Why This Munchlax Is The Rarest Pokemon Of All Time

[Music] hello Peter welcome to spear pillar that's right folks I'm up here on top of the beautiful Mount coronette surrounded by Beauty by the way trying to stop the Sinister Team Galactic from enacting their evil plans but I'm currently taking a quick break for some Pokedex research in between the fights trying to make sure I stay with the Curve on Pokedex completion cuz this thing gets out of hand fast if you don't take the time to keep up with it okay yeah this is a super interesting one actually I've heard that Munchlax is incredibly rare but the Pokedex is saying area unknown entirely which is weird because I'm still pretty sure you can find it somewhere at least I think the catch method is supposed to be really intricate or something who knows it does have me pretty curious though this guy at the cafe on Route 210 had one and said it took him forever to get a hold of so maybe if I could figure out the grind I could go for it someday like him him but it might be a bit above my pay grade though I'll have to see about that okay but that's enough Pokedex thing for now I'd say let's get right back into the action okay two against one not super fair but oh hey Barry thanks for coming out let's go to town on these chumps just you and me striking a blow for justice against the worst criminals in the land okay now wait just a minute how do you have that where did you get that Pokémon how does he have one how does Barry have munch laacks I thought this was supposed to be like the rarest Pokemon of all time and it takes forever and these guys are grinding it out for him and this is the most impatient guy I've ever met and yet here it is as his first Pokémon but that settles it if this guy of all people has one then it's probably not actually that bad and after I finish up up here I'm going to go find a Munchlax on my own real easy real [Music] soon [Applause] that was vaguely my line of thought in 2009 playing Pokémon Platinum for the first time completely unaware of the uphill battle I was soon to be in for because for some reason Munchlax is unexpectedly the most difficult to find Pokémon in this generation by a mile and it might even hold that distinction across the entire series it has a one-of-a-kind Cosmic level difficulty to catch wild in Gen 4 one that without explanation requires patience luck and a deep understanding of the game's inner workings all on a Pokémon that seemed to be receiving mascot status right up there with Pikachu but how did we get here to best fathom the incredible Munchlax let's start from the beginning Munchlax is an endearing little normal type and has been a fan favorite since its official introduction to the series in Gen 4 as the pre-evolved form of Snorlax Munchlax was uniquely positioned as a sort of promotional Pokémon for the generation ation as it made multiple appearances in games in the anime before its technically official debut in Diamond and Pearl it would see cameos in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon red and blue Pokémon XD gay of Darkness Pokemon Dash and even the absolutely legendary Pokemon team turbo CD ROM game which is a very real game that I did not make up may catches one in the Gen 3 anime and It's featured in the Deoxys movie all of this being before its official release where it could be caught and used like normal in the Gen 4 games which is to say in a way that all of these appearances were promotional with at least a partial purpose in building hype for the future of Pokémon where this incredible creature could be caught and placed on your team just like everything else and this positioning created an additional level to the identity of the Pokémon something not quantifiable by official materials or data in the game's code this new and sort of mysterious Pokémon is making these odd appearances I want to know more about it I want to discuss it with my friends I'm going to draw conclusions based on the few context clues we get because every appearance so far has been shown to us through this slightly tinted lens of being able to look but not exactly touch it was still shrouded in a bit of mystery so at the eventual point of diamond and pearl actually releasing fans had most likely seen this Pokémon before in some capacity because of the sheer volume of hint appearances it had had leading up to the release and in that moment they wanted it who wouldn't it's cute and kind of funny looking I definitely want one as a kid I ran into Munchlax and Pokemon XD and then again in Blue Rescue Team and I was intrigued by the little guy I wanted it I wanted it bad I bet you wanted it too that's right you specifically and even you the Pokemon team Turbo Super Fan who was just jonesing to get your hands on a Munchlax of your own and while I'd like to get more in depth with this idea later we're already seeing here a comp opponent of this Pokémon's identity that revolves around what individuals and communities are feeling about it rather than what has been said specifically by the game or official materials a large piece of this Pokémon's identity revolves around rumors discussion and the Mystique it invokes in a way that isn't written anywhere in the official documentation but rather it exists in the hearts of players because the community has only been shown these curious glimpses of it and so that was the State of Affairs for Munchlax going into the official releas of diamond pearl and platinum it's even the first Pokémon you're actually shown in game Professor Rowan throws one out during his introduction speech another Peak at this Pokémon if you somehow hadn't seen it before there were enough breadcrumbs and then that tiny bit of Mystique surrounding the Pokémon for the hunt to officially be on and so here we are it's not 2009 anymore but I want to catch a Munchlax just as much now as I did then I fear though at least in these games it's probably not happening for me because despite all the excitement and hype building up to it grabbing a Munch laack straight out of the pocket in these games might be one of the most difficult and most timeconsuming Pokémon to catch in any game past present or future not including timed defense there's things like mythicals in that calculation as munchel ax is actually here and untimed but actually finding one feels about as likely as winning the lottery and why is that I have no idea what were they thinking but let's at least try and make sense of it and we'll start with getting into the onp paper mechanics that create this Rarity and then go from there lunches can be found in the golden colored honey trees that are scattered around the region of CNO pretty early into the games you'll arrive at the beautiful floma town where you'll be introduced to the Honey Tree mechanic after a brief spat with Team Galactic and now we're able to buy jars of honey from the honey salesman in the meadow it's also found all over the place too and you'll definitely come across it naturally over your journey at other places is it's not a hard item to come by once you've got some honey you just slather it on a tree and then you wait 6 hours later in real time you've got a 90% chance to encounter a Pokémon on that tree with the encounter expiring 24 hours after you put the honey on it and that's all there is to it a very simple premise for another unique way to grab some new Pokémon and interact with this world but like many other mechanics in Pokémon looks are deceiving of the actual complexity so let's take a closer look first and foremost the honey trees are real time in the real way this means you cannot skip the 6 hours by messing with your game or systems clock it is a hard locked required amount of time for each encounter in addition to this the Pokémon you encounter is determined when the honey is placed so the industrious trainer cannot reroll the 6 hours for a better encounter you can reroll for most of a Pokémon stats but not for the species which is the important part here and this element to it is the first extreme glaring difficulty of the whole process some even going as far to describe it as a design oversight not by me of course it's definitely just something I've heard and not said several times I'd say if anything they went a little too hard on the realism here because this idea makes sense in the world and it's a fun one a Pokémon eventually showing up later to grab some food that's been left out for them and then setting up shop for about a day to really enjoy it and then the trainer checks the bait in a similar time frame it's all modeled very well from a narrative perspective but as a game that you play as a real life person this can be extremely unforgiving even when I was little and had practically all the time in the world I was still constantly missing my trees even more so now as an adult when I decide to pick up Pearl or platinum you play a different time of day than you did last time something comes up and you can't get on your DS for a day or you just want to take a break and come back to it later if you really want to engage with the honey trees they can feel like an animal crossing esque chore that demands time of you that you might not have but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself we haven't even discussed What Pokémon can be found in the honey trees maybe the trees are supposed to be supplementary to the other encounter methods in the games and contain Pokémon that we can maybe ultimately find using other methods and so the trees could just be considered another option an extra option that you don't have to concern yourself with right yeah I think we all know where this is going outside of the worle family which I know is a huge grab for all the big wormo fans out there every Pokémon you can find in a Honey Tree cannot be obtained through any other method this includes comi Burmy chupi apom Heracross and of course Munchlax so if you want any of these Pokémon lines in these games like I think these two are pretty excellent then this will require you to use the trees of course not counting any outside methods like transferring or trading this goes to make this handful of Pokémon all pretty rare in the context of these games because they've got this non-negotiable time Factor attached to them you whiff a tree entirely or just get a worm pole that's another 6 hours before you can have another go with that Majestic Heracross getting really any of these Pokemon was a huge deal for me and my group of friends as kids because of that upfront time investment on top of the Rarity of each specific Honey Tree Pokémon so now let's zoom in on that component of all this what dictates what Pokémon we get once the honey is actually on the tree and most importantly how do I get a Munchlax Munchlax are only capable of spawning at lucky trees unb nounced to the average player there are actually two types of Honey trees and there's no visual difference between the two types the majority of the trees out of the 21 present on the map will be regular trees but four of them will be lucky and you have to figure out which ones they are in order to secure your Munchlax there's no way to identify a lucky tree at a glance your four trees are determined by using a combination of your player ID and your secret ID and it results in every save file having a different combination of four trees so you can't just memorize their locations you're going to have to find yours specifically easy to use calculators exist for this now but the average player would have to experiment to determine which trees are lucky and which trees aren't the only difference we can actually interact with between the two types are their encounter tables for Pokémon but here we find another incredibly odd design Choice instead of each tree having its own distinct encounter table we get a set of two that both trees use but the lucky trees pull from the better table 70% of the time as opposed to the regular trees only 20% of the time but both are still possible and there's a decent bit of overlap between the two tables so determining a tree's type purely by my own experimentation isn't something I could do with just one encounter because there's a chance I got lucky on the bad table or the composite chance that I got unlucky on the good table but then we also need to be careful about our methods because if you immediately put honey in a tree after an encounter it has a 90% chance to select from the same table as that most recent encounter the other 10% just picking randomly this aspect actually can be helpful in the experimentation as you could maybe narrow some trees down quicker but it's another under the hood mechanic that can severely burn the player who unknowingly gets stuck looping the worst encounter table all in all the only way forward here would be carefully going for a plethora of Honey Tree encounters and then taking notes over a very long period of time and then maybe using a tiny bit of math to eventually narrow down which of my trees are lucky ones but after that we can only hope and pray we actually encounter the Munchlax because this is the part where we just roll the dice and hope we get lucky but how lucky are we actually talking here because certainly Munchlax can't actually be that uncommon once you have the special trees nailed down there's no sensical reason for them to go any further than that things are already difficult enough and you would think but that's just the cherry on top of this nonsense at any of the four lucky trees Munchlax is a 1% spawn a single percent with an unnegotiable 6-hour cost to check one of those encounters and it only even procs on about a fifth of the possible trees this is actual lumacy I've got a 20 is% chance of getting the right tree a 6-hour wait and then an insulting 1% chance of actually getting the Munchlax if I was able to figure out that initial 20% I know it doesn't exactly work this way statistically but if I just threw honey on a random tree we're in a ballpark of a tenth of a percent chance and for those of you playing at home you'll be right to imagine that we're reaching similar odds to getting a shiny which is unbelievable for just a regular Pokémon but I almost find this cooler in a way because if I'm not using the calculator I could possibly be banking on the wrong trees and then I'd have a 0% chance it's just downright nutso such low odds on something you have to experiment for coupled with a forceful timer requirement I dare say even that it's outrageous not to mention that the player is given virtually none of this information by the game itself Munch lax's pokedex entry goes as far to state area unknown and the information given to you in game is scarce the information regarding the tree types and the encounter tables is found in the Platinum guide book but that's the extent of the information you're going to get without going into the game's code the gag here is that you get just enough information to know that it's out there and that you can look for it but you get no guidance or advice on how to go through with that process so the average player is wasting even greater amounts of time because they don't know how to look for the encounter I've certainly never found one in a very early stage idea for this video I thought I might try and muscle through hunting one without using the calculator see if I could model that experimental process but I fear that the time requirement could have me working on it in vain for weeks months maybe even in the area of a year it's just grueling work even more so with any real life responsibilities so I think I'll be okay with not having one I do want it but there's just not enough time in the day for me maybe someday way down the road I'm not happy about it but it is what it is and I'm mostly to terms with that so there's really just one question left here on the table how in the world did Barry get [Music] one Barry probably Takes the Cake for the most impatient Pokémon character in the entire series it simply doesn't make any sense for him to have a Munchlax once you've gotten down everything it would take for you to get one the name of the game is patience something Barry does not possess the patience required to grind through this hunt would test the saint leest of sages so frankly it's infuriating that Barry has one similarly to his advice on becoming the ultimate Pokemon trainer just don't get hit and hit every move obviously he embodies a couldn't be me type of attitude and when paired with his constant rushing around he's just a really annoying guy perhaps he's always sprinting everywhere because he just has to check on his honey trees sprinting around the region looking for his alltime favorite Pokémon it's kind of a silly explanation but I really like it complaining aside though I do think it was a really clever decision to pair him with Munchlax here for a few different reasons and it works really well but both for him as a character but also for the idea they're propping up with Munchlax too that sort of mythological aspect that Munchlax has as this extremely difficult to track down creature is only further emphasized by Barry showing up with one and then not having anything to say about it like I was saying way back at the beginning wunch lax's identity becomes something much more than just a difficult Pokémon to catch because it makes you feel a certain way on paper it's just difficult but now with Barry it's personal especially seeing it for the first time it emphasizes all those questions you have how does he have one how do I get one why did the Pokedex say area unknown what does he know that I don't I can't express enough how much more Mystique this Pokemon had for me the first time I played these games because it shown to you in this unique way and now there's a piece of its identity I'll never be able to separate from Barry it's almost like Munchlax picked him specifically just to get under under my skin that much more it works so well because the two characters create a feedback loop for each other they prop up each other's strengths as obstacles for the player Munchlax as this infuriating creature of myth and then Barry is a worthy rival yeah I'll say it I think he's the best rival across Pokemon and the thing that pushes him over the edge for me is this interaction I can beat him in a fight all day long but he's beaten me bad when it comes to this I can mold and cry and say it isn't fair but he caught a Munchlax and I did not now of course you very well could technically have a Munchlax by now with a lot of time or luck spent on the project but to do it so effortlessly not even remark on it like he's doing here is this Ultra bold statement that doesn't even require words to be powerful he puts you down just by being here and I consider this the highest possible behavior of a rival he's achieved that which I never had the drive to achieve myself it's incredible let's also consider what led him to getting one because it makes him all that much cooler the previous encounter you have with Barry before he shows up on Spear Pillar is you bearing witness to him getting destroyed by Jupiter at Lake ACU and he takes it really hard he was sent here to protect the legendary Pokemon yuxie from Team Galactic but he just wasn't strong enough to do that maybe it was all just a game to him before this but now understands the gravity of this situation that Pokémon called yuie it was suffering I'm going to get tougher it's not about winning or losing that's not good enough I have to be stronger his bright and highflying Persona he's had before this has been completely dashed as he comes to G RS with not being able to save the day when it was actually important and so off he goes to get stronger but in the real way this time and what better way to model a character Moment Like This than to return from a training Arc with the most difficult to find Pokémon in the region ready to settle the score with Jupiter and then fighting with the player instead of against them he's really grown there's a multi-dimensionality to him for me because of this some back and forth between him and the player that makes them feel more like legitimate competitors instead of a fake one-sided Feud and this is because of Munchlax Munchlax is the cherry on top of that story Munchlax makes Barry feel more legitimate as arrival and then Barry makes Munchlax feel more infuriating and so the cycle goes round and around and so while I definitely think they went way overboard with the difficulty on this hunt I can appreciate that they at least bake that obstacle into a potent character ization for the childhood friend but as far as Munchlax itself goes we've got a Pokémon that's tough as nails to track down looks great I especially Love That animated Sprite in Platinum and just feels special I can only imagine the gratification I would feel someday if I was able to catch one by the books well definitely not as satisfying I still did get a Munchlax at the end of the day because there were a couple of ways outside of diamond pearl and platinum to get one into Gen 4 but nothing that's too standard or by the books and since they're all really fun I want us to close out here today by looking at those alternative methods let's circumvent the evil of the honey trees and still bring home our priz munch laacks it almost feels like there was some recognition of how impossible a task this was when Gen 4 first came out because there's a very strong implication that the main way you should be getting one is by transferring up a Snorlax from fire red or leaf green using the new new transfer tool at Pal Park Snorlax is a story encounter in those games and it's extremely popular so it was pretty easy as long as you had the means to send it from GBA to DS and even though it was kind of inefficient I have a huge soft spot for transferring Pokemon with Pal Park because there was so much fanfare attached to it you pop the DS game in the top slot the GBA Game in the bottom slot pick six Pokémon from the GBA Game to move up and then you get sent on what they're calling a catching show in this little model Zoo looking area as you catch back your Pokémon this is unfortunately limited to six a day so it's a little bit tough but they made a very logistical process into a game that actually felt fun so I rate it really highly I'm further inclined to think that this is how you were supposed to get Munchlax because this girl in the lobby will give you a poke app if you show her a Snorlax giving you further incentive to transfer one up now you have to breed for the Munchlax off of the Snorlax after that transfer which does require an additional item but everything's in the books once you make that initial transfer getting the egg is super easy and then eventually we would have access to the options presented in par gold and soul Sil these beautiful wonderful games just like in the original gold and silver Snorlax is a static encounter right outside of Vermillion City once you can wake it up with the Poke gear this probably being the easiest of all the methods to get the Snorlax family in Gen 4 it's a story encounter so you can't really miss it but if you're hankering for something a little more unique and perhaps reminisce of that original difficulty can also find Munchlax itself on a few of the Poke Walker routes ah the Poke Walker such an incredible little accessory taking the Pokémon out of the game and into your real life hands with a podometer you can take them for walks on the Poke Walker allows you to walk with your Pokémon at various locations usually thematic of some type or environment with a mini game that allows you to fight and catch Pokémon that you can return to your game with you walking generates Watts the main resource of the device and if you turn in enough Watts when you return from your adventures you can unlock additional routes with new and better Pokemon on them and you're going to be doing that a lot as Munchlax can be found on the final route the quiet cave which takes only a measly just a poultry 100,000 watts to unlock you earn one Watt every 20 steps so all you got to do is head out with your poke Walker for a quick 2 million steps that's Child's Play that seems like a really normal amount and that also means you're not spending Watts on anything else so if you're really engaging with a device in reality it's probably a fair amount more than 2 million once you actually have the cave unlocked you can grab Munchlax on any individual day you take 10,000 or more steps still pretty rare at this point but you're going to get one pretty quick as long as you've stockpiled enough Watts but this isn't the only place on the Poke Walker you can find Munchlax in 2010 a mystery gift event ran for heart gold and soul silver that would allow players to walk on the legendary winers path route with a plethora of incredible Pokémon and items waiting to be found inside in addition to a great selection of Pokémon one of those being Munch laacks every Pokémon on this route comes with a move it's usually incapable of learning they're all really great this was one of my favorite routes as a kid for that reason I loved all the Pokemon thought they were super fun but getting a bounce Magikarp was especially Charming to me for some reason just think about it that idea is incredible the big ticket item once again though is Munchlax and the ones found here are Ultra special and unique this is the only place where you can get a self-destruct Munchlax and ultimately Snorlax in Gen 4 and it was a huge deal for the family at the time Snorlax was already threatening competitively but self-destruct is such an incredible move for the strength Snorlax already has it offers an extremely high damage option on top of the normal type stab given to Snorlax exclusively positioning it here lets the route live up to that name Winner's path this is a Pokemon uniquely equipped for victory but as the route was a timed Mystery Gift exclusive there's no way to receive the distribution anymore and you definitely don't want to look into using any DNS exploits that would allow you to access the downloads today that would just be awful they did a few poke Walker mystery gifts over the course of heart gold and Soul Silver and I think they're uniquely positioned as some of the best timed exclusives in the entire series because you could keep walking on the routes after the event ended once you had a route downloaded you could walk on it whenever you wanted it was kind of like they gave you a spawner and instead of a onetime access codee like for celby or me and that functionality really came into play here since self-destruct couldn't be transferred like an egg move those looking for the optimal self-destruct Snorlax would need to catch a lot of Munchlax and therefore end up spending a lot of time on the route but this time around the Munchlax method is tons of fun so it's a win-win all the way through I see Winner's path as the end of this epic tale Pokemon told us about Munchlax across the generation it originally had this reputation for being an extremely difficult to catch creature of Legend and even though it eventually got a distribution that made it much easier to obtain it was still a creature of Legend thanks to the exclusive self-destruct it went from being ultra rare to uniquely Ultra powerful and so there's this curvature to the way I felt about it as I grew with the games but that original sense of Legend myth and desire never got lost as things got easier that incredible identity that Munchlax built up with its original implementation never really went away and it stuck with me after all this time I really don't think they've ever topped the original honey tree method in terms of difficulty Munchlax and Snorlax definitely aren't hard to come across now and even in the Gen 4 remakes you can easily find Munchlax and the grand underground in addition to the honey trees but with perspective of the series as a whole that core identity Still Remains in unsuspecting Pokémon on the surface but dig a little bit deeper and you find an infuriating task so difficult it's still talked about to this very day a Pokemon that strictly reinforces the notion that your rival actually is one step ahead of you and has you swearing an oath of Vengeance against the world's most impatient child this is all the Pokemon Munchlax and its Legacy is unyielding and that's all I got for you folks thanks H Lo if you made it this far hope you enjoyed it were you ever able to catch a Munchlax and diamond and pearl think there might be something out there that's harder to catch or perhaps you have a suggestion for the next video topic whatever you thought let me know down below for now I've got to go check my honey trees but it's been fun and I'll see you all next time drish [Music] out [Music]

Channel: Droomish

Views: 98,919

Keywords: pokemon scarlet and violet, pokemon sword and shield, pokemon violet, pokemon firered, gen 3 pokemon, pokemon gen 3, droomish, droomish pokemon, pokemon lore, pokemon investigation, pokemon retrospective, pokemon deepdive, munchlax, pokemon munchlax, rare pokemon, rarest pokemon, rarest pokemon encounter, gen 4 munchlax, dp munchlax, pokemon honey trees, honey tree munchlax, pokemon platinum, pokemon emerald, gen 4 pokemon, pokemon gen 4, rarest pokemon of all time

Id: 53P0M9VgqsA

Length: 29min 33sec (1773 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2024