GameBoy Favorite bugs and fun glitches in Pokémon RBY?

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Red
Blue
Yellow
All three of these early Pokémon entries, and their accompanying Japanese versions, are filled with coding mishaps and faults. But, over the past 29 years, that’s what’s made them continue to stick out so much from the rest of the series. Sure, other Pokémon games have some fascinating bugs of their own, but nothing is quite as insane as this game (aside from pulling off ACE in Diamond and Pearl. That may actually take the cake).

In celebration of the wild, the wacky, and the wonderful, I wanted to make a thread covering all the best of the best bugs from this classic game; according to the RGT community of course!

(Yes, of course you can include JP only bugs. Those are some of the best. Also, yes, I’m aware that Japan’s games are almost completely different from the international games up until Yellow.)

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

My favorite is the ability to skip Pewter City Gym by saving at the right time.

 

[NotGodlike]

Since you mention missingno, I like that hall of fame gets corrupted when you have corrupt pokemon lol

 

[garbodorman]

i love the long-range trainer glitch to complete the pokedex. and missingno for multiplying master balls and vitamins. you can also catch some of gen 2 pokemon in gen 1. R/B/Y are amazing. i'm glad that scarlet/violet also full of funny glitches.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Since you mention missingno, I like that hall of fame gets corrupted when you have corrupt pokemon lol

View attachment 61493

Oh, hall of fame data gets messed up SO EASILY! I wonder why…
It might be a side effect of how hall of fame data is stored.

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2025

i love the long-range trainer glitch to complete the pokedex. and missingno for multiplying master balls and vitamins. you can also catch some of gen 2 pokemon in gen 1. R/B/Y are amazing. i'm glad that scarlet/violet also full of funny glitches.

Based name. Please rep the Garbodor in the pfp when you get the time. Poison type fans need to stick together!

 

[NotGodlike]

Oh, hall of fame data gets messed up SO EASILY! I wonder why…

There is a reason, each Pokemon gets 16 bytes. One for species, then one for level, then eleven for nickname, followed by three nulls. Any leftovers in the nickname are filled with end-string characters.
Empty slots still count as data, so when the game reads corrupted bytes, it'll interpret them as FF, and that's how you see this madness.
There has been huge documentation on this hall of fame behaviour in glitchcity, might be worth a read

 

[freebie#47]

My favorite bug is.....beating pokemon yellow in less than a minute. That speedrun was just fun to watch....

 

[Action_Hank]

Professor oak fight outside Lavender town

 

[LaserMoose]

The Pokémon merge glitch, previously referred to as the Q Trick. The glitch allows for the creation of an unstable hybrid Pokémon, who shares the attributes of two Pokémon.

(screen capture taken from MissingnoXpert's Let's glitch Pokemon Yellow series from years ago, where I was introduced to this glitch)

In the case of Pikachu here, it was merged with a Lapras, and thus has the name, color, and moves that Lapras normally has, like Ice Beam and Water Gun.

More information about the Merge Glitch can be found at the glitchcity wiki, which also has plenty of other glitches to check out.

 

[sweette]

i remember someone saying these games were held together by tape, hopes, and dreams and i couldn’t agree more. not even the base game was made properly, every move has a chance to miss

i personally love seeing whenever the game just fully glitches out and there’s miscellaneous data everywhere, everything looks so cursed but it’s amazing when people know what they’re doing (yet j, in fact, am not people). besides that, walking through walls, swimming on land, or skipping parts of the game is pretty fun too!

Professor oak fight outside Lavender town

this is one of the classics though. just sucks that it wasn’t part of the main game, it would’ve been so symbolic

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

The Pokémon merge glitch, previously referred to as the Q Trick. The glitch allows for the creation of an unstable hybrid Pokémon, who shares the attributes of two Pokémon.

View attachment 61608
(screen capture taken from MissingnoXpert's Let's glitch Pokemon Yellow series from years ago, where I was introduced to this glitch)

In the case of Pikachu here, it was merged with a Lapras, and thus has the name, color, and moves that Lapras normally has, like Ice Beam and Water Gun.

More information about the Merge Glitch can be found at the glitchcity wiki, which also has plenty of other glitches to check out.

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2025

this is one of the classics though. just sucks that it wasn’t part of the main game, it would’ve been so symbolic

PLEASE GOD! IF WE GET ANOTHER GEN 1 REMAKE, THIS NEEDS TO BE REIMPLEMENTED!
ITS SERIOUSLY TOO COOL TO BE ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR!