History UrbanLegendOfZelda / Pokemon

* ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'': The only Pokémon not available for rental in the first game is Mewtwo, leading many people wonder how to unlock Mewtwo him. Theories included OneHundredPercentCompletion of the tournaments and [[BossBonanza Gym Leader Castle]], or getting every Pokémon into the Hall Of Fame. There exists no Rental Mewtwo in the game however, with the claims of how to get him either doing nothing or netting you different rewards (completing everything unlocks [[NintendoHard Round 2]] Hard Mode, while getting every Pokémon into the Hall Of Fame instead gives you a Psyduck with Amnesia that you can transfer over to a mainline game). Similarly, the sequel doesn't have any rental Mewtwo, Luigi, or Ho-oh.

* Many rumors revolve around the differences between the first two generations, namely areas accessible in the Gen I games but not ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', such as the closed tunnel between Celadon City and Lavender Town. In reality, there just wasn't quite enough room on the cartridge to squeeze in the entire Kanto region, so a handful of areas had to be cut or shrunk to fit.

** There is a "swimming goggles" held item which increases accuracy and Special Attack and puts non-Water Pokémon using it to sleep. It was a popular rumor in early release stages, with the main reaction that [[GameBreaker Starmie would be overpowered now]]. Said item does not exist, nor does anything even similar to it.
** [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Bianca]] is the Champion. This was easily {{Jossed}} just by finishing the game, and [[http://www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/staff/?p=202 an interview on Game Freak's website]] indicates that the ending as-is was intended from the start. But some fans still insist that it's true, claiming it was DummiedOut (unlikely) or a misinterpretation of her post-League team data as a Champion team. They also expected this to happen in the rumored usual third game: this generation saw proper sequels instead, and she's an assistant Professor rather than the Champion.
** You can drive a car. Actual cars do show up in the game, and one NPC talks about getting a driver's license, but you can't drive one yourself. It's a nice send-up of old Gen II rumors that you can ride your Pokémon rather than travel by bike, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMnwB6neGlY which becomes relevant in Pokémon X and Y]] and even more so in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Sun and Moon]]''.
* Rumors surrounding [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 the sequels]] insisted on there being some level of PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo. Some rumors said Hilda is canonically the hero, while others said that Hilbert appears if you play as Rosa and Hilda appears if you play as Nate. Nevertheless, the character is nowhere to be seen. The speculation might have come from DummiedOut data that has Hilbert and Hilda in the [=PWT=].

* That Zekrom, Reshiram, and Victini can be shiny. Sadly, it's not true, but this hasn't stopped rumors that you can get a shiny one from Dragonspiral Tower. This probably arises out of the fact that they have shiny sprite data ([[DevelopersForesight so that the game doesn't crash if someone hacks them in]]). All three were available at Wi-Fi giveaways, which leads fans to believe their shiny versions may be available in such giveaways in the future; this is unlikely, though, as Zekrom and Reshiram are plot-critical legendaries in their respective versions. They can appear as shiny in ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'' onward, but shiny Victini has yet to be made legitimately available.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' allows you to tip certain [=NPCs=] after conversations, your choice of nothing, 100, 500, or 1000 in-game currency. Allegedly, tipping 1000 all the time increases your chance of getting a Shiny Pokémon to appear in the wild, but nothing has ever been conclusively proven.
* There were rumors of a second new Eeveelution -- typically believed to be a Dragon-type -- given that new Eeveelutions had previously only come in pairs and that Nintendo hadn't promoted Glaceon or Leafeon two generations prior. (Presumably, Sylveon was promoted due to it being a then-new type, a trait that so far is only shared with Umbreon.) Within a few weeks of the games' release, no one was able to find anything, and the speculation died down.
* A weird rumor suggested that you could find colorless Pokémon. Some versions mentioned them as just [[GoodBadBugs a glitch in the textures]] that can disappear after closing and reopening the game; others had them as a second PaletteSwap even rarer than the usual shiny Pokémon. Neither version was true.

* The Kalos region is said to have four power plants, but only one can ever be visited in gameplay. This, combined with the known existence of event Pokémon Volcanion, led to a series of rumors that the other three power plants could somehow be accessed and that they were linked to Volcanion. Interestingly, once it was proven by data mining that no such content existed in-game, the rumors turned to claiming that a power plant sidequest would absolutely, definitely be added in a future update.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' have the traditional three Poké Balls on the table in Professor Oak's lab. Your starter is in the middle one, and your rival gets the one on the left. The one on the right... never gets used, and examining it only tells you it "contains a Pokémon." In ''Red and Blue'' the three Pokémon would be Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander but, of course, in this game you and your rival get Pikachu and Eevee, so the third one could be pretty much any Gen 1 critter. This sparked a lot of speculation about what could be in there, and how you could get your hands on it. There's reason to believe it's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-_CMRLUuU Clefairy]], but since there's no way to open it, it's really just a placeholder.

* There's always at least one Pokémon in each set of games that can't be captured during regular gameplay -- later dubbed "Mythical Pokémon", before online distribution simply made them regularly occurring TemporaryOnlineContent, players had to physically attend promotional events (or use a VideoGame/GameShark) to receive them. Many rumors revolve around a hidden point and/or series of actions to take that allows you to get one without doing so:

When [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue the first games]] released back in 1996, there were strange rumors of a mysterious 151st Pokémon that couldn't be gotten by normal means. No, you'd have to do bizarre tactics like using Teleport[=/=]Fly [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mew_glitch as soon as a trainer with specific Mons sees you]]. This and many more ridiculous glitches ended up being completely true, and as a result, laid the groundwork for countless fans to believe that some of the crazy ideas listed below were just as likely.

* In many ''Pokémon'' games, it's rumored that you could increase the chance of catching a Pokémon by [[http://www.vgcats.com/super/?strip_id=8 mashing buttons]] in a specific way. This claim was even repeated on the official Nintendo website. Although it certainly ''[[PlaceboEffect feels]]'' effective, it usually doesn't work. The random number generator ''can'' be [[http://tasvideos.org/PokemonTricks.html#LuckManipulation manipulated slightly through button inputs]], but this requires, among other things, that you know the random number generator's exact state at all times, making it useful only to [[{{Speedrun}} tool-assisted speedrunners]].

When [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue the first games]] released back in 1996, there were strange rumors of a mysterious 151st Pokémon that couldn't be gotten by normal means. No, you'd have to do bizarre tactics like using Teleport[=/=]Fly [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mew_glitch as soon as a trainer with specific Mons sees you]]. This, and many more ridiculous glitches, ended up being completely true, and as a result, laid the groundwork for countless fans to believe that some of the crazy ideas listed below were just as likely.

When [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue the first games]] released back in 1996, there were strange rumors of a mysterious 151st Pokémon that could't be gotten by normal means. No, you'd have to do bizarre tactics like using Teleport[=/=]Fly [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mew_glitch as soon as a trainer with specific Mons sees you]]. This, and many more ridiculous glitches, ended up being completely true, and as a result, laid the groundwork for countless fans to believe that some of the crazy ideas listed below were just as likely.

[[folder:Generation I]]

[[folder:Poké Red, Blue, Yellow]]

** In [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire the Generation III games]], there was a rumor that you could get Deoxys or Jirachi by hitching a ride into space on the rocket when it's about to launch from Mossdeep City, but only when the countdown is at an exact number (which varies depending on the account, but 50 and 99 are the most popular). While this isn't possible in the original games, in a fit of AscendedFanon, ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' do allow you to catch Deoxys this way, but on Rayquaza rather than the rocket. There's a more obscure rumor that Celebi was also obtainable, through a one-in-about-200-million chance of appearing on a certain route in pre-order copies of the game, though this one didn't circulate much.
* The original games, ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', have so many legitimate secrets and glitches that it was inevitable that this trope would come into play. Many of them have a grain of truth that's only obvious now.
** [[TheMissingno The Missingno. glitch]] is the most famous. It's a real glitch, and it looked [[RealityIsUnrealistic as insane and arbitrary as any of the rumors]] -- unless you were versed in programming. Missingno. was one of several "secret Pokémon" who would show up if you did a series of unlikely things: you had to talk to a seemingly irrelevant tutorial NPC in Viridian City, then Surf along a specific beach on Cinnabar Island, which would make weird Pokémon show up, like Golbat and Snorlax over the level cap of 100, and weird new Pokémon like Missingno.[[note]]There are at least twelve such glitched Pokémon, some of which are only available through [=GameShark=], as chronicled by [[http://www.glitchcity.info/ Glitch City Laboratories]]. The best is [=LM4=], which is a blur of dots that will, at level 18, evolve three times back-to-back: first into Clefairy, then into Clefairy ''again'', and then into Nidoking.[[/note]] Missingno. would make weird stuff happen if you caught one, like screw with in-battle graphics, permanently glitch the Hall of Fame, and possibly become permanently irretrievable if you put it in a PC box. And encountering or capturing it would duplicate the sixth item in your inventory up to 255 times, so if you did this with powerful items like Master Balls or [[RareCandy Rare Candies]], you could [[GameBreaker break the game wide open]]. That's all very weird -- and all true, but people also made up many more rumors about Missingno. and its glitch brethren:
*** Some claim they were supposed to be in the game, as the proverbial joker in the deck. They're not; they're actually placeholder values. The glitch tricks the game into calling data for Pokemon numbered higher than 151, which don't exist, but the game appears to anticipate this problem and calls up Missingno. There are 39 such placeholders, which the developers eventually admitted were extra Pokémon who were cut from the game.
*** Some claim that if you catch Missingno., it will erase your other Pokémon, or even your entire save file, if certain conditions are met. It's supposedly named "Missingno." because your files are missing now. It won't be ''that'' destructive to your game. The "Missingno." designation actually stands for "missing number", partly because it's a placeholder value and partly as a reference to the Japanese superstition that certain numbers are unlucky due to their [[FourIsDeath association with death]].
*** Missingno. is a ''complete'' Urban Legend of Zelda in most European countries, where when the games were finally released, they patched some of the glitches, including the ones that lead to Missingno. Unfortunately for those European gamers, gaming publications (largely borrowing and translating from North America) didn't get the memo and left in the steps to get there, which now did nothing. The glitches that remain didn't help matters there.
** There were several supposed secret Pokémon other than Missingno. They were often referred to collectively as "Pokégods", and were said to be so powerful, they could [[KilledOffForReal kill your Pokemon for real]] or delete your save file if you lost to them. Others were said to be obtained by talking to certain [=NPCs=] so many times that you get them to say something different.[[note]]This worked a grand total of ''once'' in the actual games -- if you talk often enough to the Safari Zone gatekeeper, he'll let you in for free. That's probably how the rumors started to begin with.[[/note]] Many were derived from leaked concepts for [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver second-generation]] Pokémon, especially in North America, which was eyeballs-deep in the Pokécraze and not thinking about a sequel at all when the Gen II games were under development in Japan. Among the so-called Pokégods were:
*** "Pikablu", which was supposedly a water-type Pikachu. Some suggest it even evolved from Raichu, which can't evolve. That said, an NPC who trades you an Electrode for a Raichu will later tell you that "the Raichu you traded me went and evolved!" (which is an error in translation -- the original Japanese has you trade a Kadabra, which ''can'' evolve -- and in fact, only does so if you trade it). "Pikablu" is actually Marill from Gen II, and the connection to Pikachu is just a visual resemblance.
*** "Pikaflare" is a similar rumor; it's supposedly a fire-type Pikachu, but it turned out to be derived from early concepts for what would eventually become Gen II's Cyndaquil.
*** ''Red'' and ''Blue'' have different Eevee evolutions for nearly all the elemental stones (Fire, Water, and Thunder), but none for the Leaf or Moon Stones. Rumors abounded of how you can get a new evolution through one of the new stones. One of the rumors of a "Moon" type evolution bore itself out through the Dark-type Umbreon, introduced in Generation II -- but it evolves via Happiness at night and not via Moon Stone. Concepts for a Grass-type evolution were toyed with during Gen II's development, but one wouldn't show up until Gen IV introduced Leafeon... which didn't evolve with a Leaf Stone until Gen VIII (until then, it and its counterpart Glaceon evolved by leveling up an Eevee in a particular area).
*** "Tricket" is a supposed secret Bug Pokémon. The story goes that if you go through the game exclusively with various Bug Pokémon, Professor Oak will acknowledge your love for bugs and give you Tricket as a reward. The sequence as described is impossible; the required Pokémon cannot learn Surf or Strength, necessary to get into and through Victory Road. We wouldn't get a cricket Pokémon until Kricketot and Kricketune in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', many years later.
*** "Doomsay" and its evolution "Doomsday" were supposedly very powerful Ghost-type Pokémon. Today, many assume them to be based on concept art for Gen II's Houndour and Houndoom, but rumors about Doomsay and Doomsday had been circulating even before then.
** There were several more supposed secret evolutions:
*** Some believed that you could evolve Shellder into Gastly by forcing it to close into its shell. This mostly followed from naïveté when people were just getting into ''Pokémon''; the instruction manuals had a single empty spot between Shellder and Gastly in the Pokédex, which turned out just to be Cloyster.
*** An AprilFoolsDay prank from ''Expert Gamer'' issue 58 claimed that Dragonite could evolve into [[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi]] if you did [[https://twitter.com/MarioBrothBlog/status/1166056178952101893 a certain trick]].
*** A more insane April Fool's joke (courtesy of the official website of Creator/{{Nintendo}} of America itself) claimed that Lickitung could evolve into Luigi if you fed it a RareCandy while holding your UsefulNotes/GameBoy upside-down. It's particularly nonsensical because it requires Lickitung to be caught in ''Blue'' in a specific type of Pokéball; the games didn't keep track of this until ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'', and you can only obtain Lickitung in ''Blue'' through trade anyway. The sprite they showed for Luigi is also clearly just grayscaled artwork from the original ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'', much higher-quality than the game's real sprites. Game Freak may have referenced this rumor in [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY the sixth generation]], when we were introduced to Inkay, a Pokémon that indeed ''does'' evolve when you hold your console upside-down.
** And there were several more supposed [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs secret evolutions into secret Pokemon]], some of which were so popular that they became the basis for [[SuperMode Mega Evolutions]] starting in Generation VI:
*** Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise were said to evolve into Sapusaur, Charcolt, and Rainer, respectively. The methods of accomplishing this varied from using the mythical "Mist Stone" on them to delaying their pre-evolved forms' evolutions enough times. One Pokémon FAQ site, asked "how do i get a charcolot?", responded with "[[SchmuckBait Smash your game into exactly 1000 pieces and toss it in the trash. When you go to the city dump to retrieve it, it will be repaired and you will have charcolot.]]" All three could indeed Mega Evolve starting in Gen VI.
*** "Mewthree" is so common that it's now a particular FandomEnragingMisconception. It originally derives from screencaps of an armored Mewtwo in [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} the anime]], which people believed to be a different Pokémon altogether. Mewtwo got ''two'' Mega Evolution forms in Gen VI, but people saw some screenshots before the concept of Mega Evolution was made public, reviving the rumor for a bit.
*** "Flareth" was said to be a fire-type which evolves from, depending on whom you ask, Flareon, Arcanine, Charizard, Rapidash, or the equally apocryphal "Dimonix" (or "Diminox", or "Dimondix" -- itself supposedly evolved from Onix).
** Rumors abounded of secret areas where you can get rare Pokémon:
*** A grassy path can be seen continuing north from Bill's house, but you can't access it. It became commonly known as "Bill's Secret Garden", and it was said to contain extremely rare Pokémon, usually Mew, [[EarlyBirdCameo Togepi]], or [[FandomEnragingMisconception Pikablu]]. Others claimed it contains the starters Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur -- they can't be caught anywhere else in the game (and as breeding didn't exist back then, most people wouldn't want to trade their starters just to complete the Pokédex). If you use cheat codes or glitches to walk through walls, you can access it, but it's a patch the height of your character and as wide as Bill's house with nothing in it. In another fit of AscendedFanon, there ''is'' a "secret garden" area in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'', accessible only after completing the entire Pokédex (bar Legendaries) and containing many rare and unique Pokémon, including a shiny Haxorus.
*** A large patch of grass east of Pallet Town was rumored to be a direct path to Celadon City which contained the three starters and other rare Pokémon. You can't access it without a walk-through-walls exploit, and the grass contains no Pokémon; but it does have a bunch of {{Game Break|er}}ing glitches. And at least [[http://0.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/16/16/ab57e0b571b4f08e8b2214b42707a151.jpg one strategy guide]] claims it's a legitimate "Route 26".
*** The Hall of Fame room, where Professor Oak records your victory over the Elite Four at the end of the game, is wide enough to seem to stretch past the screen borders, but you can't explore it. Legend has it that if you beat the Elite Four a ridiculous number of times, complete the Pokédex, and fulfill various other equally insane conditions, Professor Oak will snap during the cutscene, yell "I'm sick of this!", and leave you there to explore the room, which was alleged to contain [[FandomEnragingMisconception Mewthree]]. Like with Bill's Secret Garden, VideoGame/GameShark has shown there's nothing there.
** Some claim that if you trade a Pokémon through every translation of the game and then back to its original trainer, you can break the level 100 {{cap}} and buff it up to level 999. This arose out of the manuals for the European versions suggesting that [[ForbiddenFruit players avoid]] trading Pokémon between versions of the game in different languages in order to preserve the data integrity of the save file.
** In many ''Pokémon'' games, it's rumored that you could increase the chance of catching a Pokémon by [[http://www.vgcats.com/super/?strip_id=8 mashing buttons]] in a specific way, and it's particularly popular for the Gen I games. This claim was even repeated on the official Nintendo website. Although it certainly ''[[PlaceboEffect feels]]'' effective, it usually doesn't work. The random number generator ''can'' be [[http://tasvideos.org/PokemonTricks.html#LuckManipulation manipulated slightly through button inputs]], but this requires, among other things, that you know the random number generator's exact state at all times, making it useful only to [[{{Speedrun}} tool-assisted speedrunners]].
** A popular rumor revolves around a truck in a secret harbor in Vermilion City. You can only access it by surfing around the S.S. Anne, which usually leaves never to return long before you get the Surf HM. Clever players avoided this, either by simply trading for the Cut HM from another game (avoiding the need to board the ship entirely), by deliberately losing in battle (which automatically takes you to the last-visited Pokémon Center and tricks the boat into remaining in harbor), or by exploiting glitches to allow you to pass the guard a second time. While the truck contains no secrets, it became incredible fodder for rumors. Neither Nintendo nor Game Freak have ever officially explained its presence. That's not to say that the developers were above referencing it once the rumors took off; they hid a Lava Cookie there for the GBA [[VideoGameRemake remakes]], and an NPC references it in a song lyric in ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness'':
-->''There's no Pokémon under a truck, maybe you'll just find a Muk.''

** If you register all 150 available Pokémon, minus Mew, in your Pokédex, you get to view a diploma congratulating your achievement. However, rumor had it that doing the same in the Japanese versions awarded you with a Mew instead, possibly because the diploma was [[AWinnerIsYou considered to be a bit of a letdown for completing such a difficult task.]] The diploma is all you get in ''all'' versions, though, and Mew was equally as unobtainable outside glitches and events as it was in the West.
* Moving on to Generation II and ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'':
** Many rumors revolve around the differences between the two generations, including areas accessible in Gen I but not Gen II (such as the closed tunnel between Celadon City and Lavender Town). In reality, there just isn't quite enough room on the cartridge to squeeze in the entire Kanto region, so a handful of areas had to be cut or shrunk to fit.
** [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokerus Pokérus]] is effectively a subversion, since it sounds exactly like a made-up fan myth; a secret status effect that increases EV stat gains, which ''themselves'' are a hidden mechanic never fully explained to the player? It's real, for all main-series games starting in Gen II, but it's incredibly rare (a 0.00458% chance of being generated per battle, about three times as unlikely as the lowest possible shiny rate), so you almost certainly won't see it in a casual playthrough (or several).
** According to a very long-lived rumor, letting a Shuckle hold Berry Juice for long enough causes it to change into a Rare Candy. While Berry Juice itself ''is'' obtained by letting a Shuckle hold a Berry, there's absolutely no code in the game for it to be further converted into a Rare Candy.
** A weird rumor that spreaded only in Italy was about a secret legendary called Luxor, which makes every other Pokémon around it (wild, in your team or in the PC box) disappear into nothing and must be first summoned by going into the point where you caught Lugia (or Mewtwo in ''VideoGame/PokemonFireRedAndLeafGreen'') and using Flash, starting a cutscene where Luxor crushes on Earth via asteroid and panicking every NPC and wild Pokémon until the player goes back to the starting town and fights it. While fascinating, it's obviously fake.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' has the following rumors:
** That there is a "swimming goggles" held item which increases accuracy and Special Attack and puts non-Water Pokémon using it to sleep. It was a popular rumor in early release stages, with the main reaction that [[GameBreaker Starmie would be overpowered now]]. Said item does not exist, nor does anything even similar to it.
** That [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Bianca]] is the Champion. This was easily {{Jossed}} just by finishing the game, and [[http://www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/staff/?p=202 an interview on Game Freak's website]] indicates that the ending as-is was intended from the start. But some fans still insist that it's true, claiming it was DummiedOut (unlikely) or a misinterpretation of her post-League team data as a Champion team. They also expected this to happen in the rumored third installment, in which she's still not the champion.
** That you can drive a car. Actual cars do show up in the game, and one NPC talks about getting a driver's license, but you can't drive one yourself. It's a nice send-up of old Gen II rumors that you can ride your Pokémon rather than travel by bike, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMnwB6neGlY which becomes relevant in Pokémon X and Y]] and even more so in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Sun and Moon]]''.
** That the previous player protagonist appears in [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 the sequels]]. Some rumors said Hilda is canonically the hero, while others said that Hilbert appears if you play as Rosa and Hilda appears if you play as Nate. Nevertheless, the character is nowhere to be seen. The speculation might have come from DummiedOut data that has Hilbert and Hilda in the [=PWT=].
** That Arceus is hiding at the center of Abyssal Ruins. Persistent, but not true.
** That Zekrom, Reshiram, and Victini can be shiny. Sadly, it's not true, but this hasn't stopped rumors that you can get a shiny one from Dragonspiral Tower. This probably arises out of the fact that they have shiny sprite data ([[DevelopersForesight so that the game doesn't crash if someone hacks them in]]). All three were available at Wi-Fi giveaways, which leads fans to believe their shiny versions may be available in such giveaways in the future; this is unlikely, though, as Zekrom and Reshiram are plot-critical legendaries in their respective versions. They can appear as shiny in ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire'' onward, but shiny Victini has yet to be made legitimately available.

* From ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'':
** The game allows you to tip certain [=NPCs=] after conversations, your choice of nothing, 100, 500, or 1000 in-game currency. Allegedly, tipping 1000 all the time increases your chance of getting a Shiny Pokémon to appear in the wild, but nothing has ever been conclusively proven.
** There were rumors of a second new Eeveelution -- typically believed to be a Dragon-type -- given that new Eeveelutions had previously only come in pairs and that Nintendo hadn't promoted Glaceon or Leafeon two generations prior. (Presumably, Sylveon was promoted due to it being a then-new type, a trait that so far is only shared with Umbreon.) Within a few weeks of the games' release, no one was able to find anything, and the speculation died down.
** A weird rumor suggested that you could find colorless Pokémon. Some versions mentioned them as just [[GoodBadBugs a glitch in the textures]] that can disappear after closing and reopening the game; others had them as a second PaletteSwap even rarer than the usual shiny Pokémon. Neither version was true.
** When playing in English, an NPC in Lumiose City can be seen saying she heard "a Lava Dome Pokémon" was in the area where she was standing. This descriptor is used for [[OlympusMons Heatran]], leading people to assume that there was either some secret way to catch one, or that bringing a Heatran to the woman would reveal something special. Ultimately, it turned out to just be a mistranslation from Japanese.
** The Kalos region is said to have four power plants, but only one can ever be visited in gameplay. This, combined with the known existence of event Pokémon Volcanion, led to a series of rumors that the other three power plants could somehow be accessed and that they were linked to Volcanion. Interestingly, once it was proven by data mining that no such content existed in-game, the rumors turned to claiming that a power plant sidequest would absolutely, definitely be added in a future update.
* Nidoqueen and Nidorina cannot breed and have never been able to from the very start, for some unexplained reason. This sparked rumors that you can use a Nidoqueen to breed an incredibly powerful Pokémon if some conditions are met. (Almost every version of this rumor claims that you need a Nidoking as the breeding partner, but can't agree on what the other conditions are.) Game Freak itself has confirmed that this is false; Nidoqueen cannot breed, period. (At least not in the games; the anime is a different story, and they [[NewRulesAsThePlotDemands break the rules of the games anyway]]).

* ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': During the game's development, several leaks (primarily those from [=CoroCoro=]) stated that Rockruff shares something in common with the starters. Many took this to mean that the starters would have branching evolutions similar to Rockruff/Lycanroc, which would have been a first for the series. This turned out to be a mistranslation and it simply said that they both have secrets, though it is unknown what "secret" the leaks were referring to in the case of the starters.[[note]]The most likely explanation is that the starters' secrets is their unique Z-Moves, only revealed within a month of the games' release.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' have the traditional three Poké Balls on the table in Professor Oak's lab. Your starter is in the middle one, and your rival gets the one on the left. The one on the right... never gets used, and examining it only tells you it "contains a Pokémon." In ''Red and Blue'' the three Pokémon would be Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander but, of course, in this game you and your rival get Pikachu and Eevee, so the third one could be pretty much any Gen 1 critter. This sparked a lot of speculation about what could be in there, and how you could get your hands on it. There's reason to believe it's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-_CMRLUuU Clefairy]], but since there's no way to open it, it's really just a placeholder.

*** ''Red'' and ''Blue'' have different Eevee evolutions for nearly all the elemental stones (Fire, Water, and Thunder), but none for the Leaf or Moon Stones. Rumors abounded of how you can get a new evolution through one of the new stones. One of the rumors of a "Moon" type evolution bore itself out through the Dark-type Umbreon, introduced in Generation II -- but it evolves via Happiness at night and not via Moon Stone. Concepts for a Grass-type evolution were toyed with during Gen II's development, but one wouldn't show up until Gen IV introduced Leafeon (and it evolves by leveling up an Eevee in a particular area, rather than with a Leaf Stone -- this keeps everything consistent in-universe. However, Leafeon can evolve with a Leaf Stone as of Gen VIII).

* There's always at least one Pokémon in each set of games that can't be captured during regular gameplay -- later dubbed "Mythical Pokémon", before online distribution simply made them TemporaryOnlineContent, players had to physically attend promotional events (or use a VideoGame/GameShark) to receive them. Many rumors revolve around a hidden point and/or series of actions to take that allows you to get one without doing so:

* There's always at least one Pokémon in each set of games that can't be captured during regular gameplay -- you can only get them through a limited-edition promotional item (or a VideoGame/GameShark). Many rumors revolve around a hidden point and/or series of actions to take that allows you to get one:

*** One of ''Magazine/ElectronicGamingMonthly'''s many AprilFoolsDay pranks claimed that Dragonite could evolve into [[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi]] if you did a certain trick.

** A few Pokémon are exclusive to specific continents, so naturally there are rumors about how to get one from some other continent (without trading, which wasn't available at release). Most revolve around doing something tricky with 5km eggs; as they can hatch region-exclusives, people thought might be some bizarre way to make them hatch an exclusive mon from some other part of the world. No such trick has been proven to work, other than hacking your GPS (which is a good way to get banned). The rumors were eventually {{jossed}} by [[https://i.redd.it/nzpz0rz2m5nx.png Niantic's CEO]].

*** ''Red'' and ''Blue'' have different Eevee evolutions for nearly all the elemental stones (Fire, Water, and Thunder), but none for the Leaf or Moon Stones. Rumors abounded of how you can get a new evolution through one of the new stones. One of the rumors of a "Moon" type evolution bore itself out through the Dark-type Umbreon, introduced in Generation II -- but it evolves via Happiness at night and not via Moon Stone. Concepts for a Grass-type evolution were toyed with during Gen II's development, but one wouldn't show up until Gen IV introduced Leafeon (and it evolves by leveling up an Eevee in a particular area, rather than with a Leaf Stone -- this keeps everything consistent in-universe).

** If you register all 150 available Pokémon, minus Mew, in your PokéDex, you get to view a diploma congratulating your achievement. However, rumor had it that doing the same in the Japanese versions awarded you with a Mew instead, possibly because the diploma was [[AWinnerIsYou considered to be a bit of a letdown for completing such a difficult task.]] The diploma is all you get in ''all'' versions, though, and Mew was equally as unobtainable outside glitches and events as it was in the West.

** The game doesn't have evolution stones, so Eevee simply chooses an "eeveelution" randomly when it evolves. Rumors proliferated over how to control or predict its evolution, based on things ranging from Eevee's moveset to the color of the nearest gym. It was eventually discovered that you could control their evolution by naming them [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Rainer, Sparky, Pyro, Sakura, Tamao, Linnea, and Rea]] (for Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, Umbreon, Leafeon, and Glaceon respectively) -- but only once for each name. Since then, rumors persisted about how you could control its evolution ''every'' time, but none have been proven to work.

** The game doesn't have evolution stones, so Eevee simply chooses an "eeveelution" randomly when it evolves. Rumors proliferated over how to control or predict its evolution, based on things ranging from Eevee's moveset to the color of the nearest gym. It was eventually discovered that you could control their evolution by naming them [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Rainer, Sparky, Pyro, Sakura, or Tamao]] (for Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, and Umbreon respectively) -- but only once for each name. Since then, rumors persisted about how you could control its evolution ''every'' time, but none have been proven to work.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' have the traditional three Pokéballs on the table in Professor Oak's lab. Your starter is in the middle one, and your rival gets the one on the left. The one on the right... never gets used, and examining it only tells you it "contains a Pokémon." In ''Red and Blue'' the three Pokémon would be Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander but, of course, in this game you and your rival get Pikachu and Eevee, so the third one could be pretty much any Gen 1 critter. This sparked a lot of speculation about what could be in there, and how you could get your hands on it. There's reason to believe it's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-_CMRLUuU Clefairy]], but since there's no way to open it, it's really just a placeholder.

** In many Pokémon games, it's rumored that you could increase the chance of catching a Pokémon by [[http://www.vgcats.com/super/?strip_id=8 mashing buttons]] in a specific way, and it's particularly popular for the Gen I games. This claim was even repeated on the official Nintendo website. Although it certainly ''[[PlaceboEffect feels]]'' effective, it usually doesn't work. The random number generator ''can'' be [[http://tasvideos.org/PokemonTricks.html#LuckManipulation manipulated slightly through button inputs]], but this requires, among other things, that you know the random number generator's exact state at all times, making it useful only to [[{{Speedrun}} tool-assisted speedrunners]].

* Shortly after the announcement of ''Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'', someone noticed Nintendo registered a trademark for ''Delta Emerald'', sparking more rumors. However, this is probably a blanket trademark; Nintendo has been doing this kind of thing for a long time,[[note]]For example, "White Gold", incorrectly presumed pre-2009 to be the name of a remake of ''Gold''; it remained unused in favor of ''[=HeartGold=]''[[/note]] and it says nothing about whether or not they intend on actually making the game.

* From ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': During the game's development, several leaks (primarily those from [=CoroCoro=]) stated that Rockruff shares something in common with the starters. Many took this to mean that the starters would have branching evolutions similar to Rockruff/Lycanroc, which would have been a first for the series. This turned out to be a mistranslation and it simply said that they both have secrets, though it is unknown what "secret" the leaks were referring to in the case of the starters.[[note]]The most likely explanation is that the starters' secrets is their unique Z-Moves, only revealed within a month of the games' release.[[/note]]

*** "Mewthree" is so common that it's now a particular FandomBerserkButton. It originally derives from screencaps of an armored Mewtwo in [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} the anime]], which people believed to be a different Pokémon altogether. Mewtwo got ''two'' Mega Evolution forms in Gen VI, but people saw some screenshots before the concept of Mega Evolution was made public, reviving the rumor for a bit.

*** A grassy path can be seen continuing north from Bill's house, but you can't access it. It became commonly known as "Bill's Secret Garden", and it was said to contain extremely rare Pokémon, usually Mew, [[EarlyBirdCameo Togepi]], or [[FandomBerserkButton Pikablu]]. Others claimed it contains the starters Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur -- they can't be caught anywhere else in the game (and as breeding didn't exist back then, most people wouldn't want to trade their starters just to complete the Pokédex). If you use cheat codes or glitches to walk through walls, you can access it, but it's a patch the height of your character and as wide as Bill's house with nothing in it. In another fit of AscendedFanon, there ''is'' a "secret garden" area in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'', accessible only after completing the entire Pokédex (bar Legendaries) and containing many rare and unique Pokémon, including a shiny Haxorus.

*** The Hall of Fame room, where Professor Oak records your victory over the Elite Four at the end of the game, is wide enough to seem to stretch past the screen borders, but you can't explore it. Legend has it that if you beat the Elite Four a ridiculous number of times, complete the Pokédex, and fulfill various other equally insane conditions, Professor Oak will snap during the cutscene, yell "I'm sick of this!", and leave you there to explore the room, which was alleged to contain [[FandomBerserkButton Mewthree]]. Like with Bill's Secret Garden, VideoGame/GameShark has shown there's nothing there.

** Many rumors revolve around the differences between the two generations, including areas accessible in Gen I but not Gen II (such as the closed tunnel between Celadon City and Saffron City). In reality, there just isn't quite enough room on the cartridge to squeeze in the entire Kanto region, so a handful of areas had to be cut or shrunk to fit.

*** Some claim they were supposed to be in the game, as the proverbial joker in the deck. They're not; they're actually placeholder values. The glitch tricks the game into calling data for Pokemon numbered higher than 151, which don't exist, but the game appears to anticipate this problem and calls up Missingno. There are 39 such placeholders, which the developers eventually admitted were extra Pokémon who were cut from the game. Further rumors suggest that these Pokémon were reused for [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver the second generation games]], and which ones those were is much debated. Ho-Oh is a popular candidate, as it had an EarlyBirdCameo (pardon the pun) at the very beginning of [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} the anime]], but the developers insist it wasn't one of them.