Gen 1 glitches, and how to perform them

Azureaper

Azureaper

This thread is not to be confused with the glitch Pokemon thread.

Generation 1 is well known for being full of glitches. Generation 1 glitches range from minor text glitches to insane exploits that can even reprogram the game. This is due to the excessively minimum amount of error handlers in place.

Today, I have a few simple glitches to share, along with instructions. I'll update this list as I see fit. Contributions are more than welcome (see the NOTE at the end).*

This one is extremely simple. Cut down a tree. Save your game where the tree was. Reload your game, and you're standing on top of a tree.
In certain circumstances, you'll notice an NPC randomly moves for a moment. One such instance occurs at the entrance to Cinnabar Gym. All you have to do is approach the door from the right while you don't have the gym key.
When in the hotel found in Celadon city, if you walk to the far east of the room (up against the wall), face up, and press A, you'll access an invisible PC.
When attempting to enter cycling road without a bicycle, a guard will stop you and dialogue opens. Hold left while the dialogue box is still open, and finish the conversation. You should be able to walk to the left after the conversation ends.
Focus energy quarters the crit ratio in generation 1 games instead of increasing it. This was fixed in Pokemon Stadium.
This glitch requires the move transform to occur. Having Ditto, Mew, or glitch Pokemon A transform, the player must switch the position of the first attack (post-transformation) with the last attack. The battle must then be ended. Now, Ditto, Mew, or A will have no moves, with -- as the only option. -- has no PP and cannot be used without cheating.
Pokemon that only evolve using evolutionary stones can instead evolve via level up under certain conditions. Finishing a battle using specific Pokemon will apply the effect of an evolutionary stone to any Pokemon that leveled up during the battle. Exeggutor corresponds to moon stone, Psyduck corresponds to leaf stone, Growlithe corresponds to thunderstone, and Onix corresponds to water stone.
If a level 1 Pokemon in the medium-slow growth group receives experience points, it instantly jumps to level 100. The Mew Glitch can be used to acquire Pokemon at level 1.
Using a Pokedoll against the ghost Marowak in Lavender Town's tower ends the battle and removes the ghost Marowak.
While in the first stage of fly or dig, if the Pokemon hurts itself from confusion or cannot move from paralysis, it will completely ignore damage from the opposing Pokemon. This effect remains until the battle ends, the Pokemon is switched out, or Pokemon finishes a "charging" attack.
If a badly poisoned Pokemon is also afflicted with leech seed, leech seed will deal the same damage as the toxic damage.


And now lastly, the infamous Mew Glitch.
This glitch requires a little setup. This is the easiest method, and also the extended version. First and foremost, you must still be able to battle the trainer sitting in the grass to the left of nugget bridge (nugget bridge is to the North of Cerulean City). Next, you must still be able to battle trainers on route 15. Lastly, you need a Pokemon with fly, and a Pokemon with a specific special stat.

Approach the nugget bridge trainer from the north, remaining out of eye contact. Align yourself so when you take one step down, you'll be seen by the trainer. As you step down, open the menu simultaneously and fly to Fuchsia City. Walk to route 15 (you'll notice you can no longer open your menu), and battle any trainer. Leave at least a step of space between yourself and the route 15 trainer. Afterwards, head to the grass and walk around until a wild Ditto appears. Switch in your Pokemon with the specific special stat, having Ditto transform into it. Defeat the transformed Ditto with any Pokemon.

Now you should fly back to Cerulean City and head back to nugget bridge. As soon as you step onto the route, your menu will open. Press B, and a wild Pokemon battle should begin.

Some fun special stats for this glitch can be found here.

Contributions to the list are listed below.

From the user Random Passerby:
If you deposit healthy Pokemon into your PC but leave only fainted Pokemon in your party, you can walk around a few steps before blacking out. After looking it up, I discovered you can save your game and reset the game to reset the step count before blackout, allowing you to possibly enter a trainer battle with fainted Pokemon.
If you defeat your rival on route 22 and still do not have any Pokemon registered as caught aside from your starter, you can return to Oak's laboratory and receive more free Pokeballs from Oak. You must not have any Pokeballs in your inventory for this to work, so I suggest depositing them into your PC. Oak's text will glitch.
To perform this glitch, you must stand one tile above and to the left of the sailor guarding the harbor, take a step right and hit the Start button at the same time, save and reset. After verifying that the player is facing right and without moving, use Surf. This will somehow trick the game into thinking the Sailor is a Surf-able tile and you can get past him and get to another screen. There, you can return to the ship or Surf right to find the infamous truck.
If the player lures an NPC onto the path that Professor Oak takes to bring the player to the laboratory, Professor Oak and the player will walk right over and through her.

From the user Lyse:
First use agility, then use wrap. (I haven't personally tested this one)
If hyper beam KOs the opponent, there will not be a recharge turn.
Because critical hits were determined by speed, you have a 100% chance to critical hit with moves such as slash and bubblebeam from Pokemon such as Persian.

From the user Youngster Joey44:
1. Have only 1 Pokemon in your party.
2. Get yourself poisoned (Route 6 has Oddish w/PoisonPowder in Red).
3. Go in the Safari Zone.
4. Immediately exit.
5. When the guy asks if you want to leave, say "No."
6. Save and reset.
7. Go out of the Safari Zone. No one will say anything to you. Go outside the building to Fuchsia City.
8. You have 500 steps to walk until the PA calls you. Make sure your poisoned Pokemon doesn't faint!
9. Go to anywhere with a ledge.
10. On your 500th step, be jumping over the ledge. Saving and resetting frequently help with knowing when you'll run out of steps.
11. You will end up in the Safari Zone building, able to walk on anything in there. Do NOT go into the black outside the house. The game will crash.
12. Walk around until your poisoned Pokemon faints.
13. You will black out and return outside a Pokecenter.
14. You can now walk through walls!

Going in doors or cave entrances, fighting Trainers (Wild battles are OK), or flying places cancels the glitch.

WARNING: Walking too far out of bounds of the map crashes the game.

Fun things to do:

Walk past the Route 22 gate to Route 23 and watch the glitchiness unfold.
Reboard the S.S. Anne (Although there is a waaaaayyyy easier way to do that).
Go in little secret places you otherwise couldn't (Bill's garden?).
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave a comment below.

NOTE: leave instructions if you're going to contribute to the list!

*Glitch City will not be listed because it's already well-known.
 
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For the evolutionary stone glitch, fire stone corresponds to a specific Missingno. index, so I didn't bother to list it.
 
Pah, most of these glitches are relatively tame. Watch this speedrun - Pokemon Blue completed in under two hours, WITH EVERY SINGLE POKEMON CAUGHT!


Basically it involves doing these glitches:

- save/resetting during the cutscene where you're told to go back and fight Brock, and using this to walk through walls.
- using the infamous Mew Glitch to encounter Missingno.
- using the duplicated items from Missingno to trick the game into thinking the player has -1 items in the inventory, which creates a bunch of glitched items.
- using the glitched items to wrong-warp, generate wild encounters, walk through walls etc.
 
noobcubed said:
Pah, most of these glitches are relatively tame. Watch this speedrun - Pokemon Blue completed in under two hours, WITH EVERY SINGLE POKEMON CAUGHT!


Basically it involves doing these glitches:

- save/resetting during the cutscene where you're told to go back and fight Brock, and using this to walk through walls.
- using the infamous Mew Glitch to encounter Missingno.
- using the duplicated items from Missingno to trick the game into thinking the player has -1 items in the inventory, which creates a bunch of glitched items.
- using the glitched items to wrong-warp, generate wild encounters, walk through walls etc.
Click to expand...
 
The glitches I listed here are "relatively tame" because I didn't want readers to see a bunch of jargon when I explain how to perform a glitch.
 
Azureaper said:
If memory serves, don't you need 5 Pokemon to be fainted and one Pokemon to be poisoned for that one?
Click to expand...

Don't think so. You only need to deposit the non-fainted Pokemon and can walk around for a few steps.

One more thing: If you defeated the rival with only the Starter registered as caught in the Pokedex and you have no Pokeballs in your inventory, you can talk to Oak and see some glitches in the Text. This also gives you 5 Pokeballs.

EDIT: The rival battle I meant was the one near Viridian, right after you obtained the Pokedex.
 
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Random Passerby said:
Don't think so. You only need to deposit the non-fainted Pokemon and can walk around for a few steps.

One more thing: If you defeated the rival with only the Starter registered as caught in the Pokedex and you have no Pokeballs in your inventory, you can talk to Oak and see some glitches in the Text. This also gives you 5 Pokeballs.
Click to expand...

Ooh, those are both good ones. How do you edit a thread's content? (I'm a little bit new to Smogon forums)
 
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Hello,

You could also add some glitch attack in battles such as:

Infinity Wrap : Agility + Wrap

Hyper Beam without a rest tour: You must get a pokemon down with the hyper beam attack

100% critical hit: C hit was based on speed before, with Persian you have 100% to critical hit with slash and bubblebeam for example.
 
Returning to the S.S. Anne:
To perform this glitch, you must stand one tile above and to the left of the sailor guarding the harbor, take a step right and hit the Start button at the same time, save and reset. After verifying that the player is facing right and without moving, use Surf. This will somehow trick the game into thinking the Sailor is a Surf-able tile and you can get past him and get to another screen. There, you can return to the ship or Surf right to find the infamous truck.

This other one is from Bulbapedia:

If the player lures an NPC onto the path that Professor Oak takes to bring the player to the laboratory, Professor Oak and the player will walk right over and through her.
 
I'll add those contributions momentarily. Any glitch that's easy to perform (and not named glitch city) has a spot on this list.

306 views (as of the moment I'm making this post)! I'm happy to know people take interest in the fun world of gen 1 glitches.

Thread content updated to look better than before.

Mod Edit: Don't triple post.
 
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Walk through walls:

1. Have only 1 Pokemon in your party.
2. Get yourself poisoned (Route 6 has Oddish w/PoisonPowder in Red).
3. Go in the Safari Zone.
4. Immediately exit.
5. When the guy asks if you want to leave, say "No."
6. Save and reset.
7. Go out of the Safari Zone. No one will say anything to you. Go outside the building to Fuchsia City.
8. You have 500 steps to walk until the PA calls you. Make sure your poisoned Pokemon doesn't faint!
9. Go to anywhere with a ledge.
10. On your 500th step, be jumping over the ledge. Saving and resetting frequently help with knowing when you'll run out of steps.
11. You will end up in the Safari Zone building, able to walk on anything in there. Do NOT go into the black outside the house. The game will crash.
12. Walk around until your poisoned Pokemon faints.
13. You will black out and return outside a Pokecenter.
14. You can now walk through walls!

Going in doors or cave entrances, fighting Trainers (Wild battles are OK), or flying places cancels the glitch.

WARNING: Walking too far out of bounds of the map crashes the game.

Fun things to do:

Walk past the Route 22 gate to Route 23 and watch the glitchiness unfold.
Reboard the S.S. Anne (Although there is a waaaaayyyy easier way to do that).
Go in little secret places you otherwise couldn't (Bill's garden?).
 
I've never really seen a reason to use walk through walls (except for another glitch that causes the map to reload an infinite amount of times), as other glitches are present to bypass most obstacles.

I'll put yours on the list when I get back on my PC.
 
Here's an easy way to glitch up link battles in R/B/Y. Bring a frozen Pokemon to the battle and have an opponent's faster Pokemon defrost you with a fire move. On the frozen Pokemon player's side the cooltrainer (00) glitch move will be used while in the other side the Pokemon's first attack will be used. Games will be desynced and crazy stuff will begin to happen (at the very least in the side where the cooltrainer move was used).

There are other ways to trigger desyncs in a link battle but this is probably the easiest one.
 
Glitcfest (Sychok is his name I think?) Showed an interesting glitch in Pokemon Green. If you evolve your starter before you receive the Pokedex the game will not allow you to progress. Oak assumes you have the Pokedex because you have another Pokemon; however, the storyline to bypass the old man is not triggered properly.

I could be off on the reasoning but basically you cannot progress if you do this. Kind of hilarious though that the game locks you from grinding too much lol. I think RBY fixed this though.
 
Colonel M said:
Glitcfest (Sychok is his name I think?) Showed an interesting glitch in Pokemon Green. If you evolve your starter before you receive the Pokedex the game will not allow you to progress. Oak assumes you have the Pokedex because you have another Pokemon; however, the storyline to bypass the old man is not triggered properly.

I could be off on the reasoning but basically you cannot progress if you do this. Kind of hilarious though that the game locks you from grinding too much lol. I think RBY fixed this though.
Click to expand...

Bulbapedia says this: "This glitch affects all versions of the Japanese Red, Green (1.0 and 1.1), Blue, and Yellow (1.0 to 1.3). The glitch is fixed in the international releases of Pokémon Red and Blue, but remained in the international releases of Pokémon Yellow."

OK, I remember something very funny happening in RBY.

Basically what it says on the title. When the guard attempts to stop the player, just press the B button and keep on holding the left button. You will eventually be able to bypass the guard and access the route. When this happens, you will appear to be riding a Bicycle although you don't have it in your inventory.

If a Pokemon is dual-typed, say Gyarados (Water/Flying) is hit by a move that it is neutral to (because Flying cancels the Grass weakness of Water), the game will still say "It's not very effective" when it deals neutral damage.

Oh, someone please post the Fly / Dig glitch that caused the moves to be banned in RBY OU.
 
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Not sure if it is by design or whatever, but if a Pokemon skips a level by gaining enough experience points (for example, a Pidgey going from level 4 to 6), then it will miss out on learning a move that it is supposed to learn on the "skipped" level - in this case Sand Attack.
 
OKAY I know 2 glitches. Brock through walls. and skipping brock. Let me explain. PS you need to do skipping brock to do brock through walls.
for skipping brock put your cursor on the save option in the menu. next go up to the youngster blocking the way. Then mash b through his dialogue and press start Then save and reset he'll still take you. then walk back, and he should be gone! his trigger does still exist though. so, walk on the tile he was standing on.
for Brock through walls you must have done skip brock and have chosen Bulbasaur for your starter." Ordinarily, talking to the Youngster from the right will cause the game to SoftLock; particular prior setups are required to regain player control. The reason for this SoftLock is that the player is outside of the coordinates that the game searches to determine the path. To perform the glitch, the player needs to choose Bulbasaur as a starter. The Bulbasaur must be trained to level 8 and taught Leech Seed, Tackle (16 PP remaining), and Growl (36 PP remaining), in that order. If the player enters and exits a different location and returns to the Youngster, he will still be there. The player then needs to view the stats of their Bulbasaur and speak to the Youngster from the right. Viewing the stats will cause the game to locate Bulbasaur's values and use those to determine the path. The path that is returned through this method will cause a value overflow that overwrites the buttons that the player is not able to use at any given time, causing the ability to walk through walls. As long as the player doesn't stop walking, it will act just like a regular walk-through wall. If the player stops walking, the player will follow a glitch path. Interacting with NPCs, walking through doors, caves, and other entrances, and soft resetting will cause the glitch to end. " bulbapedia. it's wrong you actually need a second Pokémon and Bulbasaur in the first sock and to swap them. Then talk to the Youngster.

Colonel M said:
Glitcfest (Sychok is his name I think?) Showed an interesting glitch in Pokemon Green. If you evolve your starter before you receive the Pokedex the game will not allow you to progress. Oak assumes you have the Pokedex because you have another Pokemon; however, the storyline to bypass the old man is not triggered properly.

I could be off on the reasoning but basically you cannot progress if you do this. Kind of hilarious though that the game locks you from grinding too much lol. I think RBY fixed this though.
Click to expand...
NO
 
Azureaper said:
Pokemon that only evolve using evolutionary stones can instead evolve via level up under certain conditions. Finishing a battle using specific Pokemon will apply the effect of an evolutionary stone to any Pokemon that leveled up during the battle. Exeggutor corresponds to moon stone, Psyduck corresponds to leaf stone, Growlithe corresponds to thunderstone, and Onix corresponds to water stone.
Click to expand...

I'm in no way clued in by as to how to you actually perform this glitch

Azureaper said:
From the user Lyse:

Infinite wrap
First use agility, then use wrap. (I haven't personally tested this one)

Hyper beam with no rest
If hyper beam KOs the opponent, there will not be a recharge turn.

Crit all the time
Because critical hits were determined by speed, you have a 100% chance to critical hit with moves such as slash and bubblebeam from Pokemon such as Persian.S
Click to expand...

Also, these are less glitches and more "Gen I has different mechanics than other generations"
 
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