When Pocket Monsters was created by Japanese game designer Satoshi Tajiri in 1996 it was nothing more than a way for the designer to relive his childhood pastime of insect collecting and share it with the residents of his homeland. For all the options available in the original games it was still quite a linear adventure, and a simplistic one at that. Neophyte game developer Game Freak (directed by Tajiri) set out to produce the original two installments Red and Green, which became such a hit that Blue was also released. Never before had Game Freak produced a game so intricate and detailed, and mistakes were made to say the least. Programming oversights, data omissions, and lack of a proper error handling system eventually led to trainers getting lost in places that looked like this:
Where we're going we don't need eyes to see.
Due to a lack of attention to finite details in their programming work, which is forgivable considering the sheer magnitude of their creation and this undertaking being the developers' first time taking on such a venture, both the Japanese and North American releases of the original Pokemon games were riddled with glitches ranging from mildly amusing to downright terrifying. Here are seven demons Game Freak unintentionally brought into the world with their magnum opus.
MissingNo (literally "Missing Number", #000 in the Pokedex) needs no introduction. MissingNo is the gold standard in Pokemon glitches and is quite possibly one of the most well known and celebrated glitches in the history of video games entirely; MissingNo's legendary visage is on par with that of the Minus World from Super Mario Bros. Glitches in future generation Pokemon games are called "MissingNo" even though they're completely different entities; it's a glitch that became the name for every other Pokemon glitch because that's what happens when you're #1.
MissingNo's familiar "L" shaped appearance, non-threatening battle cry, memorable moveset, and item duplication properties are quite vanilla today, but how would you have like to have been the first person to stumble across this beast? Can you imagine minding your own business when suddenly a random encounter begins, the screen freezes black for just a few seconds, and then...
"Oh god oh god oh god oh god." - You
Your butthole would have tensed up at this sight, and don't you deny that.
Any self-respecting Pokemaniac in the 1990′s knew the entire Pokedex (and the PokeRap) like the back of their hand. You knew #'s 1 through 151 better than your own family, so what in God's name is this abortion?! It has a terrifyingly alarming name ("MISSING" appears in it), its graphic looks like the bowels of technological hell, and while it cries and fights like a regular Pokemon you have never seen anything like this before in your life. Confronted with the unknown you then do what any starry-eyed trainer would do in this situation: you catch the damn thing.
Sometime later you decide to show your friend your awesome trophy of a glitch and accidentally skip to the Pokemon League's computer and bring up your Hall of Fame. The music crashes and turns to a single sound channel while the screams of tortured souls come through as pure static in another. Your screen flashes with the garbled mess of a computer virus and attached is a note from MissingNo reading "thank you for liberating me from my prison, this is only my first step to world domination."
"PS: Check your 6th item."
Remember that old man in Viridian City who wouldn't let you pass because he's a grumpy old fart who hasn't yet had his fill of coffee? He's just an unmentionable arbitrary barrier in the game so that you won't proceed further without delivering Oak's Parcel from the PokeMart and once you obtain your Pokedex he changes his attitude and shows you how to catch Pokemon. Or so you thought.
Unknown to him, the old man also holds the keys to unlocking MissingNo... which come to think of it might be the reason he seems so disturbed and angry at the world in the first place. Could you imagine having to harbor that thing? Sure, he could grant you all the free coffee you could ever want but still we don't think MissingNo would be suitable company at all, ever.
You can fool with the poor old man all you want if you have a GameShark and play with the cheat codes to alter wild Pokemon encounters. You can have the old man show you how to catch one of the Pokemon not present in your version of the game, you can have him catch a Mewtwo, you can enjoy a spot of meta humor and have him catch a MissingNo, or... you can force him to fight a trainer, and the game just doesn't know what the hell to do.
"You damn kids with your POKEYMAN!!!"
The old man is programmed to do one thing and one thing only: throw a Poke Ball. He still does this after the trainer sends out their glitch Pokemon and as you might expect the trainer blocks it. The old man never sends out any Pokemon (even though he appears to have 1 fainted and 5 normal Pokemon) so right now you're probably on the edge of your seat because the trainer's glitch box of the apocalypse is about to rock this grandpa's world with something fierce…
...and like the weirdest deus ex machina ever conceived the PA system from the Safari Zone chimes in and says "TIME'S UP!!"
The battle ends immediately and the old man acts like absolutely nothing out of the ordinary just transpired. He reminds you that you must first "weaken the target Pokemon" and on the surface it appears no lasting effects have taken place -- until you check your stats.
Your name has changed to "OLD MAN". Due to the way the game handles the old man encounter it stores your actual name in the place where wild Pokemon data is stored (because this data is empty in Viridian City) and temporarily changes your player name to "OLD MAN". When the battle terminates improperly the game doesn't have the chance to reset the data and your name becomes OLD MAN. Any Pokemon you have cannot be nicknamed because you are no longer their original trainer, they do not recognize you now.
Every single instance where your name would be displayed now says "OLD MAN". If you access your PC from a Pokemon Center it's called "OLD MAN's PC". If you speak to a character who addresses you by your name, such as Professor Oak for example, he will (hilariously) call you "OLD MAN". If you check the sign outside of your home it will read "OLD MAN's house". You have become OLD MAN. He has stolen your identity and pulled off the greatest psychic cleansing ever documented. Everybody you have ever known starts calling you by the incorrect name like nothing happened. Even your own mother doesn't know you anymore.
MAMA NOOOOOO!!!
This can't possibly be scary, can it? The name almost looks like the word "pizzazz" which is kind of fruity but at the worst would end up being a Shiny Pokemon, right? Shiny things have pizzazz?
Wrong. The "ZZAZZ" glitch is known as such because of a very specific string of data it injects directly into your save file. Unless you're tempted enough to fool with the game by using sequence breaks or a GameShark you won't come across this glitch, but God help you if you choose to peek into oblivion and play with things you shouldn't. Like the saying goes, "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back" except in this case the "abyss" is a glitched zombie trainer who violates you in the mindgina. Glitches can be like drugs and after a while freebasing MissingNo just isn't enough to get you high; that's when you OD and this happens:
Vuvuzela wants to fight! BZZZZZZZZZZ
Let's take a look at what the christ is going on here. First thing's first: your opponent. It's you as if you were staring into a mirror and there was an interdimensional time rift that sucked Red into the cursed mirror world and unleashed the fury of Hell itself into the unsuspecting Kanto. Impostor Red has a full stock of Pokemon, though the first one appears to be poisoned. When he sends this Pokemon out it's at level 153 and its health bar wraps around the entire screen. This is what it looks like when you attempt to use a digital Ouija board to channel spirits (reference to the "Channeler" trainers unintended but pointed out).
By this point it's already too late; you are completely and utterly screwed. The game is now operating by itself and is pulling code and instructions from the 7th dimension and the only thing you can do is get your ass kicked by Pokemon of the netherworld while the mirror image of yourself laughs in a mocking tone.
There is one escape, though: throw a Poke Ball. No, seriously. Bizarro Red will block it, the game will buzz for a second, and the battle will suddenly end akin to what happened with the old man in Viridian City.
But that's not the end of it, unfortunately. You may have escaped but merely looking at the source of the ZZAZZ infection is enough to let its memetic properties propagate throughout your entire game. Earlier I mentioned the game injects a certain string of data into your game save. Check your trainer name. It's a bunch of Z's. The hex value for the letter "Z" is 99. In base-10 99 is 153, you know, the level of the Pokemon that Mirror World Red sent out. Check your Pokemon roster. They are all now level 153. Not only that, they are all Bulbasuars. Bulbasaur occupies hex value 99, which of course translates to 153. Check Bulbasaur's moveset. Every attack will be Explosion. Can you guess the hex value of this move? I'm sure you can by now; it's like a bad Jim Carrey movie.
Any trainer you fight, no matter who they are, will now be ZZAZZ. And now you are, too.
Try to watch this video without shitting your pants:
Author's Edit: Please pardon my blatant lack of technical finesse and inability to embed this YouTube video properly. The link to the ZZAZZ video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3iVFfKjklk -- Resume pants soiling.
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