Post by goldensandslash on Feb 9, 2024 23:13:27 GMT
Ah, Pokémon. The game about collecting small creatures in balls as you travel the lands.
It's been a big hit ever since Red and Blue versions. Of course, if you want to "catch em all", you need to be able to trade with other players (or with yourself), so you need both versions. Red and Blue.
And then you can combine those to get all of the Pokémon.
Except... not quite.
You'd still not have a full set, because those two games only combine to give you 150 Pokémon out of 151. You would miss out on Mew.
Mew is a mythical Pokémon, so the only way to obtain it is via a Nintendo event, and while there were plenty of such events back in the day, they're long over, so someone just starting today cannot possibly get a full Pokédex in Gen 1.
So... what if they opted to collect something else instead? Instead of Pokémon... maybe... items? Items are a big thing in these games.
Well... I'm sorry to say, but... there are some items that you would miss out on. I'd like to take a look at what these items were, how they were obtained back in the day, what they did, and whether or not you're really missing anything by not being able to obtain them anymore.
Why am I covering ITEMS of all things instead of something people actually care about like, you know, the Pokémon? Well, because everyone knows what mythical Pokémon are unobtainable in older games. That's been talked about to death. This is a topic that I've not seen anyone talk about before. So let's take a look.
Generation 1
Generation 1 is very straightforward when it comes to items that you can no longer obtain: there are none.
That was easy. Yeah, there's some items that you can't get, because they're just not programmed into the game, but... you never could, so I don't count these. Like, yeah, I could talk about glitch items and what they do, but... again, I feel like that's a topic that other people have already covered.
Generation 2
Generation 2 is where we first start running into problems. If you want to collect every item in the game... you actually can succeed... in Gold and Silver.
The trouble is Crystal.
So, let's start with two pieces of mail: the Bluesky Mail and the Mirage Mail.
In Gold and Silver, these were just like the unused items in Gen 1: no way to obtain them.
And, in Crystal, if you were to play the game nowadays, yeah, it'd be the same.
But there was a way to obtain them in Crystal back during its prime.
Well, assuming you live in Japan.
In Japanese Crystal, there was a device that let you connect your Game Boy to your mobile phone and allow you to connect to a now-defunct online service to obtain various things. And two of those things were these pieces of mail. This was the only way to obtain them legitimately.
With five pieces of mail easily obtainable in-game already, and another three available via Mystery Gift... these two aren't going to be missed. So I think it's okay that they're gone now.
We're not done with Crystal yet. So... let's talk about the Odd Egg. When the player first reaches the Day Care in Crystal version, they can talk to the Day-Care Man to receive the Odd Egg. This will randomly hatch into one of seven Pokémon (Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Tyrogue, Smoochum, Elekid, or Magby), that knows the additional move Dizzy Punch. Additionally, the shiny odds are massively increased, hatching into a shiny Pokémon in 14% of all cases.
However... that's only in non-Japanese versions of the game. In the Japanese version, you get the Odd Egg in a different way, and it requires an event.
Now, the Odd Egg itself isn't actually an item. It's a Pokémon that goes into your party. Therefore, it does not qualify for this list. However, the way you obtain the Odd Egg within the Japanese version of Crystal is by using an item called the Egg Ticket. By showing this item to the nurse at the Goldenrod Pokémon Center, she will give you the Odd Egg. And how do you get the Egg Ticket? Through the already-aforementioned mobile phone service, which no longer exists. This means that it is an impossible-to-obtain item nowadays, and so Japanese players have no way to receive the Odd Egg anymore. Which means that it's completely unobtainable on Virtual Console, and always has been.
Interestingly, for this reason, Dizzy Punch is an illegal move on all of the Pokémon that can have it, in the Japanese Virtual Console version. And since that is the version that is considered the "default" one, it is actually not possible to transfer one of these Pokémon with the move Dizzy Punch from Gen 2 to Gen 7, as the game will flag it as an illegal Pokémon, even though it's not. But you can always pay a visit to the Move Deleter if necessary.
And speaking of the Virtual Console version... it is well-known at this point that you can obtain a Celebi in the Virtual Console version of Crystal. After beating the game, if you go into the Goldenrod City Pokémon Center, you will receive the GS Ball, which can be taken to Kurt in Azalea Town. Then, wait a day, and you can talk to Kurt to get it back, and bring it to the Ilex Forest to summon a wild Celebi.
However... this is not the only way to obtain the GS Ball. The other way... is to obtain it on an actual Gen 2 cartridge. And yes, that is possible. Or at least, it was. Yet again, in Japanese Crystal, this was distributed via the mobile phone service that no longer exists. As such, it is now forever unobtainable from a fresh save file.
Generation 3
So... for Ruby and Sapphire, we need to blur the line between what is "obtainable" and "unobtainable" for a bit to talk about a certain set of berries.
These are the Pumkin Berry, Drash Berry, Eggant Berry, Strib Berry, Chilan Berry (not to be confused with the Gen 4+ Berry of the same name), Nutpea Berry, Ginema Berry, Kuo Berry, Yago Berry, Touga Berry, Niniku Berry, and Topo Berry.
So... let's start by talking about the Enigma Berry. It's a perfectly normal berry with nothing special about it. You can plant it, harvest it, turn it into PokéBlocks to enhance your Pokémon's contest stats, you know... the usual. There's nothing noteworthy about it.
Until there is.
See, at the time of the release of Ruby and Sapphire, the e-Reader wasn't yet proven to be a disastrous failure. So, there are plenty of e-Reader functions still programmed into the game. If you live in Europe or Australia... then you're out of luck, as the e-Reader was never released there (because they realized that it sucked).
But for the rest of the world... we got some cards. I'm not gonna go over every single card and what it did, because there are a lot of them, but for our purposes, there are twelve cards that depict items: these berries. When scanned, every Enigma Berry in the game will turn into whatever berry is depicted on the card, and you can then use those cards.
Now, yes, I do get that these aren't truly lost, as you can still track down old copies of these cards, but... at that point... you're using outside help, so you're better off just buying a cheating device and hacking them in. I will also note that if you live in America, you only got six of the twelve cards (the first six berries that I listed above). The e-Reader was such a failure that it was discontinued before the last six could be released. You can only get those ones if you live in Japan.
I should note that because a card scan REPLACES the Enigma Berry rather than adding something new, it is impossible to have a save file with more than one of these. And if you trade a Pokémon holding one to another game, then it will turn back into an Enigma Berry if that other game has not yet scanned any of the berry cards (and if it has, then it will turn into whatever new berry the game is using for its e-Reader berries). If transferred to Gen 4, the berry will just become an Enigma Berry.
So what did these berries do? Is there anything lost from being unable to have them? Well... let's take a look.
The Pumkin Berry simply cures freezing. This makes it identical to the Aspear Berry as far as held item functionality is concerned. Yeah, yeah, there's different PokéBlock stats and Berry Blending nonsense and the harvesting is different, but... like... did anyone seriously bother with any of that?
The Drash Berry cures poisoning, so it is identical to the Pecha Berry, minus all of the stuff that you don't care about if you ignore contests.
The Eggant Berry cures infatuation, which is actually quite interesting, as there is no berry that will do that normally. Now, yes, there is the Mental Herb, which does do this, but that is not a berry. Why does that matter? Well, there are some moves and abilities that only affect berries. That said, none of them are in Gen 3, so... it's completely irrelevant.
The Strib Berry cannot be used. It exists purely as a PokéBlock ingredient. Lame.
The Chilan Berry also exists purely for PokéBlock use.
The Nutpea Berry is also a pure PokéBlock ingredient. And this was the last one to be released outside of Japan. So, yeah, you're not missing much if you can't get these items. But what about the six that were only available in Japan? Well...
The Ginema Berry will, one time only, prevent the lowering of a Pokémon's stats. This is the same as a White Herb. Kind of. So... they actually do work differently. The White Herb will reset the stats back to where they were before they were lowered, while the Ginema Berry will provide an increase to the stat that was lowered to bring it back to where it was. I don't really know of any niche use case where you can exploit this difference, but I'm sure there is one.
The Kuo Berry has no use and can only be used to make PokéBlocks.
The Yago Berry cures burns, so it's just a Rawst Berry with different PokéBlock stats and harvesting stats.
The Touga Berry can cure confusion, but... again, we have the Persim Berry for that.
The Niniku Berry has no use other than as a PokéBlock ingredient.
The Topo Berry also has no use.
Now... one thing that I should mention is that, even ignoring PokéBlocks... these berries are TECHNICALLY different from the berries that they share similar effects to. Because all of them were given the additional property of being immune to battle removal, so you will not lose them to Thief, Covet, or Trick. Whereas if you stuck with the original berries found through normal gameplay, you could. I don't think this is a big enough difference to warrant any tears for missing out on it though.
One item that absolutely DO warrants tears is the Eon Ticket e-Reader card. This was given away in an issue of Nintendo Power (issue 173, to be exact). When scanned, then, after beating the game, you can talk to Norman to receive the Eon Ticket in-game item. Then, if you go to Lilycove Harbor, a Sailor will take you to the otherwise-inaccessible Southern Island. On Southern Island, there is a stationary encounter with a Latias (Ruby) or Latios (Sapphire). These are otherwise version-exclusives to the opposite version, and they're also normally hard-to-catch roaming legendaries (whereas the versions on the Southern Island are stationary encounters).
Now... hope is not lost if you don't have this e-Reader card, because there's another way to obtain the Eon Ticket in-game item in these games, and this other method, because it doesn't use an e-Reader, will also work in Emerald.
That is... to record-mix with someone who DID use the e-Reader card. If you do this, then you can talk to Norman after beating the game and get the ticket yourself as well. However, a ticket obtained this way cannot be shared with other games through further record-mixing.
Oh, and... in Emerald, which Pokémon appears on the Southern Island is whichever you didn't choose to have roam the region when you beat the game. I should also note that in Emerald, you can freely come and go to the island after visiting it once (though there's nothing for you there after you either capture or kill the legendary there). In Ruby/Sapphire, it is inaccessible after leaving.
And while we're on the topic of tickets to faraway islands, there's the AuroraTicket and the MysticTicket, which were event-only items that were distributed to FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald. These took you to otherwise-inaccessible islands on the Sevii Islands. The AuroraTicket takes you to Birth Island, where the player can solve a quick puzzle in order to encounter a Deoxys. The MysticTicket takes you to Navel Rock and allows you to encounter a Lugia and Ho-Oh. In any case, these events are long over, thereby leaving the items unobtainable.
I will say that there were far fewer events for the MysticTicket than the AuroraTicket, so the number of people who have obtained one legitimately is very few.
But even fewer is the Old Sea Map, which takes you to a Faraway Island. This largely works the same, except that it's only able to be used in Emerald. Here, you can find a Mew.
Now, for all of these items, it sucks that you can't get them anymore, but that's more so because of the Pokémon that they are attached to. Let's look at some items that actually... do things in-battle.
The first is the Sacred Ash. This item can, for some reason, just be found on the ground on Route 2 in HeartGold/SoulSIlver. But other than that one instance... there's only one way to obtain this item in every single Pokémon game: it is held by wild Ho-Oh. So from here, you can see the problem. In order to get a wild Ho-Oh, you'd need to get to Navel Rock, which would require a MysticTicket.
Well, mostly correct. Gen 3, as it turns out, is the one generation where Ho-Oh actually DOESN'T hold the Sacred Ash. Instead, the Sacred Ash can just be found right where Ho-Oh is standing, by using your Itemfinder after battling it. But still, same principle applies.
So what does the Sacred Ash do? Well... it functions as a one-time-use portable Pokémon Center, fully healing your entire team of their HP and status ailments, including fainting. The only thing is that it doesn't restore PP (though it did in Gen 2). This is a good item... and it sucks that it can't be obtained anymore in Gen 3, but oh well.
The next item that's missing from Gen 3, though, somehow hurts even more.
The Soul Dew item.
A Pokémon holding the Soul Dew will receive 1.5x to its Special Attack and Special Defense, provided that Pokémon is either Latios or Latias. Starting in Gen 7, they changed it to just instead increase the power of their STAB moves by 1.2x instead, which is a lot less good.
But prior to that nerf, the Soul Dew was INCREDIBLE. It was so good that it ended up getting banned from both Smogon OU and from official Nintendo tournaments.
So how do you get one? Well... it's held by the Pokémon encountered at the Southern Island that you need an Eon Ticket to get to. So... yeah, so much for that.
And that's not the only wild held item that you miss out on in Gen 3. So... let's talk about the Berry Juice item. Berry Juice, when held by a Pokémon, will heal 20 HP when its HP gets into the yellow range. This is a Potion that is used automatically without wasting a turn. Or, put another way, this is essentially two Oran Berries at once.
The way that this is obtained? It's a held item on wild Shuckle in most games (except for in Gen 5).
Quick aside: so, here's some fun trivia. Shuckle doesn't come with this item by default in Gen 2, but can create it through an outside-of-battle ability that is unique to Shuckle, despite abilities not even existing in Gen 2 yet! But, after every battle, if you have a Shuckle holding a Berry in your party, then the topmost such Shuckle on your team has a 1 in 16 chance of turning that Berry into Berry Juice, if you have previously entered Goldenrod City at least once. I have no idea why this is a thing in Gen 2, but... it is.
Anyways... so... what's the problem? Just get a wild Shuckle, right? Well... the only way to find a wild Shuckle in Gen 3 is to find it in the Safari Zone extension in Emerald's post-game, where you can encounter Shuckle via Rock Smash.
The problem then becomes the fact that I said this was a held item on wild Shuckle in MOST games... because, as it turns out... the Hoenn games are the one set of games outside of Gen 2 and Gen 5 where wild Shuckle do not hold Berry Juice.
So if you want to get Berry Juice in Gen 3, you cannot use the Hoenn games for this. You need the Kanto games, FireRed and LeafGreen.
The problem that you next run into is that Shuckle does not appear in the wild in these games. At least, not through normal means. If you go to Outcast Island (the sixth of the Sevii Islands), you can find a cave there called Altering Cave. If you were to explore this area, you'd find absolutely nothing in it except for a lot of Zubat. Yeah, the wild encounter rate is high and it has a 100% chance of being Zubat.
Pretty pointless... until it isn't. Because in the game's data... you can actually see what this was meant for. Which Pokémon appears here can change. There's always a 100% chance of something, and Zubat is simply the default. But by using Mystery Gift to connect to an event, this could be altered to be either Mareep, Aipom, Pineco, Shuckle, Teddiursa, Houndour, Stantler, or Smeargle.
However, these events never happened in any part of the world. Thus, these Pokémon are unobtainable in FireRed and LeafGreen. Instead, they were all relocated to be in the extension to the Safari Zone in Emerald, apart from Smeargle, who can be found in Artisan Cave in Emerald's Battle Frontier.
For the majority of these Pokémon, it makes no difference whether you get them in Emerald or in FireRed/LeafGreen, but for Shuckle, it does. Because of its wild held item being a Berry Juice in FireRed/LeafGreen, while only being an Oran Berry in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Thus... the Berry Juice is unobtainable in Generation 3.
Is it that big of a loss? Well, honestly, yes. Because of the Little Cup format, which limits you to using Level 5 Pokémon. At Level 5, 20 HP is your entire health bar, so this just fully heals you. Berry Juice is one of the best items in Little Cup for this reason. And, in fact, because of that... it ended up getting itself banned from the format in Gen 4-5. It very well likely would have been banned in Gen 3 as well, so if that's the case, then this is no loss. But if it had been legal? This is a major loss.
Generation 4
So, as you journey through the Sinnoh region, you may stumble upon an inn in Canalave City. In order to enter this inn, you need the Member Card, an event-only item. If you've already battled Cresselia, you will have obtained the Lunar Wing, which can be used to dispel nightmares. This can be used to save an old man from a nightmare and then travel to Newmoon Island, where a Darkrai is waiting for you.
Without this item, there is no way to legitimately obtain a Darkrai.
I should note that this item was never actually distributed to Diamond/Pearl via events, only to Platinum. But it does still exist in the game's data for Diamond/Pearl, hinting that it was supposed to be obtainable there. Alas, none of them can obtain it anymore.
This isn't the only such item, though. There's also Oak's Letter, which is, as its name implies, a letter from Professor Oak. When obtained, it will tell the player that Oak wants to meet them on Route 224. If you go there, you'll find Oak near that white rock. He'll tell you to write a note on the rock, and after doing so, an entrance to Seabreak Path will appear, which leads to Flower Paradise, where a Shaymin can be captured. Once again, despite this being planned for all three Sinnoh games, only Platinum actually got the Oak's Letter event.
Well, mostly just Platinum.
I guess I should say that both of these were also event distributions in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, so there is that.
There is also a third event-only item: the Azure Flute. If you take this to the top of Spear Pillar, a new stairway will appear leading to the Hall of Origin. There, you can find an Arceus to battle and potentially catch.
It was never distributed. Instead, Nintendo just had events that gave away Arceus directly.
Now, I should note that the Azure Flute item also exists in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and is obtained over the course of the story. Much like in the Gen 4 games, it does allow you to access the Hall of Origin and encounter Arceus, though only if you have completed your Hisui Pokédex.
Additionally, if you complete every single mission in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, then... on that same Switch, if you go to Twinleaf Town in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, you'll find an Azure Flute in your room (assuming you're playing on Version 1.3.0 or later). From there, it acts the same as it would have in the Gen 4 games.
So while this is still perfectly obtainable in Gen 8, there is alas no way to get it in Gen 4.
Is this a big loss? Actually, believe it or not, it is. Because the Arceus found in the Hall of Origin is Level 80. And the ones given by Nintendo were Level 100. This actually has huge implications. In Gen 4, you don't gain EVs from battle immediately, you only gain them upon leveling up. Without the ability to level up, Arceus cannot gain EVs from battle. So Arceus is limited to only getting EVs from vitamins, which carry their own set of restrictions: all of your stats must have EVs that are a multiple of 10, and no more than 100 in any one stat. If a Level 80 Arceus was obtainable, and Arceus was then free to have any EV spread it wants... it would have major changes to competitive Ubers.
While those three were the only event-only items in Diamond/Pearl, Platinum added a couple more.
First up is the Secret Key, not to be confused with the item of the same name from Gen 1 and its remakes.
This is an event-only item that, when obtained, lets you access an otherwise-inaccessible room in the Team Galactic Eterna Building, that has the appliances where you can change Rotom's form. Obviously, this isn't in Diamond/Pearl because Rotom can't change form in those games. In Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, this is obtained automatically upon obtaining Rotom itself, but in Platinum, it requires an event, making it unobtainable today.
And that's not the only form-changing item, as there's also the Gracidea, which, when used (from the Bag) on a non-frozen Shaymin, it will transform from Land Form to Sky Form, unless it's nighttime. Obviously, this isn't in Diamond/Pearl, due to Shaymin not having a Sky Form in those games, but it is in Platinum, and can be obtained from someone in Floaroma Town just by talking to them. But only if you have a Shaymin in your party. And without the ability to obtain one, you're out of luck here.
You can also get one from an NPC in the Goldenrod Flower Shop in HeartGold/SoulSilver, though this too requires you to have a Shaymin in your party, so it is just as unobtainable.
I do find these losses to be... quite a bit substantial. Pokémon ought to be allowed to change forms.
Speaking of HeartGold/SoulSilver, it has a few event-only items of its own.
The first is the Enigma Stone. When obtained, it can be brought to the Pewter Museum, where researchers will discover that it is the Soul Dew, giving it to the player (though this is not the only way to obtain the Soul Dew, as you could also connect to Pokémon Battle Revolution on the Wii and buy it there for 14400 Poké Coupons, it is nonetheless the only way to obtain the Enigma Stone itself. Of course, if you have an Eon Ticket, you can just obtain the Soul Dew in Gen 3 and then transfer it to Gen 4, but that still doesn't help with obtaining the Enigma Stone).
Showing the Enigma Stone to the Pewter Museum will also cause a Pokémon to spawn: Latios in HeartGold and Latias in SoulSilver. If you don't have an Enigma Stone, then these are normally version-exclusives to the opposite version.
Now... let's talk about Giratina. It has two forms, Altered Form and Origin Form. At least, from Platinum onwards. In Diamond/Pearl, it only had Altered Form. To get it into Origin Form, you'd need to either be in the Distortion World or you'd need to have it hold the Griseous Orb. This can be obtained through normal gameplay in Platinum. But because data for it does not exist in Diamond/Pearl... it means that a Pokémon holding a Griseous Orb cannot be traded in Gen 4, to prevent it from ending up in Diamond/Pearl (it can be freely traded in all later generations).
So then... how would you get a Griseous Orb in HeartGold/SoulSilver?
Well, it is tricky, but there is a way. First, you need to obtain an Arceus. So... yeah. That's already just... straight-out impossible nowadays. But let's say you somehow get one. Bring it to the Ruins of Alph, and this will allow you to access the Sinjoh Ruins. While there, you can obtain one of either Dialga, Palkia, or Giratina. They hold their held items: Adamant Orb, Lustrous Orb, and Griseous Orb, respectively.
But while the Adamant Orb and Lustrous Orb can be obtained by just getting them in the Sinnoh games and trading them over, the Griseous Orb, as previously mentioned, cannot be traded.
This means that this is the only legal way to obtain one in HeartGold/SoulSilver, and with Arceus no longer being available, it is now impossible to obtain. Not only does this lock Giratina's Origin form out of HeartGold/SoulSilver, but the Griseous Orb also has an effect: it gives 1.2x power to Giratina's STAB moves. This makes it quite a good held item for Giratina, and so losing it is indeed a major loss.
There is one final event item in HeartGold/SoulSilver: the Lock Capsule. This is just a locked box. In order to open it and obtain what is inside, you need to find the one specific NPC that can open it for you. Well, you can search all you want - you're never going to find him. Because he's not found anywhere in Kanto or Johto. No... he lives in Castelia City in the Unova region.
So, after obtaining the Lock Capsule, you can transfer it to Gen 5, where, in Black/White, Mr. Lock can finally open it for you. Inside, you'll find TM95, Snarl.
However... these distributions never happened, and so Snarl was actually unobtainable this way. And no Pokémon in Gen 5 can learn Snarl without this TM.
That is... until Nintendo gave away an event Zoroark with this move. That gave the move to Zoroark. However, because this is classified by the game as a TM move, it means that any offspring that this Zoroark produces that could learn this TM will hatch with the move. (You could also Sketch it with Smeargle to give it to Smeargle's offspring, but since Zoroark and Smeargle are in the same Egg Group, this doesn't actually help in terms of distributing the move.)
This gave the move to Growlithe, Umbreon, Snubbull, Sneasel, Houndour, Poochyena, Sableye, Electrike, Absol, Shinx, Stunky, Lillipup, Purrloin, Sandile, Scraggy, and Zorua (as well as all evolutions thereof). If bred onto a Scraggy, it could then be bred from that Scraggy onto a Druddigon, and then, if bred onto a Druddigon, it could then be bred from there to a Larvitar.
This is way more complicated than it should have been.
And they seemingly realized this, because later on, they released the sequels to these games. And in Black 2/White 2, they just made TM95 available through normal gameplay. Much easier.
We're not done with Gen 4 yet though, as there is still one more item to talk about: the Brick Mail.
In the very early days of Diamond/Pearl... Nintendo gave away 90 different English-language Heracross on the GTS, requesting a Japanese-language Roselia in exchange. It's not the only time Nintendo gave away things on the GTS, but... what is notable is that these Heracross were holding Brick Mail. This is the one and only time Nintendo has EVER given access to the Brick Mail. So only 90 legitimate copies of this item exist worldwide.
Of course, being just mail, missing it is no big deal.
Generation 5
Gen 5 has a few event-only items, and we've already talked about a couple. The first is the Lock Capsule, which, in theory, you'd have to transfer from HeartGold/SoulSilver, but in practice, those events never happened, so forget about it.
The other item that we've previously discussed is the Gracidea, to allow your Shaymin to change forms. It can be obtained from an NPC in the Pokémon Center in either Lacunosa Town (Black/White) or Striaton City (Black 2/White 2). But... again... you need to have a Shaymin in your party in order to obtain it. And that requires either an event, or transfer from Gen 4. And in Gen 4, it also required an event. So either way, you're out of luck.
As for new items, there's actually five of them that we need to discuss. Four of them are all basically the same thing though.
These are the Shock Drive, Burn Drive, Chill Drive, and Douse Drive. In order to obtain these, you need to talk to a scientist in P2 Laboratory with a Genesect in your party. Genesect is an event-only Pokémon, so that is a no-go nowadays.
So what do these items do? Well, they work with Genesect's signature move, Techno Blast. Techno Blast is normally a Normal-type move, but if the Pokémon using Techno Blast is holding a Drive, then it will change to be Electric, Fire, Ice, or Water, depending on the Drive being held (I really hope that I don't have to explain which is which).
I should note that even with a Genesect, you only get two of the four drives, depending on which version of the game you are playing. The Shock Drive and Burn Drive are in Black and Black 2, while the Chill Drive and Douse Drive are in White and White 2.
The next event-only item is the Liberty Ticket. This item lets you board the ship in the westernmost harbor in Castelia City, which will take you to the otherwise-inaccessible Liberty Garden. (Note that this is only in Black/White, not Black 2/White 2).
This event-only item actually cuts out a nonzero amount of story if unobtained, as Team Plasma does go to Liberty Garden and the player can deal with them if they are able. And there's also a hidden Ultra Ball here, so there is that. But... the big reason why you want to come here is that there's a Victini here that you can catch, and the only other way to obtain a Victini is via an event giving it to you directly. So you lose out on an entire Pokémon here.
And there's one more event-only item in Gen 5, which... is a bit of a strange one.
That is... the Light Ball.
When held by a Pikachu, it will cause Pikachu's Attack and Special Attack to be doubled. It also allows it to produce offspring Pichu that know the otherwise-unobtainable move Volt Tackle.
In most games, obtaining the Light Ball is trivial. Just catch a wild Pikachu, and there's a chance that it holds one. Alas... there are no wild Pikachu in Unova. The only way to get a Pikachu in Gen 5 is to transfer it from Gen 4. And sadly, held items cannot be transferred in intergenerational transfers (aside from going from Gen 3 to Gen 4).
This means that the Light Ball cannot be obtained through normal gameplay.
Instead... you have to get your hands on one of the many event Pikachu that were given out that were holding this item. There were eight different event Pikachu distributed at various points throughout Gen 5 that held this item, so it was pretty easy to get one back in this game's time. But nowadays? It's basically impossible to obtain one legitimately.
And what's really frustrating is that there are NPCs that do use the Light Ball, giving them an unfair advantage over the player. And no, you can't just use Thief or a similar move, because starting in Gen 5, items obtained through Thief (and any other in-battle method of removing a held item) are returned to NPCs after the battle concludes.
Is this a big loss? Honestly... yeah, kinda. This is easily Pikachu's best held item to use in any context, and it sucks that it can't use it in Gen 5 anymore.
Generation 6
Gen 6's main gimmick was Mega Evolution. Certain Pokémon had Mega Stones that they could use to Mega Evolve with during battle.
In X and Y, these Pokémon were: Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Alakazam, Gengar, Kangaskhan, Pinsir, Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Mewtwo, Ampharos, Scizor, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Gardevoir, Mawile, Aggron, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Absol, Garchomp, Lucario, and Abomasnow.
If it sounds like I am missing some Pokémon from that list, you're right. But the others debuted in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, and as such, are not available in X and Y.
With a few exceptions.
First of all, are Latias and Latios. These have their Mega Stones coded into X and Y, and so can be used, you just need to trade them over from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire first.
But the others? Beedrill, Pidgeot, Slowbro, Steelix, Sceptile, Blaziken, Swampert, Sableye, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, Salamence, Metagross, Lppunny, Gallade, Audino, and Diancie?
Well, those ones, I'm afraid, are exclusive to Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Their Mega Evolutions are not programmed into X and Y, and so they cannot be traded over.
With one exception.
The Blazikenite actually IS in X and Y, and was available as a held item on a special event Torchic that was given out prior to the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. So, at the time, this was the only way to obtain a Blazikenite in X and Y. Of course, nowadays, you can just trade one over from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where the Blazikenite can be obtained through normal gameplay, so this one isn't too bad.
Another event-only item from X and Y is the Discount Coupon. This item can be used in any clothing store to get a "50% off" discount one-time-only when shopping for clothes. If you don't use it in this game, you can even trade it over to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and it will work there as well. Not having this isn't too big of a deal though, since you can always just pay full price. And also... buying outfits is an optional and purely cosmetic feature in these games.
While we're here in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, we may as well take a look at the Eon Ticket.
Much like the Eon Ticket of Gen 3, this lets you go to the Southern Island to obtain Latias (Omega Ruby) or Latios (Alpha Sapphire). The only difference is how you obtain it, since obviously the 3DS doesn't have e-Reader compatibility. Instead, this was given out by a serial code. However, you can also obtain it by using StreetPass with someone else's game who already has it, so there are technically a limitless amount of Eon Tickets still out there. So this one isn't too bad to obtain legitimately.
And even if it was, you're not missing much, since you can get Latias and Latios in other games and then trade/transfer them over.
Our next event item is the Prison Bottle. This can be obtained by just going to a Poké Mart in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire with Hoopa in your party. This will cause the shopkeeper to tell you a scary story for a bit, and then he will give the player the Prison Bottle. When used, this will turn Hoopa into its Unbound Form for three days. This form wasn't in X and Y, so this specifically requires Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. But, of course, it requires a Hoopa to get, and Hoopa is an event-only Pokémon.
Similarly to this is the Diancite. This Mega Stone allows Diancie to Mega Evolve into Mega Diancie. But... the only way to obtain it in Gen 6 is to enter a Pokémon Center with a Diancie in your party. And Diancie is, of course, an event-only Pokémon.
So overall... you're missing a fair bit by not having access to events.
And that's just the new stuff. We still have all the old stuff.
For example, the Soul Dew, despite being available in-game in Black 2/White 2, isn't obtainable in Gen 6 except by finding it on the Southern Island, just as in Gen 3. And, of course, that requires the Eon Ticket.
Then there's the Gracidea. This requires you talk to an NPC in Snowbelle City (X and Y) or on Route 123 (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) with a Shaymin in your party. And Shaymin requires an event.
The Drives that Genesect uses can be obtained from an NPC in Ambrette Town (X and Y) and Mauville City (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), but that similarly requires a Genesect, which is an event-only Pokémon.
And there is one more item that's impossible to obtain now that is... um... very strange. So, there's loads of items from previous games that don't always return in future games, though usually they're no major loss. And, indeed, that is the case here as well. But one of them... did come back. An event distribution Delibird with the special move Happy Hour and the special ribbon "Special Ribbon" was distributed to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire... and... it was holding... the Relic Gold. This item can only otherwise be obtained in Gen 5. It does absolutely nothing and only exists to be sold (for $30000), but this event is the only way to obtain it in Gen 6. (Although only Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire could receive the event, the item could still be traded to X and Y if you like.)
Generation 7
With Generation 7, the big bulk of the items that you can't get anymore are Mega Stones in Sun/Moon. In fact, through normal gameplay, you'll only be able to get 20 of the 47: Venusaurite, Charizardite X, Charizardite Y, Blastoisinite, Alakazite, Slowbronite, Gengarite, Kangaskhanite, Pinsirite, Gyaradosite, Aerodactylite, Scizorite, Sablenite, Sharpedonite, Absolite, Glalitite, Salamencite, Metagrossite, Garchompite, and Lucarionite.
That still leaves 27 Mega Stones unobtainable. So... were these just available via events? Well, actually, yes. That is exactly what happened. Via event, you could obtain the Beedrillite, Pidgeotite, Mewtwonite X, Mewtwonite Y, Ampharosite, Steelixite, Heracronite, Houndoominite, Tyranitarite, Sceptilite, Blazikenite, Swampertite, Gardevoirite, Mawilite, Aggronite, Medichamite, Manectite, Cameruptite, Altarianite, Banettite, Latiasite, Latiosite, Lopunnite, Abomasite, Galladite, and Audinite.
So yeah... if you're trying to get all of these Mega Stones in Sun and Moon, you're out of luck.
Good thing that Sun and Moon aren't the only games in Gen 7.
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon thankfully made these all available as prizes from the Battle Tree, so you could get any Mega Stone you needed.
With one exception. Yeah... you may notice that I've only listed 46 of the 47 Mega Stones so far. The Diancite is missing from all Gen 7 games. It was available via event in Sun/Moon, just like the aforementioned Mega Stones. But unlike those ones, it was never made available in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon's Battle Tree prize counter.
Instead, you can get it in Konikoni City in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, at Olivia's jewelry store, but only if you have a Diancie in your party. And that's pretty tricky to do, because Diancie cannot be obtained in Gen 7, so you have to transfer it from Gen 6. And in Gen 6... it was event-only. So you're out of luck now.
As a quick aside, Diancie is the mythical Pokémon that is currently the record-holder for longest time since the last distribution. The last event to give away a Diancie was in August 2016, and even then, that was only if you physically went to South Korea to get it. The last one to be done online for anyone to be able to connect to and get it was November 2015. Even that one is questionable, because it specifically only distributed it to Japanese and Taiwanese copies of the game. The last time Diancie was available online to a North American or European game was in July 2015. So it has been quite a while.
Anyways, back to unobtainable items in Gen 7. So... we already talked about Mega Stones. Let's look at the other held item gimmick of Gen 7: Z-Crystals.
Of course, all of the Z-Crystals of the main types in the game are obtainable through normal gameplay. And as for the species-specific ones, there's 17 of them, but only 13 can be obtained through normal gameplay.
Let's look at the other four.
The Snorlium Z allows a Snorlax with Giga Impact to use the Z-Move Pulverizing Pancake. This item was given away to Sun/Moon players with an event Munchlax featuring the otherwise-unobtainable moves on it Hold Back and Happy Hour. Luckily, it is much easier to obtain in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. All you need to do is show a Snorlax to a man in the hotel in Heahea City. And that's easy enough to obtain, since Munchlax can be found on Route 1 in Alola.
Even if you can't get it, is it a big loss? Well... Pulverizing Pancake is just a 210 power move. So you could just use a Normalium Z instead and turn Giga Impact into Breakneck Blitz. That's 200 power, which... while a bit weaker, is probably good enough.
The next Z-Crystal that you may have trouble getting is the Pikashunium Z. To obtain this, you need a Pikachu in a cap. The Pikachu in a cap were a series of event distributions in Gen 7 (plus one in Gen 8) that depicted Pikachu wearing one of the hats that Ash wore in the TV show. They were always male, could not breed or evolve, and could not use the Pikanium Z. (In Gen 8, they also cannot Gigantamax.)
However, they do have their own Z-Crystal, the Pikashunium Z. In Sun/Moon, the Pikashunium Z came with the Pikachu in a cap. But in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, you obtained it in Pikachu Valley, but only if you had a Pikachu in a cap in your party. Either way, the event-only Pikachu in a cap is required.
This will allow it to upgrade its Thunderbolt to the Z-Move 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt. This has 195 power and an increased critical hit rate. That's really good... so it sucks that you can't get it anymore.
Or can you?
So... the issue here is that we need a Pikachu in a cap. And that's impossible to obtain, right? Well, actually no. There is a QR Code that you can scan with your 3DS camera to obtain it. And this will always work, forever. However, it only works in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. It will not work in the original Sun/Moon. Still, Sun/Moon can always receive it in a trade from Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, so it's not too bad.
The next Z-Crystal on our list is the Mewnium Z. In Sun/Moon, this was event-only. And... that's it.
Yeah, this one is well and truly unobtainable now, through legitimate means. What about trading with someone who got it back in the day? Unfortunately, for plot-related reasons, Z-Crystals cannot be traded.
So what if you want it in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon? Well... there is a man in Heahea City who will give it to you if you show him a Mew. But... getting a Mew is going to take some effort. You may think that mew is event-only, at least until the Poké Ball Plus came out and let you get it in Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee and Sword/Shield. And then there is that one that you can obtain in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl that you can get in Floaroma Town if you have save data from Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee.
And you'd be mostly right.
But there are exactly two ways to obtain a Mew without just receiving it in an event.
The first is one that we've already discussed: there's one available in-game in Emerald on Faraway Island. However... this requires the Old Sea Map, an event-only item, which was only ever legally available in the Japanese version of the game. So this one is... not viable.
The other way to get a Mew is in a spinoff game: My Pokémon Ranch on the Wii. This is just a glorified PC storage system where you could store your Pokémon from Diamond/Pearl. In the Japanese version, you can also store them from Platinum. Not HeartGold/SoulSilver though.
If you store 999 Pokémon in there, the most that is possible, then you can talk to Haley and she will offer you a trade, giving you a Mew in exchange for any Egg. And because a Pokémon from My Pokémon Ranch can be transferred to Diamond/Pearl (and Platinum in Japanese), this does let you use a spinoff game to get Mew in a main game.
Once you have it in Gen 4, you can just transfer it up to Gen 7, and then get the Mewnium Z. But this is a lot of effort to do, and probably not worth it.
The Mewnium Z lets Mew upgrade its Psychic to the Z-Move Genesis Supernova, which has 185 power and causes Psychic Terrain for five turns. Definitely not worth the effort it takes to get it.
The last Z-Crystal is the Marshadium Z. Much like the other Z-Crystals, this one was available in Sun/Moon from an event Marshadow holding it, and it's available from a man in Heahea City by showing him a Marshadow. Unfortunately, Marshadow is an event-only Pokémon in all games in which it appears. So there's no getting around this one.
The Marshadium Z upgrades Marshadow's Spectral Thief into the Z-Move Soul-Sealing 7-Star Strike. This is a 195-power Ghost-type physical move. That's it.
Meh.
The last thing to cover are five berries. These berries were unavailable in Gen 7 outside of events, despite being in past and future games.
There's the Enigma Berry, which heals 25% of your HP when you get hit by a super-effective move.
There's the Micle Berry, which triggers when your HP drops below 25% and gives you 1.2x accuracy on your next attack.
There's the Custap Berry, which triggers when your HP drops below 25% and makes your next move always go first regardless of Speed (though priority moves still apply priority as normal, you will go first within your own priority group).
There's the Jaboca Berry, which causes the opponent to lose 12.5% of their HP whenever they attack you with a physical move.
And there's the Rowap Berry, which is the same thing, but for special moves.
These are all pretty good berries and it sucks that there's no way to obtain them in a Gen 7 game legitimately anymore. Luckily, because they are berries, the players who do have them and plant and grow them and harvest them, in order to trade them to other players, so there are an endless number of these out in the world. So even if you missed one or even all of them, you can still obtain them legitimately through trading. It just sucks that such things are necessary.
Cause, really, these are among the best berries in the game.
Generation 8
In Sword/Shield, we only have one item to talk about: the Dynamax Crystal. There are 300 varieties, each named after a constellation in the real-world sky. Only 12 were ever made available, but the other 288 are in the game's data. When used at the Watchtower Lair, a Pokémon Den at the base of the Watchtower Ruins will become active with a Dynamax Pokémon, until midnight.
Without these, you just have to rely on luck to get the Dynamax Pokémon in the Wild Area.
We're not done yet though, as there's also the Genesect Drives to consider. I didn't bring them up in Gen 7, because in Gen 7, you can get them from Colress on Route 8 after beating the game, even if you don't have a Genesect.
But here in Gen 8, we're back to requiring a Genesect. Once you have one, a man in Stow-on-Side will give them to you. You could get a Genesect from an event in Gen 8, or transfer one from an event in Gen 5-6 (Gen 7 had no Genesect events). But no matter how you do it, you need an event. So the drives are unobtainable.
That's it for Sword/Shield, but we're still not done with Gen 8, because we have Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl to talk about next.
We start with the Gracidea, Shaymin's item. Yet again, Gen 7 made this one obtainable (in Hau'oli City) without issue, but now we're back to needing a Shaymin, which is event-only. In Legends: Arceus, you just need save data from Sword/Shield and then you'll be able to get one from Medi. But with Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl... because these are faithful remakes, you'll need to either get Oak's Letter and do that whole sidequest that's event-only... or transfer an event Shaymin from the previous games. Or... transfer one from Legends: Arceus. Believe it or not, that's actually the easiest way to handle this, so... it's not as hopeless as you may think.
The other items that are impossible to obtain now in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl are the seven apricorn Poké Ball varieties: Fast Ball, Level Ball, Lure Ball, Heavy Ball, Love Ball, Friend Ball, and Moon Ball.
This set was given out via event at one point, but those events have since ended. As such, it is no longer possible to legitimately obtain these items on a fresh save file.
Generation 9
So, Gen 9 is still ongoing, so it is possible that some of these items may become easier to obtain in the future, but for now, there are three items that are... problematic.
The first is the Gracidea. This can sometimes appear as an item for auction in the Porto Marinada Market, on version 2.0.1 and later. But only if you have Shaymin in your party. There is no way to obtain Shaymin in Scarlet/Violet at all. But you can obtain it in Legends: Arceus (if you have Sword/Shield save data) and then transfer it over. So there is that.
Next up is Hoopa. We last talked about its form-changing item, the Prison Bottle, in Gen 6. Gen 7 just had you obtain this item in-game in Aether Paradise, so there was no need for Hoopa. And Gen 8 had it completely unobtainable, due to Hoopa not being present in any Gen 8 game. In Gen 9, with Hoopa once again being obtainable, its item is as well. This one is also sometimes available as an auction item in the Porto Marinada Market if you have a Hoopa. Unfortunately, there's no easy way around this one. Hoope can only be obtained via an event from Gen 6-7, and then transferred to Gen 9 from there.
The last item in Gen 9 that is event-only is the Mythical Pecha Berry. This lets you start The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero's epilogue, Mochi Mayhem, in Kitakami by interacting with a decoration (which is actually a Pecharunt) at Peachy's in Mossui Town.
This event... is being distributed online... um... now.
It's been going for about a month now, and it's unclear if they're gonna stop later or not, but regardless... the servers will go offline eventually at some point in the future, so... this will become an unobtainable item before too long, unless another game comes out to make this item available through other means.
It's been a big hit ever since Red and Blue versions. Of course, if you want to "catch em all", you need to be able to trade with other players (or with yourself), so you need both versions. Red and Blue.
And then you can combine those to get all of the Pokémon.
Except... not quite.
You'd still not have a full set, because those two games only combine to give you 150 Pokémon out of 151. You would miss out on Mew.
Mew is a mythical Pokémon, so the only way to obtain it is via a Nintendo event, and while there were plenty of such events back in the day, they're long over, so someone just starting today cannot possibly get a full Pokédex in Gen 1.
So... what if they opted to collect something else instead? Instead of Pokémon... maybe... items? Items are a big thing in these games.
Well... I'm sorry to say, but... there are some items that you would miss out on. I'd like to take a look at what these items were, how they were obtained back in the day, what they did, and whether or not you're really missing anything by not being able to obtain them anymore.
Why am I covering ITEMS of all things instead of something people actually care about like, you know, the Pokémon? Well, because everyone knows what mythical Pokémon are unobtainable in older games. That's been talked about to death. This is a topic that I've not seen anyone talk about before. So let's take a look.
Generation 1
Generation 1 is very straightforward when it comes to items that you can no longer obtain: there are none.
That was easy. Yeah, there's some items that you can't get, because they're just not programmed into the game, but... you never could, so I don't count these. Like, yeah, I could talk about glitch items and what they do, but... again, I feel like that's a topic that other people have already covered.
Generation 2
Generation 2 is where we first start running into problems. If you want to collect every item in the game... you actually can succeed... in Gold and Silver.
The trouble is Crystal.
So, let's start with two pieces of mail: the Bluesky Mail and the Mirage Mail.
In Gold and Silver, these were just like the unused items in Gen 1: no way to obtain them.
And, in Crystal, if you were to play the game nowadays, yeah, it'd be the same.
But there was a way to obtain them in Crystal back during its prime.
Well, assuming you live in Japan.
In Japanese Crystal, there was a device that let you connect your Game Boy to your mobile phone and allow you to connect to a now-defunct online service to obtain various things. And two of those things were these pieces of mail. This was the only way to obtain them legitimately.
With five pieces of mail easily obtainable in-game already, and another three available via Mystery Gift... these two aren't going to be missed. So I think it's okay that they're gone now.
We're not done with Crystal yet. So... let's talk about the Odd Egg. When the player first reaches the Day Care in Crystal version, they can talk to the Day-Care Man to receive the Odd Egg. This will randomly hatch into one of seven Pokémon (Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Tyrogue, Smoochum, Elekid, or Magby), that knows the additional move Dizzy Punch. Additionally, the shiny odds are massively increased, hatching into a shiny Pokémon in 14% of all cases.
However... that's only in non-Japanese versions of the game. In the Japanese version, you get the Odd Egg in a different way, and it requires an event.
Now, the Odd Egg itself isn't actually an item. It's a Pokémon that goes into your party. Therefore, it does not qualify for this list. However, the way you obtain the Odd Egg within the Japanese version of Crystal is by using an item called the Egg Ticket. By showing this item to the nurse at the Goldenrod Pokémon Center, she will give you the Odd Egg. And how do you get the Egg Ticket? Through the already-aforementioned mobile phone service, which no longer exists. This means that it is an impossible-to-obtain item nowadays, and so Japanese players have no way to receive the Odd Egg anymore. Which means that it's completely unobtainable on Virtual Console, and always has been.
Interestingly, for this reason, Dizzy Punch is an illegal move on all of the Pokémon that can have it, in the Japanese Virtual Console version. And since that is the version that is considered the "default" one, it is actually not possible to transfer one of these Pokémon with the move Dizzy Punch from Gen 2 to Gen 7, as the game will flag it as an illegal Pokémon, even though it's not. But you can always pay a visit to the Move Deleter if necessary.
And speaking of the Virtual Console version... it is well-known at this point that you can obtain a Celebi in the Virtual Console version of Crystal. After beating the game, if you go into the Goldenrod City Pokémon Center, you will receive the GS Ball, which can be taken to Kurt in Azalea Town. Then, wait a day, and you can talk to Kurt to get it back, and bring it to the Ilex Forest to summon a wild Celebi.
However... this is not the only way to obtain the GS Ball. The other way... is to obtain it on an actual Gen 2 cartridge. And yes, that is possible. Or at least, it was. Yet again, in Japanese Crystal, this was distributed via the mobile phone service that no longer exists. As such, it is now forever unobtainable from a fresh save file.
Generation 3
So... for Ruby and Sapphire, we need to blur the line between what is "obtainable" and "unobtainable" for a bit to talk about a certain set of berries.
These are the Pumkin Berry, Drash Berry, Eggant Berry, Strib Berry, Chilan Berry (not to be confused with the Gen 4+ Berry of the same name), Nutpea Berry, Ginema Berry, Kuo Berry, Yago Berry, Touga Berry, Niniku Berry, and Topo Berry.
So... let's start by talking about the Enigma Berry. It's a perfectly normal berry with nothing special about it. You can plant it, harvest it, turn it into PokéBlocks to enhance your Pokémon's contest stats, you know... the usual. There's nothing noteworthy about it.
Until there is.
See, at the time of the release of Ruby and Sapphire, the e-Reader wasn't yet proven to be a disastrous failure. So, there are plenty of e-Reader functions still programmed into the game. If you live in Europe or Australia... then you're out of luck, as the e-Reader was never released there (because they realized that it sucked).
But for the rest of the world... we got some cards. I'm not gonna go over every single card and what it did, because there are a lot of them, but for our purposes, there are twelve cards that depict items: these berries. When scanned, every Enigma Berry in the game will turn into whatever berry is depicted on the card, and you can then use those cards.
Now, yes, I do get that these aren't truly lost, as you can still track down old copies of these cards, but... at that point... you're using outside help, so you're better off just buying a cheating device and hacking them in. I will also note that if you live in America, you only got six of the twelve cards (the first six berries that I listed above). The e-Reader was such a failure that it was discontinued before the last six could be released. You can only get those ones if you live in Japan.
I should note that because a card scan REPLACES the Enigma Berry rather than adding something new, it is impossible to have a save file with more than one of these. And if you trade a Pokémon holding one to another game, then it will turn back into an Enigma Berry if that other game has not yet scanned any of the berry cards (and if it has, then it will turn into whatever new berry the game is using for its e-Reader berries). If transferred to Gen 4, the berry will just become an Enigma Berry.
So what did these berries do? Is there anything lost from being unable to have them? Well... let's take a look.
The Pumkin Berry simply cures freezing. This makes it identical to the Aspear Berry as far as held item functionality is concerned. Yeah, yeah, there's different PokéBlock stats and Berry Blending nonsense and the harvesting is different, but... like... did anyone seriously bother with any of that?
The Drash Berry cures poisoning, so it is identical to the Pecha Berry, minus all of the stuff that you don't care about if you ignore contests.
The Eggant Berry cures infatuation, which is actually quite interesting, as there is no berry that will do that normally. Now, yes, there is the Mental Herb, which does do this, but that is not a berry. Why does that matter? Well, there are some moves and abilities that only affect berries. That said, none of them are in Gen 3, so... it's completely irrelevant.
The Strib Berry cannot be used. It exists purely as a PokéBlock ingredient. Lame.
The Chilan Berry also exists purely for PokéBlock use.
The Nutpea Berry is also a pure PokéBlock ingredient. And this was the last one to be released outside of Japan. So, yeah, you're not missing much if you can't get these items. But what about the six that were only available in Japan? Well...
The Ginema Berry will, one time only, prevent the lowering of a Pokémon's stats. This is the same as a White Herb. Kind of. So... they actually do work differently. The White Herb will reset the stats back to where they were before they were lowered, while the Ginema Berry will provide an increase to the stat that was lowered to bring it back to where it was. I don't really know of any niche use case where you can exploit this difference, but I'm sure there is one.
The Kuo Berry has no use and can only be used to make PokéBlocks.
The Yago Berry cures burns, so it's just a Rawst Berry with different PokéBlock stats and harvesting stats.
The Touga Berry can cure confusion, but... again, we have the Persim Berry for that.
The Niniku Berry has no use other than as a PokéBlock ingredient.
The Topo Berry also has no use.
Now... one thing that I should mention is that, even ignoring PokéBlocks... these berries are TECHNICALLY different from the berries that they share similar effects to. Because all of them were given the additional property of being immune to battle removal, so you will not lose them to Thief, Covet, or Trick. Whereas if you stuck with the original berries found through normal gameplay, you could. I don't think this is a big enough difference to warrant any tears for missing out on it though.
One item that absolutely DO warrants tears is the Eon Ticket e-Reader card. This was given away in an issue of Nintendo Power (issue 173, to be exact). When scanned, then, after beating the game, you can talk to Norman to receive the Eon Ticket in-game item. Then, if you go to Lilycove Harbor, a Sailor will take you to the otherwise-inaccessible Southern Island. On Southern Island, there is a stationary encounter with a Latias (Ruby) or Latios (Sapphire). These are otherwise version-exclusives to the opposite version, and they're also normally hard-to-catch roaming legendaries (whereas the versions on the Southern Island are stationary encounters).
Now... hope is not lost if you don't have this e-Reader card, because there's another way to obtain the Eon Ticket in-game item in these games, and this other method, because it doesn't use an e-Reader, will also work in Emerald.
That is... to record-mix with someone who DID use the e-Reader card. If you do this, then you can talk to Norman after beating the game and get the ticket yourself as well. However, a ticket obtained this way cannot be shared with other games through further record-mixing.
Oh, and... in Emerald, which Pokémon appears on the Southern Island is whichever you didn't choose to have roam the region when you beat the game. I should also note that in Emerald, you can freely come and go to the island after visiting it once (though there's nothing for you there after you either capture or kill the legendary there). In Ruby/Sapphire, it is inaccessible after leaving.
And while we're on the topic of tickets to faraway islands, there's the AuroraTicket and the MysticTicket, which were event-only items that were distributed to FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald. These took you to otherwise-inaccessible islands on the Sevii Islands. The AuroraTicket takes you to Birth Island, where the player can solve a quick puzzle in order to encounter a Deoxys. The MysticTicket takes you to Navel Rock and allows you to encounter a Lugia and Ho-Oh. In any case, these events are long over, thereby leaving the items unobtainable.
I will say that there were far fewer events for the MysticTicket than the AuroraTicket, so the number of people who have obtained one legitimately is very few.
But even fewer is the Old Sea Map, which takes you to a Faraway Island. This largely works the same, except that it's only able to be used in Emerald. Here, you can find a Mew.
Now, for all of these items, it sucks that you can't get them anymore, but that's more so because of the Pokémon that they are attached to. Let's look at some items that actually... do things in-battle.
The first is the Sacred Ash. This item can, for some reason, just be found on the ground on Route 2 in HeartGold/SoulSIlver. But other than that one instance... there's only one way to obtain this item in every single Pokémon game: it is held by wild Ho-Oh. So from here, you can see the problem. In order to get a wild Ho-Oh, you'd need to get to Navel Rock, which would require a MysticTicket.
Well, mostly correct. Gen 3, as it turns out, is the one generation where Ho-Oh actually DOESN'T hold the Sacred Ash. Instead, the Sacred Ash can just be found right where Ho-Oh is standing, by using your Itemfinder after battling it. But still, same principle applies.
So what does the Sacred Ash do? Well... it functions as a one-time-use portable Pokémon Center, fully healing your entire team of their HP and status ailments, including fainting. The only thing is that it doesn't restore PP (though it did in Gen 2). This is a good item... and it sucks that it can't be obtained anymore in Gen 3, but oh well.
The next item that's missing from Gen 3, though, somehow hurts even more.
The Soul Dew item.
A Pokémon holding the Soul Dew will receive 1.5x to its Special Attack and Special Defense, provided that Pokémon is either Latios or Latias. Starting in Gen 7, they changed it to just instead increase the power of their STAB moves by 1.2x instead, which is a lot less good.
But prior to that nerf, the Soul Dew was INCREDIBLE. It was so good that it ended up getting banned from both Smogon OU and from official Nintendo tournaments.
So how do you get one? Well... it's held by the Pokémon encountered at the Southern Island that you need an Eon Ticket to get to. So... yeah, so much for that.
And that's not the only wild held item that you miss out on in Gen 3. So... let's talk about the Berry Juice item. Berry Juice, when held by a Pokémon, will heal 20 HP when its HP gets into the yellow range. This is a Potion that is used automatically without wasting a turn. Or, put another way, this is essentially two Oran Berries at once.
The way that this is obtained? It's a held item on wild Shuckle in most games (except for in Gen 5).
Quick aside: so, here's some fun trivia. Shuckle doesn't come with this item by default in Gen 2, but can create it through an outside-of-battle ability that is unique to Shuckle, despite abilities not even existing in Gen 2 yet! But, after every battle, if you have a Shuckle holding a Berry in your party, then the topmost such Shuckle on your team has a 1 in 16 chance of turning that Berry into Berry Juice, if you have previously entered Goldenrod City at least once. I have no idea why this is a thing in Gen 2, but... it is.
Anyways... so... what's the problem? Just get a wild Shuckle, right? Well... the only way to find a wild Shuckle in Gen 3 is to find it in the Safari Zone extension in Emerald's post-game, where you can encounter Shuckle via Rock Smash.
The problem then becomes the fact that I said this was a held item on wild Shuckle in MOST games... because, as it turns out... the Hoenn games are the one set of games outside of Gen 2 and Gen 5 where wild Shuckle do not hold Berry Juice.
So if you want to get Berry Juice in Gen 3, you cannot use the Hoenn games for this. You need the Kanto games, FireRed and LeafGreen.
The problem that you next run into is that Shuckle does not appear in the wild in these games. At least, not through normal means. If you go to Outcast Island (the sixth of the Sevii Islands), you can find a cave there called Altering Cave. If you were to explore this area, you'd find absolutely nothing in it except for a lot of Zubat. Yeah, the wild encounter rate is high and it has a 100% chance of being Zubat.
Pretty pointless... until it isn't. Because in the game's data... you can actually see what this was meant for. Which Pokémon appears here can change. There's always a 100% chance of something, and Zubat is simply the default. But by using Mystery Gift to connect to an event, this could be altered to be either Mareep, Aipom, Pineco, Shuckle, Teddiursa, Houndour, Stantler, or Smeargle.
However, these events never happened in any part of the world. Thus, these Pokémon are unobtainable in FireRed and LeafGreen. Instead, they were all relocated to be in the extension to the Safari Zone in Emerald, apart from Smeargle, who can be found in Artisan Cave in Emerald's Battle Frontier.
For the majority of these Pokémon, it makes no difference whether you get them in Emerald or in FireRed/LeafGreen, but for Shuckle, it does. Because of its wild held item being a Berry Juice in FireRed/LeafGreen, while only being an Oran Berry in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Thus... the Berry Juice is unobtainable in Generation 3.
Is it that big of a loss? Well, honestly, yes. Because of the Little Cup format, which limits you to using Level 5 Pokémon. At Level 5, 20 HP is your entire health bar, so this just fully heals you. Berry Juice is one of the best items in Little Cup for this reason. And, in fact, because of that... it ended up getting itself banned from the format in Gen 4-5. It very well likely would have been banned in Gen 3 as well, so if that's the case, then this is no loss. But if it had been legal? This is a major loss.
Generation 4
So, as you journey through the Sinnoh region, you may stumble upon an inn in Canalave City. In order to enter this inn, you need the Member Card, an event-only item. If you've already battled Cresselia, you will have obtained the Lunar Wing, which can be used to dispel nightmares. This can be used to save an old man from a nightmare and then travel to Newmoon Island, where a Darkrai is waiting for you.
Without this item, there is no way to legitimately obtain a Darkrai.
I should note that this item was never actually distributed to Diamond/Pearl via events, only to Platinum. But it does still exist in the game's data for Diamond/Pearl, hinting that it was supposed to be obtainable there. Alas, none of them can obtain it anymore.
This isn't the only such item, though. There's also Oak's Letter, which is, as its name implies, a letter from Professor Oak. When obtained, it will tell the player that Oak wants to meet them on Route 224. If you go there, you'll find Oak near that white rock. He'll tell you to write a note on the rock, and after doing so, an entrance to Seabreak Path will appear, which leads to Flower Paradise, where a Shaymin can be captured. Once again, despite this being planned for all three Sinnoh games, only Platinum actually got the Oak's Letter event.
Well, mostly just Platinum.
I guess I should say that both of these were also event distributions in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, so there is that.
There is also a third event-only item: the Azure Flute. If you take this to the top of Spear Pillar, a new stairway will appear leading to the Hall of Origin. There, you can find an Arceus to battle and potentially catch.
It was never distributed. Instead, Nintendo just had events that gave away Arceus directly.
Now, I should note that the Azure Flute item also exists in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and is obtained over the course of the story. Much like in the Gen 4 games, it does allow you to access the Hall of Origin and encounter Arceus, though only if you have completed your Hisui Pokédex.
Additionally, if you complete every single mission in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, then... on that same Switch, if you go to Twinleaf Town in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, you'll find an Azure Flute in your room (assuming you're playing on Version 1.3.0 or later). From there, it acts the same as it would have in the Gen 4 games.
So while this is still perfectly obtainable in Gen 8, there is alas no way to get it in Gen 4.
Is this a big loss? Actually, believe it or not, it is. Because the Arceus found in the Hall of Origin is Level 80. And the ones given by Nintendo were Level 100. This actually has huge implications. In Gen 4, you don't gain EVs from battle immediately, you only gain them upon leveling up. Without the ability to level up, Arceus cannot gain EVs from battle. So Arceus is limited to only getting EVs from vitamins, which carry their own set of restrictions: all of your stats must have EVs that are a multiple of 10, and no more than 100 in any one stat. If a Level 80 Arceus was obtainable, and Arceus was then free to have any EV spread it wants... it would have major changes to competitive Ubers.
While those three were the only event-only items in Diamond/Pearl, Platinum added a couple more.
First up is the Secret Key, not to be confused with the item of the same name from Gen 1 and its remakes.
This is an event-only item that, when obtained, lets you access an otherwise-inaccessible room in the Team Galactic Eterna Building, that has the appliances where you can change Rotom's form. Obviously, this isn't in Diamond/Pearl because Rotom can't change form in those games. In Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, this is obtained automatically upon obtaining Rotom itself, but in Platinum, it requires an event, making it unobtainable today.
And that's not the only form-changing item, as there's also the Gracidea, which, when used (from the Bag) on a non-frozen Shaymin, it will transform from Land Form to Sky Form, unless it's nighttime. Obviously, this isn't in Diamond/Pearl, due to Shaymin not having a Sky Form in those games, but it is in Platinum, and can be obtained from someone in Floaroma Town just by talking to them. But only if you have a Shaymin in your party. And without the ability to obtain one, you're out of luck here.
You can also get one from an NPC in the Goldenrod Flower Shop in HeartGold/SoulSilver, though this too requires you to have a Shaymin in your party, so it is just as unobtainable.
I do find these losses to be... quite a bit substantial. Pokémon ought to be allowed to change forms.
Speaking of HeartGold/SoulSilver, it has a few event-only items of its own.
The first is the Enigma Stone. When obtained, it can be brought to the Pewter Museum, where researchers will discover that it is the Soul Dew, giving it to the player (though this is not the only way to obtain the Soul Dew, as you could also connect to Pokémon Battle Revolution on the Wii and buy it there for 14400 Poké Coupons, it is nonetheless the only way to obtain the Enigma Stone itself. Of course, if you have an Eon Ticket, you can just obtain the Soul Dew in Gen 3 and then transfer it to Gen 4, but that still doesn't help with obtaining the Enigma Stone).
Showing the Enigma Stone to the Pewter Museum will also cause a Pokémon to spawn: Latios in HeartGold and Latias in SoulSilver. If you don't have an Enigma Stone, then these are normally version-exclusives to the opposite version.
Now... let's talk about Giratina. It has two forms, Altered Form and Origin Form. At least, from Platinum onwards. In Diamond/Pearl, it only had Altered Form. To get it into Origin Form, you'd need to either be in the Distortion World or you'd need to have it hold the Griseous Orb. This can be obtained through normal gameplay in Platinum. But because data for it does not exist in Diamond/Pearl... it means that a Pokémon holding a Griseous Orb cannot be traded in Gen 4, to prevent it from ending up in Diamond/Pearl (it can be freely traded in all later generations).
So then... how would you get a Griseous Orb in HeartGold/SoulSilver?
Well, it is tricky, but there is a way. First, you need to obtain an Arceus. So... yeah. That's already just... straight-out impossible nowadays. But let's say you somehow get one. Bring it to the Ruins of Alph, and this will allow you to access the Sinjoh Ruins. While there, you can obtain one of either Dialga, Palkia, or Giratina. They hold their held items: Adamant Orb, Lustrous Orb, and Griseous Orb, respectively.
But while the Adamant Orb and Lustrous Orb can be obtained by just getting them in the Sinnoh games and trading them over, the Griseous Orb, as previously mentioned, cannot be traded.
This means that this is the only legal way to obtain one in HeartGold/SoulSilver, and with Arceus no longer being available, it is now impossible to obtain. Not only does this lock Giratina's Origin form out of HeartGold/SoulSilver, but the Griseous Orb also has an effect: it gives 1.2x power to Giratina's STAB moves. This makes it quite a good held item for Giratina, and so losing it is indeed a major loss.
There is one final event item in HeartGold/SoulSilver: the Lock Capsule. This is just a locked box. In order to open it and obtain what is inside, you need to find the one specific NPC that can open it for you. Well, you can search all you want - you're never going to find him. Because he's not found anywhere in Kanto or Johto. No... he lives in Castelia City in the Unova region.
So, after obtaining the Lock Capsule, you can transfer it to Gen 5, where, in Black/White, Mr. Lock can finally open it for you. Inside, you'll find TM95, Snarl.
However... these distributions never happened, and so Snarl was actually unobtainable this way. And no Pokémon in Gen 5 can learn Snarl without this TM.
That is... until Nintendo gave away an event Zoroark with this move. That gave the move to Zoroark. However, because this is classified by the game as a TM move, it means that any offspring that this Zoroark produces that could learn this TM will hatch with the move. (You could also Sketch it with Smeargle to give it to Smeargle's offspring, but since Zoroark and Smeargle are in the same Egg Group, this doesn't actually help in terms of distributing the move.)
This gave the move to Growlithe, Umbreon, Snubbull, Sneasel, Houndour, Poochyena, Sableye, Electrike, Absol, Shinx, Stunky, Lillipup, Purrloin, Sandile, Scraggy, and Zorua (as well as all evolutions thereof). If bred onto a Scraggy, it could then be bred from that Scraggy onto a Druddigon, and then, if bred onto a Druddigon, it could then be bred from there to a Larvitar.
This is way more complicated than it should have been.
And they seemingly realized this, because later on, they released the sequels to these games. And in Black 2/White 2, they just made TM95 available through normal gameplay. Much easier.
We're not done with Gen 4 yet though, as there is still one more item to talk about: the Brick Mail.
In the very early days of Diamond/Pearl... Nintendo gave away 90 different English-language Heracross on the GTS, requesting a Japanese-language Roselia in exchange. It's not the only time Nintendo gave away things on the GTS, but... what is notable is that these Heracross were holding Brick Mail. This is the one and only time Nintendo has EVER given access to the Brick Mail. So only 90 legitimate copies of this item exist worldwide.
Of course, being just mail, missing it is no big deal.
Generation 5
Gen 5 has a few event-only items, and we've already talked about a couple. The first is the Lock Capsule, which, in theory, you'd have to transfer from HeartGold/SoulSilver, but in practice, those events never happened, so forget about it.
The other item that we've previously discussed is the Gracidea, to allow your Shaymin to change forms. It can be obtained from an NPC in the Pokémon Center in either Lacunosa Town (Black/White) or Striaton City (Black 2/White 2). But... again... you need to have a Shaymin in your party in order to obtain it. And that requires either an event, or transfer from Gen 4. And in Gen 4, it also required an event. So either way, you're out of luck.
As for new items, there's actually five of them that we need to discuss. Four of them are all basically the same thing though.
These are the Shock Drive, Burn Drive, Chill Drive, and Douse Drive. In order to obtain these, you need to talk to a scientist in P2 Laboratory with a Genesect in your party. Genesect is an event-only Pokémon, so that is a no-go nowadays.
So what do these items do? Well, they work with Genesect's signature move, Techno Blast. Techno Blast is normally a Normal-type move, but if the Pokémon using Techno Blast is holding a Drive, then it will change to be Electric, Fire, Ice, or Water, depending on the Drive being held (I really hope that I don't have to explain which is which).
I should note that even with a Genesect, you only get two of the four drives, depending on which version of the game you are playing. The Shock Drive and Burn Drive are in Black and Black 2, while the Chill Drive and Douse Drive are in White and White 2.
The next event-only item is the Liberty Ticket. This item lets you board the ship in the westernmost harbor in Castelia City, which will take you to the otherwise-inaccessible Liberty Garden. (Note that this is only in Black/White, not Black 2/White 2).
This event-only item actually cuts out a nonzero amount of story if unobtained, as Team Plasma does go to Liberty Garden and the player can deal with them if they are able. And there's also a hidden Ultra Ball here, so there is that. But... the big reason why you want to come here is that there's a Victini here that you can catch, and the only other way to obtain a Victini is via an event giving it to you directly. So you lose out on an entire Pokémon here.
And there's one more event-only item in Gen 5, which... is a bit of a strange one.
That is... the Light Ball.
When held by a Pikachu, it will cause Pikachu's Attack and Special Attack to be doubled. It also allows it to produce offspring Pichu that know the otherwise-unobtainable move Volt Tackle.
In most games, obtaining the Light Ball is trivial. Just catch a wild Pikachu, and there's a chance that it holds one. Alas... there are no wild Pikachu in Unova. The only way to get a Pikachu in Gen 5 is to transfer it from Gen 4. And sadly, held items cannot be transferred in intergenerational transfers (aside from going from Gen 3 to Gen 4).
This means that the Light Ball cannot be obtained through normal gameplay.
Instead... you have to get your hands on one of the many event Pikachu that were given out that were holding this item. There were eight different event Pikachu distributed at various points throughout Gen 5 that held this item, so it was pretty easy to get one back in this game's time. But nowadays? It's basically impossible to obtain one legitimately.
And what's really frustrating is that there are NPCs that do use the Light Ball, giving them an unfair advantage over the player. And no, you can't just use Thief or a similar move, because starting in Gen 5, items obtained through Thief (and any other in-battle method of removing a held item) are returned to NPCs after the battle concludes.
Is this a big loss? Honestly... yeah, kinda. This is easily Pikachu's best held item to use in any context, and it sucks that it can't use it in Gen 5 anymore.
Generation 6
Gen 6's main gimmick was Mega Evolution. Certain Pokémon had Mega Stones that they could use to Mega Evolve with during battle.
In X and Y, these Pokémon were: Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Alakazam, Gengar, Kangaskhan, Pinsir, Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Mewtwo, Ampharos, Scizor, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Gardevoir, Mawile, Aggron, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Absol, Garchomp, Lucario, and Abomasnow.
If it sounds like I am missing some Pokémon from that list, you're right. But the others debuted in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, and as such, are not available in X and Y.
With a few exceptions.
First of all, are Latias and Latios. These have their Mega Stones coded into X and Y, and so can be used, you just need to trade them over from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire first.
But the others? Beedrill, Pidgeot, Slowbro, Steelix, Sceptile, Blaziken, Swampert, Sableye, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, Salamence, Metagross, Lppunny, Gallade, Audino, and Diancie?
Well, those ones, I'm afraid, are exclusive to Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Their Mega Evolutions are not programmed into X and Y, and so they cannot be traded over.
With one exception.
The Blazikenite actually IS in X and Y, and was available as a held item on a special event Torchic that was given out prior to the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. So, at the time, this was the only way to obtain a Blazikenite in X and Y. Of course, nowadays, you can just trade one over from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where the Blazikenite can be obtained through normal gameplay, so this one isn't too bad.
Another event-only item from X and Y is the Discount Coupon. This item can be used in any clothing store to get a "50% off" discount one-time-only when shopping for clothes. If you don't use it in this game, you can even trade it over to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and it will work there as well. Not having this isn't too big of a deal though, since you can always just pay full price. And also... buying outfits is an optional and purely cosmetic feature in these games.
While we're here in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, we may as well take a look at the Eon Ticket.
Much like the Eon Ticket of Gen 3, this lets you go to the Southern Island to obtain Latias (Omega Ruby) or Latios (Alpha Sapphire). The only difference is how you obtain it, since obviously the 3DS doesn't have e-Reader compatibility. Instead, this was given out by a serial code. However, you can also obtain it by using StreetPass with someone else's game who already has it, so there are technically a limitless amount of Eon Tickets still out there. So this one isn't too bad to obtain legitimately.
And even if it was, you're not missing much, since you can get Latias and Latios in other games and then trade/transfer them over.
Our next event item is the Prison Bottle. This can be obtained by just going to a Poké Mart in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire with Hoopa in your party. This will cause the shopkeeper to tell you a scary story for a bit, and then he will give the player the Prison Bottle. When used, this will turn Hoopa into its Unbound Form for three days. This form wasn't in X and Y, so this specifically requires Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. But, of course, it requires a Hoopa to get, and Hoopa is an event-only Pokémon.
Similarly to this is the Diancite. This Mega Stone allows Diancie to Mega Evolve into Mega Diancie. But... the only way to obtain it in Gen 6 is to enter a Pokémon Center with a Diancie in your party. And Diancie is, of course, an event-only Pokémon.
So overall... you're missing a fair bit by not having access to events.
And that's just the new stuff. We still have all the old stuff.
For example, the Soul Dew, despite being available in-game in Black 2/White 2, isn't obtainable in Gen 6 except by finding it on the Southern Island, just as in Gen 3. And, of course, that requires the Eon Ticket.
Then there's the Gracidea. This requires you talk to an NPC in Snowbelle City (X and Y) or on Route 123 (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) with a Shaymin in your party. And Shaymin requires an event.
The Drives that Genesect uses can be obtained from an NPC in Ambrette Town (X and Y) and Mauville City (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), but that similarly requires a Genesect, which is an event-only Pokémon.
And there is one more item that's impossible to obtain now that is... um... very strange. So, there's loads of items from previous games that don't always return in future games, though usually they're no major loss. And, indeed, that is the case here as well. But one of them... did come back. An event distribution Delibird with the special move Happy Hour and the special ribbon "Special Ribbon" was distributed to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire... and... it was holding... the Relic Gold. This item can only otherwise be obtained in Gen 5. It does absolutely nothing and only exists to be sold (for $30000), but this event is the only way to obtain it in Gen 6. (Although only Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire could receive the event, the item could still be traded to X and Y if you like.)
Generation 7
With Generation 7, the big bulk of the items that you can't get anymore are Mega Stones in Sun/Moon. In fact, through normal gameplay, you'll only be able to get 20 of the 47: Venusaurite, Charizardite X, Charizardite Y, Blastoisinite, Alakazite, Slowbronite, Gengarite, Kangaskhanite, Pinsirite, Gyaradosite, Aerodactylite, Scizorite, Sablenite, Sharpedonite, Absolite, Glalitite, Salamencite, Metagrossite, Garchompite, and Lucarionite.
That still leaves 27 Mega Stones unobtainable. So... were these just available via events? Well, actually, yes. That is exactly what happened. Via event, you could obtain the Beedrillite, Pidgeotite, Mewtwonite X, Mewtwonite Y, Ampharosite, Steelixite, Heracronite, Houndoominite, Tyranitarite, Sceptilite, Blazikenite, Swampertite, Gardevoirite, Mawilite, Aggronite, Medichamite, Manectite, Cameruptite, Altarianite, Banettite, Latiasite, Latiosite, Lopunnite, Abomasite, Galladite, and Audinite.
So yeah... if you're trying to get all of these Mega Stones in Sun and Moon, you're out of luck.
Good thing that Sun and Moon aren't the only games in Gen 7.
Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon thankfully made these all available as prizes from the Battle Tree, so you could get any Mega Stone you needed.
With one exception. Yeah... you may notice that I've only listed 46 of the 47 Mega Stones so far. The Diancite is missing from all Gen 7 games. It was available via event in Sun/Moon, just like the aforementioned Mega Stones. But unlike those ones, it was never made available in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon's Battle Tree prize counter.
Instead, you can get it in Konikoni City in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, at Olivia's jewelry store, but only if you have a Diancie in your party. And that's pretty tricky to do, because Diancie cannot be obtained in Gen 7, so you have to transfer it from Gen 6. And in Gen 6... it was event-only. So you're out of luck now.
As a quick aside, Diancie is the mythical Pokémon that is currently the record-holder for longest time since the last distribution. The last event to give away a Diancie was in August 2016, and even then, that was only if you physically went to South Korea to get it. The last one to be done online for anyone to be able to connect to and get it was November 2015. Even that one is questionable, because it specifically only distributed it to Japanese and Taiwanese copies of the game. The last time Diancie was available online to a North American or European game was in July 2015. So it has been quite a while.
Anyways, back to unobtainable items in Gen 7. So... we already talked about Mega Stones. Let's look at the other held item gimmick of Gen 7: Z-Crystals.
Of course, all of the Z-Crystals of the main types in the game are obtainable through normal gameplay. And as for the species-specific ones, there's 17 of them, but only 13 can be obtained through normal gameplay.
Let's look at the other four.
The Snorlium Z allows a Snorlax with Giga Impact to use the Z-Move Pulverizing Pancake. This item was given away to Sun/Moon players with an event Munchlax featuring the otherwise-unobtainable moves on it Hold Back and Happy Hour. Luckily, it is much easier to obtain in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. All you need to do is show a Snorlax to a man in the hotel in Heahea City. And that's easy enough to obtain, since Munchlax can be found on Route 1 in Alola.
Even if you can't get it, is it a big loss? Well... Pulverizing Pancake is just a 210 power move. So you could just use a Normalium Z instead and turn Giga Impact into Breakneck Blitz. That's 200 power, which... while a bit weaker, is probably good enough.
The next Z-Crystal that you may have trouble getting is the Pikashunium Z. To obtain this, you need a Pikachu in a cap. The Pikachu in a cap were a series of event distributions in Gen 7 (plus one in Gen 8) that depicted Pikachu wearing one of the hats that Ash wore in the TV show. They were always male, could not breed or evolve, and could not use the Pikanium Z. (In Gen 8, they also cannot Gigantamax.)
However, they do have their own Z-Crystal, the Pikashunium Z. In Sun/Moon, the Pikashunium Z came with the Pikachu in a cap. But in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, you obtained it in Pikachu Valley, but only if you had a Pikachu in a cap in your party. Either way, the event-only Pikachu in a cap is required.
This will allow it to upgrade its Thunderbolt to the Z-Move 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt. This has 195 power and an increased critical hit rate. That's really good... so it sucks that you can't get it anymore.
Or can you?
So... the issue here is that we need a Pikachu in a cap. And that's impossible to obtain, right? Well, actually no. There is a QR Code that you can scan with your 3DS camera to obtain it. And this will always work, forever. However, it only works in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. It will not work in the original Sun/Moon. Still, Sun/Moon can always receive it in a trade from Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, so it's not too bad.
The next Z-Crystal on our list is the Mewnium Z. In Sun/Moon, this was event-only. And... that's it.
Yeah, this one is well and truly unobtainable now, through legitimate means. What about trading with someone who got it back in the day? Unfortunately, for plot-related reasons, Z-Crystals cannot be traded.
So what if you want it in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon? Well... there is a man in Heahea City who will give it to you if you show him a Mew. But... getting a Mew is going to take some effort. You may think that mew is event-only, at least until the Poké Ball Plus came out and let you get it in Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee and Sword/Shield. And then there is that one that you can obtain in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl that you can get in Floaroma Town if you have save data from Let's Go Pikachu/Let's Go Eevee.
And you'd be mostly right.
But there are exactly two ways to obtain a Mew without just receiving it in an event.
The first is one that we've already discussed: there's one available in-game in Emerald on Faraway Island. However... this requires the Old Sea Map, an event-only item, which was only ever legally available in the Japanese version of the game. So this one is... not viable.
The other way to get a Mew is in a spinoff game: My Pokémon Ranch on the Wii. This is just a glorified PC storage system where you could store your Pokémon from Diamond/Pearl. In the Japanese version, you can also store them from Platinum. Not HeartGold/SoulSilver though.
If you store 999 Pokémon in there, the most that is possible, then you can talk to Haley and she will offer you a trade, giving you a Mew in exchange for any Egg. And because a Pokémon from My Pokémon Ranch can be transferred to Diamond/Pearl (and Platinum in Japanese), this does let you use a spinoff game to get Mew in a main game.
Once you have it in Gen 4, you can just transfer it up to Gen 7, and then get the Mewnium Z. But this is a lot of effort to do, and probably not worth it.
The Mewnium Z lets Mew upgrade its Psychic to the Z-Move Genesis Supernova, which has 185 power and causes Psychic Terrain for five turns. Definitely not worth the effort it takes to get it.
The last Z-Crystal is the Marshadium Z. Much like the other Z-Crystals, this one was available in Sun/Moon from an event Marshadow holding it, and it's available from a man in Heahea City by showing him a Marshadow. Unfortunately, Marshadow is an event-only Pokémon in all games in which it appears. So there's no getting around this one.
The Marshadium Z upgrades Marshadow's Spectral Thief into the Z-Move Soul-Sealing 7-Star Strike. This is a 195-power Ghost-type physical move. That's it.
Meh.
The last thing to cover are five berries. These berries were unavailable in Gen 7 outside of events, despite being in past and future games.
There's the Enigma Berry, which heals 25% of your HP when you get hit by a super-effective move.
There's the Micle Berry, which triggers when your HP drops below 25% and gives you 1.2x accuracy on your next attack.
There's the Custap Berry, which triggers when your HP drops below 25% and makes your next move always go first regardless of Speed (though priority moves still apply priority as normal, you will go first within your own priority group).
There's the Jaboca Berry, which causes the opponent to lose 12.5% of their HP whenever they attack you with a physical move.
And there's the Rowap Berry, which is the same thing, but for special moves.
These are all pretty good berries and it sucks that there's no way to obtain them in a Gen 7 game legitimately anymore. Luckily, because they are berries, the players who do have them and plant and grow them and harvest them, in order to trade them to other players, so there are an endless number of these out in the world. So even if you missed one or even all of them, you can still obtain them legitimately through trading. It just sucks that such things are necessary.
Cause, really, these are among the best berries in the game.
Generation 8
In Sword/Shield, we only have one item to talk about: the Dynamax Crystal. There are 300 varieties, each named after a constellation in the real-world sky. Only 12 were ever made available, but the other 288 are in the game's data. When used at the Watchtower Lair, a Pokémon Den at the base of the Watchtower Ruins will become active with a Dynamax Pokémon, until midnight.
Without these, you just have to rely on luck to get the Dynamax Pokémon in the Wild Area.
We're not done yet though, as there's also the Genesect Drives to consider. I didn't bring them up in Gen 7, because in Gen 7, you can get them from Colress on Route 8 after beating the game, even if you don't have a Genesect.
But here in Gen 8, we're back to requiring a Genesect. Once you have one, a man in Stow-on-Side will give them to you. You could get a Genesect from an event in Gen 8, or transfer one from an event in Gen 5-6 (Gen 7 had no Genesect events). But no matter how you do it, you need an event. So the drives are unobtainable.
That's it for Sword/Shield, but we're still not done with Gen 8, because we have Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl to talk about next.
We start with the Gracidea, Shaymin's item. Yet again, Gen 7 made this one obtainable (in Hau'oli City) without issue, but now we're back to needing a Shaymin, which is event-only. In Legends: Arceus, you just need save data from Sword/Shield and then you'll be able to get one from Medi. But with Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl... because these are faithful remakes, you'll need to either get Oak's Letter and do that whole sidequest that's event-only... or transfer an event Shaymin from the previous games. Or... transfer one from Legends: Arceus. Believe it or not, that's actually the easiest way to handle this, so... it's not as hopeless as you may think.
The other items that are impossible to obtain now in Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl are the seven apricorn Poké Ball varieties: Fast Ball, Level Ball, Lure Ball, Heavy Ball, Love Ball, Friend Ball, and Moon Ball.
This set was given out via event at one point, but those events have since ended. As such, it is no longer possible to legitimately obtain these items on a fresh save file.
Generation 9
So, Gen 9 is still ongoing, so it is possible that some of these items may become easier to obtain in the future, but for now, there are three items that are... problematic.
The first is the Gracidea. This can sometimes appear as an item for auction in the Porto Marinada Market, on version 2.0.1 and later. But only if you have Shaymin in your party. There is no way to obtain Shaymin in Scarlet/Violet at all. But you can obtain it in Legends: Arceus (if you have Sword/Shield save data) and then transfer it over. So there is that.
Next up is Hoopa. We last talked about its form-changing item, the Prison Bottle, in Gen 6. Gen 7 just had you obtain this item in-game in Aether Paradise, so there was no need for Hoopa. And Gen 8 had it completely unobtainable, due to Hoopa not being present in any Gen 8 game. In Gen 9, with Hoopa once again being obtainable, its item is as well. This one is also sometimes available as an auction item in the Porto Marinada Market if you have a Hoopa. Unfortunately, there's no easy way around this one. Hoope can only be obtained via an event from Gen 6-7, and then transferred to Gen 9 from there.
The last item in Gen 9 that is event-only is the Mythical Pecha Berry. This lets you start The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero's epilogue, Mochi Mayhem, in Kitakami by interacting with a decoration (which is actually a Pecharunt) at Peachy's in Mossui Town.
This event... is being distributed online... um... now.
It's been going for about a month now, and it's unclear if they're gonna stop later or not, but regardless... the servers will go offline eventually at some point in the future, so... this will become an unobtainable item before too long, unless another game comes out to make this item available through other means.