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I ran across a youtube video about a week or so ago talking about different urban legends and myths surrounding Pokemon Red/Blue series. I figured I would clear the air as a former translator for Game Freaks U.S. localization team.
1) Ghost can be captured using an Action Replay or a gameshark. If captured, ghost will restart your game and you will be able to kill both pokemon and npcs. (A.K.A. Pokemon CreepyBlack)
This is more false than it is true. Ghost has a flag that prevents him from being capturable. Playing around with the hex will disable this block allowing you to capture him, as Ghost was coded as a pokemon, not a NPC. As someone who has gone through the thousands of lines of conversation in the game, I can promise you that there is nothing that even remotely implies that you kill anyone besides Garys Raticate, but even that's debatable. I'll explain that later though. Also Ghost has no behind view sprite, only a forward view sprite. Since he has no behind view, capturing him would just show a corrupted image like MissingNo. Along with numerous other unforeseen errors since he was never meant to be captured in the first place. As far as the embedded sounds in Lavender Town go. That's completely false. I remember listening to that chiptune a lot while I was working because I enjoyed the weird melody. What you hear in the game is all there is. There's no secret extra sound clip or anything, no images of GHOST or unown spelling out "LEAVE NOW". In fact getting that type of sound to play on a GB would be impossible given the limitations of the sound driver.
2)Cubone is a Kangaskhan orphan?
When I had translation issues, I spoke to someone from Game Freak and he clarified the issue for me nearly immediately, granted I didn't try to call him at 2300 or some ridiculous hour. From my understanding when the game was in beta, Viz media got involved after a slightly hostile takeover to the original creator. This also ties in to the coma theory of the anime, but i'll get to that later, or forget about it... there's a lot I need to write.
Anyways...
The game itself was highly unchanged minus a few changes in the story placed by Viz. The original story of Lavender Town was supposed to be where pokemon and npcs alike came to pay their respects to their dead pokemon. You find Gary there because presumably his Raticate has died. How he died was never explained to me, all that I know for sure is that Gary came to pay his respects to one of his former pokemon. Cubones also come up there to grieve and in one instance near the end, you end up fighting a GHOST that transforms into a Kangaskhan, followed by a heart wrenching story about how cubones are orphaned kangaskhans who are one of the most loving pokemon with deep love for their families and friends. when a cubone is orphaned (Which happens frequently because Kangaskhans are described as having fairly weak constitutions), it's unable to let go and keeps the corpse of its mother close until she turns to bones.
GHOST originally was supposed to be able to use a scripted version of transform which would turn it into a ghastly, haunter or so forth. The only hostile GHOST would be Cubones mother, Kangaskhan, This was scrapped and GHOST was given the ID 000. The hostile GHOST Kangaskhan was removed from the game lazily but the ID still remained. Seriously, Japanese Pocket Monster cartridges are much buggier than their U.S. counterparts (YOU'RE WELCOME!) mostly due to laziness.
3)The Coma Theory (Anime)
The anime has already been changed drastically by Viz when it had full control (Pokemon were supposed to be able to die, Ash could get mortally injured, Ash was Giovannis son, etc.) But Viz wanted a more child friendly approach rather than a young adults show that touched on deep personal issues. "Red" or "Blue" the player, keeps mostly true to the original theme, at least from what I was told. The reason for the coma theory is that the plot takes a 180 shortly after Ash gets struck by lightning. I'll admit I don't watch the anime regularly and only caught the first season thanks to my daughter, but there's a definite change at around that point which is the same time that Viz started demanding plot changes. There's no coma, it's just "under new management".
Anyone who works for Viz Media is basically bullied into not releasing any information, and Game Freak barely had a staff at the time so good luck trying to beat any information out of them.
I however, am 3rd party, retired, and to old to care, posting on pokemon forum boards (no offense.)
tl;dr
CreepyBlack rumor is fake.
Embedded sound rumor is fake.
Missingno. is GHOST
GHOST is essentially ditto/Kangaskhan
Viz Media can suck it.
I'm really bad at punctuation.
If you have any questions feel free to ask them, i'll answer what I can until I forget about this thread, or find something better to do.
I won't give out names, locations or dates so I can at least create deniability in case I get some sort of lawsuit magically appearing in the mail.
1) Ghost can be captured using an Action Replay or a gameshark. If captured, ghost will restart your game and you will be able to kill both pokemon and npcs. (A.K.A. Pokemon CreepyBlack)
This is more false than it is true. Ghost has a flag that prevents him from being capturable. Playing around with the hex will disable this block allowing you to capture him, as Ghost was coded as a pokemon, not a NPC. As someone who has gone through the thousands of lines of conversation in the game, I can promise you that there is nothing that even remotely implies that you kill anyone besides Garys Raticate, but even that's debatable. I'll explain that later though. Also Ghost has no behind view sprite, only a forward view sprite. Since he has no behind view, capturing him would just show a corrupted image like MissingNo. Along with numerous other unforeseen errors since he was never meant to be captured in the first place. As far as the embedded sounds in Lavender Town go. That's completely false. I remember listening to that chiptune a lot while I was working because I enjoyed the weird melody. What you hear in the game is all there is. There's no secret extra sound clip or anything, no images of GHOST or unown spelling out "LEAVE NOW". In fact getting that type of sound to play on a GB would be impossible given the limitations of the sound driver.
2)Cubone is a Kangaskhan orphan?
When I had translation issues, I spoke to someone from Game Freak and he clarified the issue for me nearly immediately, granted I didn't try to call him at 2300 or some ridiculous hour. From my understanding when the game was in beta, Viz media got involved after a slightly hostile takeover to the original creator. This also ties in to the coma theory of the anime, but i'll get to that later, or forget about it... there's a lot I need to write.
Anyways...
The game itself was highly unchanged minus a few changes in the story placed by Viz. The original story of Lavender Town was supposed to be where pokemon and npcs alike came to pay their respects to their dead pokemon. You find Gary there because presumably his Raticate has died. How he died was never explained to me, all that I know for sure is that Gary came to pay his respects to one of his former pokemon. Cubones also come up there to grieve and in one instance near the end, you end up fighting a GHOST that transforms into a Kangaskhan, followed by a heart wrenching story about how cubones are orphaned kangaskhans who are one of the most loving pokemon with deep love for their families and friends. when a cubone is orphaned (Which happens frequently because Kangaskhans are described as having fairly weak constitutions), it's unable to let go and keeps the corpse of its mother close until she turns to bones.
GHOST originally was supposed to be able to use a scripted version of transform which would turn it into a ghastly, haunter or so forth. The only hostile GHOST would be Cubones mother, Kangaskhan, This was scrapped and GHOST was given the ID 000. The hostile GHOST Kangaskhan was removed from the game lazily but the ID still remained. Seriously, Japanese Pocket Monster cartridges are much buggier than their U.S. counterparts (YOU'RE WELCOME!) mostly due to laziness.
3)The Coma Theory (Anime)
The anime has already been changed drastically by Viz when it had full control (Pokemon were supposed to be able to die, Ash could get mortally injured, Ash was Giovannis son, etc.) But Viz wanted a more child friendly approach rather than a young adults show that touched on deep personal issues. "Red" or "Blue" the player, keeps mostly true to the original theme, at least from what I was told. The reason for the coma theory is that the plot takes a 180 shortly after Ash gets struck by lightning. I'll admit I don't watch the anime regularly and only caught the first season thanks to my daughter, but there's a definite change at around that point which is the same time that Viz started demanding plot changes. There's no coma, it's just "under new management".
Anyone who works for Viz Media is basically bullied into not releasing any information, and Game Freak barely had a staff at the time so good luck trying to beat any information out of them.
I however, am 3rd party, retired, and to old to care, posting on pokemon forum boards (no offense.)
tl;dr
CreepyBlack rumor is fake.
Embedded sound rumor is fake.
Missingno. is GHOST
GHOST is essentially ditto/Kangaskhan
Viz Media can suck it.
I'm really bad at punctuation.
If you have any questions feel free to ask them, i'll answer what I can until I forget about this thread, or find something better to do.
I won't give out names, locations or dates so I can at least create deniability in case I get some sort of lawsuit magically appearing in the mail.
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