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Reminiscing on Pokemon's culture of rumor

Leonhart

Imagineer
pacman000 said:
Apparently Topps used Pikablu & Buru instead of Merril & Snubbull on their promo cards for the 1st movie. Don't know where they got those names; I assume they got them from 4Kids or Nintendo, & that the names were changed before the film was dubbed.

I actually owned those cards, and I remember being confused when I finally saw the first movie's English dub and the names for both Pokemon were different.
 

Ophie

Salingerian Phony
Apparently Topps used Pikablu & Buru instead of Merril & Snubbull on their promo cards for the 1st movie. Don't know where they got those names; I assume they got them from 4Kids or Nintendo, & that the names were changed before the film was dubbed. I never collected Topps' Pokémon cards, but I would like to have those for the weird name variants, if what I read is true.

A likely reason is that those were their nonfinalized names. Plenty of Pokémon go through name changes before one is decided and is used for the games. For example, Gyarados was called Skulkraken in development, and Koffing and Weezing were previously known as Ny and La, respectively (which would've made them the shortest Pokémon names in existence).

Development for later generations would be a lot less informal than the early years though. They no longer release Pokémon names in merchandise before they're finalized (which, honestly, is a good thing, as it prevents confusion--there are people to this day who will swear on their lives that Marill is "Pikablu" and won't accept "Marill" as a name).
 

Dephender

Gizakawayusu
Staff member
Moderator
Development for later generations would be a lot less informal than the early years though. They no longer release Pokémon names in merchandise before they're finalized (which, honestly, is a good thing, as it prevents confusion--there are people to this day who will swear on their lives that Marill is "Pikablu" and won't accept "Marill" as a name).

Happened during the leadup to gen 5, when Amazon Japan had a listing for an upcoming modeling clay set featuring a certain green monkey Pokemon the product description referred to as "Brocco". Though that got taken down pretty fast, TPC probably wasn't very happy.
 

Mr.Munchlax

Great Ball Rank Trainer
The biggest rumor I can remember is that when Gen 1 came out, my classmates kept saying that if you hold down the B button while throwing a pokeball, it works just like a master ball.

Even though I know the trick doesn't work, to this day I always hold the B button whenever I throw a pokeball as a good luck charm
 

NovaBrunswick

Canada Connoisseur
Apparently Topps used Pikablu & Buru instead of Merril & Snubbull on their promo cards for the 1st movie. Don't know where they got those names; I assume they got them from 4Kids or Nintendo, & that the names were changed before the film was dubbed. I never collected Topps' Pokémon cards, but I would like to have those for the weird name variants, if what I read is true.

Buru (Bull) is Snubbull's Japanese name, as mentioned in the RageCandyBar article. Pikablu was, as already said, a popular fan-name for Marill before its actual name was revealed, because it looks somewhat like Pikachu and is blue in colour.

For example, Gyarados was called Skulkraken in development, and Koffing and Weezing were previously known as Ny and La, respectively (which would've made them the shortest Pokémon names in existence).

Skulkraken actually sounds like a much cooler name than Gyarados. Ny and La, Koffing and Weezing's beta names, are shortenings of New York and Los Angeles, two cities which were once known for their excessive pollution problems.
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
I’m aware of all the big rumors from the first 3 gens like Vermilion Mew, PokeGods, and Deoxys at the Mossdeep Space Station but my first time hearing playground rumors was Gen 4 as those were the first game I owned and played through myself.

The biggest rumor for me and my group of friends was that the Distortion World and infamous Void glitch in DPPt was leading to a fully playable “shadow” mirror universe in the post game where everything was reversed. I never bothered trying to unlock it as I was too busy trying to complete everything in the game but it was fun pitching in ideas to how to unlock it.

Other rumors was that Gen 4 was the final Pokémon game and that Arceus was going to be the final boss (think this came from a quote from Masuda calling this the ultimate Pokémon game iirc), being able to travel to the previous Gens (this started because of the Sinjoh Ruins), and that doing absolutely everything in the game gave you the chance to battle Ash.

I don’t really have a preference for how easily information for modern games can be obtained or having to find out things on your own like with older games. I just like the aspect of communicating with others about a common interest even if there’s always that kid who is spouting nonsense. I’ve speculated on Gen 4 just as much as I did Gen 7.
 

NovaBrunswick

Canada Connoisseur
I’m aware of all the big rumors from the first 3 gens like Vermilion Mew, PokeGods, and Deoxys at the Mossdeep Space Station but my first time hearing playground rumors was Gen 4 as those were the first game I owned and played through myself.

The biggest rumor for me and my group of friends was that the Distortion World and infamous Void glitch in DPPt was leading to a fully playable “shadow” mirror universe in the post game where everything was reversed. I never bothered trying to unlock it as I was too busy trying to complete everything in the game but it was fun pitching in ideas to how to unlock it.

The only real Gen 4 rumour I remember is that the starters would break the traditional Grass-Fire-Water cycle and would be Fighting-Psychic-Dark instead, which I already mentioned before. This was obviously before DP came out.

Don't really know if these would count as rumours, but I'm sure we all thought, when they were first revealed/leaked, that Alomomola (did I spell that right?) and Bouffalant were Luvdisc and Tauros evolutions respectively. I still think they should've been, if not for BW being a "reboot" of the whole franchise.
 
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