Ghost Grey Key Items: Every Important Item & Where to Find It
Short answer: Ghost Grey has 56 key items. Eight of them are the badges, nine are keys and access cards that open specific rooms, and the rest are tools, tickets, and hand-ins for people who ask you for things. This page lists all of them with where the ROM's own map data says they are.
How this list was built
Every entry below comes from Ghost Grey's item table: items whose category is keyitem, plus the location entries the map data carries for them. Each location has a method:
- gift -- an NPC hands it to you
- overworld -- a visible ball on the ground
- hidden -- an invisible item you need the Itemfinder for
- purchase -- a shop or vending machine sells it
Where our extraction shows no location at all, the game almost certainly hands the item over during a scripted scene rather than placing it in the map, and scripted handovers are not in the map data. Those are listed separately at the end rather than quietly dropped.
The eight badges
All eight are key items, and their locations match the badge spine in the walkthrough.
| Badge | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
Volcano Badge | Seafoam Islands |
Shock Badge | Cerulean City and Vermilion City (the same badge, two sites) |
Plague Badge | Celidon City and Pewter City |
Chaos Badge | Safari Zone |
Famine Badge | Desert Palace |
Flood Badge | Davy Jones' Locker and Paradise Moonbase |
Hope Badge | Fuji Catacombs |
Boulder Badge | Paradise Moonbase -- the item text says it was purchased at Pewter Casino |
That last one is not a typo in this table. The ROM stores the Boulder Badge's pickup at Paradise Moonbase while its own description says you buy it at the Pewter casino, which is the kind of joke this hack makes on purpose.
Keys and access cards
These are the items that open doors. If you are stuck in front of something locked, this is the section you want.
| Item | Where | Opens |
|---|---|---|
Mushroom Key | Vermilion City | The tunnels of the Brotherhood of Bugs |
Ornate Key | Safari Zone | Described only as "a strange key" -- the ROM does not say where it goes |
Desert Key | Desert Palace | Something in the Desert Palace |
RM. 3 Key | BrunoCorp Enterprises | Room 3 of BrunoCorp Labs |
RM. 4 Key | BrunoCorp Enterprises | Room 4 of BrunoCorp Labs |
Surgery Key | BrunoCorp Enterprises | The surgery room of BrunoCorp Labs |
Microchip | BrunoCorp Enterprises | The barrier of wires on the 7th floor of BrunoCorp |
Police Pass | Routes 5, 6, 7, 8, and Smeraldo Poli | Free entry to and exit from Saffron City |
Dezo's Card | Safari Zone | Nothing mechanical -- it is the trainer card of a boy you bury |
BrunoCorp is where the card keys pile up, so if you have found three of the four, the fourth is almost certainly on the same floors.
The Hookshot
The Hookshot is found in the Safari Zone, as an overworld pickup. That is the whole of its location data.
Its description is worth quoting because it tells you what kind of item it is: "Some sort of weird metal chain. It's incredibly heavy. Doesn't look like it was made in Kanto." It is categorised as a key item, not a held item, so it is a traversal or puzzle tool rather than something a Pokémon carries.
This is the single most-searched Ghost Grey item term, and the reason is obvious -- it is a Zelda item sitting in a Pokémon game, and the game does not explain it. If you are hunting specifically for it, you are looking at a ball on the ground in the Safari Zone, not in a cave or a hidden spot.
Tools and quality-of-life items
| Item | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Itemfinder | Pumkin Patch | Signals when a hidden item is nearby. Get this early -- 219 of the game's item placements are hidden |
Scooter | Pallet Town, Cerulean City, Desert Palace | Fast overworld transport |
Coin Case | Pewter City, Celidon City | Holds up to 9,999 Game Corner coins |
Police Pass | Routes 5-8, Smeraldo Poli | Saffron City access |
Fame Checker | No map location | Recalls what you have heard about famous people |
Teachy TV | No map location | Tips program for new Trainers |
VS Seeker | No map location | Finds Trainers who want a rematch |
Town Map | No map location | Maps the region and shows where you are |
TM Case | No map location | Holds your TMs and HMs |
Pillowcase | No map location | Holds loose candy, attached to the important-items pocket |
Powder Jar | No map location | Stores Berry Powder |
Wailmer Pail | No map location | Waters planted Berries |
Mach Bike | No map location | Folding bike, twice walking speed |
String | Saffron City | String with a paperclip on the end |
Start with the Itemfinder. With 219 hidden placements against 198 visible ones, more than half the items in Ghost Grey are invisible until you sweep for them. It sits in Pumkin Patch as a pickup.
Fishing rods
| Rod | Where |
|---|---|
Old Rod | No map location |
Good Rod | No map location |
Bad Rod | Routes 6 and 12 |
The third rod is real, and its item text describes it as a "shoddy, low-tech fishing rod." Three rods with two of them unplaced in the map data means they come from a fisherman's script.
Quest hand-ins
Ghost Grey has a habit of making you carry someone else's junk across the region. These are the items that exist because a character wants them.
| Item | Where | Who wants it |
|---|---|---|
Hand Mixer | Saffron City | Theodora, for pastry and slop |
Large Spoon | Saffron City | Theodora -- a comically large spoon from the prison kitchen |
Newspaper | Saffron City | Its headline is about a child's birthday party |
Mystery Gene | Offshore Facility | A genetic code in a vial, for the "Mystery Buyer" |
Hard Drive | Celidon City | Files for someone called "Artemis" |
Rusty Drive | Offshore Facility, Route 12 | Described as junk made of metal and plastic |
Gun | BrunoCorp Enterprises, Rocket Warehouse | Dr. Hexagon's gun. Theodora told you to use it only when absolutely necessary |
Old Cartridge | Desert Palace | An old plastic cartridge -- the ROM does not say what it is for |
Bone Brush | Mt. Silver | A paintbrush with a bone handle |
Rare Candie | Ten sites including Celidon City, Pewter City, Route 2, Route 24, Fuji Catacombs | Levels a Pokémon up once. The item text adds that each level takes part of that Pokémon's soul |
The Gun is the one to notice. It is a key item, it lives in two places in the map data, and the game tells you it is loaded.
Tickets
| Ticket | Where | Boards |
|---|---|---|
S.S. Ticket | No map location | The ferry S.S. Anne |
EON TICKET | No map location | A ferry to a southern island |
Mystic Ticket | No map location | The ship to Navel Rock |
All three tickets are scripted handovers. EON Ticket and Mystic Ticket are the classic event-item pair, which is a strong hint that Ghost Grey's post-game includes the Southern Island and Navel Rock content rather than only its own new areas.
Story items
| Item | Where | Note |
|---|---|---|
Grey Orb | Fuji Catacombs | "An orb that does not glow. Somehow, I've held it before." |
GrySoulstone | Desert Palace | A grey stone holding the souls of thousands. It is a gift, not a pickup |
Mirror Shard | Viridian City | A fragment of the Mirror of Souls, said to separate a soul from its body |
WhiteFeather | House of Puppets | A flawless white feather that cannot be tarnished |
WinnerTrophy | Route 23 | A solid gold trophy for whoever is number 1 |
The Grey Orb's item text doing a memory gag before you have any reason to remember anything is Ghost Grey being Ghost Grey. It is also the item whose name sits closest to the title.
Where to shop
Saffron City is the shopping hub: five of the six evolution stones are purchasable there, alongside the Itemfinder's cousins and most of the mid-game consumables. Viridian City, Pewter City and Vermilion City all sell Exp. Share and Amulet Coin, which is worth knowing because an Exp. Share before the second badge changes the pacing of everything after it.
Items our data cannot place
Fourteen key items carry no location entry: EON Ticket, Fame Checker, Good Rod, Mach Bike, Mystic Ticket, Old Rod, Pillowcase, Powder Jar, S.S. Ticket, Some string, Teachy TV, TM Case, Town Map, VS Seeker, and Wailmer Pail. Scripted NPC handovers do not appear in map data, which is why the Town Map and TM Case show up as unplaced when every player gets them within the first hour.
If you want these filled in properly, they need a playthrough rather than an extraction. We would rather say that than invent a location.
What this guide does not claim
It does not claim to know what the Hookshot is used on, where the Ornate Key fits, or what the Old Cartridge is for. The ROM's item data gives locations and descriptions, not puzzle solutions. The Ornate Key and the Old Cartridge both have descriptions that openly refuse to explain themselves.
It also does not list held items, healing items, TMs or Berries. Key items are items you cannot lose and cannot use in battle, which is a narrower and more useful list than "every item in the game." For that wider list, including the 219 items hidden in scenery, see item locations.
Related: the walkthrough, what's different from vanilla, the evolution guide, and the 100% checklist, which marks the key items you must not walk past.
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