Why is MissingNo. famous?
A "Pokémon" that was never meant to be seen, and a playground legend that grew around it.
Case status: Solved. The games or the developers give a clear answer.
What the games say
The first Pokémon games, Red and Green in Japan in 1996 and Red and Blue elsewhere in 1998, kept a hidden numbered list of Pokémon inside the game code. Fans call these hidden numbers "index numbers". The list had room for 190 slots. Only 151 held real Pokémon, so 39 were left empty.
When the game points at an empty slot, it uses a placeholder name: MissingNo., short for "missing number". The Japanese name, Ketsuban, means the same thing. It was never a Pokémon the developers designed, and it has never been a part of any Pokémon game after the first generation.
What fans think
In the late 1990s, rumours about it spread in playgrounds. Some kids said it was a secret Pokémon or a hidden prize. Fans now call it a "glitch Pokémon", and many treat it as a piece of gaming history.
A few fans like to say the developers left it in on purpose as a joke. That is a theory. The simpler story is that a placeholder was needed, so a placeholder was made.
- Index number (fan term): A fan word for the hidden number the game uses inside, different from the Pokédex number you see.
- Glitch Pokémon (fan term): A fan word for placeholder data that looks like a Pokémon when something goes wrong.
Our verdict
Case status: Solved
Solved. MissingNo. is a placeholder, not a hidden Pokémon.
We are not going to explain how to find it. Doing so can scramble saved games, and the real story is more interesting than the trick.
What do you think?
Why do you think people still love this story?
- The mystery
- The playground rumours
- Because it is a bit silly
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