TMTRAINER effect

The TMTRAINER effect is the common name for a series of glitchy effects associated with the move -- and most Super Glitch moves occupying hexadecimal identifiers between A6 to C3 (or those with index numbers between 166 and 195).

Effects in battle

There are many variations of TMTRAINER effect that can occur, but the most common will result in the enemy Pokémon acquiring a large amount of HP and becoming simultaneously frozen and burned. On the same turn, the opponent's name will be changed so that it contains the string 'TMTRAINER' as well as some glitch dialogue. Since the game will often give the opponent a larger amount of HP than its maximum, the opponent Pokémon may faint due to the large amount of damage from its burn.

The common TMTRAINER effect usually follows this pattern:

1. The opponent will acquire the burn status.
2. The music will fade, and when it fades completely, a sound effect will usually play.
3. Presuming that all in-battle processes were previously running as they should have been, when a move or item is used, the following text will be displayed: "Enemy [glitch dialogue, which often takes up a large amount of space] TMTRAINER (Species) is frozen solid!" The glitch text is now the corrupted enemy Pokémon's name.
4. Then, the following text will be displayed: "Enemy [glitch dialogue occupying a large amount of space] TMTRAINER (Species)'s hurt by the burn!"
5. The enemy Pokémon's health bar will wrap across the screen several times and slowly deplete for several minutes, in which time, the enemy Pokémon may faint.

If the player is battling a Trainer, the opponent will send out the Pokémon that was in battle before the glitch activated. In Pokémon Red and Blue, the game will freeze upon finishing the battle, unless the fight occurred in a cave. In Pokémon Yellow, the TMTRAINER effect does not crash the game; however, after returning back to the overworld, the sprite graphics will become scrambled.

Trying to capture the Pokémon after starting the glitch will result in catching a glitched Pokémon with high HP. This is often manipulated to catch strong Pokémon and beat the game quickly.

Explanation

Main article: Super Glitch (move) → Cause

Super Glitch and other moves with unstable names corrupt memory based on the screen buffer's contents. After opening any full-screen menu in battle, the screen buffer is loaded with battle screen contents, in order to bring them back later, after closing the menu. Since battle screens always look the same (excluding certain changing parts like HP bars), the TMTRAINER effect is very consistent, and always works in the same way. After selecting the move, the game tries to read the move name, and as a result, overwrites a large amount of battle-related variables with saved screen contents.

Different variations

The standard version of this effect happens when Super Glitch (or other move with improperly terminated name) is selected or used after viewing the Item or Pokémon menu in battle. If any of the full screen menus (like Pokémon menu or Trainer Card) are opened in the overworld instead, the TMTRAINER effect may take different forms, depending on the player's location. Possible effects include Pokémon names becoming a section of the start menu, status conditions, extreme health and even permanent stat changes.

These variations can be exploited to catch rare or unobtainable species of Pokémon, to catch Pokémon above level 100, or to gain Pokémon with impossibly high amounts of HP.

Trivia

• 31 glitch moves have been documented as those which can cause the TMTRAINER effect, as well as --.
• Certain glitch items also have unstable names, and may cause the TMTRAINER effect after using them in battle.
• The name TMTRAINER is actually a two-byte name: 0x5C0x5D.

This article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games.