5 facts only a Pokemon Master would know

Pokemon is so incredibly big that not even Pokemon masters can know about everything about the franchise. Here are five facts that even the most hardcore of fans may not know.

890 Pokemon, across eight generations after nearly 25 years of the iconic series and it’s no wonder there’s always something new to learn in the world of Pokemon. We could list facts for days but here are five of the more fascinating ones.

1. The first Pokemon games are really small

No, not small in terms of the map, how long they take or anything inside the game; the actual size of the game. Pokemon Red, for example, is a mere 370 kilobytes (kb). That’s even smaller than the below image in its native resolution!

Cover Century

It’s hard to believe this image can take up more disk space than an entire Pokemon game…

In comparison, the latest Pokemon game entry – Pokemon Sword and Shield – is a whopping 9.5 GB. That’s over 25,000 times as big!

• Read More: Is a Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remake coming? Rumors, release date, more

However, that’s nothing compared to some other games out today. Many of the biggest PS4 and Xbox One games can take up to 100 GB (or more) of storage space.

2. 891 Pokemon?

Many believe there were 151 species in the first generation. While this is strictly true, old school Pokemon trainers may remember the glitch Pokemon, Missingno.

The mysterious glitch could be found due to how the game was coded – it was almost certainly not an intentional inclusion. For those interested it could be found on the shoreline of Cinnabar Island.

Some fans even wanted Missingno to return in Sword and Shield but obviously this was a little far-fetched (or Farfetch’d). Kudos to this design by MonolithyK.

3. Where’s Pokemon Green?

Sticking with the original games, most western trainers will believe Pokemon Red and Blue are the games that kicked off the series. This isn’t true, though.

It was Pokemon Red and Green that started it all in 1996. Both of these were released in Japan with Pokemon Red and Blue hitting the west in 1998. Pokemon Green was never released outside of Japan.

DarkshadeDX

Venusaur was probably a little jealous back in the late 90s after not getting its own cover…

4. Gotta catch ’em all

The ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All’ Pokemon theme song is synonymous with the franchise. Despite its popularity, it wasn’t everyone’s first choice when listening to music.

However, that changed with the introduction of Pokemon Go in 2016. The mobile game hit fever pitch shortly after with trainers from all over the world congregating to try and catch ’em all.

• Read More: The Pokemon Sword and Shield boycott didn’t end well

The game proved so popular that the theme song has a reported 382% increase in listeners on Spotify. Even the Police joined in the fun, finding Pokemon Go players and blasting out the theme from their cars!

5. The Master Ball can fail

The Master Ball is the only PokeBall that has a 100% success rate, right? Wrong, apparently. Shockingly, the Master Ball can actually fail to catch a Pokemon – and that’s not by using it during a trainer battle (which isn’t allowed).

It is billed as a 100% success rate but that is reportedly not true. There is actually a 1 in 65,536 of it failing (much less than a 0.01% chance).

So you can count yourself lucky (or unlucky) if this has ever happened to you. It is far less likely than finding a shiny even at its base odds.

Go on then, be honest, how many of these did you already know?