) was THE PokéGod, the one
everyone seemed to be after, probably because it looked so much like Pikachu.
For a while it was considered to BE an evolution of Pikachu (a branched
evolution ala the Eeveelutions) or Raichu which is wonderful in hindsight
because 1) we eventually did get a bunch of Pikachu forms that have different
typings and indeed an evolution of Pikachu that’s a different type (Alolan
Raichu) that’s even one of Marril’s typing (Fairy) and 2) there was a third
stage for the Pikachu line planned, named ‘Gorochu’ designed by Nishida,
Pikachu’s creator it’s just we didn’t know about it at the time! Mostly though
Pikablu was talked about as it’s own thing and a very desirable thing at that.
According to RageCandyBar the most popular method of getting yourself some water mouse was the method
that involved getting him from the lady by the Game Corner (who’d found him
behind the Pokémon Museum) but this wasn’t a method I ever used. Houhou,
generally considered the third was
nearly as huge, thanks to its appearance in the anime (and subsequent
non-appearance in Red & Blue) and Togepi the same, though I can’t find any
old methods for these still online and I only ever tried fake Game Genie codes
for ‘em.
The far less popular Bruno
(Snubbul) was said to be found in the Cerulean Cave, that one I tried. Who
knows why, because I hated going through that area and didn’t particularly like
Snubbul. Togepi meanwhile was said to dwell in Mt. Moon (fair enough as it
learned Metronome). I never saw or heard of Denryu (Ampharos) being a PokéGod, but
apparently it was and Bellossom may have been too - this makes sense given these
were early Gen 2 reveals, I just never came across ‘em it seems.
Also derived from early Gen
2 material – at least initially – was Pikaflare, in fact Honoguuma – the
scrapped Fire Type starter that was (sadly) replaced with Cyndquil. Funnily
enough both Chikorita and the other scrapped starter Kurusu were also previewed
at Space World ’97 but they never caught on and mutated into their own PokéGod 0
probably because they didn’t look like PIkachu. Pikaflare (or Flarachu) could
be obtained by trading the same Pikachu 8 times then using a Fire Stone on it
apparently, I never tried that but I was very aware of Pikaflare and Pikabud, a
completely fabricated Grass Type equivalent of Pikablu and Pikaflare (I might
have tried a Game Genie code, maybe?)
The Evolutions
With no sequels anything
seemed possible when it came to Pokémon, we now know of course that no
evolutionary line will go over three ‘mons long without branching but back in
the late 90s this wasn’t set in stone, so the concept of there being further
evolutions of Pokémon, even those that were their line’s third stage, was
completely realistic. Exactly what PokéGods were evolutions and what weren’t
tended to vary from site to site and month to month, like I say PIkablu started
off as a Pikachu or Raichu evolution before mutating into it’s own stand alone
thing, Houou was sometimes said to be an evolution of Moltres and some of these
included int his section – like Dimonix, Flareth, Locustud/Locustod and
Charcoalt – were sometimes considered stand-alone ‘mons as well, its’ almost
like we’re talking about a bunch of rumours told across playgrounds, emails,
chat rooms and rushed Angelfire and Geocities pages, but here are the generally
accepted evolution PokéGods:
Sapasaur (Venusaur),
Charcoalt (Charizard, sometimes Rapidash), Rainer (Blastoise), Locustud
(Butterfree), Metazap (Metapod), Beepin (Beedrill), Raticlaw (Raticate),
Nidogod (Nidoking), Nidogoddess (Nidoqueen), Pearduck (Golduck), Sandswipes
(Sandslash), Dream Master (Hypno), Dimonix (Onix), Spooky (Gengar, sometimes
Haunter), Flareth (Flareon), Lunareon, Solareon (Eevee), Omnamist (Omanyte),
Mewthree (Mewtwo), Coronoa Mew (Mew)
And sometimes Wizwar was
considered an evolution of Alakazam.
Most of these could be
obtained using the Mist Stone, a unique (and completely made up) evolutionary
stone that could allegedly be found in the Seafoam Islands that could evolve
any Pokémon from the 151 one stage further, despite that not every fully
evolved Pokémon had a PokéGod or evolution, weird eh? There was also other
stones that could apparently be found such as the Rainbow Stone and the
Lightning Stone, not the Thunder Stone but a companion stone (Metazap seemed to
be exclusively tied to this stone). The great thing about this in hindsight is
that it came true too! In a scarily similar way no less! With Mega Stones and
Mega Evolutions. Hell a bunch of the same Pokémon even got Megas. I’ve heard
some people go so far as to say that the Mega mechanic was flat out inspired by
the Mist Stone rumours of old but honestly I’m not sure I believe it, giving
fully evolved Pokémon a mega-super-awesome next stage is hardly an original
concept.
There’s also the fun in
that Lunareon and Solareon are obviously fan names for Espeon and Umbreon - two
Eeveelutions that don’t evolve from
stones!
There was also a very
common method for acquiring all manner of Pokémon that involved putting the
Legendary Birds in your party (followed by three Geodudes, why Geodudes? Always
Geodudes! They’re not even the most common Pokémon in caves let alone in the
whole game) and then talking to a random NPC who would give you a PokéGod, this
was a given method for at least Flareth, Charcoalt and Locustod and often it
was said that you had to use this method, talking to ‘Mr Psychic’ – the man in
Saffron City who gives you the TM Psychic -
to unlock the very ability to catch PokéGods, with Mr Psychic revealing
their existence and thus allowing you go find and catch them. Why Mr Psychic?
Fuck knows but if the Old Man who catches the Weedle ‘unlocked’ MissingNo and
Mew, why not Mr Psychic?
Anyway the most popular of
this lot was easily Mewthree, sometimes called Altanes, which isn’t too much of
a surprise as Mewtwo was one of the most popular Pokémon period. General
consensus is this concept evolved out images of Mewtwo in his armour from the
Pokémon anime (which actually reduced his power not increased it – irony?) but
took on a life of its own, but Mewtwo’s whole concept – a clone with a number
its name – leads nicely to the assumption that there’s more of them, there was
rumoured Mewfours and Mewfives too (though they were, hilariously, often
dismissed as being too unbelievable).
Again it’s worth noting that sometimes Mewtree wasn’t an evolution but
either a merged Pokémon or a separate, improved clone of Mew.
In fact the main non-Mist
Stone way of obtaining Mewthree that was circulated was to beat the Elite Four
with both Mew and Mewtwo, rest at the player’s house, then awake to find the
two had merged. Which was also a code for Chrono-Mew, although you had to sue
the Lighting Stone on both of them before they’d merge in that code.
Actually NidoGod was
sometimes considered a merged PokéGod too, with one code having the ‘mon not as
Nidoking’s evolution but a merger of Slowbro, Nidoking and Nidoqueen caused by
the Mist Stone (which in this code was given to you by Professor Oak). As was
Ghost, which was sometimes an evolution of Gengar but also (mainly by the looks
of it) a merging of Gastly, Haunter and Gengar via Gameshark.
(RageCandyBar has a wholepage for these, the most common were the two taken from other Pokémon media – Venutoise from
the Pokémon anime and Zapmolcuno from the Pokémon Special manga, as they had
pictures to ‘prove’ their existence, though I remember coming across Ratichu, Pikish
and Articzapmewtres. Funnily enough this
is one thing that Game Freak have always avoided, even though (or perhaps because)
it’s a fairly obvious thing to do, either through breeding or some kind of stone,
the closest we’ve got to it is Zygarde)
The Unique PokéGods
Some PokéGods however, were
wholly original, or at least ended up as wholly original. Shadybug, Tricket,
Doomsay and Doomsday were the big names here. Doomsay and Doomsday are
noteworthy simply because they span the entire of the PokéGod phenomenon
(roughly late ’98 to 2000 in America), their names first appearing on a list as
early as November ’98 that was simply ‘reporting’ what the English names for
Gold & Silver Pokémon were supposed to be when the games came out over here:
152. Houou
153. Topegy
154. Pikablu
155. Tyranticus
156. Primator
157. Doomsay
158. Doomsday
159. Psyke
160. Wizwar
161. NidoGod
And lasting all the way to
the release of Gold & Silver where many rationalized the two as in fact
being Houndour and Houndoom. Something that this list might actually support
when you think about it, You’ll notice that the first few are in fact correct –
that’s Ho-Oh, Togepi, Marril and Tyranitar – and while NidoGod may have only
been based on the rumour of new evolutions Primator, Psyke and Wizwar could
easily have been applied to random Gold & Silver Pokémon that had been seen
somewhere or somehow (Aipom, Natu and Xatu being good candidates, though
Slowking, Tsuinzu, Espeon, Umbreon, Delibird, Nameeru and the werewolves would
all work). Doomsday also had an awesome design associated with it:
|
| Posting it twice cos it's that cool. |
No one knows who made that,
but look at that thing, that is a Pokémon
called Doomsday, that is the Pokémon straight from H.P. Lovecraft we’ve always
wanted.
Meanwhile Tricket and
Shadybug never had any images associated with them (those are mock-ups by fans
up there) but were just consistent.
Shadybug – a bug that hid under a leaf, and Tricket – a powerful cricket that
knew the attack Sing – were originally thought of as being part of the same
evolutionary line before, at some point, becoming unique Pokémon with Tricket
taking off in popularity and Shadybug being left behind. Tricket’s code (which
was ‘Nintendo Approved’ much like some Pikablu and Mew codes) involved beating
the Elite Four with a team made up of only the Weedle and Caterpie lines and,
of course, talking to Professor Oak, who would give you a Tricket if you said
you were a bug collector (yo’d also need a box with just the Paras and Venonat
lines in it, of course). We would eventually get a pair of cricket Pokemon and
they would, indeed, be themed around music, Cricketot and Cricketune, a spooky
coincidence.
It’s also worth noting,
again, that sometimes Doomsay was said to be an evolution of Haunter and
Doomsday an evolution of Gengar and sometimes Doomsday was a merged PokéGods
made up of Gengar and Missingno. I know,
right?
Actually MissingNo accounts
for the last few big name PokéGods as these – Anthrax, Millennium/Mysterio,
Ruin and usually Psybir and Psybird were just names given to various glitch
Pokémon that some sites treated as real ‘mons, Millennium being M’. if you’re
confused the ‘MissingNo’ trick didn’t just bring up the MissingNo you’ll find
if you Google that, or the one you’re thinking of if you’ve heard of it (or the
one I reviewed), it could bring up several garbled things depending on what
character were in your name, the most common of which being M’ – as well as
random Pokémon like Snorlax, Kangaskhan or Mew – as well as the generic Ghost
sprite used in Lavender Town’s Pokémon Tower and the Kabuto and Aerodactyl
skeletons used in the museum (because they were stored in the old Pokémon
slots). There were either mistaken for or considered to be PokéGods or real
Pokémon. I never knew that Psybir or Psybird were these, though it does make
sense as MissingNo et all were Bird Type, a type that was cut and folded in
with Flying during development.
So What Happened?
Well more information came
out and more things got translated into English, simple as that. As this
happened the PokéGod rumours became less and less likely, once Gold &
Silver was being previewed in the English speaking world and especially once it
was released that was the end of it, fans – embarrassed by being taken in I’d
say – began to laugh and scoff at the PokéGods and discussion on them either
died or was banned. The internet matured, new types of technology came in and
nothing quite like the PokéGods will ever happen again, though Fakemons are
still circulated as real with each new generation none have and none really
can, take off like the PokéGods. We probably think this is a good thing, that
it proves how we’ve advanced but I think its just modern life further sucking
the fun out of everything and forcing kids to grow up too soon.
Not too over the top,
right?
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