Unused Text

This is a sub-page of Pokémon Red and Blue.

Script Text#

Rival Victory Text#

If the player loses their first battle with their rival, the rival will say, "Yeah! Am I great or what?" before the player blacks out. This also goes for the first Route 22 encounter, and the Cerulean City encounters as well. After that, he has no dialogue before the player blacks out. However, there is unused text in the game suggesting that the rival had unique victory text for every encounter, but it wasn't programmed in. The dialogue spoken during the different encounters is as follows, with a more in-depth explanation available here.

Route 22 (First Battle)#

Offset 511bc:

Cerulean City#

Offset 19672:

S.S. Anne#

Offset 80e86:

Pokémon Tower#

Offset 60637:

Silph Co. 7F#

Offset 51ecd:

Route 22 (Second Battle)#

Offset 511d0:

Champion Battle#

Offset 862B6:

Vermilion City#

An alternate version of the text which shows up when you find the second hidden button in Lt. Surge's gym. Offset 8941a:

Underground Path#

Linked to the NPCS in the unused alternate version of Route 7's Underground Path entrance.

Assigned to the female NPC. Offset 5d773:

Assigned to the male NPC. Offset 5d77d:

Not assigned to anyone, though it likely belonged to the female NPC. It's possible her dialogue originally changed after a certain event (perhaps defeating Giovanni in the Rocket Hideout, based on context clues). Offset 5d778:

Not assigned to anyone, though it likely belonged to the male NPC. This dialogue is interesting in that it makes mention of the cut second gate house, whose Underground Path branch linked Route 5 and Route 7. Offset 5d782:

Prize Corner#

This text was intended for the Prize Corner, showing up after buying either a Pokémon or a TM, though for some reason it never shows up in-game. Offset 8a2e8:

Fuchsia City#

This appears to be an alternate version of the dialogue spoken by the Fishing Guru's brother. The following text wasn't translated when the games were localized. Offset 561c8:

Safari Zone#

West Zone	North Zone	East Zone

The following strings are used in the Japanese games, although they are assigned to invisible, intangible, yet still interactable NPCs found in three of the Safari Zone rest houses. The reason why these NPCs "don't exist" is due to them originally being Pokémon Center "couch guys", whose graphics are part of the tileset, instead of being NPC objects. All three of the following text pointers were removed in the localized games, though the corresponding dialogue was actually translated.

Offset 88428:

Interestingly, this dialogue is an earlier version of the Silph worker's dialogue. Offset 88444:

This rather odd bit of dialogue makes mention of the manager of Silph Co. hiding inside the Safari Zone. This is clearly referencing an earlier version of the game's story, as in the final games the president of Silph Co. is held hostage by Giovanni in Saffron City. Meanwhile, the only character "hiding" in the Safari Zone is a Fishing Guru found in a remote house, who offers the player the HM Surf when interacted with. This, coupled with an unused trainer class which in Japanese is called "Silph's Chief", indicates that the player would have battled him inside the Safari Zone. Offset 88462:

PC System#

A string which makes reference to the Pokémon Storage System being turned on. It can be accessed if bit 3 of 0xCD60 in RAM is unset while using Bill's PC (the ones normally in a Pokémon Center and not the PC in Bill's house). Alternatively, a version of the function that acts like a Pokémon-only PC without item storage can also be opened by command 0xFD at the beginning of text, which is curiously run for the fifth Bill's House script as demonstrated by this video (use GameShark code 010561D6 and enter Bill's House). Furthermore, it appears in unused Cable Club code for some reason. Offset 8a223:

These two strings would have logically been used when depositing and releasing a Pokémon, though In the final games, the "What?" string is always used. Offset 8a146 and 8a13a:

System Text#

Directional Options#

In addition to normal in-game options such as "YES/NO" and "HEAL/CANCEL", there are additional unused options for selecting a set of cardinal directions, with "SOUTH/WEST" strangely being missing. Offset 076a8:

Item Names#

These strings are leftovers from a scrapped badge ranking system, and thus are never used during normal gameplay. They were left untranslated when the games were localized.

For some reason, while every other entry is properly terminated with a $50 byte, エクセレント ("Excellent") is left unterminated. Therefore, if the string is, by any way, displayed by the game, the game will continue printing past the last character until it finds a $50 byte, which may overflow from the tilemap area and cause a crash.

Menu Options#

The following strings are found alongside miscellaneous system text, like the "USE/TOSS" item prompts, and the "MONEY" label that's part of the Poké Mart interface. They seem to be copies/alternate versions of used menu strings, and were left untranslated when the games were localized.

Ground Rose Up#

This string, internally known as earth_up_1_COMMSG is located between the dummy "!" message (message ID dummy_obj_0_COMMSG) and the message shown when an object requires using Strength (message ID rock_on_2_COMMSG). Offset 80096:

Player Names#

The following two strings are used as the default player and rival names, respectively, in the Red and Green debug mode.

These two strings, meanwhile, are used as the default player and rival names in the Blue debug mode, replacing the two above strings.

In the English releases, meanwhile, these were translated as follows.

Pokédex Description#

The Pokédex description for MissingNo, which was used as a placeholder in the original Japanese versions and left untranslated in the localized versions.

Pokémon Type#

The string used for the unused type referred to as "Bird". Offset 27e35:

Trade Names#

These two strings are used as the nickname given to the Beedrill from the unused in-game trade. The "Pipin" string is its assigned nickname in Red and Green, while the "Chikuchiku" string is the assigned one in Blue and the international versions. Offset 80096:

Trainer Classes#

The following strings are used by the two unused trainer classes. Offset 27f4d and 27f46:

Poké#

Found near the code relating to Pokédex is this weird string, referenced as "PokeText":

POKé

The string is a single $54 byte (which, with the dictionary compression algorithm, would be displayed as "POKé" in the international games, and "ポケモン" ("Pokémon") in the Japanese versions), followed by a terminator byte. This doesn't seem to be actually used or referenced anywhere in the international versions. However, this appears to be a remnant from the Japanese versions: (Note: comments with (round parentheses) around them don't appear in the original source code)

zukan_put: ; (called ShowPokedexDataInternal in pokered)
...
    S_POS   9,4     
    call    put_msg         ; ”種類”を表示 (translation: "display category name")
    ld  h,b
    ld  l,c
    push    de

  ifn   pm_jmsg
    ld  de,monster_str$     ; 続けて”ポケモン”を表示 (translation: "display 'Pokémon' continuously", monster_str$ is PokeText in pokered)
    call    put_msg
  endif

    ld  a,(in_dat)
    push    af
...

This code appears to put "Pokémon" after the category name, which did not occur in the international games until generation 3. The code's location in the Japanese ROM, it not being included in the international ROMs, as well as the text appearing in the Japanese versions as "ポケモン" (Pokémon), all appear to corroborate this.

Unseen Text#

Fuchsia City#

Pokémon Exhibits#

Japanese / International	Spanish

Using a walk-through-walls cheat, it's possible to enter the Pokémon exhibits outside of the Safari Zone, and as such to interact with the Pokémon there. Doing so reveals that they actually have placeholder dialogue, most likely in order to prevent crashing. This string can also be seen when attempting to talk to a trainer in the Cable Club.

Fossil Pokémon Sign#

Japanese	International

This sign is supposed to show a Pokédex entry for the fossil Pokémon which was not chosen in Mt. Moon. However, if the event is skipped by using a walk-through-walls cheat or warp glitch, the sign will instead display a placeholder message consisting of suspension points. Once again likely added in order to prevent crashing.

Duplicate Sign#

Japanese	International

A copy of the sign describing Fuchsia City is located at X:15 - Y:23, in the middle of the rock formation behind the house of Bill's grandfather, and as such is normally inaccessible without using a walk-through-walls cheat code.

Safari Zone Warden#

This is what the Safari Zone Warden is supposed to say if you don't have any room in your inventory to take HM04, but it goes unseen since you need to hand over the Gold Teeth to get it, which automatically frees up a slot.

Saffron City#

Copycat's Plush#

Atop the Copycat's desk is a bird Pokémon plush which is normally unreachable due to its position. Using a walk-through walls-cheat to reach it reveals that it can be interacted with, and is assigned the same string that's used for her other plushies.

Copycat's PC#

This message is displayed when you attempt to view the computer in the Copycat's bedroom from the back, which during normal gameplay is completely impossible seeing as how it's located in the leftmost corner of the room. Also note that the German versions does in fact contain an erroneous extra lineskip. Offset 9e67c:

Indigo Plateau#

The following string is assigned to the two statues right by the second row of walls in front of the Pokémon League Building. However, since the player can't go in front of them to read the message, and interacting with the statues from the side doesn't work, this string goes unseen. A rewritten version of this message would later be used in FireRed and LeafGreen across Route 23 and the League exterior. Offset 88f0a:

Corrupted Cable Club Data#

During a Cable Club session, the 1.0 version of Red and Green checks if either player's name starts with character ID 60 (an Ａ). If so, a message about data corruption appears on the 「つうしんじゅんびちゅう！」 ("PLEASE WAIT!") screen, which is seemingly looped indefinitely.

To get an Ａ as the first character in your name, simply use the GameShark code 01601DD1. To do it without a cheating device, execute arbitrary code execution (like with the "てへ" hex:7B glitch item), such as with items Lemonade x96, Carbos x209, X Accuracy x29, and Water Stone x201, which will change D11D to 60. To obtain it without arbitrary code execution, the "Super Glitch" can also be used with some very specific requirements.

    ld a, [wPlayerName]
    cp $60
    jr nz, .playerDataNotCorrupted
    ld de, OneselfString
    jr .corrupted
.playerDataNotCorrupted
    ld a, [wLinkEnemyTrainerName]
    cp $60
    jr nz, .parterDataNotCorrupted
    ld de, PartnerString
.corrupted
    call CopyStringToCF4B
    ld hl, DataCorruptedString
    call PrintText
    jr @ ; spin

If both players' names start with character ID 60, then they will be both be shown a message stating 「じぶんの　データが　こわれています！」 ("My data is corrupted!"). If only one player has their name starting with character ID 60, then only Player 1 will receive the previous message, Player 2 instead getting 「あいての　データが　こわれています！」 ("Partner's data is corrupted!"). However, the continuation of these messages isn't displayed under any conditions, and as such 「でんげんを　きって　やリなおしてください。」 ("Please turn off the power and try again.") is never seen.

As there is no obvious reason for this check to be performed, it was removed for Red and Green 1.1, Japanese Blue and Yellow, and the games' localizations. As such, attempting to connect Red and Green 1.0 to Japanese Blue and Yellow via the Cable Club causes the games from which the check was removed to behave erratically, since they try and fail to battle and trade normally.