Pokémon
Celebi’s Urban Legend from Pokémon Gold and Silver Came True in Pokémon Crystal
Find out how the urban legend of Celebi from Pokémon Gold and Silver came to life in Pokémon Crystal, the final game of the second generation.
The Pokémon franchise is no stranger to mysticism and urban legends. In fact, for many, these apocryphal stories, such as the one about the supposed Mew of Vermilion City, had a lot to do with the success of the saga in its early days. This time, we tell the story of Celebi, the only second-generation Mythical Pokémon, and how what began as an urban legend in Pokémon Gold & Silver became a reality in Pokémon Crystal.
The urban legend of Celebi and the Ilex Forest from Pokémon Gold and Silver has come to life in Pokémon Crystal.
The Ilex Forest is a location near Azalea Town in the Johto Region that we first visited in Pokémon Gold & Silver. It is a labyrinthine grove with a lake and a strange shrine to the Guardian of Ilex Forest, who is none other than Celebi, Pokémon number 251.
According to Game Freak itself, during the development of Gold and Silver (which, as we recall, was not without its problems), the Ilex Forest Shrine had nothing to do with Celebi and was simply added as an aesthetic element to the location. However, the release of these games (between 1999 and 2001) took place at a time when home Internet use was not yet widespread, leading to the rumor that Celebi could be captured in this location by fulfilling a series of crazy requirements that changed depending on who you asked. One of the endless examples of “my uncle works at Nintendo and he told me...”
This whirlwind of rumors, all related to Celebi, led Game Freak to officially introduce an event that allowed Celebi to be captured in Pokémon Crystal, the third edition of the second generation of Pokémon, released in 2000 in Japan and in 2001 in the rest of the territories. Once we have the GS Ball in our inventory, which we obtained thanks to an event, we need to take it to Kurt in Azalea Town, who will spend a whole day analyzing it. After that, he will tell us that “there is commotion in Ilex Forest” and that we should go there to check it out. When we place the GS Ball on the altar in Ilex Forest, a level 30 Celebi will appear and we can capture it.
That pretty much sums up the story, but there was one big problem: The GS Ball could only be obtained legally through a distribution event in the Japanese version of Pokémon Crystal, which featured online play thanks to the Mobile System GB and the Mobile Game Boy Adapter, an online game service and adapter that allowed a Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance console to be connected to a mobile phone for online play.
All non-Asian versions of the game removed online play for a reason: cell phone use was not as widespread outside of those areas at the time. In other words, it was impossible to legally obtain Celebi in any version other than the Japanese version at the time, which further fueled the urban legends surrounding the figure of this peculiar Pokémon.
At least until 2018, when the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console version of Pokémon Crystal was released, inaccessible to this day unless we bought it at the time because the console’s eShop was closed last 2023. This edition of the game marked the first time that this Celebi event could be enjoyed in the rest of the world, as it was restored so that it did not need to rely on a distribution event. Instead, all you had to do to enter the Hall of Fame was clear the Pokémon League at least once. We then entered the Goldenrod City Pokémon Center, and upon leaving, one of the nurses handed us the long-awaited GS Ball.
Interestingly, the Nintendo DS remakes of Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver removed this event entirely, but that doesn’t mean that Celebi was “locked” in the Japanese version of Pokémon Crystal all this time. These remakes got their own limited code for players to obtain the Time Travel Pokémon along with a special story. Since its first appearance in the games, The Pokémon Company has held a few direct distribution events where Celebi could be obtained, such as the Pokémon Fun Fest at Six Flags theme parks in the United States and Canada.
This story is another example of the constant recurrence in the Pokémon franchise. A rumor or an element from the Pokémon anime eventually makes its way into the games. These kinds of anecdotes have been part of the DNA of the saga since its inception.