Which pokemon feels like a legendary/mythical, but isn’t?

[skynerel]

I know many people in the fandom think Volcarona can fill this spot. I also thought Rotom was a legendary back in the day lol. Only one capture per game, no gender and its location made me believe that.

 

[Okido]

Rotom is probably the poster child for this phenomenon, all that and it even had the Battle! Legendary music in its debut games. Of course these days there's a Rotom inside of every smartphone so it definitely feels a lot less legendary now. :p

Personally I thought Spiritomb was a Legendary or at least some kind of "special" Pokémon for the longest time. The fact that obtaining it required its own unique item, coupled with the obscure and time-consuming method of actually getting to encounter the thing, felt very on par with other Legendary and Mythical Pokémon of the era.
I actually thought the same about Absol, mostly due to its in-game lore and rarity (I even wasted a Master Ball on one in Emerald when I was a kid for this reason... yes you can laugh).

Conversely, Phione is technically classified as a Mythical, yet it still feels like a regular ol' Pokémon to me.

 

[Pasio]

Zoroark and it's prevolution were exclusively first obtained through event in their debut games.

In order to get Zoroark, you had to transfer over a specific shiny Entei, Raikou, or Suicune event from Gen 4 and bring them over to the Losthorn Forest.

In order to get Zorua you had to either breed Zoroark or you had to transfer a specific Celebi event from Gen 4 and bring it to a building in Castelia City. Iirc it was the same building as The Name Rater. You had to talk to a seemingly quiet boy in a blue shirt there to find out it was Zorua this whole time.

I brought these up because they were handled in a manner similar to mythical Pokémon and my classmates at school during this time even mistakenly referred to Zoroark as a mythical for it. It even specializes in an entire gimmick almost no other Pokémon does, which is the ability to channel illusions. Not only does it create illusions, it's described as the Master of Illusions.

 

[Juliyet]

Unown. Their mysteriousness, their consistent lore heavy sidequests to obtain em, and their major importance in the third movie, all prop em up to be this insane force. Ignore that they're practically useless in the actual games aside from collecting

 

[Pigrider09]

Maybe ditto? It’s decently rare and has a lot of utility, plus the whole headcanon that it’s a failed mew clone

Fun fact that is somewhat related: I used to think geodude was the most op Pokemon. I think because I thought it couldn’t be damaged because it’s a rock?

 

[Okido]

Wait a minute! I neglected to mention Carbink.

It's a relative of a Mythical Pokemon — it looks like Diancie, it has the same movepool as Diancie, it's even outright stated that Diancie is a rare "sudden transformation" of Carbink — and yet, in-game there's absolutely nothing special about it at all. It's not even particularly hard to find! I remember back in the day a lot of people were convinced that it could actually evolve into Diancie or otherwise be used to obtain one somehow, but of course that wasn't the case.

Its only purpose is to tie into Diancie's lore, but it didn't even get the honor of being Mythical itself... how sad.

 

[lisianthus]

Unown. Their mysteriousness, their consistent lore heavy sidequests to obtain em, and their major importance in the third movie, all prop em up to be this insane force. Ignore that they're practically useless in the actual games aside from collecting

...I thought they were Mythicals until I heard this! LMAO

I feel like Minior could have been a neat Mythical? I don't have much reason for this other than that I think their backstories are very neat, and they tie in very nicely with the symbolism of Alola as a region! Plus, their designs are nice...?

 

[Kirumi]

I thought it was Aerodactyl for the original generation. It is pretty much located in the ending part of the Kanto Pokédex next to the likes of Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres all of them being flying type Pokémon.
Also, if you read the manga Aerodactyl is discovered and then used by Red to indeed battle against Moltres.

 

[c la fet]

I also thought Rotom was a legendary back in the day lol. Only one capture per game, no gender and its location made me believe that.

Even official media believed it was a Legendary, in the Special manga, Rotom is said to be part of the legendary and mythical Pokémon of Sinnoh.

 

[EzloSpirit]

Togepi is Mythical because it created Arceus with the power of happiness. /j

Anyway, it's always struck me as weird that Arcanine is classified as THE Legendary Pokémon, and no one considers it A Legendary Pokémon. XD

 

[Thegameandwatch]

Lucario since it got its own movie and was only obtainable once per game prior to Gen 5. I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe it was planned to be a Legendary but this was changed when Riolu was made.

 

[Daenerys]

Chimecho, Rotom, and Zoroark.

 

[StormyStinger]

Chimecho, Rotom, and Zoroark.

Okay, I get Rotom and Zoroark, but what's special about Chimecho?

 

[Daenerys]

Okay, I get Rotom and Zoroark, but what's special about Chimecho?

The fact that there was only like a 2% chance of finding it in the wild in one specific area in R/S/E, aka the generation that introduced it. IIRC no NPC uses Chimecho during the main storyline either, so it was incredibly rare and not very often seen in the core Gen 3 games.

Also I believe Chimecho was the last Pokemon in the internal data of the National Dex index in R/S, which implies that it was added late into the game's development and could've been a planned Legendary/Mythical.

 

[toastghost]

gholdengo, because of the thing of having to collect special items to obtain it, and volcarona because it's rare, near the back of the pokedex, evolving at a super high level, and the lore about it being a replacement for the sun really scream legendary to me

 

[Thegameandwatch]

The fact that there was only like a 2% chance of finding it in the wild in one specific area in R/S/E, aka the generation that introduced it. IIRC no NPC uses Chimecho during the main storyline either, so it was incredibly rare and not very often seen in the core Gen 3 games.

Also I believe Chimecho was the last Pokemon in the internal data of the National Dex index in R/S, which implies that it was added late into the game's development and could've been a planned Legendary/Mythical.

One unrelated fact is that Latios according to how the cry for each Pokémon are sorted was added much later then Latias. Latios is only before Jirachi compared to Latias who is near the beginning. This doesn’t mean that it was added very late but still not early in development. Chimecho is still at the very end like in the regular index.

The cry listing is in the beta page for Gen 3.

 

[carpology]

when i was younger i thought wholeheartedly that tropius was a legendary because it looked legendary to me & i was so confused when someone didn't take my tropius for the mew they offered over trade LOL. i also thought for some time that arcanine was a legendary because a pokémon book i had as a child called it that (but little did i know that was just the title... i literally just learned that was the case). at the moment i don't think there's anything in particular that strikes me as 'feels like a legendary'? other than pokémon that are obviously meant to evoke that feeling, like hydreigon or kommo-o...

 

[Queen Of Space]

darkrai and cresllia both look like legendaires and mythicals at the same time. So it’s strange that one is a mythical and one is a legendary. They should either have made cresellia a mythical to go along with darkrai or made darkrai a legendary

 

[a230]

Dragonite cause of the episode of the lighthouse giant.

 

[Handium]

All of the poster children of it and golurk