Unused items

Unused content in the Pokémon games

Unused map locations | Early English promotional Pokémon names | Eternal Flower Floette | Bird type | Unused music | Unused encounter system (Yellow) | Unused Bulbasaur slot machine symbol | Unused Shadow Pokémon | Cacophony | Unused Japanese list strings (Generation I) | Unused items | Unused Pokémon data | Unused and redundant Egg moves

See also: S.S. Anne Ship Truck

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This article is a summary page for different variations of a glitches, etc. when talked about as a whole.

This page is about unused items, or pre-release items within the Pokémon games. For unintended items which give translated information from other bytes within the game see glitch items.

Please note that this article is incomplete, feel free to add any additional information.

Within the Pokémon games numerous items exist, which for some reason, cannot be obtained through normal gameplay in the final release. Many of these items, particularly those from Generation I and Generation IV have been used as 'dummy' items in the sense that they account for features within the game which do not require an item such as the '?????' item in Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow (which acts as if the player is using the move Surf), or the Loot Sack in Pokémon Diamond, Pokémon Pearl and Pokémon Platinum which was not needed because it could be accessed by a seperate interface in the Underground.

Other items tend to have been used in a previous game before, such as the Scanner in Pokémon FireRed, Pokémon LeafGreen, or the Slowpoke Tail in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. This is not surprising because many of the newer Pokémon games tend to use a slightly modified version of the previous game engine. For example, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen use a similar map engine of the previous games, namely Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.

Finally, there are a few items such as the Lock Capsule which were added to the final game for completely unknown reasons, however the Lock Capsule may eventually serve a purpose, as some people presumed the Enigma Crystal to be an unused item until it was released in the Japanese versions of Pokémon Heartgold and Soulsilver through its distribution on Nintendo Wi-Fi. [1]

Unused items in Generation I

Generation I included many glitch items but only a few items within the game's coding have names or effects which suggest that they may have been once intended in the final game.

1. ?????: The ????? item when used will act as if the player's Pokémon had used the move Surf. For this reason, it is often nicknamed the 'Surfboard' in the sense that Nintendo may have intended players to ride a Pokémon, or some kind of vehicle by simply using an item. There is no evidence to support this however, and there is also the possibility that Nintendo may have been using this item for either beta testing or as a place to define information about the move Surf.

2.Badges as items: Despite existing in the final game in the player's Trainer Card Badges exist as items within the coding of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Green and Pokémon Yellow. It is unknown why these can exist within the player's bag, however Nintendo may have used them as a place to store techincal information about the relevant badge or may have once intended Badges to be seen in the player's bag. These will give unintended effects when used in battle however and the Boulderbadge and the Cascadebadge will act as the 'Throw Bait' and 'Throw Rock' options of the Safari Zone respectively. The following items can appear in the player's bag:

1. Boulderbadge
2. Cascadebadge
3. Thunderbadge
4. Rainbowbadge
5. Soulbadge
6. Marshbadge
7. Volcanobadge
8. Earthbadge

3.Unused TMs: Item data for five unused TMs - TM51-TM55 exist within the game. When used, these items will act like the equivalent HM, in the sense that for example, TM51 has the same function as HM01 - Cut. Unlike the equivalent HM however, the game will not consider these as key items and as a result the player is free to toss one of them and see how many he or she has. TM55 occupies a hexadecimal identifier of FF (255). An identifier of 255 is also used for CANCEL's function and as a result TM55 will hide itself and any other items the player has below it.

These items may have been designed as a location to store information about the existing five HMs however, and/or as filler data for values 251 to 255 in the bytes managing what type of items the player has in his or her bag (as the normal TMs 01-50 were programmed in the 'slots' before it), however this is unconfirmed.

Unused items in Generation II

Generation II featured many more items, meaning that there are less free item slots in Pokémon Gold, Pokémon Silver and Pokémon Crystal. Unlike Generation I, Generation II would use two [[|error traps|error handlers]] "?" and "Teru-Sama" which were both made unusable to refer to items with invalid data and thus prevent the player from seeing and using any glitch items. (i.e. the attempt of the game attempting to read information from other bytes as item data).

1. ?: The game will use the error handler "?" to refer to the unused item with a hexadecimal identifier of 00, which has undefined data and a description of "?".
2. Teru-Sama (x29): 29 items all of which are referred to as Teru-Sama with a description of '?' exist in Pokémon Gold and Silver which are presumably error handlers for undefined item data, or possibly placeholders for items which were once planned to exist. This can be supported by the fact that their hexadecimal identifiers are often in between items which were used in the final game. The name Teru-Sama is a Japanese romanisation, which roughly translates itself as 'lord sunshine' There are less Teru-Samas in Pokémon Crystal because some of these were eventually changed into real items such as the Egg Ticket.
3. Unused HMs: Item data exists for HM08-HM12, regardless of the fact that there are only seven HMs which can be obtained through normal gameplay. Within the TM/HM pocket, these items have no use and use '?' as their description, with the exception of HM12 which has the description 'Attacks 5 turns with rising power' - which may refer to Rollout, but may simply be 'purely glitch', in the sense the game is attempting to read information from a close byte as description data. Like TM51-TM55 in Generation I, these were probably added as filler data for identifiers of 251-255, as identifiers 195 to 250 correspond to real TMs/HMs.

Unused items in Generation III

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen:

1. HM08: Although HM08 is normally only obtainable within the Hoenn based Pokémon games this item also exists within Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen but is never used within the final game. Unlike many unused items, HM08 is fully functionable and Pokémon can be taught the move Dive by using this HM. It presumably exists within the game coding because in theory Nintendo uses the engines of the older Pokémon games as a template for the newer Pokémon games.