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Generation I Glitch Discussion

Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch - Page 1

Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: gnsquared
Date: 2012-07-01 15:03:46
One of my viewers on YouTube emailed me about a glitch in Yellow version that involves shutting the game off while the game is saving. This was his original message:

How to start the glitch:
Start the game normally, select the preset "ASH" and "BLUE" names (this deals with binary data, I don't completely understand it)

Go downstairs, and stand near the exit (this is not required, but just makes it easier to finish faster)

Open the save menu, and go down to save, select YES.

Once the "YES NO" box disappears, there is about a 2 frame window to turn off the system and turn it back on.

When turned back on, if done correctly there will be a continue option and you will have an entire party full of glitched pokemon.

Switch pokemon #2 with the first pokmeon #10
Switch pokmeon #11 with pokemon #9.
This will switch binary data around and cause a glitch inventory to appear.

Open your item inventory, and scroll down, the cursor will get stuck halfway down and start flashing, hold down until it stops flashing. Press A

Continue scrolling down, and if scrolling down does not work, just press A. There will be an item with a glitched symbol then 6 for its number (this item will have a different name everytime) It should be below a MASTER BALL with x[  ]7 for it's amount.

Press SELECT and swith the item with a MASTER BALL that is below a GREAT BALL and above a glitch item.

Toss 68 of the item, this will alter the warp ID for your house door.

Exit the door, you win.


He accompanied this with two videos, one of the glitch being performed on an emulator, and another of him performing it on his actual GBA SP

Emulator video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Sk61NKSYA

Him performing the glitch on his actual GameBoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo1cyUMDT9Q

However, try as I might I CANNOT get this to work on my game, and I also don't understand how the glitch works. The viewer who emailed me said he learned it from watching someone do it, so he couldn't link me to any web page that described how the glitch worked or why. Since you guys seem to be the place to go with Pokemon glitch info, I figured maybe you had heard of this before and could better explain it, or at least get it to work on your own games.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: Torchickens
Date: 2012-07-01 15:58:37
It's real. I once got the exploit to work on a physical cartridge. It doesn't work all of the time, and is frame specific. Some emulators freeze when you open the Pokémon menu. This is down to a bug, and doesn't happen on the real game.

From what I'm aware you mustn't have a save file. However, I'm unsure how true this is. If you have an existing save, try erasing it by holding Up+B+Select on the title screen.

The trick is to reset the game a little after the Yes/No box disappears, but before the "Would you like to SAVE the game?" message does.

Reset here:

[img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj640/Torchickens/Saveexploit.png[/img]


Either two things will happen, depending on the frame.

1) The save file is destroyed.
2) A lot of values in memory are replaced with '255'. This includes a number of important values, including the number of Pokémon, the attributes associated with those Pokémon, and the entire seen/own Pokédex data. Compare this to using a lot of Gameshark codes and setting '??' to 'FF'. This is basically what happens.

I've tried to explain this glitch in further detail here. Bulbapedia seems to be experiencing problems (at least for me) at the moment, but a few refreshes made the page load.


The person who Aaaboy97 is referring to is probably Gia257. He used the save exploit as part of a tool-assisted speedrun to beat the game in about two minutes. He submitted it to TASvideos.org, which is why you might see a lot of copies of the same video.

This is his original post, and submission link. Here's is a Youtube encoding of the original demonstration.


I recommend you download the actual VisualBoyAdvance movie from the submission link first and play the video slowly, since Gia aimed for the best time that was physically possible.


Since Gia257 submitted the video, somebody managed to obsolete it. Gia257 since found an improvement, which is the same method, but involved swapping a different set of memory addresses so that you don't even have to leave the room.

1337p4wn3r later implemented these improvements to record a faster VBM, which has been encoded as a Youtube video by flygonbreloom.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: gnsquared
Date: 2012-07-01 16:16:56
I'll keep trying, I think I might just end up using an emulator with slow down. Do you know if this is Yellow exclusive?

Also, thank you for the extremely detailed explanation (or links to it.)

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: Torchickens
Date: 2012-07-01 16:30:47

I'll keep trying, I think I might just end up using an emulator with slow down. Do you know if this is Yellow exclusive?


Good luck.

I think it's possible in Red/Blue too, as TheZZAZZGlitch did it. I haven't tested it on a real Red/Blue though.


Also, thank you for the extremely detailed explanation (or links to it.)


It's a pleasure!

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: Raven Freak
Date: 2012-07-01 21:52:15
I'll go ahead and test this out in either my Blue or Red version in a bit on my GBA and post the results. :) Expect this post to be edited. :V Edit: I kind of gave up since it's too tedious and I only got the "The Save File Is Destroyed!" message, or it saved with no corruption. :\ I might take a shot at it later, but it's pretty annoying. :V Edit2: Got it to work, though the frame I must have shut it off at only corrupted the pokemon data as my items were okay. BTW this was in Blue, I couldn't find my Red and I have a save on there I don't want to delete. :V

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: MrGlitch
Date: 2012-08-06 20:34:54
Oh my. I've got a Yellow cart in really bad condition that I've been attempting to glitch via corrupting saves, and this sounds like it would be just the ticket.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: MrGlitch
Date: 2012-08-07 10:55:13
First attempt: Save data is destroyed.
Second attempt: It worked. Quite well, in fact.

I'll post a video once I get the item stuff sorted out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN4N50vzPCY&feature=youtu.be

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: MrGlitch
Date: 2012-08-07 14:15:58
Alright, here are a few things I've observed.

1. All of your Pokemon are Level 255 Qs  (http://glitchcity.info/wiki/index.php/GlitchDex/Y:255). Their name will appear as some amalgamation of 9s and background tiles, depending on which tileset you're using at the time, or may have the name of your rival (see #5).  They may be poisoned or have other statuses.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/J42V6l.jpg[/img]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/WmtTRl.jpg[/img]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/lzxlxl.jpg[/img]
2. Some invisible items are TMs, and can be taught to your glitch Pokemon. For instance, one of my Qs learned Flash.
3. One Oak gives you the Pikachu, it's not visible or accessible in your party at all, as far as I know.
4. Your glitch Pokemon will either have no moves at all, or four TM55 moves (assuming you haven't taught it anything new).
***5. The game renames your rival.  In this case, my rival's name was "99999GARY", even though I had originally named him "Blue".  Upon resetting the game, I discovered that one of my glitch Pokemon was named "GARY".
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5VAI7l.jpg[/img]

In battle, they behave like many other glitch Pokemon: they have statuses that don't show up, such as sleeping and burns.

Even without switching toe Pokemon around, the item system is messed up. For example. I withdrew the one Potion I had in my PC, and it promptly disappeared into thin air.

Sorry for the crappy photos; they were the best I could get at the time.  I'll keep researching, and I plan to see what happens at a Pokemon center.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: camper
Date: 2012-08-08 11:45:41
As far as I know, most of the bytes are set to FF or 00 after the save abuse, hence the Q, TM55, character 9's, the - move, 255 or 0 stats, and 65535 HP, and most of your items are either CANCEL or the hex 00 ones.

Oh and the pokemon's experience are all 16777215 (2^24-1).

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: MrGlitch
Date: 2012-08-08 14:46:12
What I'm most interested in is the game's renaming of the rival. I wasn't aware it was possible to do that.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: camper
Date: 2012-08-09 00:31:08
What can you choose for the rival's name?

e.g.
NEW NAME
BLUE
GARY
WHATEVER

Does the renaming occur as soon as you reset or after you switch Pokemon around?

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: MrGlitch
Date: 2012-08-10 13:00:00

What can you choose for the rival's name?

e.g.
NEW NAME
BLUE
GARY
WHATEVER

Does the renaming occur as soon as you reset or after you switch Pokemon around?

I'm not sure, as I switched Pokemon before I went into Oak's lab. Maybe someone can do it after they meet the Rival?

There's something I can't figure out. I tried using a Rare Candy that was in my glitched inventory on one of my Qs. It grew to level 0, as is the norm with Level 255 Pokemon, but the palette in the room (Oak's lab) changed to blue, orange, and white, and the game crashed as soon as I exited the menu. Does anyone have any idea why a palette change would cause a crash?
This happened after I got Pikachu (which I still can't find in my party) and before the Rival battle.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: Bert
Date: 2012-08-10 15:58:32
First zillion attempts: "The save data is destroyed!"
Eventually: Pulled it off, team of glitchy Charizard's EVERYWHERE. They had TM55 in all four move slots with 63/0 PP, and did nothing. There was a Charizard 'M there, which fainted from Poison the instant I tried to attack. The battle with Blue was unwinnable and the level 255 Glitchizards had infinite HP. Many laughs were had at Blue's futile attempts at defeating them.

This was on Red, so it is possible, but I didn't get the glitched items. Guess I restarted on the wrong frame.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: MrGlitch
Date: 2012-08-10 18:24:08

Eventually: Pulled it off, team of glitchy Charizard's EVERYWHERE.

Considering Q's close links to Charizard 'M (ZZAZZ glitch), I would expect that. Good job on getting it to work.

Re: Pokemon Yellow "Save Abuse" Glitch

Posted by: Bert
Date: 2012-08-10 20:02:11
Apparently there are 152 Pokémon in the PokéDex. I managed to locate the PokéDex in the glitchventory, and #152 is going to drive conspiracy theorists off the wall:
[IMG]http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww244/BertTheCapedIdiot/100_3511.jpg[/img]

Delving deeper into the bowels of the Glitchventory, there is an item called Bf2 that plays a "cutscene", where a PokéBall is thrown at an invisible Pokémon, it wobbles four times, and it breaks out, revealing that the Pokémon is a cluster of tiles.

I came across an item called ???????, that said "You can't surf on ??????? here!", so I'm guessing this is the mysterious "surfboard" item. It appears to be gone now, strangely.

Defeating Gary while this glitch is active will result in the game freezing once the battle is over. Your character will become a glitch square. Using certain glitch items from the inventory in battle will result in random effects taking place. It's entirely possible that his 'Mon will suddenly gain a burn status condition and lose HP until it faints (it just did on my game).

There must be an EXP Share in my Glitchventory somewhere, because the rest of the Glitchmons in my party gain EXP when an enemy is defeated. Using the PokéDex will result in the battle screen becoming glitched.

Quite a doozy, this is. It'd be nice if there was a way past the game freeze once you beat Gary.

Edit: It's possible to "neutralize" the glitch Pokémon. The first Pokémon was apparently burned, so I used a Burn Heal on it, and used Rare Candies to raise it to level 5 and it's acting rather normal.