5 incredible Pokemon records that may never be beaten

Along Pokemon’s 20+ year history many records have been made and are unlikely to be broken. Here are the best of those records.

The Pokemon franchise remains one of the most lucrative brands in the world today. It is estimated to be worth at least $15 billion.

The franchise can be divided into three categories: games, anime and merchandise. Unknown to many is that Pokemon began with the games in 1996 and not the anime series, which actually started in 1997.

1. Pokemon game sales

The games that started it all were Pokemon Red and Green (in Japan). American and European players will recognize Pokemon Red and Blue as the first games.

It is these games that kick-started the franchise and actually hold arguably Pokemon’s most impressive record.

Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow/Green combined have sold more than 47.5 million copies. While this puts it sixth on the list of the most sold video games of all time, it should perhaps be higher than that due to its retail price.

• Read More: What are the best selling Pokemon games of all time?

In terms of sales as an overall franchise Pokemon sits in third place, trailing only Sonic the Hedgehog and the Mario series.

The first generation of Pokemon games are widely considered some of the best games of all time.

2. Speed run

There is also another record for these Pokemon games. Due to their simplicity they have become some of the most popular games to speed run.

As Pokemon Red/Blue and Yellow are slightly different games, they have separate speed run records. It is Red/Blue that are primarily played for speed run attempts.

The current world record is owned by PokeGuy, beating the previous record time by 27 seconds with 1 hour, 45 minutes and 21 seconds. It is believed that 1 hour, 44 minutes will be beaten at some point.

This incredible time is possible due to exploits such as x-accuracy which guarantees 100% accuracy.

3. Pokemon in Minecraft

Minecraft is actually one of the games that has more sales than any individual Pokemon game. The sheer scope of Minecraft allows you to do some pretty crazy thing within the game – none more so than being able to create Pokemon Red within the game.

• Read More: What are the best Pokemon games of all time?

The process in doing so is incredibly complex but essentially it involves creating blocks which contain lines of code to make the game run. In total there are 357,000 blocks, meaning there are 357,000 lines of code.

The project was made by MrSquishy and can be downloaded right now. It is perhaps one of the most incredible Minecraft projects to date. Elsewhere, the Kanto region has also been created.

4. Shiny hunting

Hardcore Pokemon fans will know the strain and frustration of shiny hunting. Essentially finding shiny Pokemon is nothing more than luck and repetition.

As a result it can take thousands of attempts to find the shiny Pokemon you are looking for. Furthermore, with legendary Pokemon, where you have one chance to catch them, you also have to soft reset between each attempt – this only adds to the time it takes.

Following the release of Pokemon Let’s Go, finding a shiny Mewtwo became the craze. Some streamers had to make nearly 2,000 soft resets and there were presumably others who to make a lot more.

• Read More: Ultimate Pokemon Let’s Go shiny fails compilation

However, one player did a reported 209,797 soft resets in order to find a shiny Natu. Yes, that’s right, 209,797. This was while using five Gameboy Advance SPs but nonetheless it is still an extraordinary number, one which will likely never be beaten.

To see the moment MI678TV found the Natu, check out the video below (2:01 for mobile users).

5. Pokemon Go

Pokemon’s main mobile game, Pokemon Go, is responsible for spearheading the augmented reality genre through a phone. The game is more popular than even Niantic would have expected when they made it.

It is also quite the money maker having made more than $2.5 billion in revenue since launch. This number is made all the more impressive when to download it, it is entirely free.