Bill’s Legendary Garden
Back in the day when Pokémon Red and Blue were the talk around town, rumor had it that Bill’s house, just north of Cerulean City, had a pretty magical garden. Located directly behind his house, Bill’s garden was rumored to be filled with legendary Pokémon and every starter Pokémon, just waiting to be caught.
The myth came about thanks to the odd gap in the mountain range directly behind Bill’s house. There was no explanation for its strange, gappy presence, and so naturally, fantastic fan theories emerged.
Unfortunately, the space behind the house is to keep Bill’s roof sprite from colliding with the mountain texture. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
The Mew Truck
According to the myth of the Mew Truck, if you managed to get to the truck by the S.S. Anne and use Strength on it, the truck would disappear and leave a Pokéball containing Mew.
Players eventually managed to reach the truck, and after using Strength to no avail, new myths quickly began making the rounds. Unfortunately, neither using cut on the truck’s tires or using the keys from the Game Corner to unlock it revealed the elusive 151st Pokémon. The only way to gain Mew was to grab it at a Nintendo event, or a strange exploit in the game detailed here.
The Lavender Town Song
Shortly after the release of the original Pokémon games, there was a reported spike in the number of child suicides in Japan. It is often said, usually in spooky voices, that the music that plays in Lavender Town was responsible.
Many supporters of this myth say the game’s programmers put specific frequencies into the music that would cause extremely negative psychological effects, thus resulting in increased suicide cases. This partially isn’t true. The town’s music did have a binaural effect which only children could hear, and this apparently caused severe headaches and migraines to those children listening with headphones. Due to this, the developers changed the music and softened the higher pitched notes for the games’ Western release. However, there remains no accessible, concrete evidence that there was a link between an increased number of child suicide cases in Japan in 1996 and the Pokémon games.
Lavender Town’s music is still unsettling to this day, even after getting toned down. When you pair the melody up to the town’s backstory, it gets even more unnerving. This is where trainers visit a haunted tower to mourn their dead Pokémon. As you make your way through the tower, you can speak to possessed and delirious trainers, facing off against ghost-type Pokémon that you can only see with the help of a special item.
It may not be true that the music resulted in these suicides, but it’s a damn creepy town either way.
The B + Down Trick
It’s confession time: Despite knowing that it doesn’t do anything, I still did this in the latest Pokémon adventures (Editor’s note: me too). Back when Pokémon Red and Blue first released, fans of the games were trying to work out the best techniques to capture pocket monsters, and out of all the different theories, this one seemed to stick the most.
The myth has it that if you held down the ‘B’ button and down on your D-pad, you’d increase the chances of capturing the Pokémon. The method and button input actually varies so much depending on who you speak to that if you search on Google, you can find over a dozen different tips. Despite all the players that clung to this myth, a combination of buttons pressed/held at the same time, unfortunately, would not affect the algorithm that would determine your chances of catching said Pokémon. I’ll still do it though… y’know, just in case.
Magikarp’s Splash
Magikarp has been the butt of a lot of Pokémon jokes and probably for a fair enough reason. The Pokémon is almost completely useless until it finally evolves at level 20 into the much more effective Gyrados. It’s only move in early games is Splash, which does absolutely no damage whatsoever.
However, one myth claimed that Splash actually had incredibly powerful potential. Talk across the playground told of Magikarp’s Splash finally doing something, one hit K.O.ing anything that stood in its path. Of course, you hadn’t seen it happen for yourself because there was such a tiny chance of it ever happening.
Unfortunately these stories of Magikarp striking down all who stood before it were false. Splash will never deal any damage, as much as we wish it did.
Did you fall for any other Pokémon myths back in the day? Let us know in the comments below!
About the author
