Character encoding (Generation II)

The main area of the character set in English Pokémon Crystal

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. 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 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 static display control character 0x5D "TRAINER" is used as the Original Trainer of Pokémon obtained in in-game trades in Generation I. 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. When reading Mail in a Western language game, the game uses the font of the language the Mail was written in, rather than the current game's language, which prevents the text from being corrupted.

Attempting to trade or battle between a Western language or Korean game and a Japanese game causes corruption of both save files. The Korean versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver can successfully trade with Western language Generation I and II games. However, Hangul characters will appear garbled on Western language games, and may even include bytes that map to control characters in these games. However, unlike attempting to trade between Western language and Japanese games, save data is not corrupted. The Virtual Console releases only allow trades or battles between two Western language games, between two Japanese games, or between two Korean games.

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 code points 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 Nintendo 3DS 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

The party screen in the Japanese version of Pokémon Crystal, showing dakuten and handakuten

Due to how text is rendered in the Generation II core series games, all standard text 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).

Each standard text character code directly corresponds to a tile (an 8×8 pixel square) in the tilemap loaded into VRAM. Not all tiles in the tilemap are accessible via character code, but many are. 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 code points 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 ″).

In most contexts in these games, text is printed with a line of space above it. In Japanese, dakuten and handakuten are printed in this space (above the kana they are applied to), effectively making these diacritic characters two tiles tall. However, status condition icons are displayed without this space above them, so in Japanese a special single-line ど is loaded into the HP bar tileset to display the poisoned (どく in Japanese) or burned (やけど in Japanese) status conditions on a single line. In Korean, two-byte characters are also two tiles tall.

Character map

The following represents the baseline values of these characters. In some contexts, many of these characters have their values overwritten. The Korean character map is listed separately.

English
	-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-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	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-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-			?	!	.	&	é	🡆	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

French and German
	-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	à	è	é	ù	ß	ç
3-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö						û	ê	î
4-	Z	(	)	:	û	ê	î							'r
5-	Control characters
6-	█	▲		Ｄ	Ｅ	Ｆ	Ｇ	Ｈ	Ｉ	Ｖ	Ｓ	Ｌ	Ｍ	：	ぃ	ぅ
7-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	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	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-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-	+		?	!	.	&	é	🡆	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Italian and Spanish
	-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	à	è	é	ù	À	Á
3-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö						Ñ	Ò	Ó	Ù	Ú
4-	Z	(	)	:	Ñ	Ò	Ó	Ù	Ú					'r
5-	Control characters
6-	█	▲		Ｄ	Ｅ	Ｆ	Ｇ	Ｈ	Ｉ	Ｖ	Ｓ	Ｌ	Ｍ	：	ぃ	ぅ
7-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	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	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-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-	¿	¡	?	!	.	&	é	🡆	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Japanese
	-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-	Control characters
6-	█	▲		Ｄ	Ｅ	Ｆ	Ｇ	Ｈ	Ｉ	Ｖ	Ｓ	Ｌ	Ｍ	：	ぃ	ぅ
7-	「	」	『	』	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	╔	═	╗	║	╚	╝	␠
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

Legend

Standard text characters

Control characters

Diacritic characters/Map tiles

Differs between versions

Notes

0x00-0x5F

These are control characters, special code points that either print a particular multi-character string or serve some functional purpose (such as marking the end of a line of text).

Code points in this range not assigned to a specific function behave differently between versions:

In the Japanese versions, they print a specific kana from the main font with dakuten or handakuten in the space above it.
- 0x01-0x1F print a katakana character from 0x81-0x9F with a dakuten diacritic (゛).
- 0x20-0x3F print a hiragana character from 0xB0-0xCF with a dakuten diacritic (゛).
- 0x40-0x43 print a katakana character from 0x99-0x9C with a handakuten diacritic (゜).
- 0x44-0x5F print a hiragana character from 0xCA-0xE5 with a handakuten diacritic (゜).
In the English versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver, the code executed is identical to the Japanese version. However, since the corresponding tiles have been replaced, they instead print the base character listed above (i.e., the character at the same code point as the corresponding base kana character) with the blank tile at 0xE5 or 0xE4.
In non-English Western versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver and the English version of Pokémon Crystal, the code that prints the diacritic itself is skipped, so it prints only an unmodified duplicate of the base character listed above.
In non-English Western versions of Pokémon Crystal, this code was removed entirely, so these code points print the corresponding tile from VRAM addresses 0x9000 to 0x95FF. Like in Generation I, these correspond to a portion of the current tileset of the current map.

0x60-0x7F

These are additional text characters stored in VRAM addresses 0x9600 to 0x97FF. These tiles are frequently overwritten in certain contexts to render different characters, meaning the same code point can print different tiles.

0x60-0x6C are bold letters originally from the Japanese font. Only Ｖ and Ｓ are used in the English versions, 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.
0x6D is a colon, which has smaller dots than the colon at 0x9C in the Western language fonts. In the Western language versions, it is only used to display total playtime.
0x6E-0x6F and 0x76-0x78 are Japanese hiragana. They are not used in the English version.
0x72-0x73 are 『 and 』 in the Japanese font and in the Western versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver, and “ and ” in the Western versions of Pokémon Crystal.
0x74 is an interpunct. It is not used in the English version.
0x79-0x7E are box-drawing characters used to draw the boundaries of text boxes. The player can change how they display in the Options menu.
0x7F is a space.

0x80-0xFF

These are standard text characters from the main font, stored in VRAM addresses 0x8800 to 0x8FFF. However, certain areas that need extra space for extra tiles, such as the player's Trainer Card, will still overwrite tiles in this range.

0xD0-0xD6 in English, 0xD4-0xDF in French and German, or 0xD8-0xDE in Italian and Spanish represent a letter with an apostrophe. These characters are used to render English, French, and German contractions and English possessives in dialogue, so that the apostrophe does not take up a separate tile.
0xDF and 0xEB are arrows used in the interface when printing Alph Ruins Stamps that are only present in the Western versions of Pokémon Crystal.
0xE4 and 0xE5 print the corresponding diacritic above the following character in the Japanese version and the English versions of Pokémon Gold and Silver.
0xBC and 0xEA are both é in non-English Western versions. Of the two code points, only 0xEA is used; 0xBC was previously used in Generation I.
0xE8 and 0xF2 are both periods that render identically. In the Japanese games, the two code points represent visually distinct characters: 0xF2 is a decimal point and 0xE8 is punctuation. In the Western language games, 0xE8 is used for user input and in the name of Mr. Mime, while 0xF2 was previously used for user input in Generation I.

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 in the Japanese and Western language versions:

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.

Overwriting characters

This section is incomplete.
Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it.
Reason: Other languages besides English

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 corrupts Mail, 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-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	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-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-			?	!	.	&	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-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	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-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-			?	!	.	&	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.

Control characters

Control characters execute a piece of code (unless caught by name error handling) instead of printing the tile they would correspond to from VRAM. There are three main categories of control characters:

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

The following control codes are present in the Generation II games in Japanese and Western language games. Korean control characters are assigned to different code points, so they are listed separately.

Code point	Control type	Description	Usage
0x00	Print control	Prints an error message and ends the dialogue.^GS Prints "`?`".^C	Not used in strings.
0x14	Variable display	Prints the player's name with an honorific corresponding to the player's gender (`くん` for male or `ちゃん` for female in Japanese, empty strings in Western languages).	Introduced in Crystal. Used in dialogue that refers to the player's name with an honorific in the Japanese version.
0x15	Print control	Escape character for Pokémon News Machine scripts	Introduced in Crystal. Used in data downloaded through the Mobile System GB in the Japanese version.
0x16	Print control	Carriage return: Moves the print position one tile below the current line and sets the start of the line according to the following byte.	Introduced in Crystal. Unused, but a similar function is present in the code for Pokémon News Machine scripts.
0x1D	Static display	Prints "`に`　" (particle ni).	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x1D	Print control	Prints a hyphen ("`-`") followed by a line break (0x22).	Introduced in non-English Western versions. Implementation of 0x1E. Not used directly.
0x1E	Static display	Prints "`って`" (particle tte).	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x1E	Print control	Soft hyphen: Usually prints nothing (zero width), but prints as a hyphen ("`-`") followed by a line break (0x22) on the Town Map.	Introduced in non-English Western versions. Used in the names of locations with long names, so that their names are usually displayed as one word, but break across two lines on the Town Map.
0x1F	Static display	Prints "`を` " (particle wo).	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
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	Static display	Prints "`た！`" (past tense suffix ta).	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
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 "`こうげき`" (attack).	Used in in-battle text in Japanese.
0x24	Static display	Prints "`は`　" (particle wa) in Japanese, or "`^P_O^K_é`" in Western languages.	Used on the menu in the name of the Pokégear option.
0x25	Static display	Prints "`の`　". (particle no)	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x25	Print control	Zero-width breakable space: Usually prints nothing (zero width), 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 as one word, but break across two lines on the Town Map.
0x35	Static display	Prints "`ばん　どうろ`" (Route №) in Japanese.	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x36	Static display	Prints "`わたし`" (I/me) in Japanese.	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x37	Static display	Prints "`ここは`" (Here is) in Japanese.	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
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 "`が`　" (particle ga).	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x4A	Static display	Prints "`^P_K^M_N`".	Several usages, including the party button in battle and on the menu, and the name of the Trainer class ^P_K^M_N 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, without an honorific.	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 "`ポケモン`" (Pokémon) in Japanese or "`POKé`" in Western languages.	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`".	Used in dialogue and menus in Japanese.
0x5C	Static display	Prints "`TM`".	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x5D	Static display	Prints "`TRAINER`".	Used as the Original Trainer of in-game trade Pokémon in Generation I in all languages, and in dialogue in Japanese.
0x5E	Static display	Prints "`ROCKET`".	Used in dialogue in Japanese.
0x5F	Print control	Prints "`。`" in Japanese or "`.`" in Western languages and ends the Pokédex entry.	Used at the end of Pokédex entries in Japanese.

The following table lists the strings that each static display code prints in each language. Entries with a black background are not static display codes in that language. Korean control characters do not align with other languages, so the text printed by the functionally equivalent control character is listed instead.

Code point	Japanese	English	French	German	Italian	Spanish	Korean
0x1D	`に`
0x1E	`って`
0x1F	`を`
0x22	`た！`
0x23	`こうげき`	`tzx`^[a]	`àtzx`^[a]				`tzx`^[a]
0x24	`は`	`^P_O^K_é`
0x25	`の`
0x35	`ばん　どうろ`	Empty string
0x36	`わたし`	Empty string
0x37	`ここは`	Empty string
0x38	`レッド`	`RED`	`RED`	`ROT`	`ROSSO`	`ROJO`	`레드`
0x39	`グリーン`	`GREEN`	`GREEN`	`GRÜN`	`VERDE`	`VERDE`	`그린`
0x49	`おかあさん`	`MOM`	`MAMAN`	`MAMA`	`MAMMA`	`MAMÁ`	`어머니`
0x4A	`が`	`^P_K^M_N`
0x54	`ポケモン`	`POKé`					`포켓몬`
0x56	`……`	`……`
0x5B	`パソコン`	`PC`					`컴퓨터`
0x5C	`わざマシン`	`TM`	`CT`	`TM`	`MT`	`MT`	`기술머신`
0x5D	`トレーナー`	`TRAINER`	`DRESSEUR`	`TRAINER`	`ALLEN.`	`ENTREN.`	`트레이너`
0x5E	`ロケットだん`	`ROCKET`					`로켓단`

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 mojibake of こうげき

Notifications

Socials

Apps

Bulbapedia

Archives

New Accounts

Main navigation

Socials

Apps

Bulbapedia

Archives

New Accounts

Character encoding (Generation II)

Compatibility

Pokémon Stadium 2

Poké Transporter

Rendering

Character map

Notes

0x00-0x5F

0x60-0x7F

0x80-0xFF

Name error handling

Overwriting characters

HP bar tileset

HP bar frame tileset

Pokédex

Unown Mode

Naming screen

Control characters

Related articles