Completing the Pokédex: Manaphy

The other week I achieved something I hadn’t since I was 12 years old; I completed the Pokédex, I caught them all. Technically though, it wasn’t them all. It was only the 301 available in the latest game. Nintendo long ago realised the insanity of capturing now 802 Pokémon and dropped “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” from the branding, providing smaller, region specific Pokédexs in the game. The importance of the complete Pokédex, or National Pokédex as it is known, has been downplayed too, a post-game unlockable in recent generations and not appearing at all in Pokémon Sun and Moon. Completing the Alola regional Pokédex didn’t provide the satisfaction I thought it would, and the in game reward, a stamp in my in-game passport, was as hollow as the certificate of completion I received 18 years ago. I have decided that I will not be fulfilled until I really have caught them all. All 802 bastards, including the worst thing in Pokémon, “event” Pokémon, so yesterday I dug out my Pokémon games from the last 4 generations to figure out how to get Manaphy, the seafaring Pokémon.

Last weekend I synched up all my Pokémon to Pokémon Bank. With Sun and Moon lacking the National Dex, Bank would be my storage place for all my earlier Pokémon. I’ll probably talk more about the cumbersome process of rolling all the critters over but for now all you need to know is that it is time consuming and painful. To ease this I stole created a spreadsheet to track not only the Pokémon in Bank, but also the ones stored in earlier games Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold, Leaf Green, Sapphire, Ruby, Black and My Pokémon Ranch.

And I found this:

I had seen Manaphy, but hadn’t obtained it. Also I somehow had its mutant child Phione in Heart Gold. How was this possible? I knew I had been conned into buying Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia for the sole purpose of obtaining the Manaphy egg. I did an internet search and the instructions for obtaining Manaphy basically read as follows:

1. Buy Pokémon Ranger (sucker)
2. Do the Manaphy mission
3. Transfer it to Pokémon Pearl or Diamond

Wow that simple! Ok, maybe I hadn’t done part two. So I booted up Pokémon Ranger to find that the Manaphy mission was marked clear. Hmmm, exploring further I found the following screen:

Apologies for the “screenshots” by the way, I don’t have any fancy game capture cards or anything like that. If you can’t see, the middle box reads “Send a Manaphy Egg”.

Seeing it was sent, I figured I must’ve done it via the “Mystery Gift” feature of Pokémon Pearl. So I booted that up and checked the status of the “Wonder Cards” received via “Mystery Gift”.

A mild panic is beginning to set in. Had I reset my game and lost Manaphy? Will I have to slog through Pokémon Ranger again? The internet tells me that the Ranger mission could only be activated through an online service that died 3 years ago. Also shit had I really not played Pokémon Pearl since 2010? I swear it was only yesterday! What the fuck have I done with my life?

I’m expressing my panic by blindly running through the Sinnoh region on Pokémon Pearl. Maybe it really had been 7 years, I don’t recognise any of these places! It says I’ve played 200 hours of this game but that time feels wasted! Maybe I should’ve just focused on my studies or learning a language instead?

I stumbled into a PokéMart, hoping retail therapy would ease the insecurity.

2600 steps or so later.

So there you have it, the internet’s instructions should be amended to:

1. Travel back in time to buy Pokémon Ranger.
2. Do the Manaphy mission.
3. Transfer it to Pokémon Pearl or Diamond.
   • Pick it up from the PokéMart.

Only eighty or so Pokémon to go now. I’ll probably have to hit up some of my old friends from the university Pokémon club I founded in my last semester of study for some of the other event Pokémon though. For now, I have little Manaphy.