The Secret of Unowns and the Ruins of Alph

You want to know everything about the Ruins of Alph and its mysteries? Do you have 10 minutes? Because it won't be long, that's for sure.

External videos used:
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Chapters:
0:00 The Ancestor of regional forms
0:29 Locating the Ruins
1:06 Ruins of Alph
2:30 Unown Mode
3:27 How Unown forms work
4:02 Completing the Unown Dex
5:28 Crystal changes
7:20 HGSS changes
8:51 Sinjoh Ruins
9:28 There is no secret

[Lyra]

Thanks to your comments, I am now really looking forward to finding the Regi Pokémon! I played the early parts of Gen 3 but skipped the rest for Gen 4 instead. Apparently, I missed something good, so I can't wait :'D

[implausiblekid]

The ruins of alpha had a lot of potential. Even getting a fossil after solving all the puzzles would be better than basically nothing.

[yagofazcoisaseuacho]

I think the biggest contribution HGSS gave to the Unown lore was the implication that maybe they are Arceus's "thousand arms" mentioned in its Pokédex entry

[GallantBlade]

The puzzles in the Ruins of Alph very much feel like a predecessor to the puzzles to get the Regi trio in gen 3.

[dood]

I remember being so intrigued yet so disappointed by this as a kid. The secret radio channel really spooked me, and seeing the message "ESCAPE" made me think there was something dangerous about the ruins. But then you reach the end, and the game hardly tells you anything.

[nicklewry]

Weird, obscure stuff like this is probably bad game design by modern standards, but it evoked such a sense of mythos and mystery and intrigue in me as a kid that I can’t help but love it. Just the idea that there could be more to the mystery, it gets the imagination going! I think the meta element of truly not knowing if the ‘subplot’ is going to be fleshed out adds a lot

[kennytheamazing]

I still remember the playground rumour where if you spelled "CELEBI" in your party with unowns, it would unlock the celebi event in gen2.

[censoredterminalautism]

That place drove me crazy as a kid. Even after catching all the Unown, I was convinced that there had to be SOMETHING that I hadn't found yet.

[FaeRhanX]

These ruins were an enormous red hering for me. I solved all puzzles and got the 26 forms, but the unknown dex has one space left for a 27th one, so the 26 forms and the printer stuff can't be it, right? And that one scientist guy even still wondered how many Pokémon are inside these ruins even after catching all of them. As a maybe 12yo child I wasted a ridiculous amount of time inside these ruins, days, nights, different week days, middays, midnights, whatever, checking every little patch of these ruins while listening hours to the radio for the smallest hint and just to find nothing. I wrote down every single word mentioned in these ruins and wasted a lot of braincells to find any clue when combining all of them. And everything twice in both Silver and then Crystal because the Crystal additions misled me again that now I must be able to find something. I expected something epic like some legendary or whatever, but all I got was one shiny smeargle. I guess this is the one place in any game where I wasted the largest amount of my life to achieve nothing.

[AlmostCoolGuys]

This channel is like the helpful assistant to tie up loose ends. Things I wasn't able to get to growing up this channel has been showing me what happens. Thank you

[boks]

Concerning 6:59 : In RSE you also have to do strange things like this to get the Regis unlocked. Like using Fly in the middle of the ruin or just standing still for one minute and such. I also think it is an amazing way of opening new areas to the player. Feels really adventurous

[Infindox]

Fun fact: the Sinjho Ruins event can be done twice on a save file, if you have two different Arceus. (This usually works with the TRU one and the Hall of Orgins Arceus, which was unreleased but you can use a fan server to get events). Second time around has small differences since Cynthia is no longer there, and you can pick one of the other two legendaries (sadly one gets left behind!)

[Jackpkmn]

I caught an unknown K in my first playthrough of silver when i was a kid. I remembered playing with magikarp in red so i kept it and trained it and used it. Kept thinking to myself it must learn something else eventually right? Tried every TM on it as i found them. I eventually gave up on it before the 8th gym. I wish there was a way to recapture that magic, the magic that not understanding how the world works brings.

[Muchenaft]

I'm not a fan of unowns, but I do like the ruins of alph. It's just a random place, not linked to the story of the game, making it just "exploration", which is nice, and also you have little puzzles to complete. It feel like a little change in tone, with no pressure to do it, and I'm sad we don't find more of those kind of places anymore in the games. The Regi puzzle in Gen 3 was really good too, while maybe too cryptic..

I also liked the sandy ruins in BW.

[CharemTheShadox]

Unowns always felt like a really cool idea that never got finished. They suck as individual Pokemon for viability, but there's so much seemingly to them...despite that never being fleshed out very far. Maybe they had plans to continue their thing in later gens, but it didn't really happen.

One thing I've always found interesting (and never hear anyone talk about) is Gen 5's Sigilyph. To me, it always had Unown vibes (especially its single-eyed 'head' but also its 'E- arms') and looked like some form of evolution to them, despite not ever being directly related. Their name being related to sigils is also intriguing, as sigils often incorporate alphabets into them. Sigilyph and Unown are also both indicated as ancient beings by their dex entries, and populate ruins. Frankly, when Gen 5 came out I expected Sigilyph to unlock another part of the Unown mystery, and yet...nothing was added. It just seems to be an independent Pokemon, even though...I think it's far too intriguing for that.

I really feel like we all missed out on some larger story about these creatures. Like a bunch of stuff was cut from development, maybe because it was determined to be focusing too much on certain Pokemon.

[LillfD]

I was one of the kids that got all the Unown and saw the disappointing reward. No, did not have a Gameboy Printer... nor did this feature make me want to get one. I wanted some cool lore and thought Unown were going to lead me to something ancient and wonderful. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of games that gave me that sense of wonder I had. Like, I didn't want it to be main plot or anything, I liked it was this... side thing. Like, you have to go out and find this ancient legend. It's one thing I don't like about modern Pokemon games, where they started forcing the encounter with the box legendary.

[iss]

I couldn't stop laughing at that Arceus cutscene. That can NOT be real! I don't know why I found it so funny. I think it's just the little Arceus sprite with the realistic photo images in the background and all the geometric shapes, the contrast between it all and the non-sensical nature of it had me cackling.

[Aeon]

I remember a rumor back in the day that if you caught all 26 Unown, you'd get a static encounter with Entei in Crystal. Most likely these came from the connection with the two in the 3rd Movie since that was released before Crystal.

[azuraracon]

An interesting bit that kind of got lost in translation in gen 2; the Unown only began to manifest after the construction of the Radio Tower (and the global trade center in the japanese version with the Mobile adapter)

They basically exist because humans began transmitting their communication through the air

Which is likely why they exist in mainline Sinnoh as well, and why Sinnoh and Johto share a cultural site like they do; Gen 4 being on the Nintendo DS meant wireless communication happened right out of the box

[diegocosta]

We should stop and think about Pokemon G/S beta ROMs too.

Those games were pretty different to the final game, but Unowns still exist on them

However, there are no Ruins or Alph or anything, but it already existed some sort of ruins, where the Unowns were important too.

The interesting point is that the beta G/S map was based on all the island of Japan, and those ruins, were located in Hiroshima.

Those ruins had some human silhouettes, similar to the ones that the bomb of Hiroshima left with some citizens. But that's not all, the Unown radio makes a noise similar to those made by radioactivity detectors.

Another interesting thing, is that you have some war references in those beta games. A scrapped sprite of a soldier trainer, LT Surge itself, and Remoraid (a gun) Octillery (a tank) and Mantine (a war plane, being the Remoraid in the sprite like a dropped bomb)

In the main games, Ho-Oh revives Raikou Entei and Suicune after dying in the fire. Maybe Ho-Oh could revive those war victims in the form of Unown, existing in those ruins located in the "Hiroshima" Part of the beta games.

Of course nothing is confirmed, and it's just another crazy theory of that mystery place left in beta games, and only those who worked in the game knows the truth, but it's interesting and intriguing why did they made such a mystery place in their games. I think that Unowns were more important in first place, but due to the lack of time, they scrapped their ideas and we finally have a poor reward for completing the Unown Dex.

If you read everything, thank you for your time, and sorry for all the mistakes I made. Cheers ✌🏽