Character encoding (Generation II)

The Generation II games use a proprietary character encoding to store text data. The Generation II encoding is largely similar to the Generation I encoding. Versions of the games in different languages may use different encodings, some more different than others.

This article is incomplete.
Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it.
Reason: French, German, Italian, and Spanish character encodings

Character sets

Technically, all characters before 0x60 function as control characters. An asterisk (*) denotes a character that is explained in the control characters section below.

English

Only a few control characters below 0x50 are actually used in the English games, all of which are ones marked below with an asterisk (for more, see the control characters section further down where they are explained). The sub-0x50 characters that are not marked with an asterisk are artifacts of the Japanese control characters that print other characters with a diacritic.

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	?	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
1-	Q	R	S	T	*	*	*	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	*
2-	q	r	*	*	*	*	w	x	y	z
3-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	*	*	*	*	*						*
4-	Z	(	)	":"						*	*	*	*	'r	*	*
5-	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü
D-	'd	'l	'm	'r	's	't	'v									←
E-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-			?	!	.	&	é	→	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

The arrows at 0xDF & 0xEB are only present in Pokemon Crystal.

French & German

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	Unsure
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	à	è	é	ù	ß	ç
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü	ë	ï	â	ô	û	ê	î
D-					c'	d'	j'	l'	m'	n'	p'	s'	's	t'	u'	y'
E-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-	+		?	!	.	&	é		▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Italian & Spanish

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-
1-	Unsure
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	^P_O	^K_é	“	”	・	…	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
9-	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	(	)	:	;	[	]
A-	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p
B-	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	à	è	é	ù	À	Á
C-	Ä	Ö	Ü	ä	ö	ü	È	É	Ì	Í	Ñ	Ò	Ó	Ù	Ú	á
D-	ì	í	ñ	ò	ó	ú	º	&	'd	'l	'm	'r	's	't	'v
E-	'	^P_K	^M_N	-	¿	¡	?	!	.	&	é		▷	▶	▼	♂
F-		×	.	/	,	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Japanese

	-0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9	-A	-B	-C	-D	-E	-F
0-	?	イ゙	ヴ	エ゙	オ゙	ガ	ギ	グ	ゲ	ゴ	ザ	ジ	ズ	ゼ	ゾ	ダ
1-	ヂ	ヅ	デ	ド	*	*	*	ネ゙	ノ゙	バ	ビ	ブ	ボ	*	*	*
2-	ィ゙	あ゙	*	*	*	*	が	ぎ	ぐ	げ	ご	ざ	じ	ず	ぜ	ぞ
3-	だ	ぢ	づ	で	ど	*	*	*	*	*	ば	び	ぶ	べ	ぼ	*
4-	パ	ピ	プ	ポ	ぱ	ぴ	ぷ	ぺ	ぽ	*	*	*	*	も゚	*	*
5-	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
6-		▲		D	E	F	G	H	I	V	S	L	M	:	ぃ	ぅ
7-	「	」	『	』	・	⋯	ぁ	ぇ	ぉ	text box borders
8-	ア	イ	ウ	エ	オ	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ	タ
9-	チ	ツ	テ	ト	ナ	ニ	ヌ	ネ	ノ	ハ	ヒ	フ	ホ	マ	ミ	ム
A-	メ	モ	ヤ	ユ	ヨ	ラ	ル	レ	ロ	ワ	ヲ	ン	ッ	ャ	ュ	ョ
B-	ィ	あ	い	う	え	お	か	き	く	け	こ	さ	し	す	せ	そ
C-	た	ち	つ	て	と	な	に	ぬ	ね	の	は	ひ	ふ	へ	ほ	ま
D-	み	む	め	も	や	ゆ	よ	ら	り	る	れ	ろ	わ	を	ん	っ
E-	ゃ	ゅ	ょ	ー	゜	゛	?	!	。	ァ	ゥ	ェ	▷	▶	▼	♂
F-	円	×	.	/	ォ	♀	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Korean

Main article: Korean character encoding (Generation II)

Control characters

This section is incomplete.
Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it.
Reason: Any alternate defaults or functions in Gold and Silver or in other languages

The characters on a gray background below are not naturally used in the games.

Character	Japanese	English
0x14	Prints the player's name, including a gendered honorific in Japanese (adds `くん` for male, `ちゃん` for female).
0x15	Nothing.	May break.
0x16	Nothing.	May break.
0x1D	Prints `に` .	Prints `;`.
0x1E	Prints `って`.	Prints `[`.
0x1F	Prints `を` .	Prints .
0x22	Prints `た！`.	A "half" line break (moves the print position to the place one tile below the start of the current line).
0x23	Prints `こうげき`.	Prints `tzx`, but this appears to be junk data.
0x24	Prints `は`　.	Prints `^P_O^K_é`.
0x25	Prints `の`　.	Nothing.
0x35	Prints `ばん　どうろ`.	Nothing.
0x36	Prints `わたし`.	Nothing.
0x37	Prints `ここは` .	Nothing.
0x38	Prints `レッド`.	Prints `RED`.
0x39	Prints `グリーン`.	Prints `GREEN`.
0x3F	Prints the opposing Trainer's name (including their Trainer class). (Outside of battle, this may not terminate properly.)
0x49	Prints `おかあさん`.	Prints `MOM`.
0x4A	Prints `が` .	Prints `^P_K^M_N`.
0x4B	Appears to be the same as 0x55
0x4C	Appears to be the same as 0x55 except without any prompt or pause (immediately shifting the dialogue box's lines upwards)
0x4E	Line break (moves the print position to the space two tiles below the start of the current line (as defined by explicit placements of the print position); mostly used in move descriptions and Pokédex entries).
0x4F	Dialogue line break (moves the print position to the expected start of the second line in a standard dialogue box).
0x50	String terminator.
0x51	Prompts the player to press a button, after which the text window is cleared to make way for the following text.
0x52	Prints the player's name without an honorific.
0x53	Prints the rival's name.
0x54	Prints `ポケモン`.	Prints `POKé`.
0x55	Prompts the player to press a button, after which the top line of the text window is replaced by the bottom, the bottom line is cleared, and the print position moves to the start of the bottom line.
0x56	Prints `......` (in the middle of the line in Japanese).
0x57	Marks the end of dialogue, without a visual prompt to the player.
0x58	Marks the end of dialogue, with a visual prompt to the player.
0x59	Prints the inactive* Pokémon's name in battle. (Outside of battle, this may not terminate properly.)
0x5A	Prints the active* Pokémon's name in battle.
0x5B	Prints `パソコン`.	Prints `PC`.
0x5C	Prints `わざマシン`.	Prints `TM`.
0x5D	Prints `トレーナー`.	Prints `TRAINER`.
0x5E	Prints `ロケットだん`	Prints `ROCKET`.
0x5F	Prints a period (0xE8) and simultaneously functions as a string terminator. (Only used in Japanese Pokédex entries.)

Uses

Strings using this character encoding are found in various places, including the save data structure in RAM and the Trainer data structure and the below examples in ROM.

Species names

The names of all the Pokémon are stored in a simple list of 256 strings. In international versions, each entry is 10 bytes, while in Japanese versions, they are 5 bytes. If a name takes less than its full allotted length, it is terminated by 0x50.

The first name in the list is Bulbasaur while the last is ?????. The game looks up a Pokémon's name by receiving its index number, decrementing it by 1, and then looking for that index in the list. So while Bulbasaur's index number is 1, the game will find Bulbasaur's name at index 0 in the list (the first entry). These names are used for a variety of things, such as naming wild Pokémon and displaying the species name in the Pokédex and on summary screens.

The following are ROM offsets for the start of the list in each game:

Game	English	Japanese
Gold	`0x1B0B74`	`0x053A09`
Silver	`0x1B0B74`	`0x053A09`
Crystal	`0x053384`	`0x05341A`

Data structure in the Pokémon games
Generation I	Pokémon species • Pokémon • Poké Mart • Character encoding • Save

Generation II	Pokémon species • Pokémon • Trainer • Character encoding • Save

Generation III	Pokémon species (Pokémon evolution • Pokédex • Type chart) Pokémon (substructures) • Move • Contest • Contest move • Item Trainer Tower • Battle Frontier • Character encoding • Save

Generation IV	Pokémon • Save

TCG GB and GB2	Character encoding

This data structure article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.

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