Placeholder for Kyurem Forme Found in ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Coding

A month of research has gone into this news story, and with the joint efforts of MeroMero and Jade, both ROM editors who visit our site, we can now post this: a placeholder for Kyurem’s forme has been found deep in the game coding of Black and White. The games keeps a “chart” of all Pokemon who have formes, which we have compiled below. Notice anyone who shouldn’t be on the list right now?

The first column is the National PokeDex number of the Pokemon, which is how the game keeps track of each species (I have put the name of the Pokemon in parenthesis). The second column is the ID number of the alternate forme, used only when something besides the Pokemon’s sprite changes (for example, in Deoxys’ case, its stats change between its formes, while in Unown’s case, only the sprites do). The third column refers to another chart in the coding which contains the sprites of the alternate formes to display. And the final column is the total amount of formes for the Pokemon, including its original design (so Shaymin has its regular forme and its Sky Forme, meaning “2” designs).

In Kyurem’s case above, we see a “1” in the data. All Pokemon either have 0 for no additional formes (like Pikachu, Mewtwo, etc.) or a number for its original design plus the amount of its alternate formes (such as a “4” for Deoxys, Deoxys Attack, Deoxys Defense, and Deoxys Speed). So a Pokemon will either have a “0” for nothing or a number above one for something. Kyurem is the only Pokemon to have a “1,” which is the placeholder – no other Pokemon has a “1,” meaning it was intentionally put into the data. The sprite for Kyurem’s alternate forme (in the other table, not listed here) refers to Meloetta’s sprite. This just means that Meloetta’s sprite is a placeholder. The third column for Kyurem, which would denote what stats to use for the forme, is set to 0. This does not mean its future forme will not have its own stats – it just means that in the coding of Black and White, the stats do not exist.

Going back to Diamond and Pearl‘s game data, we have also found the same forme chart. It shows that Rotom, Shaymin, and Giratina had placeholders for new formes (a “1”), meaning Gamefreak planned their formes long before the release of Pokemon Platinum. No one knew to look for the chart at the time because no one expected any other Pokemon to have new formes back then. Just as we know how to find “hidden” Pokemon in the game coding like Keldeo, Meloetta, and Genesect, we now also know how to find out if a Pokemon will have a planned future forme.

The reason for the delay in this news story is that we did not know exactly why Gamefreak would put this information into the game coding. And unfortunately, we still do not know why. After all, it would reveal that there is going to be a future game (“Pokemon Gray?”) with Kyurem’s forme in it. Perhaps they did it for compatibility purposes. Or perhaps Gamefreak creates a chart for all Pokemon and formes they plan in a generation, then remove the data they will not be including in the first set of games (in this case, the stats and sprite for Kyurem’s forme). Once we were able to confirm Shaymin and Giratina also had the same placeholder treatment in Diamond and Pearl, we felt confident enough to post this story.

Kyurem’s new forme will probably be revealed within the next few months when we learn more about the Kyurem VS. the Sacred Swordsmen movie, just like Giratina’s new forme and the Shaymin movie, if that is indeed when it will be introduced in the anime.