History TheArtifact / Pokemon

* Lampshaded in Indigo Plateau in ''[=HeartGold=]'' and ''[=SoulSilver=]''. In the original games, there was a nice Old Man who would have his Abra teleport you home. Since you couldn't fly between Kanto and Johto in those games, your only other way back until beating the Elite Four was slowly walking back. In the remakes, you can now use Fly to return to Johto from not only the Pokémon League, but also the reception gate building where the Old Man is located. As such, the remakes have the Old Man there to offer his services... only to note that because of Fly, most trainers turn him down. In fact, the game doesn't even ''let'' you take him up on his offer, not offering a Yes/No choice after he's finished talking.

** Along these lines, the reason why [=HMs=] and [=TMs=] were originally distinguished is that [=TMs=] were only learnable once and then discarded, and could also be sold, both because of limited bag space. Selling [=TMs=] you didn't use was often a good way of making extra cash quickly. This persisted until Gen V, where they were changed to have unlimited use and couldn't be sold anymore, meaning the sole difference now was that [=HMs=] were required outside of battle to get past certain obstacles in the game.[[note]]The change to [=TMs=] had the additional effect of preventing them from being held by Pokémon. Previously, there was nothing to stop enterprising players from trading them to new games and [[GameBreaker blasting through the early gyms with powerful late-game moves like Earthquake, Blizzard and Hyper Beam]][[/note]] ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Sword and Shield]]'' would introduce a new limited use item in Technical Records ([=TRs=]), with the additional advantage being that if you erase the move in any normal fashion, it can be relearned by that same Pokémon through the Move Reminder.

* It's traditional for there to be a series of checkpoints just before Victory Road, the last dungeon that has to be traversed before reaching the Elite Four, with each consecutively checking for all eight [[PlotCoupon badges]] that will make you eligible for the Pokémon League. In the original games, your trek through the region essentially was a big circle, with the entrance gate to Victory Road being just outside the second town, which had the final Gym. As such, the checkpoints existed to emphasize that you really shouldn't be there yet. In contrast, the next four generations not only had Victory Road be reasonably far from your starting point, but you couldn't even reach the gate until after you have eight badges anyway; there's usually some obstacle that requires the game's final Hidden Machine move, which is activated by the final gym badge, making the checks a mere formality.[[note]]Granted, SequenceBreaking in ''Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald'' (skipping Fortree Gym) meant you ''could'' reach the gates without all badges, so it was still necessary in at least one generation other than the first.[[/note]] Averted from ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' onwards. ''X and Y'' have the gate to Victory Road after the first major city, ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' has its equivalent (Mount Lanakila) under construction for most of the game and doesn't bother with a check[[note]]it isn't even treated as a proper Victory Road until the location is expanded in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon''[[/note]], and ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' doesn't have one at all.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiplies its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves, such as Extreme Speed, more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker due to the lack of usable physical Flying and Fairy-moves. Thus, it's easier to just run special moves off the Togepi-line's much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that never sees the light of day.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiples its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves, such as Extreme Speed, more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker due to the lack of usable physical Flying and Fairy-moves. Thus, it's easier to just run special moves off the Togepi-line's much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that never sees the light of day.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiples its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker due to the lack of usable physical Flying and Fairy-moves. Thus, it's easier to just run special moves off the Togepi-line's much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that never sees the light of day.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiples its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker due to the lack of decent physical Flying and Fairy-moves. Thus, it's easier to just run special moves off the Togepi-line's much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that never sees the light of day.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiples its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker as it's easier to just run special moves off its much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that never sees the light of day.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiples its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker as it's easier to just use special moves off its much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that never sees the light of day.

** Another relic of the Fairy switch is one of the Togepi-line's abilities being Hustle, which multiples its physical attack damage by 1.5 at the cost of said moves losing 20% of their accuracy. This was originally given to the Togepi-line so that it would be able to use its physical STAB Normal-moves more effectively despite the Togepi-line's Attack stat being a lot lower than their Special Attack stat (Togekiss for example has just 50 Attack compared to a respectable 120 Special Attack). However, by the time of the switch to Fairy-type, the Togepi-line ended up losing the STAB effect to its Normal-moves, which greatly reduced any possibility of the Togepi-line being an effective physical attacker compared to using special moves to take advantage of the Togepi-line's much higher Special Attack stat. The result is the Togepi-line having an ability in Hustle that it can't really take advantage of anymore.

* There's a very minor one related to Umbreon back in Gen II where its Pokédex entry in ''Pokémon Gold'' mentions how it protects itself by spraying poisonous sweat from its pores, which is odd when you consider that nothing about Umbreon has to do with poison. This is a leftover from the Gen II beta where Umbreon was originally shown off as a Poison-type, but was eventually changed to being a Dark-type.

* It's traditional for there to be a series of checkpoints just before Victory Road, the last dungeon that has to be traversed before reaching the Elite Four, with each consecutively checking for all eight [[PlotCoupon badges]] that will make you eligible for the Pokémon League. In the original games, your trek through the region essentially was a big circle, with the entrance gate to Victory Road being just outside the second town, which had the final Gym. As such, the checkpoints existed to emphasize that you really shouldn't be there yet. In contrast, the next four generations not only had Victory Road be reasonably far from your starting point, but you couldn't even reach the gate until after you have eight badges anyway; there's usually some obstacle that requires the game's final Hidden Machine move, which is activated by the final gym badge, making the checks a mere formality.[[note]]Granted, sequence breaking in Gen III (skipping Fortree Gym) meant you ''could'' reach the gates without all badges, so it was still necessary in at least one generation other than the first.[[/note]] Averted from ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' onwards. ''X and Y'' have the gate to Victory Road after the first major city, ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' has its equivalent (Mount Lanakila) under construction for most of the game and doesn't bother with a check[[note]]it isn't even treated as a proper Victory Road until the location is expanded in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon''[[/note]], and ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' doesn't have one at all.

** Alleviated somewhat in Gen VIII (''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield''), where an individual named Jack offers the services of the Move Deleter alongside those of the Move Reminder and the Name Rater simultaneously.

* Similarly, Generation 1 takes place in an alternate version of the real world, recently undergone a war. An old man at the Pewter Museum of Science says that the first manned flight to the moon was in 1969, just like in real life. Lt. Surge is nicknamed "The Lightning American" and credits Electric Pokémon for abetting him in the war. Mew is explicitly stated to be discovered in Guyana. And most notably, Kanto is the Japanese region of the same name. Game Freak has attempted to sanitize all real world references since Generation 4, even re-dubbing Lt. Surge "The Lightning Lieutenant."

* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Gold and Silver]]'', one of the 10 phone numbers you can have at a time is Bill's, who tells you how many spaces are left in your current Pokémon storage box and will also call to alert you when your current box is full. This is useful because you had to manually change boxes in the first two generations or else you couldn't capture another Pokémon. However, starting in Gen III, this was performed automatically, making registering Bill's number in the Gen IV remakes largely pointless (he instead tells you the number of spaces left in all of your boxes in total). It's downplayed, however, since you can register all the numbers you want in the remakes, so he's not hampering you, either.

* Similarly, Generation 1 takes place in an alternate version of the real world, recently undergone a war. An old man at the Pewter Museum of Science says that the first manned flight to the moon was in 1969, just like in real life. Lt. Surge is nicknamed "The Lightning American" and credits Electric Pokemon for abetting him in the war. Mew is explicitly stated to be discovered in Guyana. And most notably, Kanto is the Japanese region of the same name. Game Freak has attempted to sanitize all real world references since Generation 4, even re-dubbing Lt. Surge "The Lightning Lieutenant."

* It's traditional for there to be a series of checkpoints just before Victory Road, the last dungeon that has to be traversed before reaching the Elite Four, with each consecutively checking for all eight [[PlotCoupon badges]] that will make you eligible for the Pokémon League. In the original games, your trek through the region essentially was a big circle, with the entrance gate to Victory Road being just outside the second town, which had the final Gym. As such, the checkpoints existed to emphasize that you really shouldn't be there yet. In contrast, the next four generations not only had Victory Road be reasonably far from your starting point, but you couldn't even reach the gate until after you have eight badges anyway; there's usually some obstacle that requires the game's final Hidden Machine move, which is activated by the final gym badge, making the checks a mere formality.[[note]]Granted, sequence breaking in Gen III (skipping Fortree City) meant you ''could'' reach the gates without all badges, so it was still necessary in at least one generation other than the first.[[/note]] Averted from ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' onwards. ''X and Y'' have the gate to Victory Road after the first major city, ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' has its equivalent (Mount Lanakila) under construction for most of the game and doesn't bother with a check[[note]]it isn't even treated as a proper Victory Road until the location is expanded in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon''[[/note]], and ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' doesn't have one at all.

* The Pokémon cries from each past generation become this. Gaming technology has come a long way since even the Game Boy Color, and each Pokémon from Gens I and II still sound just like their original 8-bit counterparts. Some of the Spin-Off games, such as ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'', redid the old cries in better audio quality, but this wasn't fully carried over to the main series until ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY''. Also, while a few Pokémon are meant to engage in PokemonSpeak like in [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries the anime]], limitations of the UsefulNotes/GameBoy system (they had to go through DevelopmentHell to get Pikachu's voice in ''Yellow'') prevented this, and afterwards it simply became a logistics issue.[[note]]It would also be extremely impractical to dub and program in as most Pokémon have different names in different languages, which would require ''a cast of hundreds'' whereas very few Pokémon (such as Pikachu) have a single name across all languages and can thus use the same voice clips with no issue.[[/note]] As of ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', the only Pokémon to use PokemonSpeak are Pikachu (from ''X and Y'' onwards), Eevee (from ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' onwards), and a Kantonian Meowth (in ''Sword and Shield'', and only when [[SuperMode Gigantamaxing]]). Other Pokémon that lack this are the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' card game (obviously), ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'', ''VideoGame/PokkenTournament'', and some of the TruerToTheText anime specials (such as ''Anime/PokemonGenerations'' and ''WebAnimation/PokemonTwilightWings'').

* Dive Balls, introduced in ''Ruby and Sapphire'', originally worked better on underwater Pokémon, but the Hoenn games are the only installments wherein you can dive underwater to encounter Pokémon. They were changed to also work better on wild Pokémon found while fishing or surfing. Amusingly, the attempts to make the Dive Ball remain relevant ended up passing this status onto the Lure Ball in [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver the G/S/C remakes]], which applied the same multiplier bonus, but only does so while fishing; meaning it ''also'' had to be changed, getting an even better multiplier bonus of x5 in Gen VI.

* The Move Deleter NPC became this in Gen VII. The only reason you ever needed the Move Deleter mechanic (outside of certain gimmicky movesets that require a reduced number of moves) was to get rid of a Pokémon's HM moves, but since ''Sun and Moon'' removed [=HMs=] in favor of Ride Pokémon, it made the Move Deleter completely obsolete. Despite that, a Move Deleter still exists within Hau'oli City's Pokémon Center, even though you'll never require his services.

* The way some old Pokémon evolve, for better or for worse, can come off odd given the weird gimmicks that latter Pokémon make use of in order to evolve. For example, Gen IV's Mantyke can only evolve if a Remoraid is in the party (matching the lore of the creature), yet a similar situation isn't required to obtain Gen I's Slowbro, despite it being well-known in the lore that Slowpokes evolve only when a Shellder bites their tail.

* In early games, creature names were limited to ten letters, leading to a couple of kludges. The most notable of them were Victreebel and Feraligatr, whose names should really be spelled "Victreebel'''l'''"[[note]]its pre-evolutions, Bellsprout and Weepinbell, both spell "bell" with two L's[[/note]] and "Feraligat'''o'''r". The letter limit was raised in Gen VI, and some Pokémon names from later generations do exceed the old ten-letter limit (such as "Crabominable"), but these names remain forever short a letter. Note that these Pokémon could have been named "Victrybell" or "Victribell" and "Fraligator" or "Feraligata" respectively, but these names clearly never came up in the creative process.
** Sunyshore City from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will forever be short an "n" due to the same problem.

* Unown has terrible stats all around, with its only halfway passable stats being in Attack and Special Attack. But it only knows one move, Hidden Power, which is a Special move, meaning that its Attack stat serves no purpose at all. It's a relic of the days before the physical/special split, meaning that Hidden Power being a physical or special move varying depending on its typing. If an Unown had, say, Hidden Power Rock or Ground, that Attack stat would have actually meant something. After the split occurred in Gen IV though, this was lost, so Unown now has a stat that it can never use for anything barring Struggle. That being said, Unown are incredibly weak anyway and exist purely to be collected as an option side-quest.

* Hidden Machine moves being impossible to forget (at least without consulting a Move Deleter NPC from Gen II on) is a ScrappyMechanic that persisted because in Generation I and II, it was possible to leave an HM in your PC, making it theoretically possible to render the game UnwinnableByMistake if you forgot an HM move and found yourself trapped in an area that required said move. In Generation III, the expansion of your bag meant that you'd always have the needed [=HMs=] on hand and could relearn a move if necessary, rendering the issue moot; however, you can still only delete HM moves with the help of a Move Deleter.[[note]]Granted, there were still theoretically ways to get stuck even then, but the methods required were firmly examples of UnwinnableByInsanity. There ''was'' the odd question of what to do if a Pokémon actively using Surf forgot the move, though.[[/note]] This naturally stopped being an issue when [=HMs=] stopped being a mechanic in [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Gen VII]], with the field move functions now being found on Ride Pokémon, who can be summoned anytime, anywhere as needed, and are granted to you as part of the plot, leaving your party Pokémon to just fight. As a matter of fact, former field moves can't even be used the way they were in previous games since the game does not provide the option, not even non-HM moves like Sweet Scent. While some of the better HM attacks were converted to standard [=TMs=] (a fact lampshaded by several [=NPCs=]), most weren't, leaving Kartana (an Ultra Beast) in the amusing position of being the only thing able to learn Cut.

* The Pokémon cries from each past generation become this. Gaming technology has come a long way since even the Game Boy Color, and each Pokémon from Gens I and II still sound just like their original 8-bit counterparts. Some of the Spin-Off games, such as ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'', redid the old cries in better audio quality, but this wasn't fully carried over to the main series until ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY''. Also, while a few Pokémon are meant to engage in PokemonSpeak like in [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} the anime]], limitations of the UsefulNotes/GameBoy system (they had to go through DevelopmentHell to get Pikachu's voice in ''Yellow'') prevented this, and afterwards it simply became a logistics issue.[[note]]It would also be extremely impractical to dub and program in as most Pokémon have different names in different languages, which would require ''a cast of hundreds'' whereas very few Pokémon (such as Pikachu) have a single name across all languages and can thus use the same voice clips with no issue.[[/note]] As of ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', the only Pokémon to use PokemonSpeak are Pikachu (from ''X and Y'' onwards), Eevee (from ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' onwards), and a Kantonian Meowth (in ''Sword and Shield'', and only when [[SuperMode Gigantamaxing]]). Other Pokémon that lack this are the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' card game (obviously), ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'', ''VideoGame/PokkenTournament'', and some of the TruerToTheText anime specials (such as ''Anime/PokemonGenerations'' and ''WebAnimation/PokemonTwilightWings'').

* In early games, creature names were limited to ten letters, leading to a couple of kludges. The most notable of them were Victreebel and Feraligatr, whose names should really be spelled "Victreebel'''l'''"[[note]]its pre-evolutions, Bellsprout and Weepinbell, both spell "bell" with two L's[[/note]] and "Feraligat'''o'''r". The letter limit was raised in Gen VI, but these names remain forever short a letter. Note that these Pokémon could have been named "Victrybell" or "Victribell" and "Fraligator" or "Feraligata" respectively, but these names clearly never came up in the creative process.

* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Gold and Silver]]'', one of the 10 phone numbers you can have at a time is Bill's, who tells you how many spaces are left in your current Pokémon storage box and will also call to alert you when your current box is full. This is useful because you had to manually change boxes in the first two generations or else you couldn't capture another Pokémon. However, starting in Gen III, this was performed automatically, making registering Bill's number in the Gen IV remakes largely pointless (he instead tells you the number of spaces left in all of your boxes in ''total'', in which case you are SOL if you manage to fill all of them). It's downplayed, however, since you can register all the numbers you want in the remakes, so he's not hampering you, either.

* Unown has bad stats all around, with its only halfway passable stats being in Attack and Special Attack. But it only knows one move, Hidden Power, which is a Special move, meaning that its Attack stat serves no purpose at all. It's a relic of the days before the physical/special split, meaning that Hidden Power being a physical or special move varying depending on its typing. If an Unown had, say, Hidden Power Rock or Ground, that Attack stat would have actually meant something. After the split occurred in Gen IV though, this was lost, so Unown now has a stat that it can never use for anything barring Struggle.
* In early games, creature names were limited to ten letters, leading to a couple of kludges. The most notable of them were Victreebel and Feraligatr, whose names should really be spelled "Victreebel'''l'''"[[note]]its pre-evolutions, Bellsprout and Weepinbell, both spell "bell" with two L's[[/note]] and "Feraligat'''o'''r". The letter limit was raised in Gen VI, but these names remain forever short a letter.

* There's a very minor one related to Umbreon back in Gen II where its Pokédex entry in ''Pokémon Gold'' mentions how it protects itself by spraying poisonous sweat from its pores, which is odd when you consider that nothing about Umbreon has to do with poison. This is a leftover from the Gen II beta where Umbreon was originally shown off as a Poison-type, but then was eventually changed to being a Dark-type.