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MissingNo. (Japanese: けつばん Ketsuban, lit. "missing number"), as it is displayed in-game due to the ten-character limit in Western Generation I games, is a dual-type Bird/Normal glitch Pokémon in Pokémon Red and Blue, and a dual-type Normal/randomly named glitch type (which often has '9' in it) glitch Pokémon in Pokémon Yellow. It is arguably the best known glitch Pokémon, closely followed by 'M (00), and it is the easiest glitch Pokémon to find in the localizations. It has five distinct forms, but the most frequent forms (the Red/Blue and Yellow normal forms) share 36 index numbers each.

In later generations, other glitch Pokémon are sometimes referred to as "a MissingNo.", such as ??????????, ?, and -----. Despite this, the name "MissingNo." is a misnomer in this case; they have little relation to the one found in Pokémon Red and Blue or Yellow.

MissingNo.'s cry is generally the game's equivalent of a "blank" cry: a Nidoran♂ (base 00)'s cry with a pitch of 0 and no echo. This is because the cries of these Pokémon are undefined in the data structure. A few MissingNo. have different cries (specifically 0x43 , 0x45 , 0x4F , 0x51 , 0x5E , 0x5F , 0x7F , and 0xB5 ). The fact that these cries are valid and not garbage data (i.e. unrelated data read in the wrong way, as is the case with most of MissingNo.'s properties) supports the view that MissingNo. may have originally been a Pokémon that was deleted from the games. (See this section for further details).

The Pokédex entries of MissingNo. and all glitch Pokémon with a Pokédex number of 0 will only appear upon capture if the player has not encountered Cubone, but as with all glitch Pokédex entries, they normally remain inaccessible through the actual Pokédex. An exception to this rule is in Red and Green, where MissingNo. can be "registered" in the Pokédex if the player enables the 'seen' flag for #152 through select glitches and memory corruption. If MissingNo.'s Pokédex data is viewed, Rhydon's cry will be heard, followed by MissingNo.'s (blank) entry and a series of glitchy sounds.

No MissingNo. can evolve or learn any moves through leveling up.

If the RB MissingNo. is traded to Generation II, it will hold a Carbos.

Forms

MissingNo.'s Red and Blue normal form is a dual-type Bird/Normal glitch Pokémon. It has a sprite that is a strange block of glitched pixels in a backward-L shape. Due to the larger number of characters that can be used to make it appear, it is the most common form. Normal form is exclusive to Pokémon Red and Blue.

Yellow normal form

MissingNo.'s Yellow normal form is a dual-type Normal and randomly named glitch type (often containing '9') glitch Pokémon. This form uses the palette of Pikachu, and so appears as yellow and red glitched boxes. They also cause glitches that MissingNo. in Red and Blue do not. If caught, they will cause graphical glitches, possibly rendering the player invisible and making duplicates of the player, and all other on-screen characters walk in random locations on the screen after battle. These forms do not appear through the old man glitch, as it was removed in Yellow. It is likely that the game will freeze or get stuck when attempting to battle Yellow MissingNo.'s normal form due to an invalid sprite pointer; 0x0600 . This is also what causes the walking characters effect.





Fossil and ghost MissingNo.

The Fossil and ghost MissingNo. (otherwise known as 'special MissingNo.') are three unique forms of MissingNo. that share their sprites with the Kabutops Fossil and Aerodactyl Fossil from the Pewter Museum of Science, as well as the ghosts from the Pokémon Tower. This is because the game actually uses their index numbers to get their front sprites. These Pokémon have no constant base stats, experience types or starting moves; instead they take this data from the last Pokémon in the party other than another special MissingNo. If an enemy Trainer sends out a special MissingNo. the aforementioned data is taken from the previous Pokémon they sent out (the user's Pokémon in battle does not count here).

The Fossil and ghost MissingNo. exist in Yellow and have the same sprites as in Red and Blue. They also work the same way. Since the sprites are valid, these MissingNo. can be encountered instead of Yellow's normal MissingNo. and will never freeze the game on the opponent's side.

MissingNo.'s Kabutops Fossil form uses the sprite of the Kabutops Fossil found in the Pewter Museum of Science. It is index number 182 (hex:B6).

This form appears through the old man glitch if w is the character in the third, fifth, or seventh slot of the player's chosen name.

This form appears through the Mew glitch with a Special stat of 182.

This form can be obtained through the Time Capsule exploit if the traded Pokémon is Pupitar.

MissingNo.'s Aerodactyl Fossil form uses the sprite of the Aerodactyl Fossil found in the Pewter Museum of Science. It is index number 183 (hex:B7).

This form appears through the old man glitch if x is the character in the third, fifth, or seventh slot of the player's chosen name.

This form appears through the Mew glitch with a Special stat of 183.

This form can be obtained through the Time Capsule exploit if the traded Pokémon is Tyranitar.

MissingNo.'s Ghost form uses the sprite of the ghost found in Pokémon Tower if the player does not have the Silph Scope. It is index number 184 (hex:B8)

In the Japanese versions, this form is not actually a MissingNo. In these versions, rather than being named 'けつばん' (ketsuban) it is named "Ghost" (Japanese: ゴースト). This is unused, because all Pokémon Tower ghosts including the deceased Marowak use the hiragana ゆうれい ('yuurei') instead, which can mean the same thing but may specifically refer to the Japanese interpretation of ghosts in folklore.

Glitches caused

Examples of corrupted Hall of Fame entries

Example of multiple walking players on the screen

MissingNo.'s appearance in-battle allows the item duplication glitch, which increases the number of items in the 6th Bag slot by 128 unless the number of items in the slot already exceeds 128.

Encountering MissingNo. has been known to interfere with the save game data in various ways, such as adversely affecting the Hall of Fame data. The Hall of Fame is corrupted because of its proximity to a buffer used to store decompressed sprite data, which is too small to properly hold MissingNo.'s garbage sprite data.

When a Trainer battles with MissingNo. in their party, both the Trainer sprite and their Pokémon's sprites will be scrambled, and all other sprites will be reversed. Viewing the stats screen of a non-glitch Pokémon will remove the effects.

In Pokémon Yellow, capturing MissingNo. will commonly cause multiple player sprites, and sometimes other NPC's, to walk around the screen. If the NPC is aligned to the grid, it is possible to talk to them. Doing so may display text from the area, or may cause glitch text. Collision with those NPC's is buggy, but the game does handle it.

In Pokémon Yellow, if MissingNo is captured at a level above 1, it will instantly downlevel to 1 upon gaining any experience, and will stay on level 1 unless given Rare Candy. After this happens, Missingno will have seemingly infinite health, and, when damaged, the third digit of its health would, instead of going down through numbers, scroll through letters, numbers, and glitch symbols, and its HP bar will wrap across the screen.

In Pokémon Yellow, when MissingNo is encountered, if the game doesn't crash, it will sometimes play a very long cry before the text "A wild MISSINGNO appeared!" is displayed.



Trading MissingNo.

MissingNo. can be traded from Red and Blue into Pokémon Yellow, but cannot be traded forward through the Time Capsule into Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal. In Yellow, MissingNo. levels down to level 1 if it gains any experience, and cannot grow any higher due to a glitched experience type. In Yellow, the only way to keep using a MissingNo. at a different level in battle is to use a Game Link Cable to battle between two games.

In the trade center, MissingNo., due to its index number, appears as many different Generation II Pokémon from the perspective of Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal. (The full list of the Generation II Pokémon MissingNo. can appear as is documented on the List of Pokémon by index number (Generation I).) If the player tries to trade MissingNo., a message will appear stating "Your <name> appears abnormal." and the trade will automatically be cancelled.

In the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console versions, if the player has MissingNo. in Box 1 when they attempts to transfer it to Pokémon Bank via Poké Transporter, the following error message will appear. All Pokémon in Box 1 that are recognized as valid by Poké Transporter will be transported, but glitch Pokémon (such as MissingNo.) will not.

There is at least one Pokémon in the Box that cannot be sent. A problem has been detected with one of the Pokémon. Sorry. The problematic Pokémon cannot be sent. Any Pokémon that could not be transported have been removed from the Transport Box.

MissingNo. as a substitute doll in Pokémon Stadium

When viewed in Pokémon Stadium, MissingNo. will appear as a substitute doll (as will various other glitch Pokémon), while in Pokémon Stadium 2, MissingNo. (and other glitch Pokémon) will show up as a Ditto with Transform. If the game is saved via Stadium 2, it will then become a Ditto permanently.



MissingNo. as deleted Pokémon theory and unique cries

The name "MissingNo." is used for the invalid Pokémon with index numbers in between valid Pokémon and is a shortened form of "missing number", derived from its Japanese name, けつばん (Ketsuban). The fact that Rhydon, the Pokémon with index number 01 was the first Pokémon ever made[1][2] has lead to speculation that the index numbers of Pokémon in Generation I represent the order that they were programmed into the game, with MissingNo. being deleted entries.

Supporting this theory is the fact that of the 39 MissingNo., nine of them have unique cries that do not consist of all 00 values.[3] These cries are located in a table in between real Pokémon cries, suggesting that they are not garbage data (unrelated data interpreted in the wrong way, as is the case with most of MissingNo.'s properties).

The cry values are as follows:

Hex Dec Base cry Pitch Length 0x43 67 0 128 16 0x45 69 29 244 64 0x4F 79 34 255 64 0x51 81 14 224 96 0x5E 94 15 64 192 0x5F 95 15 32 192 0x7F 127 17 32 16 0x89 137 15 64 128 0xB5 181 29 0 128

(Video of the cries)

It is notable that the number 151+39 comes to 190; a round number that may have very well been the initial number of Generation I Pokémon considered. This is supported by a thread on Smogon where Zog says that Pokémon designer Shigeki Morimoto confirmed that there were 190 Pokémon, and that 'the rest were saved for later'.

Official Nintendo statement

Nintendo has an official description of MissingNo. listed in their Customer Service troubleshooting section:

"MissingNO is a programming quirk, and not a real part of the game. When you get this, your game can perform strangely, and the graphics will often become scrambled. The MissingNO Pokémon is most often found after you perform the Fight Safari Zone Pokémon trick.



To fix the scrambled graphics, try releasing the MissingNo Pokémon. If the problem persists, the only solution is to re-start your game. This means erasing your current game and starting a brand new one." [4]

Nintendo's statement is incorrect on the method for fixing graphical issues; releasing MissingNo. does not fix the graphics and the player certainly does not need to erase their game to perform any fixes. The correct way to fix the graphics is to simply view the Pokédex data or stat page of any non-glitch Pokémon (or any hybrid glitch Pokémon). The statement may have been deliberately worded to discourage players from performing the Item duplication glitch.

Game data

Pokédex entry

In Red/Blue

Generation I Kanto

#— Blue (Japanese) コメント さくせいちゅう Yellow

In Yellow

Game locations

Base stats

In Red/Blue

For the 36 normal MissingNo.:

Stat Range At Lv. 50 At Lv. 100 HP : 33 93 - 139 176 - 269 Attack : 136 141 - 187 277 - 370 Defense : 0 5 - 51 5 - 98 Special : 6 11 - 57 17 - 110 Speed : 29 34 - 80 63 - 156 Total: 204 (210 on other generations' scale) Minimum stats are calculated with 0 EVs and IVs of 0.

and of 0. Maximum stats are calculated with 63504 EVs and IVs of 15.

and of 15. Total on other generations' scale counts this Pokémon's Special stat as both Special Attack and Special Defense .

In Yellow

For the 36 normal MissingNo.:

Stat Range At Lv. 50 At Lv. 100 HP : 178 238 - 284 466 - 559 Attack : 19 24 - 70 43 - 136 Defense : 11 16 - 62 27 - 120 Special : 23 28 - 74 51 - 144 Speed : 0 5 - 51 5 - 98 Total: 231 (254 on other generations' scale) Minimum stats are calculated with 0 EVs and IVs of 0.

and of 0. Maximum stats are calculated with 63504 EVs and IVs of 15.

and of 15. Total on other generations' scale counts this Pokémon's Special stat as both Special Attack and Special Defense .

Type effectiveness

In Red/Blue

Under normal battle conditions in Generation I, this Pokémon is: Damaged

normally by: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Weak to: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Immune to: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Resistant to: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Notes: As its primary type is one of the glitch types, which do not have any weaknesses or resistances, this glitch Pokémon has the same weaknesses and resistances as a pure Normal-type

In Yellow

Under normal battle conditions in Generation I, this Pokémon is: Damaged

normally by: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Weak to: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Immune to: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Resistant to: Normal 1× Fighting 2× Flying 1× Poison 1× Ground 1× Rock 1× Bug 1× Ghost 0× Fire 1× Water 1× Grass 1× Electric 1× Psychic 1× Ice 1× Dragon 1× None Notes: As its secondary type is one of the glitch types, which do not have any weaknesses or resistances, this glitch Pokémon has the same weaknesses and resistances as a pure Normal-type

Learnset

Normal Red and Blue form

Generation I Other generations: None Level Move Type Power Accuracy PP 01 1 Water Gun Water 040 40 100}} 100% 25 01 1 Water Gun Water 040 40 100}} 100% 25 01 1 Sky Attack Flying 140 140 090}} 90% 5 Bold indicates a move that gets STAB when used by MissingNo.

indicates a move that gets when used by MissingNo. Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an evolution of MissingNo.

indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an evolution of MissingNo. Click on the generation numbers at the top to see level-up moves from other generations

Kabutops Fossil, Aerodactyl Fossil and Ghost forms

The starting moves of the Kabutops Fossil, Aerodactyl Fossil and Ghost forms are the same as the Pokémon whose data was accessed last.

Normal Yellow form

Generation I Other generations: None Level Move Type Power Accuracy PP 01 1 Pay Day Normal 040 40 100}} 100% 20 01 1 Bind Normal 015 15 075}} 75% 20 01 1 Water Gun Water 040 40 100}} 100% 25 Bold indicates a move that gets STAB when used by MissingNo.

indicates a move that gets when used by MissingNo. Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an evolution of MissingNo.

indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an evolution of MissingNo. Click on the generation numbers at the top to see level-up moves from other generations

Normal Red and Blue form

Kabutops Fossil, Aerodactyl Fossil and Ghost forms

The TM/HM learnset of the Kabutops Fossil, Aerodactyl Fossil and Ghost forms are the same as the Pokémon at the bottom of the party other than another MissingNo. of one of these three kinds.

Normal Yellow form

Generation I Other generations: None TM Move Type Power Accuracy PP This Pokémon learns no moves by TM. Bold indicates a move that gets STAB when used by MissingNo.

indicates a move that gets when used by MissingNo. Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an evolution of MissingNo.

Evolution

36 index numbers. RB MissingNo.

Bird Normal ↔ 36 index numbers. Yellow MissingNo.

Normal 999

This MissingNo. is hex B8, the Ghost form.

183 Aerodactyl Fossil MissingNo.

Bird Normal

184 Kabutops Fossil MissingNo.

Bird Normal

Sprites

In Red/Blue

Front sprite Front sprite 2 Front sprite 3 Back sprite Menu sprite

Kabutops Fossil, Aerodactyl Fossil and Ghost forms

Front sprite Front sprite 2 Front sprite 3 Back sprite Menu sprite

Front sprite Front sprite 2 Front sprite 3 Back sprite Menu sprite

Front sprite Front sprite 2 Front sprite 3 Back sprite Menu sprite

The backsprites of the Kabutops Fossil, Aerodactyl Fossil and Ghost forms are the same as the Pokémon whose data was accessed last.

In Yellow

Front sprite Front sprite 2 Front sprite 3 Back sprite Menu sprite

Trivia

Sprite of MissingNo. in Pokémon Red and Green

Gene- ration IV sprite

Name origin

MissingNo.'s English and Japanese names are both derived from "missing number".

References