Saffron Gym glitch

Miscellaneous glitches of Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Yellow

Amazing Man (Red and Blue only) | Cable Club escape glitch | Celadon looping map trick | Champion Blue music muting glitch | Coastal Flooding | Confusion and Substitute glitch | Cooltrainer move | Cycling based glitch maps | Escape sprite handling glitch | Evolve without an evolutionary stone (Red and Blue only) | Evolving Raichu (Red and Blue only) | Expanded item pack | Expanded Pokédex | Focus Energy glitch | Get stuck in a wall | Ghost Bicycle glitch | Glitch encounter system | Glitch City RAM Manipulation | Infinite Blaine Door | Introduction Nidorino glitch (Red and Blue only) | Invisible PCs (Red and Blue only) | Invisible tree glitch | Item stack duplication glitch | Mute the music in the Pokémon League | Partial trapping move link battle glitch | Pokémon Tower Pokédex glitch | PP underflow glitches | Recovery move glitch | Rival's effect | See a Ghost without a Silph Scope | Selfdestruct and Substitute glitch | Silph Co. PC Glitch | Slot machine glitch | Stand on a tree | Statue behavior glitch (Red and Blue only) | Super effective move AI flaw (Red and Blue only) | Super Glitch | Surf down glitch | Swift miss glitch | Transform assumption glitch | Transform Empty Move Glitch | Trick Zone | Vending machine purchase glitch | Walk around with only fainted Pokémon (Red and Blue only) | Walking lag glitch | Walk on water through Surf | Walking Pikachu happiness glitch (Yellow only) | Wild appeared! | ZZAZZ Glitch

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Please note that this glitch only exists in the Japanese versions of the game, or is otherwise a glitch from a Pokémon game which was only released in Japan.

The Saffron Gym glitch (Japanese: ヤマブキジムのバグ, Yamabuki Gym Bug) is a glitch that only happens in Pokémon Red and Green. It was fixed in Japanese Blue, Pocket Monsters Pikachu, and the localizations.

This glitch manifests itself in two different ways:

• If the player loses to a trainer in Saffron Gym, the game will act as if the player won when the player re-enters the gym.
• If the player wins against a trainer in Saffron Gym, there is a frame window in which the player can talk to the trainer to restart the fight.

Both phenomena are caused by the same problem in the map script of Saffron Gym.

Loss becomes victory

The text box that appears after triggering this glitch with Sabrina.

After losing to a trainer in Saffron Gym, if the player returns to the gym, the game will act as if the player just won the fight. This means that that trainer cannot be fought again, and if talked to, they will say the line of dialog that normally appears after defeating them or defeating the gym. Furthermore, if that trainer is Sabrina:

• When the player re-enters the gym, the game will immediately print the line of dialog that normally appears after winning the battle and exiting to the overworld (about the Marsh Badge letting Pokémon up to level 70 obey the player).
• The player will receive TM46 (Psywave) and the Marsh Badge.
• None of the trainers in the gym will fight the player, as if the player has defeated the gym.
• The player's name will show on the statue at the front of the gym.

The prize money lost is not affected by this glitch.

YouTube video by ChickasaurusGL

Infinite rematch exploit

More research is needed for this article.
	Reason given: Confirm that this can be triggered with trainers other than Sabrina.

After winning against a trainer in Saffron Gym, if the player presses A during the first overworld frame, then the trainer will say their pre-battle dialog, and the fight will start again. This can be repeated indefinitely. However, to continue exploiting this glitch, the player must win every fight, because otherwise the first part of this glitch will trigger and prevent the player from fighting the same trainer again.

A very easy way to achieve this is by clearing the last in-fight text box (which states how much money the player has won) with the B button, then immediately starting holding A. This A press will be processed on the earliest frame possible, triggering this glitch.

YouTube video by Exarion

Trivia

• Even though the "loss becomes victory" part of this glitch has been known since as early as 2014, the "infinite rematch exploit" part was only discovered in 2019, when a speedrunner named Zweiteturm accidentally fought Sabrina twice on a JP Red Classic run.
• The discovery of the infinite rematch exploit gave rise to the speedrun category "Sabrina%", where the goal is simply to beat Sabrina 100 times.