MissingNo.

MissingNo. (けつばん Ketsuban) is a Glitch Pokémon encountered in Pokémon Red and Blue and in Pokémon Yellow. It is the most well known Glitch Pokemon out of all of them. Glitches that have appeared in other games have also been refered to as Missingno., but have no relation to the original. The name has been shortened from missing number, because it was put in the game to take the places for non-existent pokemon. The reason there were non-existent pokemon was caused by how they made the games, because of this, the lowest variable possible to put on the game was 256. In the original games there were only the original 150 (with exception of Japan, which had 151) there were still about 105 - 104 slots left. And thus, all 105 slots were filled with Missingno. or 'M. Also, Missingno means "missing number".

Missingno. has two types, one of which is not a real type, bird type, and appears on only it and 'M.

Moves
The strangest characteristics of Missingno. are the moves that it can know. The most common move for it to know is sky attack, but missingno. has two copies of the move at once. Some special Missingno. can learn the move Cool Trainer, or water gun.

Appearance
Missingno. has various forms, four of which are the most well known. One of the most common ones is a box-shaped, backwards "L", filled with a circuit-board pattern. Its other forms can be one of two fossilized Pokemon, Aerodactyl or Kabutops. This appearance comes from the fossil sprites of these two pokemon from the Pewter City Museum. Its fourth appearance is a darkly coloured ghost. This image comes from the appearance of ghost pokemon in the Pokémon Tower before you receive the Silph Scope. Its party sprite also changes. in somecases, the sprite will become the feild sprite of the man who teaches you to catch pokemon.

Missingno.'s Sprites
Missingno is also found in Platinum by mistakingly pressing R and running into the tall grass with the pokemon modifier cheat activated forcing a Lv.0 missingno to appear and not avalible to use. Even though it is very weak and has no HP (hit points) you can only catch this type of MissingNo with a masterball. If you only have one masterball, don't waste it on this missingno, because even though you catch it, the pokemon escapes from your pc box to change it's forme and haunt other trainers.

Reason
Missingno is the Glitch Pokémon that appears after viewing the Old Man's tutorial in Viridian City on how to catch Pokémon, then immediately Flying to Cinnabar Island and Surfing along the right hand side of the island, near the Gym, until one is encountered.

When you talk to the old man in Viridian City, the game needs to change the player's name to "OLD MAN" so that it will display the "OLD MAN" sprite instead of the original character. Because of this, the programmers needed a place to store the player's information and name while the "OLD MAN" data replaced it, so they decided to store it in the area where wild Pokémon information is. This was done because of the lack of memory on an original Game Boy. This normally wouldn't cause any glitches because the correct data for wild Pokémon available is written to this area in memory whenever the player travels to an area where it is possible to catch wild Pokémon.

Cinnabar Island's coast has no data for indicating which wild Pokémon are available because no pokemon can be caught in the general area. The same is true for both Viridian City and Cinnabar Island itself. The game uses whatever data was already in the nearby area, or whatever area the player was in last, when determining which wild Pokémon are encountered and what their levels are. This is seen when exiting the Safari Zone and flying directly to a place with no available pokemon memory such as Cinnabar Island. When this is done, Safari Zone Pokemon can be encountered along the right side of the island because Cinnabar Island is using the Safari Zone's available Pokémon data.

Normally this memory space, found on the side of Cinnabar Island, would hold the data of the last area visited where wild Pokémon were catchable and their level data. But since the player's last visited area had no Pokémon and instead the player's temporarily stored name (Viridian City), this leaves the game placing in the temporarily stored data in the available Pokémon data's place. This is what causes Missingno's. availability.

The name of the player has much to do with the level and appearance of Missingno. As stated earlier, Missingno. appears due to a lack of Pokemon data in Cinnabar Island and the use of the player's info (which has been stored in the pokemon info data in Viridian City) inserted into this empty space. The type of Pokémon or Missingno. the player encounters is determined by the characters used in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th characters of the player's name. The level of the Pokémon or Missingno. is based on the 2nd, 4th, and 6th characters.

Other Glitches
Even after Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Yellow, glitches appeared in later games and are often called Missingno., though these are not the original Missingno., they are other Missingno.-type glitches that are usually called Glitch Pokémon.

Besides Missingno., there are literally hundreds of other Glitch Pokémon, some more well known then others. Others include 'M, h POKé, Charizard 'M, and LM4. Most of these are obtainable by use of the Mew Glitch.

When Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald were created, another Glitch Pokémon was found, but the glitch in the Generation III games shows a black circle with a question mark in the middle. Another glitch, in the same games, shows an image two question marks. These Glitch Pokémon forms are obtainable when using roms, cheat codes and hacking devices. These glitches are labeled as ?????????? (Ten Question Marks) and ? (Single Question Mark), known also as Decamark.

Another few Glitch Pokémon, in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl games and Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, with similar features as Missingno. is the DPBox and the GSBox, sometimes called the "Diamond and Pearl Missingno" and "HeartGold and SoulSilver Missingno.". DPBox shares a similar appearance to Missingno in that it is a large, blocky figure and Arceus's tail. While not causing any graphic scrambles, DPBox does have some abnormal effects such as cloning items. The GSBox is the same accept it hovers off screen with shadow in likewise spot, requires being caught with a Master Ball, can't be used in battle, placed in box, and you can't look at it in the party screen because that would crash the game.

When you are going to try and encounter the Glitch Pokemon, Missingno, and you run into a battle situation, it should take about 1 and a half seconds to 2 seconds before throw out your pokemon and you get to battle the strange and out-of-order pokemon.

Another type of Missingno is a type that lets you hear lots of Pokemon cries. If you pick a random Pokemon's cry and press A, Missingno. will change to that Pokemon. Others are Pokemon like the Slowpoke question mark that appears in pokemon games that have been beaten and received the Jirachi event from the Pokemon Colosseum bonus disk on Gamecube. It is a legendary that is invalid and has never been seen in Pokemon Emerald and Sapphire. This is triggered by trading Mew to Gold from Blue, Red, and/or Yellow from the Mew Glitch, then trading to Pokemon Colosseum and then transfer to Ruby and get the Old Sea Map and go to mew, save, then soft reset and battle Mew. Keep soft reseting and battling until Mew becomes a Shiny. Then it will transfer a LM4 Missingno. to box 18 in your PC. This should not be able to be taken out without seriously damaging your Pokemon game like Bad egg into your PC and other things. Never get two Mews because it will lead your games to destruction.

Miscellaneous
Missingno. is one of the most popular glitches in all of video game history, let alone Pokemon. Many people study this Pokemon's behaviors and how to capture in more recent games. In Pokemon Emerald, you can find what is called a Bad Egg, which is registered in your Pokedex as a new species of Pokemon. This Missingno. isn't dangerous and you can capture as many as you wish, but it doesn't do anything. It doesn't hatch, it doesn't fight; it just sits there and looks pretty in your PC. Its sprite in the Pokedex is what seems like a yellow bulbasaur. However, in Pokemon Platinum, Diamond, and Pearl, Bad Eggs are deadly. If you enter a cheat code in your Action Replay for an "Ultimate Pokemon", or such that you find on the internet, the code willmost likely end up in a Bad Egg that you 1. cannot take out of your party, and 2. can't trade, resulting in your entire game glitching and you having to start your game over. (FYI, if you try to trade your starter Pokemon to the Pokemon Ranch when this happens and you've treated it well,it won't go. It'll just keep coming back every time. Trust me. It happened to my poor Empoleon, Shogun Pip,may he rest in peace) So, you'll end up having to start your whole game over and lose your poor starter. NEVER use one of those Action Replay codes. Dang Missingno....