SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

[QuentinQuonce]

Legendary Pokémon also has different lore in some continuities.
Does anyone remember the legendary birds in the second film? In this film, they are depicted as titans who can destroy the world if they clash, and also there's a prophecy about Ash who is the only one able to calm them alongside Lugia.

Important point - that's those specific individuals though. Other legendary birds have been seen in the anime and captured without issue.

This makes it feasible that other very lore-dependent species, like Reshiram and Zekrom, could in theory exist - it's just the ones in Unova that are "important". Not sure how plausible that is for the Tao trio specifically but it's worth consideration.

 

[Nokocchi]

I get the feeling that Game Freak sees the Gamecube titles as completely non-canon. It's most due to how the games are parsed up in the coding.

-Both Colosseum and XD share the same "Game of Origin" slot in the coding of the games. Even paired versions, no matter how similar, have separate ones
-Pokemon caught in either game are listed as being from "a Distant Land". This is NOT a code-word for Orre, not in the least. This is the default region listed if a game's region is undefined in the coding. To give you an idea, in Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon from Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, and the Virtual Console Gen II games all say they are from a "Distant Land" as well. In case you're wondering

As an extra bonus feat to that last bit, Gen VI did the opposite of Gen VII(Where they just added Games of Origin slots as the Gen went along) and there was 4 game slots that listed Kalos as the region and 2 that said Hoenn all with the Pentagon Mark in X and Y. Datamining on the 3DS was still in its infancy so these weren't really discovered until years later. The final two Kalos slots were never used, but it does pretty much show that X and Y at SOME point were going to get pair of follow-up titles instead of just one "Z" version.

Which gets into another bit of Conspiracy. I believe that, at some point, the whole "Cell" thing from Zygarde was NOT the plan. Considering that in X and Y both Thousand Waves and Thousand Arrows were coded into the game with the same power and accuracy as Land's Wrath, and Core Enforcer was nowhere to be seen, I think the original plan, due to there being TWO unused Kalos game slots, and there were ALSO two unused slots for Zygarde forms in Gen VI's Coding, was that Zygarde was going to get 2 version exclusive forms similar to Kyurem, for one Land's Wrath would become Thousand Waves, and for the other it would become Thousand Arrows. Whatever the case, the whole plan was scrapped sometime before the general plot of the second part of the XY anime series was made, which instead used the Cell idea that by then they likely were already deciding to shoehorn into Sun and Moon, because they wanted an entirely new region for the 20th anniversary so Kalos was going to be left to hang. The process is pretty awkard coding-wise, because they just throw both signature moves into the Zygarde Cube, made Core Enforcer(because Zygarde obviously needed a full moveset's worth of signature moves), and coding-wise there were now FIVE Zygarde form slots total instead of 3 like Gen VI, since how it was coded was that the Aura Break and Power Constuct versions of 10% and 50% Zygarde are considered entirely separate forms instead of being an alternative ability(Battle Bond Greninja and Own Tempo Rockruff as coded in a similar way)

While this is more guessing on my part, I think Slowbro and Glalie got Megas while Slowking and Froslass did not was because the follow-ups would've most definitely added even more Megas, on top of having the ones from ORAS usable in Kalos, and they previously did Gardevoir and Mawile in XY but saved Gallade and Sableye for ORAS.

 

[R_N]

I get the feeling that Game Freak sees the Gamecube titles as completely non-canon. It's most due to how the games are parsed up in the coding.

-Both Colosseum and XD share the same "Game of Origin" slot in the coding of the games. Even paired versions, no matter how similar, have separate ones
-Pokemon caught in either game are listed as being from "a Distant Land". This is NOT a code-word for Orre, not in the least. This is the default region listed if a game's region is undefined in the coding. To give you an idea, in Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon from Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, and the Virtual Console Gen II games all say they are from a "Distant Land" as well. In case you're wondering

As an extra bonus feat to that last bit, Gen VI did the opposite of Gen VII(Where they just added Games of Origin as the Gen went along) and there was 4 game slots that listed Kalos as the region and 2 that said Hoenn all with the Pentagon Mark in X and Y. Datamining on the 3DS was still in its infancy so these weren't really discovered until years later. The final two Kalos slots were never used, but it does pretty much show that X and Y at SOME point were going to get pair of follow-up titles instead of just one "Z" version.

Well I mean, I think most people kind of figured the gamecube titles weren't really canon. The Orre games just never get mentioned at all, or referenced or anything, like the majority of other spin offs (the Ranger games are like the one exception and even then its kinda...*iffy hand motions*)

Incidentally we know from the gigaleak that they straight up had 2 z versions planned planned like we have annotated headers for them. It was very funny and leads me tooooo

Which gets into another bit of Conspiracy. I believe that, at some point, the whole "Cell" thing from Zygarde was NOT the plan. Considering that in X and Y both Thousand Waves and Thousand Arrows were coded into the game with the same power and accuracy as Land's Wrath, and Core Enforcer was nowhere to be seen, I think the original plan, due to there being TWO unused Kalos game slots, and there were ALSO two unused slots for Zygarde forms in Gen VI's Coding, was that Zygarde was going to get 2 version exclusive forms similar to Kyurem, for one Land's Wrath would become Thousand Waves, and for the other it would become Thousand Arrows. Whatever the case, the whole plan was scrapped sometime before the general plot of the second part of the XY anime series was made, which instead used the Cell idea that by then they likely were already deciding to shoehorn into Sun and Moon, because they wanted an entirely new region for the 20th anniversary so Kalos was going to be left to hang. The process is pretty awkard coding-wise, because they just through both signature moves into the Zygarde Cube, made Core Enforcer, and coding-wise there were now FIVE Zygarde forms total, since how it was coded the Aura Break and Power Constuct versions of 10% and 50% Zygarde are considered entirely separate forms instead of being an alternative ability(Battle Bond Greninja and Own Tempo Rockruff as coded in a similar way)

While I do agree that the 10%/100% as exactly presented wasn't the original plan, and that whatever the design idea originally conceived was probably more or less scrapped and probably just sitting in a design vault somewhere, I think the "Cells" might have been in consideration at the time and the idea as presented both in the anime and in SM of zygarde's cells being distributed around the region to monitor the ecosystem would likely have been a core tenant to whatever would have happened in Z

The thing that got me thinking that the most was that, aside from Zygarde's obvious cell theming, even in XY Thousand Waves & Thousand Arrows have extremely similar animations to what they have now. During XY we didn't really have context to what the green stuff was meant to be, but "cells" is clearly what they're meant to be and I think that fits perfectly even back then.

I think the idea might have been: it's "50%" by default most of the time, distributes its cells to monitor changes. Then, when Team Flare cause Xerneas/Yveltal to throw the environment out of whack [insert your own plot here], this would cause Zygarde to take initiative and gather all of its cells into a legend-specific "100%" that would be designed to counter the problem.
And then from there perhaps Zygarde would break apart as part of the climax and you'd have to gather its cells to reform it in the post game.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Speaking of Zygarde, I feel like I've seen the concept of a shapeshifting cosmic horror made up of independent cells that takes on the shape of a dog and a massive deformed humanoid somewhere before...

Coincidence? ... Yeah, probably, but I like to pretend it isn't.

 

[aegon the unlikely]

Why can’t monkeys just be monkeys? Besides, if they were so wise would they really live in NYC?

NYC isn't that bad. It's a lovely city for tourism and I, at least, have very good memories of it.

The rent rates are terrifying, ofc.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I get the feeling that Game Freak sees the Gamecube titles as completely non-canon. It's most due to how the games are parsed up in the coding.

-Both Colosseum and XD share the same "Game of Origin" slot in the coding of the games. Even paired versions, no matter how similar, have separate ones
-Pokemon caught in either game are listed as being from "a Distant Land". This is NOT a code-word for Orre, not in the least. This is the default region listed if a game's region is undefined in the coding. To give you an idea, in Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon from Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, and the Virtual Console Gen II games all say they are from a "Distant Land" as well. In case you're wondering

Huh. I don't have Sun anymore so I can't check for myself, but I was convinced you were mistaken about this and were thinking of Faraway Place instead. But it seems that Gen II VC mons do indeed say they're from "a distant land" in SM, which is really odd. Faraway Place has been the default location for "from a future game" for several generations now, and is wholly distinct from "distant land", which in all games prior to Gen VII meant Orre.

That said, I fully agree that Game Freak definitely does consider ColoXD non-canon. Literally nothing in the main series even hints at any of the lore from the Orre titles - every potential mention is couched in the most vague and wishy-washy terms, like the National Ribbon being "a ribbon given to a Pokemon which has cleared all difficulties".

Which is grimly ironic because, as you yourself mentioned the other day, ColoXD are required if one wants to do the Ribbon Master challenge.

With the news that Stadium is being released on the Switch, I hoped we might see the Orre games eventually but I think it's unlikely (there's possibly licencing/rights issues involved since they were developed by Genius Sonority). It's a pity because those are some of my favourite games in the series. There is an element of "leave them wanting more" about everything Orre-related since a third game would be wonderful, but I don't think it could possibly substantially improve on XD. Too much time has passed, though, and most of the people who worked on ColoXD are likely no longer around - the thought of a different team having a go seems too risky to be worth it.

But I do wish they could be given the respect they deserve. The GameCube titles occupy a special position in Pokemon history, and deserve to be remembered (hence the line in my signature).

 

[R_N]

With the news that Stadium is being released on the Switch, I hoped we might see the Orre games eventually but I think it's unlikely (there's possibly licencing/rights issues involved since they were developed by Genius Sonority).

I don't think rights issues would be the problem there, since that's just part & parcel of every Pokemon spinoff (Stadiums are from HAL, the PMD games from Chunsoft, the TCG games by Hudson, Pinball by Jupiter, etc) the bigger issue is GameCube games just don't get put out at all. There's never been a GC VC and sadly I doubt that changes now; even Sunshine's remaster (such as it was) was only on a limited separate collection release.

 

[Nokocchi]

Huh. I don't have Sun anymore so I can't check for myself, but I was convinced you were mistaken about this and were thinking of Faraway Place instead. But it seems that Gen II VC mons do indeed say they're from "a distant land" in SM, which is really odd. Faraway Place has been the default location for "from a future game" for several generations now, and is wholly distinct from "distant land", which in all games prior to Gen VII meant Orre.

The purposes of those two names are very different. "Faraway Place" is for undefined locations within a generation, like trading Pokemon caught in locations not coded into the games made before it within the same Gen, while "Distant Land" is basically used in place of a Region name for an undefined game.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Has anyone ever heard this before or have any source for this information, or is it just complete bullshit?

Popping it into Pokemonamie in my copy of X ....
The there does seem to be a blinking animation, which would imply those are indeed pupils (the coloring is different too), but uhhh they dont close all the way? It's weird, some of the eye animations look like normal eyelids and others look like its closed but moving around.

The pupils move around and follow you...maybe?

Here's a Youtube video of Simipour in Pokemon-Amie.

It's eyes are closed. It just changes the curve/slant to show what its feeling cause it has no eyebrows. The same thing is done with Snorlax, Sunflora, Torkoal, etc..

As noted, this is just reaching to try and connect them with the Three Wise Monkeys. And all I have to say about that is we have a translated interview from Ken Sugimori, Takao Unno (who designed the first stage of the Elemental Monkeys), and Yusuke Ohmura where they went through all the Gen V Pokemon and not once when discussing the Elemental Monkeys did they say anything about the Three Wise Monkeys. And note this is the series of articles which revealed the original tank origin of the Deino family, so if the Three Wise Monkeys were part of the design I think it would have mentioned. But no, instead Unno clarifies the expression on the monkeys is based on the personalities: Pansage was a punk, Pansear is carefree, and Panpour is gentle. He admits they're subtle and that the designer of their evos emphasized it more.

I can sort of see it. In their default pose, Pansage is almost shrugging as if it was saying "Did I do that?" in a teasing voice; Pansear is holding its hand to its ear as if it prompting to hear what you said again cause it wasn't paying attention; and Panpour is just vibin' (going with the "flow" if you will).

That said, relating to the image Scorpio posted from TVTropes, it could be that the artist who made the evos could have seen a slight Wise Monkey relation (or rather they're doing the opposite of what the Wise Monkeys are supposed to be doing) and did the Japanese delinquent thing to further reference it. I could see that happening, an incorrect interpretation enforcing the incorrection. But since they didn't interview the creatores of the Simi, we don't know.

Kleavor and Ursaluna will probably be fit into the Paldea anime or whatever they concoct for Gen 9, but for the rest of the Hisuian forms as well as Origin Form Dialga and Palkia... are they just never gonna be shown animated?

Well, here's the thing, now that the anime is no longer restricting themselves to Ash & companions going on a journey through the newest region, we don't know what they'll have plan when the Gen 9 anime rolls around.

One thing I will note is that a main focus of Paldea is the Academy and we have the past/future theme. This could easily lead them to showcasing the Hisuian Pokemon they haven't yet, possibly even properly featuring them as in SV they'll be usable in the core series & in modern times. As for Dialga & Palkia, well usually saved for movies.

Though the anime doesn't seem too concerned with showing off everything nowadays, we've skipped over many notable NPCs from the games, with the Gen 8 anime they skipped over or skimmed through locations in Galar, and I don't think we've even seen all the Galarian Variant Pokemon yet.

PLA sold well enough that I would be surprised if there wasn't like a movie or something dedicated to it at some point in the future. Probably some time travel nonsense because causality just doesn't exist in the Pokemon universe.

Would prefer an animated special myself. Hisuian Snow was nice but doing something summing up the adventure akin to Origins did with Gen I would suffice. Make it 6 episodes, one for each major area and then the 6th for the finale stuff. Maybe extend it to 7 to give them some breathing room.

Also, it seems like Snom's only appearance in any manga so far was one panel of Adventures.

The most notable missing mon to me is Galarian Meowth. Not only is it not in any manga, but not even in the anime. With what they did with Alolan Meowth you'd think the writers would have a ton of fun with Galarian Meowth... but nothing. Heck, if they didn't want it sticking out, had it be one of Rose's Pokemon that followed him around (making Rose a slight mirror to Giovanni in a way).

 

[Imperial Magala]

Eyes blanked out, hands covering ears, mouth closed from its normal form.

Eyebrows furrowed, hands amplifying sounds for ears, mouth wide open and moving from its normal form.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

The most notable missing mon to me is Galarian Meowth. Not only is it not in any manga, but not even in the anime. With what they did with Alolan Meowth you'd think the writers would have a ton of fun with Galarian Meowth... but nothing. Heck, if they didn't want it sticking out, had it be one of Rose's Pokemon that followed him around (making Rose a slight mirror to Giovanni in a way).

Good news! According to Bulbapedia, Galarian Meowth and Perrserker will make their TV debut in a future episode of Journeys.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Always found the internal location data used by the games interesting so have been doing some reading into the topic and was reminded of something interesting: it seems that if you catch Mew or Deoxys in one of the Gen III games illegitimately that they will never obey the player, and apparently cannot be traded either. This is due to the event-island Mew and Deoxys, as well as any distributed externally, having the fateful encounter flag, which didn't exist in RS but became a thing in FRLG (or Colosseum technically).

This makes me wonder why it's only Mew and Deoxys this was ever a thing for. Gen III's other mythicals Jirachi and Celebi cannot be caught at all in Gen III, so it'd be pretty easy to distinguish one caught using cheats. Hell, why stop there - Ho-Oh and Lugia are treated as mythicals in Gen III, being exclusive to islands in exactly the same manner as Mew and Deoxys.

Secondly, how odd that this has never again been done in the main series, especially now that - since BW with one exception - all mythicals are given directly to you, rather than caught. Or to put it another way, any Genesect in Gen V that has the player's OT is indisputably a fake. Yet one can conceivably catch a Genesect on Route 1 and use it without issue.

The only equivalence to this in later generations is that the Fateful Encounter flag triggers events and items for the legendaries which need them (Shaymin without a Fateful Encounter flag cannot transform with the Gracidea, or even prompt the NPC who gives it out to do so). That obviously hinders using certain species, although only partially.

Obviously such a measure would be problematic to implement for roamers, which is maybe why it was never taken further. To wit, a Latios caught on Route 111 can be perfectly legit while a Mew caught on Route 111 obviously isn't. I believe Darkrai was originally planned to be a roamer in DP, which would of course have made it the first mythical of this nature. But having it be catchable more or less anywhere would make it far easier for people to fake, so this may have influenced the decision to scrap this idea. But legendaries (both mythical and otherwise) have fairly constrained encounter methods in general. If they could set that flag on Mew and Deoxys it seems like they could do the same for all legendaries: for instance, any Dialga in DPP not from an event or caught at Spear Pillar.

Just curious. It seems like the single biggest thing Game Freak could do to try and deter cheaters.

 

[Siggu]

This makes me wonder why it's only Mew and Deoxys this was ever a thing for. Gen III's other mythicals Jirachi and Celebi cannot be caught at all in Gen III, so it'd be pretty easy to distinguish one caught using cheats. Hell, why stop there - Ho-Oh and Lugia are treated as mythicals in Gen III, being exclusive to islands in exactly the same manner as Mew and Deoxys.

Possibly because of the GameCube spin-offs. Ho-Oh can be obtained in Colosseum and Lugia in XD.

 

[pika pal]

Always found the internal location data used by the games interesting so have been doing some reading into the topic and was reminded of something interesting: it seems that if you catch Mew or Deoxys in one of the Gen III games illegitimately that they will never obey the player, and apparently cannot be traded either. This is due to the event-island Mew and Deoxys, as well as any distributed externally, having the fateful encounter flag, which didn't exist in RS but became a thing in FRLG (or Colosseum technically).

This makes me wonder why it's only Mew and Deoxys this was ever a thing for. Gen III's other mythicals Jirachi and Celebi cannot be caught at all in Gen III, so it'd be pretty easy to distinguish one caught using cheats. Hell, why stop there - Ho-Oh and Lugia are treated as mythicals in Gen III, being exclusive to islands in exactly the same manner as Mew and Deoxys.

Secondly, how odd that this has never again been done in the main series, especially now that - since BW with one exception - all mythicals are given directly to you, rather than caught. Or to put it another way, any Genesect in Gen V that has the player's OT is indisputably a fake. Yet one can conceivably catch a Genesect on Route 1 and use it without issue.

The only equivalence to this in later generations is that the Fateful Encounter flag triggers events and items for the legendaries which need them (Shaymin without a Fateful Encounter flag cannot transform with the Gracidea, or even prompt the NPC who gives it out to do so). That obviously hinders using certain species, although only partially.

Obviously such a measure would be problematic to implement for roamers, which is maybe why it was never taken further. To wit, a Latios caught on Route 111 can be perfectly legit while a Mew caught on Route 111 obviously isn't. I believe Darkrai was originally planned to be a roamer in DP, which would of course have made it the first mythical of this nature. But having it be catchable more or less anywhere would make it far easier for people to fake, so this may have influenced the decision to scrap this idea. But legendaries (both mythical and otherwise) have fairly constrained encounter methods in general. If they could set that flag on Mew and Deoxys it seems like they could do the same for all legendaries: for instance, any Dialga in DPP not from an event or caught at Spear Pillar.

Just curious. It seems like the single biggest thing Game Freak could do to try and deter cheaters.

Maybe there was some weird combination of being a Fateful Encounter Mythical AND being a Pokemon the player actually caught. Mew and Deoxys are the only Mythicals that the player MUST obtain through an event AND requires that in-game capture. Ho-Oh and Lugia were "normally" available via Orre on top of the Gen 3 main game Mythical events, Jirachi was from some weird distributions like Channel and the Pre-Order disc on RS beforehand as mentioned, and Celebi barely existed outside of Japan that generation. I guess they thought these two were the only ones worth bothering with since they had legitimate events that came later and the distributions would be tied to events they wanted to drum up some hype for, whereas Jirachi and co. were already done with or part of larger scale events anyway by the time FRLG allowed those flags to be a thing

Brief searching online suggests that it's not necessarily the Fateful Encounter Flag, but rather an "Obedience Bit" for the Pokemon that is switched off for Mew and Deoxys (i.e. this can be manipulated with hacking or cheating devices without having to make the Pokemon a FE one). My guess is that the game normally has this always-on for Pokemon matching your ID and then turns it off if the Pokemon fulfills certain conditions like being traded and above your Badge level. In turn my simple guess is that Mew and Deoxys have the Bit set to "always-off" for the above mentioned "they're future events so we care about curbing cheaters" reason, and the encounter table for the Faraway Island and Birth Island encounters spawns ones with the Bit "on" specifically as an exception.

As for future games not doing anything similar, I'd assume it's a combination of
1) Not being seen as being feasible to make work (if players can make Pokemon from scratch there's not much they can make that Genners won't find a way around). This on top of their rather broad-strokes and simple hack checks for a while.
2) Not being worth the effort for single player. Despite the infamous Romhack comments after the recent Twitter stuff, I doubt TPC cares as long as that stuff is kept away from their official stuff.
3) Something that'll sort itself out anywhere that matters. VGC bans Mythicals anyway, as do a lot of in-game "real battle" challenge facilities, while Playground formats people probably will just elect not to play with the cheaters if they're not finding it fun.

 

[Divine Retribution]

NYC isn't that bad. It's a lovely city for tourism and I, at least, have very good memories of it.

The rent rates are terrifying, ofc.

I've been to NYC 3 times and hated it more each time. Overcrowded, filthy tourist trap full of the absolute worst elements of U.S. city design and literally zero reason for most people to actually visit, unless overpaying for the worst street food you could possibly imagine and gawking at symbols of U.S. exceptionalism are your thing. I don't like cities much in general (besides my beloved Boston), but NYC sits just above Chicago and below the sarcophagus of Chernobyl on my list of places to visit.

 

[Pikachu315111]

View attachment 454151
Eyes blanked out, hands covering ears, mouth closed from its normal form.

No thoughts. Head empty.

Eyebrows furrowed, hands amplifying sounds for ears, mouth wide open and moving from its normal form.

I HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD THEY COUNCIL ME!

Good news! According to Bulbapedia, Galarian Meowth and Perrserker will make their TV debut in a future episode of Journeys.

Good to hear though still feels a little too late (not to mention they're having both it and Perrserker in the same episode).

Just curious. It seems like the single biggest thing Game Freak could do to try and deter cheaters.

If someone was going to cheat their way of getting a Legendary couldn't they just turn on the fateful encounter flag?

I've been to NYC 3 times and hated it more each time.

(...)

(besides my beloved Boston)

Welp, that just about explains everything, doesn't it? I'm sorry the Yankees win more games than the Red Sox but you gotta let it go.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Welp, that just about explains everything, doesn't it? I'm sorry the Yankees win more games than the Red Sox but you gotta let it go.

Ah, yes, love me some sportsball.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

View attachment 454151
Eyes blanked out, hands covering ears, mouth closed from its normal form.

Eyebrows furrowed, hands amplifying sounds for ears, mouth wide open and moving from its normal form.

They're pretty much the opposite from their normal forms as far as personality goes, and their normal forms by themselves are inherently opposite in personality.

Unovan Darmanitan in its normal form is very hot-headed and energetic, and actively has an internal fire that burns to extreme temperatures to raise its power level. It is very high energy and destructive, and very active and outgoing, with a raging spirit.

Zen Mode Unovan Darmanitan contrasts this as it becomes calm, and remains in a stationary pose, while it regulates its internal energy and focuses on meditation. It is in a relaxed, gentle state. It has lowered its inherent energy and remains calm, honing its inner mental energy to fight instead of physical energy.

Galarian Darmanitan in its normal form is more gentle, easygoing, and friendly. Its flame sac atrophied and it is not driven by high energy, because it's now an ice creature it's more calm and low energy in personality. It has a gentle spirit.

Zen Mode Galarian Darmanitan contrasts this as its flame sac that had gone dormant becomes active again, and it becomes angry and driven by rage as opposed to its usual calm disposition. As such, it is more mobile and jumps around a lot more because of the sheer energy building up in its body due to its rage. Instead of focusing on meditation, it is acting on the rage it has built up within its body and actively rampages and spews flames indiscriminately. It is in an energized, enraged state, and is high energy and destructive.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Fun fact: Zenmanitan is the only Pokémon form that existed at the time that isn't in Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon. I'm mildly disappointed that they never included hidden abilities in PMD; maybe they could've made them rare, or maybe all the shinies in RTDX could have had their hidden abilities to make them more special, like how they had a belly stat of 200 in the WiiWare games no-one remembers.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Possibly because of the GameCube spin-offs. Ho-Oh can be obtained in Colosseum and Lugia in XD.

Ho-Oh and Lugia were "normally" available via Orre on top of the Gen 3 main game Mythical events,

Yes, I know, but both are also flagged as fateful encounters (Ho-Oh's the only one in Colosseum whereas all Pokemon in XD are flagged as fateful encounter for whatever reason).

If someone was going to cheat their way of getting a Legendary couldn't they just turn on the fateful encounter flag?

Well yes but I assume it's possible to cheat just about anything if you know how. And yet the games still have legality checkers.

Brief searching online suggests that it's not necessarily the Fateful Encounter Flag, but rather an "Obedience Bit" for the Pokemon that is switched off for Mew and Deoxys (i.e. this can be manipulated with hacking or cheating devices without having to make the Pokemon a FE one). My guess is that the game normally has this always-on for Pokemon matching your ID and then turns it off if the Pokemon fulfills certain conditions like being traded and above your Badge level. In turn my simple guess is that Mew and Deoxys have the Bit set to "always-off" for the above mentioned "they're future events so we care about curbing cheaters" reason, and the encounter table for the Faraway Island and Birth Island encounters spawns ones with the Bit "on" specifically as an exception.

Actually this is probably it. IIRC Jirachi was given away during RS's lifetime and since the FE flag wasn't a thing at that stage they couldn't do the obedience thing. Mew and Deoxys were probably the last two Pokemon made available in Gen III. *checks when Gen III mythicals debuted* Almost!

Jirachi - June 1, 2003
Ho-Oh - Nov 21, 2003
Celebi - Nov 23, 2003
Auroraticket was first distributed in April 2004
Mysticticket was first distributed in July 2004
Mew - June 25, 2005

 

[doipy hooves]

Brief searching online suggests that it's not necessarily the Fateful Encounter Flag, but rather an "Obedience Bit" for the Pokemon that is switched off for Mew and Deoxys (i.e. this can be manipulated with hacking or cheating devices without having to make the Pokemon a FE one). My guess is that the game normally has this always-on for Pokemon matching your ID and then turns it off if the Pokemon fulfills certain conditions like being traded and above your Badge level. In turn my simple guess is that Mew and Deoxys have the Bit set to "always-off" for the above mentioned "they're future events so we care about curbing cheaters" reason, and the encounter table for the Faraway Island and Birth Island encounters spawns ones with the Bit "on" specifically as an exception.

It's pretty much the same thing. The game basically just checks the fateful encounter/ID_event_get_flag (source name)/eventLegal (pret name) flag when dealing with Deoxys or Mew in battle or trades to determine if it's legal, which is all it got used for. Incidentally, all of the event island mons are generated with the fateful encounter flag, referred to with seteventmon in pret.
Gamefreak's comments on this from the FRLG/Emerald source are as follows: (translated from deepL)

(koukan.c/trade) (pret equivalent)

//ミュウ・デオキシスチェック（イベントフラグが立っていなければ交換はできない。この2体はイベント配布でしか手に入れないはず）
//Mew and Deoxys checks (cannot be exchanged unless the event flag is set. These two should only be available through event distribution)

Another function is named DeokisisuMyuuIlegalCheck.

(server.c/battle), HuseiPokemonCheck (husei = 不正/illegal) (pret equivalent)

改造で作られたポケモンかどうかチェック
Check to see if the Pokémon was created by modification.

As to why they didn't bother with the same punishment afterwards, I agree that it was because people were already figuring out how to deal with the fateful encounter flag/what they knew as the obedience bit anyway soon after release and so it would mainly just serve to annoy the middle ground of little Timmy spawning in legendaries with AR codes, and this does still ends up messing with people using cheats or playing hacks to this day. In the present they can at least stop unreleased mons in general from showing up in online multiplayer or just hit your save file in a ban wave now that everything's synced to the internet. It's like how Gen 5 had the funny 0 exp for its anti-piracy to mess with emulators and nowadays they just ban your console if it goes online with an unreleased game.

-Pokemon caught in either game are listed as being from "a Distant Land". This is NOT a code-word for Orre, not in the least. This is the default region listed if a game's region is undefined in the coding. To give you an idea, in Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon from Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, and the Virtual Console Gen II games all say they are from a "Distant Land" as well. In case you're wondering

Ironically while I was making this post, I found out that it was Colosseum itself that started calling Pokemon from other regions from a "distant land".

 

[KalosianPorygon]

I don't like cities much in general (besides my beloved Boston), but NYC sits just above Chicago and below the sarcophagus of Chernobyl on my list of places to visit.

Chernobyl (or rather, Pripyat), Ukraine, was some cool (if creepy) things going for it:

• Spooky ghost town atmosphere
• Spooky abandoned amusement park (complete with Ferris wheel)
• Spooky abandoned sport hall
• Not as many tourists
• Natural overgrowth
• Some uncommon animals

The main issue about Pripyat is accessibility. *insert recent news here*
In short, Divine Retribution is right, Chernobyl > NYC

[M]aybe all the shinies in RTDX could have had their hidden abilities to make them more special, like how they had a belly stat of 200 in the WiiWare games no-one remembers.

Still waiting for a rerelease of the WiiWare games...

 

[Coronis]

Still waiting for a rerelease of the WiiWare games...

Meh the WiiWare games were crap. Bring on the Explorers remake!!!!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

For a while, I've had a theory that Absol was Game Freak's first attempt to make a Lucario. Think about it: it's billed next to legendaries (eg: first Japanese Advanced opening, Pokémon Box boxart) or has a prominent role (eg: Jirachi: Wish Maker, sort-of Rescue Team) in a lot of Gen 3 media, learns a wide array of moves, and has an angsty backstory to appeal to the edgy teenage girls... but it only has one good stat. Oops.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

has an angsty backstory to appeal to the edgy teenage girls...

And boys. And enbys.
It also looks cool and memorable with its white-and-black color scheme and vaguely dog-like features. And Dark is a popular type.
The dodgy stat distribution is more likely a consequence of Generation III giving bad stats to a chunk of its newly introduced Pokémon.