Video Game / Pokemon Quarantine Crystal

The developers of Pokémon Quarantine Crystal highly encourage players to go into the game blind, which is impossible to do after reading the TV Tropes page. As such, all spoilers (with few exceptions) are unmarked. The original game is free to play (with a ROM of Pokémon Crystal), so out of respect for the developers' wishes, we strongly recommend that you download the patch HERE and play it before continuing further.

Lace up your running shoes and explore the new Johto!

During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the ensuing stay-at-home orders, sprite artist latenight began creating a Pokédex of fake Pokémon based off of prompts from 4chan's /vp/ board. An anon known as QDexAnon took interest in their designs and began creating a ROM Hack of Pokémon Crystal that replaced all 251 Pokémon with latenight's Fakemon. Initially meant as a simple roster swap, the hack, now dubbed Pokémon Quarantine Crystal, soon evolved into a total overhaul hack.

Pokémon Quarantine Crystal is an overhaul hack of Pokémon Crystal headed by latenight and QDexAnon alongside a small team of artists, composers, and programmers. Though the story is mostly the same as the Johto games, the roster is now comprised of totally original Fakemon, and there's a number of new mechanics from previous generations, such as the Running Shoes, reusable TMs, the physical-special split, the Fairy-type, and much more.

The game currently has a 12-gym demo, the patch for which can be downloaded here. You'll need to apply the patch to a ROM of Pokémon Crystal, which you'll need to find yourself for legal reasons.

A digital trading card game, based on the base set of the Pokémon Trading Card Game and played via Tabletop Simulator or LackeyCCG, was announced in May of 2023. Featuring artwork from various members of the community, the first base set was released in October of 2023, with future sets currently in closed beta testing.

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Pokémon Quarantine Crystal provides examples of the following:

• Action Bomb:
  • Antpyre and its evolution Generopsis are both ant-like grenades, and the former have been known to throw themselves like actual grenades at their foes.
  • Pilfoard learns Explosion by level up, and since it's part Normal-type it gets a STAB boost, making its Explosions exceptionally painful. The infamous "exploding Koffing" Executive at the top of the Radio Tower uses five Pilfoards (and an Icosahed) instead. And all of them hold Pink Bows^*a held item that boosts Normal-type moves, analogous to the Silk Scarf from later generations.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Several of the gym leaders have been given stronger teams, but special mention goes to Bugsy. He no longer specializes in the Bug-type (though his ace is still a Bug), but rather has a diverse team themed around gardening.
  • Team Rocket in general has stronger teams than in vanilla, however the Rocket Executive at the top of the Radio tower takes the cake. He manages to control Goriath, a hulking and powerful legendary, with the radio waves from the tower. It doesn’t last for very long, but he still puts up a damn good fight.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • The Lake of Rage plot has been altered quite a bit from the original games. Rather than a shiny Gyarados rampaging due to evolving earlier via Team Rocket’s radio waves, it instead involves the Lake of Rage becoming extremely polluted, not only causing the surrounding wild Pokémon to become poisoned (even the Poison-types sans the invasive Elephoot), but giving rise to a (non-shiny) Bermudant, whose presence only worsens the pollution.
  • On a more minor note, a Ganzerker blocks Route 36 instead of a Sudowoodo, and rather than being a simple roadblock it actively bites those who get too close. In order to get it to move, you need to honk a Bike Horn at it instead of watering it.
  • The backstory behind Ecruteak's towers also differs. In the originals, the Brass Tower burned down and took the lives of three nameless Pokémon, who were later revived by Ho-Oh. In Quarantine Crystal, the Brass Tower was built to house the lord of storms, Kamidaiko, who ended up destroying its own tower due to its insolence. The stand-ins for the Legendary Beasts, the Emissaries^note Terratora, Nikujira, and Ryunari had to seal it away, seemingly sacrificing themselves; however, it's later revealed that Ryunari put itself and the other members of its trio into a protective slumber. Additionally, the Tin Tower was built for the (currently unobtainable) Avatrice, who left the tower to seek more riches for itself.
• Adaptation Expansion: Whereas Lavender Town in the vanilla games was just a pit-stop for most players, with the only thing to do being to get the Expansion Card so they could clear the sleeping Snorlax, there's quite a lot to do in the Noble Purple Town in Quarantine Crystal. The Radio Tower has been expanded into a TV studio and now houses a Kaiju set that doubles as a gym, in addition to an actor that can be battled once a day. There's also a subplot where players need to find the source of some Strange Signals in order to get the Expansion Card.
• Art Evolution: As development progressed, many of the sprites have received full revamps, often with more dynamic poses and generally cleaner art.
• Artificial Brilliance: Encore, previously a game-breaking strategy in 0.6, was nerfed so that the AI can now recognize it and switches out if their Pokémon is afflicted with it.
• Angelic Abomination: Allseeraph plays into the classical multi-eyed and winged depictions of Seraphim, albeit as a Lighter and Softer example. It's quite benevolent however, having the utmost loyalty to its trainer.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Features returning from later generations include the physical-special split, the ability to run from the start, and reusable TMs.
  • The Guide Gent of Cherrygrove now serves as the Move Relearner, offering his services in exchange for Poké Dolls. Poké Dolls are a renewable resource that can be bought from Azalea’s Poké Mart for a reasonable price.
  • Stone evolutions no longer have gimped movepools, and now learn moves via level-up (albeit still more slowly than their pre-evolved forms) rather than requiring the Move Relearner for all of them, though some do have relearnable level 1 moves.
  • Players are now able to tell whether an egg will hatch into a shiny Pokémon by its menu sprite. If the egg’s sprite is purple instead of yellow, then a shiny will hatch from it. Similarly, shiny Pokémon have differently-colored menu sprites.
  • Beginning in 0.8, the need for HM moves has been cut entirely in favor of field techniques; all the player needs is to complete a quest in order to unlock the technique as well as a Pokémon capable of executing it. The HM moves are still in (minus Whirlpool), but they serve as ordinary TM moves and have all been buffed (with the exception of Surf, which got a Base Power reduction).
  • Kurt no longer takes a day to create his Poké Balls, getting them done instantly for the player.
  • The player no longer needs to input an obscure button combination nor enter a hard-to-get password to reset the clock, as an option to do so is available on the main menu.
  • The early-game birds (Porceling, Hoatot, and Qwail) get their Flying-type moves slightly later compared to the vanilla games' birds. This is to reduce the Early Game Hell players who pick Cigerillar go through, as the tobacco caterpillar is quadruple-weak to Flying.
• Author Appeal: The development team are huge fans of the Kaiju genre as well as classic monster movies and comics, and it shows throughout the game:
  • A number of Pokémon are either based on a concept made into a Kaiju (i.e. Saigohana) or aspects of the genre (i.e. Casanocte and Smotherene being based on People in Rubber Suits). The secret Mist Stone evolution to Ganzerker, Ganzorah, is an obvious King Ghidorah Expy, right down to its name and golden shiny form.
  • Mossarre is partially based on Swamp Thing, while Giguard is a Xenomorph Xerox.
  • Lavender Town's gym is a Kaiju movie set, complete with one of the trainers being a man in a Godzilla suit. The Gym Leader is a Toku hero named Giant Hero who uses a number of giant, Kaiju-like Pokémon.
• Balance Buff:
  • A number of the series' more useless moves, such as Constrict^*Now an early-game Bug move with 45 BP and Spike Cannon^*Now Steel-type were adjusted to be more useful, especially in the earlier stages of the game.
  • Draining Kiss is a Zig-Zagged example. Its power was upped to 65 from 55, but it no longer drains 2/3rd of the damage dealt, instead healing the user by the usual 1/2. This is due to Generation II games being unable to have Draining Kiss's unique draining properties programmed in, so its power was buffed to compensate.
  • For the Pokémon themselves, both Hornampa and Scorperor were noted to be rather underwhelming by players, with the former being a Master of None and the latter being slow and keeling over to the weakest of special attacks, not helped by its Poison/Fighting typing being quadruple weak to Psychic. Their reworked forms were given higher stats in 0.8 (and, in the case of Chompion, a superior Poison/Ground typing that notably lacks a crippling weakness to Psychic).
• Bankruptcy Barrel: Drownsuguy wears a barrel that resembles this, especially when combined with its gaunt appearance.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Illuxury, oh lord Illuxury. Prior to fighting and catching it, it's built up as the protector of Ilex Forest a la Celebi, keeping the Yuggromi at bay during the daytime. After placing the QT ball and following it, disguised as a beautiful girl, through the forest, it says "Got... you..." before fighting you. Its Pokédex entry states that many people believe that it is the true "fiend of the forest" rather than Yuggromi, and the woman who tells you about the Spore Fiend Pokémon coming out at night reveals that they weren't being kept at bay by the so-called protector, but rather were the result of a curse that becomes stronger at night.
• Body of Bodies: A few G-rated examples:
  • Meowntain is a giant cat monster comprised of lots and lots of Shabbycat.
  • Brigadoom is a large dragon comprised of several skeletons.
  • Murdermis is a scarecrow made up of several crows, which it controls to protect crops.
• Butter Face: Despite having the body of a cute rubber ducky, Sqwucky has an incredibly ugly mug.
• Canon Immigrant: A few TCG-related figures make an appearance in this game:
  • The design of the Rocket Enforcer trainer class is based off of the suited figure seen in the Goop Gas Attack card from the Team Rocket expansion.
  • Imposter Oak makes an appearance on a collectible card, which the card itself questions whether it's real or not. That being said, Imposter Oak is heavily implied to be part of Team Rocket's ranks throughout the Silph Co. quest.
  • If you collect enough cards and go to the club in Celadon City (located where the former Game Corner prize exchange was), you can face off with Mark and Mint, the protagonists of the Japan-exclusive Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!. They even use Pokémon that are popular choices in the Quarantine Crystal card game, such as Qwallop and Eyechosis.
• Cat-apult: The fittingly-named Catapult move, a powerful, multi-hit attack that's exclusive to Meowntain and uses Shabbycat as ammo.
• Celestial Body: Madrugasa has sparkles throughout its body, which when combined with its dark blue plumage resembles a starry night sky.
• Character Name Limits: Being a ROM Hack of Pokémon Crystal, it retains the game's 10-character limit. This is most noticeable with the Fire starter Scorchoppr, similar to Feraligatr from vanilla. This also resulted in Draining Kiss being rendered as DRAININGKISS in-game.
• Colonel Badass: Colonel Volt, who replaces Lt. Surge as the Vermilion Gym Leader.
• Cliffhanger: The Kanto campaign in 0.8 ends on this note, with a giant Pokémon (implied to be Goriath) heading towards the (currently inaccessible) Kanto Power Plant and Team Rocket continuing their schemes, with Imposter Oak being all-but-stated to be helping them with their schemes.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Wouldn't be a Johto game without cheating trainers, would it?
  • A number of gym leaders have evolved Pokémon that are several levels lower than they can be legally obtained at. The two worst offenders are both of Falkner's Pokémon and Morty's Moodswine.
  • Whitney's Maulzer, Snuggles, knows Hackles Up^*A Fighting-type clone of Skull Bash that's incredibly strong for that point in the game at level 26, despite Maulzer not being able to learn the move until level 35.
• Cute Witch: Hilda, who specializes in Poison-types as well as arcane Pokémon. She's the new leader of Saffron gym and was Sabrina's protégé.
• Dance Battler: Madrugasa is said to share a dance with the trainers it saves from ghosts, and learns several dance moves via move relearner, including Dragon Dance and Petal Dance.
• Dark Reprise: The Ilex Forest's theme at night is much darker and more ominous compared to the vanilla theme, as a warning of the dangers that come out at that time.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Subverted with Yuggromi, the fiend of the Ilex Forest. It’s supposed to be a Hopeless Boss Fight found only at night, having a slim chance of being encountered at Level 57 at a point where your mons are in the early-mid 20s at most. The way the player is supposed to beat it is by throwing a Poké Doll at it to make it leave you alone. However, tenacious players can exploit the Random Number God in certain ways, such as lowering accuracy with Flash or Mud-Slap (both widely-distributed moves that are given to the player early on) and/or by inflicting Paralysis and Sleep. By doing this, the player can slowly whittle its health down and possibly even catch it at low health. Helping things is that there is an Ultra Ball in Azalea Meadow, somewhat improving your odds of catching it (though good luck doing that without savestates since it has a catch rate of 1). Once you do? It will never obey, as Yuggromi caught in the Ilex Forest are programmed to disobey their trainers, regardless of how many badges the player has acquired.
  • Played straight with Gloomen, who can be found before the second gym as a Loomen in the Cuttlebone Well. It's decently fast and powerful for that point in the game, in addition to being strong against a number of Bugsy's Pokémon. One can also evolve it before the third gym by giving it a Sun Stone, obtained by winning the Bug-Catching contest^note While the Contest only takes place on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, one can easily time travel via the main menu. Quarantine Crystal removes the need to enter a password or press a convoluted button combination, making time traveling relatively easy.. Upon evolution, it gains the Rock typing (which happens to be good against Whitney), high bulk and Special Attack in exchange for lowered Attack and Speed, and learns the somewhat strong (for that point in the game) Ancient Power as well as Draining Kiss and Morning Sun via move relearner. Not only is it super strong for that point in the game, but it also performs well throughout the rest of the game.
  • Also played straight with Tranquiel, the replacement for the Mystery Egg Togepi. While it starts off weak, it learns the sleep-inducing Lovely Kiss early on, and learns the strong-for-that-point Draining Kiss shortly after. Its stats are decent enough to the point where it has a solid matchup into Bugsy. Max out its friendship (which can be done before said Gym Leader if you're tenacious enough) and you'll get the insanely powerful Allseeraph, who can get strong moves via move tutor (whose prices have been reduced) and gets Calm Mind to bolster its already impressive Special stats to insane levels.
• Dog Stereotype: Quarantine Crystal introduces a number of dog-based Pokémon, many of which fit certain breed stereotypes:
  • Maulzer, which is based on a British Bulldog, is part Fighting-type and is prized for its strength. It also has a bad reputation due to being abused.
  • Tido fits the "sweet and excitable Bull Terrier" stereotype. It's also a literal land shark.
  • The Mopedor line is based off of the seldom-seen Komondor, which is said to have a somewhat standoffish temperament, especially towards strangers. Indeed, Mopedor is said to be hard to raise and require maximum friendship in order to evolve.
  • Fueghast is based off of the even less common (and extinct) Fuegian dog, which unlike other domesticated canines was not bred from the gray wolf. It's a Ghost- and Fire-type that needs to be revived from a fossil and is just plain weird, both in appearance and mannerisms.
• Double Meaning:
  • Drassal's category is the Horde Pokémon. This refers to both the fact that there are several specimens of this Legendary Pokémon in the wild and how it steals items to build up its master Avatrice's hoard.
  • The Okunae line's categories are "Minute" for Okunae, "Second" for Koukaika, and "Midnight" for Saigohana. Not only does this refer to their evolutionary stages, but they also reference the Doomsday Clock.
  • Dredwood's category is "Feller", referring to both it felling trees and being a fellow.
• Dragon Hoard: Avatrice (who currently can't be obtained as of this writing) left its tower in order to build its hoard. It commands hordes of Drassal to do its bidding and gather more riches for itself.
• The Dreaded: Yuggromi is feared as the Fiend of the Forest due to preying on any unfortunate soul who wanders into the Ilex Forest at night.
• Easter Egg: A few Pokémon has unique ferry sprites instead of the standard Squeenie sprite.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles:
  • Shiny Pokémon return in this game and are sometimes used by NPCs. Usually, the Breeder trainer class has a couple, but a few boss trainers use them, such as Whitney and her shiny Maulzer.
  • If a player encounters a shiny Pokémon in the wild, a special, faster-paced battle theme will play instead of the standard wild encounter music.
  • Like in vanilla Crystal, the Odd Egg has a higher-than-average chance to be shiny. Unlike Crystal however, whether the Odd Egg is shiny or not is indicated by the menu sprite; if the egg has a purple sprite, then it’s gonna hatch into a shiny.
  • You can find a shiny Mt. Noot in a secret corner of the Ice Path. This was added to make shiny breeding easier, especially since it belongs to two of the more common Egg Groups (Sauria and Mineral).
• Face of a Thug: You'd be forgiven for thinking Nikujira is an evil legendary, since it's an ominous, ghastly Trunko themed around carrion. However, it's just as benevolent as its brothers and helped seal away the rampaging Kamidaiko.
• Fairy Dragons:
  • Drassal is a cute little pixie dragon that happens to be a bit of a kleptomaniac. Despite this, it's not part Fairy-type, instead being Bug- and Dragon-type.
  • Aefaedra has the Fairy/Dragon typing, but looks more like a bird than a fairy or a dragon.
• Fan Disservice: Squeenie was designed with this trope in mind, as its realistic legs come off as more unsettling and uncanny than sexy, especially when combined with its simplistic, float toy-like body.
• Flipping the Bird: Hinted at by one of Red/Blue Rudey's special texts before it attacks:
  Red/Blue Rudey makes a forbidden gesture!
• Flower Motifs: A subtle one for the Okunae line. The latter halves of their name references the different stages of a flower^note Okunae has "nae", Japanese for seedling, Koukaika has "kaika", Japanese for blossoming, and Saigohana has "hana", Japanese for flower, which serve as a metaphor for their nuclear powers.
• Ghost Town: While training on Route 45, you'll likely come across an abandoned, ruined town with a sign that had become too faded to read. Entering the sole house and reading the diary reveals that the town used to have an observatory. As you go through the house's basement, it slowly becomes more and more glitchy and distorted, until you arrive at the same house with the same diary, with the eerie addition of "Won't you join us?". You are then transported to an illusory version of the town during better times, and re-entering the house lets you catch Andromega, the (probable) culprit behind the town's destruction. As you say goodbye to the town, its true name is revealed: Thismia Town, where the stars always shine.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: In addition to the usual Pokédex quest, there are a bunch of trading cards scattered around the Johto and Kanto regions. Collecting enough of them will unlock battles against the protagonists of Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!.
• Guide Dang It!: As the game deliberately lacks documentation, certain aspects of the game, such as evolving certain Pokémon or finding them, can be tough to figure out on your own.
  • The entirety of the Mist Stone sidequest is this, requiring the player to complete certain events before talking to a certain NPC and then complete another event, which takes them to a puzzle that needs to be completed before the Stone mysteriously appears in your bag. Not to mention figuring out which Pokémon evolve using it.
  • However, none of that compares to getting the secret evolution of Buzzling. In addition to completing the above quest, you have to train up a Buzzling to a very high level, evolve a certain Pokémon using the Mist Stone, show it to a certain scientist, then get a special item and use it on Buzzling.
• The Hedonist: Kamidaiko, a taiko drum-themed legendary, absolutely loves to party with its Blazelle. Unfortunately, its parties also happen to be both loud and destructive, and it actively ignored the villagers' pleas for it to stop, eventually running away when confronted. It took the combined powers of Terratora, Nikujira, and Ryunari to seal it away, and even they had to enter a protective slumber in order to stay alive after the ordeal.
• Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: The Umberjerk line is a parody of this trope. Rather than a lust for blood, the entire line has an irrational hatred for all plant life (especially trees), seeking to chop it all down.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Even with the egg group revamp, a number of odd pairings are still possible. One such pairing that can produce offspring is Nanaturuk (a giant Multi-Armed and Dangerous bear) and Wormeek (a tiny, cowardly worm) due to both being in the Invertebrate egg group.
• Hurricane of Puns:
  • Djamm's Pokédex entry, which is as follows:
    "Djamm only uses the spiciest beets. When its jams get stale, it re-mixes them."
  • The computer-based Virues's moveset is full of puns, most notably with Leech Seed^note A reference to seeding, uploading downloaded content for other users to download, and leeching, when someone downloads more content than they upload and Surf.
• Informed Species: Deliberately invoked with Brehonnos prior to 0.8, who was known as Wendigaunt despite bearing no resemblance to a Wendigo. Instead, it is a Celtic deer forest guardian combined with a sun bleached tree motif. According to latenight, they deliberately avoided designing an actual Wendigo when given the prompt to do so in order to avoid offending Indigenous Americans, as mentions of the creature are considered to be highly taboo.
• Instrument of Murder: Fendra is a vicious dragon that resembles a Fender guitar.
• Iwo Jima Pose: If you look closely at Brigadoom's sprite, one can find a skeleton doing this pose with the flag in its body.
• Kabuki Theatre:
  • The Kurobi line is based on this combined with a snow leopard.
  • The Actor you battle in Lavender Town will dress as a Kabuki warrior on Wednesdays.
• Jerkass: The entire gimmick of the Red Rudey line is that it insults you before it attacks, such as making "forbidden gestures" and implying that you failed school.
• Joke Level: Downplayed as it's just a small room, but Victory Road has a hard-to-reach room that has level 33 Nomsters as its only encounter (for context, you'll be encountering fully-evolved, powerful Pokémon in the late 40s in the rest of the dungeon), as well as a strength puzzle that leads only to a measly Repel and a frowny face made of rocks.
• Leg Focus: While the rest of its body is a simple duck-like float ring, Squeenie has realistic, well-toned legs and learns a number of kicking moves via level up. However, they're most certainly not meant to be attractive.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Retroglyph is an interesting case. Though it’s the game's stand-in for Unown, it has decent stats and an actual movepool. However, though its stats are higher than Unown’s (which isn’t a very impressive feat), they’re nothing particularly special and Retroglyph’s movepool is somewhat shallow. Stick with it until level 50, and it learns freaking Sketch, letting it have any move it pleases. And since Sketch can be relearned infinitely, this turns Retroglyph from an okayish Unown replacement to an extremely powerful and versatile mon.
  • Hoplaque is a straighter example. It can be obtained from the Odd Egg at level 5, and its stats are an absolute joke. Level it up for a bit and you get Phanguard, who is a fair bit stronger and learns a decent STAB move in Shadow Claw upon evolution. Stick with it until the late 40s, and you get Brigadoom, an insanely strong Ghost- and Dragon-type with a wide movepool and excellent stats across the board.
• Mascot with Attitude: Soaro is a three-way cross between Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro, with its name being a mis-mash of all three characters'. Classified as the Nostalgia Pokémon, it is beloved by the 8-to-10 demographic and can cause obsession if one is exposed to it for too long.
• Mega Maelstrom: In addition to the whirlpool obstacles found in vanilla, there's a large artificial whirlpool in the Team Rocket hideout's laundromat designed to clean clothes more efficiently. Talking to the scientist by the whirlpool has you jump into it, which is how you gain the ability to cross whirlpools in the overworld (assuming you have the Mineral Badge). Notably, the move Whirlpool was cut due to a lack of space in the ROM.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Among the buffed moves is Hyper Beam, which no longer requires a charging turn if it knocks out an opponent. This behavior is identical to that of the Generation I games.
  • The Artist trainer class uses the same encounter theme as the Artists from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, albeit remixed in an 8-bit format. This is the only track recycled from the main series games (excluding the ones from vanilla Crystal).
  • The pinch theme that plays when Lance is on his last Pokémon is a remix of the first English opening theme from Pokémon: The Original Series.
  • The TCG, as well as the in-game cards, make reference to attacks found in the main series but not in Quarantine Crystal, including Jaw Lock and Struggle Bug.
  • The Surfing Bundegraf doll, which can be obtained after beating Chad on Route 34's beach, is based on the Surfing Pikachu. Additionally, Bundegraf can learn Surf via TM and even has a unique ferry sprite.
• Nerf:
  • Due to its wide distribution and strong typing, Surf was nerfed from 95 base power to 80.
  • In 0.6, Smotherene was an extremely powerful option that trivialized most of the game thanks to its high stats, excellent typing, and wide movepool, most notably having access to Swords Dance and Lovely Kiss. It also helped that it's pre-evolution Smucious can come from the Odd Egg and evolves via friendship, letting players get it early. Come 0.8, and Smotherene lost Swords Dance, Lovely Kiss became egg move-only, and it got a stat reduction.
  • While Earthquake itself wasn't nerfed, its distribution is more conservative compared to the vanilla games, and its TM cannot be found until the player reaches Kanto. Similar to Surf, this is due to the move's high power, lack of drawback, and strong attacking type.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Loonette, the leader of the Celadon gym.
• No Smoking: Surprisingly averted a number of times throughout the game.
  • The Cigerillar line is explicitly based on cigarettes, and tobacco in general, combined with the life cycle of a moth. The final evolution, Okamikaze, learns Flamethrower via level up (despite being quadruple weak to fire), and has a Secret Art in the form of Vapor Pulse, which is detailed under Second-Face Smoke.
  • Not only is the original Japanese sprite for the Fisherman restored (which depicts them smoking cigarettes), but they receive new overworld sprites that show them with cigarettes in their mouths.
• Nuckelavee: Nuckawheez is a Lighter and Softer take on the creature combined with bagpipes. True to its inspiration, it's a Water- and Poison-type oceanic pestilence spirit.
• Ominous Owl: Oscurasa and Madrugasa make up a line of ghastly barn owls that could easily be mistaken for ghosts^note they aren't even Ghost-type; rather they are Dark- and Flying-type. Oscurasa's back sprite even has it turn its head backwards to look directly at the player! However, they're ultimately benign, with Madrugasa actually saving people from ghosts.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Par for the course in Pokémon, Dragon-types tend to vary fairly wildly in design and capabilities. Special mention goes to the Rock/Dragon fossil Pokémon Anomully, which is a fish that attempted to grow into a dragon prematurely with... unexpected results.
• Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: Drownsuguy is not based on any one cryptid, but rather the general concept of European lake monsters with unusual names. It also serves as a Unique Enemy in Celadon's small pond^note the one where Grimer can be found in vanilla and has a weird, vague Pokédex entry that encourages the reader to look a little closer into the water for hidden kingdoms, definitely not leaving you open to getting drowned by Drownsuguy.
• Partially-Concealed-Label Gag: If the player has a member of the Red Rudey line in their party and reads a sign, the Sponge Pokémon will vandalize the sign, leading to this trope. For example, Cianwood's vandalized sign will read "WOO A Poo".
• Precious Puppy:
  • Tido is a cross between a shark and a Bull Terrier, and it’s way cuter than it sounds. It has a very Keet personality and was commonly kept on ships to raise morale.
  • Moperdor is an adorable cross between a Komondor puppy and a mop, though it's said to be quite stubborn.
• Punny Name:
  • As is tradition for the series, many, many Pokémon have such names. One such example is Bobbitrap, which is a play on bobbit (as in bobbit worms) and Booby Trap.
  • The protagonists each get new options for their default names, with the male's being Corey and the female's being Tina. Put together, they sound very similar to "Quarantine".
• Recurring Element: Though the designs are largely original, many of the series' recurring archetypes are found within the region:
  • Porceling, Hoatot, and Qwail all fulfull the Common Bird archetype, with the former two having three stages and the latter having two. None of them evolve into Normal/Flying-types, however.
  • Nomster is the requisite common rodent, though its final evolution Nomsabre is a fair bit stronger than the typical rodent (complete with a strong signature move). Also unlike the other common rodents, it has a secret, ultra-powerful third stage that can only be obtained with the mythical Mist Stone and sheds the Normal-type completely.
  • Buzzling and Wormeek both serve as downplayed examples of the (respectively) intimidating and docile early Bug-types, as they evolve later than usual, with the final forms having higher-than-average stats to compensate. Notably, Wormeek outright sheds its Bug-typing in favor of becoming part Fighting.
  • Dolmite serves as the early three-stage Rock type a la Geodude or Roggenrola.
  • Ambinni serves as the resident Pikaclone, though it notably deviates from most of the others in that it's a three-stage evolutionary line^note The line was created well before the introduction of the Pawmi line in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
  • Tranquiel is the requisite Togepi replacement, complete with being a Fairy-type with an angelic motif that evolves via friendship.
  • Bobbite combines the role of a Poké Ball mimic with being a fast, hard-to-escape-from Ground type a la Diglett.
  • Cantalone is the resident multiplying metal object, going from one can to a six-pack upon evolution.
  • Sappura and Junobe both serve similar roles to Abra, with Sappura being able to Teleport and Junobe being a pure Psychic Glass Cannon.
• Retired Badass: The old gym leaders of Kanto have retired and can be found not too far from their original gyms. They can be challenged as Optional Bosses and still put up damn good fights, rewarding TMs upon defeat.
• Salaryman: One of the new trainer classes introduced, these trainers are consistently depicted as frustrated and depressed. They usually wield Salarito, a depressed fish designed after salarymen who are at the utter bottom of the food chain but persist in the hopes of rising in stature one day.
• Second-Face Smoke: The tobacco-based Okamikaze's Secret Art is Vapor Pulse, which essentially weaponizes this trope. The move hits twice and has a chance to inflict Poison on the target.
• Secret Character:
  • There's three hidden forms of Retroglyph that are unlocked if you solve the delinquent's "tile puzzle".
  • Not to mention the Mist Stone evolutions, which are well-hidden and very convoluted to obtain.
  • Finally, there's the 253rd Pokemon, Elecule, who can be found as an extremely rare encounter in certain areas.
• Single Specimen Species: Played straight with all of the Legendary Pokémon... except for notable aversion Drassal. There's actually several specimens of this little pixie dragon, with one being used by Champion Lance as one of his aces. They can be found as a regular (albeit very rare) random encounter in the Whirl Islands' deepest chamber, though they have a high propensity to run away.
• Space Whale:
  • Mobyus, a Legendary introduced in 0.8, is this combined with Moby Schtick and a mobius strip.
  • Stellocean was Mobyus's previous incarnation, being an enormous galactic whale combined with a nebula. It was a regular three-stage line instead of a Legendary, however, and was ultimately cut in 0.8 to make way for Mobyus (and the Rudeys).
• Stock Money Bag: Pilfoard is a living money bag, albeit with a Pokédollar symbol in place of the usual dollar symbol.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: The battle theme for Yuggromi in the Ilex Forest is this, and rightfully so given that it's Level 57 at a point where your team is likely in the early 20s at most.
• Retraux: The game's more limited color palettes compared to vanilla Crystal are intentional, designed to invoke the Spaceworld demos of Gold and Silver. It's officially described as a "Generation 1.5" style.
• Take That!: According to latenight, Squeenie was designed to parody Pokédexes filled with "sexy waifumons". They also note that, disconcertingly, people have begun seriously lusting after it.
• Totally Radical:
  • Sidficious parodies this, with its over-the-top punk design and Pokédex entry:
    "After getting an involuntary piercing, Sidficious now feels really cool. Almost too cool for you, too!"
  • The Radical trainer class, who speak like stereotypical 90s teenagers and prefer Electric-types as well as groovy Pokémon like Djamm. Kanto also has their pseudo-Distaff Counterpart in the form of the Skater trainer class, as well as the Dancer class, based on breakdancers.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Buzzling's Pokédex entry mentions that it pleads to stay unevolved. The player can keep it unevolved, and while Buzzling is quite weak it at least prevents the parasites from taking over, turning it into Injectoid. The player can take this to the next level in the post-game by completing a number of convoluted quests that eventually yields a cure for Buzzling, letting it shed its parasites completely and evolve into Viivii.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As mentioned above, Illuxury is a malicious legendary Pokémon who is implied to be responsible for the outbreak of super-strong Yuggromi in Ilex Forest during the nighttime. However, those in Azalea believe that Illuxury protects those who enter the forest during the daytime via casting a boon that keep the Yuggromi at bay.
• Visual Pun:
  • The reason why Nanaturuk is Multi-Armed and Dangerous as well as in the Invertebrate egg group is because it's a Water-type bear. In other words, a water bear, AKA a Tardigrade.
  • Maulzer is a giant dog that has the horns and tail of a bull, making it a literal bulldog.
  • Tido’s design is an amphibious shark combined with a Bull Terrier. Those dogs, along with other Pit Bull-type breeds, are often (derisively) called “land sharks”. Tido is a literal land shark (albeit much friendlier than expected).
• Walking Ossuary: Brigadoom is a Dracolich comprised of multiple skeletons.
• Xenomorph Xerox: Giguard, one of the evolutions to Clibble, strongly resembles a Xenomorph and is said to be motherly and protective by nature.