Shattered Man Glitch

The Shattered Man Glitch occurs in EarthBound when only one of the Shattered Man enemies in Summers' museum's heiroglyph room is defeated, leaving the second still alive. After defeating Giygas, the solitary Shattered Man is the only enemy that can still be fought. Losing against this enemy results in the game's graphics temporarily glitching and both Ness and Paula continuing despite the fact that they both lost, as there are supposed to be no enemies after beating the game and therefore no ways to be defeated. This glitch was removed in Mother 1 + 2.
The glitch is caused by losing to a scripted battle when Ness and the party are granted story-based immunity to status effects. Normally at the end of the game, Ness and the party are immune to damage from status effects (sunstroke, cold, poison, etc.) on the off-chance the player has somehow injured themselves after defeating Giygas. Other locations where this immunity can be enjoyed are the beginning of Moonside, and when the player is kicked off the bus due to the traffic jam in Dusty Dunes Desert. Normally strategically-placed NPCs and random encounters are used to revoke this immunity once the player proceeds with the story, but no such failsafe exists after Giygas is defeated, allowing the player to trigger the scripted Shattered Man battle and cause the glitch.
The Starmen.Net walkthrough lists this glitch here (#11 on the list of Battle-Related Tricks), and a video of it can be seen here. While the two sources conflict on the results of performing the glitch, it appears that the walkthrough is incorrect in saying that the game freezes. When you press the Y button bringing up the map, you can exit it and appear as a ghost in the map. You can actually heal yourself in the hospital.
Category:EarthBound
Category:Glitches
Category:Articles relating to glitches