Four unsolved mysteries in the 6th gen Pokemon games
Pokemon is pretty straightforward, right? Go on a Pokemon journey, collect 8 badges, save the day, become the champion. Right.
Wrong.
Being games that have always had a fairly large and relatively open world to explore, every Pokemon game has had tons of little side quests and interesting stories spread out through the various regions. Each generation, this has lead to a variety of mysteries that were left unsolved for months after the games came out, from the infamous untrue strength-truck-mew mystery in gen 1 to the elaborate Regi quest in gen 3.
With the intersection of the internet and the ability to connect with other like minded gamers around the world easily, these mysteries and urban myths became simply puzzles with a definitive answer. All it takes is an internet search and the answer is provided for you.
So what were Gamefreak to do in order to keep up the air of mystery surrounding the pokemon games? Well, in the latest generation, they have managed to come up with some interesting mysteries that, even 18 months later, still remain unsolved by gamers worldwide.
Generation VI
Before we get into the mysteries I have for you today, I will lay out a bit of an explanation first - Generation VI (6) of the pokemon games consists of both Pokemon X & Y (XY) as well as Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire (ORAS). Even though ORAS is technically a remake of the generation 3 games, it has its own timeline, story, graphics etc. It lines up with the story of XY in the same way that Black & White 2 line up with the original Black and White, therefore they count as a single generation.
Alright, lets get into it!
XY And ORAS ghost girls
Possibly one of the most well known mysteries surrounding XY was the appearance of a ghostly figure in a certain building in Lumiose City.
As seen in the video above, When you ride the elevator to the second floor of said building, the music stops, the screen flashes to black. Upon re-brightening, a mysterious figure appears behind you, proceeds to float passed you, saying 'No, you're not the one...'. After she disappears, the music comes back and you are free to roam around the empty room. This only happens once, the first time you enter the floor - after that, the floor just continues to be empty.
Many have speculated that this 'ghost girl' is looking for a trainer with a specific Trainer ID (A unique code given to each player at the start of the game). As of the time of writing this, it has been 18 months since this game was released - and no one has come forward with a specific ID that has worked.
To add to the mystery of the XY ghost girl, a new figure was found in a whole different building in another city entirely. She has the same sprite as the ghost girl, won't actually look at you when you talk to her, and says the following:
Coincidence? Maybe, but doubtful.
With the release of ORAS, many had thought that Gamefreak had forgotten all about the ghost girl in XY. That was until a few days later, when people started making it up to the Pokemon league's second challenger.
If you missed it in the video, the girl appears sitting on the chair in the background when talking to Phoebe, for a single frame as the screen fades to black. The camera proceeds to then take the view of the child, walking over to your character while Phoebe is still talking. The child is then able to be seen over the players shoulder prior to the actual battle commencing.
Again, you can only see this ghost girl the first time you play through the Pokemon league - after that, you never see her again.
Apart from these two main ghost stories, here are several other little ghost related tidbits:
There is a girl in Mt Pyre of ORAS, with the same sprite from XY, who says this to you:
In Mauville Hills, there is an apartment up for rent (which you unfortunately can not access) that has a slightly different response on the intercom / statement on the wall next to the door than other vacant apartments on the floor:
What does all this mean? Are there actual people ghosts throughout these Pokemon games? Are they all related in some way? Are they there just because the devs wanted to mess with us - or is it something more?
We still don't know the answer - and we may never find out.
The Power Plant in XY
Part of the main story in XY leads you through a power plant in the dessert to defeat the baddies and foil their evil plans. The area is quite simple however - you only need to go through a few doors, the path being pretty straightforward.
What was quickly discovered however, was that there are several entrances to the power plant throughout the dessert, all with locked doors barring the way. Out of the five entrances to the power plant, only the one is accessible - the others are locked off for the entire game and never open up.
Why even have these doors if they never become accessible? Why say they are locked if they can not be unlocked?
Many people, myself included, have tried all sorts of ways to open these doors, to little avail. Was it possible that the new keyring Pokemon Klefki could unlock them? Alas, no. Was there a pass in ORAS that could be transferred across to unlock them? Not one that has been discovered - yet, anyway. Did the devs have bigger plans for these areas, but didn't get time to finish them - so they decided to just lock them off?
Some have since wondered if these areas were going to be the areas that housed some as yet unreleased Pokemon. Which leads me to...
Hoopa & Volcanion
With the release of XY, the number of Pokemon available was boosted to a whopping 718. That is a lot of monsters to collect!
However, several months after the game had been out, hackers had finally found a way into the code of the game, and in doing so revealed three more completely unannounced Pokemon - Diancie, Hoopa and Volcanion.
Out of these three, Diancie has since been released via an event into the world, but the other two remain elusive as ever. The only way to get these Pokemon is through hacking the game.
Since its discovery, many have speculated that Volcanion will some day soon be released as an event into the XY games - in the form of the player being given access to the rest of the power plant. This would be similar to the whirl islands of generation 2 - in order to find the legendary Pokemon, you would have to work your way through a maze of tunnels right to the very bottom. This seems potentially likely, given that it has been reported that the event will include the player being given a Plant Key.
Personally, my theory on Volcanion is a little bit different. The volcano in ORAS, Mt. Chimney, is a key fixture in the game - it stands above everything when you are soaring through the sky. Apart from the obvious fact that Volcanion's name is pretty similar to the word 'volcano', part of the description of the Pokemon in the OR and Y video games is 'It's said to live in mountains where humans do not tread.' Sounds much more like the insides of a volcano rather than a human built power plant, no?
The last of the three unreleased Pokemon, Hoopa, has a whole 'nother back story, with some interesting tidbits. To get the full scoop, I suggest reading Patricia Hernandez's article on Pokemon's unsolved mysteries - skip to 'Where do the legendaries come from?' to read all about the theories surrounding Hoopa and it's potential involvement around all the other legendaries that can be found in ORAS.
The TL;DR of Hoopa is that it could be the Pokemon that is bringing the legendaries to ORAS through inter-dimensional portals. Like I said, it makes much more sense if you read the long version.
The relationship between Archie, leader of Team Aqua, and an old Legendary Pokemon
While all of the above mysteries are relatively well known in the Pokemon world, this particular one is one I discovered myself before finding out about it online, so I'm pretty proud of that.
In what we can assume is Shelly's room (Shelly being one of the team aqua admins, under Archie) there is a picture on the dresser that can be read.
The full message, when the picture is interacted with, reads: 'There is a picture of a boy with a shaved head, a girl with black hair, and a Pokemon with three notes attached to it's head. "The 7th day of the -th month, -002. With Arc-ie and -rachi."'
Given that this can only be Shelly's room, you would assume that the black haired girl would be Shelly herself. Shelly's devotion to and relationship with her boss, Archie, is a pretty good indication that it's fairly likely that the bald boy is him. This leaves the Pokemon with three notes on its head. So what Pokemon has 3 notes attached to its head and name ends in -rachi?
Whether this is a little easter egg or something else is completely unknown at this point, but it seems likely that the there is definitely something more to this.
The date mentioned in the photo could be any number of dates, but a few certain numbers add up. In Japan (home of Pokemon) 7/7, or the 7th of July, is the day of the Tanabata festival. Traditionally, this has been the day that Gamefreak has released events for obtaining Jirachi in Japan in other Pokemon games. Additionally, 2002 is the year that the original Ruby and Sapphire games were released in Japan.
Jirachi, according to it's varying pokedex entries, is only awake for one week every thousand years; will grant any wish during that week; and will fight even while it stays asleep if it senses danger. I can easily see this tying in with the ORAS story. Maybe we'll see on the 7th of July.
That rounds out my four interesting and unsolved mysteries that I would love to get answers to for generation VI of the Pokemon franchise. What other mysteries do you know of that you'd love some answers to?