General
- "Gotta catch 'em all!" was the English catchphrase of the franchise, up until the Generation III games on the Game Boy Advance. There were multiple reasons the phrase was pulled; Gen III games were incompatible with the first two generations, not all Gen III Pokémon were even available in the original releases, and it only served as additional ammo for One Game for the Price of Two criticism. Plus, while getting 151 or even 251 Pokémon isn't too much of a stretch, especially when you can build your collection off previous games, Generation III's overhaul meant having to start from scratch to get 386 Pokémon spread out across seven games and two consoles, with several being unobtainable if you couldn't attend real-life events that only get run one time. The English slogan returned to use in marketing by Gen VI, albeit not to its former prominence, as the games themselves had by then placed far greater emphasis on story than Pokémon collection. By Pokémon Sword and Shield, less than half the existent Pokémon were actually implemented, so it's literally impossible to collect them all even with hacking. It should be noted however, that the catchphrase in Japan is "Let's Get Pokémon!", so it's still in use there.
- Regions being referred to as "regions" made sense when the series was based on different Japanese provinces, suggesting that the regions are a part of a bigger country, implied by Johto directly bordering and continuing from the route numbers of Kanto. But after Pokémon Colosseum and especially Pokémon Black and White introduced regions not based on a Japanese province (respectively the Arizona-based Orre and New York-based Unova - particularly, transferring Pokémon from Orre to the Hoenn games has them listed as coming from "a distant land"), it became clear that not all "regions" were in the same country. And ever since the introduction of the Kalos region (based on France) in Pokémon X and Y, regions have become more akin to countries (and are referred to as such, at least in the English translations).
- Similarly, the name of the National Dex made sense in the first four generations when the regions were based on Japanese provinces and were implied to be part of the same nation. But from the fifth generation onward, they've been based on random places from all over the world, and were implied to match the locations of their real world counterparts, making them most certainly not part of the same nation.
- Similarly, Generation 1 takes place in an alternate version of the real world, recently undergone a war. An old man at the Pewter Museum of Science says that the first manned flight to the moon was in 1969, just like in real life. Lt. Surge is nicknamed "The Lightning American" and credits Electric Pokémon for abetting him in the war. Mew is explicitly stated to be discovered in Guyana. And most notably, Kanto is the Japanese region of the same name. Game Freak has attempted to sanitize all real world references since Generation 4, even re-dubbing Lt. Surge "The Lightning Lieutenant" in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!.
- The name of the Earth Badge in the Kanto Pokémon games. It was called that because the one who gave it out (Giovanni, in Red/Blue/Yellow and FireRed/LeafGreen) used Ground-type Pokémon. But by Gold/Silver/Crystal and HeartGold/SoulSilver, he had been replaced by Blue, who uses a more diverse, multi-type team. This was averted in the Japanese versions, in which the badge is called Green Badge and actually becomes more fitting, since Blue is named Green there.
- Some Pokémon can learn moves that make sense in the context of their earlier stages but less so for their evolutions. For example, it makes sense for the serpentine Dratini and Dragonair to learn Wrap, but not so much for the bipedal Dragonite whose tail is now too small to realistically enclose anything. Similarly, Surskit is a Bug/Water mon that lives on ponds, so it can use moves like Bubblebeam, Hydro Pump or Ice Beam, but its evolution Masquerain ditches the Water type for a Flying type and looks like a normal moth, and doesn't even seem to have a mouth through which it could shoot water.
Gameplay Mechanics
- It's traditional for there to be a series of checkpoints just before Victory Road, the last dungeon that has to be traversed before reaching the Elite Four, with each consecutively checking for all eight badges that will make you eligible for the Pokémon League. In the original games, your trek through the region essentially was a big circle, with the entrance gate to Victory Road being just outside the second town, which had the final Gym. As such, the checkpoints existed to emphasize that you really shouldn't be there yet. In contrast, the next four generations not only had Victory Road be reasonably far from your starting point, but you couldn't even reach the gate until after you have eight badges anyway; there's usually some obstacle that requires the game's final Hidden Machine move, which is activated by the final Gym Badge, making the checks a mere formality.note Averted from Pokémon X and Y onwards. X and Y have the gate to Victory Road after the first major city, Pokémon Sun and Moon has its equivalent (Mount Lanakila) under construction for most of the game and doesn't bother with a checknote , and Pokémon Sword and Shield doesn't have one at all. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also has no Victory Road, but the Pokémon League building is attached to the biggest city in the region and features a pre-Elite Four exam where the player will be always kicked out from if they didn't get all the badges.
- Hidden Machine moves being impossible to forget (at least without consulting a Move Deleter NPC from Gen II onward) is a Scrappy Mechanic that persisted because in Generation I and II, it was possible to leave an HM in your PC, making it theoretically possible to render the game Unintentionally Unwinnable if you forgot an HM move and found yourself trapped in an area that required said move. In Generation III, the expansion of your bag meant that you'd always have the needed HMs on hand and could relearn a move if necessary, rendering the issue moot; however, you can still only delete HM moves with the help of a Move Deleter.note This naturally stopped being an issue when HMs stopped being a mechanic in Gen VII, with the field move functions now being found on Ride Pokémon, who can be summoned anytime, anywhere as needed, and are granted to you as part of the plot, leaving your party Pokémon to just fight. As a matter of fact, former field moves can't even be used the way they were in previous games since the game does not provide the option, not even non-HM moves like Sweet Scent. While some of the better HM attacks were converted to standard TMs (a fact lampshaded by several NPCs), most weren't, leaving Kartana (an Ultra Beast) in the amusing position of being the only thing able to learn Cut.
- Along these lines, the reason why HMs and TMs were originally distinguished is that TMs were only learnable once and then discarded, and could also be sold, both because of limited bag space. Selling TMs you didn't use was often a good way of making extra cash quickly. This persisted until Gen V, where they were changed to have unlimited use and couldn't be sold anymore, meaning the sole difference now was that HMs were required outside of battle to get past certain obstacles in the game.note Sword and Shield would introduce a new limited use item in Technical Records (TRs), with the additional advantage being that if you erase the move in any normal fashion, it can be relearned by that same Pokémon through the Move Reminder.
- Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl brough back the one-use TMs, but also made them easier to get in multiple copies: Gym Leaders and other NPCs that give away TMs now give you three copies of each, and further copies can be obtained by trading with merchants in the Underground. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also have one-use TMs, but the player can craft infinite copies of each of them by using a machine found in Pokémon Centers that allows to trade drop items obtained by defeating or catching wild Pokémon for TMs.
- In Gold, Silver and Crystal, one of the 10 phone numbers you can have at a time is Bill's, who tells you how many spaces are left in your current Pokémon storage box and will also call to alert you when your current box is full. This is useful because you had to manually change boxes in the first two generations or else you couldn't capture another Pokémon. However, starting in Gen III, this was performed automatically, making registering Bill's number in the Gen IV remakes largely pointless (he instead tells you the number of spaces left in all of your boxes in total). It's downplayed, however, since you can register all the numbers you want in the remakes, so he's not hampering you, either.
- Another relic from the original storage system were the "Deposit" and "Withdraw" modes, which were respectively the only ways to move Pokémon from your party to a box or vice versa. After the system's overhaul in Ruby and Sapphire, the "Move" option fulfilled both of their roles by letting players drag and drop Pokémon between their party and storage, all without having to switch between two separate menus to do it. Yet even as late as X and Y, "Deposit" and "Withdraw" were listed above "Move" whenever you used the PC. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were the first games to address this; if the player speaks to Lanette, she'll offer to rearrange things so that "Move" is at the top. Sun and Moon followed it up by cutting the redundant options entirely, streamlining the whole process.
- The Altering Cave in FireRed/LeafGreen was meant to work in tandem with the Mystery Gift function, which at sanctioned events would have allowed players to populate it with Gen II Pokémon that were otherwise not available in Gen III, such as Mareep, Aipom, Shuckle and Smeargle. Its function was rendered redundant just two months before FR/LG launched by Pokémon Colosseum, which allows you to just catch Pokémon from all the same evolutionary lines as those which would have been available through the Altering Cave and then transfer them to the main games. Game Freak never hosted any events for the Altering Cave as a result, leaving it as a weirdly-late-game cave to catch low-leveled Zubat in. Emerald is even worse, as all the Pokémon that would have been available through the Altering Cave were made catchable through regular means (Smeargle can be found in Artisan Cave at the Battle Frontier, all the rest were added to the Safari Zone), yet also includes an Altering Cave that opens up after entering the Hall of Fame which nothing can be done with except catch low-level Zubat.
- Lampshaded in Indigo Plateau in HeartGold and SoulSilver. In the original games, there was a nice Old Man who would have his Abra teleport you home. Since you couldn't fly between Kanto and Johto in those games, your only other way back until beating the Elite Four was slowly walking back. In the remakes, you can now use Fly to return to Johto from not only the Pokémon League, but also the reception gate building where the Old Man is located. As such, the remakes have the Old Man there to offer his services... only to note that because of Fly, most Trainers turn him down. In fact, the game doesn't even let you take him up on his offer, not offering a Yes/No choice after he's finished talking.
- Dive Balls, introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, originally worked better on underwater Pokémon, but the Hoenn games are the only installments wherein you can dive underwater to encounter Pokémon. They were changed to also work better on wild Pokémon found while fishing or surfing. Amusingly, the attempts to make the Dive Ball remain relevant ended up passing this status onto the Lure Ball in HeartGold and SoulSilver, which applied the same multiplier bonus, but only does so while fishing; meaning it also had to be changed, getting an even better multiplier bonus of x5 in Gen VI.
- The physical/special split did this to a number of Pokémon movesets. Prior to Gen IV, entire types were either physical (Normal, Fighting, Flying, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Poison, and Steel) or special (Water, Grass, Fire, Ice, Electric, Psychic, Dragon, and Dark). Thanks to the split, you now had Pokémon with moves that would have been amazing on them back in the day, but that they were now unable to truly capitalize on. While a fair number of Pokémon got some moveset changes to account for this, others didn't; for example, Aerodactyl and Gyarados both learn Hyper Beam via level-up. Prior to the split, it was a powerful physical attack on two fantastic physical attackers. After the split, it is now a powerful special attack inexplicably learned by two Pokémon that have barely passable special attack stats.note
- Hyper Beam itself has this in its treatment. In the first generation, it was one of the best moves available: its base power was 150 in a generation where most physical attacking moves that broke 80 had huge downsides, it hit everything but Ghost and Rock neutrally (and those had other exploitable weaknesses), and most importantly, its downside of needing to recharge after hit didn't apply if it KO'd a target, making it a perfect Finishing Move. Because of this, the anime and other material tended to treat it as a feared ultimate attack used by a wide variety of expert trainers. However, that last trait was removed in the second generation, making the move far more Awesome, but Impractical, the Steel-type was added, making Normal-type moves in general a lot less reliable, and Power Creep caused the overall base power of moves to go up, making it far less of a worthy risk. In the fourth generation, Hyper Beam was turned into a Special move in the split, which lowered its number of users even further, as the vast majority of Normal-types are physically-oriented (with said users switching to Giga Impact, a physical counterpart of Hyper Beam added around the same time). Despite all of the above, Hyper Beam still tends to be treated as an incredibly powerful move, particularly in other media, simply because it has formed that aforementioned reputation.
- Fire Spin was in a similar situation to Hyper Beam. In the first generation, it prevented the foe from moving for the entire duration of the attack, meaning a faster user could completely lock down their opponent. And unlike similar "continuous" moves like Wrap, it's learned by strong Fire-types rather than Com Mons. As a result, it's placed fairly late in most of its learners' level up move lists, implicitly framing it as a Last Disc Magic for Fire-types. Gen II changed the mechanics of these moves to instead inflict one weak hit, then a small Damage Over Time effect every turn and only prevent the target from switching out rather than acting entirely, making it strange that Pokémon like Charizard learn such a weak attack so late.
- Chatot's signature move Chatter is one of only three moves that cannot be Sketched by Smeargle in Generations IV-VI, the others being Struggle and Sketch itself. This because in Generations IV and V, Chatter could be used outside of battle to record audio. The recording would then play when using Chatter and become Chatot's cry until it's put in a PC, and only Chatot is programmed to have its cry replaced. X and Y removed the ability to record audio for Chatter, but it still can't be Sketched.
- The Move Deleter NPC became this in Gen VII. The only reason you ever needed the Move Deleter mechanic (outside of certain gimmicky movesets that require a reduced number of moves) was to get rid of a Pokémon's HM moves, but when Sun and Moon removed HMs in favor of Ride Pokémon, it obsoleted the Move Deleter. Despite that, a Move Deleter still exists within Hau'oli City's Pokémon Center, even though you'll almost never require his services.
- Alleviated somewhat in Pokémon Sword and Shield, where an individual named Jack offers the services of the Move Deleter alongside those of the Move Reminder and the Name Rater simultaneously, and in Pokémon Legends: Arceus onwards where players can delete moves at any time.
- Pokémon Centers still contain the upper and basement floors for multiplayer features in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, even though they can now be accessed anywhere by simply pressing the Y button.
- Pokémon being born at level 5 was always an oddity, considering that you can find wild Pokémon at lower levels, but it was necessary due to a bug in early generations — due to the way experience groups work, Pokémon in the Medium Slow group suffer from an experience underflow glitch if they're level 1. Even if Gen II had fixed the bug, it's possible to trade Pokémon back to Gen I, so trading a Medium Slow level 1 Pokémon would have activated it. So due to backwards compatibility, the only feasible solution was making it impossible to get any Pokémon at that level. However, Gen III dropped backwards compatibility and fixed the bug, yet it kept newborn Pokémon at level 5. It wouldn't be until Gen IV that Pokémon would be born at level 1 at last.
Pokémon
- The Pokémon cries from each past generation become this. Gaming technology has come a long way since even the Game Boy Color, and each Pokémon from Gens I and II still sound just like their original 8-bit counterparts. Some of the Spin-Off games, such as Pokémon Stadium, redid the old cries in better audio quality, but this wasn't fully carried over to the main series until Pokémon X and Y. Also, while a few Pokémon are meant to engage in Pokémon Speak like in the anime, limitations of the Game Boy system (they had to go through Development Hell to get Pikachu's voice in Yellow) prevented this, and afterwards it simply became a logistics issue.note As of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the only Pokémon to have ever used Pokémon Speak are Pikachu (from X and Y through Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl), Eevee (from Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! through Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl), and a Kantonian Meowth (in Sword and Shield, and only when Gigantamaxing). Other Pokémon that lack this are the Pokémon card game (obviously), Pokémon Adventures, Pokkén Tournament, and some of the Truer to the Text anime specials (such as Pokémon Generations and Pokémon: Twilight Wings).
- Nidoran is the only Pokémon whose male and female versions are considered separate species, but given the same name (aside from the gender marker). In Gen I, the gender trait did not exist, and thus the male and female Nidoran were classified as different creatures altogether, with their own bios and everything. With the introduction of genders and breeding in Gen II, male and female Pokémon of the same species have since been classified together as part of the same family even if they have different appearances as a result of sexual dimorphism (such as Jellicent) or divergent/stone-based evolution (Burmy having Wormadam and Mothim as an example of the former, Kirlia having Gardevoir and Gallade as an example of the latternote ); the divergent evolutions are still considered separate Pokémon, however. But Nidoran♂ and Nidoran♀ remain completely differentiated, most likely because combining them would be a logistical mess for the existing Pokédex order. And though they actually have different names and were introduced after breeding was introduced, Volbeat and Illumise are in the exact same boat.
- It's made even more jarring by the fact that a Nidoran♀ inexplicably becomes sterile upon maturing into a Nidorina, something confirmed and yet still not explained in detail by the official Pokédex.
- It's made even more jarring by the fact that a Nidoran♀ inexplicably becomes sterile upon maturing into a Nidorina, something confirmed and yet still not explained in detail by the official Pokédex.
- Said Pokédex also implies Kangaskhan is not supposed to be a One-Gender Race, even though males have never been seen in the franchise. This can be chalked up to the first generation not having alternate forms for any Pokémon, as well as the second not introducing visual differences between males and females when it added genders, but even with gender differences officially being a thing from the fourth generation onward, it's never been used to make male, pouchless Kangaskhan be a thing.
- In Gen I, it's mentioned in the Pokémon Mansion journals that Mewtwo was born directly from Mew like a mammal, as opposed to hatching from an egg. It's mainly a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, as this was prior to Gen II introducing breeding as a mechanic and establishing eggs to be the sole reproductive method for Pokémon. However, the FireRed/LeafGreen remakes don't change the journals to accommodate the shift. It would finally be amended in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, with the entry changed to simply say they "obtained a new Pokémon from Mew."
- The way some old Pokémon evolve, for better or for worse, can come off odd given the weird gimmicks that latter Pokémon make use of in order to evolve. For example, Gen IV's Mantyke can only evolve if a Remoraid is in the party (matching the lore of the creature), yet a similar situation isn't required to obtain Gen I's Slowbro, despite it being well-known in the lore that Slowpoke evolve only when a Shellder bites their tail.
- The Marill line's evolution into Azumarill is a bit of an odd case due to the introduction of Azurill in the following generation. Because of the way the evolution line is set up, you're very likely to not have this Pokémon as a Marill for all that long when it's on your team. This is because Azurill evolves through full happiness to become a Marill, and happiness evolutions will usually occur at a high level during normal gameplay if you didn't use other mechanics or items that would give quick friendship boosts. Once Azurill finally evolves into Marill, what do you need to get Azumarill? Turns out it's just a single level-up due to Marill evolving at the fairly early level of 18. This is a leftover from Gen II when Marill was the beginning of the line and got to evolve at a low level.
- Stunfisk, a Ground/Electric Pokémon, can have the Limber ability, which protects it from paralysis. This was introduced before Electric types were buffed to be immune to all sources of paralysis, making the ability completely useless most of the time.note
- A similar oddity hits Rotom-Fan. In its first appearance, it was a Ghost-Electric type with the Levitate ability, which was shared among all Rotom forms then. In the fifth generation, Rotom forms were instead given an appropriate type—which meant that Rotom-Fan became Flying-type. However, it still kept the Levitate ability, which exists to give non Flying-types the ground-based immunities of a Flying-type, meaning its ability is redundant since it already has those properties.note
- Unown has terrible stats all around, with its only halfway passable stats being in Attack and Special Attack. But it only knows one move, Hidden Power, which is a Special move, meaning that its Attack stat serves no purpose at all. It's a relic of the days before the physical/special split, meaning that Hidden Power being a physical or special move varying depending on its typing. If an Unown had, say, Hidden Power Rock or Ground, that Attack stat would have actually meant something. After the split occurred in Gen IV though, this was lost, so Unown now has an oddly high stat that it can never use for anything barring Struggle or confusion damage.
- In early games, creature names were limited to ten letters, leading to a couple of kludges. The most notable of them were Victreebel and Feraligatr, whose names should really be spelled "Victreebell"note and "Feraligator". The letter limit was raised in Gen VI, and some Pokémon names from later generations do exceed the old ten-letter limit (such as "Crabominable"), but these names remain forever short a letter.
- Hydreigon's original design was planned to make it into essentially a living tank. Over time, these designs were revised, and by the end, the "tank" aesthetic was basically gone. However, Zweilous and Hydreigon still have odd patterns on their stomachs that were once meant to be tank treads, but no longer have any clear function.
- A more bizarre case of a Pokémon's design changing in weird ways in development is Shuckle. Shuckle's original concept, going by leaked betas, was that it was a Pokémon themed around snake wine—an alcoholic beverage found in southeast Asia, made by taking a pickled snake and steeping it in the drink. Thus, it's a serpentine creature that lives in a container (which early sprites showed to be a clay jar), and ferments berries inside of that jar that mix with its bodily fluids to turn into a drink, essentially a kid-friendly version of how snake wine is made. However, over the course of development, the concept was increasingly obscured and garbled, possibly due to fears that a Pokémon based on dead snakes would be too morbid or gross for people to stomach: the container was shaped into a shell, and Shuckle gained the Bug typing and much clearer limbs, pushing it away from the "snake in a jar" interpretation. Nowadays, it's quite telling that it wasn't until those betas leaked that people figured out what Shuckle was—most fandom guesses included "barnacle", "scale insect", "fungus", or "some kind of weird turtle thing"—but the association with berry juice remains a core part of Shuckle's identity, being mentioned in every Pokédex entry, even though the reason behind that association is no longer apparent.
- The introduction of the Fairy-type in Gen VI retconned several Pokémon to gain the Fairy typing by either making it the secondary-type, or just outright changing a Pokémon's typing to Fairy. Some of the type changes were for those that were originally classified as Normal-type, such as the Cleffa, Snubbull and Togepi lines, who are now classified as pure Fairy, or Togepi becoming part Flying upon evolving. However, the Normal moves they usually learned from level-up ended up staying the same. Thus, what you're left with are three non Normal-type Pokémon lines still uncharacteristically being able to learn a plethora of different Normal moves.
- Many Generation V Pokémon, such as Pawniard, Rufflet and Mienfoo, evolve at very high levels (around the mid-to-late 50's). This was fine in their debut game, where all of them were caught near the Pokémon League, but it became a huge problem when later games made them catchable far earlier. Rufflet became an infamous Low-Tier Letdown in Pokémon Sun and Moon for being catchable on the first island, but likely stuck in its unevolved state until the Elite Four.
- Umbreon's Pokédex entry in a number of Pokémon games such as Pokémon Gold mentions how it protects itself by spraying poisonous sweat from its pores, which is odd when you consider that nothing about Umbreon has to do with poison. This is a leftover from earlier in the Gen II games' development where Umbreon was originally a Poison-type, but was eventually changed to being a Dark-type.
- Dada Zarude's pink cloth bears the number 251, Celebi's National Pokédex number. However, while every Pokémon had an additional preceding zero added to their National Pokédex number starting from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet to accommodate those games bringing the total number of Pokémon species to the quadruple digits (with Celebi's number being changed to 0251), Dada Zarude's cloth was not redesigned to match this change.
- Cubone's Pokédex entry says that the skull it wears is its dead mom's skull. Then, Generation II introduced breeding and the mom is just fine if the resulting egg is a Cubone egg. Despite this, Cubone, Marowak and Alolan Marowak's Pokédex entries still say their skulls are their dead mother's skulls.
- According to Pokédex entries as well as the anime episode "The Art of Pokémon", each Smeargle is supposed to produce a different color of paint regardless of whether or not they're shiny. In the games, however, regular Smeargle always have green paint and shinies have red, and this has thus extended to the rest of the franchise. Since Smeargle's debut however, there have been Pokémon such as Minior and Alcremie who have been depicted in the games with alternate color forms that aren't shinies, but Smeargle is still not one of them.
