The big Pokemon Bank update has finally arrived allowing trainers to bring forward their Pokemon from past generations to the new titles Pokemon Sun & Pokemon Moon. For those new to the storage app, Pokemon Bank is a yearly subscription based app specifically for the Nintendo 3DS that acts as a special storage box for your Pokemon, allowing you to transfer Pokemon from X & Y or Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire to Pokemon Sun & Moon. Of course if you have been playing every game since Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald there have been ways to transfer your Pokemon from each generation onwards.
This Pokemon Bank update also allows players to transfer Pokemon from the Virtual Console versions of Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow. So theoretically, any Pokemon you have caught in a main series Pokemon game since the release of Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald can be brought into Sun & Moon, however there is an increasing number of hoops to jump through depending on how far back you go.
Because these games often have some compatibility issues between them this new update also brings some new rules about what can be brought forward and what changes will occur. These are important to know specifically if you are into the competitive side of battling. Thanks to reddit user Richasu for compiling most of this information.
- Breeding non-Alolan forms of Pokémon in Sun/Moon will still cause Pokemon offspring to be the Alolan form. However if you give the non-Alolan parent an Everstone this will not be the case.
- If you transfer a Pikachu that knows the move Surf to Sun/Moon and evolve it into an Alolan Raichu, it becomes an illegal Pokémon. Pikachu could learn Surf in some older titles by special means.
- Gengar does not keep the ability Levitate when transferred to Sun/Moon. It’s ability will be changed to Cursed Body.
- Mews obtained via exploitation of a glitch from Red/Blue/Yellow cannot be transferred via the Poké Bank. However, there is a trick to get around this limitation and it can be found here and here.
- Transferring the infamous glitch Pokemon MissingNo via the Poké Bank will cause other Pokémon’s names to be shifted around in that particular transfer. So don’t transfer Missingno if you don’t want to mess up your Pokemon. MissingNo will disappear.
- Pokémon that know moves from Red/Blue/Yellow that are specific to that particular version cannot be transferred from the version that does not offer the particular move. E.g. Charizard with Fly can only be transferred from Pokemon Yellow.
- Pokémon transferred from Red/Blue/Yellow have their genders randomized.
- Pokémon transferred from Red/Blue/Yellow have their Natures determined based on a formula that uses a Pokemon’s total experience gained. Use this image below to see what nature you will get. This means you can manipulate a Pokemon’s nature if you wish.
- Pokémon transferred from Red/Blue/Yellow have their Stat Experience ignored and their Effort Values are set to 0. This means transferred Pokemon will be as if they had never been in a Pokemon battle.
- Pokémon transferred from Red/Blue/Yellow have 3 of their IV’s maxed out at 31 automatically. Mew will have 5 IV’s maxed out.
- Transferred Pokémon from Red/Blue/Yellow always have their Hidden Abilities.
- When transferring Pokémon from Red/Blue/Yellow and the Pokémon has the letter pairings “PK” or “MN” in its name, the pairings will be changed to “P” and “M” respectively.
- Evolving trade-based-evolution Pokémon that were transferred from Red/Blue/Yellow renders them illegal if their evolved forms did not exist in Red/Blue/Yellow. E.g. Porygon2 or PorygonZ.
As an added bonus, players who use Poke Bank before October of this year will receive a free Mewnium Z, allowing Mew to use a unique Z-move. The first game you transfer a Pokemon to will receive the Mewnium Z. You can only get this item once per Poke Bank account.
There are also in game benefits to bringing transferred Pokemon to certain NPC including a special scene if your bring Solrock or Lunatone transferred to Sun or Moon to Haina Desert and then speak to the old man in a red shirt. There is no doubt this really opens up the games as Pokemon that were never available in Sun & Moon before now can be transferred and bred. Let us know in the comments below if there are any Pokemon that have stayed with you since one of the older games, we’d love to hear your stories.
