List of overworld glitches in Generation I

:For other glitches in this generation, see List of glitches in Generation I
This is a list of overworld glitches in Generation I games.
==Gameplay-affecting glitches==
These are glitches that affect gameplay in the overworld.
===Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow===
====0 ERROR glitch====
A glitch similar to the Mew glitch that causes to become glitched.
====Cable Club escape====
====Cycling Road access requirement bypassing====
If the player does not have a Bicycle (or it has been deposited in the PC), it is still possible to reach by holding down the left button while the guard attempts to prevent the player from entering the Cycling Road. Upon entering Cycling Road, the player will be automatically riding a bike, despite not having one.
This is because pressing left on the d-pad actually overrides the "walk back to the right" movement, thus ignoring the return movement.
====Ghost Bicycle glitch====
In Generation I games, if the player saves at the Cycling Road and then creates a new game, it will not be possible to use the Bicycle or anywhere until this glitch is fixed. Therefore, the effects of this glitch are only visible once the player obtains the Bicycle or the Soul Badge and a Pokémon with . This glitch is fixed if the player blacks out (either in battle or the overworld), uses , , or outside of battle, uses an Escape Rope, or enters and leaves the Cycling Road.
This glitch causes the player to always receive the "You can't get off here." message when trying to use the Bicycle even when they are not on the Bicycle. It also causes the "Cycling is fun! Forget <sc>Surf</sc>ing!" message to appear when trying to use (using the "Surfboard" item doesn't cause this message to appear).
Even with this glitch active, the player can still surf by using the surfboard item named "?????", which is not legitimately obtainable.
It has been reported that this glitch may occur without starting a new save file when the current save is on Cycling Road, but the cause is unknown.Glitch City Laboratories forums - "Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?" thread, post by VAAMusicalMike
Another version of this glitch can (but not always) appear when performing the Fossil conversion glitch in the Japanese .Glitch City Laboratories forums - "An addendum to the Fossil conversion glitch" thread, post by Torchickens Unlike the "New Game" version, entering and leaving Cycling Road doesn't fix the glitch.
Normally, if the player's current save is on , or (Cycling Road), the WRAM address D732 (D731 in ) is normally set to 21h (5th bit is on), hich causes the player to be unable to leave the Bicycle or Surf in the Cycling Road. Conversely, if this bit is turned on while the player is walking (which is not supposed to be possible in normal gameplay), it prevents the player from riding the Bicycle or using Surf anywhere. When the player creates a new game, usually all the data from the previous game (if any) is deleted, but the value of this memory address is not properly reset.
When the player brings up the Continue/New Game/Option menu many of the variables from the current save are loaded so that the game works properly when the player selects the "Continue" option. Most of these variables are reset back to their default value if a new game is loaded but not the WRAM address D732 (possibly due to an oversight by the game developers).
See also: WRAM clear oversight (Generation I) in Glitch City Laboratories.
====Glitch City====
====Professor Oak's Poké Balls glitch====
If Professor Oak attempts to give the 5 at his Laboratory when there is no space in the player's Bag, the player will be unable to receive them. However, the game text will falsely indicate that they were received normally.
This glitch is normally impossible to affect the game when the player delivers Oak's Parcel and receives 5 Poké Balls, because of the space freed up in the Bag when the Parcel is given (unless the player has a full Bag somehow including at least 2 Oak's Parcels in the same slot).
If the player talks with Professor Oak after defeating at the optional battle on , Professor Oak will give the player 5 Poké Balls if there is no added caught data in the Pokédex (other than a single caught Pokémon, the unevolved first partner Pokémon). If the Bag is full, this glitch will permanently prevent the player from receiving those Poké Balls.
====Save Surf exploit====
The glitch is performed by standing next to a water tile that is facing up, left, or right, walk in that direction and pressing start without letting go of the D-Pad. The game then needs to be saved and reset. When loading the saved data, the player will be facing in the direction that was being held down when the start button was pressed. Using will cause the player to surf on the tile immediately south, even if it is not a water tile.
When loading a save file, the player usually starts facing south. This is because of the limited data in the game. This glitch causes the player to face in a different direction, which confuses the game.
Since statues are treated as water tiles, this glitch can be performed by using a statue as the water tile. Most notably, this glitch can be used to bypass the sailor in order to re-board the S.S. Anne after it has set sail. It is performed by setting up the glitch on the tile above the sailor, then using Surf causes the player to surf on top of the sailor. Then, after walking down to the harbor, the boat can be entered.
====Vending machine glitch====
If the player has enough money to buy a Fresh Water (at least 200) but not enough to afford a Soda Pop or Lemonade, the vending machines atop Celadon Department Store still allow these more expensive drinks to be purchased. The player's money will be reduced to 0 rather than becoming a negative number.
====Walking through walls====
====Yami shop====
The "Yami shop" glitch changes the selection of items that can be bought in any Poké Mart. To perform it the player must have obtained a glitch item with an unterminated name, one recommended item is "PC" in which can be obtained with item underflow. The player must first open the Pokémon menu in a certain location, the most recommended location is in front of the cashier, however it can be done in certain other locations as long as at least one tree tile is between the Pokémon menu and player's name, and the player does not open the Start menu again before speaking to the cashier. Next the player should attempt to sell the glitch item and cancel (sometimes the player is unable to sell it). The music will then fade out, then at this point the player should select "Buy".
Doing this corrupts the selection of purchasable items, allowing glitch items or normally non-purchasable items to be bought. The player can now buy items such as Safari Balls or Master Balls, and other items which normally cannot be bought (Oak's Parcel, Gym Badges, etc). Many items that are normally unable to be bought will not have a price. The selection of items vary depending on where the player last opened the Pokémon menu.
===Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue===
====Escaping from Sea Cottage and Pokémon Fan Club====
It is possible to use or an Escape Rope to escape from the Sea Cottage or the Vermilion City Pokémon Fan Club, transporting the player to the last used Pokémon Center. This happens because the Sea Cottage and the Pokémon Fan Club use the same tileset as the Silph Co. 11F, where Dig and Escape Rope are usable as well.
This was fixed in Pokémon Yellow, in which there are exceptions specifically programmed so Dig and Escape Rope cannot be used in the Sea Cottage and Pokémon Fan Club in spite of their shared tileset. This is similar to how it is not possible to escape from Agatha's room in all Generation I games even though it uses the same tileset as the Pokémon Tower.
====Hooked Dragonite glitch====
The Hooked Dragonite glitch is one of several odd effects that can occur after running out of Safari Zone steps while the NPC is guiding the player to the Pewter Museum of Science. The player must first perform the Fight Safari Zone Pokémon trick and try to run out of steps as the NPC in Pewter City is guiding the player to the museum. If done correctly, the player will be teleported to the Safari Zone entrance, then upon leaving will instead exit from the PokéMart in Pewter City and a textbox pops up. Then the player must save and reset.
Afterwards, the player will find the NPC infinitely walking downwards and looping each time he goes offscreen. The player must then talk to him while standing to the left of the Pokémon Center entrance. Instead of a usual walking sequence, the player character and the NPC will be indefinitely standing in place while the "follow me" music slowly fades out. Eventually, this "staring contest" ends with the textbox that would've been displayed once the walking sequence ends. Closing the textbox will put the player in a battle with a "Hooked Dragonite" (hence the name) with the Gym Leader battle music. However, all of the player's controls are disabled, them.
Talking to the Pewter Museum guide at different locations will cause other effects to occur, one example includes an alternative method to walk through walls.
=====Causes=====
The first part of the glitch is caused by interrupting the walking sequence. When the NPC is spoken to, the game disables all of the player's controls and moves Red and the NPC at the same time to give the illusion that Red is following him, then once it ends, the NPC walks down to leave and the controls are returned to the player. If the walking sequence is interrupted, controls are not returned to the player, however thanks to a failsafe mechanic, controls are returned if the player enters another map. After exiting from Pewter City's PokéMart, saving and resetting confuses the game into making the NPC infinitely walk down for 256 steps instead of the usual four. Because the NPC was never intended to walk this far, the game's variables soon overflow forcing him to warp to the top of the visible area.
The effects of this glitch are caused by a buffer overflow that occurs based on the game trying to find a path for the NPC to take in order to reach the destination. The game searches player coordinates from a table to determine the various movements that can be used to bring the player to their destination, as the path is different depending on where he was spoken to. If the coordinates are not present on the table, the game searches beyond the table to find one (as the player was not intended to be able to speak to the NPC in these locations). Most of the time the game cannot find any and the game will softlock. However if a matching entry happens to be found, the game will use it as movement data and copy it to a buffer until it reaches the first 0xFF terminator byte. The hooked Dragonite is the result of changing the address $D059, wCurOpponent, and the reason controls are disabled is because they were unable to be unlocked when the battle starts with the hooked Dragonite.
====Invisible PC access====
Celadon Hotel is based on the layout design of a Pokémon Center. In this map, if the player stands in front of where the PC would be in a Pokémon Center, the player can access an invisible PC.
There are also invisible PCs in the same position (accessible by facing up with the coordinates x=13, y=4 xblock=1, yblock=0) in Safari Zone rest houses 2, 3 and 4 (maps 223-225), but these positions are not normally accessible, so memory hacking must be done or Arbitrary code execution written using the 8F item can allow these extra PCs to be accessible without cheating.
All known invisible PCs do not exist in .
Extra invisible PCs:
====Pewter Gym skipping====
====Rival twins glitch====
This is a sequence of glitches that causes two copies of to appear together in .
====Statue water tile oversight====
In Cerulean Gym and Lorelei's room in Indigo Plateau, the water tiles have wild Pokémon data programmed in, which allows players to and fish .
The Old Rod continues to pull up , as it ignores location, but the Super Rod (and the Good Rod in Yellow) will display the message "Looks like there's nothing in here..." everywhere other than the Cerulean Gym, which has wild Pokémon normally.
The bug then returned in , but it was fixed once more in .
===Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow (some languages)===
====Pokédex assumption glitch====
If the player evolves the first partner Pokémon or otherwise obtains at least two registered as caught before obtaining the Pokédex, Professor Oak will assume the player already has the Pokédex and will offer to rate it instead of accepting the Parcel.
This prevents progression in the game past Viridian City, as the will not move until the player delivers Oak's Parcel. The player will also be unable to buy any items in the Viridian City Poké Mart, which would normally only sell any items after the Parcel is delivered.
This glitch affects all versions of the Japanese (1.0 and 1.1), , and (1.0 to 1.3). The glitch is fixed in the international releases of , but remained in the international releases of .
In the Japanese Pokémon Yellow, it is also possible to perform this glitch by exploiting the save corruption glitch.
===Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue (Japanese)===
====Silph Co. elevator entry swapping====
It is possible to swap the positions of the elevator destinations in Silph Co. with the SELECT button as if they were items. Doing this in certain ways can change the list type in at least one way (i.e. to a list of 'boxed Pokémon') and corrupt data.
This glitch works in the Japanese but the effects differ from .
===Pokémon Red and Green (Japanese)===
====Broken hidden items====
In , there are six hidden items that do not function correctly. These hidden items are believed to have been fixed in Japanese Pokémon Blue and later versions (including the localized versions of the Generation I games).
Picking up one of these six specific hidden items causes the other five hidden items to disappear. If the player hands over a Fossil to the scientist in Cinnabar Island's Pokémon Lab (even if they choose not the revive it), all six hidden items reappear.
The broken hidden items cannot be detected by the Itemfinder. Instead, five of these six items have another set of coordinates that the Itemfinder believes them to be located at instead, although there is no item hidden at that position.
===Pokémon Yellow===
====Pikachu off-screen glitches====
With the use of in-game event that causes a walking to stay (Pikachu being put to sleep by in Pewter City's Pokémon Center, Pikachu meeting Bill at , Pikachu falling in love with at the Pokémon Fan Club) one can bring the walking Pikachu off the screen and cause memory corruption glitches such as a forced Glitch City and causing NPCs to turn when they shouldn't, or even having their save file deleted.
For each step Pikachu is off the screen, a memory address is corrupted from D437 and onward, and the values depend on where the player steps, with south being 01, north being 02, west being 03 and east being 04. Through this, the player can make Pikachu's happiness one of these low values, cause a Glitch City and through specific movement, set the play time to 255:59.
In addition to use an in-game event that causes Pikachu to stay, Pikachu can also be forced off the screen with a certain Glitch City such as 's Safari Zone exit Glitch City, or specific glitch items, including the “Lg-” (hex:6E) and “Rival's” effect/“Jack” effect glitch items such as “E tE” (in Red/Blue) or “o” (in Yellow); hex:94.
With more advanced applications of the glitch, it is possible to max out Pikachu's happiness or cause it to do one of four special actions (winking, the fishing action, the confused action or the 'disapproval' action) when the player character talks to it. Arbitrary code execution is also possible by creating a specific glitch sign in the Pokémon Fan Club.
All glitch items are available with the item underflow glitch. Lg- is also available through pPkMnp' ' (Ditto glitch Special 194) converting a Super Rod when it is the fifth item.
Through an in-game event that causes a walking Pikachu to stay:
Through a Glitch City and glitch item:
Pikachu off-screen text box arbitrary code execution:
==Audio quirks==
These are overworld music quirks that generally do not affect gameplay.
===Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow===
====Victory Road Bicycle music quirk====
If, while riding the Bicycle in Victory Road, the player falls through a hole, they will, on landing, no longer be riding the Bicycle; nonetheless, the Bicycle theme music will continue to play until the player enters a battle, leaves the dungeon, changes floors, or resets the game.
This glitch occurs neither in the Japanese nor the international versions of Pokémon Yellow; instead, the Bicycle music does not play at all in Victory Road.
===Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue (Japanese)===
====Articuno binoculars cry glitch====
This glitch involves listening to the cry of the in the binoculars on the second floor of the gate on Route 15. Listening to it in succession many times can corrupt the cry.
==Graphical quirks==
These are graphical glitches that appear in the overworld but generally do not affect gameplay.
===Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow===
====Changing NPC sprites====
When the walking through walls glitch is used and the player flies to Lavender Town, they can activate this glitch. They must walk down to and walk through the side of the gate rather than actually going into the gate. Once this has been done, every NPC will have the same sprite as the player. Encountering a wild Pokémon fixes the sprites. This is due to the fact that the game fails to load the sprite graphics properly. Additionally, when a message displays (Example: The message "Repel's effect wore off), the sprites change differently.
====Cut glitch====
The Cut glitch can refer to two different glitches in Generation I involving the move .
=====Invisible tree=====
There is a tree near the bottom of . If this particular tree is cut down and then the player walks five steps west from where the tree was (so that the spot where the tree used to be is at the edge of the screen) and then walks back their path will be blocked as if a tree was still there. Even though the tree is not visible, it can still be cut down normally using the move .
=====Standing on a tree=====
If the player s down a tree, stands on the spot where the object was, saves, turns the game off, then loads it, the player will be standing on the tree. The same can happen with in .
In Celadon Gym in Pokémon Yellow, Pikachu can also end up standing on a tree after certain battles.
This glitch occurs because the Generation I engine would not store the data needed to remember that the tree had been cleared.
Cut glitch.png| standing on top of the tree outside Vermilion Gym
Yellow Pikachu tree Cooltrainer glitch.png| standing on top of a tree in Celadon Gym
====Disabling NPCs animation====
When the player walks, the screen moves the objects of the stage where player is, including NPCs. That movement alters the animations of the NPCs, disabling their animations.
====Invisible Prof. Oak====
If the player attempts to leave too many times when choosing their first Pokémon then the player, Prof. Oak and the middle Poké Ball's sprites will vanish. Pressing start will pull up some glitched text on the screen, but exiting the start menu will fix everything.
====Landing on an NPC====
If the player lures an NPC below a ledge that can be jumped over (by blocking their movement in certain directions), it is possible to land on top of the NPC when they jump over the ledge.
====Lift goes to the same floor====
In any lift of Pokémon Red/Blue/Green and Yellow, if the player chooses to go to the floor they're already on, the lift acts like it is moving.
====Pallet Town NPC misplacement====
If the player stands outside of Professor Oak's Lab in Pallet Town, the person outside it will eventually stand on the Lab's door. This is because the door tile was programmed as a non-solid tile.
====Perpetual spinning animation====
If the player saves the game having just entered the Safari Zone and leaves, the game assumes that the player is just entering the Safari Zone entrance, as it does not save that the player is currently in a paid Safari Zone session. Thus, upon passing by the desk, the player is prompted to pay for another Safari Zone session, although they are now traveling out towards the town below. Because the player is supposedly in a Safari Zone session, the game counts down steps passively. Upon exiting towards the bottom into Fuchsia City, the player must Fly to Viridian City and enter Giovanni's Gym. Inside, the player must walk along the spinners, proceeding to be spun around. After taking enough steps to deplete the (invisible) counter, the player freezes, the PA "ding-dong" noise will sound, and a message will pop up saying that the player's Safari Zone session is now over. If the player is in the middle of a spin while this happens, the player will be transported to the Safari Zone entrance as if they had just left the Safari Zone, and upon moving will perform the spin animation, and move slower. The player has full control over the movement of the character; the only difference is that instead of the walking animation, the spinning animation is played.
The glitch can be fixed by returning to the location where the player ran out of Safari Zone steps.
=====Changing the Player's sprite=====
A sub glitch involves changing Red's sprite into the sprite of another NPC. While the player is in the perpetual spinning state, they must enter a Pokémon Center then turn on the PC while hold left, then close the PC while still holding left. Red's sprite will now be replaced with the overworld sprite of an NPC based on the location of the Pokémon Center. The following list shows the towns that correspond to which overworld sprite the player will be turned into:
*Pallet Town: Professor Oak
*Viridian City: Professor Oak
*Pewter City: Lass
*Cerulean City: Lass
*Vermilion City: Lass
*Lavender Town: Jr. Trainer ♂
*Celadon City: Police officer
*Fuchsia City: Swimmer
*Saffron City: Jr. Trainer ♂
*Cinnabar Island: Professor Oak
*Indigo Plateau: Police officer
*Routes: Lass
Leaving the building or not moving will return Red's sprite back to normal.
====Pewter City NPC disappearance====
In Pewter City, the non-player character who blocks the exit to (as long as the player has not yet obtained the ) seems to disappear by walking east through a dead end after bringing the player to Pewter Gym.
====Unobtainable Nugget in Safari Zone entrance====
If the player uses the Itemfinder while standing on the bottom-right corner of the entrance, a hidden item will be detected. As usual, the Itemfinder does not tell the player what or where exactly is the detected item. However, there is actually no hidden item available anywhere in the playable area.
In the game data, it is revealed that this is in fact an unobtainable hidden Nugget located at the top of this location (coordinates x=10, y=1), within the black void outside the playable area.
The walking through walls glitch may be unable to help the player to obtain this Nugget, because the game would freeze once the player attempts to walk into the black void.
====Unused overworld sprites====
All human non-player characters seen in the overworld technically have sprites facing all four directions, and walking animations into all four directions as well. However, some of those characters are never seen doing so, leaving some sprites and animations unseen in normal gameplay.
In all Generation I games, this applies to Daisy Oak , Mr. Fuji , Giovanni , Koga , Lorelei , Lance , as well as the male and female sprites () that were later assigned to the Trainer class in Generation II.
In , this also applies to Officer Jenny . Similarly, , and have no walking animations, but they have sprites facing all four directions, even though they are not able to face all directions in normal gameplay.
====Walking through an NPC====
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.
===Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue===
====Freezing the game in Oak's Laboratory====
If the player holds "A" at the moment they interact with the Poké Ball in Oak's Laboratory, the game will be frozen until the player lets go of the button.
====Lift Key overworld misplacement====
In the Rocket Hideout, if the player is standing to the left of the who has the Lift Key and talks to him, the Lift Key will appear underneath the player when he drops it. The player can still move around and collect it if he moves downward.
This glitch was fixed in , due to the Grunt automatically dropping the Lift Key as soon as he is defeated.
====Oak Poké Ball delivery text overlapping====
If the player has no new registered as caught in the Pokédex (by only having the unevolved first partner Pokémon) and no Poké Balls currently in their Bag after defeating the on , will give five s to the player after being talked to. During this event in the English versions, one of the lines of his dialogue appears over the previous line, instead of on a new one.
This glitch occurs in all localizations of and in the European localizations of . In the Italian Pokémon Red and Blue, there's also a word in this dialogue that overlaps the right border of the text box. In English Pokémon Yellow, it was fixed but the dialogue contains a typo instead.
====Overworld sprite misplacement====
If the player does not have the to the Cinnabar Gym, and s on the east coast and returns to land directly in front of the Gym, a man will appear on the roof of the Gym.
A similar effect happens if the player walks into the Vermilion Gym, walks directly left and then up so that they are facing the bottom-left trash can and press A to inspect it, or if the player is in the gate to . One of the Trainers in the Gym will be misplaced and return to his usual spot once the text box disappears, and when in the gate there may be a man standing on an object somewhere behind the guard.
Both of these variations of this glitch were fixed in some European releases of , such as the Spanish version, and in all releases of .
====Standing on water====
A player can remain standing on water (appearing as a regular player sprite rather than a surfing Pokémon sprite) under some specific circumstances. This glitch works if the player is on water while facing a land tile to the player's right, and there is a non-player character (such as a ) on that land tile. If the player uses Surf from the party screen, the player will stop surfing but will remain standing on water.
Normally, if a player surfing on water uses Surf from the party screen while facing a land tile, the player will return to land (although it is faster to simply move onto land without using the party screen). If there is a non-player character on the way, this should usually fail and an error message would appear, except this glitch occurs when attempting to go into a land tile to the player's right (as opposed to the other three directions).
Once the player is standing on water, they will be able to turn and face all four directions, but will be unable to move (either on water or on land). This is fixed if the player who is standing on water uses Surf again, causing them to start surfing as usual.
===Pokémon Yellow===
====Delayed Pikachu follow====
In Pokémon Tower, if the player steps on the purified zone with a fainted , and quickly pushes (B) and takes two steps, Pikachu will not match the player's first step until the player takes their second step and will continue to follow at a delay. As a result, Pikachu may end up a space distant from the player or overlapped with them. Walking back onto the purified zone while overlapped will return Pikachu's position to normal, regardless of speed.
Thanks to the Pikachu off-screen glitch, it can be done everywhere.
====Freezing Pikachu====
If the player jumps off a cliff when is dancing, the Pikachu's sprite will be frozen for 7–8 seconds.
====NPC over the grass====
In the Viridian Forest, there is a Lass whose sprite is clearly over the grass. She won't move because she doesn't have a range at which she will walk up to the player, so she has to be battled by walking up and talking to her. She was not present in .
====Pokémon Zoo's Chansey facing south====
In , the from Fuchsia City Pokémon Zoo is always facing south. If the player uses a walking through walls glitch and interacts with Chansey, it will turn around (as Chansey technically has enough overworld sprites to face all four directions) but will quickly return to facing south as before. This is the same behavior as the Chansey seen in Pokémon Centers, which also uses the Chansey overworld sprite that was introduced in this game.
This is different from the earlier games , where the Pokémon Zoo's Chansey moved around and appeared as the generic sprite .
==References==
==Related articles==
Category:Glitches by game