Trainer House glitches

The receptionist's dialog if the opponent is ^P_K^M_N TRAINER Thomas

The Trainer House glitch is a glitch in Pokémon Gold and Silver that affects the Trainer in the Trainer House. It is caused by corrupted RAM for save data, in particular from glitch dimensions caused by glitch Unown. It may be also triggered if the player tries to modify the time just after a Mystery Gift or a trade.

Effects

This glitch policeman may appear on the second floor of any Pokémon Center, and will give the player a random item

A Pokémon over level 100 of the glitch Trainer

This glitch overwrites the Unown's Pokédex data with a random HEX value, causing alterations to the game. If the new value triggers a glitch Unown then the time will be reset and the Trainer in the Trainer House will be displayed without a valid name, but with six Pokémon. This glitch Trainer can be battled, but the screen may display "Waiting...", as if the player was in a link battle. Once the message "Waiting..." is displayed, the game will freeze. The game will often also freeze at the end of the battle due to an invalid response from the opponent. Battling the Trainer twice (or even once) in one day often either freezes the game or triggers the glitch dimension. The glitch Trainer may have Pokémon with glitch status ailments and Pokémon over level 100, and is very likely to have Pokémon with impossible movesets and Pokémon with a series of "?" instead of their name. Additionally,the player will find a glitch Policeman on the second floor of any Pokémon Center. When spoken to, he says "Hello ! You're <player>, right? I have some-thing for you." If the player chooses "YES", the Policeman will say "Here you go!" and the player will receive an item (this item is related to the glitch Unown HEX value). This allows the player to obtain various glitch items, such as the Teru-sama. Instead, if the new HEX value triggers a normal Unown the Trainer will be displayed without a name, but only as ^P_K^M_N TRAINER, and will sent out a Mankey or a Primeape level 0, causing a game freeze. In this case, the glitch Policeman won't appear and the time will work regularly.

^P_K^M_N TRAINER Thomas

A glitch Pokémon with the sprite of the Trainer and a series of "?" instead of its name

A Trainer affected by the glitch; all of his Pokémon have fainted

This is a variation of the original glitch and usually occurs if the player sets the time back just after a trade or a Mystery Gift causing a lack of information to the Trainer House which has already discarded the previous data. The Trainer in the Trainer House is replaced with ^P_K^M_N TRAINER Thomas (the name is an acronym which means "Time, Hour, Minutes And Seconds"). ^P_K^M_N TRAINER Thomas is displayed in the receptionist's dialog as a series of "9" and letters. This ^P_K^M_N TRAINER is displayed in battle with six Pokémon, which are all fainted, and sends out a level 0 ????? with his same sprite causing an immediate freeze. ^P_K^M_N TRAINER Thomas doesn't corrupt the player's mailbox, and can be fixed by doing a new Mystery Gift or a trade, which should replace the missing information. ^P_K^M_N TRAINER Thomas is less dangerous than any other kind of glitch Trainer in the Trainer House because he is not triggered by corrupted data, but simply by a system error.

Related problems

A mailbox corrupted by this glitch. The messages may be signed from unused character strings

It is rare that the Trainer House data is corrupted without simultaneous corruption of other areas of the save.

Most commonly, the player's mailbox is corrupted. If so, the list is not properly terminated. Some of the messages may be signed from unused character strings, such as GREEN (a default character name remnant from the Japanese version), and some may freeze the game or reset it into a glitch dimension if they are read. If the player gives one of these messages to a Pokémon, and the mail appears as a purple version of the Flower Mail from the mailbox, the game will transform it into a random item. By reading those messages, there's a small possibility that the glitch Trainer changes his party.

Another common problem is having an excessive amount of room decorations, which may include glitch decorations placed directly into the PC.

Video

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