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The logo of Poké Transporter.
Provider	Nintendo
Launched	December 25, 2013, January 21, 2014 (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) February 4, 2014 (Europe, Australia, and New Zealand) February 5, 2014 (The Americas)
Shutdown	March 27, 2023 (new users)[1][2][3]
Service provided	Transferring Pokémon from Generation V and the Virtual Console releases of Generations I and II
Accessible by	Nintendo 3DS family of systems
Website	Pokemonbank.com/en-us/transporter/ (English)

Poké Transporter (Japanese: ポケムーバー PokéMover) is an application for the Nintendo 3DS line of systems, released on the Nintendo eShop. It allows for Pokémon to be transferred to Pokémon Bank from the Generation V core series games and the Virtual Console releases of the Generation I and II core series games.

Poké Transporter's eShop download page was always hidden from view, and could only be accessed by following a link within Pokémon Bank, which was only accessible while the player had an active Pokémon Bank subscription. Additionally, using Poké Transporter required an active Pokémon Bank subscription.

Since March 27, 2023, due to the discontinuation of the Nintendo 3DS eShop, it is no longer possible for new users to download Poké Transporter, although users who had previously downloaded it can redownload it. Additionally, due to Pokémon Bank becoming free after the discontinuation of the eShop, Poké Transporter also no longer requires an active Pokémon Bank subscription.[1][2]

Poké Transporter has had several important updates:

• December 25, 2013: Poké Transporter was released, allowing Pokémon to be transferred from the Generation V games.
• January 24, 2017: Poké Transporter was updated to allow transferring Pokémon from the 3DS Virtual Console releases of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow (Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow in Japanese) to Pokémon Bank.
• November 19, 2017: Poké Transporter was updated to allow transferring Pokémon from the 3DS Virtual Console releases of Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal (although Crystal was not released until later).

Usage

Unlike Pokémon Bank, Poké Transporter always defaults to the Nintendo 3DS system language (or English if the system language is Portuguese, Dutch, or Russian). If the system language is Japanese, it always defaults to kana instead of kanji. The user may change the language at any time by pressing L from the title screen, but this choice is not preserved if the app is closed, reverting to the default language again.

The software allows Pokémon to be sent from the Generation V core series games and the Virtual Console releases of the Generation I and II core series games to Pokémon Bank. The service allows one-way transfer; once transferred, they cannot be moved back to the Generation V or the Virtual Console Generations I and II games.

Pokémon sent from the Generation V games can be withdrawn from Pokémon Bank in Pokémon X and Y, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Pokémon Sun and Moon, and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon (although they cannot be withdrawn in the Generation VI games once they have been withdrawn by the Generation VII games). Pokémon sent from the Virtual Console releases of the Generation I and Generation II games can be withdrawn from Pokémon Bank in Pokémon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon only.

Poké Transporter allows the player to select an inserted physical copy of Pokémon Black, White, Black 2, or White 2, a Virtual Console copy of Pokémon Red, Blue, or Yellow (in Western languages) or Red, Green, Blue, or Yellow (in Japanese), or a Virtual Console copy of Pokémon Gold, Silver, or Crystal. While Japanese versions of Pokémon Black, White, Black 2, and White 2 are region-locked due to being DSi-enhanced, Generation V games of any region can be used with Poké Transporter.

Only the Pokémon from Box 1 can be transported, and the entire Box will be transported at once, limiting the transfer to up to 30 Pokémon at a time (20 from the international versions of the Generations I and II games); if any Pokémon in the Box are ineligible to be transported, they will simply remain in the Box while all eligible Pokémon in the Box are transported. The Pokémon transported to Pokémon Bank are placed in the Transport Box. A new transfer cannot be made if there are any Pokémon in the Transport Box. When transferring from Generation V, any empty spaces in the arrangement of Box 1 are not kept; the Pokémon will arrive in the Transport Box with any empty spaces removed.

Since Pokémon cannot be moved out of the Transport Box into Pokémon Bank without a save file from a 3DS core series game, this can cause the Transport Box to become "clogged" and block further transfers if the player deletes their 3DS core series save file(s).

Held items are handled differently depending on the source game:

• Any Generation V game: Pokémon holding items are transferred, but their held items are returned to the Bag, or deleted if the Bag is full.
• Any Generation II game: Any Pokémon holding items are not transferred and remain in Box 1, with the player being warned that some Pokémon could not be transferred.
• Any Generation I game: Pokémon that would hold items if traded to a Generation II game can be transferred as if they were not holding an item. Those potential held items are lost.

Pokémon that know HM moves can be transported without having to forget those moves (unlike Pal Park and Poké Transfer). Kyurem must be in its normal form to be transported. Eggs cannot be transported.

As a part of Pokémon Bank, the player needed a valid pass in order to use Poké Transporter.

Legality checking

Poké Transporter has a legality checker that is intended to prevent Pokémon obtained or modified through external devices or modified by a glitch such as the Rage glitch from passing through. However, it does not prevent all illegitimate Pokémon, and does stop some legitimate Pokémon. While legitimately obtainable (though not in Japan), Shiny Jirachi could not be transported prior to the release of the Shiny 2014 Tanabata Jirachi. Pokémon hatched from the Odd Egg cannot be transported unless they forget the move Dizzy Punch, as the Odd Egg is not obtainable in the Japanese version of Pokémon Crystal on the Virtual Console.

Only Mew with the original Trainer GF or ゲーフリ and Trainer ID number 22796 are considered legal, which are the Original Trainer and Trainer ID number of Mew obtained from the Generation I Virtual Console distributions (the Nintendo UK's Pokémon Festival Mew and the Japanese Game Freak Mew).

In the Virtual Console release of Pokémon Crystal, it is possible to catch a wild Celebi at level 30 due to the in-game GS Ball event. Poké Transporter will refuse to transport Celebi if its level is below 30. Prior to this release, Poké Transporter refused to transport all Celebi from Generation II.

Pokémon over level 100 can be transferred, but their level will be reduced to level 100.

Character transcoding

Poké Transporter needs to be able to read several text variables from games it connects to, then convert these characters to the character encoding of Pokémon Bank (i.e. transcode the text). Specifically, it needs to be able to read:

Generation I and II

In the Generation I and II games, the exact character encoding differs between languages; as a result, Poké Transporter applies a different transcoder depending on the game's language. There are also slight differences between the Generation I and Generation II character encodings, but these differences mostly do not apply to text transcoded by Poké Transporter (outside of some characters failing to render at all in Generation I), so the same transcoder is used for both Generation I and II games in each language.

In Generation II, the player can change the names of Boxes; the characters available to enter in Box names differ from the characters available to enter as a player's name or Pokémon's nickname, so Poké Transporter's transcoder can also handle many characters that can only appear in Box names. Additionally, several characters that players cannot type appear in preset player character names in Spanish, and the Original Trainers of certain in-game trade and gift Pokémon.

In Generation I, the name of Box 1 is not read; instead, Poké Transporter uses the default name for "Box 1" in the language of Poké Transporter itself. For example, when transferring from a French Generation I game (where the name of Box 1 is "Boite 1") and Poké Transporter's language is set to Spanish, it will call the box "Caja 1" (the name of Box 1 in Spanish).

While the vast majority of characters are transcoded to the same character they represent in the Generation I and II games, several characters lack a single-character direct equivalent in Pokémon Bank, so instead transcode to the closest equivalent, or to a space as a fallback.

Apostrophe-letter ligatures

In French Pokémon Gold and Silver and all English Generation II games, there are several apostrophe-letter ligatures that the player can type in Box names. The set of ligatures is different between English and French; English exclusively has apostrophes preceding characters (e.g. 'd, 't), whereas French almost exclusively has apostrophes following characters (e.g. m', p'). The only ligature they have in common in 's (the only ligature in French where the apostrophe precedes the letter).

In English, these ligatures are transcoded to just the letter without the apostrophe. In French, they are all transcoded to just a space (even 's). The lack of proper transcoding is presumably due to the fact that these ligatures do not appear in French Pokémon Crystal.

Diacritic characters

Characters with umlauts can only be typed in the German games, and do not display in the English Generation I games (being displayed as spaces instead). Even if a Pokémon that has umlauts in its name is transported from an English Generation I game, the umlauts are preserved by Poké Transporter.

In the Spanish versions of Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, several of the preset player names include Á or Í, despite the fact that players normally cannot enter these characters. Additionally, the Original Trainer of an in-game trade Voltorb (FALCÁN) and the Original Trainer of the gift Shuckle (MANÍA) also include one of these characters. These characters display differently in different language games:

• In the Spanish and Italian games, both characters display correctly.
• In the English games, both characters display as spaces.
• In the French and German games, due to having a different character encoding, Á displays as ç, and Í displays as ô.

If a Pokémon with either of these two characters in its Original Trainer is transported from an English, German, Italian, or Spanish game, they are transcoded to the correct values. However, if transported from a French game, they are transcoded to the characters they appear as in the French Generation II games. This difference is presumably due to the fact that ç and ô can appear in Box names in the French version of Pokémon Crystal, whereas they cannot in the German Generation II games (despite the French and German versions using the same encoding).

Fullwidth characters

Spaces have the same appearance across all languages of Generation I and II games. ? and ! have the same appearance across Japanese and Western language Generation I and II games.

For Japanese games, they are transcoded to fullwidth , ？ and ！. For Western language games, they are transcoded to regular , ?, and !. For Korean games, spaces are transcoded as fullwidth ; note that this differs from the halfwidth that is used in Korean games from Generation IV onward.

Hangul

Seven of the hangul vowel jamo (ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ, and ㅢ) and two hangul blocks (괻 and 읆) can be typed in the Korean Generation II games, but not in Pokémon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, or Ultra Moon. These characters are treated the same as prohibited words.

While transferring Pokémon from a game with any of these characters in the player's name, Poké Transporter displays the Trainer's name as ???. If the name of Box 1 includes any of those characters, it is displayed as "박스1" (Box 1) instead.

TRAINER

Other

Modifications to transported Pokémon

Nicknames and Original Trainer names

Unnicknamed Pokémon

The Generation I to III games do not track whether or not a Pokémon is nicknamed, only what the Pokémon's current name is; from Generation IV onward, there is an internal flag that marks whether a Pokémon is nicknamed or not, in order to track whether Pokémon from a different language games have nicknames.

When a Pokémon is transported from a Generation I or II game, if its current name is its species name in the language of the Generation I or II game it is sent from, it is treated as being unnicknamed. The Pokémon's name is checked against its species name after applying any character conversions (e.g. after converting PK to P). The Pokémon's name is considered to match if it is either in ALLCAPS or the capitalization normally used in later generations (but any other capitalization is treated as a nickname). Otherwise, its current name is permanently treated as a nickname.

The names of unnicknamed Pokémon are made to match the formatting of their species name in their language of origin in the Generation VI games. This is relevant for two main cases:

• Unnicknamed Pokémon originating in a Generation I to IV game (which have their species names in ALLCAPS) have their names changed to be capitalized normally.
• Unnicknamed Pokémon transferred from Generation V that were evolved in a game of a language different to their language of origin (so that their name is in the language of the game they were evolved in instead of their language of origin) have their name changed to match their language of origin.

Several Pokémon have diacritic or ligature characters in their French names, but these are not used in the French Generation I and II games. Due to an oversight, Poké Transporter expects the Pokémon's French names to include these characters in the Generation I and II games, so if an unnicknamed Pokémon is transported from a French Generation I or II game, its species name (as formatted in Generation I and II) will permanently become its nickname. As a workaround, if the Pokémon's nickname in the Generation I or II game is set to a censored word, its nickname will be removed when it is transported to Pokémon Bank, causing it to become an unnicknamed Pokémon with the correct name.

Additionally, unnicknamed Pokémon with other special characters in their species names may also fail to be recognized as unnicknamed.

• Mr. Mime's species name in Generation I and II is MR.MIME without the space character, so transferring an unnicknamed Mr. Mime from Generation I or II will give it MR.MIME as a nickname. Similarly, its French species name was M.MIME rather than M. Mime, so transferring from a French Virtual Console game will give it M.MIME as a nickname.
  • In version 1.2, Poké Transporter additionally failed to handle the 0xE8 (period) in the species name of Mr. Mime, presumably due to the nickname entry screen's identical-looking character actually being 0xF2 (decimal point), which did get properly handled. The unhandled period would turn into a hyphen instead, so transferring an unnicknamed Mr. Mime from Generation I would give it MR-MIME as a nickname. (Glitches are required to obtain an unnicknamed Mr. Mime in Generation I without trading back from Generation II. The species name of Mr. Mime includes 0xE8 in the French, English, Spanish, and Italian Virtual Console games.) In version 1.3 onward, the period and decimal point are both properly handled as the same character, but the lack of a space in Mr. Mime's Generation I and II name is still not handled correctly, hence why the issue described above occurs.
• In version 1.2, Poké Transporter failed to handle the apostrophe in the species name of Farfetch'd, presumably due to the nickname entry screen not having an apostrophe, causing it to turn into a space instead. Transferring an unnicknamed Farfetch'd from Generation I would then give it FARFETCH D as a nickname. (In Generation I, unnicknamed Farfetch'd can be normally obtained in Pokémon Yellow. The species name of Farfetch'd includes an apostrophe in English, Spanish, and Italian.) This was corrected in version 1.3.

Character limitations

A name consisting of only spaces, which is only possible in Generation I, will remain unchanged. If a Pokémon has PK, MN, [, ], or × in its nickname or original Trainer, this will be converted to P, M, (, ), or x, respectively, upon being transported.

Pokémon transported from a French Generation I or II game that originally had Á or Í in their Original Trainer (in their original language) have this character become ç or ô instead (respectively), matching their display in the French Generation I and II games. (These characters are correctly preserved when transferring from any other Western language, despite these characters having the exact same appearance in the German games as they do in the French games.)

In Japanese, between September 22, 2017 and November 19, 2017 (after Pokémon Gold and Silver were released on the Virtual Console but before they were directly compatible with Poké Transporter), transferring a Pokémon from a Virtual Console game with an exclamation point or question mark in its nickname or OT would cause these characters to be converted into spaces.[4] (This required trading the Pokémon to a Generation I Virtual Console game and then transferring through Poké Transporter. The Japanese Generation II games allow entering exclamation points/question marks but the Japanese Generation I games do not. This did not occur in other languages, presumably because it is possible to enter exclamation points/question marks in Generation I in those languages.) Conversely, the kana を / ヲ wo and small vowel katakana did not have this issue despite also being characters that could be entered in Japanese Generation II but not Japanese Generation I. This was fixed by the release of Poké Transporter compatibility with the Generation II games.

In the Generation I and Generation II character encodings, several pairs of hiragana and katakana share the same code points due to being rendered the same way in-game; in later generations, this is not the case, with each character having its own code point. These characters are the hiragana へ (including べ and ぺ) and り and the katakana ヘ (including ベ and ペ) and リ. Poké Transporter converts the character to hiragana or katakana depending on the first kana character of the Pokémon's name (i.e. the first character other than a space, chōonpu, question mark, or exclamation mark). If the first character is hiragana (other than the four kana in question), the character is converted to hiragana へ or り; if the first character is katakana or any of the four kana in question, the character is converted to katakana.

Pokémon from in-game trades

In Generation I, the Original Trainer of Pokémon from in-game trades is a control character (code point 0x5D) that displays Trainer in the games' language (e.g. TRAINER in English). Transported Pokémon have this OT converted to plaintext, with regular capitalization and any abbreviations expanded, based on the language of the transferring game. (As a result, the Korean and Chinese OTs exist in the data of Poké Transporter but are not actually used.)

Censored words

If a Pokémon's nickname contains a prohibited word, the Pokémon's nickname will be erased, reverting to the default species name in that Pokémon's language of origin. (Since the Generation I and II games do not track language of origin, Pokémon transferred from the Virtual Console games have their language of origin set to the transferring game's language.) Poké Transporter informs the user when this occurs. The word check is applied after removing spaces and after converting characters such as PK.

The list of prohibited words is stored server-side, varies over time,[5][6] and does not match either the Generation V filter list, any of the Nintendo 3DS's filter lists in any region or language, or any combination of the former. Transferring from Generation V and transferring from the Virtual Console uses different filter lists (each blocks some words the other allows). In particular, almost all words in kana are allowed when transferring from the Japanese Virtual Console games.

If a Pokémon's original Trainer contains a prohibited word, the original Trainer will be replaced by a generic name, and Poké Transporter will also inform the user. The generic name depends on the Pokémon's language of origin and the transferring game. (As a result, the Chinese OTs exist in the data of Poké Transporter but are not actually used.)

Location data

Pokémon sent to Bank via Poké Transporter only display the region corresponding to their game of origin as their met location. (For example, Pokémon from Pokémon HeartGold will display "Johto", regardless of whether they were met in the Kanto or Johto region.) Pokémon met in Pokémon Colosseum or XD display "a distant land" instead of the name of the Orre region.

For Pokémon transported from the Generation I or II games, because these games do not record game of origin, the Pokémon is assigned the game it was transferred from as its game of origin. Additionally, their met location is displayed as "Seems to have traveled across both space and time to reach you from the Kanto/Johto region in the good old days." (This differs from the text used for Pokémon from Pokémon FireRed, LeafGreen, HeartGold, and SoulSilver only by the text "in the good old days.")

For Pokémon originating in a Generation V game, their met location data is preserved internally, but not displayed. For Pokémon originating in a Generation III or IV game, their met location was lost when transferred via Poké Transfer. For Pokémon originating in a Generation I or II game, because only Pokémon Crystal records met location data, no met location information is preserved by the transfer.

If a Pokémon was met in a fateful encounter, this information is retained upon transfer. Mew and Celebi transferred from the Virtual Console games are also flagged as being met in a fateful encounter.

From Generation V

• Several species of Pokémon have their Ability changed:
• Due to Ability slots no longer being determined by personality value, all Pokémon will be assigned the Ability slot corresponding to their current Ability upon transportation.
• Due to gender no longer being determined by personality value, female Azurill that would evolve into male Marill will be permanently locked into being female upon transportation. (Male Marill or Azumarill that evolved from female Azurill remain male.)
• Pokémon transferred from Generation V with more than 252 EVs in any stat will have the extra EVs removed.
• Since the Shiny chance was doubled in Generation VI, some personality values that were not Shiny in Generation V would become Shiny upon transfer. Specifically, if the Shiny value is between 8 and 15, the Pokémon would not be Shiny in Generation V but would be Shiny if it had the same PID in Generation VI onward. To prevent this, if the Shiny value is between 8 and 15, the Pokémon's personality value's most significant bit is flipped.[7]

From Generation I and II

• A transferred Pokémon's nature is that nature whose index number corresponds to the Pokémon's experience modulo 25.
• The Pokémon's experience is then reset to the minimum amount of experience required for its current level.
• Any Pokémon transferred from the Virtual Console releases of the Generation I and II games have their Hidden Ability.
  • Pokémon with no Hidden Ability in Generation VII will not have their ability slot index number set to the Hidden Ability slot, they will always be assigned slot 1 instead. As an example, a Koffing from Virtual Console transferred through Pokémon Bank, Pokémon HOME and arriving in Generation VIII would not retroactively gain its Hidden Ability Stench upon arriving in Generation VIII, it would remain Levitate, as that was the only possible ability for Koffing in Generation VII.
• The method of assigning gender has varied between versions of Transporter:
  • In version 1.2, gender was assigned randomly[8] (regardless of the Pokémon's Attack IV).
    • Due to gender being determined randomly instead of being determined by the Attack IV, it was possible for Pokémon with a gender ratio of "1 ♀ : 7 ♂" to be both female and Shiny, which is impossible in the Generation II games (and thus in Poké Transporter version 1.3 onward as well).
  • In version 1.3 onward, Pokémon transferred from the Virtual Console games have their gender assigned based on their Attack IV, the same as in Generation II.
• The IVs of Pokémon transferred from the Virtual Console games are randomly generated, but three are guaranteed to be 31 (five if the Pokémon is Mew or Celebi).
  • This also means that the type of the Pokémon's Hidden Power will usually differ from its type in the Generation II games.
• Stat experience is completely erased, so that the transferred Pokémon has 0 EVs in all stats.
• The method to determine whether a Pokémon is Shiny after transfer has varied between versions of Transporter.
  • In version 1.2, Poké Transporter determined whether a Pokémon would be Shiny based on how Shiny Pokémon were determined in Generation II, but erroneously switched the IV requirements for Attack and Defense. (In Generation II, a Pokémon is Shiny if its Defense, Speed, and Special IV are all 10, and its Attack IV is 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 or 15.)
  • In version 1.3 onward, this was corrected to match the Generation II games.
• As these games do not keep track of which Poké Ball is used to catch a Pokémon, all transferred Pokémon will be in a regular Poké Ball.
• As these games do not keep track of the language or game of origin, these are set to those of the game from which they were transported.
• Pokémon transported from the Virtual Console games have the origin mark.
• The Pokémon's country, location, and 3DS region are set to those of the Nintendo 3DS.
• The Pokémon's Secret ID number is set to 00000.
• Pokérus (active or cured) is not transferred.

Server issues

On December 25, 2013, Pokémon Bank and the Poké Transporter were both released in Japan, South Korea, and other Asian territories. Due to high volumes of traffic throughout the Nintendo Network caused by a large volume of Nintendo Network IDs being created,[9] the Nintendo eShop was temporarily inaccessible.[10][11] When the Nintendo eShop was accessible again on December 29, 2013,[12] Pokémon Bank was removed from the Nintendo eShop (although players that had previously downloaded Pokémon Bank could still download Poké Transporter, which can only be downloaded through Pokémon Bank).[citation needed] In addition, the release of Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter for the Americas, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand—originally set to be December 27, 2013—was delayed due to the aforementioned issues.[13]

On January 21, 2014, Pokémon Bank was re-released in Japan, South Korea, and other Asian territories.[14] The service was then launched in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on February 4, 2014;[15] and in the Americas on February 5, 2014.

Version history

Gallery

• 

  Japanese logo

• 

  Home Menu icon

Trivia

• Unlike Pokémon Bank, Poké Transporter stores no save data.

In other languages

References

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