The first DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, The Teal Mask, brought lots of new and returning elements to the latest games in the franchise yesterday. And one fan recreated the oldest urban legend in the game’s history, something that both old and new fans may recognize.
Thanks to a free Mew that Nintendo offers to fans and the new island of Kitakami, a player on Reddit has combined the two to create the image of Mew just beside a truck, paying homage to some early gossip from the original Pokémon generation of Red, Blue, and Yellow. Even 27 years after the creation of that urban legend, old fans are keeping it going, while some new players are trying to learn why.
It’s fitting that the title of the post is “After all these years,” because this piece of Pokémon history is one that fans who are in the older demographic should remember. For context, in the original generation of Pokémon games, the rarest Pokémon was Mew. Players vigorously tried to find how to get it, and one part of Vermilion City’s map design left an unanswered question. A truck just near the coastline, separated from both the S.S. Anne and the city itself, was just parked there, potentially able for players to Surf to it.
It would take either cheats or cleverness, but the rumor came out that Mew was hiding under that truck, with only the smartest players who managed to get there completing this Easter egg. This wasn’t true, however, as it was just a part of the map design that the community marked as off. But even Game Freak noted the legend, adding items underneath said truck in future games as a little reference. Alas, Mew was never underneath it, but that didn’t stop players from pointing to it and joking around, maybe baiting their friends to try and complete a puzzle with a fake reward at the end.
When the recent post was made on Reddit, mixing this new DLC with one of the oldest inside jokes of the franchise, the community reacted to it with a smiling sigh, the same way you would react to a dad joke. Fittingly, the joke itself is nearly 30 years old and the top comment in the thread is insinuating that the original post was made by an older fan of the franchise.
At the same time, this is a perfect blend of how old and new fans of Pokémon are reacting to this DLC. The old heads who know the original 151 by heart are wondering how to evolve Gurdurr, while new fans are searching for how to evolve Graveler, both not knowing they share the same evolution process. Now, the older fans are showing a screenshot of Mew in front of a Kitakami truck, with new fans clueless as to why it’s even relevant.
This time, the true boomers of Pokémon can make a joke that the new trainers don’t understand, instead of the other way around.
