The release of Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee mark a new jumping-on point for wannabe Pokemon trainers, as well as a big dose of nostalgia for old fans to revisit the Kanto region for further adventures. Just to make those old fans feel even older; it's been over two decade since the first Pokemon games, Red, Blue and Yellow -- and Green in Japan -- came out, and while the franchise's phenomenal boom in the '90s has waned, interest in the collectible pocket monsters has been sustained by the continued release of manga, anime, movies, trading cards, a slew of merchandise and, of course, video games. Recently, the jump to mobile gaming with Pokemon Go recaptured some of the fervor that gripped the world in the property's golden era.
This isn't the first time those original games have been revisited. Pokemon: Fire Red and Leaf Green were straight remakes -- with a few tweaks -- for the GameBoy Advance in 2004, but the Let's Go games offer a new way to journey through Kanto starting with one of the two game mascots rather than a Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur. One nostalgic aspect these new additions won't be able to capitalize on is how easy it was in those ancient, pre-Internet days for gaming urban legends to spread without readily available sources to debunk the false information. From numerous Mew-catching methods to "PokeGods," these rumors helped enshrine the first set of Pokemon games in a generation's childhood memories, as well as gaming history.
20 LAVENDER TOWN'S CREEPY MUSIC
To this day, the Kanto Region's Lavender Town is probably the most haunting of all Pokemon locations you can travel to as a player. Not only is it the site of Pokemon Tower, where people can visit the graves of their deceased battling partners, but it has the most disturbing music of any game.
This eerie melody fuelled the "Lavender Town Syndrome" rumor, claiming that a reported increase in severe ill-health of young children in 1996 was down to hearing the high frequency of the track -- a frequency that only a certain age-group could hear. Programmers later tweaked the music to a lower one, just to be on the safe side.
19 YOUR RIVAL'S MISSING RATICATE
Lavender Town isn't just infamous for its nauseous tune, it's also the place where you -- the player -- learn that you might well have taken out an innocent Pokemon... permanently. Previously, you will have battled your rival, Professor Oak's grandson bearing whatever NSFW nickname you saddled him with, on the S.S Anne.
When you encounter him again in Lavender Town, he no longer has his Raticate with him, and he asks you if you know what it's like to lose a Pokemon. A popular theory is that because he was trapped on board the ship, your rival couldn't heal his injured partner after battling you, meaning you've got Raticate blood on your hands. Happy trails, kid!
18 BILL'S GARDEN
Other than the tree-themed Professors, Bill is the most famous scientific mind in the Pokemon world. While his expertise extend across many fields of Pokemon research -- including DNA splicing -- his biggest contribution to the games is the creation of the PC storage system where you can dump all of your prized catches.
But, who cares about any of that when there's a secret garden behind his house on Route 25 that you desperately want to get into! This patch of blank space behind Bill's house was thought to contain everything from second generation Pokemon like Marill to the fabled "PokeGods." (More on them later.) Really, it was just what it looked like: blank space.
17 BUTTON CHEATS TO CATCH POKEMON
Pressing a combination of buttons in a certain order to unlock hidden content has been a video game staple for a long time. It's sort of a legal form of cheating, designed to spice up gameplay. No such flavor exists in any Pokemon game, but that hasn't stopped players from believing that they can increase their catch rate this way.
Did you hold down B and the directional pad? Did you say "GOTCHA!" into your Nintendo DS microphone? Did you blow on the mic for good luck like dice? Do you still do any of these now? Even if we knew none of these things actually helped us get that satisfying "click" as the ball locked, we couldn't help but have a little faith.
16 MISSINGNO
This is one of few early Pokemon myths that was 100% real, although a lot of misinformation was still spread about the finer details. MissingNo was basically a catchable glitch. It appeared if you surfed along a certain part of Cinnabar Island after having a catching tutorial from a man in Viridian City.
The data was from a Pokemon that was never meant to be. It appeared commonly as a lump of messy pixels at Level 100 and, if caught, could do everything from multiply the sixth item in your bag-- the “Infinite Items” cheat -- to corrupt your whole save file. It’s still one of the most infamous glitches in gaming history to this day.
15 PIKABLU
You'll have heard a lot of variations on the legend of Pikablu. Perhaps the most well-known is the claim that a man on Cinnabar Island told some players that his Raichu had evolved, and when early released art for the next generation of games showed a spherical blue Pokemon, it was dubbed "Pikablu" -- the secret third link in the Pikachu line.
Many categorized Pikablu as one of the “PokeGods,” and stories of how to catch one spread around schoolyards everywhere, each more elaborate than the last. These dreams were quickly crushed when the less interesting truth came out: Pikablu was just a new Water-type, Marill.
14 HM JUMP
HMs have slowly fallen out of favor in for Pokemon fans. As permanent teachable moves given to you to reach new parts of the map, players have come to resent forcing members of their party to be saddled with “Cut” and “Rock Smash” forever. But one particular HM was once sought after above all.
As is the case in all RPGs, not every patch of land you can see is reachable, but the existence of tall grass -- where wild, catchable Pokemon lurk -- behind gates and walls created a popular belief that an HM called “Jump” could be found and used to scale obstacles like these. Though new HMs have been introduced over time, Jump has never been one of them.
13 FAKE EVOLUTIONS
Considering Pokemon has been adding extra evolutions at the start and end of of pre-existing lines for years -- and even different forms of evolution -- we can look back on this theory as being more plausible than most in the franchises’ early years. Saying that, how did names like “Charcolt,” “Rainer” and “Sapsuar” fool anyone?
These were the supposed fourth evolutions of the original starter Pokemon, Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur respectively, evolved using the Mist Stone -- which is also completely fake. Since the introduction of Mega Evolutions, this old belief has sort of come true, with Charizard's X and Y upgrades finally giving him his official dragon status.
12 CHARIZARD ISLAND
As well as trying in vein to jump into unreachable patches of grass, some players of the first three Pokemon games sought out mythical locations that they'd heard whisperings of on the Poke-grapevine. One of these was Charizard Island, presumably a hard-to-find destination populated by vacationing Charmanders, Charmeleons and the island's namesake.
This idea was actually replicated in the anime. In Johto, Charicific Valley becomes Ash's training ground for his misbehaving Charizard, watched over by the Valley's keeper, Liza and her Charizard, Charla. There have also been actual mythical islands in the game series, like the rarely appearing Mirage Island in Hoenn. Charizard Island, however? Not so much.
11 LEVEL 100 PIKACHU'S FATE
In order to be the very best, like no-one ever was, you have to become League Champion; complete the Pokedex and get at least one Pokémon up to max level. As many a veteran trainer will know, hours of painstaking grinding is necessary to tick the latter one off.
One strange myth you might have heard when you were younger was that taking a max-Levelled Pikachu to the Pokecenter for healing in Pokémon: Yellow resulted in you losing it for good. Why? Who knows. In reality, the only downside to hitting that sweet 100 is that your over-powered partner has no growing left to do. At which point, time to start the grind all over again with another!
10 HOW TO GET MEW
Believe it or not, there was at least one proven method of getting the most elusive Pokémon of all time in the original games. If you were told about the "Mew glitch" as a kid and dismissed it as more Poke-nonsense -- you should have listened! This error wasn't discovered until 2003 and there are two ways of doing it.
The more popular version, named the "Quick Mew glitch," gives you the chance to catch the Mythical Pokemon ridiculously early into the game. It involves the player walking in a series of specific directions near Nugget Bridge on Route 8, and then using Abra's Teleport to trigger the encounter on Route 24. Catching an Abra is no easy feat but the pay-off is obviously worth it.
9 MEWTHREE
Mewtwo is the only known successful clone of Mew. It's a powerful Psychic-type Legendary that the player can battle at the very end of the game in Cerulean Cave. Naturally, the slightly un-creative naming choice inspired the legend of Mewthree, one of the earliest fake Legendaries in Pokemon history.
The only "evidence" of this extra clone in the Mew line comes from screenshots from hacked games. Players that attempted to make Mewthree magically appear in their games usually just wound up erasing their saved data. The only official reference to the creature comes from the manga, where Red's Clefairy dubbed itself "Mewthree" after splicing itself with Mewtwo's DNA.
8 THE CURSED CARTRIDGE
A game series as lucrative as Pokemon has naturally been the target for hackers and knock-off producers for years. Alternatively named off-brand games include things like Pokemon: ShinyGold and LiquidCrystal, which usually manipulate certain game mechanics to give players different conditions to adventure under, whether it's a new weather system or non-official monsters to catch.
One of the earliest and most popular of these ROM hacks was Pokemon: Black, which ironically was a title later used for the fifth generation of official games. In this hacked version of the originals, the player could choose a ghost as their starter, which would lead them on a much darker adventure. There was even a rumor of a cursed cartridge circulating around, creating one of the first "creepypastas."
7 THE POKEGODS
We've touched upon these so-called higher Poke-beings earlier, so let's dig into them properly now. The "PokeGods" were Pokemon believed to exist that weren't listed in the Pokedex -- in other words, Pokemon whose 'dex numbers exceeded 150. Some of these included rumored extra evolutions and false Legendary variants.
These "gods" were thought to be the most powerful monsters in existence at the time, possibly unbeatable. Ways to make them appear involved complicated cheat codes, hacked games or tricks like beating the Elite Four a certain number of times using particular Pokemon. This legend turned out to preempt an actual one: the introduction of the real Poke-god, Arceus, in the fourth generation.
6 REACHING UNREACHABLE AREAS
The rumored HM Jump was one of many devices that players speculated could get them into the areas of Kanto that seemed impossible to reach. Whether it was Bill's backyard, the tall grass outside of Palette Town or any other interesting part of the landscape -- we were all desperate to explore every part of the region we could see.
Everything in a video game is purposefully placed there for a reason, but sometimes that reason it just decorative, or to keep you on your designated path. Despite knowing this, we were still convinced that the harder a place was to get to, the richer the rewards would be if you could. Rare Pokemon? Hidden items? The possibilities were endless!
5 THE GREAT POKEMON WAR
One of the most fascinating and longest-running fan theories about Pokemon is that the timeline of the games begins after a world war -- one that is curiously never mentioned. The first clue we get of this comes from Gym Leader, Lt. Surge. Why does he have a military rank? Well, apparently an Electric-type Pokemon saved his life in a war. Wait, what war?!
This would certainly explain why there are so many children wandering around unsupervised. It could also explain why your rival is being raised by his grandfather and not his parents, and where the player's absent father went, not to mention why the world is so sparsely populated and most of the buildings are hospitals and training facilities.
4 THE GENGAR/CLEFABLE LINK
The idea that Gengar is somehow the "shadow" of Clefable sounds totally implausible on the surface, but there's a surprising amount of compelling evidence backing this creepypasta up. Firstly, proponents of the theory point out that these two Pokemon were among the first ever designed. Clefable, Red's partner in the manga, was originally supposed to be the franchise mascot.
It was switched for the more gender-neutrally colored Pikachu. Gengar holds the honor of being used in the opening title sequence for the first games. These two facts underline the early importance of the duo, while their similar shapes and opposing typing led fans to believe that Gengar serves as a shadowy duplicate of Clefable.
3 DITTO’S LEGENDARY BACKSTORY
Ditto is one of the most unusual Pokemon ever created. As the name implies, it lacks any real identity of its own, instead copying the look, type and moves of other Pokemon it encounters. It even lacks a real shape, appearing as just a pink blob with vague facial features.
Because of its similar color, size and base stats to Mew -- not to mention its signature ability -- fans reckon Dittos are secretly failed attempts to clone Mew to create Mewtwo. The idea is actually strongly supported by the games, given that Dittos can be found at Pokemon Mansion in Pokemon: Yellow where the experiments took place.
2 MAGIKARP’S SPLASH
No move has baffled and frustrated players as much as Magikarp’s “Splash.” What does “Splash” do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. “A move that involves only flapping and splashing around in front of the opponent,” the game describes. “It has no effect whatsoever.” But it takes more than cold, hard canonical evidence to dissuade Pokemon conspiracists.
Since the original games’ release, some players have been convinced that using it enough times will result in something -- anything -- happening, preferably on a Hyper Beam-level of destruction. Until then, Magikarp’s most useful function will always be… being able to turn into something much better, i.e. Not being a Magikarp.
1 MOVING THE TRUCK
This was the one we all wanted to believe. Could the mythical Mew being hiding underneath an ordinary truck sitting alone in the S.S Anne dock? Of course not, but that didn’t stop us trying everything we could think of to get that thing to move. (You know, juuust in case...)
Whether you tried the HM Strength, or a combination of cheat codes, or just prayed to Arceus for a miracle, we can guarantee that you tried to move this immoveable object at least once. After all, the Pokemon world is so lacking in motor vehicles, why else would one just be parked there randomly? It's been over 20 years and we still want to give it one last push.