Super Glitch (Generation I)

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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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Summary

"Super Glitch" is a common nickname for the many volatile glitch moves that exist in HEX slots AC through C3. These moves typically have no "real" name, and typically adopt anything from nothing to a Pokémon name or even a random group of letters when used. They have a few different known effects, the most common and famous the TMTRAINER effect. It is suspected that this happens because the attack scrambles some information in the game's RAM. After the battle in which Super Glitch was used, the game always freezes.

Super Glitch is a highly volatile move, hence its name. Almost anything done with this glitch move causes the game to freeze, including using it, replacing it with something else, even just viewing its name--sometimes the game crashes when a Pokémon is trying to learn this move. It has also been known to erase games when it is saved onto a game. Things known to happen that are game-threatening would be changing your name to blank, or "PokéPC" mixed in with random glitchy symbols. It can also have you to have no Pokémon, and when you check it doesn't go anywhere, causing more weird things to happen.

Super Glitch exists in many forms, not all of them dangerous, but the most common one is Super Glitch BE. Many of the most common traits of the Super Glitch move that were described in the above paragraphs were primarily traits of Super Glitch BE. Other versions have been known to behave like the TM and HM moves, and others have caused extremely weird things to occur, although few (if any) Glitch Pokémon learn these variations of it.

Many people mistake the effects of Super Glitch to be the innate glitch effects of certain Glitch Pokémon, the most common example of this mistake being .4. Because .4 has Super Glitch as a starting move, many people mistakenly beleive that .4 itself is extremely dangerous to your game and your save file, while in reality, .4 itself is a perfectly benign Glitch Pokémon, no more dangerous than MissingNo. or 'M. In fact, a .4 acquired by trading a pPkMnp from Yellow Version will pose no threat whatsoever to your game.

Super Glitch has not been thoroughly studied by glitch researchers, though some effects and details have been recorded. Many things are still unknown about it. Because of the potential for damage to a game and/or save file, few have been brave enough to study it at all on their cartridge Pokémon games. Even on ROM Pokémon games, Super Glitch is still difficult to study because it often freezes the game. Still, new discoveries are being made, and perhaps one day the mystery of this highly dangerous glitch move will finally be understood. Right now, three effects are known: the TMTRAINER effect, the PokéPC effect, and the Screwed-up sounds effect.

TMTRAINER effect

The TMTRAINER effect consists of many random weird occurrences, but gets its name from the phrase involved which says "TM TRAINER (Pokémon)", with the Pokémon most commonly being Ditto when using its famous "Cooltrainer move". It can also be a Pokémon from the player's team that last appeared in battle before the move causing this effect was used (thus most commonly Ditto again as the move user). This what most commonly happens during the TMTRAINER effect:

1. The music fades out slowly until it is completely silent, and then a random sound plays (it is usually the sound for opening the START menu, but other sounds sometimes happen, like in the ZZAZZ Glitch. This sound repeats every minute or so, so most of the time it is silent, besides Pokémon cries, moves, and status conditions (just the music is silent).
2. The opponent, idle to the move, gains a random status condition and suffers from another, or the same one. The most common would be freezing, and then the game saying "TM TRAINER (Pokémon) is frozen solid!" with "TM TRAINER (Pokémon)'s hurt by the burn!" directly following. Then the burning animation plays and the opponent gets the "mega HP bar". It loops around from a few to maybe 20 times before the damage stops, or (most commonly), the Pokémon faints.
3. The second happening repeats each time the move is used again.

After a battle with this used, like other Super Glitch effects, the game always freezes. It can also possibly change the species of the opponent's Pokémon, and give it different moves.

The trainers seen in the ZZAZZ glitch carry an exception to two things with this: first of all, the TMTRAINER effect begins right as the battle starts, starting at the "(Trainer) wants to fight!". Also, with that version, with both the glitch trainer and the "death trainer", the game doesn't freeze after the battle.

PokéPC effect

The PokéPC effect is probably the most well-known effect of Super Glitch.

The PokéPC effect causes the player's name to change to a mix of glitchy symbols and numbers with the occasional phrase "PokéPC". The player's name scrolls off the screen, so when saved, like with a name after use of the ZZAZZ glitch, the file would be deleted. Also the player's name can become blank, which again would destroy the save file as a blank name can not possibly be obtained (the game would default to a different name if nothing was typed in at the start of the game). The player's Pokémon team can also be turned into many glitch Pokémon, exceeding the limit of six Pokémon, where it would scroll after continually going down. Also, like with the possible name change, the team could be completely erased. Surprisingly, the player would not black out after a few steps (see Walk around with a fainted Pokémon). If the player tries to heal, the screen would go all white as Poké Balls are continually poured on the machine, followed by the rest of the screen (this is not visible, but presumably it should happen). In battle, the player would get a "Wild appeared", followed by the music fading out and a slow continuous sound playing, like the TMTRAINER effect. However, this time, the player can not do anything.

Screwed-up sounds effect

The Screwed-up sounds effect is an effect of Super Glitch discovered by Tombstoner while using the Cooltrainer move. Due to the Cooltrainer move being used rather than a true Super Glitch, it is not known whether it is an effect of Super Glitch, though the chances are high that it is, the Cooltrainer move and Super Glitch being related in terms of effects.

It is hard to get this effect to happen, as the move must hit without a "barfreeze" but meet the conditions for TMTRAINER. If the player has not had any other Pokémon out, this effect could happen. This makes different sounds play for certain moves (some change the music). Some Pokémon fought get a "semi" mega HP bar (longer than normal and not closed on the right, but not taking up more than one line of tiles on the screen) and the first one must be defeated twice. The game freezes after the battle is finished.

The currently known move sound changes are:

Take Down=the chime + computer error

Slash=arrow spin + computer error

Sand-Attack=quick beep

Agility=ball shake

Swords Dance=arrow spin x3

Earthquake=title screen background + computer error

Dig usage=computer error

Dig hit=computer error x2

Withdraw=intro music (one channel, slow)

Body Slam=beep + computer error

Rock Slide=Team Rocket hideout music (one channel, slow) + chime

Submission=jump + chime

External Links

1. Log of Super Glitch research by Tombstoner
2. Forum thread on Super Glitch