Favorite, Memorable or Weird Glitches in Video Games

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I've always been fascinated by unwanted visual artefacts that gives a special kind of effect (similar to lens flares and X-shaped light-glow from stars and lamps in the streets).

It's typically associated with VLC having issues reading a file

That Youtube channel talks about visual gliches on purpose used for his indie game

 

[Den MDM Den MDM]

Hm... Instead of X-Shaped I had visual glitches running GTA IV which made a diagonal line of green and red (CHRISTMAS) star-shaped artifacts on the screen. Guess u would find pleasure in seeing them lmao

 

[Parasite_Steve]

I enjoy glitches of any kind and I use them a lot in my art and especially my music. I find this back and forth between artists and engineers kind of funny, because stuff like glitches, artifacts and distortions are something engineers try to avoid at all costs but artists just latch onto it. The history of distorted guitars in rock music is a good example of this. Amps were specifically designed to not make those sounds and soon it became an industry to build amps that make more of it. The fact we can now buy glitch plugins for all kinds of visual and/or audio software is an interesting parallel to that.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I enjoy glitches of any kind and I use them a lot in my art and especially my music. I find this back and forth between artists and engineers kind of funny, because stuff like glitches, artifacts and distortions are something engineers try to avoid at all costs but artists just latch onto it. The history of distorted guitars in rock music is a good example of this. Amps were specifically designed to not make those sounds and soon it became an industry to build amps that make more of it. The fact we can now buy glitch plugins for all kinds of visual and/or audio software is an interesting parallel to that.

Speaking of music I remember this video talking about that typical 80's drum effect that was born from an unintended feature of an amp (aka a sound glitch)

Speaking back to visuals: J.J. Abrahams is very fan of adding back lens flare in the movies despite being a flaw from the lens that got fixed.

We could derail the topic further into the "artistic flaws" of many things where an unintended feature becomes the standard for something even after fixing it.

We can even talk about real life "glitches" like the Purkinje Effect basically making the night naturally blue to us despite that the moon merely reflects the bright white sun so it would normally look orange-ish but our eyes are made to notice blue in semi-darkness first.

 

[7eve70rd]

I've always been fascinated by unwanted visual artefacts that gives a special kind of effect (similar to lens flares and X-shaped light-glow from stars and lamps in the streets).

It's typically associated with VLC having issues reading a file
View attachment 28352

That Youtube channel talks about visual gliches on purpose used for his indie game

These corrupt video file glitches are interesting. Digital files are supposed to be perfect and not degrade like an overplayed VHS tape left on a hot carseat.

The transmission of a video stream can be appear moshed and it gives a feeling of being in an altered state of consciousness.

 

[Parasite_Steve]

These corrupt video file glitches are interesting. Digital files are supposed to be perfect and not degrade like an overplayed VHS tape left on a hot carseat.

The transmission of a video stream can be appear moshed and it gives a feeling of being in an altered state of consciousness.

The glitches in video files aren’t necessarily due to any errors or degradation in the files themselves although bit rot is a genuine concern and digital files are generally a lot more volatile than most people think.
The glitches and mistakes are due to the fact that the videos are usually encoded with a lot of compression to keep file size manageable. When you play an mp4 video your player literally guesses part of the frames or even entire frames. Depending on how much compression was used errors are more or less likely to occur. If you have a dvd or bluray you don’t have that problem. Funny enough a well-mastered dvd can look better than a smaller sized full-hd mp4 because bandwidth often trumps resolution.

 

[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!

 

[Cyberfriend]

Here is something that I found it on the "Escape at Dawn" stage

Right on the part where you use the destroyed wall of the church to go to the cemetery, you can climb on the edges of the destroyed walls.

Besides that, I found a out of bound glitch

By walking in the wall where I pointed, the player can fall of the stage.

 

[Turbo Kid]

There was one in X-Men Legends II that makes Nightcrawler really powerful, like that teleportation scene in the X-Men 2 movie powerful. He could easily solo the game while teleporting all over the map like a mad man.

Dynasty Warriors 8 cyclone explosion bug which was a weapon setup that was basically God Mode. It was eventually removed by the developers, but if you play the original version on the PS3 I think you can still do it.

 

[Deleted member 58254]

Anything that has to do with speedruns

 

[030079AR]

I dont have screenshot or gif, but in first rockman/megaman, you can press select when the attack hit. Before that i have to play 3 hours to beat it, but after I discover it, i can finish it in 1 hour.

 

[Ryderdog1332]

Pretty much every single glitch in the original Pokemon Red and Blue. Those games were put together with duct tape and hopes and dreams. So glad Game Freak referenced the original by doing the same for Scarlet and Violet