25 Hidden Pokémon Locations That Casual Fans Will Never Find (And Where To Find Them)
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Pokémon fans are still finding incredible secret areas in the games. These are the hardest locations to find in the Nintendo games.
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The Pokémon world is full of awe-inspiring mysteries and rare creatures just waiting to be found by eager and weirdly responsible ten-year-olds. Just when trainers think they’ve found everything, Nintendo releases another game to keep us exploring. Will we ever find everything? Probably not, because Nintendo will have Game Freak making new Pokémon games until the company or the Earth literally collapses. My money’s on Nintendo winning that one.
With seven generations’ worth of Pokémon games released and an eighth on the way, it’s getting nearly impossible to stay aware of every secret the series has to offer. There are hidden gardens, disappearing islands, and a truck that somehow managed to park in the middle of a body of water. Even the most experienced trainers are bound to have missed something on their journey to be the very best. Fortunately, you have your friends here at TheGamer.
Below I’ve compiled a list of some of the most rewarding, mystifying, and…strangest secrets to exist in the Pokémon games. Decades worth of questions will finally be answered, even ones you didn’t know you had. So get your best team together, dust off the old game cartridges, and let’s dive into 25 of Pokémon’s best-hidden locations.
25 The Ruins Of Alph And Arceus’ Secret
The Ruins of Alph are an easily accessible area of the Johto region, so you might be wondering why they’re on this list. The truth is, the ruins contain several secrets that a kid of eleven (namely, me) wouldn’t have the patience to find. The most basic of these are the four slide puzzles in the various chambers. Solving them is essential to capturing every variation of Unown. That’s 26, one for each letter of the alphabet. Quite a task for a kid with a tiny attention span. It gets even deeper in HeartGold and SoulSilver. There, you have to catch all 26 Unown letter variations and return to the entrance to get the ! and ? Unown.
If mass capturing isn’t your thing, there’s still some freaky secrets in the ruins that require specific Pokémon to be walking behind you. If you take an Unown inside the ruins, they’ll begin to speak in almost human speech and might even dance. There’s a huge special event that requires a very specific Arceus, one given by Nintendo itself. If you manage to bring such an Arceus to the Ruins Of Alph, you can open up a secret ruin that is located somewhere between Johto and generation four’s Sinnoh. Called the Sinjoh Ruins, it contains an altar that allows Arcues to conduct a creepy ritual that births a new legendary Pokémon into existence. It’s as odd for a kids game as it sounds.
24 The Cavern With No Name
The Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remake games had a plethora of secrets. A lot of that had to do with the ability to fly on a Latios or Latias and get a bird’s eye view of the Hoenn region. This new perspective allowed the developers to get creative and hide all sorts of little secret areas that could only be found through flying. One set of areas is called “mirage islands.” Not to be confused with the Mirage Island in regular Ruby and Sapphire. These islands do appear sporadically, but hold different secrets.
In fact, these newer mirage islands sometimes have specific conditions that allow you to trigger them. This one, called Nameless Cavern, will appear if you have at least three Pokémon with maximum friendship The Nameless Cavern is a very simple place. Its only significant landmark is a “mysterious ring” at the back that will allow you to battle the fourth gen legendaries Mesprit, Uxie, and Azelf. Which one you find will depend on the time of day. From 4 AM to 7:59 PM you get Mesprit, from 8:00 PM to 8:59 PM you get the lazy Uxie, and from 9:00 PM to 3:59 AM you’ll find Azelf.
23 Where The True Master Lives
This is actually an easter egg that appears in every Pokémon game. In some random building somewhere will be Game Freak, the very company that makes the Pokémon games. It serves a different function in each game. Sometimes you can present your completed Pokédex to get a diploma (that you sadly can’t put on your resumé), and sometimes you can even battle the developers! In the most recent Pokémon Sun and Moon, the Game Freak office is located in Heahea City on Akala Island. To fight the developer, known as “Game Freak Morimoto” in the game, you have to first become the League Champion.
The developer you battle is based on Shigeki Morimoto, who has worked on the Pokémon games since the beginning!
After losing, Morimoto will give the player with an Oval Charm. Not just that, completing the Alola Dex will let you talk to the game’s director and get the Shiny Charm. Strangely enough, Game Freak changes slightly in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Morimoto is joined by another developer, Iwao, for a double battle. This changes the reward for the battle and the completed Alola Dex, too. But the location is the same in both games, and is worth a visit.
22 The Lost City
The original Red and Blue games were the product of a small budget, little time, grand ideas, and a passionate team of developers. Many indie games thrive in these conditions, and obviously, the Pokémon franchise did alright. Still, those original games were full of bugs and glitches. The Safari Zone, in particular, is the source of many, including a literal city of glitch. Getting into Glitch City requires messing around with the Safari Zone’s entrance and step limit. First, enter the zone as usual, then immediately leave. When the attendant asks if you want to leave early, say “no” and go back in. Then save and restart the game. Now when you try to leave the game, the attendant will instead ask if you want to join a Safari game as if you’re not already there. You should answer “no” again and leave.
After you take 500 steps, the fun begins.
After those 500 are up, the Safari Zone’s PA will ring, and your trainer will be warped to the Safari Zone gate as if you just ended a safari session. After leaving the gate, you’ll be in Glitch City. The city is really a corrupted version of whatever place you were in where the timer ran out, so don’t expect to go shopping and catch a show.
21 Will This Return In The Switch Games?
Every Pokémon fan has heard the legend of the Mew truck. For a ten-year-old, it was quite a puzzle to actually get to it. The truck was oddly parked inside the docking area of the cruise ship S.S. Anne. Rather than board the ship, players could surf around it to find the patch of land where the truck was. There was only one problem: you couldn’t learn the Surf move at that point in the game.
You had to board the S.S. Anne in order to obtain the HM for Cut, a move that was needed to proceed far enough to get Surf. Sadly, the S.S. Anne left port as soon as you got Cut, making the area, and the truck, inaccessible. So you can’t surf when the truck is there, but when you have Surf the truck is closed off. What’s a kid to do? Trade with someone for a Pokémon that has Cut. By doing that, you can bypass the S.S. Anne completely until you have Surf. And what does all that trouble get you? Nothing! It’s just a weird little extra area that does nothing. So with a gen one remake on the way for Switch, the question is, will the truck come back?
Knowing Game Freak, the Mew truck will be referenced in some form.
But don’t get too excited, because it still probably won’t have a Mew under it. It’ll most likely just be a one-liner joke from an NPC.
20 Before Capturing Him You Must Face A Trial
Terrakion is one of the many legendary Pokémon of Black and White. Its design is based on one of the Three Musketeers, and it even protects Pokémon in need. Of course, it also means it has to have two other companions. This is crucial, because you need to keep that in mind if you want to capture Terrakion. One of Terrakion’s fellows, Cobalion, hides in Mistralton Cave. It must be defeated, and possibly captured if that’s your thing, before Terrakion can be met. After getting Cobalion, you must then play through the rest of the game. Really.
That’s because Terrakion makes its home in Victory Road, a winding cave full of tough Pokémon that acts as the Pokémon series’ equivalent to a final dungeon. Terrakion even resides near the top as though it’s a final boss. You’ll see an entrance blocked by a boulder that needs a little Strength to get past. On the other side of the boulder is the Trial Chamber. The trial, of course, being battling and capturing Terrakion. By that point, you know the drill. Put it to sleep, paralyze it, throw lots of Ultra Balls, and pray.
19 So THAT’s Where You Find It
The fourth generation of Pokémon did a lot of things right. It brought the series to the DS, gave a lot of Johto Pokémon much-needed evolutions, and introduced Infernape (one of the most underrated starters of all time). Its Sinnoh region also included a lot of cool secret locations. So secret, in fact, that you could actually finish the game without ever visiting them. Take Wayward Cave, for instance. The cave is hidden beneath Cycling Road. As in, you have to actually walk under the road to find it. It sounds silly, but after three generations of Pokémon blocking the area under roads, most players wouldn’t think to try looking for a cave there. Which is a shame, because missing it means missing out on battles and items. Also…
Wayward Cave is the only place to catch the Dragon type Gible.
Gible evolves into the powerful Garchomp, making it a solid addition to any team. It’s also just plain adorable. But be warned, Wayward Cave does require Strength and Flash to make it through. In the updated Platinum version, it only requires Flash. So make sure to have a Pokémon learn that move. Unless you like bumping around in the dark. Which, compared to actually wasting a move slot on Flash, might be a better alternative.
18 Just Gen 1 Things
Since Red and Blue were the most early Pokémon games, the developers had to spend a lot of time just making the games work. That was on top of designing 151 lovable creatures that would sell lots of merchandise and a battle system that incorporated all of those creatures. That’s a lot of work for any developer. Now, remember the fact that the original Pokémon games were done on limited time and budget. If you take all of that information into account, it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that Red and Blue have more than a few bugs and glitches. Fortunately, the games were fun and unique enough that the bugs didn’t ruin them. They actually enhanced the experience for some.
One particular glitch lets players do something that was impossible in generation one: climb trees. And by climb, I mean magically warp to the top of them. This is achieved by removing the tree using the Cut move. Then, you have to position your trainer on the tree’s previous location and save the game. After that, turn off the game. When the save is loaded back up, everything on the map will be populated once more, including the tree you’re standing on. This will cause you to be standing on the tree. Ta-da! Enjoy being on top of a tree, and then climb down because it doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
17 Super Unknown Trainer
The Trainer House in the Johto region is another well-known location that hides a crazy secret. Normally, the house would let you battle a random trainer every day, or even a friend that you recently traded or Mystery Gifted with. But use a certain glitch, and the Trainer House becomes even stronger than the Pokémon League.
The glitch involves either changing the game’s clock after doing a Mystery Gift or looking at a glitched Unown. Doing either of these things will mess up the game’s ID system. It’s a very technical thing to describe, dealing with numerical modifiers and the algorithm the Trainer House uses to assign the day’s opponent. Basically, looking at the glitch Unown or changing the time after interacting with another person’s game will make the Trainer House do some weird things. The trainers it produces will suddenly have impossible teams, including one that has a Moltres at level 205. There’s also a guy that has six Dunsparce, and one that has a Flareon with High-Jump Kick. Of course, you should fight these trainers at your own risk. Not just because a level 205 Moltres is scary, but because many of their glitched Pokémon have moves that will literally break your game. And no one wants to admit they lost their save to a guy that uses six Dunsparce.
16 Looker In Gen 1
The S.S. Anne is already the infamous site of the Mew truck, but it also hides another secret. And no, it’s not the fact that Blue loses his Raticate here, insinuating dark things about the way the player battles. One of the luxury ship’s cabins hides a man who might be Looker of gen four fame. Trainers might not remember, but the man pictured is casually standing around. When the player talks to him, he says that he’s a Global Police agent on the trail of Team Rocket. That’s all he does, and you never see him again even when Team Rocket is making big moves. He seems inconsequential until several generations later when you meet Looker.
Looker is a member of the International Police, and seems to specialize in handling the various evil teams that terrorize the Pokémon world. He appears in Sinnoh to investigate Team Galactic, and again in Unova to arrest the members of Team Plasma. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the Global Police could have been renamed the International Police. And with Looker’s specialty, he would be ideal to tackle Team Rocket. In fact, in the Pokémon Generations anime, he does just that! So could this mystery man actually be an early version of Looker? No idea! But it’s a neat theory.
15 From City To Dimension
Pokémon Gold and Silver editions were all about going bigger. More Pokémon were added, the Dark and Steel types added more layers of strategy, even the very map itself almost doubled in size. It turns out that philosophy of going bigger also applied to the glitches. Glitch City now became a whole Glitch Dimension. To activate the Glitch Dimension, the player has many options. One trick involves using the coin case immediately after talking to one of the random Machokes scattered throughout the world. Another requires you to trade for a Pokémon with a glitched moveset and use it in battle. The final method involves playing with values, and seems to be exclusive to the Crystal version’s emulator, so let’s ignore that.
The Glitch Dimension is really just a corruption of the game’s color palette. It makes the game suddenly reset and thing it’s running on a regular Game Boy instead of a Game Boy Color, so it disables certain colors that couldn’t be used on the old Game Boy. This distorts colors in the game’s world, and can even make it so that dark caves are automatically illuminated without needing Flash. It can also just freeze the game. Not a very useful glitch overall, but a fun diversion.
14 The Shy Lapras
Union Cave is another of those locations that seems a blatant part of the map. But like many things in the second generation, its true nature is only revealed on certain days of the week. The cave is home to the rare Lapras, and is actually the only place you can capture Lapras. But there’s a “catch.” To get Lapras, you first must defeat Morty, the Ghost-type gym leader of Ecruteak City. After that, you have to wait until Friday. Lapras will only show up in Union Cave on a Friday. Then it’s a simple matter of of surfing over to it and stuffing it into a ball.
Ever wonder how Lapras got its name? It’s a transformation of its original Japanese name, Laplace. That could be a reference to Pierre-Simon Laplace, a mathematician who studied the mathematical properties of the sea and tides. Or Laplace may be derived from la place, the French word for seat. That makes some sense as Lapras is known for being sat on by trainers who want to travel across water. Finally, it could also a reference to lapis lazuli, a bright blue gem. All of these, of course, have nothing to do with its design that looks like the Loch Ness Monster.
13 Ya Boy’s Secret House
There’s a house on the Melemele, the first island in Pokémon Sun and Moon, that the player can visit. There, you learn the sad tale of the son that used to live there. He apparently had great talent, but anger problems. The mother misses him, and the father claims he tried to set the boy straight, but ended up getting beat himself. The player can investigate further and find a bag of “broken and bent golf clubs.” There isn’t much else to the place, at least not until people on the internet started coming up with theories about the family. The common suggestion is that Guzma, leader of Team Skull, was the talented-but-destructive son. We learn that he was almost a Trial Captain but met with some failure along the way. We also know he has anger issues. Furthermore, many people take the broken golf clubs and father’s statement about “setting him straight” to mean that Guzma had a troubled upbringing, and that’s why he ran away to form a gang. That wouldn’t be the first time Pokémon got dark, but still…
The truth is probably much less grim. In fact, Guzma returns later in the game to reconcile. That’s when you realize the “evidence” probably has other meaning. The golf clubs? Guzma probably bent them himself in a fit of rage. The father’s comment about getting beat? He probably meant in a Pokémon battle. After all, who actually fistfights in the Pokémon world?
12 There’s More To This Location
The Altar Of The Sunne and Altar Of The Moone cannot coexist. It is established in the more recent Pokémon games that each game is its own universe. So the Sun version of the game is a world where the sun Pokémon Solgaleo is worshipped and the Moon version favors the nocturnal Lunala. This is how Game Freak keeps players from catching both legendaries and makes trading an essential game mechanic to this day. However, it turns out you actually can visit both altars in both games.
Becoming League Champion is the key to unlocking this secret.
Once you’ve been crowned the best trainer in Alola, you can return to your game’s altar and discover a portal that leads to an alternate world. This world will be the opposite version’s world, so if you’re playing Sun you’ll end up in Moon land. Once there, you’ll be presented with a cutscene that shows the birth of another Cosmog. Cosmog, of course, being the species that Lillie lovingly called “Nebby.” Unfortunately, this Cosmog will evolve in the Pokémon Nebby did. It will become your version’s legendary despite being from another world, so you’ll still have to trade to get the other version’s legendary. Because dang it Nintendo is going to make us socialize!
11 Straight To The Principal’s Office
The nice thing about the newer Pokémon games is that they don’t just end after the Pokémon League. There are still plenty of secrets and challenges for powerful trainers to discover. One such challenge is Asuka, the principal of the Trainers’ School. There are also other side quests available in the school, but let’s face it, fighting a school principal is probably the best use of your time. So go to her office and get battling!
Asuka, for being the leader of an institution of learning, makes the same stupid mistake as every other trainer in the games. Namely, she carries less than six Pokémon and they’re all weak. She has a Granbull, a Stoutland, and an Arcanine, all at level 57. Despite looking like the Veteran trainers that populate Alola, she doesn’t seem to have much expertise. Those Poké Ball-carrying belts are cool, though. In the end, Asuka will fall easily to any team that has already taken on the Pokémon League and won. Maybe they should make you the principal of the school. At least you would teach the kids some actual useful things, like not to use Psych Up. Like, ever.
10 The Ebony City
Right off the bat, Black City is hard to find because it only exists in two games: Pokémon Black and Black 2. It also features one of the most unique appearance conditions in the whole series. The scale and population of Black City will change over time. The first time you see it, it’s size will depend on how long it took you to get there. But, like any modern metropolis, it can expand rapidly. To make the city grow, you’ll have to find a friend with Pokémon White or White 2 (or just have two DS systems like I did). Then you have to go to White Forest via Entralink, one of the series’ coolest but most forgotten tools.
Or if you’re playing Black 2, Black City will grow by different means. In that game, a skyscraper called Black Tower has been built in the center of the metropolis. That tower needs to be developed for Black City to reach its true potential. But whatever version you play, Black City delivers one thing: battles. It’s a great source to battle new trainers constantly, even in the post-game, so that money and items are never a concern. If only real life cities worked that way.
9 The Ivory Forest
Yin needs Yang, and so Black City gets a counterpart in the form of White Forest. Pokémon White and White 2 get exclusive rights to this woodland, but it acts similar to Black City in a lot of ways. White Forest also grows in relation to how long it takes you to find it during your playthrough, and by how often you visit another player’s Black City (but seriously, most Pokémon players just get both versions and do it themselves).
But a city and a forest are not the same. In fact, they’re quite opposite. So White Forest performs different functions than Black City. Instead of being a place to battle, it’s a place to find rare wild Pokémon. Because it’s, you know, a forest. White 2’s addition to the forest is the White Treehollow dungeon, a special place that lets you battle and find rare items. Players who get all the way through White Treehollow will also get the Treehollow Key. The key can be given to friends with Black 2 so that they can go into the forest. Seriously, Nintendo, stop forcing me to socialize!
8 The Rarest Island
This one is legitimately the hardest place to find, perhaps even in the entire Pokémon series. It is called Mirage Island, after all. The only guarantee about Mirage Island is that it will appear on Route 130, whenever it decides to appear. So what are the conditions for its arrival? It’s up to a series of daily-generated numbers that have to match with the personality value of a player’s Pokémon. That makes the odds pretty ridiculous. Someone crunched the numbers and found that there’s only a 1/10923 chance of the island appearing, making it even less likely than finding a shiny Pokémon.
Basically, finding this island is a complete act of chance.
When you do find it, heck you can see from this picture, you’ll see that Mirage Island looks to be entirely ordinary. Which begs the question of why it’s such a challenge to find. The thing that ends up making it special is the wild Pokémon that lives there. The tall grass is home to level 5 – 50 Wynaut, making it the only way to obtain the elusive gen three Pokémon outside of breeding Wobbuffet. So you can just hatch one…or wait for the random chance of finding one on a mysterious, fickle island. Seems like smart game design.
7 VIP Only
Generation Four, Diamond and Pearl, have two hidden locations that can only be found with Nintendo’s help. The first, and creepiest, is Newmoon Island. To reach it, players had to have an item called the Member Card. This card could only be gotten by going to an official Nintendo event. Using it, players can enter the Harbor Inn in Canalave City, a building that is strangely locked any other time. Once inside, you’d find a mysterious man who would make you go to bed and them hypnotize you. Waking up, you’d find yourself on Newmoon island in a living nightmare.
…A nightmare where you get to bring your Pokémon to protect you.
Yes, it turns out Darkrai, a legendary Dark type Pokémon, orchestrated your fall into nightmare land. It likes to trap victims in never-ending nightmares. Except Darkrai was kind enough to let you bring your battling team and will even let you capture it. Inside its nightmare. Where it trapped you. You know I’m starting to think Pokémon are not very smart. Regardless, defeating Darkrai lets you wake up, only to find that the Harbor Inn is closed once more. Creepy.
6 Oak’s Secret Mission
Some areas are so hidden, you actually need Nintendo to open them for you. This is the case with the Flower Paradise, home to the legendary Shaymin. There’s a white rock on route 224 of Sinnoh that serves as the access point to the garden, but interacting with it will only show the player some text. The only way to actually make the rock do its thing is to have Oak’s Letter. This item will trigger the professor himself to come and guide you in finding Shaymin. It turns out all you have to do is inscribe something you’re thankful for on the rock. Doing that will open the path to Flower Paradise, and make Shaymin appear for a battle.
Seems simple, but there’s one hiccup with Oak’s Letter: you can only obtain it via an official Nintendo event. No letter, no Shaymin. Hackers actually found a way around this in the Japanese versions of Diamond and Pearl. By activating a glitch in Aaron’s room of the Elite Four, players could surf through his door, appearing in a void. By walking through the void, players could appear in any of the game’s locations, including the Flower Paradise. The glitch was actually so famous Nintendo itself addressed it and corrected it in Platinum.
Sergio is the Lead News Editor for TheGamer. But usually he asks people to call him “Serg” because he wants to sound cool like the guy from System of a Down. He began as a convention reporter for FLiP Magazine and Albany Radio’s The Shaw Report to get free badges to Comic-Con. Eventually he realized he liked talking to game developers and discovering weird new indie games. Now he brings that love of weird games to TheGamer, where he tries to talk about them in clickable ways so you grow to love them too. When he’s not stressing over how to do that, he’s a DM, Cleric of Bahamut, cosplay boyfriend, and occasional actor.
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