Strange Ball

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Strange Ball
ストレンジボール
Strange Ball
Strange Ball
Pokémon Legends: Arceus artwork
Introduced in Generation VIII
Pocket
Generation VIII Poké Balls (Satchel)

The Strange Ball (Japanese: ストレンジボール Strange Ball) is a placeholder Poké Ball introduced in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. It is used to represent the Poké Balls of Pokémon when they were caught in a Poké Ball that does not exist in the current game.

In the core series games

In Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Pokémon caught in Poké Balls that do not exist in that game instead display a Strange Ball as their Poké Ball.

Pokémon Sword and Shield do not feature Strange Balls; Pokémon caught in Hisuian Poké Balls are displayed in standard Poké Balls if viewed in the Switch version of Pokémon HOME with a Sword or Shield savefile selected, or if no savefile is selected.

  • This is only a visual change, as the ball is not changed to a standard Poké Ball simply by viewing the Pokémon in HOME, it is only displayed as such. This effect still occurs for species and forms that cannot enter Sword or Shield due to incompatibility.

Pokémon withdrawn from HOME into Sword or Shield that originated from Pokémon Legends: Arceus are placed into standard Poké Balls.

  • Withdrawing a Pokémon with any Hisuian Ball into Sword or Shield causes the ball to change to a standard Poké Ball, this is not a visual change. The ball ID value becomes that of a standard Poké Ball, with HOME storing the information for the original ball server-side. When deposited back into HOME, the original ball will be restored.

The Strange Ball is only defined as an item in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, it does not exist as an actual item, only as a graphic displayed for Pokémon with a ball ID value that doesn't match any ball found in the game.

  • As an example, a Pokémon altered with third party tools to have been caught in a Park Ball in Brilliant Diamond or Shining Pearl would also appear in a Strange Ball, as would be the case for any other invalid/out-of-bounds ball ID.

Effect

Manual activation

The Strange Ball cannot be legitimately obtained as an item, so it cannot normally be used. If it were to be obtained, when used from the Bag in a wild encounter, it would attempt to catch the wild Pokémon with the same catch rate as a typical Hisuian Poké Ball (0.75x).

Unlike other Poké Balls in Legends: Arceus, the Strange Ball cannot be thrown by the player in the overworld, as it only appears in the satchel menu, but not in the throwable item menu in the lower-right of the screen. It is only usable if selected from the bag menu during a battle.

As a Pokémon's Poké Ball

Bred Pokémon inherit their Poké Ball from their parents. However, the Strange Ball, Master Ball, and Cherish Ball cannot be passed down via breeding; instead, they act as a regular Poké Ball for inheritance purposes.

Description

Games Description
LA

Acquisition

The Strange Ball cannot be obtained in any game.

Appearance

Sprites

Summary sprite from
Legends: Arceus

In other languages

Language Title
Chinese Cantonese 奇異球 Kèihyih Kàuh
Mandarin 奇異球 / 奇异球 Qíyì Qiú
French Étrange Ball
German Rätselball
Italian Strange Ball
Korean 스트레인지볼 Strange Ball
Spanish Extraña Ball



This item article is part of Project ItemDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on all items.