Surf glitch: Difference between revisions

This article is about the glitch in Generation IV. For glitch in Generation I which uses Surf, see List of glitches in Generation I#Save Surf glitch.

The Surf glitch, also known as void glitch, is a Generation IV glitch best known for enabling the capture of the promotional legendary Pokémon Darkrai and Shaymin. This glitch is very similar to tweaking, which also enables the player to do so. This is one of two glitches in Generation IV officially acknowledged by Nintendo, with the other being the broken escalator. The Surf glitch only occurs in the Japanese versions of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

Performing the glitch

Due to an error, the door in Aaron's room of the Pokémon League can be surfed through, by facing the door and selecting Surf from the party screen. This allows the player to step into the void around the indoor area and walk to other areas.

By counting steps using the Pokétch pedometer app, the player can travel to Newmoon Island and the Flower Paradise without the event-exclusive Member Card and Oak's Letter, respectively. The players can catch Darkrai and Shaymin at these locations, then Fly or Teleport back to a normally-accessible area and resume play normally.

Neither Shaymin nor Darkrai will regenerate if the player later acquires the Member Card or Oak's Letter and travels to the area normally. However, the Mystery Gift events for these items have only been made available to players of Pokémon Platinum, in which the glitch has been fixed.

The Surf glitch cannot be used to obtain Arceus, since the Underground cannot be accessed from the Hall of Origin, which is where Arceus is found.

Danger

Venturing into the void provides for some interesting and potentially hazardous consequences to those who would exploit this glitch. As the area has not been programmed properly, since the player would normally not be able to access it, it runs the risk of causing the player to get stuck forever. Saving outside of the boundaries of a building or in the Mystery Zone may cause corruption of game data, including the loss of the save file completely, with the player required to start their game anew.

Remedy

Bulbanews has an article related to this subject:

Nintendo officially acknowledges glitches in Diamond and Pearl

Nintendo has acknowledged the glitch and offered workarounds and methods of recovery. The glitch was removed from international versions of the games; however, Tweaking can lead to the same result in these games.

In the case where the player has saved the game while trapped, it is possible to repair the save state with a program that was distributed to DS Download Stations in Japan starting October 27. The player will be able to resume the game, reappearing outside their house in Twinleaf Town.

If one does not have access to a DS Station, one may mail their DS game card for repair to Nintendo of Japan at this address:

〒601-8501 京都市南区上鳥羽鉾立町11番地1 
任天堂株式会社　「お客様ご相談窓口　ポケモンＤ＆Ｐ係」

Videos

Performing the glitch in order to get Darkrai

Performing the glitch in order to get Shaymin

External links

• Surf glitch officially acknowledged by Nintendo

This article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games.