Super Glitch

The subject of this article has no official name. The name currently in use is a fan designator; see below for more information.

Super Glitch (Japanese: 名前の長いバグわざ, long name glitch moves^[1]) is the nickname for a large amount of volatile glitch moves that exist in hexadecimal slots A6 to C3 in Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Yellow. These moves generally have either no name, a number of glitchy symbols as a name, or the name of a Pokémon in one's party as its name. Super glitch effects can also occasionally be caused by the move --. If the move is used, the opposing Pokémon will be burned, and will either faint, or its HP will drop until it has almost fainted.

Effect

Super Glitch can cause some rather strange effects. The most famous scenario is a chain of events starting with the music slowly fading out before stopping altogether known as the 'TMTRAINER effect'. The opponent's name then changes to "TMTRAINER" followed by several lines of glitch dialogue, and the HP of their Pokémon rises to a very large value which is often larger than the amount of max HP that the opponent Pokémon has, causing the HP bar to stretch and wrap around the screen. (The filled part of the bar also instantly jumps from empty to full repeatedly before fainting (0HP) during damage animation due to the fact that the calculations to display how much fill in the bar in percent has been overflowed, thus causing the fill to wrap between empty and full.) It will display that the enemy Pokémon is poisoned, but the game will state that it is frozen solid, followed by the enemy Pokémon becoming hurt by a burn. This burn will often deplete all of the enemy Pokémon's health, causing the giant HP bar to loop several times before all the HP is depleted, causing it to faint. If the battle is won before the game freezes, the glitch Pokémon that used Super Glitch may grow to a random level (sometimes even exceeding level 100). Sometimes, many random Pokémon not part of the player's team evolve right after a battle. On such cases, Pokémon that cannot evolve can evolve into themselves.

It is possible to activate Super Glitch outside of battle. By having a Pokémon that knows Super Glitch learn another move by leveling up, the glitch will activate without the TMTRAINER effect, as you are not in battle. An example of this happening is Q◣, which will learn Mega Punch at level 11. However, if it knows Super Glitch, then the effects will activate as if the player had just exited a battle using the glitch.

On occasion, a player may return to the game after a battle in which Super Glitch was used, but everything will be severely glitched. It will appear as if some Pokémon are poisoned in the player's team as every few steps a Pokémon faints. However, these Pokémon will have glitchy names and were never part of the player's team before the battle. Some positions of the map will be glitchy and volatile, as if parts of Glitch City merged with the regular map. The player's name will have changed to a scrambled string of symbols. The player will be unable to view their Pokémon (if the Pokémon option is selected in the menu, a blank screen will show from which one can't escape) and hence it becomes impossible to Surf or Fly. Pokémon will disappear out of the Pokédex after taking a few steps. The music everywhere (except in battle) becomes eerie and glitched. The game may unexpectedly freeze at any point. The player may also randomly get stuck. By using the "deposit" option in the PC, it is possible to reveal that the game has given the player a lot of Pokémon, many of them with names made entirely out of glitch characters and with stats exceeding 999. Many of these Pokémon will crash the game if the player attempts to interact with them.

Super Glitch's index number only changes the probability of the move causing glitch effects, and it does not change the obtained effect itself—the effects are the same for every Super Glitch index and for every Super Glitch-related move.

Cause

Super Glitch moves have no defined names, so the game looks for them past the actual move name list, and takes an unpredictably chosen RAM fragment as the name of the move. The problem occurs when the game tries to display such a name on the screen—the programmers assumed that each move name always ends with an end of string symbol, so the copy operation continues until it is found. The random move name that is picked from the memory may not have such a symbol, so the game copies too many bytes, overwriting important memory areas behind the text buffer.

In the memory layout of the game, a screen buffer is located directly after the text buffer. The screen buffer is a memory fragment where the game saves how the screen looked like before opening a full-screen menu—it exists so the screen contents can be restored after the menu has been closed. Opening any full-screen menu causes the buffer to be replaced with the current screen contents. It means that the values Super Glitch writes depend on what was recently displayed on the screen, and by opening any full screen menu and refreshing the screen copy, it is possible to control how Super Glitch corrupts the RAM. Also, the number of characters the move names before the Super Glitch have will offset the location where memory corruption starts.

The starting location of Super Glitch's memory corruption can be calculated from an equation: StartingLocation = D0E1₁₆ + MoveLengths + NumberOfMovesBeforeSuperGlitch.

To find the memory address where the n-th screen tile will be written, use the formula: StartingLocation + n.

Issues and prevention

As the Super Glitch corruption is caused by viewing the name of the move, if a Pokémon as much as attempts to learn the move—as many glitch Pokémon do—the RAM may be corrupted. This can be avoided by standing on a certain tile on the ground floor of Celadon Mansion^[2] and opening the Start Menu. Having last opened the menu there—taking care not to touch it afterwards—the player can view Super Glitch move names without any adverse effects on the game. This is very useful as it allows a careful player to train Pokémon that learn the move, while avoiding the RAM corruption.

Misconceptions

Something important to note is that it is the move that is dangerous, not its users. For example, ゥ .4, which knows Super Glitch as a starting move, is mistakenly believed to be extremely dangerous to one's game and save file. However, ゥ .4 as a species is no more dangerous than MissingNo. or 'M (00). In fact, a ゥ .4 acquired by trading a p^P_K^M_Np' ' from Pokémon Yellow will pose no threat whatsoever to the game, and a ゥ .4 that has forgotten Super Glitch is completely safe. Though obviously, a wild ゥ .4 will still pose a significant threat, as it will know Super Glitch.

Generation I

Super Glitch index A7

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
080		4 4Hy	Water		Psychic	250
061		a	Water		Water	121
000		PC4SH	Normal	Ground	207
006		'M (FF)	Fire	Flying	207
015		ゥ ( Z4	Bug	Poison	182
000		Glitch (CA)	Poison		Poison	204
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index A8

Super Glitch index AA

Super Glitch index AB

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
006		u	Fire	Flying	224
000		ゥ .4	Pokémaniac		Pokémaniac	195
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index AD

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
033		Glitch (FA)	Poison		Poison	195
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch Index AE

Super Glitch index AF

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
000		♀Pゥ ゥゥT	Normal	Ground	243
000		3TrainerPoké $	Normal		Normal	--
080		4 4Hy	Water		Psychic	3, 208
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index B0

Super Glitch index B1

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
061		a	Water		Water	195
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index B2

Super Glitch index B3

Super Glitch index B4

Super Glitch index B5

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
094		h POKé	Ghost	Poison	205
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index B6

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
000		ゥ .4	Pokémaniac		Pokémaniac	234
015		ゥ ( Z4	Bug	Poison	35 175
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index B7

Super Glitch index B8

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
033		Glitch (FA)	Poison		Poison	213
000		ゥ .4	Pokémaniac		Pokémaniac	240
121		Q◣	Water	Psychic	224
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index B9

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
000		Glitch (CA)	Poison		Poison	135
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index BA

Super Glitch index BB

Super Glitch index BC

Super Glitch index BD

Super Glitch index BE

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
062		ゥL ゥM 4	Water	Fighting	24
000		ゥ .4	Pokémaniac		Pokémaniac	--
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index BF

Super Glitch index C0

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
000		▶ A	Normal	Normal	224
061		a	Water		Water	43 238 239 240
015		ゥ ( Z4	Bug	Poison	42
006		u	Fire	Flying	96
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index C1

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
009		ゥ. B	Water		Water	205
062		ゥL ゥM 4	Water	Fighting	55 56
121		Q◣	Water	Psychic	9
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Super Glitch index C2

Super Glitch index C3

By leveling up

#	Pokémon		Types		Level
					I
062		ゥL ゥM 4	Water	Fighting	71
006		u	Fire	Flying	175
Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation.

Videos

Trivia

• Super Glitch moves have a tendency to change the player's Pokémon into a MissingNo. with a hexadecimal 7F, change a large amount of moves to Waterfall, and set some Pokémon to level 127. This happens because the tile with 7F is the space character, which is widely used on screen to display textboxes and aligned lists.
• The only factor preventing the player from saving the game after using Super Glitch is the corrupted player name. So theoretically, with enough luck, Super Glitch may bring a name with an end of string symbol, and the player would be eventually able to save with the corrupted data.
  • Despite this, one would still have to view a special text box (such as the "HEAL/CANCEL" ones at Pokémon Centers) to avoid any glitch message boxes crashing the game.
• Contrary to popular belief, using a Super Glitch move isn't any more destructive than viewing it in the fight menu; both are equally destructive.
• Super Glitches may sometimes reveal certain unused data portions, like beta battle systems in Pokémon Yellow or the cardinal direction boxset.
• Super Glitch index A6 is especially dangerous, since its invalid name points to a constant memory location, which always causes memory corruption. According to TheZZAZZGlitch, since older versions of VBA do not emulate VRAM inaccessibility, index A7 name is displayed as "qq", because of a B0 B0 50 pattern in VRAM at address $83C5, thus the move will not cause any side-effects (while it will cause memory corruption if viewed in the overworld). On BGB (and real console), the finishing 0x50 byte at $83C7 is not read, causing Super Glitch effects.
• Activating Super Glitch's effects via a PP Up will greatly amplify its data corruption abilities. Also according to TheZZAZZGlitch, this is because other methods will place character 0x50, a terminator character, in the game's nearby memory, cutting Super Glitch's corruption short. PP Ups do not do this, however, allowing the corruption to be used to its full potential.
  • The maximum possible length for a Super Glitch corruption in this manner (assuming the Pokémon in question knows 4 Super Glitch moves and a PP Up is used on it) is 3532 bytes.

External links

• Thread on Glitch City Laboratories
• Glitch box-sets
• A YouTube video, showing examples on how to manipulate Super Glitch's effects

References

This article is part of both Project GlitchDex and Project Moves and Abilities, Bulbapedia projects that, together, aim to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games and moves, respectively.