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 Pokémon Blue.
There have also been Missingno.-like glitches in other Pokémon RPGs, 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.
See: Glitch
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.
Missingno.'s presence also allows what is known as the "Rare Candy Cheat", the games' infamous item duplication bug. It is commonly used to duplicate valuable and hard to obtains items, such the Rare Candy item. However, the duplication bug can affect any item in the game, not just Rare Candies.
Appearance
Missingno.'s most common appearance is as a mass of pixels in a backwards 'L' shape that is similar to a Tetris piece (see picture at top of page). However, it sometimes appears as a Ghost from Lavender Tower before receiving the Silph Scope item (see picture to the left).
Other types of Missingno. have been found that have the sprite of the Aerodactyl or Kabutops Fossil from Pewter City's museum.
Details
- Missingno. has the identification number #000.
- Its attacks are Water Gun, Water Gun, and Sky Attack.
- Its cry varies between battle and it's Stat screen.
- Its types are Bird (not Flying, Bird may be a lost beta type) and Normal.
- After encountering Missingno., players will find themselves with an increased amount of the sixth item on their item list - a glitch popular for duplicating items, especially rare items such as Rare Candies, Master Balls and hard to obtain TMs.
- If Missingno. is caught, it will not appear in the Pokédex. Because of this, there is no official Pokédex description for Missingno..
Missingno. can only be found in the wild in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue due to a bug in the map design.
Missingno. can be traded into the Pokémon Yellow version of the game, but cannot be traded into Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver, the sequels to Red, Blue, and Yellow.
When it is tried, Missingno. appears as many different Pokémon from the Gold/Silver perspective, and when the player tries to Trade Missingno. a message appears that says "Your <name> appears abnormal" and the trade automatically cancels.
How to find Missingno
The most common way to encounter Missingno. in the Red and Blue versions of Pokémon 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 Pokémon.
- Fly to Cinnabar Island.
- Surf up and down along the east coast of the island until Missingno. appears. (Depending on the player's name, Missingno. may not show up.)
Capturing Missingno.
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 Hall of Fame glitch.
Contrary to myth, it is untrue that capturing Missingno. will always delete a user's game. However, the possible risk of game deletion has in the past hindered research on the subject.
Pokémon and trainers may appear glitched after Missingno. is captured.
More Missingno. information
One rumor claims that the player must have five or less Pokémon with him or her if he or she actually tries to catch Missingno., otherwise, his or her game may malfunction when he or she tries to withdraw it from Bills PC. (If a player has six Pokémon at the time Missingno. is caught, Missingno. will be sent to Bills PC).
This rumor is false; there is no reason why Missingno. should not be happy in Bills PC unless its level exceeds a certain value when the Experience it has goes over the allotted maximum value for experience.
In Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, if the player captures a Missingno. over level 100, and the Pokémon gains any experience in a battle, it will say "Missingno. has leveled up to Level 100".
When any Pokémon over level 100 is constantly given Rare Candies, eventually the Pokémon will get up to level 255, and then after level 255 the Pokémon will grow to level 0. However, as already mentioned, if a Pokémon over level 100 battles another Pokémon, it will grow down to level 100.
Pokémon going from level 255 to 0 and Pokémon going from a level above 100 back to 100 are the only known cases of Pokémon leveling down instead of up. The only other Pokémon]] known to "level down" in the Pokémon games are the Pokémon above level 100 encountered due to the same glitch as the one that reveals Missingno.
Other Glitches
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 its presence in many Pokémon myths, especially those involving Mew.
While these myths aren't true, Mew's popularity ensures that Missingno. will always have a place in Pokémon culture.
Also see: Why Missingno Appears.
Missingno. in Pokémon Yellow
When Pokémon Yellow was released, the original Missingno. and M glitches were removed from the game.
However, some time after Yellow was released, a new code was discovered that allowed the capture of any Pokémon, including Mew and Missingno.