Missingno.
Missingno. ("missing number", like its Japanese name, けつばん (ketsuban), which is Japanese for missing number) is a glitch Pokémon which likely owes its existence to a programming oversight in the Game Boy games Pokémon Red and Blue. There have also been Missingno.-like glitches in other Pokémon games, which are even sometimes called a Missingno.; however, these aren't related to the Red/Blue Missingno., and are usually only obtainable with some sort of game enhancing device. Encountering the Missingno. character has been known to interfere with the save game data in various ways, such as adversely affecting the Hall of Fame saved data. Its presence also allows the game's infamous item duplication bug, sometimes called the "Rare Candy Cheat" as it's commonly used to duplicate the valuable Rare Candy item.
Missingno.'s most common appearances are as a mass of pixels in a backwards 'L' shape (similar to a Tetris piece), or as a ghost from Lavender Tower before receiving the Silph Scope item (examples of both are given above.)
Many people believe that Missingno. was a deliberate glitch added by the programmers of the game to aid them in testing. It allowed them to progress quickly by giving them access to many items straight away. It appears that the beta version of the game had land paths to Cinnabar Island that were removed in the final version - this would be the area where Missingno. is usually caught (see "Details" for directions on how to find it.) The Box Trick would appear to be for the same reason.
Another quasi-Pokémon similar to Missingno. exists that was also added in error, with a glitched name consisting of block shapes and the letter 'M' (see 1). This Pokémon (known as 'M) evolves into a Kangaskhan when it is given a Rare Candy, or when it gains experience points after capture. 'M is also commonly referred to as " 'M Block ".
Details
- Both Missingno. and 'M have the identification number #000.
- Their attacks are Water Gun, Water Gun, and Sky Attack.
- Their types are Bird (not Flying) and Normal.
- After encountering Missingno. or 'M, the player will find themself with more of the sixth item on their item list - a glitch popular for duplicating rare items such as Rare Candy, Master Ball and hard to obtain TMs.
- If Missingno. or 'M is caught neither will appear in the Pokédex.
- Pokémon and trainers may appear backwards or messed (like Missingno. and 'M look like) (for a short while) after Missingno. or 'M is captured.
- On your party list, small moving images represent each Pokemon. There are many different types of Missingno images. For example, the Tetris-shape, Ghost, Kabutops fossil, Aerodactyl fossil, old man and a strange block. The images depends on what city you are in. The types of Missingno. seem to differ by which name you use, and some depend on the moves of the Pokemon you last used in battle.
Missingno. and 'M can only be found in the wild in Pokémon Red and Blue. Missingno. and 'M can be traded into the Yellow version of the game, but cannot be traded into Pokémon Gold and Silver, its sequels. (When it is tried Missingno appears as a Tyrogue and 'M appears as a Slowpoke from the Gold/Silver perspective, and when the player tries to trade Missingno a message appears that says "Your Tyrogue appears abnormal" and the trade automatically cancels.) If Missingno. is caught, strange things may happen to a person's game but they should solve themselves after about 15 minutes, with the exception of the Pokémon League glitch. Contrary to myth, it is untrue that capturing Missingno. will delete a user's game.
How to find Missingno
The most common way to encounter Missingno. or 'M in the Pokémon Red and Blue versions is to do the following:
- Go to the northern part of Viridian City, and watch the Old Man's demonstration on how to catch a Pokemon.
- Fly to Cinnabar Island.
- Surf up and down along the east coast of the island until Missingno. or 'M appears.
OR
If the above trick does not work (sometimes it doesn't),
- Trade with someone in Cinnabar Lab.
- Surf up and down on the east coast of the island until Missingno. or 'M appears.
Why Missingno. appears
Whenever the game "sets up" the planned battle against the Weedle, it needs to change the player's character name to "OLD MAN" so that it will display "OLD MAN" instead of the name the player has inputted. The programmers decided to use the area of data where wild Pokémon information is as a temporary storage area for the player's name. When the battle ends, the game will retrieve the player's name from its temporary storage place. The reasoning is that whenever the player goes anywhere else, such as Route 2 or Fly to another city, the game will automatically change that data to what it should be, plus, the player won't actually encounter any wild Pokémon in Viridian.
However, along Cinnabar Island's coast, there is no data for wild Pokémon programmed in, so it won't change the wild Pokémon data to something that makes sense. While surfing the coast, the player's character name will still be the wild Pokémon data in that area. This is probably a mistake on the programmer's fault, for reasons currently unknown.
The name of the player has six hexadecimal values in it. The game needs only three "slots" of wild Pokémon data to store this. The wild Pokémon the player encounters along the coast are determined by the third, fifth, and seventh characters of the player's name, while the levels are determined by the second, fourth, and sixth characters, respectively.
Information on how to determine what Pokémon and at what levels they appear at can be found at http://www.trsrockin.com/missingno4.html
More Missingno. information
A number of people have claimed that the player must have five or less Pokémon with you if you actually try to catch Missingno., otherwise, his or her game may malfunction when he or she tries to withdraw it from the PC. This seems to be true only for capturing the 'M glitch. A MissingNo can safely be deposited, but an 'M cannot. If the player deposits 'M, the player's game will freeze whenever he or she tries to withdraw Pokemon. This problem can be remedied if the player accesses his or her saved game through Pokemon Stadium 2 (which sees any glitch Pokemon as Dittos). The player should simply move the offending glitch from the box into his or her party, and, the player should be able to access his or her stored Pokemon again.
If the player captures an 'M, instead of the battle ending, there will be an invisible Pokémon battling the player. (The invisible Pokémon is really a Ditto.) If the player tries to capture the now-blank region, it will be as if the player has captured a Ditto and were fighting it all along.
In Pokémon Red, when a Missingno appears, it is usually either at a level below 10, or a level above 100.
In Pokémon Red and Blue, if the player captures a Missingno over level 100, and the Pokemon gains any experience in a battle, it will say "Missingno has leveled up to level 100". This is the only known situation in the Pokémon games where a Pokémon can go backwards in its levels and experience.
Missingno. is one of many glitches that occur in the Red and Blue versions. Although similar, there seems to be no direct connection between Missingno. and Glitch City, another glitch that can be accessed. Missingno. has acquired much notoriety due to his presence in many Pokémon myths, especially involving Mew. While the myths aren't true, Mew's popularity ensures that Missingno. will always have a place in Pokémon culture.
Both Missingno and 'M have been known to glitch up link cable battles. For example, if each player uses an attack on the opposite player involving a Missingno or 'M, what appears on one screen will often not be the same on the other screen. This will cause a glitch. However, this has been known to happen in non-Missingno battles.
If an 'M is taught a move like Fly and then is evolved into a Kangaskhan, the Kangaskhan will be able to use fly as an attack, which would not normally be possible. When the Kangaskhan that evolved from 'M uses fly in Pokémon Stadium, it will look like the Kangaskhan is standing on air.