Character encoding (Generation II)

This article is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it. Reason: Similar level of detail to English for non-English encodings.

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In the Generation II core series games, a proprietary character encoding is used to store text data. Different languages use different encodings, although Western language games have very similar encodings to each other.

The Generation II encoding is largely similar to the Generation I encoding.

Compatibility

The exact character encoding differs between languages, although all Western languages use almost-equivalent encodings. The set of user-enterable characters in Trainer names and Pokémon nicknames is the same in all Western languages except German; in German, letters with umlauts are enterable (ÄÖÜäöü), but to compensate it is not possible to enter a semicolon and either a space^GS or multiplication sign^C.

In the Generation I and II games, the only supported cross-language compatibility is among the Western games. Attempting to trade or battle between a Western language game and a Japanese or Korean game will usually result in some kind of corruption in both games, and is completely disabled in the Virtual Console releases. Between Western language games, the only text that can be transferred is the player's name, the nicknames and Original Trainers of their party Pokémon, and the contents of Mail. When reading Mail in a Western language game, the game uses the character encoding of the language the Mail was written in, rather than the current game's language, which prevents the text from being corrupted.

Due to the encodings of Western language games mostly being compatible, when trading Pokémon between different Western languages, nicknames and Original Trainer names are usually displayed correctly, with the exception of characters with diacritics (specifically, some characters obtainable in names in the Spanish versions that cannot be entered by players). The Original Trainer of Pokémon obtained in in-game trades in Generation I is codepoint 0x5D, a control character that prints "TRAINER" in the game's language, meaning that it is automatically translated when traded between languages.

The Generation I character encoding for each language is almost the same as the Generation II encoding, with all characters that can be entered in Trainer names and Pokémon nicknames remaining at the same codepoints in both generations. However, the English Generation I games do not support letters with umlauts that can be entered in German games—simply displaying them as spaces—although the code points are preserved so they will be correctly displayed in other games. This means that trading Pokémon between Generation I and II games of the same language will not affect their nicknames or Original Trainer names.

Pokémon Stadium 2

Main article: Character encoding (Stadium)

When the player's name, the nickname or Original Trainer of a Pokémon, a Box name, or Mail from the handheld games is displayed in Pokémon Stadium 2, it needs to be transcoded between this character encoding and that of the Nintendo 64 game.

Poké Transporter

Main article: Poké Transporter → Character transcoding

When transferring a Pokémon from a Generation I or II game via Poké Transporter, its nickname and Original Trainer need to be transcoded from this character encoding to that of Pokémon Bank. Due to differences in the characters that can be entered or otherwise appear in names in these games and the Generation VII games, some characters are not transcoded to the same characters they represent in these games.

Additionally, the name of Box 1 (the box that will be transferred) is displayed in Poké Transporter. The range of characters that can be entered in Box names is broader than in nicknames and Trainer names, and varies more between languages, but Poké Transporter still makes an effort to display Box names accurately.

Rendering

Due to how text is rendered in the Generation II core series games, all non-control characters take up the exact same amount of space (i.e. the games effectively use a monospaced font). In Western languages, some ligature characters exist to display two characters within the width of one (e.g. the character 's is the same width as s).

These same code points are used for both rendering text and other elements. For example, code points 0x79-0x7E are box-drawing characters used to draw the boundaries of text boxes; in certain user interfaces (e.g. in battles, on summary screens, and in the Pokédex) parts of the tileset overwrite code points that are not used to display text in that interface.

Some codepoints are used for different characters in different contexts. For example, 0x6E and 0x6F usually contain hiragana characters leftover from the Japanese version, but when displaying the length of Magikarp at the Lake of Rage they are replaced by symbols for feet and inches instead (′ and ″).

English

The following represents the baseline values of these characters. In some contexts, many of these characters have their values overwritten.

Undefined characters simply print as spaces.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	?	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
1-	Q	R	S	T				X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[
2-	q	r					w	x	y	z
3-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö
4-	Z	(	)	:										'r
5-	Control characters
6-	█	▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	PO	Ké	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	╔	═	╗	║	╚	╝	␠
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü
D-	'd	'l	'm	'r	's	't	'v									🡄
E-	'	PK	MN	-			?	!	.	&	é	🡆	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Legend

Standard text characters

Control characters

Special duplicate characters

Differs between Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Crystal

Notes

• 0x00 is a null character, used to mark null values and occasionally used as a delimiter, but displays as ? in strings.
• 0x01-0x4F are mostly leftovers from Japanese diacritic characters (but just print their corresponding base character unmodified in English), although many characters in this range are control characters.
• 0x60-0x6C are bold letters leftover from the Japanese version. Only V and S are used in the English version, appearing on the VS screen at the start of a link battle.
  • 0x60-0x62 are technically bold A, B, C in the base font, but are almost always immediately overwritten with the characters listed in the above table (█, ▲, ). Since these characters will almost never render as their base values, the superseding values are used in the table above.
• 0x6E-0x6F and 0x76-0x78 are Japanese hiragana leftover in the character table from the Japanese version. They are not used in the English version.
• 0x72 and 0x73 are 『 and 』 in Pokémon Gold and Silver, and “ and ” in Pokémon Crystal.
• 0x74 is an interpunct leftover from the Japanese version. It is not used in the English version.
• 0x79-0x7E are text box boundaries. The player can change how they display in the Options menu.
• 0x7F is a space.
• 0xD0-0xD6 represent an apostrophe followed by a letter. These characters are used to render contractions and possessives in dialogue, so that the apostrophe does not take up an entire character-width of space.
• 0xDF and 0xEB are arrows that are only present in Pokémon Crystal.
• 0xE8 and 0xF2 are both periods that render identically. 0xE8 is used as a period and 0xF2 is used as a decimal point.
  • 0xE8 is used in user input in Generation II, while 0xF2 is used in user input in Generation I. Mr. Mime's name contains 0xE8 in both generations.
  • In the Japanese games, the two code points represent visually distinct characters.

Special duplicate characters

For characters below 0x60, if they are not a control character, they duplicate a character from the regular character range (0x80-0xFF). In the Western versions, these code points are unused.

This duplication is due to leftover code from the Japanese version that was used to print kana with dakuten and handakuten. In the Western versions, because the game cannot print dakuten and handakuten, it instead prints an unmodified duplicate of the base character (i.e. the character at the same codepoint as the corresponding base kana character).

• 0x01-0x1F (excluding control characters) are 0x81-0x9F, printed with dakuten (゛) in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version, the characters in this range are all katakana.
• 0x20-0x3F (excluding control characters) are 0xB0-0xCF, printed with dakuten (゛) in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version, the characters in this range are all hiragana (except 0xB0).
• 0x40-0x43 (excluding control characters) are 0x99-0x9C, printed with handakuten (゜) in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version, the characters in this range are all katakana.
• 0x43-0x4D (excluding control characters) are 0xCA-0xD3, printed with handakuten (゜) in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version, the characters in this range are all hiragana.
• 0x4E-0x5F are all control characters in both the Japanese and Western versions.

Name error handling

The game defines a list of characters that are considered valid in Original Trainer names and Pokémon nicknames. In some contexts, the game will replace any invalid characters in these names with ?. This can help suppress issues arising from control characters being present in these names.

The following are considered valid characters in names:

• 0x7F-0xFF: This encompasses all user-enterable characters in the Western games (among many other characters).
• 0x5D: A control character that prints "TRAINER" (used in Generation I as the Original Trainer of in-game trade Pokémon).
• 0x05-0x13, 0x19-0x1C, 0x26-0x34, 0x3A-0x3E, and 0x40-0x48: The specific code points that correspond to standard dakuten and handakuten characters in the Japanese character encoding. In English, these are all special duplicate characters.

The circumstances under which this is applied are very inconsistent. For example, the error handling is applied to Pokémon nicknames on the party screen, but not on their own individual summary screens, despite it still being applied to Original Trainer names on this screen. In battle, it is not applied to nicknames in most cases, but is applied when reporting gained experience.

Control characters

The following are control codes used in the English version of the games. Further details are included in the control characters section.

Code point	Control type	Description	Usage
0x00	Print control	Marks a null value. Displays as ? in strings.	Not used in strings.
0x14	Variable display	Prints the player's name (duplicate of 0x52). In Japanese, this prints the player's name with an honorific.	Used in dialogue that refers to the player's name (specifically, dialogue that referred to the player with an honorific in the Japanese version).
0x15	Print control	Can cause the game to hang or prevent the rest of the text from printing.	Unused. In Japanese, its purpose is related to the Mobile Game Boy Adapter.
0x16	Print control	???	Unused.
0x1F	Print control	Breakable space: Usually prints a space (" "), but prints as a line break (0x22) on the Town Map.	Used in the names of locations with long names, so that their names are usually displayed with a space, but break across two lines on the Town Map.
0x22	Print control	Single-spaced line break: Moves the print position one tile below the start of the current line.	Used on the Options menu, to display battle records on 2F on the Pokémon Center, and in some Pokégear phone number entries.
0x23	Static display	Prints " tzx" (mojibake of こうげき, which means "attack").	Unused. In Japanese, it is used in in-battle text.
0x24	Static display	Prints "POKé".	Used on the menu in the name of the Pokégear option.
0x25	Print control	Zero-width breakable space: Usually prints nothing (zero width), but prints as a line break (0x22) on the Town Map.	Unused.
0x35	Static display	Print nothing (zero width).	Unused. In Japanese, it printed "ばん　どうろ" ("Route №").
0x36	Static display	Print nothing (zero width).	Unused. In Japanese, it printed "わたし" ("I"/"me").
0x37	Static display	Print nothing (zero width).	Unused. In Japanese, it printed "ここは" ("Here is").
0x38	Static display	Prints "RED".	Unused. Relates to unused code for storing a custom name for Red.
0x39	Static display	Prints "GREEN".	Unused. Relates to unused code for storing a custom name for Blue (who is called "Green" in Japanese).
0x3F	Variable display	Prints the opposing Trainer's name (including their Trainer class).	Used in various in-battle messages.
0x49	Static display	Prints "MOM".	Unused. Relates to unused code for storing a custom name for Mom.
0x4A	Static display	Prints "PKMN".	Several usages, including the party button in battle and on the menu, and the name of the Trainer class PKMN Trainer.
0x4B	Print control	Scrolls the standard text window up one line after player confirmation, then starts writing at the second line.	Implementation of 0x55. Not used directly.
0x4C	Print control	Autoscroll: Scrolls the standard text window up one line without player confirmation, then starts writing at the second line.	Used in messages for stat modification by 2 stages.
0x4E	Print control	Double-spaced line break: Moves the print position two tiles below the start of the current line.	Used in multiline text not printed in the standard text box, such as item descriptions and Pokédex entries.
0x4F	Print control	Second line: Moves the print position to the start of the second line of the standard text window.	Used in multiline text printed in the standard text box, such as character dialogue.
0x50	Print control	String terminator	Used as a string terminator. For strings in fixed length fields, it is often used to pad shorter strings to the required length.
0x51	Print control	Paragraph: Clears the standard text window after player confirmation, then starts printing in a new window.	Used in text split across multiple text boxes, such as character dialogue.
0x52	Variable display	Prints the player's name.	Used in dialogue that refers to the player's name (specifically, dialogue that referred to the player without an honorific in the Japanese version).
0x53	Variable display	Prints the rival's name.	Used in dialogue that refers to the rival's name.
0x54	Static display	Prints "POKé".	Frequently used in text that includes "POKé", such as "POKéMON" and "POKéGEAR".
0x55	Print control	Scroll: Scrolls the standard text window up one line after player confirmation, then starts writing at the second line.	Used in scrolling multiline text printed in the standard text box, such as character dialogue.
0x56	Static display	Prints "……".	Used in dialogue that prints sequential ellipses.
0x57	Print control	Done: After player confirmation, closes the text window.	Used at the end of dialogue printed in the standard text window.
0x58	Print control	Prompt: After player confirmation twice, closes the text window.	Used at the end of dialogue which is followed by some kind of choice for the player.
0x59	Variable display	Prints the target of a move. If referring to the opponent's Pokémon, "Enemy " is prepended to the Pokémon's name.	Used in various messages in battle.
0x5A	Variable display	Prints the user of a move. If referring to the opponent's Pokémon, "Enemy " is prepended to the Pokémon's name.	Used in various messages in battle.
0x5B	Static display	Prints "PC".	Unused.
0x5C	Static display	Prints "TM".	Unused.
0x5D	Static display	Prints "TRAINER".	Used as the Original Trainer of in-game trade Pokémon in Generation I.
0x5E	Static display	Prints "ROCKET".	Unused.
0x5F	Print control	Prints "." and ends the Pokédex entry.	Unused. In Generation I, it was used at the end of Pokédex entries; in Generation II, Pokédex entries instead end with a regular period and string terminator.

Overwriting characters

In some contexts, different tilesets are loaded into the game's font.

• In displays that need to display an HP bar (such as in battle and on Pokémon summary screens), a dedicated HP bar variant of the base font is loaded into 0x60-0x7F to include tiles for drawing HP bars. (See below for details.)
• In English, when the size of a Magikarp is displayed at the Lake of Rage, 0x6E and 0x6F are replaced by symbols for feet and inches (′ and ″), respectively, for this dialogue only.
• In the Pokédex, parts of the tileset used to display the Pokédex's user interface are loaded into the range 0x60-0x6A.
  • In Unown Mode, parts of the user interface and the Unown font are loaded into the range 0x00-0x5F, in addition to the regular Pokédex tileset loaded into the range 0x60-0x6A. Due to the text terminator being overwritten with an Unown character, 0xFF is used as the terminator instead.
• In Western versions of Pokémon Crystal and non-English Western versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver, when reading Mail, the game ensures that the message is displayed using the character encoding of the language the Mail was written in, preventing corruption when trading Mail between languages. This is only applicable when trading between Western languages, as trading between other languages causes corruption, so is not supported by this feature.

HP bar tileset

When it is necessary to draw an HP bar (such as in battle and on a Pokémon's summary screen), a tileset containing HP bar pieces and other text characters is loaded into the font. Most of these characters are semigraphic tiles rather than text characters.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
6-														║	:L
7-	ど	◀	『	ID	№	…				╔	═	╗	║	╚	╝	␠

Same as default font

Differs between HP bar tilesets

• 0x60 and 0x61 are a pair of tiles that form the HP: graphic displayed on the left side of the HP bar.
• 0x62-0x6A are segments used to draw the HP bar and experience bar.
• 0x6B is the right edge of an HP bar. It used for HP bars on summary screens and for the opponent's HP bar during battle.
• 0x6C is the top piece of the right bracket of the player's HP bar interface during battle.
• 0x6D is a duplicate of 0x7C.
• 0x6E is the abbreviation of "Level" used in various displays.
• 0x6F and 0x78 are similar to the triangles placed at the tip of HP bar frames, but shifted 2 pixels up.
• 0x70 and 0x72 are unused leftover text characters from the Japanese version.

HP bar frame tileset

The characters listed above are the base HP bar tileset, although in many contexts one or both of a pair of ranges of tiles (0x6C-0x6F and 0x73-0x78) are overwritten with other tiles. The replacement characters are depicted below.

• In battle, 0x6C-0x6F and 0x73-0x78 are overwritten with tiles used to draw the HP bar frame for both Pokémon.
• On the summary screen, only 0x6C-0x6F are overwritten.
• On the party list screen during battle, neither is overwritten.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
6-	Unchanged														:L
7-						…				Unchanged

Not changed from base HP bar tileset

Differs from base HP bar tileset

• 0x6C and 0x6E are the same as the base HP bar tileset, but are technically overwritten along with the other characters.
• 0x6C, 0x73, and 0x77 are tiles that form the right bracket of the player's HP bar frame during battle.
• 0x6D and 0x74 are tiles that form the left bracket of the opponent's HP bar frame during battle.
• 0x6F and 0x78 are the triangles placed at the tip of the player's and opponent's HP bar frames (respectively).
• 0x75 is an ellipsis in the original tileset and base HP bar tileset, but in the HP bar frame tileset the ellipsis is positioned slightly higher.
• 0x76 is the baseline of the opponent's HP bar frame.

Pokédex

In the Pokédex, some of the tileset used to display the Pokédex frame is loaded into code points in the 0x60-0x6A range. The rest of the character set is unchanged.

Additionally, all characters have their colors inverted, as the Pokédex uses a white-on-black display (as opposed to the usual black-on-white display). They are depicted as black-on-white below.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
6-	g		Footprint									L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ

Sprite buffer

Same as default font

• 0x60 is a bold g. This is leftover from the Japanese version, which uses this as part of "kg" when displaying Pokémon weights. (In English, weights are instead displayed in feet and inches; the feet and inches characters are not left in the text tileset.)
• 0x61 is the horizontal divider displayed in the middle of the Pokédex entry screen.
• 0x62-0x65 is the current Pokémon's footprint.
• 0x66-0x6A are borders of the Pokédex frame.
• 0x6B-0x6F are unchanged from the base character set.

Unown Mode

In the Pokédex's Unown Mode, an Unown font is loaded into the 0x40-0x5A range in order to display text using Unown letters. Additionally, the sprite buffer and more tiles from the Pokédex tileset remain in the character table, in contrast to other Pokédex modes.

In the Pokédex, all characters have their colors inverted, as the Pokédex uses a white-on-black display (as opposed to the usual black-on-white display). Text characters are depicted as black-on-white below, but user interface tiles are unchanged.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	Pokémon sprite buffer
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-											◆		№	.	′	″
6-	g		Footprint									L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	PO	Ké	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	╔	═	╗	║	╚	╝	␠
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü
D-	'd	'l	'm	'r	's	't	'v									🡄
E-	'	PK	MN	-			?	!	.	&	é	🡆	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8

Sprite buffer

Same as default font

Control characters

Differs between Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Crystal

• 0x00-0x30 is the sprite buffer for the Unown's sprite (including the white padding), tiled top-to-bottom then left-to-right.
• 0x31-0x3F, 0x5B, 0x61, and 0x66-0x6A are tiles from the Pokédex user interface.
• 0x40-0x59 are Unown characters.
• 0x5A is the cursor from Unown Mode.
• 0x62-0x65 is the sprite buffer for the Pokémon's footprint in the main Pokédex. It is unused in Unown Mode, just displaying as white tiles (against the black background).
• 0xFF is the string terminator.
  • 0x50, which usually would function as the string terminator, has instead been overwritten with Unown Q ().

Naming screen

On the screen to enter the player's name, rival's name, and Pokémon nicknames, a few characters are overwritten by tiles used elsewhere on the screen.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	PO	Ké	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	╔	═	╗	║	╚	╝	␠
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü
D-	'd	'l	'm	'r	's	't	'v									🡄
E-	'	PK	MN	-			?	!	.	&	é	‒	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	_	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Same as default font

Differs between Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Crystal

• 0x60 is the sprite used as the frame of the screen.
• 0xEB is the centered horizontal line used to indicate unset characters (except the current character slot) in the name being entered.
• 0xF2 is the base-line horizontal line used to indicate the next slot to be written to in the name being entered.

French & German

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	Unsure
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	PO	Ké	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	à	è	é	ù	ß	ç
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü	ë	ï	â	ô	û	ê	î
D-					c'	d'	j'	l'	m'	n'	p'	s'	's	t'	u'	y'
E-	'	PK	MN	-	+		?	!	.	&	é		▷	▶	▼	♂
F-	$	×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Italian & Spanish

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-
1-	Unsure
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	PO	Ké	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	à	è	é	ù	À	Á
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü	È	É	Ì	Í	Ñ	Ò	Ó	Ù	Ú	á
D-	ì	í	ñ	ò	ó	ú	º	&	'd	'l	'm	'r	's	't	'v
E-	'	PK	MN	-	¿	¡	?	!	.	&	é		▷	▶	▼	♂
F-	$	×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Japanese

An asterisk (*) denotes a character that is explained in the control characters section below.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	?	イ゙	ヴ	エ゙	オ゙	ガ	ギ	グ	ゲ	ゴ	ザ	ジ	ズ	ゼ	ゾ	ダ
1-	ヂ	ヅ	デ	ド	*	*	*	ネ゙	ノ゙	バ	ビ	ブ	ボ	*	*	*
2-	ィ゙	あ゙	*	*	*	*	が	ぎ	ぐ	げ	ご	ざ	じ	ず	ぜ	ぞ
3-	だ	ぢ	づ	で	ど	*	*	*	*	*	ば	び	ぶ	べ	ぼ	*
4-	パ	ピ	プ	ポ	ぱ	ぴ	ぷ	ぺ	ぽ	*	*	*	*	も゚	*	*
5-	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	「	」	『	』	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	ア	イ	ウ	エ	オ	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ	タ
9-	チ	ツ	テ	ト	ナ	ニ	ヌ	ネ	ノ	ハ	ヒ	フ	ホ	マ	ミ	ム
A-	メ	モ	ヤ	ユ	ヨ	ラ	ル	レ	ロ	ワ	ヲ	ン	ッ	ャ	ュ	ョ
B-	ィ	あ	い	う	え	お	か	き	く	け	こ	さ	し	す	せ	そ
C-	た	ち	つ	て	と	な	に	ぬ	ね	の	は	ひ	ふ	へ	ほ	ま
D-	み	む	め	も	や	ゆ	よ	ら	リ	る	れ	ろ	わ	を	ん	っ
E-	ゃ	ゅ	ょ	ー	゜	゛	?	!	。	ァ	ゥ	ェ	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-	円	×	.	/	ォ	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Control characters

The characters on a gray background below are not naturally used in the games.

Character	Function
0x14	Prints the player's name, including a gendered honorific (adds くん for male, ちゃん for female).
0x15	Related to the Mobile Game Boy Adapter.
0x16	Nothing.
0x1D	Prints に .
0x1E	Prints って.
0x1F	Prints を .
0x22	Prints た！.
0x23	Prints こうげき.
0x24	Prints は　.
0x25	Prints の　.
0x35	Prints ばん　どうろ.
0x36	Prints わたし.
0x37	Prints ここは .
0x38	Prints レッド.
0x39	Prints グリーン.
0x3F	Prints the opposing Trainer's name (including their Trainer class).
0x49	Prints おかあさん ("MOM").
0x4A	Prints が .
0x4B	Appears to be the same as 0x55
0x4C	Appears to be the same as 0x55 except without any prompt or pause (immediately shifting the dialogue box's lines upwards)
0x4E	Line break (moves the print position to the space two tiles below the start of the current line (as defined by explicit placements of the print position); mostly used in move descriptions and Pokédex entries).
0x4F	Dialogue line break (moves the print position to the expected start of the second line in a standard dialogue box).
0x50	String terminator.
0x51	Prompts the player to press a button, after which the text window is cleared to make way for the following text.
0x52	Prints the player's name without an honorific.
0x53	Prints the rival's name.
0x54	Prints ポケモン.
0x55	Prompts the player to press a button, after which the top line of the text window is replaced by the bottom, the bottom line is cleared, and the print position moves to the start of the bottom line.
0x56	Prints …… (in the middle of the line in Japanese).
0x57	Marks the end of dialogue, without a visual prompt to the player.
0x58	Marks the end of dialogue, with a visual prompt to the player.
0x59	Prints the inactive* Pokémon's name in battle. (Outside of battle, this may not terminate properly.)
0x5A	Prints the active* Pokémon's name in battle.
0x5B	Prints パソコン.
0x5C	Prints わざマシン.
0x5D	Prints トレーナー.
0x5E	Prints ロケットだん.
0x5F	Prints a period (0xE8) and simultaneously functions as a string terminator. (Only used in Japanese Pokédex entries.)

Korean

Main article: Korean character encoding (Generation II)

Control characters

Code points within the 0x00-0x5F range are either control characters or Japanese diacritic characters (or in other languages, leftovers from Japanese diacritic characters). When including in a text string, they execute a piece of code instead of printing a single character, unless caught by name error handling.

There are three main categories of control character:

• Static display: Prints a fixed string (which may contain multiple characters)
• Variable display: Prints the value of a text variable (which may contain multiple characters)
• Print control: Directs where to print text

Static display codes

This section is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it. Reason: Values printed in French, German, Italian, Spanish

The following is a table of what the static display codes print in each language. Entries on a grey background are not static display codes in that language. Entries on a pink background are simply special duplicate characters in that language.

Korean control characters do not align with other languages, so are listed separately.

Code point	Japanese	English
0x1D	に (particle ni)	;
0x1E	って	[
0x1F	を (particle wo)
0x22	た！	Single-spaced line break
0x23	こうげき ("attack")	tzx
0x24	は　 (particle wa)	POKé
0x35	ばん　どうろ ("Route №")	Nothing (zero width)
0x36	わたし ("I")	Nothing (zero width)
0x37	ここは ("Here is")	Nothing (zero width)
0x38	レッド ("Red")	RED
0x39	グリーン ("Green")	GREEN
0x49	おかあさん ("mom")	MOM
0x4A	が (particle ga)	PKMN
0x54	ポケモン ("Pokémon")	POKé
0x55	ポケモン ("Pokémon")	POKé
0x56	……	……
0x5B	パソコン ("PC")	PC
0x5C	わざマシン ("TM")	TM
0x5D	トレーナー ("Trainer")	TRAINER
0x5E	ロケットだん ("Team Rocket")	ROCKET

The static display control character 0x5D "TRAINER" is used as the Original Trainer of Pokémon obtained in in-game trades. Due to being a control character, this means that if the Pokémon is traded to a game in a different language, the Original Trainer is automatically updated to display "TRAINER" in that game's own language.

Variable display codes

The following are control characters that display a particular variable value.

For variables that are only populated during battle, they may not terminate properly outside of battle; otherwise, they typically retain the last value they held.

Code point	Description
0x14	Prints the player's name, including a gendered honorific in Japanese (adds くん for male, ちゃん for female). Identical to 0x52 in Western languages.
0x3F	Prints the opposing Trainer's name (including their Trainer class).
0x52	Prints the player's name, without an honorific. Identical to 0x14 in Western languages.
0x53	Prints the rival's name.
0x59	Prints the target of a move. If referring to the opponent's Pokémon, "Enemy " is prepended to the Pokémon's name.
0x5A	Prints the user of a move. If referring to the opponent's Pokémon, "Enemy " is prepended to the Pokémon's name.

Print control codes

Line breaks

Line breaks are manually defined; text usually prints on a single line until a line break is defined.

Most text is printed double-spaced, leaving a one-tile blank row between each line of text. On the rare occasions it is necessary, text can be printed single-spaced using 0x22 (half-line break).

For text printed outside of the standard text window, line breaks are created with 0x4E (next line), or in rare cases that do not use double-line spacing, 0x22 (half-line break). Both of these line breaks move the print head relative to the start of the preceeding line.

For text printed in the standard text window, there is a collection of distinct line breaks that are used. The standard text window only has two lines, so rather than moving the print head relative to the preceeding line, all of the standard text window line breaks move the print head to the start of either the first or second line.

• 0x4F (second line): Continues printing at the start of the second line
• 0x51 (paragraph): After player confirmation, clears the text window and continues printing from the start of the first line.
• 0x55 (scroll): After player confirmation, scrolls the text window one line up then continues printing from the start of the second line.
• 0x4C (autoscroll): Automatically scrolls the text window one line up then continues printing from the start of the second line (without waiting for player confirmation).
• 0x57 (done): After player confirmation, closes the text window.
• 0x58 (prompt): After player confirmation twice, closes the text window.

Additionally, 0x4B contains the implementation of 0x55 (scroll). That is, 0x55 causes 0x4B to be placed at its position, then 0x4B defines the code for actually creating such a line break.

Breakable static display codes

In English, there are two characters that normally function as static display codes, but on the Town Map are turned into a line break (0x22) instead.

• 0x1F (breakable space): Normally prints , but on the Town Map is turned into a line break.
• 0x25 (zero-width breakable space): Normally prints nothing (zero width), but on the Town Map is turned into a line break.

String terminator

0x50 is the standard string terminator.

In text for the Pokédex's Unown Mode, because 0x50 is used for an Unown letter, 0xFF is used as the string terminator instead.

In Japanese Pokédex entries, 0x5F prints . and marks the end of the Pokédex entry. In English Generation II games, Pokédex entries end with a regular period and the regular string terminator 0x50. (In Generation I, English language games also used 0x5F to mark the end of Pokédex entries.)

Null

0x00 is the null character. It is used to indicate null values.

If included in a string, it renders as ?.

Data structure in the Pokémon games General Character encoding Generation I Pokémon species • Pokémon • Poké Mart • Character encoding (Stadium) • Save Generation II Pokémon species • Pokémon • Trainer • Character encoding (Stadium • Korean) • Save Generation III Pokémon species (Evolution • Pokédex • Type chart) Pokémon (substructures) • Move • Contest • Contest move • Item Trainer Tower • Battle Frontier • Character encoding (GameCube) • Save Generation IV Pokémon species (Evolution • Learnsets) Pokémon • Save • Character encoding (Wii) Generation V–present Character encoding Generation VIII Save TCG GB and GB2 Character encoding

This data structure article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.