Event Pokemon

[DarkTone 952]

Got back into playing Pokemon again, and it made me think. One of (if not my top) moments in gaming is getting all 151 pokemon legitimately in blue. I got Mew through a machine at toys r us. 

After falling down the rabbit hole known as YouTube, I saw that certain monsters given away at events had a different number. Is there a way to check from the red/blue era. And how rare are distribution carts for gen 1?

[darkchylde28 1,546]

7 hours ago, DarkTone said:

After falling down the rabbit hole known as YouTube, I saw that certain monsters given away at events had a different number. Is there a way to check from the red/blue era. And how rare are distribution carts for gen 1?

I would say fairly rare, as the information available indicates that each Toys R Us open in the US during the time of the even in 1999 would have received one distribution cart, so the total number of legit distribution carts in existence would total those stores.  It seems like those carts were just regular Pokemon Red and Blue carts that had been preloaded with Mew in every party slot as well as every box slot.  I think it would be more interesting yet to determine which of the two is rarer, as I was able to quickly and easily come up with a dump of a legit Red distribution cart, but so far no sign of a Blue one (although I did come across a dumped save from someone who received a Mew from a Blue cart, which carries the correct trainer name).

[phart010 1,676]

I am not aware of Toys R Us having a machine to give you Mew in Gen 1.
 

There was a contest in Nintendo Power where they would select 151 winners and if you won then you could mail your cartridge to Nintendo and they would return it with Mew on added to your game card. I believe this was the only official way to get Mew.

The other ways to get Mew were  through Game Genie and the old man glitch. Using these methods you could encounter Mew in the wild and catch him with a Pokeball 

[darkchylde28 1,546]

26 minutes ago, phart010 said:

I am not aware of Toys R Us having a machine to give you Mew in Gen 1.

Here you go.  That wiki article lists the details about the TRU giveaway of Mews as well as documenting the Nintendo Power giveaway, various Nintendo tour giveaways, etc.  The only way to get a legit Gen 1 Mew (which can be transferred into the Pokebank and beyond) is to have gotten one from one of the Gen 1 events back in the day or trade one off of someone who did (or their preserved and copied save file from back then).

[phart010 1,676]

1 hour ago, darkchylde28 said:

Here you go.  That wiki article lists the details about the TRU giveaway of Mews as well as documenting the Nintendo Power giveaway, various Nintendo tour giveaways, etc.  The only way to get a legit Gen 1 Mew (which can be transferred into the Pokebank and beyond) is to have gotten one from one of the Gen 1 events back in the day or trade one off of someone who did (or their preserved and copied save file from back then).

So looks like the timeline was as follows:

December 1998:
Nintendo Power giveaway - 151 Mews (All North America)

August thru October 1999:
PokeTour - undisclosed amount (Australia only)

October thru November 1999:
Pokémon League Nintendo Training Tour - undisclosed amount (USA only) 

November 1999 thru January 2000:
Nintendo Power - 1000 Mews (All North America)

December 1999:
Toys R Us - 200 Mews per store (USA only)

January 2000:
Toys R Us - undisclosed amount (Canada only)

February thru April 2000:
Pokémon 2000 Stadium Tour - all who attended could get one (USA only)

March 2000:
Pokémon 2000 Stadium Tour - all who attended could get one (Canada only)

April 2000:
Nintendo Official magazine Tour - all who attended could get one (UK only)

May thru September 2000:
N64 ultimate gamers Tour - all who attended could get one (Canada only)

And the list goes on and on in various European countries from here. I was only aware of the first 1998 distribution from Nintendo Power. I imagine many people were pissed because the distribution was so limited.

The next distribution wasn’t until August of the next year. I guess they had made some machines in mid 1999 and they sent the machines from one place to another in various locations around the world on a continuous basis until December 2002.

 

 

 

 

[OptOut 8,629]

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

April 2000:
Nintendo Official magazine Tour - all who attended could get one (UK only)

That's where I got mine!

[TheGameCollector 17]

Now it's gotten to the point where two versions of the legit event Mews were backed up and added to PKHex in the encounter database. So copies of the legit Mew can be added to save files and transferred. Their OT names are YOSHIRB (USA late 1999- early 2000) and LUIGIC (Canada 2000).

A shiny event Mew for Crystal version is also there with an OT named PCNYd (a USA November 2002 event).

I assume pretty much any GSC file or Pokemon that was preserved from back in the day had to have been done by either use of the Mega Memory Card cartridge or by transferring Pokemon to Pokemon Stadium 2 and storing them there for years, due to all GSC clocks running down all the original batteries much faster than any RBY files.

I have found backups of Gen 3 event Pokemon as well.

What I don't think I have been able to find are backups of saves with event Pokemon still on Gen 4 or Gen 5 save files. Hopefully someone out there has them. Like hopefully not everyone just moved them all to Pokemon Bank because they can't go back. Unless PKHex is capable of just back porting them without screwing up their original stats and OT data.

Edited March 24, 2022 by TheGameCollector