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Video Game / Pokémon Uranium

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Image by Cataclyptic. Used with permission.

"Oh, yeah, you're the kid who wanted a job, aren't you..."
—Professor Bamb'o

What happens when you put the music of Generation 4, the storyline of Generation 5, the gameplay of Generation 3, and a little bit of Clover in there in general for good measure into a blender? Pokémon Uranium, that's what.

Pokémon Uranium is a Pokémon fangame made over the course of nine years in RPG Maker. It stars an aspiring young Pokémon trainer about to take their first job exploring the Tandor region and obtaining research specimens for Professor Bamb'o, in order to support their aging aunt who took care of them after their mother disappeared in a nuclear reactor meltdown and their father threw himself into his Pokémon Ranger work to forget about her. As they journey across the region, collecting Pokémon and Gym Badges one step ahead of their less-than mature rival, they begin to uncover information surrounding the mystery of their mother's accident, and its consequences.

The game is notable for being one of the most extensive Pokémon fan games to date, containing a full story campaign in a new region, over 100 original Pokémon, a mixture of original and official music, as well as featuring Mega Evolutions, EV training, a new Pokémon type, and fully functional online trading and battling systems.

In an effort to avoid getting Screwed by the Lawyers, the game's creators removed the official download links from their website in 2016 to prevent possible DMCA takedown notices. By that time, however, the game had already been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, and was subsequently adopted by another team. Though the main storyline is complete, a lot of post-game content has yet to be added, and the game includes a patcher for any updates the creators plan on adding.

JV, one of the game's creators, has worked on a new fan-game, Pokemon Flux, which acts as a Creator-Driven Successor to Pokemon Uranium, including some returning Tandor pokemon. The first episode was released in August 2023 with more episodes in development. The game can be found here.

Now with a character page under construction.

This game provides examples of:

  • 11th-Hour Superpower:
    • The below mentioned pseudo-legendaries could qualify, considering even the one that reaches its final form the latest (Beliaddon) still does so right around the level you'd want to be for the Championship. Though the fact that you can't obtain any of them until late in the game (you can only get Yatagaryu by fully evolving a Volchik hatched from an egg that can only be obtained in the same town as the final gym, and the pre-evolved forms of other two aren't found in the wild until Victory Road) can still keep them in Awesome, but Impractical territory; considering you're likely to be in your 60s by the time you can get any of them, it'd likely be quicker and easier to just keep training what you have.
    • Any Nuclear-type that isn't Nucleon is handicapped for most of the game by obedience problems akin to traded Pokémon. It's only after you get all of the badges and complete a story event that you get the means to solve this problem. At this point, some Nuclear types, particularly the pure-Nuclear Xenomite line you can find in said story event, can be seen as strategically better than Nucleon due to having more diverse movepools than Hyper Voice.
  • Absurdly High Level Cap: Downplayed compared to the main series; the final boss of the main storyline is level 85, just 15 levels short of the cap, and the trainers you fight in the Champion's League are level 70.
  • Adjective Animal Alehouse: The Tipsy Tancoon in Venesi City qualifies as an example.
  • Always Someone Better: For once, you are this to your rival, Theo. You receive the starter with the type advantage, and you manage to stay one step ahead of him with your Gym Badge collection.
  • Ambiguous Gender: When selecting your Player Character at the beginning, in addition to being able to select a boy or a girl, there is a third option who is this. Regardless of which one you choose, the dialogue will always use gender-neutral pronouns when referring to the protagonist.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • The two times we hear about stasis, it's this trope. First, your rival gets trapped in it for several minutes, and he describes it as the terror he felt at the moment he was "frozen" going on indefinitely. Then, at the very end, you learn your mom and Urayne suffered this for a decade.
    • Linkite are the ghosts of Pokémon who died in their Poké Balls. They've been trapped for so long that they can't even remember what they used to look like.
  • …And That Little Girl Was Me: One of the gym leaders introduces themselves with a story in this manner.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • The Ninja Reunion Sidequest comes pretty late in the game, but once it does, it removes all the hassle from EV training, allows easy money grinding, and simplifies training as a whole. Each of the six ninjas will offer to battle you with a team of decently leveled Pokémon that give out good experience and specific EV points, they also give out about 1500 credits per victory, and you can do this indefinitely.
    • When you enter the north area of the Nuclear Plant Zeta, you're given five minutes to find Theo and CURIE before your radiation shields run out. If you don't make it in time, the game tries to be merciful and give you ten minutes on subsequent attempts. (Tries being the key term here, see Game-Breaking Bug.)
    • If you're traveling an area with a partner and encounter a wild double battle, if you throw a Poké Ball at one but it breaks out, your partner will not attack it that turn, so you won't have to worry about them knocking it out.
    • A Strength puzzle blocks your way into the north sector of Nuclear Plant Zeta. Don't have a Pokémon that can learn Strength in your party? Finding the Power Cell gives your Hazard Suit enough power to let you push boulders yourself.
    • The stats portion of a Pokémon's summary page will show you what Individual Values and Effort Values you have.
    • Hidden Power's type calculation is much more streamlined — instead of the complex formula used in the main series, it's just "Which IVs are even and which ones are odd?" For bonus points, apart from Fairy type (which requires that every IV be odd), the first two IVs can be ignored. Combine this with the above point about IVs being much more visible, and it's very easy to check if your Pokémon have good Hidden Power types before the move is even available.
    • Instead of finding EV-lowering berries in the overworld and having to wait for more to grow, you can actually purchase them from the berry shop as of version 1.0. They're 1000 Pokédollars a pop, but you'll likely get enough money from EV training against the Ninjas to make that pocket change.
    • The exclusive evolution items for Spritzee can't be found in-game. Instead, to make the evolutions accessible to players, they're perpetually-active mystery gifts.
    • While it's turned off by default, 1.2 onward includes an autosave feature in the options menu. Forget to save while grinding for hours, only for the game to suddenly crash? No longer a problem.
      • If you're concerned that this will save over a lost gym battle or the like, autosaves use their own save slot; when you go to load the save after quitting without manually saving, it will let you pick between the last manual save and the last autosave.
    • Once you get to Legen Town, you can visit a Tinkerer who will give you item counterparts of any HM you have. No more wasting moveslots on your team.
    • The choices for the Player Personality Quiz you get to receive your starter are color-coded to which starter type they'll point towards.
    • Fainted a legendary Pokémon and forgot to save? No bother: they'll give you a lecture on controlling your power and send you back to the cave entrance so you can challenge them again.
    • If you turned on Nuzlocke Mode when starting a new game and consider the end of the main game to be the end of the challenge, you can talk to an aide in Professor Bamb'o's lab after you become champion to turn off Nuzlocke Mode, allowing the endgame content to be played without any restrictions on catching or reviving. This allows players who want to raise competitive teams for multiplayer or who want to try to fill the Pokédex to do so from a completed Nuzlocke save, which is especially convenient for those who never bothered to play the story on normal mode before jumping into the Nuzlocke run.
    • Speaking of Nuzlocke Mode, version 1.1 finally introduced a Shiny Clause into the optional rules, and it's checked by default. No more having to let the (4x more common) shinies go because "[Player] already caught/fought a Pokémon in this area!"
    • You only get five opportunities to catch a Hazma. If you knock out all of them, Theo will just give you one.
    • Pokémon killed in Nuzlocke Mode can still learn and use HMs. While this does have some weird implications, it makes it less likely you'll be stuck somewhere without a Pokémon that can learn a required HM.
  • Arc Number: 092, the atomic number of uranium.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • Maria's Feleng will always try to put you to sleep before doing anything else, even if you have something with Insomnia or Vital Spirit out, resulting in it being unable to touch you. For some reason, when her Feleng uses Yawn and fails because of an ability, there won't be any text indicating this, making it look like Feleng just skipped its turn.
    • For some odd reason, Theo's Spritzee (which he'll only have if your starter is Raptorch) doesn't know any moves when you fight him on the cruise ship, nor can it use Struggle, resulting in a similar turn skip.
    • Pokémon with priority moves will almost always resort to spamming them over and over, even if the move is not very effective on the Pokémon they're facing.
  • The Assimilator: People who fail to make it through the Anthell are assimilated into the hive to serve Seikamater.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • Any corrupted Nuclear Pokémon. They look badass and learn powerful Nuclear attacks, but since they will constantly disobey your orders, you will be hard-pressed to make use of them. On top of that, since they're weak to every type but Nuclear and Poison, you'll likely only have a few turns tops to get it to listen before it's knocked out. The only few Nuclear types to avert the former problem are Nucleon, Hazma, and Urayne, and the former one is the only one you can get long before curing Nuclears of their hostility becomes available.
    • The three pseudo-legendaries, Beliaddon, Laissure, and Yatagaryu, are powerful Pokémon with some fantastic moves and abilities. But their base forms first become obtainable within the last few hours of the main story, and they reach their final forms at absurdly high levels. Without trading or breeding, you'll barely have a chance to use them at their full strength.
  • Bait-and-Switch: In Vinoville, after defeating the gym leader, the player is told that their rival is waiting at the town entrance and is advised to heal their Pokémon before talking to him. Rather than another rival battle, however, a nearby plant melts down and they're forced to evacuate to another town — with no battles blocking that town's Pokémon Center.
  • Battle Couple: The last gym leaders, Hinata and Kaito, are also married.
  • Boss in Mook's Clothing: Nuclear Plant Zeta has level 75 Nuclear Trawpint running around. For comparison, the random encounters don't make it to level 60, and CURIE's team is below level 70.
  • Central Theme: The game has two. The first, and most obvious one is nuclear power (the "Uranium" title isn't merely for Rule of Cool), its upsides and its downsides. The second, most subtle one is estranged parent-kids relationships, best exemplified by the player character's relationship with their father.
  • Character Development: Theo eventually comes to realize that him being brushed to the side while you always got to help has more to do with you being more mature than just being older. Furthermore, seeing the nuclear crisis facing the region and his father's disappearance forces him to put his other problems into perspective. As a result, he becomes less self-absorbed and more emotionally resilient.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Gentleman Sr. Goldkorn, a trainer you encounter at Route 4 that you can rematch with, participates in the Tandor Championship, and before that is encountered in Victory Road.
  • Com Mons: The Chyinmunk, Birbie, Fortog, and Cubbug lines.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
    • The first two gym leaders each have a Pokémon evolved at a lower level than should be possible — Maria has a level 12 Felunge (Feleng evolves at level 19) and Davern has a level 16 Tofurang (Tonemy evolves at level 20). A trainer in Maria's gym tries to Hand Wave this by saying Maria is just that good.
    • CURIE's Urayne assumes a One-Winged Angel form for the final battle, with a stat total that dwarfs even Arceus and an ability that powers up all Nuclears immensely. Surprise surprise, you cannot achieve this yourself. At least there's a more believable in-universe justification for this one — obtaining Gamma Urayne would likely require more nuclear fuel than you can reasonably obtain.
    • Prior to update 1.1.0, Urayne couldn't learn Atomic Punch despite having it while in CURIE's possession. Now it learns the move at level 80.
    • If you chose Eletux as your starter, Theo will eventually have an Archilles with Solar Beam, which Archilles can't learn by any means.
    • Similarly, Hinata's Flareon knows Solar Beam, which Flareon can't learn either. And on top of that, her Whimsicott knows Spiky Shield, a move no Pokémon in this game can learn.
    • The final boss seems to be designed to exploit the player being Wrong Genre Savvy with regards to boss fights. For the Champion's League, you're told you can't use items during fights, and your Pokémon are always fully healed between fights, giving you no incentive to stock up on healing items. Every Pokémon you fight in the League is level 70, so you likely won't be inclined to grind beyond 75 tops. And when Actan interrupts the finals, it offers to join you after you defeat it, giving you a level 80 Steel type legendary right before the fight with CURIE and her Gamma Urayne. Before beginning the final fight, you're given the opportunity to save, which you'd likely be inclined to do. Guess what? Gamma Urayne is level 85 and comes packing Overheat, so Actan will fall on the first turn, and Urayne's Chernobyl ability nullifies the Nuclear type's weaknesses, so nothing you have can land super-effective hits, assuming they can get a hit in, going back to the level point. Cue Total Party Kill and Game Over text telling you how they went on to destroy Tandor because you weren't strong enough. And when you reload, since you saved before the fight, you have no way to go back and better prepare. Have fun with that.
  • The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: Prior to 1.02, the color coding for stats that were lowered/raised by nature was inverted compared to the main series; in the main series, the raised stat was colored red and the lowered stat was colored blue, but Uranium used to have it the other way around, which you might not have caught until you saw a nature with an effect you'd memorized.
  • Convection Shmonvection: While the game is realistic about protective gear being needed when traveling in radioactive areas, your trainer will not require any heat-resistant clothing to enter Mt. Actanite, an active volcano with lava flowing all over the place.
  • Convenient Weakness Placement:
    • Shortly before you battle CURIE and Urayne for the first time, you get to catch a Pokémon — Hazma — with an immunity to Nuclear-type moves thanks to the Lead Skin ability. Find a way to PP-stall Overheat, and Urayne will not be able to touch you, even with the level difference.
    • Almost every area where Nuclear Pokémon are encountered has Hafli berries growing somewhere, which halve the power of super-effective Nuclear type moves. Considering Nuclear and Steel are the only types not weak to Nuclear, this is invaluable.
  • Creepy Cockroach: The "roaches are immune to radiation" form is used with Geigeroach, the only "stable" (i.e. non-hostile) Nuclear-type that is a dual-type.
  • Crutch Character: An NPC in Kevlar Town gives a Luxi to players who played the beta before starting the full version of the game. Its Dragon Rage will lay waste to nearly everything at the start, its Dragon/Fairy typing is great defensively, and it can reach its final evolution before the third gym if you play your cards right. However, its level-up movepool is pretty lackluster for single-player, and more reliable dragons become available fairly early on.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: If the player chooses either Raptorch or Eletux as their starter, they will most likely inflict an One-Hit Kill on Theo's pokemon in the first battle of the game, as Theo receives the starter that has a type disadvantage against the player's starter and said starters already know a move against which Theo's starter has a 4x weakness (Raptorch knows Ember against the Grass/Steel Orchynx while Eletux knows Water Gun against the Fire/Ground Raptorch).
  • Cycle of Hurting: Possible with the Final Boss. If you save before fighting Gamma Urayne and find out the hard way how unprepared you were, since you get a Game Over for losing instead of getting to return to the Pokémon Center, you have no way to better prepare, so you're pretty much stuck unless you backed up an earlier save.
  • Dark Reprise: The Nuclear Pokémon theme to the Wild Pokémon battle theme.
  • Darker and Edgier: Zig-Zagged heavily. Without the official franchise's rating restrictions, the game is free to add some considerably darker elements to its story than the official games ever would, like a series of nuclear meltdowns that render a significant chunk of the region uninhabitable. However, it usually doesn't actually stray far from the official series in terms of its position on the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism, and a lot of the darker elements come across as exceptionally uncommon occurrences in a world that is otherwise very nearly a Sugar Bowl. Somehow it manages to handle this in a fairly seamless way that avoids jarring Mood Whiplash.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: It takes a couple of tries and the intervention of the embodiment of radioactive metals to stabilize it, but after the second time you defeat Urayne, it asks to join you.
  • Developer's Foresight: The Atom Ball is unobtainable as an item, but is the kind of Pokéball Urayne comes in when you receive it. If you hack the game to get the Atom Ball in your bag, the description will read "A special Poké Ball used to contain Urayne. You should not have this."
  • Disposable Woman: The protagonist's mother is killed off in the opening cutscene, causing their father to become cold and distant. Ultimately subverted, as the end of the game reveals that Lucille survived the explosion and became CURIE; this shocks Kellyn so much that he chooses to resign from his job so he can take care of his family like he should have. Possibly Zig-Zagged, however, as Lucille is still comatose in the ending, and with the post-game content still incomplete, there are no clues as to whether or not she'll recover.
  • Distressed Dude:
    • Tiko, the fifth gym leader, has been captured by the insects of the Anthell and they plan to feed him to their queen, legendary bug Pokémon Seikamater. You need to rescue him if you want that fifth badge.
    • After Theo's stubbornness gets him captured by CURIE, he's locked in a stasis chamber and it's up to you to rescue him.
  • Door to Before:
    • If you want to go to Nowtoch City, you'll see that a bunch of rocks block the way, forcing you to cross Passage Cave. However, when you go back to Kevlar town, an NPC Ranger will appear and clear all the rocks from the path, allowing you to return without having to backtrack.
    • Also, once you get Rock Smash, you can open an new path on Route 1 that has no tall grass and is pretty much a straight line, allowing you to return to Moki Town much faster. There are trainers on the path, though.
  • Dual Boss:
    • The second-to-last gym leader, Vaeryn, is an inversion of this trope: you fight him alongside Theo in a double battle.
    • The last gym leaders, Hinata and Kaito, are a subversion; you'll expect to fight both of them at the same time in a double battle, but actually you have to fight one of them first (you are allowed to choose which one), then against the other one without a chance to rest.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Averted. After becoming Champion, the NPCs in Moki Town certainly revere you (and Theo and Bamb'o).
  • Easy Level Trick: Despite being immensely powerful, the Final Boss can be defeated in one turn by sending a Pokemon that knows Destiny Bond and equipped with a Focus Sash (you will be given one before the battle) to ensure it survives the boss' first attack.
  • Every 10,000 Points: Unlike most of the official Pokémon games, Professor Bamb'o will give you actual, material rewards every time you reach certain milestones in your Pokédex, such as TMs and rare Pokémon eggs.
  • Evil Gloating: Lose to the main villain and he'll go on an incredibly hamtastic speech about how the despairing look on your player's face is sweet, sweet music to his ears.
  • Expy: Several Pokémon, moves, and abilities borrow from the main games.
    • Chyinmunk is Tandor's Rattata; an early-game rodent Pokémon with a two-stage evolutionary line. The fact that its evolution is dual Normal/Electric might also make it Tandor's Pika-Clone.
    • The electric jerboa Jerbolta is an even straighter Pika-Clone.
    • Birbie is Tandor's Pidgey; an early-game bird Pokémon with a three-stage evolutionary line.
    • Owten is Tandor's Spearow; an early-game bird Pokémon with a two-stage evolutionary line. Its mammalian features could also qualify it as another regional rodent.
    • Cubbug is Tandor's Caterpie; an early-game bug Pokémon with a three-stage evolutionary line that finishes off as a dual type with a cocoon-like middle stage, albeit evolving about twice as slowly (10 — 24 vs Caterpie's 6 — 10). It is also somewhat stronger.
    • Tonemy is Tandor's Zubat; a cave-dwelling bat Pokémon. The annoyance even carries over — it comes packing Poison Gas (at least Supersonic-induced Confusion can be healed by switching). However, it is not Flying-type (though it does have Levitate), and instead of evolving into more bats, it turns into a massive behemoth.
    • Barewl looks to be Tandor's Geodude at first glance, but in practice it's more like Aron; a cave-dwelling dual Rock/Steel type that evolves solely by level. A closer analogue to Geodude would be Comite; a cave-dwelling rock type that evolves once by level and again by trading.
    • Ratsy and Raffiti fill a similar role to Smeargle, since they learn Sketch, which only Smeargle normally learns. Notably, Raffiti has higher stats than Smeargle.
    • Duplicat is Ditto with a bigger movepool than just Transform, down to serving the same purpose for breeding. The drawback is that Duplicat cannot have the Imposter ability.
    • Linkite fills Voltorb's role as a Chest Monster, and also has a two-stage evolutionary line.
    • Tancoon and Tanscure are Tandor's answer to Poochyena and Mightyena. Both families are dark-type canines with similar learnsets and stat distributions, and reach their final forms at a fairly early level.
    • The Feleng family parallels the Slakoth family. Both evolution lines are normal-type and share a number of level-up moves. Their base forms are cute but weak, and evolve into much more energetic and vicious Pokémon near level 20. Their final forms have incredibly high attack and a respectable movepool, but have hindering abilities that make them Awesome, but Impractical.
    • The Pokédex outright says that the Baashaun line is related to the Mareep line, and both lines start as quadrupedal sheep that become bipedal upon evolving once, then evolve again and can mega-evolve in their final forms.
    • The Modrille and Drilbur lines are both what you can get when you cross a mole with a drill, and are both Ground types with two-stage evolutionary lines.
    • Both the Luxi and the Togepi lines are fairy types associated with luck and hatch from eggs given to the player, as well as being Mighty Glaciers.
    • While it's as of yet unreleased, Zephy's stats (100 across the board) and Legendary status cement it as Tandor's mini-legendary like Mew and Celebi. If this is true, then it will likely be a distributed Mystery Gift event.
    • Garlikid initially acts as an NPC that has had minimal contact with humans, believes Pokémon and humans can't co-exist and balks at your Pokémon being your friends, tries to "liberate" Pokémon from a lab by stealing them, and eventually realizes that not all humans are bad thanks to you. Sound familiar?
    • A super powerful artificial Legendary Pokémon, created by a professor with noble intentions, but secretly funded by a crime syndicate to be an ultimate weapon? Appears extremely hostile to humanity at first, but is eventually revealed to simply be lost and confused? Able to talk through telepathy? Are we talking about Urayne, or Mewtwo?
    • In a more abstract way, Nuclear Pokémon seem to take some inspiration from Shadow Pokémon — once normal Pokémon corrupted from some outside force, resulting in hostility, a new type, matching moves, and some kind of aesthetic effect (Shadow Pokémon sometimes gain a shadowy aurora that envelops them, even more-so in Pokémon GO, while Nuclear Pokémon get a sickly black and green Palette Swap). They are super-effective against all types except other Nuclears and Steel (much like Shadow in Gale of Darkness), but have a major drawback (they are also weak to almost every type). Both forms of corruption can also be undone, though it's less complete on Nuclear Pokémon (they lose their hostility and that's it).
    • Similarly, several Nuclear-type moves bear some similarity in mechanics to pre-existing moves.
      • Gamma Ray — Ember/Thundershock/Water Gun; a basic Special move with 40 base power.
      • Radioacid — Scald; A non-Fire-type move with a 30% chance of burning the target.
      • Atomic Punch — Thunderpunch; A punching move with a chance to paralyze the target.
      • Half-Life — Super Fang; Cuts the opponent's HP in half.
      • Nuclear Slash — Slash; A damaging move with an increased critical hit ratio.
      • Nuclear Waste — Toxic; Badly poisons the target.
      • Fallout — Sandstorm/Hail; Weather condition that deals damage every turn to all but a few types.
      • Proton Beam — Overheat; A devastatingly powerful attack that lowers the user's special attack.
      • Quantum Leap — Fly/Dive/Dig/Shadow Force; Two-turn attack with a semi-invulnerable charging turn, and is used in the overworld by CURIE to escape on a few occasions. Sadly, you can't do the same.
      • Fission Burst — Self-Destruct/Explosion; User faints after dealing massive damage to all combatants.
    • The move Golden Fist scatters 5 times the user's level in coins, just like Pay Day.
    • Urayne's Gamma Forme is effectively Primal Urayne. Its ability creates a weather effect that negates its weaknesses, and its base stat total is well over the norm.
    • Gamma Urayne's ability — Chernobyl — is essentially a combination of Sand Stream/Snow Warningnote  and Desolate Land/Primordial Sea/Delta Streamnote .
    • Atomizate is Pixilate for Nuclear-type moves, down to being associated with a new Eeveelution. (Though Mega Syrentide also gets Pixilate in this game.)
    • Similarly, Energizate is Refrigerate for Electric-type moves, down to being exclusive to a fossil Pokémon.
  • Fake Difficulty: The game relies heavily on throwing Pokémon ten or so levels higher than where your Pokémon would likely be at that point to increase difficulty. It's not bad early since it's used sparingly and saved for 'boss' Pokémon, which are handicapped by being one Pokémon up against a team, and most gym and trainers are more reasonably leveled by comparison. Come East Tandor, though, expect to be facing random trainers with Pokémon around 15 or so levels higher than your own.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: As per tradition for a Pokémon region. The Tandor region is based on Brazil.
  • Field Promotion: After Kellyn is knocked out of commission by radiation poisoning courtesy of Beta Urayne, he promotes you to full Ranger status so you can lead the mission to apprehend CURIE in his place. When Theo asks for the same so he can avenge his own father, Kellyn obliges, deciding that the more strong trainers are on the mission, the better their odds of success will be.
  • First Town: Moki Town, "Town of Fresh Beginnings".
  • Foreshadowing:
    • When you reach Nowtoch City's Pokémon Center, one NPC advises you to heal up after finishing the gym, as one might never know when a rival decides to show up and challenge you. Sure enough, once you clear the gym and make to leave for the next city, Theo arrives to challenge you.
    • The CURIE suit, used by the villain, is presumably named after Marie Curie, a famous nuclear physicist… who also happened to be a woman. The person in the CURIE suit is also a female nuclear scientist — the protagonist's mother, Lucille.
  • Fun with Acronyms: CURIE actually stood for Cerebral U-092 Relay and Inhibitor Engine.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: The Wiki lists them as such. Note that many of these have been fixed in a patch at some point.
    • Interrupting the 5 trials event at the Snowbank Town Gym, by either losing a battle or leaving, causes the event to become broken, preventing the player from progressing.
    • In the Nuclear Plant Epsilon sidequest, losing to the boss Trawpint at the end of the quest causes the player to become stuck on the dock on Route 07, unable to move.
    • By surfing in a specific location in Venisi City, you can become stuck underneath a bridge and unable to escape.
    • In various scenarios, saving and closing out the game in the midst of an event, or after getting spotted by an enemy trainer, can cause the game to crash upon loading up again.
    • The up/down controls can stop functioning in menus (Pokédex, save menu, bag…). If this happens, only the lowest option can be selected. This makes it impossible to select items, heal your Pokémon in the Pokécenter, or save the game.
    • If you lose the below mentioned Race Against the Clock, the game tries to be merciful and give you ten minutes next time, which would be nice if not for the fact that once you step back into the area, it can act as if you just ran out of time again.
    • If you lose the first battle with Theo in a Nuzlocke run, the story will still progress as normal, even though the only thing in your party is your dead starter. While the challenge is technically failed now, the game itself continues in a softlocked state, and trying to enter any battle will result in a crash.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • Even if you manage to capture Actan when it attacks in its Nuclear form, the subsequent cutscene acts as if you knocked it out.
    • Garlikid will always give you the same speech about you being a "good human" who cares about Pokémon, even if you've tanked your Pokémon's happiness stats.
    • You cannot use Urayne's Quantum Leap to teleport, even though CURIE does it just fine in cutscenes. Possibly justified, since CURIE is wearing advanced radiation-proof equipment, which you no longer have access to by the time Urayne becomes available to you.
    • The game often makes a big deal out of the negative effects radiation is having on Pokémon and how it converts them into the extremely hostile Nuclear-type. This is despite the fact that the game often has you traversing highly radioactive areas because of the plot, often with you or your Pokémon no worse for wear. This reaches a downright absurd level when you reach an area so radioactive that you need a special suit in order to proceed without serious harm... And yet, your unprotected Pokémon can still fight in the area, directly above radioactive fluids, with no ill effects. The game tries to Hand Wave this by saying that Pokémon that have been captured are more resistant to the mind-altering effects of radiation, which does remain consistent. However, at one point during the same quest where you learn this, Kellyn has to withdraw one of his Pokémon because the ambient radiation is weakening it, and that was just radiation from surrounding Nuclear Pokémon irradiating the area. If that had an effect on a captured Pokémon, then there's little excuse for why your Pokémon escaped unscathed later on.
  • Graceful Loser: Thanks to Character Development, Theo will go from throwing a temper tantrum and making cheap excuses whenever you beat him, to taking defeat in stride, acknowledging that you're the better trainer, and even if he constantly loses against you, how fighting you helps him become stronger.
  • Ghost Pirate: The Swabone line, which is Ghost/Fighting.
  • Glass Cannon: Every Nuclear-type is this by default, since Nuclear attacks hit for 2x super-effective damage against every type (aside from Steel and Nuclear itself), but in return also take 2x damage from every other type as well (except Nuclear itself).
  • Gratuitous Ninja: There are quite a few ninjas in this game. The last gym is located in a town full of them.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • How to get Nucleon, Tandor's unique Eeveelution. Starting at level 20, you have to level it up with a Nuclear-type in your party. Considering Nuclear types are Awesome, but Impractical, you're not likely to have any in your team by the time Eevee becomes catchable. Not helping is the fact that Theo gets one despite having seemingly never caught any.
    • How to get a Seikamater, one of the game's Legendary Pokemon. The wild Seikamater you fight at the Anthell can't be captured, but upon defeat she drops the Royal Jelly item, and equipping said item to a female Tricwe, Smore or Sponee and training her to level 45 will cause her to evolve into Seikamater instead. Despite such a convoluted evolution method, nowhere in the game you can find such information.
    • Obtaining the bicycle. To get it you have to locate the Bike Wheel, found on a side path of route 4, then backtrack all the way to the bike repair shop located in Kevlar Town. Unless you're the kind of player who checks everywhere, it's very easy to miss both these things and be left wondering when the bike is going to show up.
  • Hand Wave: The idea of a kid being allowed access to a casino is handwaved with the guard comparing Pokémon battles to gambling.
  • Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": You can check Theo's computer to find a story he wrote. In addition to grammatical and spelling errors, it's about how Theo himself is the champion of Kanto, Johto, and Tandor, without ever losing and having "Super Mega Evolutions" for his Pokémon.
  • Heroic Mime: Lampshaded when someone offers singing lessons and asks to hear your voice.
    "..."
    "Come on, don't be shy!"
    "..."
    "Hey, you heard me, right? I want to hear you sing!"
    "..."
    "Fine, I guess you don't want to learn."
  • He's Just Hiding: In-Universe, the player character's father believes this about his wife, Lucille, who apparently died in a massive nuclear meltdown at a power plant. He's right, though she went a little nuts in the interim.
  • Insect Queen: Seikamater, brood queen of the Anthell, said to be the progenitor of every Smore, Sponee, and Tricwe in Tandor.
  • Interface Spoiler: If you talk to Professor Larkspur before leaving Silverport town, you'll be ambushed upon leaving and have your Pokémon stolen from you. If you open your menu once you wake up, you'll see Garlikid in your team and no-one else.
  • Irony: Gamma Radiation is the most powerful and most damaging type of radiation. The Nuclear attack Gamma Ray is the weakest Nuclear type move that isn't a status or fixed-damage move, basically being the Nuclear type's answer to moves like Thundershock.
  • It's a Wonderful Failure: Losing to the main villain treats you to a cheerful little screen about how your failure doomed Tandor to 100 years of nuclear winter. The first one outright says you were never heard of again, but it's probably a safe assumption that your fate in the second isn't any better.
  • Just a Kid: Theo gets hit with this a lot, especially when it comes to rescue and assistance efforts during nuclear plant meltdowns. So do you at times, but at least your skill is recognized, so you're still allowed to help other times.
  • Level Grinding: Rich Boy Mawuli and his three Level 4 Chyinmunks are an adequate source of battle, and since the battle is in a Pokémon Center, you (and he) get to heal over and over.
  • Line-of-Sight Name: Hazma, probably. Its appearance is reminicent of a Hazmat suit, and the people that discover it had more pressing issues at the time, so it's not inconceivable that they'd just go with the first thing to come to mind and move on.
  • Locked into Strangeness: Even after being cleaned in the post-game, Nuclear Pokémon retain their black and green color scheme.
  • Loony Fan: One such fan blocks the way to Maria's Gym (Maria used to be the Pokémon Champion) and even has a key to her house, which he gives to you. Naturally, Maria herself isn't happy with this and threatens to out him (the fan, not you after you clear it up) to the Rangers after you enter her home.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: CURIE turns out to be the protagonist's mother, after she spent 10 years in a stasis chamber mentally linked to an increasingly-uranium-hungry Urayne.
  • Magikarp Power:
    • Aside from Magikarp itself, Dunsparce here has an evolution named Dunseraph, after it learns the move Skyfall (an original move in the game) starting from level 42.
    • Smore, Sponee, and Tricwe are very weak bug Pokémon that can evolve into slightly-less-weak-but-still-not-very-good Pokémon at fairly low levels. However, if you get a female of any of these three up to level 45 or higher while holding the Royal Jelly, it will instead evolve into the much more formidable Seikamater.
  • Masked Luchador: Chupacho's evolution Luchabra is pretty much a Luchador Chupacabra.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Lanthan and Actan, the resident Olympus Mons, are named after the lanthanides and actinides, two groups of heavy metals that notably contain lots of radioactive elements. As they supposedly taught humans metallurgy and nuclear fission, this is fitting.
    • Similarly, Urayne (the title screen Pokémon) is named after uranium, the namesake of the game and a radioactive metal commonly used as fuel for nuclear power plants.
    • Seikamater is the queen of all bug Pokémon in Tandor. "Mater" is Latin for "mother".
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Your Pokémon Ranger father is named Kellyn, which was the default name of the male protagonist in Shadows of Almia. Cameron, Theo's dad, was also the name of a Ranger Leader in the original Pokémon Ranger, but he's far less likely to be the same guy as in the game.
    • While the starters don't have the typical Overgrow/Blaze/Torrent trifecta as their main abilities (they get Battle Armor/Flame Body/Static instead, respectively), they do have them coded as hidden abilities, though they're currently impossible to obtain.
    • When you're on the Tandor Luxury Cruse, you can go upstairs to find the seasick captain. You can help him by rubbing his back like you can in Pokémon Red and Blue and their remakes, but unlike the original scene, he'll actually mock you for expecting something in return.
  • No FEMA Response: Averted. Every time a meltdown threatens the welfare of civilians, the Rangers immediately leap into action to get everyone evacuated and sheltered.
  • Non-Indicative Name: The name of Selkid is obviously a reference to Selkies and Wereseals, even though it appears to be based more on a mermaid or a sea nymph.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: Urayne. Most of its actions were based on survival and manipulated by CURIE. It didn't realize that what it was doing was bad for humans and Pokémon; it just needs fuel in order to survive. Without it, it experiences incredible pain and hunger. Once Actan provides it an infinite fuel source, it quickly turns around and willingly joins the player.
  • Nuclear Mutant: The Nuclear type in a nutshell. The radiation has caused some species to take on this type and become extremely hostile. While Nuclear forms of pre-existing Pokémon species will be disobedient if you capture and try to use them, Nuclear Pokémon without a non-Nuclear counterpart are stable and can be used as normal. Either kind will gain unique radiation-based attacks.
  • Nuke 'em:
    • Fission Burst, a kamikaze attack exclusive to Urayne (and, oddly enough, the Xenomite line) is literally a Nuclear Explosion.
  • Olympus Mons: Has plenty like any other Pokémon game, but it's worth noting that, unlike the main series, we get to see one of them actually use its powers and live up to its specific title as part of the story; Actan, the Pokémon that is said to have brought radioactive metals to humans and taught them nuclear fission, gives Urayne a stable nuclear energy source so it won't have to steal uranium from power plants anymore.
  • One-Time Dungeon:
    • Nuclear Plants Epsilon and Zeta. Once you finish them you can never revisit them again.
    • Larkspur's Laboratory is closed down once you finish the sidequest there.
    • The Hazard Zone. Once you finish it, it goes back to being Route 8.
  • Overlord Jr.: One NPC Trainer, Rich Boy Rowin, seems to be this according to post-defeat dialogue.
  • Palette Swap:
    • Shiny Pokémon are about eight times as common in this game as in the main series (pre-X and Y, where the shiny rate was doubled). Granted, that's still 1/1024, so they're still lucky finds.
    • Nuclear Shiny Pokémon have their own colors as well, usually glowing red or blue.
    • Twitch released pictures of the shiny forms of the currently-unreleased Legendary Duo Aotius and Mutios. They basically just take each other's colors.◊
  • Papa Wolf: Cameron shows some shades of this with Theo; when you come fetch Theo after he ran away crying after losing to you, Theo runs upstairs and Cameron immediately demands to know what you did to him with the typical "I swear, if you did anything to hurt him…" threat. Luckily, he believes your side of the story.
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling:
    • In the first Pokemon Center you encounter, there's a trainer who will rematch you as many times as you want. His Pokemon are very weak, but healing after each battle is only a few steps away.
    • Your rival, Theo, will join you several times to double-battle your way through an area, and will fully heal all your Pokemon after each battle, making it easy to continue grinding for as long as you want.
    • Theo will also hang around near the Labyrinth for infinite rematches, until you advance the plot. He's strong, but predictable; with a good counter for each of his Pokemon, you can advance levels quite quickly.
    • After completing the optional Ninja Reunion side-quest, you can have as many rematches as you want against six different ninja, each using 5 copies of a single Pokemon species (one for each type of Effort Value), or directly train Effort Values for each stat for free. This is especially helpful because since they only use one species each, it's very easy to play Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors and quickly defeat them all over and over again until you've run out of PP. Training up to level 100 becomes quite feasible.
  • Permanently Missable Content: Did you finish Nuclear Plant Zeta without getting the Arbokite or catching a Xenomite and/or a Geigeroach? Too bad, since that place it's a One-Time Dungeon, you won't have another chance to get them again.
  • Phlebotinum Dependence: This is CURIE and Urayne's primary motivation for attacking power plants — Urayne needs nuclear fuel to survive in its beta form; without it, it enters a dormant "alpha form". Averted after the final battle, where Urayne is stabilized by Actan so he no longer a steady supply of nuclear fuel to survive.
  • Phlebotinum Muncher: Hazma is capable of "eating" radiation (like certain real bacteria), to the point where a small group of them can clean out a grove of an otherwise highly irradiated area. Late in the game, they're even used to "purify" Nuclear Pokémon so they're no longer insane/disobedient (though they keep their Nuclear type, moves, and appearance). In battle, this is reflected by them being immune to Nuclear type moves thanks to the Lead Skin ability, and having a unique Nuclear type move called "Expunge" that does double damage to Nuclear type Pokémon.
  • Player Character: Comes in three flavors: Boy, Girl, and Gender Neutral.
  • Player Personality Quiz: Professor Bamb'o gives you a short, color-coded one to decide your starter.
  • Poor, Predictable Rock: Urayne tries to avert this by packing Overheat to deal with Nuclear-resistant Steel types, but Gararewl — the one pure Steel-type in the game (and therefore the only non-Nuclear-type to resist Nuclear-type moves) — happens to have a 50:50 shot of packing the Sturdy ability, which prevents OHKOs from full health. If you have enough healing items on hand (which isn't many — the most PP Overheat can have is 8), you can just heal Gararewl back to full health after each Overheat until it runs out of PP. After that, you've pretty much won.
  • Power Up Letdown:
    • Feliger, the evolution of Felunge, has very good stats, but it trades its useful abilities for the Lazy ability, which puts it to sleep when you send it out. Its Pokédex entry lampshades this.
    • Mega Baariette is very powerful, but its Blood Lust ability is a bit of a letdown compared to Moxie and Guts. However, it does make it quite hard to kill in conjunction with Drain Punch.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • Theo's reaction when he sees Urayne for the first time is "Holy shit!" Keep in mind that the kid's 12.
    • When Lucille is explaining to Urayne why the plant is exploding, she calls Professor Larkspur "a goddamn coward" for being more willing to kill innocents than face his crimes.
  • Puzzle Boss: With enough Level Grinding, you can beat Gamma Urayne conventionally. But since it's many levels higher than anything else you've fought, with monstrously high stats and attacks that are super-effective against basically any Pokémon, it will take a lot of levels. Alternatively, you can exploit its tendency to choose a move that's super-effective against its current opponent, by constantly switching between a Pokemon who resists Nuclear (like the Actan who's just joined you) and one who resists Fire, until Urayne has used up its Overheat PP and/or completely trashed its Special Attack stat with the backlash from Overheat. Then pummel it with the Nuclear-resistant Pokémon.
  • Race Against the Clock: At one point, you have five minutes to look inside a highly irradiated area for Theo before your Hazard Suit runs out of power.
  • Radiation-Induced Superpowers: Following a catastrophic meltdown at a nuclear power plant ten years prior to the game's start, some Pokémon have been affected by the radiation, making them feral and changing their typing to Nuclear, which is super-effective against almost every type and weak to almost every type.
  • Radiation-Immune Mutants:
    • Downplayed with the Nuclear type, which only resists itself.
    • Geigeroach, a Bug/Nuclear cockroach, is indeed completely immune to the Nuclear type thanks to its ability, Lead Skin.
  • Record Needle Scratch: Upon clearing the puzzles needed to access Praseopunk and Neopunk, your character approaches them, and the music cuts off with a needle scratch once they realize you're there. Bonus points for them actually being at a DJ booth at the time.
  • Redemption Demotion: Urayne is level 85 when you last fight it, but when you receive it, it's only level 50. Possibly justified by the fact that you last fight it in its unobtainable Gamma form but obtain it in its near-dormant Alpha form, which the level difference could have been meant to reflect.
  • Sailor Earth:
    • Nucleon is a Nuclear-type addition to the Eeveelutions created specifically for Uranium.
    • Inverted by the Brothers of Metal. Actan and Lanthan form a legendary trio that isn't ever hinted to exist in the Pokémon games with the canon Pokémon Heatran.
  • Save Scumming: Can be done by hitting the F12 key.
  • Secret A.I. Moves:
    • The Gamma Urayne form is unavailable to the player, even after obtaining Urayne.
    • Praseopunk and Neopunk are commonly found in the ownership of trainers on Victory Road and in the Championship. You, however, couldn't obtain one before Update 1.1.0.
    • Elite Trainer Adam, a post-credits boss, has a Gengar that can Mega Evolve. Neither the Gengarite nor any member of the Gastly family can be obtained by the player. Justified in that Gengar isn't native to Tandor, and Adam is explicitly identified as having been to regions where its evolution family can be found in the wild.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: Sort of an Ascended Fanon version, with game mechanics instead of plot elements. The "Nuzlocke Challenge", a common self-imposed challenge for players of the official games, actually appears in this game as a built-in hard mode that can be selected at the start of a new game. The two base rules (Fainted = dead, and only the first encounter per route can be caught) and a few other optional rulesnote  are coded in, so any fainted Pokémon are actually marked as "dead" instead of "fainted" and can't be revived by any means, and the game will outright stop you if you try to catch more than one thing per route or skip the first encounter and try to catch a subsequent one.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Shown Their Work:
    • Seikamater's evolution method is surprisingly similar to how insect queens are made in real life; royal jelly is a real substance produced by bees, and is fed to the larvae destined to become queens. It's the nutritional contents of the royal jelly that trigger queen development, meaning it can be fed to any random larva to get the same effects.
    • Several NPCs are knowledgable on the actual science behind nuclear power and the effects of radiation.
  • Sickly Green Glow: Corrupted nuclear Pokémon have one.
  • Significant Wardrobe Shift: Theo has changed his outfit when you see him in Snowbank Town, and also appears to be a bit taller next time you battle him. While the former is initially stated to be due to the cold weather, he keeps it for the rest of the game and the weather doesn't explain the concurrent change in hairstyle. This is the point in the game where his Character Development really begins to stick.
  • Small Town Boredom: Sheldon — technologically advanced Gym Leader of Vinoville Town, a rural farming village. Because of this, he has a strong despisal for it, and has occasionally pulled pranks on the farmers for his amusement. In a way, he gets his wish, but after the evacuation, he realizes that he does care, but never realized it until after the nuclear plant meltdown.
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: During the second part of the Garlikid Sidequest in Silverport Town at one point you'll lose your entire party and will have to use Garlikid in their place until you can get your party back. Once the quest is finished, Garlikid will join you permanently. However, even if story-wise they're the same character, the Garlikid that permanently joins you isn't the same you used before (as they have different IV and Nature), meaning that if you equipped it with an item, you're not getting said item back.
  • Stealth Prequel: Hinted to be one to Pokémon Colosseum and XD. Professor Larkspur is working on technology that would allow the user to capture already caught Pokémon and corrupt Pokémon to fight against their will, and mentions "at least a few organizations" offering to pay him highly for the tech, implying he was the one who developed the Snag Machine and Shadow Pokémon for Team Snagem and Cipher.
  • Stealth Sequel: Possibly one to Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia; the protagonist's father is Kellyn, the Chief of the Tandor Rangers. Kellyn is the default name of the male protagonist of Shadows of Almia, and is confirmed in Guardian Signs to be the canon protagonist.
  • Stock Ninja Weaponry: Frynai and its evolutions, Saidine and Daikatuna, are based on kunais, sais, and katanas, respectively. Unsurprisingly, they're often used by ninjas.
  • Stone Wall:
    • The Cocaran line. They have very poor attack and special attack, but amazing defense and special defense.
    • Hazma's stats indicate that it's trying to be this, but being weak to literally everything else makes this a less successful example.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • Unlike in the main games, if you lose a battle against the Big Bad at any point in the storyline, you're not warped back to the last Pokémon Center and allowed to return and try again; instead, you're treated to a Game Over and get booted back to the main menu (essentially getting warped back to your last save). Because why would the Big Bad let you have another shot at beating them?
    • Unlike the canon games, Uranium has multiple instances where the player does something nice for someone else and is given no reward for it — and is even mocked for it, because some people are dicks.
    • After the events of the game, Cameron is officially discharged from Interpol. After all, while going full action hero certainly accomplished a lot, it definitely wasn't anything close to how Interpol does things.
    • After The Reveal that CURIE was actually Kellyn's long-lost wife Lucille, Cameron notes that, when/if she wakes up (the game ends with her comatose), she'll still have to answer for her crimes as CURIE. Nothing is concrete since the post-game is still incomplete, but the implication is that Lucille won't be so Easily Forgiven for almost destroying Tandor in a large-scale nuclear disaster.
  • Take That!:
    • One NPC in Rochfale Town's PokéMart discusses that some trainers prefer the Kanto, Johto, or other regions over the Tandor Pokémon. She also compares the dis-preference for Sinnoh Pokémon to borderline racism.
    • One NPC in Legen Town has a very low opinion on HMs in general (THEY SUCK!!!) and the idea behind HM Slaves, and he even gives you a device that stands-in for Rock Smash. As of later patches, he gives you items to replace the other HM moves, too.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: In the time it can take for Lucille to explain what's happening to Urayne and that she'll have to enter stasis too for them both to survive the power plant exploding above them, she could have deactivated the chamber, popped Urayne into a Poké Ball, and gotten them both out. Possibly Justified by the fact that it's a neural relay she's talking to him with, which means that what takes us a few seconds to read could be conveyed between them in moments.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Nearly every Pokémon from the main series that's used in this game is either given a new evolution, a new Mega Evolution, a Nuclear form, or some combination of those. The only exceptions tend to be ones that already had Mega Evolutions but aren't found where Nuclear Pokémon spawn.
    • Instead of fighting the Elite Four, in this game you enter a tournament, where you will battle trainers and Gym Leaders that you have already encountered throughout the game, only with far more powerful versions of their regular teams. Looks like you're not the only one who's been training…
      • The game also mentions that the Gym Leaders have their own personal teams that are far too strong to test Trainers.
  • This Cannot Be!: Sheldon is in disbelief when you manage to defeat him, even if he's done nothing but train in his boring town, but he takes it well since it also alleviated his boredom.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: It's possible to end up stuck in Randomizer Nuzlocke mode if you lack a Pokémon that can learn a required HM. Normal Randomizer runs don't have this issue because you can keep catching Pokémon until you get something that can learn it, and normal Nuzlocke runs, while more restrictive with capturesnote , at least allow online trading if you're desperate. Randomizer shuts off online features, blocking that escape route, and since Uranium hard-codes Nuzlocke rules if you start the game in that mode, you can't just suspend the capture rules to get by. It's possible for this to happen as early as right after the first Gym, since you can't get to Burole town without Rock Smash.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss: Gym Leader Davern. Maria stuck to a type like you'd expect, but Davern is the first of many gym leaders to have a theme other than type with his Pokémon (his being cave habitats), so you can't bring a Pokémon with a type advantage against one type and expect to sweep. This trend continues for every Gym Leader except Tiko.
  • Walking Spoiler: Curie on many levels: Is (possibly accidentally) gendered as female from the start, is named after Marie Curie, a woman who died from her work as a nuclear scientist, and has intimate (albeit dated) knowledge of the region. These are all traits shared by Lucille, the player's mother, who the game frequently refers to as "missing" rather than explicitly "dead". Naturally, they're one in the same.
  • Weather Manipulation: In addition to the usual weather-inducing moves, you get some new ones too. Unlike the pre-existing weather effects, these only damage Pokémon every other turn and calculate damage based on type match-ups instead of doing a fixed 1/16 of the target's health.
    • First is Thunderstorm, which any member of the Volchik line can cause with the move of the same name and the final evolution of the line — Yatagaryu — automatically summons upon switching in due to its signature Stormbringer ability. This causes occasional lightning bolts to strike down from the sky, and does more damage the weaker the target is to Electric-type moves, but does no damage to Electric- or Ground-types. More importantly, it powers up Electric-type moves by 50% and makes Thunder a 100% accuracy move.
    • The second is Nuclear Fallout, which some Nuclear Pokémon can create with the move Fallout and Gamma Urayne automatically summons with its ability, Chernobyl. How much damage the target takes depends on how weak it is to Nuclear-type moves, and it doesn't affect Nuclear- or Steel-types. It also makes Expunge a 100% accuracy move.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: You'll get this reaction from the NPC you've been traveling with if you defeat Lanthan instead of capturing it.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Theo's dialogue right before you face him at the Champion Cup implies that this is true of the Player Character, noting that he's realized that you getting more respect than him and being less prone to Just a Kid had less to do with you being a couple years older than him (he's 12 at this point while you're 13) and more to do with you being more mature than him.
  • The Worf Effect: Actan, a Steel-type legendary Pokémon, willingly asks to join your team right before you fight Gamma Urayne, and is placed at the front of your team if you accept. Turns out it's 5 levels weaker and if you try to attack Gamma Urayne with it, it promptly gets outsped and wasted with Overheat on the first turn, unless you're lucky enough to get one with good Special Defense. At least it has Intimidate.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Thought CURIE was out of sight, out of mind after defeating her at Nuclear Plant Zeta? Nope, she shows up at the end of the Tandor Championship with Gamma Urayne in tow and basically threatens to destroy the region if you don't beat her one last time.

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