Pokemon / Tropes J to R

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J

• Jerkass: Some of your rivals, particularly Green/Blue and Silver. Largely done away with in Generation III.
  • FireRed and LeafGreen play with this some. If you compare dialog, you'll find that in the latter he doesn't call you "pal", whereas in the originals he did^note though it's highly likely he didn't actually mean it in a friendly way. On the other hand...
  Blue: Oh yeah, right. I feel sorry for you. No, really. You're always plodding behind me. So here, I'll give you a little present as a favor. *gives Fame Checker*
• Just Add Water: Poffins (muffins).

K

• Kamaitachi:
  • The Generation II Sneasel and its Gen IV evolution Weavile are weasel-like, bipedal Ice-types with razor-sharp claws, and inspired by the legend of the kamaitachi. Interestingly, Sneasel was actually based more on a kamaitachi (at least in terms of appearance) as revealed in a leaked prototype of the games seen in Space World '97. Here are the ingame◊ images of it◊ for those who are curious.
  • Generation III has Linoone, a speedy, badger-like Pokémon that has kamaitachi qualities.
  • Generation V's Mienfoo and Mienshao are also based on them; according to the Pokédex, Mienfoo make up their packs in numbers and use their (normally unseen) claws to slice through enemies, and while Meinshao don't attack with claws, they instead use their arm fur are utilized as whips.
• Karma Houdini:
  • A few villainous organization leaders get off receiving little to no repercussions for their acts.
    • Justified by Archie and Maxie due to a Heel–Face Turn, and the remakes show them actively working for a peaceful resolution in the postgame.
    • Averted for Lysandre (who is either dead or worse). Played straight with his Flare grunts, though. One of them can actually be found later in broad daylight thinking fondly about the time when he was "in the red", apparently without any worry about being prosecuted for his previous membership in a criminal organization that stole people's Pokémon, broke into several public and private facilities, and almost destroyed the entire Kalos region.
    • Played straight with Lusamine and the rest of the Aether Foundation, as their isolated headquarters were stormed by the protagonists long before they could accomplish their leader's ultimate plan, leading to most Alolan citizens not knowing on what were they actually up to. They also pull a Heel–Face Turn as a result.
• Killer Rabbit: The ability Huge Power doubles the user's attack stat and is exclusive to powerful rabbit-like Pokémon such as Azumarill, Diggersby and Mega Mawile.
• Kill It with Fire: Grass, Bug, Steel, and Ice types are weak to Fire-type attacks.
• Kill It with Ice: Grass, Ground, Flying, and Dragon-types are weak to Ice-type attacks.
• Kill It with Water: Fire, Rock, and Ground-types are weak to Water-type attacks.

L

• Lactating Male: The move Milk Drink was exclusive to Miltank which is an Always Female Pokemon until Pokémon X and Y introduced Skiddo and Gogoat. They are based on goats and can be female or male, making it this trope for the latter.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Some Pokémon appear masculine, but can be female. Examples include Galarian Meowth, Kadabra, Alakazam, the Machop line, Mr Mime., Shiftry, Slaking, Kricketune, Probopass, Emboar, Samurott, Stoutland, the Timburr line, the Pawniard line, Diggersby, Barbaracle, Incineroar, Drampa, Thievul, Perrserker, Mr. Rime., Kleavor, and Mabosstiff.
• Lamarck Was Right: Breeding might give learned moves to the child.
• Late Character Syndrome:
  • Generally, Ice-type Pokémon don't appear until three-quarters of the way into a given game at the earliest, and as such they miss out on most of the game up to that point. Even the evolutions of the non-Ice Eevee and Crabrawler suffer, as they level up only in certain locations... locations that are invariably very late game. This finally started getting averted from Generation VIII onward, as you can find Ice-types at the start of the game (and Eevee can evolve into an Ice-type via an evolution stone).
  • Legendary Pokémon, owing to their above-average or godly stats, tend to be reserved for the late game. By then, a player likely already has a team that covers any niche a Legendary might, and there may only be a few boss fights or the Final Boss left. And some Optional Bosses, like Mewtwo in Pokémon Red and Blue or Kyurem in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, come in after the game's over — and with the Battle facilities banning Pokémon of their tier, there's often nothing left for them to do but sit in a PC.
• Lava Magic Is Fire:
  • Lava-based moves, such as Eruption, Lava Plume, and Magma Storm, are treated as part of the Fire type.
  • Slugma, a Pokémon resembling a slug made entirely out of magma, is a pure Fire-type. Its evolution, Magcargo, is Fire/Rock, but that's because it develops a shell of solidified stone.
• The Law of Power Proportionate to Effort: Many moves utilize this scale.
  • Moves like Solarbeam or Roar of Time have lengthy charge times for greater attack power or effect. Bide, in particular, has a Pokémon wait two turns and deal back double the damage it took while waiting to the last Pokémon to inflict damage to it.
  • Some, like Avalanche or Roar, have a "decreased priority", which makes them move second that turn. These are typically stronger than special moves that activate on normal turns. On the other hand, "increased priority" moves are typically support abilities that do little to no damage.
• Legacy Boss Battle:
  • Cynthia, Sinnoh's champion appears as a Superboss in Pokémon Black and White. She also returns in both pairs of Generation VII games in the Battle Tree, now with the possibility of facing you with a Mega Garchomp.
  • Later, in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, you can face every Gym Leader and Champion from preceding games. Most of them are fought in the World Tournament, but some, like the retired Gym leaders from Black and White and N, are fought in different areas, and only one Gym Leader (Koga) is excluded (due to Elite Four members, which he is as of Gen II^note Black & White 2 take place after Gold & Silver on the timeline, not being included).
  • Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon has episode Rainbow Rocket, a post-game story where a reformed Team Rocket takes over Aether Paradise. Within this team, the team leaders from the previous main series games appear and need to be battled to progress.
• Leitmotif:
  • In all games, a different tune plays in each city, changing for battles, Poké Marts, Pokémon Centers, and even while Surfing. Some cities recycle tunes, though (RBY and GSC being the worst offenders due to lack of data storage space).
  • There are also several different songs that play when you meet trainers. In Gen IV and V, they're surprisingly long.
  • In the Black and White versions, every city finally has its own unique music.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Wobbuffet. Despite its limited moveset and comical appearance (and actually being partially based on a Japanese comedian), it has high HP reserves and knows how to Counter-Attack (Counter and Mirror Coat return double the damage inflicted against the user). From the third generation onwards, its baby version Wynaut learns Encore, which can force the opponent to repeat one attack multiple times (making them easier to counter), and comes with an ability that prevents the opponent from switching out. Ghost- or Dark-type Pokémon can take advantage of their elemental immunity to Counter and Mirror Coat (respectively), but other types are on their own.
  • Early in the games, you get an Old Rod. Most first-timers are excited about fishing for Pokémon, but are disappointed to see that the Old Rod yields little more than Magikarp◊, which are one of the weakest species in the game. Most first-timers don't have the patience to level one up until the Magikarp Power kicks in (at Level 20).
  • Even unevolved Magikarp gets shades of this due to learning Flail (post-Gen II) and Z-Splash (Gen VII), both of which give it a huge attack boost if used patiently.
  • Anything with the hidden ability Moody is this. To elaborate, most of the Pokémon that can have this ability aren't exactly great, Moody randomly lowers a stat and sharply raises another at the end of each turn, including Evasion and Accuracy. With enough luck, even a Bibarel can defeat a Legendary Pokémon without too much effort.
  • Many pre-evolved Pokémon learn some exploitable attacks and abilities their evolved brethren can't, as well as take advantage of certain specific items like the Eviolite (which gives unevolved Pokémon a similar boost in Defense and Special Defence). Pikachu, being the franchise mascot, was intentionally conceived this way, since with the right use of items and attacks, it can actually surpass a Raichu raised too hastily. However, due to Pikachu's terrible stats, Light Ball and Evolite not doing anything for it, its Z-Moves only working once and Gigantamaxing and Terastal only highlighting how bad Pikachu's stats are, it's not actually better than Raichu except for a few early areas.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Looker in Platinum is almost totally useless until the very end of the game, at which point he successfully ambushes the Dragon Ascendant and forces him to surrender without a fight.
• Let's You and Him Fight: This is basically the universal rule between all trainers in the world: if you have Pokémon, and your eyes meet with another trainer, then you must battle. You won't be allowed to turn it down. Some of the early trainers lampshade this fact.
  Youngster Calvin: If you have Pokémon with you, then you're an official Pokémon Trainer! You can't say no to my challenge!
  Bugcatcher Rick: If you lock eyes with a Trainer, you have to challenge! It's a rule!
  • Downplayed in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet; The open-world nature of the game makes it so you have to talk to the other trainer to engage in battle, with the first Trainer lampshading how in Paldea mere eye-contact isn't enough to convey intent to battle.
• Level Grinding: Given the Absurdly High Level Cap, this can easily take a while. To say nothing of EV training...
• Lie to the Beholder: The fifth-generation species Zorua (and its evolved form, Zoroark) feature an ability called Illusion, which makes it appear as a different Pokémon until hit by an opponent's attack in battle. This means that, since it's Dark-type, a Psychic-type attack won't dispel the illusion. Of course, a human opponent will get a little suspicious after the following exchange: "Mewtwo used Psychic!" "It doesn't affect Emboar..." (Emboar, being a Fighting-type, should be weak to Psychic-type attacks.)
• Life Drain:
  • Absorb (as well as its upgrades, Mega Drain and Giga Drain), Dream Eater, Drain Punch, Horn Leech, Leech Life, Leech Seed, Draining Kiss, Parabolic Charge, and Oblivion Wing all give their user health while damaging the enemy,
  • The Shell Bell held item activates whenever an attack successfully connects with the foe and restores 1/8th of the damage dealt back to the user.
  • The Big Root item can increase the amount of damage restoration when held.
  • The ability Liquid Ooze (possessed by Tentacool, Gulpin, and their evolutions) causes any HP-draining attacks^note with the exception of Dream Eater in generations III and IV used against the wielder to instead cause damage to the drainer (though the damage to the wielder is not negated).
• Lighter and Softer: Fairy types are among the cutest Pokémon designed, and many (but not all of them) have an innocent and pleasant behavior, providing a stylistic and thematic contrast along with the Darker and Edgier Dark type.
• Lightning Bruiser: There are a lot of examples, most of them being Legendary Pokémon. Some Pseudo Legendary qualifies as well, the most famous example being Garchomp.
• Lightning/Fire Juxtaposition: There are several pairs like this. The Electabuzz and Magmar evolutionary lines, who are respectively Electric and Fire type, and Zekrom and Reshiram, two Olympus Mons who represent the two elements as power sources. Zekrom represents Ideals using a lightning/electric tech robotic theme, while Reshiram represents Truth through an organic fire combustion theme. This Ideals vs Truth dichotomy is based on ying-yang taoistic themes. With the icy, neutral, apathetic, undead(?) Kyurem, it becomes Fire, Ice, Lightning. Pokémon X and Y and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon treat Manectric and Houndoom as this trope, being version exclusive along with their respective Mega Stones.
• Limit Break: Both Mega Evolution and Z-Moves function like this. Mega Evolution is a mechanic that enables certain species of Pokémon to become super-powered versions of themselves, with better stats, typings and abilities, as long as they hold their species-specific Mega Stone. Z-Moves are attacks of ridiculous power that are activated by giving any Pokémon a Z-Crystal that corresponds to that attack (for example, Firium-Z for Flamethrower) and then activating it in battle, and the Z-Crystals can also be used on status moves to give them extra effects. Both can be used only once per battle, by only one Pokémon at a time, forcing you to use them wisely.
• Limited Move Arsenal:
  • Each Pokémon can only learn four moves at a time. In order for a Pokémon to learn a new one, a currently-known move has to be replaced. HM moves can only be deleted outside of battle, with the assistance of a person known as a Move Deleter; this is meant to prevent the player from getting trapped in an area due to not having a Pokémon with the required HM move needed to navigate out of the location in question.
  • According to game director Junichi Masuda, at one point during Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire's development, the designers considered changing the number of moves that a Pokémon could know at a time, as well as how many Pokémon are allowed on the player's team at a time. However, neither of these two limitations have been changed.
• Living Gasbag: Drifloon and Drifblim are living floating balloons, and despite having a largely non-threatening appearance, the former are known to abduct children. Drifblim is mostly peaceful, however. The Jigglypuff line is a subversion; though gasbags, they don't fly (though Jigglypuff can float quite easily in Super Smash Bros.).
• Long-Runners: The first Pokémon games were released in Japan in 1996. New games, anime, and other media in the franchise are still being made as of 2024.
• Loophole Abuse: Trying to find a Pokémon of a specific gender when it's species is disproportionately male/female? Just get an opposite-gendered Pokémon with Cute Charm — it cuts the hunting time in half at least, especially since a lot of Pokémon with Cute Charm are Com Mons or, like Sylveon, are very easy to obtain.
• Lord of the Ocean:
  • Lugia is a Psychic/Flying-type Pokémon that exists as one of the five legendary birds of the franchise, acting as the Guardian of the Seas. It lives within the ocean and acts as a mediator between Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres, preventing one element from overcoming the others. It has the power to control the weather, calming storms with the beating of its wings or starting them according to its Pokédex entries.
  • Kyogre is a Water-type Pokémon native to the Hoenn Region with the ability to expand the oceans, acting as the equal-opposite of Groudon, a Ground-type Pokémon with the ability to expand the continents.
• Lost in Translation:
  • The animation of Fire Blast and its spread is a reference to a festival that also provides the Japanese name, Daimonji.
  • Mega Ampharos gaining the Dragon type may seem bizarrely random, until you realize that its original name contains ryū, which means "dragon". Similarly, Draco Meteor was originally a play on ryūsei, Japanese for "meteor".
  • Jirachi, Castform, and Darumaka/Darmanitan fall into this as well, plus Wobbuffet, which was inspired by a Japanese comedian.
  • The Ultra Ball is called a "Hyper Ball" in the Japanese version, hence why it has an H on it. Additionally, the Pokémon Contests ranks of Generation III were originally based off of the Japanese names of Generation I's basic Poké Balls, excluding the Safari Ball: Normal ("Monster"), Super, Hyper, and Master. The English naming scheme Pokémon Contest ranks did not catch this, and the original Japanese terms were used instead. Generation IV's Super Contests rectify this, with the "Hyper" rank getting properly translated to "Ultra" rank, referencing the Hyper Ball's English renaming of "Ultra Ball", while "Super" rank is translated to "Great" rank, referencing Super Ball being a Japanese name of Great Ball.
  • A number of Trainers in later games have the same name and Pokémon as characters from the movies, though these references are almost always missed in the translation.
  • The Dark-type doesn't actually mean dark. It is called "evil" in Japan. Because of this, lots of fans see the dark type as actual darkness rather than using dirty tricks to win and wonder why there isn't a Light type yet.
  • Some abilities and moves make less sense in international translations due to being given non-indicative or even different sounding names, although their descriptions still usually hit the mark:
    • Curse's Japanese name, noroi, can mean either "curse" or "slow/dull" depending on the kanji used. This is why it lays down an actual curse when used by a Ghost-type but reduces the user's Speed in exchange for Attack and Defense otherwise.
    • Fake Out is based on, and in Japanese named for, a sumo wrestling technique called nekodamashi. That literally translates to "cat deception", hence the move's otherwise inexplicably wide distribution among feline Pokémon.
    • High Jump Kick is called Jumping Knee Kick in Japanese, and so is not just a more vigorous version of Jump Kick.
    • Hyper Cutter is called "Superpowerful Claws" and has to do with pincers rather than Absurdly Sharp Blades.
    • Mirror Move is a Flying-type move that copies the last move used by the enemy, and is learnable exclusively by bird Pokémon. This makes more sense with its Japanese name, "Parrot Mimicry".
    • The move Smart Strike is called "Smart Horn" in Japanese, hence why it's mostly learned by things with horns or horn-like protrusions.
    • Throat Chop is "Hell Thrust" in Japanese. It is actually a piercing move that targets the opponent's neck, which is why armless Pokémon incapable of chopping could learn it, as they have sharp body parts that allow them to pierce things. It was most likely called that because it was Incineroar's Secret Art in SM.
    • Splash is "Hop" in Japanese and was called that because the only Pokémon who learned Splash in Generation I was Magikarp whose Pokédex entries said it could only splash around.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • Capturing wild Pokémon, especially legendaries. (Knocking them out is fairly easy; it's catching them alive that takes forever.) To explain this, each Pokémon species has a specific capture rate that affects the probability of snagging it with a given Poké Ball. Com Mons have a capture rate of 255, making them easy to catch. Meanwhile, most Legendary Pokémon have a capture rate of 3. Even after said Legendary Pokémon only have 1 HP as well as affected by status, the chance for catching them is still pretty slim.
  • The Safari Zone; every Pokémon encountered is willing to run away at the drop of a hat, and your strategic options are limited to either throwing rocks/mud, or throwing bait. Doing the former will make them easier to capture, but they will more likely to flee, while the latter option will cause them less likely to flee, but harder to catch. This is taken even further if you want a Lucky Egg. In FireRed/LeafGreen there is a 5% chance a Chansey in the Safari Zone will be holding it, and even catching one Chansey is brutal enough. Averted in ORAS wherein the Safari Zone allows you to get into regular Pokémon battles without the whole running away shenanigans.
  • Many of the Battle Frontier challenges, particularly the Battle Pike (where the whole purpose is to test the player's luck) and the Battle Palace (where Pokémon fight on their own, without commands from their Trainers). The Battle Factories of Hoenn and Sinnoh/Johto are also notable, as the selection of Pokémon offered to the player at the start of each challenge is randomized each time.
  • Factory Head Noland^note Presides over the aforementioned Battle Factory of Hoenn, Factory Head Thorton^note Presides over the aforementioned Battle Factory of Sinnoh, and Hall Matron Argenta all have randomized party Pokémon each time they are challenged, meaning that essentially any Pokémon (other than those^note Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Celebi, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Jirachi, Deoxys, Rotom (all Rotom forms except "Normal Rotom", Rotom's default form), Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Phione, Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus that are not admissible to the Battle Frontier, and excluding species that debut in subsequent generations) could appear as an opponent Pokémon. So not only is the player's team subject to luck, the opposing teams (and the difficulty of every battle with the aforementioned Frontier Brains) are as well.

M

• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Played straight in the anime, but lightly subverted here. The Revival Herb, an item that is purchasable from an herbal shop. It functions like Max Revive, which can't be found in stores. However, feeding a fainted Pokémon with it will reduces its happiness.
• Made of Explodium:
  • Several Pokémon can learn Self-Destruct and/or Explosion. Voltorb, Koffing, and Pineco in particular are known for this.
  • There's also the Aftermath ability, which makes the user explode when it faints, hurting any opponent that knocks it out with a move that makes contact. Voltorb is one of the few Pokémon that can have Aftermath.
• Magic Fire: Mystical Fire is a Fire-type move that was formally the Signature Move of Delphox that does damage and lowers the opponent's Special Attack by one stage.
• Mana: Each move's Power Points, or PP, effectively serve as this.
• Mana Potion: The rare Elixirs and Ethers restore PPs. Starting from Gen II the rare Mysteryberry were introduced. From Gen III onwards Leppa Berries were introduced.
• Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap: Traditionally, Elixirs and Ethers cannot be bought, and are only found lying on the ground. If they can be obtained otherwise, it's only in the Playable Epilogue, and only at the Battle Tower. Potions, however, are abundant. Averted with the introduction of Leppa Berries, depending on how easy it is to plant and harvest them for more.
• Magic Potion: The various Potions are the series' primary healing item, coming in regular, Super, Hyper and Max varieties — each kind refills more hit points; the Max kind completely restores the health bar. You cannot make them yourself, and must purchase them from shops. Unlike most examples, the Potions come in spray-bottle form and are applied to the Mons by their Trainer; it's even noted in-game that the Mons can't use man-made healing items, though they can hold on to a variety of Berries for similar effects.
• Magnetism Manipulation:
  • Magnetism is used in a couple of moves. Magnet Bomb is a Steel-type move that never misses, and Magnet Rise uses electromagnetism to make a Pokémon float above the ground, rendering it immune to Ground-type moves for five turns.
  • The item "Magnet" increases the power of Electric moves by 20%.
  • Many species of Pokémon such as Magnemite and its evolutions use magnetism to move around. Some of those species also have the ability "Magnet Pull", which prevents Steel-type opponents from escaping the battle in any way.
  • Certain Pokémon (two-thirds of whom can have the ability Magnet Pull) can evolve by leveling up in areas with a special magnetic field, such as the ones present in Mt. Coronet or Chargestone Cave.
  • There's also the move "Magnetic Flux", which raises the defenses of any allied Pokémon with the "Plus" or "Minus" abilities.
• Man on Fire: Getting burned inflicts steady damage and cripples most physical attackers. However, Guts users' attack is instead boosted while afflicted by status conditions, so beware of Infernal Retaliation.
• Martial Artists Are Always Barefoot: Trainers that specialize in Fighting-type Pokémon often go barefoot, including the common Black Belts, Bruno, Chuck, andMaylene, Marshal, and Bea.
• Mascot: Pikachu is the mascot of the Pokémon franchise across almost all the media.
• Master of None: A number of Pokémon have base stats that are evened out.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The majority of the Gym Leaders in the games have them. Just guess which elements these guys specialize in: Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, Falkner, Bugsy, Brawly, Wattson, Candice, Clay…the list goes on.
  • Most Pokémon names are Portmanteaus or puns. The translations try to match this by creating equivalents that Western audiences will appreciate.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: In much of competitive play, many Pokémon that focus on the move Baton Pass have a tendency to be this, often using Substitute for endurance purposes and status buffs in hopes of lasting long enough to pass the status buffs on to the next Pokémon. Pokémon given these movesets are often passed up outside competitive play, as it's faster and easier to just mow through the in-game opponents with high-leveled Pokémon and more conventional strategies.
• The Medic:
  • Any Pokémon with the move Wish can potentially be this, though the effectiveness varies based on the user's HP stat. In addition, the moves Aromatherapy and Heal Bell cure the entire party of status ailments, and the move Heal Pulse lets the user heal any Pokémon but itself (which is useless in single battles, where the only other target is the opponent).
  • Pokémon with the Healer ability can cure their allies of status conditions.
  • Prior to Generation VII, the moves Softboiled and Milk Drink could be used outside of battle to transfer some of the user's HP to other teammates. Once you've done that, you can just fight a random wild Pokémon and use the move to restore the original Pokémon's HP.
• MegaCorp: A few big-name businesses exist in the world of Pokémon.
  • Gen 1: Silph Company.
  • Gen 3: Devon Corporation and the (defunct) Mauville Corporation.
  • Gen 5: Game Freak Incorporated.
  • Gen 6: The unnamed company that built the Poké Ball Factory in the Kalos Region.
  • Gen 8: Macro Cosmos, a massive business conglomerate with no less then 14 business subsidiaries ranging from transportation, media, finances, and energy production. Its president, Rose, is also the chairman of the Galar Pokémon League.
• Meta Power: The Disable move prevents the opposing Pokémon from using one of their moves. Only one move can be disabled at a time, and in the first generation the move is chosen at random, while in all subsequent generations it affects the last move the target used, failing if they haven't used one yet.
• Metamorphosis Monster:
  • Quite a few Pokémon do this while evolving. The most obvious example is Magikarp to Gyarados (small carp to sea serpent), but there are others, such as Vibrava to Flygon (lacewing to dragon) and Feebas to Milotic (fish to elegant-looking sea serpent).
  • Many of these Pokémon's real-life counterparts undergo a similar transformation. Flygon, for example, is based off of an adult antlion, so it's only natural that its base form, Trapinch, would look so different.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack:
  • One of the rarest, most powerful moves available to the rarest type is the Dragon-type move, Draco Meteor. It summons a barrage of meteors to devastate an opponent, with a base power of 130^note 140 before Generation VI with a drawback of harshly lowering the user's Special Attack. No Pokémon can learn it naturally, it has to be taught by a special tutor found in the game-world, making it something of an Infinity +1 Sword.
  • Rayquaza also brings some of these along while smashing down to earth with its Draco Ascent move in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • Many Pokémon qualify, but the legendary Pokémon Regice gets bonus points for being a literal glacier. It's a very large chunk of sentient ice that's vaguely human-shaped. It also fits this trope, having pretty good 100 Special attack and phenomenal 200 Special defense but a low speed of 50.
  • The attack Body Press is unique in how it operates, being a physical attack that calculates damage from the Defense stat of the user rather than the user's Attack^*However, Attack modifiers from a held item, Ability or the burn status still apply while Defense modifiers such as Fur Coat and the Eviolite do not apply when calculating damage. This allows Pokémon with high Defense and low Attack to effectively become this trope with these new offensive options without needing to focus on their Attack stat.
  • Avalugg also qualifies, being a living ice creature with great Attack and Defense stats, but it's pitifully slow.
• Mimic Species: There are numerous species that make use of mimicry:
  • Mimikyu is a ghost Pokémon that conceals its true form (that acts as a Brown Note to anyone unfortunate to see it) with old merchandise to take advantage of Pikachu's popularity.
  • An example in hindsight can be found in Sudowoodo, a rock-type Pokémon that disguises itself as a tree. When the actual tree-like Trevenant was introduced later, it was possible to see a Sudowoodo in a horde of Trevenant in Kalos.
  • The Pokémon Lurantis is based on the famous orchid mantis, except it actually is an orchid flower pretending to be a mantis that imitates an orchid flower.
• Minigame Zone:
  • The Game Corners are shops where players could visit and play Pokémon-themed casino games, like Slots and Roulette to earn a currency called Coins, which could be traded in to get prizes like TMs and rare Pokémon. This ended after Generation IV due to changes in the PEGI ratings system banning simulated gambling in games, which stopped Game Corners from appearing in future games and caused the Mauville Game Corner in Generation VI to shut down.
  • The Dream World was an online browser game accessed through the Pokémon Global Link service where Pokémon from Black, White, Black 2, and White 2 could be sent to to befriend Pokémon not normally found in Unova, as well as being able to find Pokémon with special moves or Hidden Abilities. This was done by playing minigames with them, and if the player succeeded at the minigame, they could take the befriended Pokémon back to their Gen V game, where they could catch it and add it to their collection. After X and Y released, this was shut down in favor of the PokéMileage Club.
  • The PokéMileage Club is the Generation VI successor to the Dream World, as it is also a Minigame Zone accessed through the Global Link. By transferring PokéMiles earned in your Gen VI game to the Global Link, you can spend said PokéMiles to play "Attractions" for a chance at winning items. Items earned from here range from Shop Fodder to common items you can find ingame, to rare items you won't be able to find anywhere else, and on occasion, the very rare PP Maxes, Enigma Berries, or even Master Balls.
• Minimalistic Cover Art: The main games all feature a single Pokémon on their covers, known as a "game mascot" and later "box legendary" among the fandom. Gen I had starter Pokémon (Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise and Pikachu), while later games all feature Legendary Pokémon.
• Miss Conception: Somehow the couple running the day care don't know where the eggs keep coming from. But with some of the combinations of Pokémon who can breed, it's hard to blame them.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Especially plant-animal hybrids.
• Mixed Animal Species Team: The main games are about the human player collecting the different kinds of Pokémon and adding them to his/her roster.
• Model Museum: The explicit purpose of Pokédex 3D Pro, which allows you to view every Pokémon from throughout the series up to and including Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. Features include being able to watch each mon perform numerous animations, check their types and descriptions, sort and search through them, and even take quizzes on them.
  • The original Pokédex 3D also counts, though it's limited to the mons included in Pokémon Black and White and doesn't have as many features.
• Mon Tech:
  • The Pokémon Storage System is used by Trainers to hold the Pokémon they can't fit in their party due to being limited to six. It stores and transmits them as data, which allows for easy management. They have an admin to ensure everything is running fine within every Region. Titles starting from Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee allow the player to access the Storage system from anywhere as opposed to primarily from Pokémon Centers.
  • Technical Machines or TMs are discs used to teach Pokémon moves.
• Money for Nothing:
  • Especially in the later games, you can make tens of thousands of dollars just fighting your stock trainers and being conservative with your cash, but there's rarely anything worth spending it on aside from vitamins, which are a bit pricey at 9,800 Pokédollars, but you'll still have plenty of cash to buy them in bulk.
  • The Generation V games added more Shop Fodder items with no purpose but to be sold for cash, and added special "item maniac" characters who will pay double the price for particular items. The Abyssal Ruins alone have over a million dollars worth of loot in them.
  • Generation VI zigzags this. There are facilities that will charge six-figure sums for their services, but once again, the game will be throwing high battle winnings at you, and those facilities that charge six-figure sums pit you against trainers and/or have valuable items as rewards, allowing you to make your money back from them and then some. At higher levels of the Battle Chateau, you can walk in and throw away five hundred thousand dollars at the front door, then wander the mansion battling rich trainers and eventually leave with well over a million in your pocket.
• Money Multiplier:
  • The Amulet Coin and Luck Incense items double the amount of money gained from defeating Trainers.
  • The move Pay Day also grants Trainers an additional amount of money each time it is used, with the awarded amount of coins being based off of the level of the Pokémon using the move. During Generations 1 and 2, the amount of money scattered was two times the user's level. From Generation 3 onwards, the multiplier was increased, so that the money received per use is now five times the user's level.
  • Pass Powers, introduced in Generation V, and the Prize Money O-Power from Generation VI, include increasing the reward money from winning Trainer battles. There's also the event-exclusive move Happy Hour, which doubles earnings for that battle and stacks with the other methods.
• Mons: Somewhere between the Trope Namer and Trope Codifier.
• Mons as Characterization: Type specialists will often have characters that tie into the type they specializes in, for example Fighting-type specialist Bruno is a super-jacked martial artist and Psychic-type specialist Sabrina has psychic powers herself.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: Tate and Liza are twins who are able to psychically communicate with each other and specialize in the Psychic-type. They face you as a tag-team in a double Gym Battle, and their signature mons are Solrock and Lunatone, two closely associated Pokémon based on the sun and the moon respectively.
  • Pokémon Black and White:
    • Clay is a Ground-type Gym Leader who also works a second job as a the head of a gem mining company. His Signature Mon Excadrill is a giant mole with drills for hands.
    • N believes that keeping Pokémon in Pokéballs is abhorrent. As a result, he uses a different team every time he battles you, and his team is made up exclusively of Pokémon found in that area. This implies that he likely caught his entire team minutes beforehand for the sole purpose of battling you, then releases them after you beat him.
  • Pokémon Conquest:
    • The Hero of the story starts out with an Eevee as a partner, reflecting their flexible potential. Their Rank III partner can potentially be Arceus, continuing the trend.
    • Toyotomi Hideyoshi's partner being the Chimchar line is based on him being nicknamed kozaru, or little monkey. A Wi-Fi event allows him to partner with Reshiram, the counterpart to Nobunaga's Zekrom, which alludes to him becoming Nobunaga's historical successor.
    • Nobunaga's initial partner is Hydreigon, reflecting his Demon King Nobunaga reputation.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus: Volo uses a team that's almost identical to that of his descendent Cynthia in Pokémon Platinum. However, his Signature Mon is the peaceful Fairy/Flying type Togekiss while Cynthia's is the violent Dragon/Ground type Garchomp, with Fairy-types being a counter to Dragon-types and Flying-types being a counter to Ground-types. One of the Pokémon found on Cynthia's Platinum team, the Water-type Milotic, is not available in the Hisui dex, so Volo has it replaced with a Fire/Rock-type Hisuian Arcanine. This alludes to how Volo is the Big Bad of his game while Cynthia was the Big Good of hers.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Arven, who is a talented cook who is seeking cooking ingredients, gradually builds up a Pokémon team based around food products and cooking, such as Garganacl (based off of salts) and Scovillain (based around the pepper).
• Monster Modesty: Many humanoid Pokémon subvert this by appearing to be wearing clothes for our benefit, when they're actually a natural part of their biology. A good example of this is Machoke and Machamp; they are wearing belts, but the "underwear" are just markings on their skin.
• Mood Whiplash: The dex entry for Swampert in FireRed/LeafGreen: "Its arms are rock-hard. With one swing they can batter down its foe. It makes its nests at beautiful beaches."
• Mook Chivalry:
  • Despite being criminals, all the members of the evil organizations, from the lowest grunt to its boss, will still award you money when you beat them. In addition, they very rarely gang up on you.
  • This is implied in regards to the Pokémon themselves; accuracy and evasion checks aside, battling Pokémon will always take their opponents’ attacks head-on. Translating this to the anime has led to Trainers needing to verbally tell their Pokémon to dodge an incoming attack.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: Some of the Gym puzzles, and the Trick House in the third generation.
• More Diverse Sequel: The main series games. Initially, the regions were based on various parts of Japan, resulting in a mostly pale and homogeneously Japanese-ish cast with some one-off Ambiguously Brown characters like Phoebe from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
  • Starting from Pokémon Black and White (which is set in the setting's equivalent of the USA, and suitably features a larger range of skintones for its NPCs to match the US's status of a melting pot), there have been more characters who evoke real-world minorities or are just Ambiguously Brown; from those games, Lenora is the setting's equivalent of black, and Iris is the latter.
  • Pokémon X and Y introduced Character Customization, which allows the player to be darker-skinned.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon is set in the setting's equivalent of Hawaii/Polynesia, and many NPCs are suitably some variation of brown.
  • Later games have also made it a point to make characters from the first four regions (Valerie, Kabu) distinctly Asian-inspired, which makes them stand out as minorities in diverse settings.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Whenever you have to backtrack far, the wild mons hit this. "Oh my, a Level 5 Caterpie. Do your thing, Level 62 Charizard."
    • Although in some games, it can basically get subverted, you can run into a situation where you think it's yet another low-level mon and instead it's a roaming legendary.
  • Also, grinding early on makes for funny situations. You can also skip some early Trainers, who then say that you look pretty easy and challenge you, only to find that you have a team of Level 100's.
  • In games where you can have your Pokémon follow you (In HeartGold and SoulSilver and Pokémon Sword and Shield, it's the first Pokémon in your party, while in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, you freely choose your Pokémon) around on the overworld, outside of its Pokéball. This trope approaches Too Dumb to Live levels when Youngster Joey decides to take on you and your Olympus Mons.
  • Though since the Pokémon universe runs on Defeat Means Friendship, this trope could arguably be justified as a way of trying to make (powerful) new friends.
• Multiform Balance: A number of Pokémon have various forms with differing distributions of stats, moves, or typing. Some of them can be changed outside battle, in battle, or require a held item. Each form's stats/typings/moves tends to contrast with the others (e.g. Deoxys Attack Forme is a Glass Cannon, Defense Forme is a Stone Wall, while Speed Forme is a Fragile Speedster), allowing them to perform their role differently.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal:
  • One of the best examples out there. The various Mons appeal to Japan and the Western world, as well as girls and boys. The gameplay appeals to both casual gamers who play simple games and hardcore, competitive gamers who try to understand deeper strategies used to take down the opponent.
  • It also appeals to multiple age groups as there are games designed for older players such as Pokémon GO (to get the most out of the game, the player needs to travel without parental supervision and have a disposable income) and Pokkén Tournament (a hardcore Fighting Game for the Fighting Game Community), and games designed for younger children such as Pokémon Playhouse: an app designed for 3-5 year olds with no fighting whatsoever: the app consists of playing simple games and hatching Pokémon eggs.
• Multiple Head Case: Not many Pokémon have multiple heads, but some of those that do fall under this. Dodrio, Zweilous, Binacle, and Exeggutor are all examples (though Exeggutor's heads don't argue between themselves). Barbaracle goes a step further, with a grand total of seven heads (four of which serve as its arms and legs).
• Multiple Reference Pun: In Generation I, Tri Attack fired a triangle-shaped projectile. In Gen II it became a Fire, Ice, Lightning tri-elemental attack that could burn, paralyze and freeze. In Gen III and beyond, it now creates a triangular field of elemental energy. And for a third pun, aside from Genesect and the Porygon line, the only Pokémon to learn it now are Dugtrio, Magneton, Doduo, Dodrio, and Hydreigon — namely, Pokémon with three heads.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: Many species have multiple tails, such as Vulpix (six), Ninetales (obvious), and Tauros (three). Espeon has a forked tail with two tips, as do Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. Buizel and Floatzel have two (they even use them as propellers), as well as Ambipom and Electivire. There are also some ambiguous cases, such as Grovyle (which has branching fern leaves for a tail) and Suicune (which has two ribbons for a tail).
• Mundane Utility:
  • A common thing throughout all adaptions of the franchise is how Pokémon moves and abilities can often be used for mundane tasks. For example, certain Pokémon will be used to help with tasks such as construction, guarding, or food production, Fire types can help blow glass or cook, Water-type Pokémon make good firefighters, etc.
  • In the anime and most manga, most Grass-type Pokémon will always have Vine Whip in their move sets. In the games, it's a 35 power move most people will quickly sack once they get a better Grass move, but in other media, it's very versatile. Most will use it as an extra set of hands (or as hands in the first place if they don't have any to begin with), can extend it out as a rope to catch others or cross gaps, use it to make pictures as to better communicate with others, and so on and so forth.
• Mushroom Man: Shroomish, Breloom, Foongus, Amoongus, Morelull, and Shiinotic.
• My Nayme Is: Names like "Feraligatr", "Victreebel", and "Cofagrigus" were likely artificially shortened from their natural forms ("Feraligator", "Victreebell", and "Cophagrigus") due to a 10-character limit on names in the games. However, as a result, all official media goes by the constrained names instead of dismissing the shortening as a trick of the game device. Even X and Y, which added 2 more letters to the name limit, hasn't affected the names of the aforementioned Pokémon, most likely because it would be too much of a hassle to re-apply for Trademarks.
• Mysterious Purple: The Ghost type is assigned purple in the franchise's Color-Coded Elements, several Ghost-type Pokémon incorporate purple in their designs, and Ghost-type specialists tend to wear a lot of purple. Ghost-types are otherworldly and unknown, and feature frequently in hauntings, mysteries, and legends throughout the various games.
• Mythology Gag: Some recurring gameplay elements that exist for no particular reason — a Bug-type Pokémon that evolves at a low level, a three-stage Normal/Flying bird Pokémon in starting locations, a regional Normal-type rodent, Pikachu stand-in, etc.

N

• Nemesis Weapon: The player and the rival will take starters from the same lab who are usually their most powerful and reliable Pokémon. Starters are not found in the wild, have above average abilities overall, as well as access to a few unique powerful moves. Some adaptations make a plot point that both The Hero and The Rival's 'mon of choice were raised together as friends before the two kids pit them against each other. That and the rival always takes the one that has a natural advantage over yours.
• Nerf:
  • In between the strengthening of the types that were already strong against it, the decreased proliferation of the types that are weak against it, the creation of two advantageous types (Dark and Steel), and the ease of finding Dark-type moves, the formerly game-breaking Psychic type is now much more balanced.
  • Up through Generation IV, Self-Destruct and Explosion actually inflicted double their stated attack power because they secretly reduced the opponent's Defense by half. This has been changed as of Gen V, likely due in part to the introduction of Triple Battles, where this could be extremely centralizing, even more so than it already was in Double Battles.
  • invokedWord of God says that the Fairy-type was made specifically to balance the Dragon-types. Dragons were originally meant to be a rare Infinity +1 Element with the best type matchups, but as new dragons were introduced later, they grew so much in power as to be game-breaking juggernauts. To counter this, the Fairy-type was made to have a huge type advantage over dragons, much as the Dark-type had over Psychics in Generation 2. Meanwhile, the Steel-type was defensively nerfed by removing key resistances to Ghost and Dark in exchange for strength against Fairy-types.
  • A good deal of Special-oriented moves had their power reduced in X and Y, including Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt, as well as their stronger counterparts. Meteor Mash also got hit with this, as while its shaky accuracy was moved to a more acceptable 90%, its power got cut down from 100 to 90.
  • Two particular Game Breakers were nerfed in Sun and Moon to the point of becoming absolutely useless. Gale Wings, an ability that makes all Flying-type moves go before other moves, was nerfed to make it only function while the user is at full HP^note note that its user is a Glass Cannon who utilizes a lot of Cast from Hit Points moves and is extremely Vulnerable to Stealth Rock, meaning that it's almost never at full HP. Dark Void, the Secret Art of Darkrai (which could be copied by Smeargle), was changed to only function when Darkrai uses it and has significantly reduced accuracy (going from being the second-best sleep-inducing move to being the absolute worst (only the one-hit KO moves have worse accuracy)).
    • To elaborate on Dark Void and Smeargle, it was one of the very few cases of a Nerf because a strategy was overpowered and overused: after players realized they could use Dark Void without its original user in their Gen IV debut, Dark Void Smeargle ran rampant in the newly-introduced online battles to the point where the move had to be made illegal on Smeargle in Gen V. The restriction was lifted in Gen VI under the pretense that players had a lot of new toys to play with, but this didn't help as much as they'd hoped, and so Gen VII made Dark Void learnable but unusable by Smeargle (and made it outrageously unreliable for good measure).
  • Sword and Shield cut many moves from the previous generations such as Toxic Thread, Return and Frustration, though the DLCs restored several such as Shadow Bone and Aeroblast. Scarlet and Violet cut even more moves such as Aromatherapy and Rock Wrecker. Some moves such as Corrosive Gas are programmed in, but can only be called by Metronome.
• Never Bring A Knife To A Fistfight: Combat Pragmatist Dark-types are weak to Fighting-type attacks.
• Newbie Immunity: A general rule of thumb for the games is that while the first battle can be lost, instead of whiting out and losing money like what normally happens after losing a battle, the plot will continue on as normal, with the exception of the first generation.
• New Skill as Reward: Sometimes you'll get a TM (i.e. an item that teaches a Pokémon a new ability) as a reward for a quest. One example is getting the Dig TM in Pokémon Red and Blue for dealing with a Team Rocket member who stole the TM from a man's house. HM Moves always have unlimited uses while TM Moves in the first four generations could only be used once before being gone for good until becoming unlimited use in Generation 5.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: A good chunk of the games released since Pokémon X and Y have made a point of consistently reusing the same 3D models for the Pokémon and simply adding new models when new Pokémon are added, then subsequently reusing those models in later installments. Both Generation VII and Generation VIII reuse the 3DS models, as do Pokémon Masters and Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX.
• Night and Day Duo:
  • Espeon and Umbreon were introduced in the second generation to show off the new day/night feature. Both evolve from an Eevee that has high happiness, but Espeon evolves during the day and Umbreon during the night. For further contrast, Espeon is a Psychic-Type, and Umbreon a Dark-Type.
  • Lunatone and Solrock are, as their name implies, living stones based on the sun and the moon. They are believed to be meteorites, though this is unproven. Solrock is said to absorb energy from the sun while Lunatone is most powerful during the full moon. Finally, they are version counterparts, with Solrock being in Ruby and Lunatone in Sapphire.
  • Fittingly for the games Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, their main legendaries are based on the sun and the moon. Both evolve from a nebula Pokémon called Cosmoem, with their final form based on the game. Sun/Ultra Sun has Solgaleo, a white sun-lion, while Moon/Ultra Moon has blue moon-bat Lunala.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • Meet Blaziken, the giant kickboxing fire chicken. Or Garchomp, the dragon jet-plane Land Shark. Or Tropius, the flying dinosaur with palm-leaf wings and bananas growing from its chin. Or Flygon, the antlion dragon. Yup.
  • Scyther. Human-sized mantis ninja raptor with scythes for arms.
  • In Generation V, we have Emboar, the professional wrestling pig with a beard of fire, and Genesect, a prehistoric Cyborg bug that can fly using its laser cannon as a Jet Pack.
  • Vespiquen, a combination of a bee and a battleship with a touch of European royalty.
  • Sharpedo, a torpedo shark that evolves from a piranha.
  • Blastoise, the water jet cannon tortoise.
  • Deoxys, a humanoid alien personification of DNA.
  • Dewott is a samurai otter that evolves into a samurai sea lion.
  • The three starters of Generation VI. Chesnaught, the chestnut hedgehog knight. Delphox, the flaming oracle fennec fox. Greninja, the water ninja frog.
  • Slurpuff, a meringue/pudding/cupcake puppy fairy.
  • Scraggy and Scrafty, urban-gangster lizards.
  • Cacturne, a humanoid cactus scarecrow.
  • Dragapault, a prehistoric stealth bomber ghost dragon that launches its babies like missiles.
• No Biological Sex: Most Legendary Pokémon and a couple regularly found Pokémon. Most genderless Pokémon seem to be quite powerful, however. And sometimes fan-viewed gender on Pokémon are accepted by the fandom at large to be correct (Meloetta is female, Mewtwo is male, etc.).
• No Fair Cheating:
  • General:
    • Newer Pokémon games implement methods to keep players from either transferring severely hacked (as in modified stats and illegitimate Abilities) Pokémon between games or from using them in things like Colosseums and the Battle Frontier. They don't seem to have found a way to do this for illegitimate move sets yet, though.
    • Pokémon Bank's side app, Poké Transporter, will not send over any pokémon that fails its hack checks. Unfortunately, there were cases where legitimate event mons were seen as hacked.
    • Cheating is now also harder because patches can be released to update software and patch previously used exploits. In one case, players were induced to update their system and close the exploit that was allowing genning Pokémon via QR codes, because the update patch for the game itself was in the eShop. In order to go online and get it, a system update was required. Not updating blocks any online play.
    • Most Pokémon games use the actual time on the system clock to determine certain events, like NPCs who will help you once daily, items that respawn, weather in the Wild Area in Pokémon Sword and Shield, etc. If the games notice you changing the clock, they'll cancel all daily events for a while. (There's an exploit in Sword and Shield that partially prevents this though.)
    • Using a cheat device on the DS titles would lock them out from participating in official Nintendo-sanctioned tournaments.
  • Generation 1 and their remakes:
    • It's impossible to transfer a Mew that was created with a glitch from the Virtual Console Generation 1 games or the Coin Case glitch in Generation 2 games into Pokémon Bank, unless you go through a really elaborate process or soft resetting your Trainer ID to be 22796 with the name GF before you obtained the Mew.
    • In Pokemon FireRed And LeafGreen, if you hack Mew or Deoxys into the game to skip having to need the events for them, since they don't get a special flag otherwise, they will disobey your every command. Downplayed in the sense that the anti-cheat measure only worked if you directly hacked them into your game. Hacking to teleport to their location and catching them there wouldn't.
  • Generation 2 and their remakes:
    • In just Pokémon Gold and Silver, Clair will call you out if you obtain a Dragon Fang before challenging and defeating her, and will also hold on to her Rising Badge until you get the Dragon Fang in-game.
      Clair: You did not get that at Dragon's Den. Trying to cheat like that... I'm disappointed in you.
    • In Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, if you use a Walk Through Walls cheat code to walk through the Safari Zone Gate without going through reception first, the Safari Zone will be reduced to six plain squares and the only Pokémon you encounter are Level 20 Rattata. Strangely, the encounters are treated like regular ones instead of Safari Zone encounters.
  • Generation 3 and their remakes:
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: These games introduced the "Bad EGG" anti-cheat measurement. Apart from Emerald where it can spawn from doing the Pomeg glitch, it only shows up if you do things such as alter IVs, give illegal movesets or steal other trainers' Pokémon (all of which are impossible without a cheating device) then a "Bad EGG" will often spawn (usually in place of that stolen mon). This thing is just a useless egg that when it hatches will cause your game to crash. It also occasionally duplicates itself, overwriting other pokémon. Since it's an egg, you can't get rid of it, and cheating to get rid of it often just made things worse. Finally, anytime you restart with it spawned; especially after the aforementioned crash, you will often find your data corrupted and forced to restart.
  • Generation 4 and their remakes:
    • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl: This is the reason why Diamond and Pearl never got Oak's Letter or the Member Card released for the Shaymin and Darkrai events. Players were getting them all the time through tweaking and surf glitch, so Game Freak just gave out events by wi-fi instead. Also, getting Shaymin by the glitch methods doesn't trigger the fateful encounter flag, so you can't get the Gracidea flower to change its form.
    • Pokémon Battle Revolution: Used the statbreaker glitch to hack your mons' stats or imported obviously hacked pokémon? Then in Battle Revolution, all those pokémon are now just Bad Eggs, essentially making them useless for the game. They only go away once the offending Pokémon has left the DS game and its stock is reuploaded.
  • Generation 5:
    • From this generation onwards, the Wonder Card system ensures that hacked items or pokémon have to be triggered by a flag in the data before they'll work, making your 900 Liberty Passes with the '900 of all items' Action Replay code useless. Same thing with the event pokémon, since the game won't recognize them as the Pokémon they're supposed to be.
    • Despite all Pokémon being released now, using a code to fill in your Pokédex will still block you from the Global Link in Generation 5.
  • Generation 6:
    • Pokémon X and Y: Any attempt to import a Pokémon with an unreleased ability into the game will result in the ability defaulting back to the regular ability after bringing it into the game/hatching it.
    • Anything created with Powersaves, the sixth gen GameShark device, will only be tradable if it's within legal parameters. This includes stats, moves, shininess, or unreleased Pokémon or items. Oddly enough, illegal movesets are not checked for, only illegal moves, and legality does not appear to be considered for all of the aforementioned factors at the same time, so a Shiny Pikachu that knows Fly, Surf, and Volt Tackle at the same time (which was flat-out impossible for the moveset until Gen VII, and is still flat-out impossible for a Shiny Pikachu as of writing) is considered tradable.
  • Generation 7:
    • Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon: Game Sync allowed Game Freak to detect things like unreleased items or the sole unreleased Pokémon, Marshadow, and players got banned from online events and battling for it. Also, Game Freak seems to be targeting giveaways on the GTS, banning players for trading too many Pokémon too fast. Sadly, a few innocents got caught up in the bans but couldn't get the problem fixed any sooner than the pre-determined ban length.
  • Others:
    • Pokémon Shuffle Mobile will not allow you to access ranked events if your device is rooted (Android) or jailbroken (iOS).
    • Attempt to use GPS spoofing in Pokémon GO^note that is, trick the game into thinking you're somewhere you're not and this will result in an hour-long ban—but this isn't a typical ban in that it will not lock you out of the game. Instead, you're denied access to PokéStops and gyms, and wild Pokémon will always run away from you. This was later changed so that GPS spoofing will result in a proper, typical ban. (Rooted and jailbroken users are also denied access to the game, leading to the creation of patches to fix the problem.) Of course, players have figured out this can be bypassed by teleporting back home after engaging the Pokémon but before catching it. There were also cases of people using cars and public transportation to hatch eggs at a quick rate instead of actually walking to do it. Niantic countered the exploit by disabling the tracker that counts your steps, which means eggs and any achievements/activities related to distance walked would be halted until you started walking again. Likewise, the tracker won't count your steps if all you're doing is walking in circles around your house; you actually have to walk a good distance for the game to count your steps.
• No Fourth Wall:
  • In the beginning, pre-Generation VIII, the game's respective Pokémon professor prompts you to choose a character/name.
  • If you collect every Pokémon, the developers personally congratulate you.
  • Other NPCs will teach you how to use the interface.
• No-Harm Requirement: The best way to ensure the capture of a Pokémon is by weakening them to improve their catch rate. However, for some reason, Pokémon can't be caught if they're outright K.O'd. Therefore, it's most effective for players to use more reserved tactics like set damage moves and moves that induce a status ailment to catch the Pokémon without risk of fully defeating them. The moves False Swipe and Hold Back were even made specifically for this purpose, since they will leave the target's health at 1 HP when they would otherwise make it faint, which is useful for whittling a wild Pokémon's health down.
• Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack:
  • From Pokémon Red and Blue onwards:
    • Growl: Lowers Attack.
    • Tail Whip: Lowers Defense.
  • From Pokémon Gold and Silver onwards: Attract, which only works when used by gendered Pokémon of the opposite gender, to infatuate them and reduce the chances that they're able to attack.
  • From Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire onwards, there's:
    • Odor Sleuth, which removes the effects of Evasion Status Buffs and allow Normal and Fighting attacks to hit Ghost-types.
    • Will-O-Wisp, which inflicts the Damage Over Time status, "Burn".
  • Pokémon Emerald has the only instance where one of these can inflict Frozen, and it's technically an event, not a battle. In the Battle Pike, A Gentleman's Dusclops can run up and try to freeze your Pokémon with an "Ice Beam", although not dealing the damage of a regular one. The Trainer claims it's easily startled due to its Timid nature.
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl: Darkrai's Dark Void, which has a 80% sleep chance on its targets.
  • Pokémon Black and White: "Bestow" gives the attacker's held item to the target, provided the attacker's not carrying Mail or some other special items.
  • Pokémon X and Y: Klefki's Fairy Lock attack stops all Pokémon from leaving the battle for a turn, unless they faint or by moves/items that cause it.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon: The Spinarak line's new signature move, Toxic Thread, which inflicts poison and lowers Speed by one stage.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield: Grapploct's Octolock:
    The user locks the target in and prevents it from fleeing. This move also lowers the target's Defense and Sp. Def every turn.
  • Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, have an Anti-Debuff move called "Shadow Shed", which works as a non-damaging Defog (Safeguard and Mist clearer) and Brick Break (shield clearer) simultaneously, and has a single PP which never runs out. The only downsides are that [A] it's a Shadow move, and [B] it hits your group as well.
  • Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness: Only Shadow Moves are unique in this game. Some that count for this are:
    • Shadow Down: lowers opponents' Defense by 2 stages.
    • Shadow Mist: lowers opponents' evasion by 2 stages.
    • Shadow Hold: Prevents both foes from switching out.
    • Shadow Panic: Confuse all foes.
    • Shadow Sky: Damage Over Time for non-Shadow Pokémon for 5 turns.

• No-Sell:
  • Certain types are completely immune to others. Ghost-types are immune to Fighting- and Normal-type moves (Normal-types are also immune to Ghost-type moves), Flying-types are immune to Ground-types, Ground-types are immune to Electric-types, Dark-types are immune to Psychic-types, Steel-types are immune to Poison-types, and Fairy-types are immune to Dragon-types.
  • Some types are also immune to status conditions or certain kinds of moves: Fire-types cannot be burned, Ice-types cannot be frozen, Poison- and Steel-types can't be poisoned, Electric-types can't be paralyzed. Additionally, Grass-types are immune to powder-based moves (which all inflict Status Effects) and Ghost-types are immune to moves that trap the opponent in the arena.
  • Quite a few abilities enable Pokémon to No-Sell various types or moves. For example, Levitate blocks Ground-type moves, Soundproof blocks sound-based moves, abilities like Flash Fire or Water Absorb absorb certain types of moves to provide a buff, Clear Body prevents your stats from being lowered, Cloud Nine negates weather conditions... There's a lot of these.
  • Wonder Guard completely blocks any attack that does not deal super-effective damage. It sounds very powerful, but it's balanced by only being available on Shedinja, a One-Hit-Point Wonder that will faint to any successful attack or residual damage from Status Effects.
  • Unaware makes a Pokémon ignores any stat changes in the opposing Pokémon.
  • There are tons of ways to No-Sell things in Pokémon, but there are also some ways to No-Sell the No-Sell. One of the more prominent is the ability Mold Breaker, which allows your moves to bypass abilities that would normally result in a No-Sell (a Ground-type move would be able to hit something with Levitate, for example). Mold Breaker cannot overcome type immunities, however, so that Ground-type move would still have no effect on a Flying-type Pokémon.
  • The moves Foresight and Odor Sleuth, as well as the Scrappy ability, enable Normal- and Fighting-type attacks to strike Ghosts, which are normally immune to those elements. Likewise, Miracle Eye enables Psychic moves to hit Dark-types, and the moves Gravity and Smack Down allow Ground attacks to strike Flying-types.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • The move Double Slap can hit up to five times. It's a dub-induced thing; the original Japanese name is Round Trip Slap.
  • Mr. Mime can be female. Again, it's a translation thing: Barrierd is its Japanese name, from 'barrier'. Also, in Gen I, when it was introduced, only the Nidoran line had gender. Game Freak knew the male name would come back to bite them, according to one article, but used the name anyway.
  • Pokémon "evolution" has nothing to do with actual evolution (the change that occurs in the heritable characteristics of populations through the passing of genes over many generations) and is more similar to metamorphosis (a process in which an organism physically develops after birth involving abrupt changes in its appearance). Actual evolution is sometimes touched upon in Flavor Text, however, such as with Shellos/Gastrodon mentioning allopatric speciation as the cause of its different forms, and Archen/Archeops being considered the ancestor of all bird Pokémon.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Pokémon who have fainted are too weak to battle, but can still perform field moves such as Fly or Surf. Note that while death is not a gameplay mechanic, this does not mean Never Say "Die" is in place, as the mourners at Pokémon Tower Mausoleum can attest to.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Pokémon who have the ability appropriately called "Oblivious" are immune to the infatuation status effect and other effects that only work on Pokémon of the opposite gender.
• Not Drawn to Scale:
  • The sprites generally fall victim to this. For example, Bonsly (left) should be 1'8" and Sudowoodo (right) should be 3'11".◊ Averted by the console games.
  • Zig-Zagged in Generation VI. While a lot more Pokémon are drawn to scale, exceptionally big Pokémon like Wailord still look smaller than they should be.
• Notice This: Sometimes you may find a suspiciously empty spot in middle of tall grass or near it — that means there might be a hidden item there. Sometimes it's subverted when tall grass is on the spot with the hidden item. Also, many hidden items don't have hints like this.
• NPC Random Encounter Immunity: Averted, and still justified anyway. Wild Pokémon are said to only jump out at people who are carrying Pokémon with them... but everyone carries Pokémon with them, and the Trainers in each area will have level-appropriate mons with them.
• NPC Roadblock: The series even provides the page picture, rightfully so since this pops up all the time, and has not let up with age (in fact, it seems to be getting more common). All over the world, you'll find people who exist for no purpose but to not let you walk by them until you progress far enough in the plot, often for no good reason. Sometimes this is justified, like a power outage making an area dangerous to travel through, other times the NPC simply says "you should go do this!" (usually challenge a Gym Leader or talk to a plot-critical character) and won't let you by until you obey.
• Numerological Motif
  • This franchise uses the number 150 to refer to a number of species of Pokémon. Most notable in the original anime series, where they commonly say that there are 150 Pokémon. The 151st, Mew, was still excluded even after being introduced, most likely because it was a hard-to-obtain event Pokémon.
  • While this stops at Pokémon Gold and Silver, this number makes its return in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, where there are 150 Pokémon in its Sinnoh Dex (minus Manaphy). Platinum expanded the dex further with 59 more Pokémon, though.
    • Pokémon Black and White also has 150 Pokémon in its Unova dex (though excluding event and post-game Pokémon), though the number doubles in its sequels.
  • Double Subverted in Pokémon X and Y. While its dex has more than 400 Pokémon, it is categorised into the Central, Coastal and Mountain Dex, each containing 150 Pokémon. These do not include post-game Pokémon, though.
  • Also Double Subverted in Pokémon Sun and Moon. The Alolan Dex total has about twice the amount, but each of its island dexes has 150 entries of Pokémon.

O

• Obvious Rule Patch: Has its own page.

• Odd Organ Up Top: Binacle, introduced in Gen VI, looks like a pair of arms with faces on them stuck on a rock. Its evolution, Barbaracle, have those two Binacle multiply into seven and rearranged into a humanoid form (one in the middle as the head and thorax, four as limbs, and two as Vertical Mecha Fins). All of them have a mind of their own, but they usually follow the one in the middle. These designs are also invoked by the Japanese word for barnacle, kamenote, which means "turtle's hand."
• Old Save Bonus: Apart from the One Game for the Price of Two aspect which encourages interaction between two direct version counterparts, the games have often included ways of utilizing Pokémon from previously-released games.
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver had the Time Capsule function, allowing you to link with the first-generation games. Unlike later transfer features, this was a two-way trade; thus, not only could you bring Pokémon forward from the previous games to get ones you couldn't get before, you could also send Pokémon back to the old games, even allowing them to have moves they couldn't originally have (at least if those moves existed in the previous games). Also, even though Red and Blue didn't have gender, held items, split Special stats, or Shiny Pokémon, trading Pokémon forward to Gen II would give them those qualities while there.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire didn't allow trading with the previous games owing to hardware and game system limitations. However, it introduced the concept of the Regional and National Pokédexes, since the third generation was the first to have multiple sets of games taking place in different regions. At first, the player would only have the Regional dex, cataloging only Pokémon that could be found in that particular region — but eventually, the player would be able to upgrade to the National dex, being able to log every Pokémon. In Ruby and Sapphire, the National Dex was awarded immediately upon trading with FireRed and LeafGreen, while in Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen, it was obtained by beating the game, though in the latter pair trading with the Hoenn games was only allowed after a postgame sidequest. Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD allowed trading with the GBA games after beating the game as well.
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl as well as HeartGold and SoulSilver used the Pal Park feature, which utilized the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS to transfer Pokémon one-way from the GBA games; players participated in a Safari Zone-like minigame to recapture their previous Pokémon. In this and future games, it wasn't required to have the National Dex to get Pokémon from outside the region in trades. The GBA slot also enabled exclusive wild Pokémon spawns in Diamond and Pearl based on which GBA game was inserted.
  • Pokémon Black and White and its sequels included a "Poké Transfer" feature, requiring a wireless link between two DS-family systems to transfer Pokémon from Gen IV. Once again, a minigame was used to liven up the transfer process, this time involving shooting Poké Balls out of a bow to hit the Pokémon that run around on the top screen. There was also a simpler transfer method called the Relocator, that only worked with a few specific event-giveaway Pokémon but wasn't limited by having to beat the game first.
  • Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 had another form of Old Save Bonus within the same generation: Memory Link. By linking your Black or White cartridge with the sequel, the game will unlock flashbacks showing what happened to important characters between the two games as well as bonus content, including post-game battles against Cheren and Bianca using their souped-up Black and White teams, and allowing you to catch N's former Pokémon in the wild, special OT ID and all.
  • Pokémon Bank was introduced as a 3DS companion app to Pokémon X and Y. It included an additional program, "Poké Transporter", which facilitated transfers from the Gen V games. The Bank was eventually updated to be compatible with the later-released Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, while the Transporter was similarly updated to work with the Virtual Console releases of the Gen I and Gen II games. While they use the same service, Pokémon cannot travel freely between the Gen VI and Gen VII games; any Pokémon that has been saved onto a Gen VII game cannot move back to Gen VI, and Virtual Console Pokémon are also incompatible with Gen VI. The Bank is the first transfer feature to allow skipping a generation- a Pokémon from Gen V or earlier can be used in Gen VII with no requirement to own a Gen VI game.
  • Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have a Special Demo Version which features several short quests, some of which offer rewards for the full version of the game. Also, if you take the time to transfer a Pokémon from your original Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald cartridge all the way forward to Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire, you can get a special poster for your Secret Base with your Pokémon's picture on it.
  • InSun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, showing Pokémon that originated from the Virtual Console games to certain people at the Game Freak office will reveal certain trivia of that game's development or even rare items.
  • Pokémon HOME is the successor to Bank, which was introduced alongside Pokémon Sword and Shield (but is also compatible with the previously-released Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!). It allows transfers from Bank as well as Pokémon GO, one-way movement from Let's Go to later games, and free movement between Sword and Shield, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus for Pokémon that are available in each game. The mobile phone app version of HOME includes a number of challenges that reward players for collecting Pokémon from across the series.
• Olympus Mons: The game allows you to capture, among other things: Elemental birds of ice, thunder, and fire^note Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres; the common ancestor of most other Mons and its Super-Soldier clone Gone Horribly Right^note Mew and Mewtwo; Elemental beasts of thunder, fire, and water^note Raikou, Entei, and Suicune; a draconic bird and a rainbow phoenix that can cause storms with a flap of its wings^note Lugia and Ho-Oh; a time-traveling avatar of flora^note Celebi; golems of rock, ice, and steel^note Regirock, Regice, and Registeel; twin dragons with enough psychic firepower to stop a tidal wave^note Latios and Latias; the embodiments of the sea, earth, and sky^note Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza; a wish granting Fun Size star^note Jirachi; a shapeshifting alien virus creature^note Deoxys; the creators of knowledge, emotion, and free will^note Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf; the masters of time, space, and antimatter/death^note Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina; a volcano spirit^note Heatran; a colossal golem that supposedly moved continents and created the aforementioned golems^note Regigigas; the crescent moon/living embodiment of dreams and the new moon/a living embodiment of nightmares^note Cresselia and Darkrai; a guardian of the seas with the power to "Freaky Friday" Flip others^note Manaphy and its child^note Phione; another avatar of flora for good measure^note Shaymin; and what is outright stated ^note In the Heart Gold and Soul Silver Dex entries to be the creator of the Pokémon universe itself^note Arceus.
  • As of the 5th gen, there's a small critter that is the personification of victory (and possibly a nuke)^note Victini, The Three Musketeers and d'Artagnan^note Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, and Keldeo, dragons of Yang, Yin, and Wuji that were originally one entity that may or may not have been an alien^note Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem, genie-like Japanese gods of wind, thunder, and fertility^note Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus, a muse^note Meloetta, and a long since extinct insect resurrected from a fossil and cybernetically enhanced by Team Plasma scientists in the hope of creating the ultimate weapon^note Genesect.
  • With the arrival of Pokémon X and Y, one can now have the avatar of life^note Xerneas, death^note Yveltal and order^note Zygarde, as well as a small creature made of rock that can create gems out of thin air^note Diancie, a kleptomaniac being that can open cross-dimensional wormholes on a whim ^note Hoopa, and a steam-based being that lives alone and packs enough power to blow up a mountain^note Volcanion.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon adds in the four guardian deities of Alola^note Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, Tapu Bulu, and Tapu Fini, cute living nebulae^note Cosmog and Cosmoem, avatars of the sun^note Solgaleo and moon^note Lunala, an ancient clockwork rabbit doll/prototype Poké Ball that can absorb life energy^note Magearna, a whole posse of extradimensional Starfish Aliens^note the Ultra Beasts, a failed attempt at a chimera-like weapon to counteract such aliens^note Type: Null and Silvally, and a crippled but still powerful light manipulator^note Necrozma. There's also a brawling lightning cat^note Zeraora, a small pile of liquid metal, and a massive pile of liquid metal^note Meltan and Melmeltal.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield and their DLC keep enlarging the group, adding twin weapon-wielding wolves who defended their land from a calamity^note Zacian and Zamazenta, the energy-absorbing alien creature who triggered said calamity^note Eternatus, a bear-like martial-arts expert and its evolution^note Kubfu and Urshifu, concentrations of electric and draconic energy who are mates of the aforementioned golem trio^note Regieleki and Regidrago, crueler versions of the elemental birds with different typing^note Galarian Articuno, Galaria Zapdos and Galarian Moltres, a fertility god who once ruled over the land^note Calyrex and its steeds^note Glastrier and Spectrier, and a territorial and aggressive Green Thumb monkey^note Zarude. In the same generation, Pokémon Legends: Arceus introduced a new addition to the genie/Japanese deity trio who rules over love, hatred, and springtime^note Enamorus.
• One Curse Limit: A Pokémon cannot be affected by two major status effects (Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, etc.) at the same time. Some Pokémon can employ a strategy where they purposely inflict themselves with one of these status effects to prevent themselves from being afflicted with something more debilitating (usually in conjunction with an ability that mitigates said status effect).
• One Game for the Price of Two:
  • Arguably the Trope Codifier, if not the Trope Maker. Each generation of the series comes in at least two "versions", with certain Pokémon exclusive to a particular version. Trading between versions is the only way to truly catch them all.
    • Note that other than Dex completion, each version is pretty much "complete". The game in fact encourages trading rather than buying both games.
  • They have even gone so far as to make two versions of the same movie, complete with version exclusive Pokémon. Can anyone say Cash-Cow Franchise?
    • The Gen V games also have more differences than previous ones, like Black City/White Forest and the two versions of Reversal Mountain and Opelucid City.
  • Arguably inverted in Gold and Silver and their remakes: although the trope remains valid, these games also offer the ability to go to a whole new region with new Gym Leaders and a rematch of the Elite Four after beating the main game. It's true that the Kanto portion is abbreviated compared to Johto, but still, it almost feels like a separate game.
• One-Gender Race: Several species of Pokémon are exclusively male or exclusively female, although some (like the Nidoran, or Volbeat/Illumise) are considered different genders of the same species, officially or otherwise.
• One Head Taller: Not for romantic reasons. However, measuring a person's height by their head is a way of telling their age in all medias. Children are usually five heads tall, teens six, and adults seven.
• One-Hit Kill: Guillotine, Horn Drill, Fissure, and since Generation III, Sheer Cold, are this. In Gen I, they couldn't hit Pokémon faster than the user, while since Gen II, they can't hit Pokémon with a higher level, and their accuracy is the difference between the user's and the target's level, plus 30%^note since they ignore accuracy and evasion changes, a difference of at least 70 levels is equal to a Swift-like accuracy. In Rescue Team and Explorers (and presumably WiiWare PMD games), the game says the Pokémon faints from "calamitous damage".
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Shedinja, again. Gigantamaxing does raise its max HP... to 3. Still faints in one hit.
• One-Letter Name: There are a few of them:
  • E, a character in a Pokéstar Studios movie in Black 2 and White 2.
  • J, a Pokémon poacher from seasons 10-12 of the anime.
  • N, the leader(?) of Team Plasma in Black & White.
  • O, the ping-pong expert from the season 12 episode "To Thine Own Pokémon Be True".
  • X, an opponent at the World Tournament in Black 2 and White 2.
• One-Man Army: A single Pokémon can be used throughout the game, despite type advantages/disadvantages. Other Pokémon could be solely for HM moves.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Due to the sheer number of characters in each of the franchise's continuities, it's averted on principle. It's rare for characters with the same name to interact with each other though.
  • Blue/Gary Oak's sister. Twice. In the games, she's named Daisy, which confuses people familiar with the anime where one of Misty's sisters is also named Daisy. In The Electric Tale of Pikachu manga, she's named May, which confuses people who follow the anime and games even more, as that's the name of Ash's companion in Hoenn and the female character in RSE.
  • They did it yet again in Pokémon Black and White. The name of the player's rival is Bianca. That's also the name of a major character in Pokémon Heroes. Somewhat justified in this case because of Generation V's Theme Naming: Bianca means "white" and Cheren means "black".
  • Not even main characters are safe, as there's at least one episode where a Character of the Day was named "Jessica" who had her Pokémon targeted by Team Rocket... one of whom is named "Jessie".
  • When you include all forms of Pokémon related media, there are at least 6 characters named "Lily": In the Anime, there's another of Misty's sisters, a character of the day who turns Ash into a Pikachu, and a Pokémon performer who participates in a Pokémon Showcase. In the games, there's D.J Lily who is the local D.J of Kanto's radio station in Pokémon Gold and Silver and the player's mother in Pokémon XD. Finally, in the Manga called Pokémon 7, there's yet another Lily who is the main character's long lost twin sister. This isn't even including Pokémon Sun and Moon's Lillie or other variations.
• Only One Name: Extremely common among the franchise's human characters. Many only have their first names revealed in official material, or in the case of the professors, their last names. Notable exceptions do exist, including Ash Ketchum, Tracey Sketchit, Chloe Cerise, Steven Stone, Todd Snap, Tim Goodman, the Oak family (Samuel, Blue/Gary, Daisy, and Samson), Aurea Juniper and her father Cedric, Augustine Sycamore, Molly and Spencer Hale, and either Brendan or May Birch depending on which protagonist you choose.
• Only Shop in Town: In the vast majority of the towns and cities throughout the series, the local Pokémart will be the only place where goods of any kind are bought and sold.
  • Averted in Pokémon Black and White and its sequel, where you see stalls and flea markets. Pokémarts themselves became integrated with Pokémon Centers.
• Otherworldly Communication Failure: According to the Pokédex, the Pokémon Absol can detect oncoming disasters with its horn and appears to humans before natural disasters to try to warn them. But since it can't talk, humans believe that Absol causes disasters instead, so Absol hides in remote mountains to hide from humans.
• Our Monsters Are Weird:
  • A lot of Pokémon. The 5th generation in particular is known for this, but the other generations have some weird ones as well.
  • In Gen V, we have an ice cream cone^note Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe, who are actually closer to Snowcones than Ice Cream because they're actually made of crystals, a candle that first evolves into a lamp, then a chandelier^note Litwick, Lampent, and Chandelure, a trash bag^note Trubbish, who evolves into Garbodor, a trash heap, gears^note Klink, Klang, and Klinklang, a sarcophagus that used to be human^note Cofagrigus, which evolved from Yamask, a mask ghost, a legendary trio based on The Three Musketeers^note Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, and Keldeo — Officially known as the Swords of Legends, and a species based on The Nazca Lines Condor◊^note Sigilyph.
  • Generation VI is already shaping up to have some of these. There's the flying dragon-bat-boombox^note Noivern, a possessed sword that can unsheathe itself^note Honedge, a cotton candy Pokémon^note Swirlix, and Cthulhu-like mind-controlling squids that turn upside down^note Inkay and Malamar.
  • Previous generations introduce monsters based on such concepts as the entire English alphabet including ! and ? marks^note Unown, magnets that evolve into a UFO^note Magnemite, Magneton, and Magnezone, living Poké Balls^note Voltorb and Electrode — and they're fast Pokéballs to boot, with Voltorb's speed being no slouch even compared to fully evolved Pokémon, a pinecone^note Pineco, who evolves into Forretress; they're actually bagworms, a boombox^note Whismur, Loudred, and Exploud, a clay statue encircled with eyes^note Claydol, which evolves from Baltoy, a windchime^note Chimecho, who evolves from a bell (Chingling), a mon based on the futakuchi-onna^note Mawile, ^note a starved woman that had a hungry mouth emerge out of a wound in the back of her head a Shapeshifting pink blob that can breed with almost anything and looks like a wad of bubble gum^note Ditto, a powerful cat fetus^note Mew, a flying magnetic Moai head that looks like a Jewish stereotype^note Probopass, who evolves from a miniature rock Moai (Nosepass], a mutated Shapeshifting alien space virus with its brain in its chest^note Deoxys, a stomach^note Gulpin and Swalot, living sludge^note Grimer and Muk, eggs that evolve into a walking coconut tree with faces on its fruit^note Exeggcute and Exeggutor, ghost balloons that try to abduct children^note Drifloon and Drifblim, a cursed, probably possessed doll that seeks the child that disowned it^note Shuppet and Banette, an incredibly stupid hippo thing that gains super genius level intelligence when a clam bites its skull and releases toxins while it's holding a special rock^note Slowpoke and Slowking. Poor Slowbro..., etc...
• Overly-Long Tongue:
  • Lickitung and Lickilicky.
  • Golbat's Gen I sprite depicts it sticking out its long tongue.
  • Haunter's tongue displays as this in the anime and its attack animation in the Gen VI and VII games.
  • Greninja's is long enough to double as its ninja scarf.
• The Overworld: The various Routes between cities and caves. Unlike most overworld areas that are extremely expansive with points of interests scattered, the Routes are more like connect the dots, each being a straight shot to one other place. Also, Random Encounters only happen in Tall Grass. There are typically a few different Route themes. The early ones are more bouncy like you're out camping, as it progresses they get more noble as you're now on a true adventure.

P

• Pain & Gain:
  • The move Rage increases a Pokémon's attack power if they get hit while using it.
  • The move Flail gets more powerful the closer your HP is to 0, up to 200 base power.
  • The Guts ability will double the wielder's attack stat if they get afflicted with a status condition like poison or burning.
  • The move Endeavor takes the attacking Pokémon's HP and sets the opponent's HP to the exact same level. This has prompted the famous FEAR strategy where a level 1 Pokémon that knows Endeavour can hold a Focus Sash to tank the first hit at 1 HP, use Endeavour to bring the offending mon's HP to 1 as well, and finish it off by going first with a move like Quick Attack.
  • Mudsdale comes equipped with the ability "Stamina," which increases its defense stat every time it's hit with an attack.
• Palette Swap:
  • Shiny Pokémon are differently colored or shaded from normal ones, but are functionally identical (bar in Generation II, where hidden stat values influence whether or not a Pokémon is Shiny). The extent of how much of their color scheme is changed varies from Pokémon to Pokémon; some like Garchomp are very similar to their normal versions, while others like Weavile get complete overhauls.
  • Muddy Water always has the same animation as Surf, the major difference is the color being brown rather than blue. But other than both sharing the same type and power, the similarity ends here.
• Padded Sumo Gameplay: Pretty easy to do with two Stone Walls, or if the battle has been going on for a while and Mons have Struggle as their only move left. In Gen III, this reached ridiculous levels in Wobbuffet vs. Wobbuffet battles, where due to a lack of actual attacks beyond counterattacks, they could only hit with Struggle, and their high HP means that winning with that would've taken a long, long time, (or even never, if both were holding Leftovers to heal the lost HP). That scenario is the likely reason why in Generation IV and onward, the recoil damage from Struggle was changed to be equal to 1/4 the user's max HP instead of 1/2 the damage dealt to the target.
• Party in My Pocket: Quite literally — Mons are stored in pocket-sized Poké Balls. (Due to this, it's among the few RPGs to justify its use of this trope.)
• Pattern-Coded Eggs: The franchise has played with this trope:
  • In the main series, Pokémon eggs uniformly have a plain white design with green spots due to graphical limitations, similar to Yoshi eggs, though the Gen II Sugimori art would imply in-universe Pokémon eggs resemble what they're supposed to hatch into. The only exception is the event-only Manaphy egg from Generation IV, which has a unique sprite showing it to be translucent blue with a ring of yellow dots and a red center, similar to Manaphy itself, an aquatic Pokémon with a blue body, yellow dots for eyebrows, and a red gem over its heart. However, some spin-off games (as well as the anime) have unique egg designs for individual Pokémon. Pokémon GO has different colored eggs depending on how far the player has to walk to hatch them.
  • Pokémon Puzzle Challenge: Four eggs are available as unlockables. Magby's egg has flames on the bottom, Elekid's egg is yellow with stripes, Igglybuff's egg is pink with swirls, and Cleffa's egg is pink with stars.
• The Peeping Tom: In the original Pokémon games, there's one of these standing outside the all-female gym in Celadon City. In the remakes, he got Bowdlerized.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: See the series' page here.
• Percent-Based Values: Across multiple games:
  • Pokémon Red and Blue: The move, Softboiled, can be used out of battle to transfer 20% of the user's Max HP to another Pokémon.
  • Starting from Pokémon Gold and Silver, "Pokerus" that doubles EV gain, infects multiple Pokemon, and goes away at midnight.
• Petal Power: Multiple moves:
  • Razor Leaf
  • Leaf Storm
  • Magical Leaf
  • Leaf Tornado
  • Leafage
  • Petal Dance
  • Petal Blizzard
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • The Mythical Pokémon, which is especially infuriating as there is nothing you can do ever to get them back — unlike most examples of the trope, you can't even restart your game for them.
  • For a while, the GTS had some of the event Pokémon on it, but later event Pokémon have been contained in a special Poké Ball and have had Ribbons applied to them that prevent them from being traded, respectively being the Cherish Ball, the Classic Ribbon, and the Premier Ribbon (Mew-exclusive, aside from fake GTS usage).
  • If you release a Pokémon, you cannot get it back, even if it is a one-time-only legendary Pokémon. Minor exceptions include Pokémon that know certain HM moves (to prevent players from becoming stuck in certain areas), Pokémon with high happiness levels, and whenever the Pokémon being released is the only Pokémon in the player's current party.
  • The Dream World from Gen V provides a dual example with its shutdown after the release of Gen VI; not only are you no longer able to get anything that was exclusive to it, but as compensation for the effort players put in, you'll get special medals in Gen VI based on the number of items you bought in the Dream World, that players who didn't use the Dream World enough can't get.
  • As more of a meta example, Gen III and onward are incompatible with the first two generations, thus forcing everyone who played those games to start their collections from scratch — the old Pokémon aren't gone entirely (until the save batteries die), but they are inaccessible to later games. Similarly, held items cannot be carried over from one generation to the next, except from Gen III to Gen IV.
• The Phoenix: Ho-oh and Moltres. Tornadus in its Therian Form could be considered a Phoenix. Yveltal is a darker take on this, as it fuels its eternal life at the direct expense of others.
• Pinball Spin-Off: Pokémon Pinball and its sequel for the GBA.
• Planet of Hats: Many Pokémon. All Absol try to warn people about disasters despite suffering from Cassandra Did It, all Bagon want to fly so badly they developed natural crash helmets to protect themselves when leaping off cliffs, all Meowth like shiny things and collect them, etc... This can lead to an Out of Character if you happen to get a Single Specimen Species with a nature that contradicts its Canon personality, like a Timid or Jolly Mewtwo.
• Planimal: Bulbusaur's family is both animal and plant simultaneously. Also Chikorita, Treecko, Turtwig, Snivy, Pansage, Chespin, and Rowlet being part weird dinosaur, gecko, turtle, snake, monkey, hedgehog, and owl respectively. Heck, Grass-types in general fit this trope.
• Player and Protagonist Integration: You serve as an Adviser to your team of Pokémon in the battle screen, a Heroic Mime to human characters in the overworld, and You Are You when interacting with other players.
• Player Data Sharing: The series was built on the idea of players being able to trade their mons between each other. Each iteration of the game even comes in multiple versions, with exclusive Pokémon, to encourage trading.
• Plot Tumor:
  • Legendary Pokémon. In Gen I, they were simply unique enemies with better-than-average stats. Gen II created actual backstory and legends for them and gave the version mascots, Ho-Oh and Lugia, exclusive moves to further differentiate them from normal Pokémon. Since Gen III, Legendary Pokémon are the focus of game plots, usually with the villainous team of the game attempting to take control of them, and there being full myths, legends, and prophesies about them.
  • The concept of Alternate Universes was first introduced in Pokémon Black and White as an in-universe rationalization of differences between game versions and Pokémon trading. Later gens would indulge further in the idea, with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire hinting that every game prior was in a world where Mega Evolution doesn't exist (and that the original Ruby and Sapphire are a parallel universe), the introduction of Ultra Space and the Ultra Beasts, and the Alola games featuring several characters from multiple universes (including versions of Archie and Maxie from the original Gen III games, without their more lively Gen VI redesigns).
• Pluralses: Non-fans or casual fans often don't realize that both the franchise name and the names of individual Pokémon don't get an S on the end; singular and plural are the same (one Pokémon, many Pokémon; one Pikachu, many Pikachu).
• Police Are Useless: To varying degrees. In the anime, Team Rocket never get arrested (mostly because Ash makes them blast off). In the games, officers only fight at night, and even when there's a museum robbery, or when an organization has set up an evil-looking base in the middle of town, both done in broad daylight, only the player actively attempts to fight back.
  • Looker is a one-man exemplification of this trope, up until late in Platinum, in which he actually arrests someone, go figure.
  • Taken further in Pokémon Colosseum. There are only two officers in a crime-filled desert, and their long arm of the law isn't nearly long enough to stamp out the crime in their town, much less all of Orre.
  • Averted with the Ranger Corps, which you are part of.
• Portal Statue Pairs:
  • A pair of statues of a generic Pokémon, possibly modeled after Rhydon, flank the entrance to all of the Pokémon Gyms in every iteration of the Kanto and Sinnoh regions.
  • In Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver, the location preview for the Tin Tower shows the entrance flanked by two statues of the legendary Pokémon Ho-oh, which is eventually battled there.
• Post-End Game Content:
  • The first generation unlocked the Cerulean Cave, home to the most powerful Pokémon, Mewtwo. The remakes also unlocked the last four Sevii Islands.
  • The second generation unlocked the Kanto region, with the leaders of the first generation ready to fight you again. Many people, however, consider this to be part of the game and not an unlockable. Mt. Silver, on the other hand only unlocks when you beat the 8 old gyms and lets you fight the True Final Boss, the protagonist of the first generation.
  • The third generation unlocks the roaming Pokémon Latios (in Ruby) or Latias (in Sapphire), with Emerald letting the player choose which one of the two will be roaming. Ruby and Sapphire unlock the Sky Pillar (where Rayquaza can be battled/caught) and the Battle Tower; Emerald unlocks the Battle Frontier, Terra Cave, and Marine Cave (the locations where Groudon and Kyogre can be battled/caught, respectively), the National Pokédex (completion nets a choice of one of the Johto starters), and new areas in Hoenn's Safari Zone (of which the inhabitants are mostly Johto Pokémon). The remakes added an epilogue known as the Delta Episode, ways to get almost every legendary from the franchise, and the Battle Resort.
  • The fourth generation unlocks the upper right part of the map, with the Fight, Survival, and Resort Areas, but to unlock the latter two, you need to have seen every Pokémon in the Regional Pokédex (which can be a pain in the ass and a Guide Dang It! to boot). Turnback Cave also appeared when you unlocked the previous areas. Pokémon swarms started to appear every day too.
  • The fifth generation went one step further than any other, as the League Champion is now a post-endgame battle, something never done before. Other important fights with Optional Bosses are unlocked too, as well as new areas (the right part of the map) where old generation Pokémon appear. The option to connect with the fourth generation becomes available too.
    • Black 2 and White 2, due to being sequels rather than simply third versions, unlock not only the White Forest/Black city areas, as well as the ability to import from the 4th Gen, but also the first area from Black and White, Icirrus City and its surrounding environs, the Nature Preserve (which requires you to have seen the entire Unova Dex in addition), and, for a first, the version's legendary mascot, unavailable before completing the game.
  • The sixth generation unlocked Kiloude City, accessible from Lumiose City, which includes the Friend Safari and the Battle Maison. There's also a sidequest starring Looker located in Lumiose, as well as the Sushi High Roller restaurant as long as you're stylish enough. You can also encounter legendaries such as a roaming Kanto bird based on your starter ^note If you picked Chespin, you'll find a roaming Articuno; if you picked Fennekin, you'll see Zapdos; if you picked Froakie, you'll see Moltres, Mewtwo, and Zygarde in the post-game dungeon Terminus Cave.
  • Sun and Moon unlocks new areas of Poni Island, allows you to access the Battle Tree, and begins a sidequest involving the Ultra Beasts.
  • The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series are far from over when you end the game. You'll gain access to many new areas and a second storyline. You'll also be able to fight (and even recruit) the boss legendary Pokémon from the first part.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Happens occasionally in the anime.
  • Entirely possible in the games if your Pokémon had low HP and a status condition like Poison or Burn. One move, Destiny Bond, is specifically designed to create this.
• Potion-Brewing Mechanic: There's two examples involving berries, which are collected from plants in game:
  • In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and Pokémon Emerald, berries are mixed into Pokéblocks, small candies that raise Pokémon Contest stats depending on what berries are put into the mixture and how thoroughly it is mixed.
    • Pokéblocks returned for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and are now based on the berries' colors. You don't need NPCs or other players to help make Pokéblocks with you because the whole thing is short, simple, and automatic.
  • In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Platinum, Poffins are used instead of Pokéblocks, though they have the same effect.
• Power at a Price: Several items boost stats at the cost of either Hit Point loss or a restriction on move selection. Additionally, Mega Evolution was revealed to cause physical or mental torment to several Pokémon in-universe in Sun and Moon's Dex entries.
• Power Copying: Pokémon can do this in a variety of ways, both temporarily (Ditto and Mew's move Transform, as well as the moves Mimic, Mirror Move, and Copycat) or permanently (Smeargle's Sketch makes it learn the opponent's move).
  • The Pokémon ability Trace allows the user to specifically copy the opponent's ability (determined randomly if more than one foe is present), and the move Role Play is a manual method of accomplishing the same thing that the ability Trace does.
• Power Creep: Pokémon stat spreads slowly became more specialized as time went on. Those that could be seen as Lightning Bruisers in Red and Blue became Jacks-Of-All-Stats as more Min-Maxing was done by the designers. In Generation VI it reached its zenith with Mega Evolutions, which are explicitly designed to be on par with the series Olympus Mons with less stat points to go around.
  • Mildly inverted regarding minor legendaries starting in Generation 7, though the min-maxing makes it hardly noticeable. Low-tier legendaries through the first six generations had base stat totals of 580, with slightly stronger ones like the Lati twins having totals of 600. Since Gen 7, however, the standard for lesser legendaries has been 570, with Gen 9 adding a pair of BST 590 Pokémon as well.
• Power Equals Rarity:
  • Generally speaking, weaker monsters are more common than stronger ones. Legendaries are even stronger still.
  • Mega Evolution is this, as only a select few Pokémon can even access this form. In order to do this, the Pokémon needs the appropriate Mega Stone and the trainer needs a Key Stone. In-universe, both items are in extremely short supply. Thus, very few trainers have access to this kind of power.
  • Z-moves also qualify, as only a select few are given the Z-Ring necessary to activate the move, and even then, they still have to find Z-Crystals that match the type of move they wish to empower. There are a few trainers in Sun and Moon outside of major characters that can use Z-moves, but they are few and far between.
• Power Limiter: Poké Balls of all kinds, though presumably the "limiter" can be removed by the Trainer temporarily, should they wish. According to backstory information found within a novelization, they were invented to reduce the risks inherently involved in training powerful (and oftentimes dangerous) beasts. Before they were invented, Pokémon often caused injuries to their trainers and even death.
• The Power of Love: It pays a lot to be nice to your Pokémon.
  • Some Pokémon will only evolve if they are particularly happy with their trainer. Notable examples include many of the various baby Pokémon, Golbat, Eevee,^note into Espeon or Umbreon Buneary, Riolu, and Type: Null.
  • The move "Return" rises in attack power the higher friendship, going from a base power of 1 to 102 and increases with STAB for Normal-types. In fact, you have to actively abuse your Pokémon to prevent their friendship level from rising to high to keep the Frustration strong as you gain friendship with every step.
  • The Poké-amie feature in Gen 6 (both X/Y and ORAS) and Pokémon Refresh in Gen 7 lets you raise your team's Affection towards you by playing, games, eating snacks, and petting them. Higher affection means that they gain more experience points after battle, can tank an attack that would have beaten them, shake off status effects, dodge more, and score more critical hits (even when you don't/wouldn't want them too).
  • Story-wise, many wild Pokémon are extremely dangerous, such as Gyarados or Hydreigon, or can cause a lot of damage, such as Bewear which, despite its teddy bear looks, is extremely territorial and has been said to break spines in an attempt to show affection. Mega Evolutions of Pokémon are even worse, as they become much more powerful at the cost of being much more willing to grievously maim, if not kill, other Pokémon. Despite this, the affection and care by trainers give them a means to keep grounded and a way to channel and control the wilder part of their natures.
• Power of the Storm: Any Pokémon who can learn the move Rain Dance can summon rain. Similarly, any Pokémon with the ability Drizzle or Primordial Sea can cause a permanent^note Drizzle was nerfed in Gen VI to be more like Rain Dance, but Primordial Sea is more like this trope version of Rain Dance, which was part of the world-threatening issue in the plot of the 3rd generation games. Any Pokémon with the ability Cloud Nine or Air Lock can dispel these storms. Notable is Rayquaza, who can stop the effects of Kyogre's Drizzle almost instantly.
  • Also applies to the moves Thunder and Hurricane which are very powerful moves whose normally below-average accuracy is improved to 100% in the rain.
  • Mewtwo summons a storm which rivals the worst storm in documented history in the first movie.
• The Power of the Sun: Solarbeam, Morning Sun, Weather Ball, the Abilities Chlorophyll, Solar Power, Forecast, Flower Gift...
  • Sunny Day, Drought, and Desolate Land are closer to Power Up The Sun. They work well with Fire types and the aforementioned moves & abilities.
• Power-Up Food: Poffins, Poké Blocks, and Aprijuice.
• Practical Taunt: The moves Taunt, used in making the target only use offensive moves, and Torment, for preventing the target from using the same move twice in a row. Parting Shot lowers the opponent's attacking stats while switching the user out.
• Pre-Ending Credits: In the main games, beating the Elite Four will cause the credits to roll and the New Game Plus to be unlocked, but from Pokémon Black and White onwards, there's still a lot more to be done (story-wise) after that.
• Prehistoric Animal Analogue: Each new installment features "Fossil Pokémon," based on real-world prehistoric animals and revived from fossils:
  • Pokémon Red and Blue introduces Omanyte, Omastar (both ammonites), Kabuto (which combines trilobites with "living fossil" horseshoe crabs), Kabutops (eurypterid), and Aerodactyl (Pteranodon).
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire introduces Lileep, Cradilly (both cirnoids), Anorith, and Armaldo (both Anomalocaris).
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl introduces Craniados (Micropachycephalosaurus), Rampardos (Pachycephalosaurus), Shieldon (Protoceratops), and Bastiodon (Chasmosaurus).
  • Pokémon Black and White introduces Tirtouga (Protostega), Carracosta (Archelon), Archen (Archaeopteryx), and Archeops (which combines elements of an Archaeopteryx and a Microraptor).
  • Pokémon X and Y introduces Tyrunt (a mix of Tyrannosaurus and Gorgosaurus), Tyrantrum (a mix of Tyrannosaurus and Cryolophosaurus), Amaura, and Aurourus (both Amargasaurus).
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield introduces Fossil Pokémon that intentionally mash together elements of random prehistoric animals with little rhyme or reason, riffing on improper reconstructions of dinosaurs that was common in early paleontology (which first developed in Britain, the basis for the Galar region). Forming them requires mixing different fossils together, which can result in either a Dracozolt (dromaeosaurid + stegosaurian), an Arctozolt (dromaeosaurid + plesiosaur), a Dracovish (Dunkleosteus + stegosaurian), and an Acrtovish (Dunkleosteus + plesiosaur).
• Prenatal Possessions: Many Pokémon hatch from eggs carrying objects, wearing armor or what appears to be human clothes, or, in Kangaskhan's case, hatching with a baby in their pouch. Where these things come from and how it's at all possible is never explored.
• Press X to Die:
  • In the mainline games, you can have your last Pokémon use Selfdestruct or Explosion. Guess what happens next. (No, you can't force a draw with this. If you try, then you'll be given a loss for being Too Dumb to Live.)
  • In the first generation of games, you can deposit or release Pokémon in such a way that your lineup has only fainted Pokémon. The game will not warn you, and once you log off the PC, you'll collapse in about 3 steps.
• Prestigious Player Title: "Trainers".
• Protection from the Elements
  • Rock, Ground, and Steel types are immune to damage from Sandstorm.
  • The abilities Sand Veil, Sand Rush, and Sand Force prevent damage from Sandstorm.
  • Ice Types are immune to damage from Hail.
  • The abilities Snow Cloak and Ice Body prevent damage from Hail.
  • Shadow Pokémon are immune to damage from Shadow Sky.
  • The abilities Overcoat and Magic Guard prevent damage from either Sandstorm and Hail.
  • The ability Forecast, signature ability of Castform, changes the user's Type depending on the weather. In Hail, the Type becomes Ice.
  • Inverted with the abilities Dry Skin and Solar Power, which decrease the user's HP for every turn of harsh sunlight.
  • The abilities Air Lock and Cloud Nine negate all effects weathers have such as the damaging effects, although they do not remove the weather itself.
• Psi Blast: There are a few Psychic-type moves that fit this description.
  • Psybeam is a beam of psychic energy described as a peculiar ray of psychic energy.
  • Max Mindstorm is a massive beam of circular psychic energy that creates a huge pillar of light at the point of impact.
• Psychic Children:
  • The series only plays this straight with Mossdeep Gym Leaders Tate and Liza, who look like young children (complete with Twin Telepathy). And maybe Caitlin, depending on which generation you're playing. All the other prominent Psychic-type Trainers (eg. Sabrina, Will, Lucian, as well as the Psychic trainer class) appear to be at least in their twenties.
  • Some Psychic-type Pokémon, such as Mime Jr, Smoochum, Ralts, Kirlia, Gothita, and Gothorita actually resemble children.
  • Kadabra's Pokédex-Entry in Emerald tells that that a boy with psychic abilities suddenly transformed into Kadabra while he was assisting research into extrasensory powers. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen goes even further, with him just awakening in the morning, being transformed into Kadabra.
• Psychic Powers: Psychic-type Pokémon, as well as a few humans (human psychics coincidentally tend to favor Psychic-type Pokémon).
• Punch-Clock Villain: Most trained Pokémon owned by evil teams are apparently like this. The grunts of each version's evil team also tend to be this. (Team Plasma grunts are the major exception; they're Unwitting Pawns instead.) After Team Plasma collapses, a polite former member even sets up an incense shop in Driftveil's Market.
• Punny Name
  • Just about every Pokémon's name is a pun or Portmanteau on their type, design, or general nature — some of the puns are even bilingual.
  • In the English versions, almost every single Gym Leader and Elite Four member's name is a pun on their preferred type. Lt. Surge, Wattson, Volkner, and Elesa are Electric trainers, Brock, Roxanne, and Roark are Rock trainers, Pryce, Candice, and Brycen are Ice trainers, Fantina, Morty, and Shauntal are Ghost trainers, and so forth.
  • Elder Fuji is known as Mr. Fuji in western games. But if you were to retranslate Mr. Fuji in Japanese, it would be Fuji-san, which means Mount Fuji.
• Purposely Overpowered: The Legendaries that feature on the games' box art, Mewtwo, and event-exclusive Legendaries like Mew are not balanced for competitive play and are thus banned from most official competitions, tournaments, and in-game battle facilities.

Q

• Quieting the Unquiet Dead: The Gen I games (as well as their remakes) feature a Marowak ghost who was killed by Team Rocket in Lavender Tower. In Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow (as well as their initial remakes, FireRed and LeafGreen), beating the Marowak calms her down and sends her to the afterlife, allowing the player to continue. However, in Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, she is instead calmed and goes to the afterlife upon seeing her child.
• Quirky Bard: Several novelty or gimmick Pokémon, like Ditto (makes a Mirror Match), Wobbuffet (can only counterattack), Unown (for collection, not battling), Smeargle (blue-mage-like attack copying), Spinda (every one has a different spot pattern), Shedinja (One-Hit-Point Wonder that's completely immune to any (direct) attack that's not super-effective), Castform (changes shape and type based on weather), and Kecleon (changes type to whatever hit it last). Wobbuffet is a noted game breaker, Shedinja has some effectiveness on scrubs or for catching Kyogre, Smeargle can basically have any possible combination of moves, and Ditto Took a Level in Badass when he got his own unique Ability in Black and White, but the rest... they may have niche uses due to type, ability, and/or move combinations, but many of those niches are so specific as to seem deliberately contrived. And some of them don't even have that much.

R

• Race Lift: Colosseum Leader Rosie and Colosseum Master Sashay were given darker skintones in the American version of Battle Revolution due to complaints of a lack of any skintone variance.
• Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: Since the player can pick and choose whatever Pokémon he or she may want for their team (and it isn't limited to what they can catch in their game either as trading is almost always an option), players teams often turn out like this. Options can range from a newly sprouted sunflower seed to the Pokémon God of the universe itself.
• Rain Dance: It's a move which summons rain for 5 turns, or 8 turns if the user is holding a Damp Rock.
• Random Effect Spell: Metronome is the most dramatic, being able to use any other attack in the game. Assist and Sleep Talk are more minor ones, as is Present.
• Randomized Damage Attack:
  • The move Magnitude has a power between 10 (Magnitude 4) and 150 (Magnitude 10).
  • The move Psywave also does random damage; specifically it deals a random number between 0.5x and 1.5x the user's level.
  • Present does variable damage, in particular with a chance to do negative damage (ie heal the opponent).
  • Some moves, such as Fury Attack, Pin Missile, Bullet Seed, and others, deal normal damage with each hit but hit a random number of times. This is negated if the user has the Skill Link ability, when they'll always hit the maximum amount of times (usually five) unless the opponent faints before all of them hit.
• Random Number God: Whenever you play a Pokémon game, be prepared to constantly fight against the random number generator to get what you want.
  • Players curse pretty much anything that has a random chance of happening, whether it's Status Effects, their Mon injuring itself in confusion, the opposing Mon landing a Critical Hit....
  • Accuracy/evasion are a special annoyance, as while all Mons have a base accuracy of 100%, moves that affect accuracy or evasion will make anything (short of an Always Accurate Attack) seem to miss at the worst possible times, and seemingly more against you than the AI.
  • A Pokémon's nature, abilities, characteristics, stats, and other traits (like shiny forms) are randomly decided upon the Pokémon being generated by the game, though these can be influenced somewhat via breeding.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: It's a general rule of thumb that anyone in a position of authority is likely going to be the toughest trainer of their group, most prominently leaders of the Villain Teams.
• Reality Warper: Several.
  • Unown display this as their main ability. While one on its own is practically powerless, when many (as in hundreds) amass together, they have the ability to warp reality.
  • Subverted with Stantler. Stantler's Pokédex entry in Gold is "The curved antlers subtly change the flow of air to create a strange space where reality is distorted." Based on its other Pokédex entries and the anime, it's more like where reality appears distorted. Its special abilities focus on hypnotism and illusions.
  • Arceus in HeartGold/SoulSilver has the power to create an egg for one of the Gen 4 dragons in a special area. The way the animation for this is shown, it looks like it's remaking the entire Universe just to give you the egg. This is also the only legitimate way to get a Legendary egg (Manaphy and Phione keep getting flip-flopped). It uses Unown to achieve this feat.
  • We also have the Ralts-Kirlia-Gardevoir evolution line, all of whom can "warp reality" to some extent. Gardevoir in particular, according to its Pokédex entry, "has the psychokinetic power to distort the dimensions and create a small black hole", on top of future prediction and teleportation. Move aside, Alakazam and Mewtwo.
• Recognizable by Sound: Each species of Pokémon has a unique cry (though prior to Generation VI, several of the Gen I Pokémon had identical cries, such as Charizard and Rhyhorn; notably, Poliwag and Ditto had the exact same cry). Also present in the anime, which utilizes Pokémon Speak.
• Recurring Element: A ton. See the trope page for details.
• Recurring Riff: Quite a few, notably the Pokémon Center and (from Generation 3 on) the shop music. Black 2 and White 2 even has unique arrangements of the Gym battle theme for each city!
• Red/Green Contrast:
  • Pokémon Red and Blue were released as Red and Green in Japan. When the games were remade for the Game Boy Advance, these versions were renamed "FireRed and LeafGreen''.
  • The original protagonist is named Red and his rival is named Green in Japan. They're often associated with their respective colours. Internationally, this is lost as Green is renamed Blue (though he still keeps the green motif).
• Reduced Mana Cost: Inverted with the "Pressure" ability, which doubles PP cost for the enemy's moves, and triples it in double battles if both Pokémon possess the Ability.
• Red String of Fate: The held item Destiny Knot, (a ball of red string) — if a Pokémon of the opposite gender uses Attract or the Cute Charm ability on you while you're holding it, your opponent becomes infatuated as well. Actually called Red String in the Japanese version, even.
• Reincarnated as a Non-Humanoid: According to various Pokédex entries this is the case for Yamask and legend has it could be the case for Phantump, Phantump are said to be tree stumps possessed by the spirits of children who died while lost in the forest. Yamask, carries a mask that looks like the face they had in their human life and occasionally looks at and cries. A less depressing example is in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games which generally start with you waking as a Pokémon with vague memories of being formerly human, but are now in a world without humans.
• Renamed the Same: If you ask the Name Rater to rename one of your Mons, but give him the same name it already had, he'll lampshade it, declaring that the new name may look the same as the old one, but it's still vastly superior.
• Resting Recovery:
  • The move Rest immediately restores the user's health, in exchange for having them spend a few rounds asleep.
  • The move Slack Off restores half of the user's total HP, but it only takes one turn instead of making them sleep for several.
• Retcon:
  • Generation II gave Magnemite and Magneton the then-new Steel typing, while Generation V changed out the Ghost half of Rotom's alternate forms' typings for more thematically appropriate types. Generation VI gave a host of old Pokémon the then-new Fairy type.
  • Prior to the introduction of Pichu, the anime showed baby Pikachu. The anime also had baby Wobbuffet.
  • In Pokémon Gold and Silver, Pokémon breeding was a new discovery and no one really knew how Pokémon propagated before then. When Fire Red and Leaf Green, remakes of the original games, was introduced, you can breed in a postgame area, making Professor Elm's new discovery not so revolutionary in Pokémon research (and Ruby and Sapphire take place at the same point on the timeline).
  • Sword and Shield changed certain location-specific evolutions (such as Leafeon, Glaceon, and Magnezone) to instead use evolution stones, which did not work to evolve them in previous generations. However, the later-released Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl retain the old method.
  • With Scarlet and Violet bringing the total number of Pokémon species to the quadruple digits, all prior Pokémon had an additional trailing zero added to their National Pokédex number to accommodate this.
• Retro Upgrade: Pikachu, despite being pretty much the official mascot for the franchise, was never particularly viable in late-game or competitive battles due to being an unevolved Pokémon with stats to match. Later generations, however, included a special item called the Light Ball, which significantly boosts Pikachu's attack power when held, giving it a viable role as a Glass Cannon.
• Ridiculously Alive Undead: Ghost-type Pokémon are Pokémon meant to be based on ghosts, with some of them (such as Gengar, Phantump, and Yamask) even being stated to be once-living humans. Despite this, they are shown to be just as capable of breeding, eating, sleeping, and getting status conditions just like any other type of Pokémon. They even seem to be capable of dying, with the ghost of a Mimikyu and the remains of a Trevenant being seen in the anime.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: And plenty of 'em! Even discounting beloved Series Mascot Pikachu and other popular cute Pokémon like Eevee, Jigglypuff, and the unevolved stages of pretty much every Starter Mon, each new region tends to bring with it at least a good half-dozen new extra-huggable critters.
• Rings of Activation:
  • Aqua Ring is a move that restores HP. It is visualized by a "veil" of three or more rings of water materializing around the Pokémon.
  • The Hypnosis move is often visualized as a wave of rings.
• Roar Before Beating: The in-universe nature of multiple buffing and debuffing moves. "Screech" and "Growl" will lower an opponent's physical defense without doing actual damage, while "Howl" buffs the user's physical attack power.
• Rock Monster:
  • The Geodude line, the Roggenrola line, and the Aron line, along with many other Rock and Steel type Pokémon.
  • Special mention to four of the legendaries: Regirock, Regice, and Registeel in Generation III and Regigigas in Generation IV.
  • All Pokémon that are in the Mineral egg group count as these.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: A few downplayed examples.
  • Watchog takes inspiration from various rodents, including groundhogs, prairie dogs, and chipmunks, but it’s taller than all of them, at 3'7".
  • Greedent, a Pokémon based on the Eurasian red squirrel, is a whopping 2 feet tall.
• Rolling Attack: The move "Rollout". It doubles in power if the move "Defense Curl" is used beforehand.
  • Ice Ball and Steamroller count as well.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Despite the color-based Theme Naming of cities and towns in the Kanto region, the spelling for Pallet Town refers to a makeshift bed rather than Palette, which refers to a color scheme.
• Ruder and Cruder: The Japanese versions of Pokémon: The Series and the Pokémon Zensho anime have Lt. Surge saying "dammit" in English. To Japanese ears this is just an American stereotype, but the Pokémon series otherwise doesn't feature profanity until Film/Detective Pikachu, which contains the first instances of swearing in an English-language Pokémon release.
• Rule 34: Hit this franchise like a nuclear bomb. Depends where you fall if this is a good or bad thing.
• Rule of Cool: Many of the character designs.
• Rule of Escalating Threat: This fits the escalation of excessiveness till a plateau is hit. The villains of the first two sets of games were a criminal syndicate who did nothing much more than your standard criminal activities. Steal Pokémon here, take over a corporation there, yada yada. The next set of games have villains who wanted to use the legendary Pokémon of those locations to either wipe out all of the ocean or the land on earth, respectively. The games after that had villains who wanted to wipe out the universe and reshape it to their will, and it was about that time that the plateau was reached.
• Rule of Three: There always are three starters and at least one legendary trio per game. There also usually come out three main games per generation, not counting remakes. As of Gen V, Triple Battles and Rotation Battles (which also use three Pokémon, but different field mechanics). Starting with Generation III, version mascots tend to be part of a trio as well (with the third one being used for the inevitable Updated Re-release).
• Rummage Fail: Implied to happen with Delibird, whenever you get the undesired effect(s) using its signature Present attack (accidentally healing the opponent).
• Running Gag:
  • Most of the main series games have a Fisherman with 6 Magikarp. In fact, in Generation V, since Magikarp can't be found prior to obtaining the National Dex, this trainer has Magikarp at Level 60 (58^note 53 in Easy and 63 in Challenge in sequels). Alluded to in Pokémon GO where the Fisherman medal is achieved by catching Magikarp. But not just any Magikarp this time — they need to be large Magikarp. Hoenn games have a Fisherman with 6 Magikarp — but when you go back for a rematch it's become a Magikarp and 5 Gyarados.
  • There's always a Youngster talking about shorts. In Black and White, there's a girl talking about skirts instead.
  • In each starting town, there's a guy talking about how incredible/staggering/amazing the "power of technology" is, in reference to whatever new connectivity feature the game has.

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