From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.
- For other uses of question marks in the Pokémon games, see Question marks.
??????????
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??????????'s sprite
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EV yield
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HP ?
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Atk ?
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Def ?
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Sp.Atk ?
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Sp.Def ?
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Speed ?
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Exp. ?
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??????????, also known as ten question marks or its fan-given nickname, Decamark(s), is a glitch Pokémon that occupies slot 0000, and all slots above 019D in Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and LeafGreen. It was programmed into the game to prevent game crashes and is technically not a glitch Pokémon because its information was defined by the programmers. However, ?????????? can also occupy other values of the 65536 slots available as well as cause glitchy behavior in games, some specific versions may even freeze the game, such as hex DEFD.
??????????'s sprite usually appears as three concentric circles alternating between white and black around a question mark in the center. Whereas index number 0000 and other ?????????? usually use Bulbasaur's footprint, there are a few which use other Pokémon's footprints.
?????????? hex 0000 form cannot be obtained, as it disappears from a party when caught.
Obtaining ??????????
This glitch data is most commonly encountered in-game by using a GameShark or Action Replay code for a Pokémon that doesn't exist. However, there are several other methods for encountering ??????????.
Level-up method
A GameShark code can be used to quickly level-up a Pokémon in FireRed and LeafGreen's Pokémon Day Care. If any Pokémon is placed into the day care before the code is activated, after a short while of walking around, the Pokémon in the daycare will produce an Egg all by itself. The Egg will soon hatch into a Level 0 ??????????, which is almost impossible to level up without using a Rare Candy, as 1,000,000 EXP points are required to reach level 1.
If ?????????? is traded to Pokémon Emerald, it can be left in the day care and will instantly grow to level 100. At this point, it can learn any of the eight HM moves and will be safe for the game unless its summary is looked at. If given Rare Candies, it will start rapidly learning Ice Punch, even if the player refuses to teach it. This can be fixed by activating the "access fly map" GameShark code. ??????????'s National Pokédex number can vary, ranging from 0 to over 386, depending on its hexadecimal identifier. If the hexadecimal identifier number is over 1000, then a ? mark replaces the hundreds column, e.g. ?24
Pre-starter method
Another method for obtaining ?????????? is to use an Action Replay code to teleport or walk through walls to an area where a wild Pokémon can be captured before getting a starter Pokémon from either Professor Birch in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald or Professor Oak in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. If a wild Pokémon battle is initiated, the player will send out a ?????????? with 0/0 HP and with a hexadecimal identifier of 0. If the Pokémon gets hit, the player will white out and be sent to a Pokémon Center where 65536 Poké Balls will begin to appear in seemingly random locations all over the screen (this is because the game will refer to the number 0 as one more than a full two bytes (65535)). A very similar effect occurs when one performs a variation of the Pomeg glitch; when the Pokémon's HP goes below 0 it will skip to the largest value. This system uses two bytes, so the Pokémon's HP will start to drop down from 65535.
After this Pokémon is captured, if one chooses to nickname ?????????? or looks at it in the party screen, its sprite may appear as a gold-colored Bulbasaur. This is due to using icon palette 0 in place of an undefined palette. Another way to see this glitch is to use the "walk through walls" code, go to the Link Cable area, and battle. Since there is no connected opponent, this glitch appears instead (as value 000).
Pre-National Pokédex method
A third way to obtain ?????????? is to use a GameShark or Action Replay to catch a Hoenn or Johto Pokémon in its original area before obtaining the National Pokédex as the game would search for a Pokémon using the Regional Pokédex number rather than the National Pokédex number; for example, if the player was to normally encounter a Yanma, instead the game would search for a Pokémon with a Regional Pokédex value of 193, possibly resulting in an encounter of another variety of this glitch with a different moveset and Ability or a Regirock in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Versions.
Item
?????????? may hold an item. The item will be called ???????? (eight marks), with a description in the Bag of ????? (five marks). The item can only make a Pokémon that is holding it become glitched if migrated to Pokémon Diamond or Pearl. If the player tries to use it, Professor Oak will say that "the time isn't right" to use it. With the help of a GameShark, it can be bought at a Poké Mart for $0 but cannot be sold, as the Poké Mart cashier will say, "Oh, no. I can't buy that."
Game data
Pokédex entries
This Pokémon was unavailable prior to Generation III.
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Generation III
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Ruby
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This is a newly discovered Pokémon. It is currently under investigation.
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Sapphire
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{{{sapphiredex}}}
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Emerald
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This is a newly discovered Pokémon. It is currently under investigation. No detailed information is available at this time.
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FireRed
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LeafGreen
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{{{leafgreendex}}}
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Game locations
This Pokémon was unavailable prior to Generation III.
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Base stats
Type effectiveness
Under normal battle conditions in Generation V, this Pokémon is:
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Learnset
?????????? with no moves.
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- Bold indicates a move that gets STAB when used by ??????????
- Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an Evolution of ??????????
- Click on the generation numbers at the top to see level-up moves from other generations
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TM |
Move |
Type |
Pwr. |
Acc. |
PP |
Contest |
Appeal |
Jamming
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This Pokémon learns no moves by TM.
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- Bold indicates a move that gets STAB when used by ??????????
- Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an Evolution of ??????????
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By Move Tutor
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Game |
Move |
Type |
Pwr. |
Acc. |
PP |
Contest |
Appeal |
Jamming
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FR
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LG
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E
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XD
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Ice Punch
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Ice
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75
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100%
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15
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Beauty
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4 ♥♥♥♥
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0
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- A black abbreviation in a colored box indicates that ?????????? can be tutored the move in that game
- A colored abbreviation in a white box indicates that ?????????? cannot be tutored the move in that game
- Bold indicates a move that gets STAB when used by ??????????
- Italic indicates a move that gets STAB only when used by an Evolution of ??????????
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Evolution
Trivia
- There are many other variations of this Pokémon in the Generation III games. Their images are the same as ??????????'s, but the individual sprites can be backwards, differently colored, upside down, or any of several other minor differences in appearance.
- Many variations of ?????????? are named after moves or fragments of a move's name (truncated to the game maximum of ten characters) (e.g. POUND, RBOLT, ING ATTACK, ICK ATTACK, and so on.) This is due to the hexadecimal identifier of the variation calling for a name from text just past where Pokémon names are stored, which is where move names are stored.
- In the Generation I and II games, hexadecimal slots went from 00 to FF, totaling to exactly 256 Pokémon slots available. However, the hexes in Generation III games range from 0000 to FFFF, allowing 65536 Pokémon to be defined. However, only 439 (counting Egg, Unown forms, Deoxys formes and 25 ?) were defined, filling the remaining 65,097 slots with ?????????? variants, or "decamarks," as they are commonly referred to.
- ?????????? (000)'s learnset is identical to Bulbasaur's Generation III learnset, albeit with different levels. Strangely, ?????????? can learn Ice Punch via tutor.
- It has been stated that there are also similar glitch Pokémon called "???????????" (eleven marks) and "????????????" (twelve marks), though there is no evidence to support this.
- There may be similar glitch Pokémon in the Generation IV games, but no investigation into this matter has been reported.
- A project (dubbed 'Melchior') exists on Glitch City Laboratories concerning the research of the 65,097 variations of ?????????? (decamarks), although this is not a serious project of the site and is not expected to be completed in the near future.
- If the player catches a variant of ?????????? and attempts to rename it, the renaming screen may show ??????????'s sprite as being a Bulbasaur's sprite, but with a gold palette.