Why did Exeggcute's Hypnosis not affect the enemy Rattata the first two times?

Question

I was scrolling on Reddit when I stumbled upon this replay of someone who found a shiny rattata in Pokemon Crystal. The turn order went like this:

1. Rattata uses Tail Whip, Exeggcute uses Barrage and hits 3 times.
2. Rattata uses Tackle, Exeggcute uses Hypnosis and it doesn't affect the enemy Rattata.
3. Rattata uses Quick Attack and Exeggcute uses Hypnosis but it doesn't affect Rattata again.
4. OP uses a Potion from the bag to heal Exeggcute, Rattata uses Quick Attack.
5. Rattata uses Tackle and it misses, Exeggcute uses Hypnosis and puts Rattata to sleep.

I have no experience with Gen 2 and its mechanics, so I don't know if saying the attack didn't affect the enemy is the game's way of saying it missed or if this is some Gen 2 jank, so if anyone can clarify what happened, that would be great.

Comments

Apparently in Gen 2 it has a 25% chance to fail, on top of its less than 100% accuracy. Not sure this is the reason though.
If my memory is correct, in some games (maybe it was Gen 1?) certain moves will just say that they failed instead of saying that they missed, though I may be completely wrong about that.

Answer 1

Oh boy, here we go again.

As soon as I read your question, I was immediately taken back to 2021, when I asked the same question. Little did I know how much of a debate it would cause.

Deciphering the mass of comments is difficult, but Amethyst's comment at the very bottom clears the air on this topic:

"In the Generation I and II core series games, when an in-game opponent outside of the Battle Tower uses a status move that would decrease one of the target's stats, that move has a 25% chance to fail in addition to its normal chance to miss. In the Generation II core series games, this condition also applies to status moves that would inflict a non-volatile status condition upon the target."

Source

All status moves used by an opponent have a 25% chance to fail on top of whatever chance to miss the move might have. This means a move like Hypnosis, which has 60% accuracy, would actually have only a 35% chance to hit if used by the opponent.

Hope this helps!

Comments

I think you mixed up the ending. In case it wasn't clear, Exeggcute was OP's Pokemon and the Rattata was wild. Exeggcute's Hypnosis failed, so the part about status moves inflicting a non-volatile status having a chance to fail would be correct.

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Perhaps I meant that all status moves act this way...

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The way I'm reading it (the part from Bulbapedia, it's coming off as the status move thing applying to opponents who use the move while the non-volatile status part applies any target, with there being a difference between just the opponent being affected and the target, where it affects the player using the move.

Then again, I'm an uneducated idiot who has no idea what he's talking about. Thanks for your help regardless!