What's the most embarrassing thing you used to believe about the Pokémon games?

[SlyGecko]

So back between late generation 3 and early generation 4, me and and all the neighborhood kids believed that if you evolved a Pokemon with a stone, it would die when it reached level 100. It wasn't until Gen 5 when I realized that was untrue.

 

[ToxicWhiskers]

Okay, this is kind of a recent thing and I'm probably not the only one who thought this. But when I first started playing Sword, I thought Bede was a girl and we'd be getting our first female jerk rival.

Curse my brain for jumping to such stereotypical assumptions.

 

[Welkamo]

Another one: my family and I used to think that "Someone's PC" meant that you had to interact with strangers online.

Also, another story:

I was playing Omega Ruby and was using the Dexnav. I saw a glowing spot in the grass and thought it was a shiny Pokémon, so I tried to encounter the Pokémon... only to run into another Pokémon. I was so sad and angry.

Turns out those glowing spots are just Voltorbs lol.

 

[ShieldFan]

While playing Pokemon Shield, I almost destroyed my TV trying to evolve Inkay. I turned it upside down, luckly my sister was there to help me. Indeed it didn't work, so I went to Reddit to find my answers. I'll never forget about that one. What a debacle.

 

[Hikari-dex]

I probably believed every Pokemon rumor under the sun. To name a few, I used to be afraid to surf near Cinnabar Island because I saw a Missing no. video and was afraid my game would get corrupted. There were also a few other like "Mew under the truck", "Mew under the SS Anne", Mewthree, and the getting sent into space one haha.
Also there was a rumor about Jirachi being in Mossdeep that I believed haha.
(Honorable mention to "holding down the B button makes it easier to catch Pokemon" thing--still do that to this day out of habit )

 

[KerfishSea]

Lmao I thought Charmeleon didn't exist at some point. Because my friend pronounced it as "Char-million" so I thought he made it up.

 

[helperman]

i used to think pokemon was stupid

 

[KerfishSea]

That's pretty embarrassing.

 

[helperman]

i also thought stich was a pokemon. i am sure i saw a pokemon card for it in a friends bed room

 

[RexMissingno]

I believed/misinterpreted a lot of YouTube videos when I was a kid so I was always scared whenever I got the Wynaut that it would be a Bad Egg so I would always save before getting it and not save again until it hatched. There was also the classic getting to the moon to catch Jirachi or interacting with the white rock 100 times.

There was also 8 year old me who thought that my copy of Pokemon EoD was broken because I couldn't get past the ribbon part in the intro. It wasn't until I got Sky that I realized I was supposed to press and hold it.

 

[Okido]

I believed/misinterpreted a lot of YouTube videos when I was a kid so I was always scared whenever I got the Wynaut that it would be a Bad Egg so I would always save before getting it and not save again until it hatched.

...wait a second, I believed that exact same thing. I feel marginally less silly for thinking that now, knowing it wasn't just me.

I think old YouTube videos really did a number on me, because I also remember believing there was some secret cave where you could catch Eevee in Emerald (which in retrospect was either some GameShark video I saw, or I somehow misremembered the Desert Underpass). I also thought that the hoax Legendary Pokémon "Purge" was real, if anybody else remembers that bizarre thing.

 

[prog rocker]

I think old YouTube videos really did a number on me, because I also remember believing there was some secret cave where you could catch Eevee in Emerald (which in retrospect was either some GameShark video I saw, or I somehow misremembered the Desert Underpass).

There was also a hack that added the missing Pokémon to Emerald, so it might have been that.

 

[RexMissingno]

...wait a second, I believed that exact same thing. I feel marginally less silly for thinking that now, knowing it wasn't just me.

I think old YouTube videos really did a number on me, because I also remember believing there was some secret cave where you could catch Eevee in Emerald (which in retrospect was either some GameShark video I saw, or I somehow misremembered the Desert Underpass). I also thought that the hoax Legendary Pokémon "Purge" was real, if anybody else remembers that bizarre thing.

The Eevee cave just unlocked another memory - I remember a few people would edit in legendaries in the Safari Zone too. I think it comes with finding videos for Pokemon before being familiar with what ROM hacking was.

In retrospect I wonder if the Bad Egg was the reason why I got so interested in glitch Pokemon. I was terrified of those as a kid but as I learned more about them they seemed less threatening haha

 

[Frozen Fennec]

Only happened a couple of times when playing Gold but when I got the message about PokéRus, I thought the game had glitched and that the Pokémon were going to lose stat points as they gained more level. I ended up resetting the game at the time.

 

[macho maniac]

this one is weird, and i dont know if anyone had the same thought (probably not), but until recently i was completely convinced that rotom was a LEGENDARY (or mythic, i didnt know of the split between the two for a very long time) and that people just refused to admit it. i dont know what caused my brain to think that. i think it mustve been a combination of it only being catchable under specific circumstances in a very specific spot in gen 4, and probably some youtuber mustve blurted out that it was a legendary.

i think there eventually came a time that i thought 'maybe its not actually a legendary or mythic but i wanna believe it is' because rotom always had a soft spot in my heart. until it became severely overused in the games, that is.... now i dont really care anymore because its just not got that special flare to me, so i can finally admit its not even a mythic and is just some random pokemon.

the funny part is that i can vividly remember pokemon wikis (including bulbapedia????) saying that it was a legendary.... but thats probably just my brain playing tricks on me.

2 minutes later edit: wow i cant write today huh

 

[Blanc]

Oh this is a fun thread, time to expose my 8 year old self’s stupidity.

I used to think Rotom was a legendary, solely because a random official pokedex book back in D/P era (not the guide book!) had a typo that listed Rotom as a legendary Pokemon.

I also thought you could catch Celebi in Solaceon Ruins if you brought a full team of certain Unown (forgot what letters) and walked in a certain pattern. It was some youtube video I fell for LOL.

I also believed the ‘going to space’ R/S/E rumor mentioned earlier.

I also believed the Buried Alive creepypasta was real, and used to be terrified of it. I also had an insane fear of Bad Eggs, even though I never used cheat devices.

I also used to think Giratina was some kind of bug, since I had no prior knowledge of it other than Turnback Cave just manifesting one day LOL

 

[ShieldFan]

The Substitute move is represented by a doll, but I thought it was a baby Rhydon there jumping out of nowhere to block any atack.

 

[Aulos]

In my most early days of playing Pokemon Red I thought that the items on the map (represented by Pokeballs) would have Pokemon in them.

 

[Juliko]

I somehow made myself believe that it was possible for the characters to journey to Johto or Kanto in the GBA games. I was admittedly pretty gullible when I was around 9-10, when the Ruby/Sapphire games came out. A classmate told me that he knew of a way he could get my trainer in my Pokemon Sapphire game to Johto...on the condition that I lend him my game. Without even questioning it, I did so, and the next day reality hit me in the face: He had lied to me. There was no way to go to Johto in the GBA games, and he traded my three strongest Pokemon: Blaziken, Kyogre, and Pikachu, into his own game. Upon learning this, I was pissed, and I didn't tell my parents about it because I was extremely ashamed of myself. I relented after my mother pressed me about it, but unfortunately, nothing could be done. It wound up not mattering much in the long run because I wound up losing my first copy of Sapphire. Thankfully, I managed to assuage this memory years later when Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out.

 

[XionKuriyama]

It wasn't until literally this year that I found out Geodude doesn't evolve into Onix. I feel crazy, but like, you can see it, right? A bunch of those little dudes connecting together and shedding their arms? Surely I'm not the only one who thought this, adsljkf