HM
A Hidden Machine, or HM for short (Japanese: ひでんマシン Secret Machine), is a machine used by Pokémon Trainers to teach a Pokémon a new technique, or move, that it would not otherwise learn. HMs can be used over and over again on many different Pokémon, unlike Technical Machines, which are good for one use only. All HM moves are usable out of battle, and most are essential for completing the game.
To use an HM out of battle, the Pokémon party menu can be viewed, and under the HM-wielding Pokémon's options, the HM move it knows will be displayed along with the options, and it may be selected to trigger the HM's on-field use. In Generation II and beyond, this can simply be done by pressing A at the selected field obstacle and confirming to use it.
Unlike all other moves, HMs cannot be forgotten without the aid of the move deleter. The reason for this is a player can be stuck on the wrong side of a barrier, for example a smashable rock, without the appropriate HM move. Because there is no move deleter in Generation I, it is impossible for a Pokémon to forget an HM move without trading it to Generation II. In addition, Pokémon with HM moves cannot be transferred from a Generation III game to a Generation IV game via Pal Park, and so the HM move must be deleted before the transfer can take place, meaning that some special event Pokémon could not be migrated.
In Generation IV, if a player tries to release the only Pokémon they have that knows a certain HM move, the Pokémon will come back, with the message, "<name> came back! Was it worried about you?" However, the game does not prevent the player from deleting the moves of such Pokémon.
In Generation I, the Day Care man will not accept any Pokémon that know HM moves.
A mutually compatible HM move can be passed down through breeding with the male Pokémon passing down moves in the egg groups, much like mutually compatible TMs can be. As of Generation IV, only 21 Pokémon learn an HM move through leveling up, most of which learn Whirlpool. As is the case if the move is taught by the use of the HM itself, the move is only deletable by move deleter.
While most HM moves are necessary to complete the games that they are HMs in, many of them lack usefulness in Pokémon battles (the notable exceptions being the popular moves Surf and Waterfall). Thus, players often capture extra Pokémon, called HM slaves, to keep in their parties solely to use HM moves.
Each generation has introduced new HMs or replaced old ones that have no out-of-battle use in the new region, such as Whirlpool in Hoenn (replaced with Rock Smash), or Dive in Sinnoh (replaced with Rock Climb). The original five HMs remained the same from Generation I up to Generation IV, when Flash was replaced with Defog in Sinnoh, and Whirlpool in Johto. Some moves that lost HM status were later available by TM or move tutor.
All HM moves require a certain badge to be acquired in order to be used outside of battle. This is so that even if a player gets a Pokémon with HM moves early, they cannot use them to change the sequential order of events in the games.
The English name, Hidden Machine, is a pun on the Japanese name, ひでんマシン (Hiden Mashin). Hiden (秘伝) means "secret".
For their in-game locations, see List of TM and HM locations.
List of HMs
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Trivia
- In Generations I and II, all HMs only had one word in their names.
- Also, the only two HMs to date that have more than one word in their names are the only two to include "Rock" in their names despite not being Template:Type2.
- Ash's Grotle is the first Pokémon belonging to a main character of the anime to have used a current HM move, Rock Climb. Dawn's Piplup, however, is known for its Whirlpool, which did not become an HM again until long after it had first used it (though debatably, other Pokémon may have used Surf, Dive and Fly, though they were not directly ordered to use the move).
- The only current HM moves that are able to be learned by Pokémon by level-up are Fly, Waterfall and Whirlpool. Former HMs, such as Flash and Dive, are also learnable by level, but only since their loss of HM status.
- In Generation IV, all moves that were at one time an HM are learnable, with Flash available by TM70 and Dive available by move tutor. Defog and Whirlpool, which replace each other in the Sinnoh- and Johto-based games, are both HM05.
- HM moves are only of the Flying, Fighting, Water, and Normal types.
