Glitch

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Glitches are anomalies in software programs, including video games. They can cause various problems ranging from the purely graphical to completely wiping entire chunks of saved data.

They are usually caused by problems with a game's code, or from a player doing things the programmers did not anticipate, therefore causing the game to react unexpectedly. Below is a list of glitches in the Pokémon video games.

Major glitches

File:Wildmew.jpg
A Mew being found in the wild

There are three glitches (the first two are only available in the Red, Blue and Yellow versions; the third one is available in the Gold/Silver and Emerald versions, and the Hall of Fame one is very minor) that do not necessarily always create glitched Pokémon, but are themselves glitches that cause events that would not normally happen in the gameplay.

Generation I

  • Glitch City: A glitch location consisting of mess of random map tiles that changes depending on the location where the player enters Glitch City. [1]
  • Mew glitch: Allowing players to capture any Pokémon (most especially Mew) without modification, and allowing players to catch most of the glitched Pokémon. [2]

Generations I - IV

  • Pokémon cloning: Variations of the Pokémon cloning trick exist in each Generation of the Pokémon games, each slightly different from one another. The most reliable version is in Generation II. This Pokémon cloning version allows players in the Gold/Silver versions to safely clone Pokémon, assuming they have at least somewhat decent timing.[3]
  • Sprite glitch: Glitches that mess up sprites have occurred in all generations (mostly by cheating).

Generation IV

  • Surf glitch: allows players to warp to places on the map where Darkrai and Shaymin lie. Note: This only works in some of the first Japanese versions to be released.[4]
  • Tweaking: This causes the game to fail to load the map and makes it appear black. Some cases have led the player to places such as Newmoon Island or Flower Paradise if the player goes the right way.

Minor glitches

Pokémon Red and Blue

  • Rare Candy cheat: An in-game glitch which is the result of encountering a Missingno. or 'M, giving the player over 100 of the player's 6th item (this is also known as the "Old Man Glitch").
  • Hall of Fame Glitch: When Missingno. has been seen on the save file, the player's Hall Of Fame is badly corrupted with entirely different Pokémon (players can even see Mew in the Hall Of Fame, whether they've seen Mew or not) and very glitched characters and names.
  • Man on roof of Cinnabar Gym: If one does not have the key to the Cinnabar Gym, and surfs on the east coast and returns to land directly in front of the gym, a man will appear on the roof of the gym. A similar effect happens if the player walks into the Vermilion City Gym, walks directly left and then up so that they are facing the bottom-left trash can and press A to inspect it. One of the trainers in the gym will be misplaced and return to his usual spot once the text box disappears.
  • Prevented progress: If one evolves their starter Pokémon before they obtain their Pokédex from Prof. Oak, the game will assume that, since they have 2 Pokémon registered as caught, that they already have a Pokédex, and will not allow them to proceed. This only works in the Japanese games, Red and Green.
  • Invisible PC: There is a hotel in Celadon City that resembles a Pokémon Center on the inside. In the top-right space of the area that the player can walk on, there is an invisible, usable PC.
  • Fishing in Statues: The player can use a Fishing Rod when facing the right or left of a gym statue. It will always say "Looks like there's nothing in here...", except in Misty's gym, where all the Pokémon obtainable in the gym can be caught.
  • Q Glitch: A glitch enabled by the Pokémon Q (and Charizard 'M) which allows Pokémon stored in the PC to swap moves and stats.
  • ZZAZZ glitch: A bizarre side effect of the Mew glitch using a Pokémon with a special stat of 251, 252, 254 or 255. When this is done, a Glitch trainer will appear. In the Red and Blue versions, after battling the Glitch trainer, numerous abnormalities will occur, including the player's name being turned into "ZZAZZ" and 3 of the player's Pokémon being turned into Bulbasaur, which oftentimes have learned one or more instances of the move Explosion. It has been known to erase a player's saved game. The abnormalities which occur in the Red/Blue version are not the same as those which occur in the Yellow version.
  • Cut glitch: If the player cuts down a tree, stands on the spot, saves, turns the game off, then loads it, the player will be standing on a tree.
  • 8F Glitch: Exactly like the ZZAZZ glitch except much more destructive, scrambling text and graphics when the B or A button is pressed during an action or event.
  • Quick Level 100 Pokémon: This glitch is like the mew glitch but can be done in the Viridian Forest. First the player must go to the 2nd to last trainer and be out of his view (and must also not be able to see him). Walk one space and come into his view. Press start and use an escape rope to go to the Pewter City Pokémon Center. A, B, Start, and Select will not work. Now go try to go out of Pewter City towards Mt. Moon. The guy will stop the player and show he/she Brock's Gym. Now the player must go to the small patch of grass south of Pewter City and North of Viridian Forest. Encounter a Pokémon and use Growl on it equal the the number of levels it is higher than 1 (Example: a level 4 Pidgey would have to have growl used on it 3 times). Now walk into the forest (a message like 'Do you have a Pikachu?' may appear). The player will immediately go into a Pokémon battle with a level 1 Pokémon. When the player weakens the Pokémon, he/she must catch it. Now use it in a Pokémon Battle and if it gets less than 55 experience points it will go straight to level 100. Note: The player can obtain different level 1 Pokémon by facing different Pokémon to the patch of grass south of Pewter City and North of Viridian Forest, although only some will be able to grow to level 100.

Error codes

In Pokémon Red and Blue, there are several error codes that appear when a glitch (such as the 8F Glitch) causes the game to function abnormally. Usually, when an error code appears, the game does not freeze and the player is allowed to continue playing the game without restarting. There are four known error codes in Pokémon Red and Blue:

# Name Cause
0 Text Error The text that is currently in the text box is wrong and should normally be in a different place.
1 Event Error Unable to complete an event (talking to someone, etc). This error is also known to exist in normal gameplay if the player has a broken or damaged cartridge.
40 Sound Error The sound clip that is playing is unrecognized.
48 Graphics Error When this error occurs, the screen turns white and the words "48 ERROR" pop up before quickly reverting back to whatever the player was previously doing.

Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal

  • Glitch dimension: Turns everything into strange, random colors and slows the ability to see the party screen and changes the "Poké" in PokéGear to random symbols. It is usually activated by first using the Coin Case and then speaking to the Machop at Vermilion City.
  • Dratini glitch: After the player speaks to the Dratini in Blackthorn City and uses the Coin Case, the Coin Case's display will change what the coin case says from "Coins: ..." to "Which move?he pp of" permanently unless the game is turned off without saving.
  • Celebi Egg Trick: Allows players to hatch as many Celebi as one desires using a number of steps.
  • Shiny Ditto Exploit: By trading any Template:Shiny2 Pokémon to a Generation I game, having a wild Ditto transform into that Pokémon, then catching and trading the Ditto into a Generation II game, the Ditto will be shiny.
  • Cut glitch: If the player cuts down a tree, stands on the spot, saves, turns off the power, and loads the game, the player will be standing on top of a tree.

Pokémon Stadium 2

Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire

  • Hill glitch: East of Mauville City there is an Aroma Lady that will battle the player. If the player stands right behind the hill in her line of sight, she will see the player and walk onto the hill and stay there until the player leaves the area. This does not happen in Emerald due to her being a part of a double battle in the same area.
  • Berry glitch: Freezes the growth of any berries which have been planted but not harvested, often occurs after the game has been owned for a year or played for over 100 hours, though not always.
  • Thunderbolt glitch: The moves Thunderbolt and Thunder, when used in some Ruby and Sapphire cartridges, may cause the game to freeze or cause a sound effect to linger until the game is turned off.
  • Pomeg glitch (Emerald Version only): A glitch involves negative HP.

Pokémon Colosseum

  • Colosseum Master Ball glitch: Also known as the Infinite Ball Glitch; it is a glitch which involves switching the position of the Poké Ball on the same turn that it is selected to be used, so that the quantity does not decrease.

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl

  • Honey shop glitch: This is caused by the player using Sweet Scent or honey in a shop. When the player talks to the shopkeeper and selects "buy", he or she will see that there are no names or descriptions for any of the items in stock.

Pokémon Platinum

  • Acid rain: Rain, strong sunlight, hail and a sandstorm all occur on the battlefield when a Pokémon switching is knocked out with Pursuit during Hail or Sandstorm.
  • Graphical Glitches: In areas such as the Great Marsh or the Ribbon Syndicate, standing in certain places may cause the foilage or the walls to bend and merge into other graphics near them. This is most likely because Pokémon Platinum runs on a 3D game engine.
  • Black Belt Gibberish: For unknown reasons, a certain Black Belt in Sinnoh's Victory Road may speak glitchy gibberish upon defeat. The users who discovered this both chose Chimchar as their starter and nicknamed it.
  • Pal Park Glitch: Allows the player to migrate any number of Pokémon via the Pal Park, this is used to overcome the 6 Pokémon per 24 hours limit.
  • GTS Glitch: In some copies of Platinum, the levels of a Pokémon might not be displayed on the GTS. In order to fix this, the player must contact Nintendo.

Glitch Pokémon

Main article: Glitch Pokémon

A glitch Pokémon is a Pokémon that exists in a game due to a programming or level design oversight or for beta testing, and as it was not intentionally placed inside the game by Nintendo or Game Freak, it might be hazardous to saved data. They were originally supposed to be place-holders for unused Hex-addresses in the game. Glitch Pokémon sometimes may damage player's save file.

In Red, Blue, and Yellow

This is a chart of all 24 known glitch Pokémon that can be found in the wild in the Red, Blue and Yellow versions without using a cheating device[5]:

No. (Red/Blue) No. (Yellow) Mew glitch special required Red/Blue version's equivalent Yellow version's equivalent
#000 #000 Many Missingno. Missingno. (Yellow)
#000 #176 N/A 'M 3TrainerPoké
#061 #080 192 a 44Hy
#250 #250 191 A 4 4
#062 #079 198 LM4 7g
#094 #015 195 h POKé Z4
#205 #205 193 Chiisai-u
#205 #203 196 PokéWTrainer X - x
#205 #006 199 p T Glitchy Charizard
#234 #230 194 .4 pPkMnp
#250 #055 197 PkMn 4. .
#000 #121 N/A Charizard 'M Q

Sources:

Non-obtainable glitch Pokémon

The following Glitch Pokémon can only be found by using a cheating device such as GameShark and cannot be caught using the Mew glitch or any other known in-game trick.

In Red and Blue

In Yellow

In Gold, Silver, and Crystal

The following glitched Pokémon can be found in the Gold/Silver versions, but require GameShark to complete them. (Note: after capturing these Pokémon, the game's graphics have been known to falter, and the player will find themselves in a Glitch City-like area.)[6][7]

No. (Gold/Silver) GameShark code required Gold/Silver equivalent
#000 0100EDD0 Five question marks (000)
#252 01FCEDD0 Five question marks (252)
#253 01FDEDD0 Glitch egg
#254 01FEEDD0 Five question marks (254)
#255 01FFEDD0 Five question marks (255)

In Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and LeafGreen

In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl

Glitch Pokémon gallery

Glitch Characteristics

Glitch attacks

A glitch attack, or glitch move, is much like a regular attack except the results are often undesirable. Like with glitch Pokémon, glitch attacks were not programmed into the game on purpose and many have been proven to cause damage to game cartridges. The only widely known ones are those for Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow. Glitch attacks are sometimes displayed as TM attacks (TM01-TM55 and HM01 to HM05), but some have no name or a glitched, unreadable name. Some attacks are of known glitch types (see list below), but most have either no type or an unknown type, and are often referred to as "Super Glitches" (see List of glitch moves).

There are ways to teach glitch attacks to certain Pokémon without usage of a cheat-code device such as GameShark, however, most of the time only glitch Pokémon will learn glitch attacks.

One way of teaching a Pokémon in Generation I a glitch move is trading to a Generation II game a Pokémon that will evolve by trading at a level when it will learn an attack in the next generation game, and then trading it back to the Generation I game. For example, trading a level 50 Haunter from Pokémon Red to Pokémon Gold will make the Haunter evolve into Gengar. Since it is level 50, it will learn Destiny Bond. If it is then traded back to Pokémon Red, it will still have the move, but the game won't recognize it properly since it is a Generation II move.

Glitch types

There are many different glitch types that are found to be the types of several glitched Pokémon. The most well known are:

Glitch areas

Aside from Glitch City in Generation I, there are several other areas which can only be reached by way of a glitch in the games. Examples of this are areas in the Sevii Islands that are retrievable via their index number pointer, however, do not have any other data. Sevii Isle 8 and Sevii Isle 9 are the only index number areas which have actual map data.

Glitch items

In the Generation II games, it is possible to get an item called the Teru-sama, the only description of which is a lone question mark. Generation III likewise has a mystery item. Both of these seem to have been placeholders just in case more slots for items were ever needed, something that came true with the Clear Bell in Crystal and the various newer items introduced just in FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald, which register as the Teru-sama and mystery item if they are somehow moved into Gold and Silver or Ruby and Sapphire. There is also the Seal Bag, a glitch item obtained from the Generation IV GTS glitch.

The Teru-sama is a glitch item, but can be transformed into the GS Ball if it is given to Kurt in Azalea Town to capture Celebi in Ilex Forest. This works in the Japanese, English and European versions of Pokémon Crystal.

Glitch trainers

Glitch trainers have been known to occur in the Red/Blue/Yellow versions. They are usually found if the player's name contains mostly special characters. There are also several special stat numbers used in the Mew glitch which cause glitch trainers to appear. Glitch trainers frequently use Glitch Pokémon in battle.

Notes

  • Missingno.'s special stats for the Mew trick vary (see [1]).
  • The Yellow version Missingno. is different from the Red/Blue Missingno., but both share the same name. For the Yellow version Missingno., using a Pokémon in Method #3 of the Mew glitch with a special stat of 31, 32, 61, 62 , 63, 67, 68, or 69 would make it appear([2]). Missingno will revert to level 0 if leveled up to over level 255 with Rare Candies or to level 100 if it fights in battle and wins.
  • The Pokémon 'M, 3TrainerPoké, Charizard 'M and Q are the only known catchable glitch Pokémon that cannot be directly caught using the Mew glitch. Other glitches can be obtained by messing with the game link cable during a trade. 'M and 3TrainerPoké cannot be caught using the Mew glitch because the special stat required for method #3 of the Mew glitch is 0, a number which no Pokémon has. Charizard 'M and Q cannot because Q can only be found by evolving a 44Hy, and Charizard 'M can only be found by trading a Q. The special stat numbers which would cause Charizard 'M or Q to appear in a Mew glitch-type battle freeze the game.
  • The glitch known as ".4" can freeze or crash the game if it uses a certain glitch move. If the game is saved while this move is in .4's moveset, the data may be corrupted, making it impossible to continue and forcing the player to start a new game.
  • The 24 catchable glitch Pokémon, plus the original 151 Pokémon, brings the total number of catchable Pokémon in the Red/Blue/Yellow versions to 175.
  • The characteristics of one Glitch Pokémon usually do not apply to its Red/Blue or Yellow equivalent. For example, LM4 will evolve into Clefairy and then immediately into Nidoking, whereas its Yellow version equivalent, 7g, has no evolutions.

References


Multiple
generations
Transform glitchesGlitch TrainersCloning glitchesError messagesArbitrary code execution
Generation I GlitchesBattle glitchesOverworld glitches
--0 ERRORBroken hidden itemsCable Club escape glitchDual-type damage misinformation
Experience underflow glitchFight Safari Zone Pokémon trickGlitch CityItem duplication glitchItem underflow
Mew glitchOld man glitchPewter Gym skip glitchPokémon merge glitchRhydon glitchRival twins glitch
Select glitches (dokokashira door glitch, second type glitch) • Super Glitch
Time Capsule exploitWalking through wallsZZAZZ glitch
Generation II GlitchesBattle glitches
Bug-Catching Contest glitchCelebi Egg glitchCoin Case glitchesExperience underflow glitch
Glitch dimensionGlitch EggTeru-samaTime Capsule exploitTrainer House glitchesGS Ball mail glitch
Generation III GlitchesBattle glitches
Berry glitchDive glitchPomeg glitchGlitzer Popping
Generation IV GlitchesBattle glitchesOverworld glitches
Acid rainGTS glitchesPomeg glitchRage glitch
Surf glitchTweakingPal Park Retire glitch
Generation V GlitchesBattle glitchesOverworld glitches
Charge Beam additional effect chance glitchCharge move replacement glitchChoice item lock glitch
Frozen Zoroark glitchSky Drop glitch
Generation VI GlitchesBattle glitchesOverworld glitches
Charge Beam additional effect chance glitchCharge move replacement glitchChoice item lock glitch
Lumiose City save glitchSymbiosis Eject Button glitchToxic sure-hit glitch
Generation VII GlitchesBattle glitches
Charge Beam additional effect chance glitchCharge move replacement glitchChoice item lock glitch
Toxic sure-hit glitchRollout storage glitch
Generation VIII Glitches
Charge Beam additional effect chance glitchCharge move replacement glitchChoice item lock glitch
Toxic sure-hit glitchRollout storage glitchParty item offset glitch
Generation IX Glitches
Glitch effects Game freezeGlitch battleGlitch song
Gen I only: Glitch screenTMTRAINER effectInverted sprites
Gen II only: Glitch dimension
Lists Glitches (GOMystery DungeonTCG GBSpin-off)
Glitch Pokémon (Gen IGen IIGen IIIGen IVGen VGen VIGen VIIGen VIII)
Glitch moves (Gen I) • Glitch types (Gen IGen II)