Shadow move

Shadow moves (Japanese: ダークわざ Dark moves) are moves known only by Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. This term was first used in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness.

Mechanics

Shadow moves have no type and display a blank space where the type would normally go on the summary and battle screens. In Pokémon Colosseum, there is only one Shadow move, Shadow Rush, which has regular effectiveness against any type. In Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, Shadow moves are super effective on any non-Shadow Pokémon and are not very effective on Shadow Pokémon. All Shadow moves can be used an unlimited number of times, as they do not use any PP, displaying "--" (two dashes) as their current and maximum PP at all times. Shadow moves cannot be copied by Mimic or Sketch. Using Mirror Move on a Shadow move will result in Mirror Move failing.

In Pokémon XD, the area on the summary screen that would normally display type effectiveness instead displays no icon at all for every type (instead of either a super effective, effective, not very effective, or immune icon).

Damage-dealing Shadow moves can be either physical or special, despite damage categories being otherwise solely dependent on type at the time. Other moves would not be categorized separately from type until the following generation.

Since Shadow Pokémon cannot be traded, all of these moves are exclusive to the two GameCube games, with all but Shadow Rush exclusive to Pokémon XD. This also excludes them from use in Contests, as there are no Contests in Orre.

All Legendary Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon XD have a signature Shadow move. This move appears as a dark, corrupted counterpart of a move that the Pokémon would normally learn, and has lower base power than its non-Shadow counterpart, but still inflicts more damage due to usually being in a situation where it will be super effective.

Moves

Pokémon Colosseum

Pokémon XD

Trivia

• The Shadow moves introduced in XD are the only damage-dealing moves which are incapable of dealing neutral damage.
• All Shadow status moves inflict negative effects to the opponent and non-Shadow Pokémon, with none of the moves providing positive stat changes to the user.

In other languages

This article is part of Project Moves and Abilities, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on two related aspects of the Pokémon games.