Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness

In Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, the sequel to Pokémon Colosseum, Cipher returns and makes more Shadow Pokémon, including one that supposedly can't be purified. It's up to a completely different protagonist to prove them wrong. Nothing quite says 2005 like Shadow Lugia on a volcanic island.

Unused AreasMore Colosseum leftovers than you'd think. Also testing rooms. Unused Song FilenamesFeaturing Norah Jones, Journey, and more classic hitsǃ

Unused Pokémon#

Bonsly#

Bonsly, the pre-evolution of the Generation II Pokémon Sudowoodo, was introduced in Pokémon XD as a major plot point and would later be introduced as an obtainable and playable Pokémon in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl one - two years later (depending on the region). Bonsly is technically playable in this game, but only as a limited Battle Bingo card. Through cheats or modding a save file, Bonsly can be obtained as a fully playable Pokémon and functions completely normally in regular battles. Unlike Generation IV and onward, however, Bonsly cannot evolve into Sudowoodo. Obtaining Bonsly will add it to the player's Strategy Memo.

The Move Teacher at Mt. Battle cannot teach Bonsly any moves - selecting Bonsly from the party will simply return the player back to the party to select a different Pokémon. Bonsly is also unable to learn any moves from the Teacher Lady in Agate Village, and Bonsly cannot be taught any TMs or HMs.

Bonsly can also be traded to a Game Boy Advance Generation III Pokémon game, but since no data for Bonsly exists in any of those games, it will appear as a corrupt Pokémon in those games (glitch Pokémon 0x19D; one of the ??????????).

Bonsly's Strategy Memo/Pokédex Info#

Bonsly's Strategy Memo: Details	Bonsly's Strategy Memo: View	Bonsly's Strategy Memo: Size

Munchlax#

Like Bonsly, Munchlax plays a role in Pokémon XD, but is never seen or used in a battle. Unlike Bonsly, Munchlax is very incomplete. Munchlax has no unique info to be seen other than its name and has no 3D model. Forcing Munchlax into the player's data will glitch party graphics and names of other Pokémon in the Strategy Memo (which Munchlax will not appear in). The game will softlock in a battle before the player's Pokémon are sent out, and the PC will crash upon exiting the menu, releasing Munchlax, or waiting too long on the PC menu.

Unused Graphics#

Just like in Colosseum, face412 is a desaturated placeholder version of Bulbasaur's icon, with no shiny icon present.

In the game, the face icons used for Pokémon during battles are stored in this format. The top image is for the Pokémon's normal coloration while the bottom sprite is for the Pokémon's Shiny coloration. Shadow Lugia doesn't have a Shiny color model, so the normal image appears twice as a placeholder.

Bonsly can only be used in Battle Bingo and cannot be Shiny, so like Shadow Lugia the normal color scheme is reused for its shiny icon.

Unused Animations#

In-air Knockout animations#

In the original Pokémon Stadium, there was a unique animation if a Flying-type Pokémon that appears grounded on its normal animation is defeated while using Fly,where the Pokémon stumbles from its flying idle animation before falling. This mechanic was scrapped for Stadium 2, just placing the Pokémon back on the ground when knocked out, but the animations for that situations were left in the files. As Pokémon Colosseum (and Pokemon XD, by extension) reuse the exact same models and animation for the Pokémon present in the first two generations, these animations are also left unused in this game as well.

Farfetch'd	Doduo	Dodrio	Articuno
Moltres	Hoothoot	Noctowl	Togetic
Xatu	Murkrow	Delibird	Skarmory
	Lugia	Ho-Oh

Most surprisingly, even the new Flying-type Pokémon introduced in Hoenn that appear grounded on their normal animation also have this mid-air fainting animation, meaning the mechanic of a more organic knockout when using Fly was considered to be brought back, but it was probably scrapped due to complications with its implementation, as the flying idle animation also doesn't properly load in most cases. It has to be pointed out that while Vibrava and Flygon can learn Fly via TM and have a grounded idle animation, they don't count with special animations when using the move.

Taillow	Swellow	Pelipper	Tropius
Swablu	Altaria	Salamence

Shiny Celebi#

For the sake of consistency, every Pokémon in every Pokémon game is given a Shiny variant, and Celebi is no exception. However, because the only way to obtain it legitimately was through distributions, the Shiny version of Celebi was left unobtainable through normal means.

Celebi - Default	Celebi - Shiny

Regional Differences#

In the Japanese and North American versions, the game will advance the PRNG at approximately 60 calls per second while in the name input screen after starting a new save file. When the player confirms their name, the seed will determine their Trainer ID, Secret ID, and the characteristics of the starter Eevee.

Conversely for the European version, the game does not constantly advance the PRNG in the name input screen, instead advancing a set amount. This means once the initial seed is determined, the player will always be able to predict what Trainer ID, Secret ID, and Eevee they will obtain without any consideration to timing.

Japanese Version PRNG Address

0x4C5B28

North American Version PRNG Address

0x4E8610

European Version PRNG Address

0x522BF0

Title Screen#

Japan	International

Banner#

Japan	International

Berry Juice#

The only source of Berry Juice in any of the Generation III games would've been as a held item on wild Shuckle in FireRed and LeafGreen, but the event needed to make Shuckle appear in the wild was never released, so the item is effectively unused.

BERRY JUICE

A 100%
pure juice
that restores HP
by 20 points.

Unused Starter Pokémon#

In the normal story mode, the player always starts the game with a Lv. 10 Eevee. Using Action Replay codes, two unused starter Pokémon can be loaded into a new save file in the place of Eevee: A Lv. 26 Jolteon and a Lv. 30 Vaporeon. Presumably, the player would have started with both of these Pokémon, and the game would have started at higher levels and had only double battles much like Pokémon Colosseum.

Their "met" location will be labeled as "Obtained from CHARACTER NAME's dad." but only if the save file is started with those two Pokémon. Exporting the Pokémon data from the save file and importing it into another XD save will not retain that "met" label (this also applies to the normal Eevee).

Info: Jolteon	Moves: Jolteon	Info: Vaporeon	Moves: Vaporeon

Y9KK-C41C-FZ2W4
E6QH-T5GW-JQKPM
TFTP-GCFD-8WPHR
7Y2V-TA4B-8RE0U

DKK7-81B2-MUJZJ
C321-Y92A-1T5NH
E9Z7-W7CN-VH1UR
GB9V-B1UH-BNXYP

041CED68 4BF8390D
041CED6C 7FE3FB78
041CED70 4BF83A2D

041D083C 4BF836FD
041D0840 7FE3FB78
041D0844 4BF8381D

Unused Battle CDs#

Battle CDs are items found in Pokémon XD that place the player in simulated battles that require a battle strategy to win in a set amount of turns. Fifty different battle CDs are available in-game, and more are left unused.

Battle CDs 51-55#

Battle CDs 51-55 are identical. They have no title, no text in their description, and no Pokémon or trainers are set. Loading one of these Battle CDs will briefly bring up Pyrite Colosseum (without the regular Battle CD intro sequence), but moments after the battle music starts, a player with no name whites out. While the game displays a card for failing the Battle CD, it is counted as being completed when selecting another Battle CD.

Battle CDs 56-60#

Battle CDs 56-60 function properly but are duplicates of the first five Battle CDs. The titles of each Battle CD are also their descriptions on the menu to load a Battle CD.

• Battle CD 56: Healing Status Problems (duplicate of Battle CD 01)
• Battle CD 57: Pokémon Types and Move Types (duplicate of Battle CD 02)
• Battle CD 58: Pokémon Type Matchups (duplicate of Battle CD 03)
• Battle CD 59: Moves That Hit Multiple Pokémon (duplicate of Battle CD 04)
• Battle CD 60: Pokémon with Two Types (duplicate of Battle CD 05)

Battle CD 00#

Though it cannot be obtained on a Battle CD through any known means, Battle CD 00 is the Salamence vs Metagross battle played at the beginning of the game. While the battle accessed through this Battle CD is certainly used in-game, the Battle CD itself is not. The only known way to see this on the Battle CD menu is to force battle_disk.fsys to load before/in place of the title screen. Trying to load this Battle CD using this method will softlock the game on a black screen.

Debug Mode#

To do: See if this function looks different on the European version. There also is a debug_menu.fsys file in the ISO - investigate this.

There is a small debug function that can be activated with the following Action Replay code:

NTSC
2BVG-96DG-WKNZB
TTXW-T3W7-P41DX

PAL
PWHZ-J798-KWMEM
9M9G-K6EY-2C20P

With the code activated, pressing D-Pad Up will show or hide a bar that has Japanese instructions on how to use the debug function. Pressing the L button will cycle between pause (instant stop), slow (low frame rate), and play (regular speed). Pressing Z will pause the game, like when pressing L sometimes, but is more accessible and doesn't need to be cycled to.

References#