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Stupid things that you thought/did with pokemon as a kid

JAKnighton

Cartoonist
I used to think that moves had a secondary "effectiveness" based on what the action was. For example, Cut would be super-effective against Grass types despite being a Normal move because it was used to cut down grass and bushes in the overworld. I also thought that Dig was good against psychic types because it would always one-hit KO them. I now realise it did that because it was a 100 BP physical move at the time (RBY) and most Psychics had low Defence.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
It took me until Emerald to realize that Bug was no longer to Poison attacks. I kept wondering why moves like Sludge Bomb wasn't being super effective on Beautifly. I thought it was an error for awhile.
 

alexterri

Well-Known Member
When I first played Pokémon X, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to change my clothes at the very beginning.

.....Then I replayed it a few months ago and it took me five minutes to remember how to change again.
 

Scherzando

scare-TZAN-doe
OMG THIS IS THE ULTIMATE STUPID KID BELIEF. I have no idea why I thought this, but when I saw all the shiny pokemon sprites next to their original sprites in Serebii's pokedex, I thought that that was how all pokemon looked in Sapphire and that Ruby had all the original colorations. That's why I bought Ruby despite liking Kyogre more than Groudon, not realizing that those sprites were shinies and only had a small chance to appear in either game. I wanted all the originally-colored pokemon that I had grown up with. xD What can I say, it was my first experience with any series that had two similar games released at the same time and I didn't understand what might've made them so different from each other. Had to be something dramatic like that.

I, like most people it seems, used to mash A when catching a pokemon. it always seemed to help, and whenever I didn't buttonmash, the pokemon would always break out so I was convinced it worked. after reading that it doesn't do anything, I stopped that habit and I don't miss it. xD

I thought, when catching a pokemon, that they'd get "tired" of trying to break out after a while and your chances of catching it would actually get better the more balls you threw. didn't know it was a set chance that just has to work eventually.

I thought Psychic was still supereffective against Ghost in 3rd gen because I saw some psychic-type move supereffective against my Haunter and I didn't know it was part poison. I noticed a lot of people thought psychic was supereffective against grass because of Venusaur and Vileplume and such, but at least I knew that was wrong lol.

Used to pronounce Suicune as "SOO-ih-sine." Some other post here mentioned the exact same thing. xD

In Colosseum, I always used an Altaria and it knew the move Fly. I relied on that move a LOT and it was the attack I used the most out of all my pokemon. Then when it came time to learn Sky Attack, I tried to have it forget Fly, but Colosseum's message was something like "that move is too well-learned to have it forget the move right now" and I thought that meant it was because I had used it too many times and it was drilled into my Altaria's brain. HMs aren't even used in that game so why can't we forget them??

This one may be a little confusing but I thought Rare Candies gave pokemon the experience they needed to level up and it would overflow to the next level. As a result, I gave my Absol a rare candy when it was reeeaaally close to leveling up, thinking that it would be put at the next level, still being close to leveling up. Nope, all that experience AND the rare candy were wasted lol.
 

Espmaster

Active Member
When I was very little (like five or six), it was during gen I, and I remember thinking that every Pokémon eventually evolved into the next in Pokédex order. So Bulbasaur would evolve into Ivysaur and Venusaur, then Charmander, and Charizard would evolve into Squirtle, and so on down the line until they eventually became Mewtwo.

An isolated case of this happened to me, too. I used to think that Sharpedo evolved into Wailmer because Wailmer followed Sharpedo in the Pokedex, and I hadn't seen Wailord yet. So, I caught a Sharpedo and started leveling it up even though I already had a Wailmer just to test my theory, and I discovered I was wrong.
 

Kaija

Member
On the subject of Sharpedo > Wailmer, I continued thinking that until Megas got released, at which point I thought it was weird that it wasn't for Wailord :/

And on another note, I had real difficulties deciphering what some of the sprites were when I was little - I can't quite remember the one that took me ages to see properly, but I do remember thinking that Pinsir had its butt sticking up in the air instead of just having pincers on its head.
 

burninator59

Well-Known Member
One time, my brother had a really good Pidgeot on his team. One day when he turned on the game, it had vanished! He was convinced that it had fainted so many times that it had died.
Ever since then, I've had a fear in my heart of my Pokemon fainting too often, else they perish.
I think that incident is the reason I save my game so often and still have trouble letting my Pokemon faint to this day...
 

Fayh

Well-Known Member
Ah, Gen 1 had so many "stupid kid moments" for me. I was 10 when I first played Red and there were a lot of dumb rumours I believed.

My favourite "dumb kid" moments:

1. When I first started Red, I could not figure out how to LEAVE MY HOUSE. I was stuck in my house for about half an hour because I was new to RPGs and did not interpret the little dark rectangle as a "door mat". Aaahaha.

2. One time shortly after starting Red, I let my sister play the game for a little while. She ended up getting one of my Pokémon poisoned. When I resumed playing, the weird noise/graphic indicating the loss of HP freaked me out. I thought my sister had broken my game and I was very mad - until I hit the Pokémon Center. lol

3. Holding down A when trying to catch a Pokémon. OF COURSE.

4. Trying to find Mew under the truck. OF COURSE.
 

KaleeyJ

Member
I started playing in 1998 or 1999. My little brother got Pokemon Red, and I started playing it. I was in high school.

I freely admit that I checked out the truck in red version. I guess it was a little bit of leftover from a plot line that was dropped.


As many of us probably did, I didn't realize why the screen was flickering when a pokemon was poisoned.
And as many of us probably did, I saved over a game file on Red Version not realizing that you could only have one save file per cart.
Using my water gun TM on Rattata.
For anyone who remembers when the game manufacturers included a "playing guide" with the cartridge, you might remember that Red and Blue came with a large booklet that included a partially filled pokedex. It also specifically mentioned some "rare pokemon" that you could only encounter once in each game. For a while, I thought Abra was one of them, because I saw one on route 24, and didn't see one for a long time afterward. Then I got a game guide (still have that bad boy too, I tore the pages apart and put them in plastic sleeves in a binder. Yeah, I'm *that* person.) Since that time, I have always bought a player's guide. It really ticked me off when Nintendo Power stopped making them. And not releasing the guide at the same time as the game. Ugh.
In Gen 2, I was trying to get Togepi to evolve - kept battling with him, and he'd faint. Took till level 20 something to get him to evolve.
Putting Magikarp in daycare, then waiting for it to evolve.
Doing the old man glitch to duplicate items, but having an HM in position 6. I wound up with 128 Flashes.
Thinking the "type" hold items (like soft sand) were really cool.
Buying water stones hoping to evolve some of my water pokemon. I was trying to get slowpoke to evolve before level 30 whatever.

Of course, I still have my moments. I found out literally just this spring that you trade a slowPOKE holding a king's rock to get Slowking. I always thought that SlowBRO would evolve to Slowking, not Slowpoke.
And I accidentally wasted my master ball in OR on a Horsea not too long ago. That's more of a fat finger mistake, but man, I kicked myself for it.
 

AmethystLeslie

Well-Known Member
In Gen 2, I was trying to get Togepi to evolve - kept battling with him, and he'd faint. Took till level 20 something to get him to evolve.

Reminds me of Budew in Platinum, took it until it was in the early 30s to evolve.
 
I don't really know how I thought this, but I actually just remembered this...

Back in Generation 2, I thought Misdreavus was some kind of one-time only legendary Pokemon. I don't really know how I thought this, but I believe it was a combination of it being the only Gen 2 Ghost-type, being found in the game's final area, and being a rare encounter. I was actually kind of afraid of going into Mount Silver because I'd fear that I'd run into it randomly and not be prepared to capture it.

Then I found Red, and because I didn't find one on my way to Red, I assumed that it only spawned after he was defeated. Never did find that Misdreavus, so later on, I thought that it was actually unavailable in Crystal.

I don't know how I ever learnt that Misdreavus wasn't a legendary, actually. I'm inclined to say it would have been Pokemon Colosseum, actually- no early game trainer would have a legendary available for capture, by my reasoning. Either that, or with it being available in Pearl and not Diamond. Might have figured it out that way both thanks to Mismagius or through the fact that its equivalent, Murkrow, certainly isn't a legendary.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I was told that holding UP+B would capture Pokémon easily. That was the rumor that went around in my area.
 

Noa

Pokemon Crystal is my happy place
Charizard with the four following moves: Ember, Flamethrower, Fire Blast and Fire Spin. Unstoppable!

I was also too quick to reset my games when I should have kept them to transfer them to newer gens. I still miss a lot of my old teams. :(
 

Baggie_Saiyan

Well-Known Member
Two of the most stupidest:
1. Solo running with starters before catching legends the running with them, though in I'd always catch a Lapras and never use it aha. Didn't grasp the concept of teams until Gen 3!
2. No dedicated HM slave, I'd have a full party but always gave my starter and or legend HMs unless it mean erasing a good movie then I'd give it one of the other party members, stupid kid I know lol.
 

ShakLax

Member
Probably the most stupid thing I did was training my Growlithe to level 100 in Pokemon gold. I didn't know that he evolved using the fire stone, so I trained him hoping in its evolution. Only when he was at lv 100 someone explained to me that I needed the stone.
 
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