After beating the Elite Fours of Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Crystal multiple times and training up my Pokémon to high enough levels, there wasn’t a great deal to do and I had exhausted my efforts in the lands of Kanto and Johto. Despite my admiration for both of these games, I had grown bored with them and wanted to find new ways to explore them. There was a point in my early days of playing Pokémon where I wanted to use cheat codes to unlock new items, exploit the way the game worked, and most importantly: exploit my opponents.
I believe this first started with my neighbour David who lived two doors away from my house. One afternoon, we were battling one another on our Game Boys outside in the street; I had Pokémon Blue and he had Pokémon Yellow. I recall one of the Pokémon he had was a Mew, which was super powerful with health and stats way higher than a typical Pokémon would have. I had heard about Mew previously, but knew it was unlikely to have been legitimate since it was only available via an event or cheat device. Knowing I didn’t stand a chance, I stopped our battle and decided that I would need a cheat device if I was ever going to come close to beating him.
Some weeks passed, and I went to my local Gamestation store to purchase a cheat device called Xploder Lite, by a company called Blaze. By placing the cheat cartridge into the Game Boy and a game inside the cheat cartridge, you could input codes and make changes to the game, activating them on the fly by using the power switch at the top of the Xploder Lite.
Despite my initial plans for the cheat device, I decided I would explore my copy of Pokémon Blue beyond its conventional boundaries. One of the first things I used it for was to confirm my suspicions of PokéGods, such as the rumours about Bill’s secret garden where powerful Pokégod Pokémon were supposed to be hidden. It was great to confirm my suspicions that the rumour was indeed false. I was also able to confirm that a truck was indeed parked in Vermillion City, and that there was no Mew underneath it.
I explored many places across Pokémon Blue’s map, and was fascinated by how the world fit together I also recall my game crashing and restarting when I went out of bounds. I then took full benefit of the opportunity to give myself as many Rare Candies and Master Balls as I wanted.
Eventually I was using my cheat device to teach my Pokémon moves they wouldn’t normally be able to learn, and adjust their health and stats. By this point, I was using Pokémon Crystal to battle my friend Mason with a Victreebel that had Sky Attack, and my Charizard had so much health that it couldn’t be knocked out. I even used my device to bring Pokémon into the game I didn’t legally find, such as other Kanto Pokémon or additional legendaries. I would share the benefits with Mason, transferring over anything he wanted! I don’t remember trying to generate shiny Pokémon, but I feel like it is something I probably would have done.
While it was fun to see the surprise and horror on my friend’s faces as I destroyed their teams with my army of overpowered and manipulated Pokémon, I realised that using my games to obtain rare and powerful Pokémon and items lessened the overall experience. I acknowledged that I wasn’t having as much fun with Pokémon as when I played the games legitimately, so I retired my use of the device entirely, putting it back into its box and placing it under my bed where it was never used again.
I can understand why people would see the appeal of using a cheat device, and there were many of them around at the time, such as GameShark, Game Genie, and of course, my Xploder Lite. These devices are pretty obsolete nowadays as games have moved to new consoles where they can’t be used, but similar methods to manipulate Pokémon data are still out there. How many of us have obtained a hacked Pokémon (also known as genned Pokémon) via WiFi trades? Pokémon Home – the service that allows you to store and transfer Pokémon between games – implements strict background checks for genned monsters, and The Pokémon Company has been disqualifying more and more professional-level players who use teams with hacked monsters.
Back in the earliest days of Pokémon, trading to obtain every Pokémon was a significant challenge, and impossible if you weren’t able to travel to specific locations at designated times. Some countries, such as Australia, had significantly fewer official events than other places, and many never made it out of Japan. But thanks to online trading and Mystery Gift events, fans like me have an easier time of catching them all. With EXP candies and Bottle Caps, it’s now nearly effortless to train your Pokémon’s stats and level them up – much easier than it ever was during the 2000s.
Apologies to all the friends from back then who fell victim to my overpowered and broken Victreebel. They can rest assured that the cheat cartridge will remain in its box on my shelf until the end of time.
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