MissingNo. (Pokèmon Red, Blue, and Yellow)
The Missingno. glitch is a glitch in Pokemon Red and Blue. It is widely known for the devastating effects that can produce. There are several guides on the Internet that explain how to activate this glitch.
How to activate
Note: This procedure works only in the North American versions.
The player must speak with the old man in Viridian City and trigger the capturing tutorial. After clearing the latter the name of the player will change into Old Man and the player's original name will be moved into the part of memory that determines what wild Pokemon can be captured outside cities. After doing so, the player must head to Cinnabar Island and use the move "Surf" to move on the water on the water tiles next to the gym. If everything has been done correctly, Missingno. will appear, and his battle sprite depends from various factors such as the player's name.
Effects
The effects of this glitch may change depending by various factors:
- Fleeing the battle will multiply by 128 the 6th item in the player's bag.
- Catching Missingno. will cause glitches such as loading reversed sprites or corrupting the Hall of Fame data.
Why It Should Remain Missing Forever
- Catching Missingno. will cause a massive amount of glitches, and can permanently break your game, forcing you to start a new save file.
- When this glitch was discovered, Nintendo published a description of Missingno. on its website, though it suggested to free Missingno., which actually doesn't do anything.
- After catching it, it's impossible to trade it, unless using other glitches.
- Even though this glitch was fixed in Pokémon Yellow, it's still possible to meet Missingno. by using a variant of the well-known Mew Glitch, but catching it will cause different effects.
- After using this glitch it's still possible to save, unlike other glitches, which means that if you save after using it, there will be no way to revert to a previous state.