User:SatoMew2/MissingNo.
|
Please feel free to edit this page. Major changes to this page should be discussed on the talk page. |
MissingNo. (Japanese: けつばん Ketsuban), meaning Missing Number in both Japanese and English, is a renowned set of glitch Pokémon in the Generation I core series and side series Pokémon games which are placeholders for 36 Pokémon index numbers.
Three additional index numbers also identified as MissingNo. serve the purpose of providing the Kabutops and Aerodactyl Fossils from the Pewter Museum of Science as well as the ghosts of Pokémon Tower with their front sprites.
In August 2016, Pokémon Trading Card Game artist TOKIYA posted fan art of MissingNo.'s Ghost form, Aerodactyl and Kabutops fossil appearances, and default sprite in Pokémon Red and Green on her Twitter;[1] MissingNo. is therefore the only known glitch Pokémon to have an intentional depiction by a franchise artist.
Background
As deleted Pokémon
The fact that Rhydon, the Pokémon with index number 1 was the first Pokémon ever made[2][3] led to speculation that the index numbers of Pokémon in Generation I represent the order that they were programmed into the game, with MissingNo. being deleted entries.
Supporting this theory was the fact that 9 variants of the 36 common MissingNo. have unique cries.[4]
These theories were finally confirmed by the Nintendo data leak in 2020. Among the game material leaked was the source code for Pokémon Red and Blue, which included data on Pokémon previously occupying the index numbers of MissingNo. Some of these sprites match the design and index numbers of Pokémon previously only shown in Satoshi Tajiri: The Man Who Created Pokémon, while most of the others correspond to Pokémon that had never been seen before.
| |
Official acknowledgement
Nintendo of America acknowledged MissingNo. on the May 1999 issue of Nintendo Power and started including an entry for it in their Customer Service troubleshooting section since at least the year 2000:
"MissingNO is a programming quirk, and not a real part of the game. When you get this, your game can perform strangely, and the graphics will often become scrambled. The MissingNO Pokémon is most often found after you perform the Fight Safari Zone Pokémon trick.
To fix the scrambled graphics, try releasing the MissingNo Pokémon. If the problem persists, the only solution is to re-start your game. This means erasing your current game and starting a brand new one."[5]
In the games
MissingNo. in all its forms does not have any base stats data. As result, the common forms will appear and behave differently based on the version and language of the games. The cry of most common forms of MissingNo. is index 0 with a pitch of 0 and no echo. A few variants of the common forms have different cries as explained in the Background section above.
The Fossil and ghost MissingNo., the latter which is identified as ゴースト Ghost in the Japanese versions, take data from the player's or opponent's last Pokémon in the party.
MissingNo. has a single Pokédex entry that will exclusively appear upon capture as long as the player has not encountered Cubone. It identifies MissingNo. with the ??? species (Japanese: ？？？ポケモンRBY ??? Pokémon) and the description コメント さくせいちゅうRBY Comment to be written. Its height is 1.0 m and its weight is 10.0 kg. Due to the entry not being updated for the English versions, the description and dimensions are broken and either do not appear or returned nonsensical values.
In the Pokémon Stadium series, MissingNo. will appear as a Substitute Poké DollStad or a Ditto with TransformStad2, becoming the latter permanently if the player saves the game.
The Time Capsule in Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal automatically cancels trades of MissingNo., with the game stating that Your <Pokémon species> appears abnormal.
In the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console versions, if the player has MissingNo. in Box 1 of the Pokémon Storage System when they attempt to transfer it to Pokémon Bank via Poké Transporter, one of the following error messages will appear:
Attention!
There is at least one Pokémon in the Box that cannot be sent.
A problem has been detected with one of the Pokémon. Sorry. The problematic Pokémon cannot be sent.
Any Pokémon that could not be transported have been removed from the Transport Box.
In other media
MissingNo. was alluded to throughout an April 1, 2024 episode of Beyond the Pokédex about Magmar.[6]
After Maple captures an unseen Pokémon in Cinnabar Island at the beginning of the episode, the episode is then continuously interrupted with glitchy visuals, possibly referencing the scrambled graphics that can occur after encountering MissingNo. as well as other glitch Pokémon. Additionally, these interruptions notably occur after either of the hosts mention the phrase "missing number" and the move Water Gun, a move in MissingNo.'s starting learnset.
Spruce asks Maple if she happened to be "Surfing up the east coast of Cinnabar Island" when she captured the Pokémon, likely referencing the old man glitch, which is the most well-known method of encountering MissingNo.
Maple suggests "turning [the camera] off and on again" and "blowing air into the bottom of the cartridge" to fix the interruptions. After neither method works, both hosts elect to "erase the whole file and start from the beginning", restarting the episode after the file deletion screen from Red and Blue is shown. This aligns with Nintendo's official statement on MissingNo., where erasing the save file is incorrectly presented as the only solution if releasing it does not correct the scrambled graphics.
Trivia
- In the Generation IV games, there is a sprite (
) that contains text that reads 欠番, MissingNo.'s Japanese name in kanji.
References
External links
- No categories associated with this article