Pokemon Missingno. An Overview (Part 1)

By Jill/Redterror117

One of the most well-known glitches of the first generation of Pokemon games is Missingno., which is short for ‘Missing Number’. Missingno. Is a Bird/Normal Pokemon (the first type a glitch in itself) in the Red and Blue versions, and a Normal/999 (the latter also a glitch) type in Yellow. What makes it even more unique is that Missingno. has five different appearances between the three versions: a glitched block (only available in Red and Blue versions), a fossil Kabutops, a fossil Aerodactyl, a ghost, and a yellow and red glitched block (only available in Yellow version). The appearance of this glitch Pokemon in the games is determined based upon how it is obtained, which is in one of two ways.

The first method of obtaining a Missingno. is the easiest, but cannot be done in the Yellow Version (as this was later on fixed): All the player has to do is talk to the Old Man in Viridian City and allow him to show a demonstration of how to catch a Pokemon, then immediately after this, fly to Cinnabar City and surf along the eastern shore of the island, prompting a battle. In this method, the following letters determine the appearance of Missingno.:

Glitch Block: If the third, fifth, or seventh character of the player’s name is ‘G, H, J, M, S, T, :, ], a, b, c, m, o, p, or v’

Fossil Kabutops: If the third, fifth, or seventh character of the player’s name is ‘w’

Fossil Aerodactly: If the third, fifth, or seventh character of the player’s name is ‘x’

Ghost: If the third, fifth, or seventh character of the player’s name is ‘y’

The second method is more commonly used to obtain other hard Pokemon without the use of a Gameshark (specifically Mew, hence it’s name ‘the Mew glitch’). In this case, the Player needs to research the special stat that they need to obtain the Pokemon they want (at the end I will list the specials needed for the specific Missingno forms), then ensure they have a Pokemon with Fly, and two trainers they have not battled that will initiate a fight if the player walks into view (the second one needs to be in a place that has wild ditto. The best thing to do is save at the initial setup, in case something goes wrong. To begin, the player needs to take one step closer to the trainer (being in line of sight), then immediately hit START. Fly to the area with the second trainer and ditto. At this point the menu will be unavailable, because the game will think that the player is in the middle of a battle. From here, battle the second trainer (but make sure that there is enough room for the trainer to have to walk up to the player). Defeat the trainer as normal, and then proceed to find a battle with a wild Ditto, using the Pokemon with the desired special stat. Once it transforms into your stat-specific Pokemon, defeat it. Immediately after the battle against the Diito, return to the location of the first trainer, without initiating any other battles in the process. As soon as you return to this area, the menu should immediately appear. Close the menu with the B button, and a battle will immediately follow with the desired Pokemon.

Glitch Block: If the special stat is 31, 32, 50, 52, 56, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 79, 80, 81, 86, 87, 94, 95, 115, 121, 122, 127, 134, 135, 137, 140, 146, 156, 159, 160, 161, 162, 172, 174, 175 or 181.

Fossil Kabutops: If the special stat is 182.

Fossil Aerodactly: If the special stat is 183.

Ghost: If the special stat is 184.

Yellow Glitch Block: If the special stat is 31, 32, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69 or 86.

In my next article (part two), I will go into more detail about the well known Missingno., including the side effects in the game that the glitch Pokemon brings, its existence in other games, Nintendo’s response when it first surfaced, as well as some other interesting facts about it.

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