Pokemon games + collectibles to help complete the games

[calthaer]

Recently I've been bitten by the urge to play some of my Pokemon games and finally finish the Silver game I started a while back. While doing that I've been thinking about how to "catch 'em all" and what sorts of Pokemon collectibles are out there. I didn't see a comprehensive thread dealing with the games themselves along with any collectibles that actually help one play the games and successfully catch all the little beasts. So - here goes, and if anyone has any corrections, please add:

Red, Blue, Yellow
The only one for this series that was completely un-catchable was Mew, who was only given out at some promotional events in the late '90s. Right now the only way to get Mew is either through a Gameshark or some crazy complicated glitch - right?

The three starters, along with extra Eevees and / or the two fossil Pokemon (Kabuto, Omanyte) are available through playing Pokemon Stadium for N64 and hooking up your RBY cartridge. So - you can catch all legitimately within the games themselves (plus Stadium if you actually want to keep them) except for Mew.

Gold, Silver, Crystal
One big problem with catching all of them in G/S/C is the fact that there aren't enough evolution stones to go around. You can either Mystery Gift with other friends OR with a Pokemon Stadium 2 N64 game once per day (up to 5 or 6 friends or something like that), or you can use a Pikachu GS with the infrared port on a Game Boy Color (won't work on a GBA or GBA SP b/c they don't have the infrared port) for a lot better chance of getting the stones. The Pikachu GS thing (which is still available through Buy.com) is pretty much the best way, it seems, as you can control how good the item you get is simply by making the digital pet thing more happy - the items aren't totally random like Mystery Gifts.

Celebi was only available for a limited time at the Pokemon Center in NYC and a few other places...the Pokemon Center doesn't give out RBY/GSC pokemon any longer - or does it? Does the Pokemon Center give out any Ruby / Sapphire / Colosseum Pokemon?

So - you can catch them all legitimately except for Celebi and Mew (and the ones you'd have to import from RBY). Stadium 2 doesn't really reward players with anything except for Mystery Gifts and some

Ruby / Sapphire / Colosseum / Fire / Leaf
Deoxys and Mew (and Unown?) are currently not available through any means (except for maybe sharking). The EON ticket - an e-Reader card available only through a Nintendo Power promo - lets you get Latios / Latias - whichever one isn't normally in your version of the game. Celebi can apparently be caught in some very rare places. All of the Gold / Silver pokemon are available by connecting with Colosseum, and the Red / Blue / Yellow ones will be available when Fire / Leaf is released. Jirachi is only available with the bonus disc that came with a Colosseum pre-order - correct?

The Battle-e cards released for Ruby / Sapphire also help people to fight other trainers and / or catch shiny pokemon - or so I've read. The Pokemon-e trading card game does NOT integrate with Ruby / Sapphire / Colosseum / anything, but only has a bunch of mini-games encoded on the cards which are completely separate from the GBA games.

Are there any other promotional cards (i.e. - limited things that only came out at E3 or anything) or discs or other things that help with actually playing the games? I've heard about some Australian e-Reader cards that came packaged with Ruby / Sapphire, and that those allow people to fight different trainers from the two cards contained in Ruby / Sapph. I know that Ruby + Sapphire pre-order in the US came with two lame coins which are IMO worthless collectibles.

I know there is a ton of Pokemon merchandise out there, including rare promo e-Reader cards for the card game and whatnot, but I'm really focusing only on cards / games / devices / etc. that help a player to get all pokemon in the GBC / GBA games themselves. I guess I see these items as being collectibles that are potentially more valuable because without them (or without access to them), there is the possibility that future "classic" players won't be able to 100% complete the game without using a Gameshark or something. If there's any connectivity between games like Pokemon Snap and the cartridges that I missed, please feel free to correct.

[Jorpho]

Actually, a few months ago someone discovered a minor glitch that allows any Pokemon in RBY to be caught without the use of any cheating device. That's the way I'd go. (Unfortunately, I doubt it can be used to obtain the elusive Surfing Pikachu which unlocks a bonus game in Yellow.)

[NeoVenom]

I heard about and encounter Missing No. in my red version while I was surfing along the edges of lands. If caught, it supposely messes up your game, but my cousin said he caught it. He also said when you use a rare candy on it, it goes down a level and becomes Kangaskhan.

[Querjek]

I heard about and encounter Missing No. in my red version while I was surfing along the edges of lands. If caught, it supposely messes up your game, but my cousin said he caught it. He also said when you use a rare candy on it, it goes down a level and becomes Kangaskhan.
When I was young, I caught one and my game was deleted. >_< It crushed my little heart :(

[calthaer]

I know about the Gameshark, and I know about the crazy glitch where you surf along the edge of Cinnabar Island and all that stuff. I'm talking not about programming errors (and the things you're talking about in RB are errors, most of which were corrected in Pokemon Yellow) and hacks, but "real" ways to get Pokemon - and the items that you need (or that are really helpful - like the Pokemon GS thing) to "catch 'em all."

[Famidrive-16]

I got my Mew from a '99 mall event here from a Nintendo employee. that was awesome.

[Ed Oscuro]

Wow, that's crazy Famidrive man.

As for the Cinnebar island surfing glitch - a guy showed it to me once back around '99 or '00, waves = :D

Anyhow, nothing in this topic about the REAL collectibles, toys, talking Pokedex or fruit snacks? >:( I've never owned or played the games, but I've got a bit of PokeStuff myself. Passed up a board game at my local Goodwill recently, but picked up a lot more.

[ubersaurus]

The "catch mew" glitch in rby isn't really complicated at all..you just have to not fight a certain guy and you can do it. So to catch em all in gold/silver/crystal, you just need pokemon stadium 1 (for surfin pikachu), and the original titles. Exception is Celebi, who is only catchable in the japanese crystal version, if I recall.

I know on ruby and sapphire you need jirachi from the Colosseum bonus disc, the new remakes of red and green to get a crapload of the older pokemon, and I think e-reader cards to get berries (not sure on that one though).

[Jorpho]

It would be really cool if someone could put together some sort of RS232 to Game Link interface (or at least a standard wiring diagram for one) to allow Game Boys to communicate with emulators.

Unfortunately, it is my understanding that the classic Game Link is a notoriously difficult piece of hardware to deal with, having no flow control and badly outdated official documentation. (Is there even an emulator that fully supports it?) It's a nice thought, though.

[calthaer]

It would probably be easier just to use a Gameshark at that point - if you can even find GB/GBC Gamesharks any more. I don't see it listed on Gameshark's site...I know I got mine off of eBay a year or so ago. Maybe the Gameshark GBC is the real Pokemon collectible? No, nobody cares about the fruity snacks, Ed! Although those Pokemon cards are kind of cool, but...

The device you're talking about, Jorpho, would be cool just to be able to trade Pokemon with people over the Internet, possibly. That would be cool. I don't know people anywhere else (i.e. - the real world) that actually play the games - had to finish RBY by copying my save file from my Red cartridge to my Blue one and catching the Pokemon on that version.

[Ed Oscuro]

Poor Nintendo, they're in such dire straits and you want to beat them at their own game by getting on the Internet before they do. LOL

That does sound like an awesome idea, though. Now this might sound dumb, but would it be feasible to just splice together some wires and use a modified emulator in lieu of the game link device?

As for cards...heh, I found a beat up, partially split by rain German (!) Pokemon card in the bushes/showy tall grass outside my work. As for the fruit snacks, well, can't blame you on that one... :D They do go way back to the beginning, though. Also found a wrapper at my work one day. Now I didn't KEEP these things...noooo...I would feel dirty.

By the way, if anybody wants a completely new, boxed Thinkchip blister pack with Wartortle like the middle item here (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2605&item=3191308103&rd=1), I've got one. I could get a bunch of them. Better yet, you could visit my workplace and I'd see about getting one out of the back ;) I don't know how Kellogg used them (wouldn't think they were for a premium though that's a safe guess) but we've had at least a few small boxes (a dozen or so in each box) dumped on us. I could let somebody smuggle one out ;)

[calthaer]

I was looking into this a little bit today, and found some schematics for the Game Boy link cables here:

http://www.devrs.com/gb/hardware.php

MadCatz already makes a GBC / GBA <--> PC link cable that fits onto a parallel port. From there I'd assume it's simply a matter of creating a program that would go like:

a) connect to a remote computer via the Internet using TCP/IP (just get your friends' IP address and hook it up)

b) each computer listens to the parallel port and simply relays the signals from one computer to another - and hence from one GBC / GBA to another

This probably wouldn't work terribly well for something like Super Mario Kart or some other action-oriented game (of course - one could just use ZSNES plus their z.battlenet program or whatever to play the original in that case), but for trading Pokemon - who knows if it would work?

P.S. - I just got my new Pikachu 2 GS in the mail from Buy.com - it's a neat little device, I think - reminds me of that ChocoboWorld mimi-game that came with Final Fantasy 8 for the PC. It's sort of like a little pet, but it can work like an alarm clock, too (you can program your own tune into it - mine is the Zelda theme). It collects energy while you walk around (or jump, or run - or you could just sit there and shake it up a lot, but that would take a while), and you can use that to play a simple little mini-game or to give Pikachu gifts or something like that. I'm still figuring out how it works.

[Jasoco]

I have a Pokémon blanket my brother got for Christmas one year. He fell out of Pokémon a while ago so he gave it to me for my collection. It is very warm.

The only Pokémon games I have now is Hey You, Pikachu! that I got brand new in box from EB for $5. (Goes nice with my complete in box SeaMan.)

That and the "Free" Pokémon Colosseum disc. Don't have the actual game, but the disc sits on my shelf pretty nice.

Secretly, I have been wanting to collect 'em all (No pun intended.) lately. But I can't decide if I want to be strictly boxed ones or if I wanna go for carts only. Especially with GB versions. My brother used to be the Pokémon kid of the family. He had Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, Gold and Crystal as well as Stadium and Snap back in the day.

We stupidly traded it all in to GS a while back. I am sorry we did that. Especially for what they gave us for them.

Too bad the cart only is like $12 at EB and a lot of them have the previous owners name on it. (There's even a Red with NO label at all.) Right now I do have the boxes for Gold and Crystal though. So if I grab those one day, I'll be set up for the rest.

I can't believe I'm posting such a detailed reply in a Pokemon thread.