One of the most appealing things about Pokemon is that there is a wide variety of species, and some of them from a zoological standpoint are very unique. Whether it’s their origins or something else. It is for their uniqueness that some of these Pokemon are favorites of mine. So every now and then I’m going to do posts about my favorite Pokemon that I find to be “interesting specimens”, so to speak. Our first interesting specimen is a very old favorite of mine, Porygon.
I’m a big fan of Porygon and its two evolved forms. Their biggest appeal for me is that they were artificially created on a computer and can travel though cyberspace. It’s like a Pokemon out of the movie Tron. This can be seen in Porygon’s appearance, which looks as if it were made using very old computer modeling software. Of course when it evolves into Porygon2, it loses that retro 80’s charm and becomes more streamlined. Then when it evolves into Porygon-Z, its appearance becomes a little… glitched, but more on that later.
In the Games: In the first and second-generation games, Porygon was kind of a pain to get. It wasn’t because it was hard to find in the wild. Actually you couldn’t find it in the wild at all. But Porygon was available as a prize at the casinos… at top price. In Red, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Crystal, (and by extension their remakes I assume), you could only get Porygon by exchanging the maximum amount of casino tokens. Porygon was a little cheaper to get in Blue (and by extension LeafGreen I assume), but it was still kind of a pain to get that amount of tokens. It would take an extreme amount of luck to win that many tokens just by playing the slots, so what I usually did was just buy the tokens at the front desk until I had the amount.
It’s also a little difficult to evolve Porygon as well. Being a life form that was artificially created in a computer, Porygon, and by extension Porygon2 can’t evolve unless you install its update software. And to do that you need to trade it while it’s holding a specific item, Up-Grade for Porygon2, and the Dubious Disc for Porygon-Z. Sadly I’ve never used Porygon-Z in the games, since it wasn’t introduced until the fourth generation, past when I stopped playing. But I can see a very simple solution to get your Porygon fully evolved.
First find a friend that also has a Porygon. You each trade your own Porygon to each other while both of them are holding the Up-Grade. Then once they’ve evolved into Porygon2, slap the Dubious Disc on both of them and trade them back. Once that’s done, the two Pokemon will evolve into Porygon-Z. In short, you get your own Pokemon back, fully evolved. Quite simple, but it does require a certain amount of cooperation.
Evolution: I’ve already covered the way Porygon evolves, so I might as well cover the evolutions themselves. Porygon2 was apparently created for space exploration, but it has the somewhat amusing design flaw of not being able to fly. Of course it can float, and there’s no gravity in space. But I suppose it was meant for deep space exploration, and that would require some form of propulsion. As for Porygon-Z, that form’s origins are a little more twisted.
The creation of Porygon-Z was apparently the work of hackers. Which is why it looks so messed up and at times exhibit “odd behavior”. According to what I’ve read, Porygon-Z was designed to explore other dimensions. In fact I think I read somewhere that it was implied that Team Galactic is responsible for creating Porygon-Z. That does sound like something an evil organization like Team Galactic would do actually.
Bad Rep: Sadly, Porygon has only ever had one appearance in the anime, and its two evolved forms have never appeared in the anime at all. That is because the only episode Porygon ever appeared in has a rather infamous reputation. The episode in question dates all the way back to the first or second season, and features Ash and co. fighting a battle in cyberspace with the aid of a Porygon. During one of the epic fight scenes, Pikachu used an electric attack to deflect some missiles, and I guess because they were in cyberspace, Pikachu’s attack was given a strobe light effect.
That effect ended up causing seizers in epileptics, and quite possibly migraines in a few others. As a result, that episode was banned from ever being aired again everywhere in the world. And even though it was Pikachu who was responsible for the lightshow that caused all the trouble, Porygon got the blame. Thus it seems that Porygon, and by extension its evolved forms, were banned from ever appearing in the anime again outside of very brief cameos. It just isn’t fair really.
So that about wraps it up for this post. I’m not sure when I’ll do the next one of these posts, but I have already decided which Pokemon the next post will be about. Until then, stay tuned.
