Cloning glitches: Difference between revisions

'''Cloning glitches''' are [[glitch]]es in the [[Pokémon games]] that enables a {{player}} to make an exact copy or "clone" of a {{OBP|Pokémon|species}}. While a cloning glitch has been present in at least one game of each [[generation]] so far (except [[Generation V]]), the methods to achieve it vary from game to game. Most of these methods involve exploiting the relatively long save times of the Pokémon games to interrupt the [[saving]] process when only a portion of data have been saved successfully. Like most glitches, there are negative side effects, such as the potential loss of the Pokémon to be cloned or even corruption of the saved data.

Due to improvements of the games and hardware such as the capability of the [[Game Boy Advance]] [[Game Link Cable]] to send and receive data at the same time, the auto-canceling of [[trade]]s if something goes wrong, the lack of need to [[saving|save]] while changing [[Pokémon Storage System|PC Boxes]] and new data corruption protection, both methods exploited in the first two generations to clone [[Pokémon]] were essentially removed for the [[Generation III|third]]. While Pokémon cloning was completely absent on most games of this generation, the glitch returned in a different form in {{game|Emerald}}, where the Link-Battle mode of the {{Gdis|Battle Tower|III}} saved only the [[party]] and Bag of the {{player}}, even if he or she chooses "no" when the game asks to; this was due to the game's need to save a massive amount of data and check connections. Like in the methods from the previous generation, if the save is interrupted at the right moment, up to six Pokémon can be cloned at one time. However, unless the player is willing to lose a Pokémon, up to five of them can be cloned at once. It is also possible to clone numerous items at once.