Pokemon GO is supposed to have the original cast of the first Pokemon games: This means, at minimum, a roster of 151 creatures. But so far, there’s no way of collecting the full set.
In the main Pokemon games, there is a concept known as “legendaries” — that is, rare and powerful Pokemon that are significantly harder to catch. Some legendaries are encountered during the course of of a game’s storyline, while others have esoteric requirements that need to be fulfilled before a player can encounter them. Sometimes, a legendary can only be caught during special events thrown by The Pokemon Company, and these are often tied to specific locales, like a game store. All of this is to say that Pokemon GO’s situation is not unprecedented: It makes sense that some critters would not be obtainable under normal means.
What’s curious, however, is that the unobtainable Pokemon GO critters aren’t all legendaries. At the moment, the Pokemon no trainer has caught include:
Mew
What makes it special, according to Pokemon resource Bulbapedia:
Mew is said to have the DNA of every single Pokémon contained within its body, and as such is able to learn any attack…Since Mew can make itself invisible at will, very few people have knowingly seen it, leading some scientists to declare it extinct and most to assume it to be a mirage. It will only show itself to a person who is pure of heart.
Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres
What makes them special, according to Pokemon resource Bulbapedia:
In the anime, Professor Oak states that Articuno and Moltres combined powers of ice and fire are the source and cradle of the oceans, and that Zapdos’ electric energy creates the currents and streams.
Mewtwo
What makes it special, according to Pokemon resource Bulbapedia:
Mewtwo was created after years of horrific gene splicing and DNA engineering experiments based on Mew. It is said to have the most savage heart among all Pokémon, lack compassion, and strike fear into its enemy with cold, glowing eyes. Because it was engineered to be the ultimate in battle, it can only think of defeating its foes.
Ditto
What makes it special, according to Pokemon resource Bulbapedia:
It can breed with any Pokémon other than the Pokémon in the Undiscovered group and itself, including some genderless Pokémon, to produce Eggs of the other’s species.
Most of this list makes sense… save for Ditto, who is not a legendary Pokemon. To be fair, though, Ditto is somewhat rare within the games themselves. Another thing worth considering: Normally, Ditto plays a key part in a feature that is not currently available in Pokemon GO: Breeding. Like battling and trading, it may be that developer Niantic introduces the breeding mechanic sometime in the future, which would explain Ditto’s current disappearance. Another possible explanation: Niantic is diving into Pokemon lore with Ditto — one of the most famous fan theories is that Ditto is a failed Mew clone. Maybe Ditto’s appearance is tied to Mew/Mewtwo, and we can expect to see them all around the same time.
I reached out to Niantic about Pokemon GO legendaries, and I’ve yet to hear back from them. But looking at the original announcement trailer for Pokemon GO may give us some clues on what to expect:
At the 1:59 mark, you can see a crowd surrounding a Mewtwo display in Times Square. There’s also a countdown timer, during which the players can all attack Mewtwo at once. At the end, Mewtwo’s healthbar is depleted, and the entire crowd catches him.
An actual event tied to a place probably won’t look as epic, unless Niantic splurges on holograms or something. But otherwise, mechanically speaking, what the trailer presents seems within the realm of possibility. Actually, the trailer closely resembles what is already available at Pokemon gyms, where multiple players can team up and try to defeat a strong monster together. Legendary events seem to be the same thing, except on a grander scale.
What is unknown is whether or not a legendary like Mewtwo will be available in multiple different regions / areas, or if he will only be capturable in a single spot. Given that Pokemon GO is already drawing incredible crowds at unofficial events, and some players are willing to risk it all to capture non-legendaries, the thought of area-specific legendary seems absurd: An event would quickly get out of hand. But if a legendary is available in multiple places, that set-up would betray the idea behind legendaries in the first place. It’s a conundrum for Niantic, the developers. Niantic has experience running events for Ingress, their previous game, but Ingress was never as big as Pokemon GO.
Meanwhile, Pokemon GO players have been busy diving into the code, trying to figure out what is going on. NesstendoYT made headlines earlier this month when he claimed that every legendary was technically accounted for in Pokemon GO’s code even if they weren’t obtainable yet:
On Reddit, players have noted a few specific details about the code pertaining to the legendaries and Ditto. Here’s kylecito, with some of what he allegedly found:
Mewtwo does not have a BaseCaptureRate, only a FleeRate. This shows you shouldn’t be able to find Mewtwo wild, and it will probably be a sure capture when you fulfil the event’s requirements.
Mew is the ONLY “Mythic” type Pokemon at the moment.
Seems like all Pokemon have “family types”, apart from their species one. Wonder if they plan to implement breeding in the future?
Another player, FrozenAquaCat, messed with Pokemon GO’s files and was able to force the game to spawn a Ditto:
“Through the modification of the Pokemon Go client, I was able to change the ID that shows up during an encounter from 13 (weedle) to 132 (ditto),” FrozenAquaCat wrote on the YouTube description. “The game currently crashes any time I attempt to throw a pokeball or do anything in the menu.”
In a follow-up video, FrozenAquaCat explains how he uses a Python script to force the game to change normal encounters into legendary ones. In the video below, he transforms a Rattata into a Zapdos by injecting code into a program in real time, as he plays the game on the PC.
The Zapdos that spawns has a CP of 753, but he can’t actually capture it. Still, it’s cool to see what these fabled rare monsters look like in-game.
There’s no telling when or how Niantic will officially introduce legendaries into Pokemon GO, but in the meantime, players will continue to keep themselves busy catching ’em all. Well, most of ’em.
Comments
10 responses to “The Rare Pokemon GO Monsters That No One Has Caught Yet”
No mention of the events they already run in Ingress that attracts huge crowds to battle it out for a day? People regularly take flights to attend these.
But the article is talking about rare pokemon….
Which will show up at these events no doubt. Run by the same company. So there will most likely be some similarities. I’d suspect there would be some team based stuff going on too.
SMH
So the fact that the trailer showed rare pokemon showing up at events and drawing conclusions based on previous events is erroneous? Please, enlighten us all.
I suggest you re-read the article…They’re suggesting that the size of an event for Pokemon Go would be too large compared to one for Ingress.
Hmmm, I totally missed that, thanks.
I hope it is not a big event thing for these type of pokemon simply because some of us really don’t have money or time available to get to them. Maybe after these events they can unlock or something and then you can catch them in the wild or a new 20km or maybe even a 50km egg is available for you to try and hatch for them.
bets are on that it will be tied to their sponsorship plans for revenue. Launch event sponsored by a major company that allows people to use it’s courtyard, after which the legendary will be ‘available’ publicly.
To do that well, though I’ll be interested to see if they add more hierarchy to their POI usage – at the moment the levels of gradation between a basic pokestop through to a gym are dubious at best. The data usage will be insane, but if they can add more detail to how those are used you could see some interesting pokestop camping going on (eg a Legendary has a 1% chance of appearing at a normal Pokestop, but a 5% at a ‘legendary’ Pokestop like a Maccas, and a 10% chance when Macca’s are doing breakfast specials).
Macca’s in Japan have already indicated that they are the launch partner for sponsorship. Niantic are the ones holding it back now. They really weren’t prepared for this scale.
I want an event where the three teams can duke it out for the right to catch the legendary.
Speaking of messing with the game files. I’m surprised people aren’t using BlueStacks or other android emulators and then spoofing geo-location. I haven’t tried it yet, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t work?
They are. Some friends are spoofing Central Park, NYC locations and using that to find/hunt Pokemon not easily found in Australia.
I found a mew two outside the powerhouse museum in the city!!!