The jump to the 3rd Generation or Advanced Generation in the Pokémon franchise was a big one. This was the move to the Gameboy Advance starting with Ruby and Sapphire. While no new Pokémon types were introduced, abilities were, as was the considerable graphical improvement. There was a big hype for this Generation, to the point that the Pokémon anime ruined the end of the Second Generation hyping up the new Pokémon, but that would be for a different rant-of-a -series.

Right away with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and its pokedex of 200 (202 we will get that) Pokémon, there was an instant declared state. While Gold and Silver allowed trading with the previous Generation, and was how you got Pokémon that weren’t in the Second Generation, Gen 3 did not allow transferring! Gen 3 was cut off from the previous 2 Pokémon Generations. So those 200 Pokémon in game were at the start the only Pokémon you could get.

As the 3rd Generation went on, more games were introduced that brought back Pokémon missing from the Hoenn pokedex. This started with the GameCube game Colosseum and frankly it was advertising the return of these Pokémon, and once you beat the story mode, you could transfer Pokémon to and from the game to Ruby and Sapphire. They also included a fix to a bug for the berry trees in the uplink. Next came the remakes of the Original Pokémon games with Fire Red and Leaf Green. After them the only missing Pokémon was Lugia and he became available thanks to the second Colosseum game. That’s 6 Pokémon games to complete the national dex to catch them all…. until you then remember mythic Pokémon exist and the 3rd Generation made it all worse than before.

Every issue with event Pokémon was now becoming exacerbated. Mew did have some event releases. Pokémon Emerald version, the 3rd version to go with Ruby and Sapphire, had an event item in the game that would send you out to Faraway Island to encounter Mew. This event however was never released outside of Japan, much like Celebi in Crystal, Mew had content in the game made but because of event distribution was not available to people who purchased it. As for Celebi, notably it was not released at all in Europe during the 3rd Generation. Gen 3 in Europe was impossible to complete the national dex.

But there were 2 more mythic Pokémon created for the third Gen. Jirachi was different in its distribution. The game Pokémon Channel in Europe and Australia upon completion allowed you to transfer this Pokémon over. Jirachi was the wish granting Pokémon and like Mew and Celebi had 100 base stats in all its stats. Jirachi however lacked Mew and Celebi’s teases in the original games, but for once there was a mythic Pokémon that wasn’t locked behind your post code, you just needed to shell out the money for a GameCube game that honestly wasn’t worth it.

The other Pokémon was far more unique gameplay wise, Deoxys. While teased in game with the Space Centre its the event and information about this one that is where it gets interesting. Deoxys is an alien, not specifically to be like others, but genuinely is. Its lore mentions that it was an alien virus that landed on Earth (or whatever the Pokémon world is called) that upon encountering Pokémon, mutated into one. Gameplay its unique feature is that its form will depend on what game you have. While Ruby and Sapphire had a “normal” form, Fire Red had Attack, Leaf Green Defence and Emerald Speed. This was the first Pokémon to have different forms in game. While the other mythics all had base 100 stats Deoxys’s depended on the form, its moves it learned were also different. Deoxys however was event locked. An item you could get from events would lead you to an island were after a short puzzle you would face the alien. I am happy to say the rereleases of Fire Red and Leaf Green give you this item upon beating the Elite 4, but back then, you had to be in the right area when those events were being distributed or once again you had content in a game you owned locked.

By this point event Pokémon were always featuring in one of the Pokémon movies. Jirachi had one and Deoxys did too… but the Gen 3 movies were terrible, I recall seeing the Deoxys one on TV years later and…. I’m not exaggerating even for a Pokémon movie that was bad. The end just seemed to invent a new problem as if it ran out of steam and forgot about the Space virus and Sky Dragon. It was the trend that it was with these movies that the main distribution events for mythic event Pokémon would occur. Maybe not the movie itself but around the time of the theatrical release. Helping to sell the tickets and build buzz around the game, which it would need as well don’t expect me to ever review those movies without getting paid in some way.

Sadly a new problem now entered into the tale, as event Pokémon were no longer being contained to mythics. The Gen One remakes also included a second event island which contained Ho-oh and Lugia. This was Naval Rock, after obtaining the mystery ticket you could head to this island. The Mystery ticket was not distributed in Europe… I’m having to pause on writing there as, I’m seeing so much content looking into these that was programmed into the game, but never released because of location.

We have with the 3rd Generation seen the number of mythic Pokémon doubled, yet still remained the same problems, only now we’re getting lots more content locked in the games that can’t be accessed legitimately. Some cases were even if you live near where places do these events, the events simply never happened in that part of the world. Memory on the cartridges waisted for the sake of hype that you will never get.

But it was going to get to its worst point. For despite the 4th Generation including online features, there would be some of the worst cases of event Pokémon they ever did.