Glitch City Laboratories Archives

I recently found something odd when looking at a few Pokémon I got from in-game trades in my Spanish version of Blue.

So, I think that most people who have played a Generation I game and have traded with in-game trainers know that the OT name of all these Pokémon are "TRAINER" in the English version. But, it seems, this name isn't actually tied to the Pokémon, and is hardcoded into the game. So, if you transfer the Pokémon to a different game, the OT name may change, depending on the game that you trade the Pokémon to.

Confused? Well, in the Spanish versions of Pokémon, this OT name is "ENTREN." instead; this makes sense, as it is an abbreviation of "Entrenador", the Spanish word for Trainer. However, here is the especially weird part! Whenever I traded any of these Pokémon to any of my other games (which are all English), the OT name changed to either "TRAINER" or "Trainer", depending on the game!

In most English Pokémon games, this string will be the former: "TRAINER". However, the one exception is the English version of Pokémon Stadium 2, where it will be "Trainer". (The fact that I used a Spanish GB cart has nothing to do with this; the same thing would happen for an in-game Pokémon that originated in an English-language cartridge.)

Here are some screenshots to demonstrate my point – I used every Pokémon cartridge I have, with at least one game from each of the first two generations. I used a Farfetch'd for this example, nicknamed "KUMO" (yes, that's the nickname they gave to Farfetch'd in the Spanish versions of R/B, but at least it isn't as weird as BOB the Nidorina). [size=7pt](Note to self: Finish and mainspace this page!!)[/size] You'll notice it's the same Farfetch'd due to the stats (the IVs are always random), ID number (which is always random as well), and gender (where applicable).

* Blue a.k.a. Azul
* Stadium 1
* Stadium 2 (This is where I first noticed this oddity in the first place)
* Red
* Gold
* Crystal

I don't know how or why this happens, but I'm assuming that the OT name has some special character in it, which causes the games to interpret it as the "TRAINER"/"Trainer"/"ENTREN."/etc. string. I also wonder if this happens among other languages, which likely have their own unique hardcoded strings…

And no, I don't know what the string is in the Spanish version of Stadium 2…

Thanks! As for trading between English and Spanish versions, this is actually something that I have known about for years. I attempted it back in 2007 using TGB Dual, because I figured that since I was using an emulator, I had nothing to lose. And surprisingly, it worked! It's weird that many manuals say not to do this (such as the Gold manual (page 38), the Stadium 2 manual (page 6), or even the Spanish Blue manual (strangely, this warning wasn't present in the English Blue manual on the same page)), but it still works.

And no, there were zero problems whatsoever. The OT did not shift 5 spaces to the right, it remained intact somehow, and so did all the other data. I think the address happens to be different among versions, anyway (I could be wrong, though), so the location of the data doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm guessing there's some pointer that stores the proper address in every game.

Also, the compatibility is the reason why you can only enter English letters in your nickname or a Pokémon's nickname, even in the Spanish version – these letters don't exist in any form in the English version. Here are some screenshots demonstrating this:

[img]http://i45.tinypic.com/ab44dg.png[/img] [img]http://i46.tinypic.com/2lth5z9.png[/img]

Notice the lack of the following characters: Á, , Í, , , , , á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, ü, ¿, and ¡

This was the case until Diamond and Pearl, although it would have worked in Generation III as well without any problems (except for the Pal Park thing).

Also, it works with the Stadium games. Again, with zero problems whatsoever (although I'm not sure if this bug occurs because of me using a Spanish Blue…). You can see me using a Spanish Blue with an English Stadium 2 in this video here. Even though I don't have a video of it, it works just as well in the English Stadium 1.

Since English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian versions all (at least to my knowledge) have 7-character limits for trainer names, 10-character limits for Pokémon nicknames (as opposed to 5 for both in the Japanese version), and the Latin alphabet (as opposed to kana), I wouldn't be surprised at all if these versions were all compatible with each other. However, I only tested English and Spanish together. Someone ought to try all other combinations (with TGB Dual), though. I'd be very surprised if Japanese versions worked with anything else, though, due to reasons that I mentioned. Same thing with Korean versions of G/S for the same reasons.

Now as for the magic words… that explains why the string changes between games. I'm guessing the magic words exist because of lack of space in cartridges at the time, so apparently the programmers needed to save as much space as possible by shorting the byte lengths of strings that are very commonly used. I wouldn't be surprised if Generation II used them too, at least the TRAINER string to maintain backward compatibility. (Does someone have a list of magic words in G/S/C?) Do current generations use them, too? I'm curious about that.

Some of the magic words are weird, too. Why is the "……" there? I've never seen it (at least from what I can remember), and I didn't even know raised ellipsis even existed in Generation I (though I've seen it lots of times in the English Crystal). "TM" doesn't seem that necessary; it's only two characters, although I guess that adds up for the names of all the TMs. Also, I find it odd that "Enemy " has a space after it, while none of the other strings do.

Now as for the magic words… that explains why the string changes between games. I'm guessing the magic words exist because of lack of space in cartridges at the time, so apparently the programmers needed to save as much space as possible by shorting the byte lengths of strings that are very commonly used.

Also, I find it odd that "Enemy " has a space after it, while none of the other strings do.

When you cheat to battle your rival before meeting him, his name is "?", but appears to be set to "???" later in game, and then it's of course changeable when you speak to the policeman. When checking glitch mail, GREEN/BLUE will occasionally appear, even though you never get to name the original Kanto rival in Generation II. So ???, GREEN/BLUE and MOM (DUDE) are probably examples, but I don't know if they work the same way.

In the original Japanese versions, TM was spelled out in full as machine move () meaning this would be quite useful to have. Assuming that the TM names use the value from 0x5C, I guess it would have also been a more efficient way of using "TM" [93][8C] all the time. Maybe this is related to the oversight in French Red and Blue, where the little girl on Celadon Rooftop refers to CT49 as "TM49", but everywhere else in the game it's referred to as "CT".

Some of the magic words are weird, too. Why is the "……" there? I've never seen it (at least from what I can remember), and I didn't even know raised ellipsis even existed in Generation I (though I've seen it lots of times in the English Crystal). "TM" doesn't seem that necessary; it's only two characters, although I guess that adds up for the names of all the TMs. Also, I find it odd that "Enemy " has a space after it, while none of the other strings do.

Regarding "……" ($59), it was sometimes used in the Japanese versions. I don't remember it being used in the English games either, so it might simply be a leftover like the way that there are still some Japanese characters in the English games. It may be of note that the English Generation II used this, as they incorporated "……" as part of the message at the beginning of the game before you set the clock time.

[img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj640/Torchickens/SixElipses.png[/img]