Japan only, and it also seems to have required a completed Colosseum save file.
US version had Jirachi instead.
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(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon
- Thread starter BriarRose
- Start date
US version had Jirachi instead.
I thought there was one so double checking against Serebii's database it seems there was a giveaway in 2006 for the 10th Anniversary...but only in the US & Taiwan (& Japan, of course)
Europe getting the short end as was usual for the era.
You're right. So I guess we can add a couple dozen cities to the list, on one specific day each.
Kind of surprised I forgot about this in retrospect, as I'm certain that I have a Celebi with a 10ANIV trainer ID sitting in one of my boxes somewhere that I'm pretty sure was cloned from somebody who went.
I checked through Bulbapedia and Celebi was obtainable through Journey Across America event distribution that took place during Gen 3.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Funnily enough, in the Prima Guide for FRLG there's a full Pokedex for the first 251 Pokemon detailing their movesets and locations, except for Mew, Lugia, and Celebi which all had blank entries with "this Pokemon is not available in the United States" in them. Which of course was true at the time... except for the fact that Lugia is obtainable within FRLG, something the guide does not in any way acknowledge. Wonder if the guide's writer actually knew of the event's existence, or if they knew but weren't allowed to reveal its existence before the event ticket was officially distributed.
I’m pretty sure colosseum was released before FRLG, and Ho-oh was catchable in that.
Something that irks me a little about Megas and Z-moves (and Eternamax Eternatus specifically) is how they affect stat and move trivia. It's annoying that almost every list of the strongest moves by type needs a little "*excluding Z-moves" disclaimer, and while there's nothing strictly wrong with having Megas and/or Eternamax at the top of almost every ranking by individual stat, something about it bothers me.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
I did not mention Ho-oh in that post, and in fact Ho-oh's location in the listing in question is literally "trade from Colosseum"
Yes I’m pretty sure the point was being made that being event exclusive at that time (which Ho-oh was not) was why they didn’t receive an entry, which makes sense.
It's definitely the latter. "Official" Guidebooks do to an extent work with the company. While a thing might slip through here & there they're not allow to acknowledge things that are in the game but might come later, even if they might be revealed elsewhere. Especially during that era of the franchise, where they kept holding back reveals of things worldwide even if they were already announced, shown, released in Japan.
You can see this more obviously with Prima's Ruby & Sapphire guide book. It doesn't mention Jirachi, Deoxys, their moves, any of the berries past Leichi, the Eon Ticket, or the Soul Dew (& likewise shows Latias/Latios as purely Version Exclusive).
Even an earlier guide book i have, from Versus for Gold & Silver, will mention Mew but not Celebi.
e: & also obviously the prima RS guide didn'ts how off all the non-hoenn dex Pokemon
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Yeah I think this is it. I've also got the Prime R&S guide and never really registered how it stops at 200, but this makes sense.
Interestingly, though, a few of the Altering Cave Pokemon like Shuckle and Houndour have "Cave of Origin" as their location in the FRLG guide, which would seem to be someone getting confused and mixing up that location with Altering Cave - but the fact it's there seems to indicate that the planned events for those Pokemon were scrapped extremely late. Presumably Emerald was well on its way by the time FRLG were out and they knew it'd have all those species available in it - no sense taking away one of its selling points.
I'd look at the scrapped aspect in a slightly different light. The games only came out 8 months apart in Japan, they were likely developed partially concurrently and Emerald also has Altering Cave with all the same Pokemon despite the extension.
To me it seems like they scrapped the event entirely, maybe they thought it would be too cumbersome to get these Pokemon through event or the GC games, and then placed those Pokemon in the Safari Zone Extension instead. Less of a "scrap it because it will be an emerald selling point" situation and more of a "let's make these Pokemon more available" situation.
In fact...most areas of the Safari Zone had 6 Pokemon in their grass normally, with one having 7
Both extensions have 8...there'd be less than 6 without the extension Pokemon but I can easily see a situation where the AC pokemon were just added to the Extensions at the last minute after deciding they wouldn't do Altering Cave after all.
50/50 on if Smeargle and the Artisan Cave were also late additions; it does pair well with Ditto in the underpass at least.
Also while double checking the encounters, I saw a note on Bulbapedia that apparently the Emerald version of the cave would have had specifically designated Held Items rates which is interesting. Shuckle & Aipom would have had 5% chance to hold Berry Juice, I assume there's others but they don't list them.
What a weird little bit of content.