Part 5: Cooltrainer

Don't mind me, just seeing how Pokémon Stadium 2 reacts to unused items. Seems to think the surfboard is a consumable! Which should mean you can transfer it to other saves, which would be interesting.

Now then, the subject of today's update is the single most broken Pokémon in Generations 1 and 2. Can you guess who it is?



It's actually quite interesting. I used to think Ditto was a pointless inclusion in the game, since it has one single gimmick move that nobody would use, and its only real purpose is breeding.

Then I remember you can use it for the Mew Glitch, and I laughed a little. Oh, but there's more to this Pokémon than just copying your Special stat. This is gonna get good.



This is by far the most broken trick ever. Transform into any enemy, and then--



DAMMIT PIDGEOTTOOOOO



AHEM. As I was saying. First Transform into something with two or more moves.



Then use the select button to swap any move with the first. Exit the battle.



What happened? I have no moves? Actually, what's happened is that "Move Zero" is at the top of Ditto's list here. Transform is now the second move, but it can't be selected since anything below Move Zero can't be chosen.



Move Zero has an interesting type! Most people refer to this move as "Cooltrainer" after the type. It has no PP when you first get it, but don't worry, the move is nothing special. It usually has Fissure's animation, but it freezes the game if it doesn't kill something. That's because its additional effect is to run code from the HP value of the fourth enemy Pokémon. No really, I'm not kidding.



However, it can have...other effects...at random.



Oh...oh dear what have I done



Somehow the enemy gained thousands of HP and it's all getting burned away in one turn.



I think it took a full five minutes of real time. (I was fast-forwarding)



And then the game freezes.

Now, when talking about the Cooltrainer move, it becomes necessary to discuss the "Super Glitch". Super Glitch is a term for any glitch move or item with an excessively long name, which happens because the game is pulling data from the RAM and using it as the name. Since the names of these are so long, when the game loads them, the name often spills into other parts of the RAM and scrambles it.

The Cooltrainer move has a similar effect, but with Super Glitch moves the game not only loads the name but it also prints it on the screen. The Cooltrainer move always shows up as "--" so the game doesn't print the name, making it MUCH safer to use: The Super Glitch can actually scramble parts of your save, and if your name gets scrambled, DON'T SAVE or the game will think, "Well you don't have a name so clearly there was no save. New game?"

Now, most people out there thought that the Cooltrainer effect was funny, but impratical. HA! What a grand and intoxicating innocence. You should know by now that ANYTHING can be turned to your advantage in this game.



So where does Cooltrainer's internal name come from? Whenever you open the Item menu, the game copies the screen tiles into memory, just so it knows what to print back to the screen when you're done. Cooltrainer's name comes from that screen data.



The tiles in this game have ID numbers. To do this trick, find an area with a tile of ID 0x50 (for this tileset that's the lower-left part of the tree) appearing in the yellow area, but NOT in the red area. Go to an area like that, open the items menu, then close it. DON'T open it again until after the trick is done.



This next part needs a bit of luck. Open the moves list and hit up or down a lot, or repeatedly open and close the moves list.



Eventually, BOOM, the screen distorts. Now toss your Master Ball, and...!



BINGO! The species of what you get is determined by the cyan tile in that diagram earlier. The green tile determines level and the magenta tile determines IVs, if you care.

...However, when I did this the game froze after exiting the battle. For some reason, certain locations do that after the encounter. Being in a cave area lets you avoid that effect (somehow) so people doing this will want to set up outside Vermillion City, where Diglett's Cave is. As you can tell, this trick is very unruly, as it's random whether or not the screen distorts like that to begin with.

If you get used to it, though, it's easy to catch certain Pokémon early, as well as some rare ones like Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. You are, however, somewhat bound by the laws of physics since the trick is based on physical location.

Ah, but I know a SPECIAL place we can go, one that ISN'T bound by the laws of physics.



To the Safari Zone! Oh, by the way, if you use the Itemfinder in that exact spot, it detects an item, but where? It seems they made a mistake and placed a hidden Nugget offscreen where you can't physically pick it up! Strange.



We enter the Safari Zone...and immedietely leave!



Actually, no, we don't. I say "no" and go back in.



I save, reset, and reload. THEN I leave.



Why, it seems they forgot I paid to get in and want me to pay again! I refuse.



I decide to go ride my...nonexistant, ghost-bike.



Oh gosh darn it I was four steps away from HM03 and I got ding-donged. Well I--

Wait, I'm not IN the Safari Zone, how did I get ding-donged?!



This is another famous glitch: Attempting to leave, saving, reloading, and then leaving again like I did causes the step counter to still be running even after leaving the Safari Zone, and when it counts down to zero, you get teleported back to--



OH MY GOD WHAT!

Welcome to Glitch City! The supposed "homeland" of Missingno. even though he can't really appear here. Actually, I wonder if Giratina and his homeland was inspired by Missingno.?

The reason I get sent here is because, after being called back to that building, the game wanted to send me to an exit that doesn't exist on the map I was on. Glitch City will look different depending on where you got ding-donged. Most towns except Palette Town just send you to a certain building and leave it at that. At first glance, this doesn't look too practical, but again, you can turn ANYTHING to your advantage.

Remember the Cooltrainer glitch? Glitch City tiles can have any value, so it's only a matter of finding the right glitch area and doing the trick from there. You can even get otherwise unobtainable Glitch Pokémon. But there's MORE: You can escape the Cable Club by doing this trick too! And that's great for Yellow players, too, since they can't black out due to poison - the game safeguards against that.

Oh, but there's MORE. Glitch City can give you the magical ability to walk through walls! How? Well, it's tricky, but you have to make it so the final step before you get ding-donged is a jump off a ledge. If that happens, you're sent back to the Safari Zone gate, able to walk through walls. The effect ends when you exit the building -- unless you black out, then the effect stays with you in the overworld until you enter a door!

As a totally cosmetic side effect, being in Rock Tunnel when you get ding-donged will cause the Safari Zone to be dark. Cute, but not useful.



There's not much else to Glitch City, unfortunately. Other than, of course, that you must have Fly or Teleport to escape, unless you're lucky and the glitch map connects to one of the real maps. DON'T save while you're here, for safety purposes.



Getting back to the Cooltrainer glitch, if I use this area for it, I could get Hitmonchan, but I think we can do even better. Let's distort the screen TWICE.



Well, I wanted to, but I couldn't get the thing to work, so I'll just explain it instead: If you distort the screen once, then switch to another Pokémon, its nickname gets printed onto the screen, see? Now, keep in mind the Cooltrainer move works based on the screen data. Were I to open my items and distort the screen AGAIN, the wild Pokémon would turn into something based on the second letter of the nickname printed. It's the same as the Old Man glitch, only you can get Glitch Pokémon legitimately this way, and there was one I wanted to show, but sadly it'll have to wait.

Here's something less interesting but fun nonetheless.



You see this Gyarados? It is not an ordinary Gyarados.



It's the Red Gyarados from Crystal! I traded it to my Blue save. Whether a Pokémon has a "shine" like this is determined by its IVs, and the Red Gyarados is fixed to always be shiny. That way, even if traded to Gen 1, it'll keep its shine.

There's something funny you can do with shiny Pokémon. When Ditto Transforms, it copies everything about the enemy: moves, stats, IVs. But it'll revert back after the fight is done, right?...Unless, it Transforms TWICE, in which case it'll keep the IVs of what it Transformed into.

"But how could you possibly have Ditto Transform twice? It loses the move the first time it Transforms!" Well, think about it for a moment before you read on, it's a fun little puzzle. How can I get an enemy Ditto to Transform twice?



Here's your answer!



What? No, you don't want to waste it on good Pokémon, Mimic is a terrible move. Why would I spend one turn copying an enemy's move, unless it was permanent?

Well, in Generation 2 if Ditto Transforms into a Smeargle and Sketches a move, he keeps it PERMANENTLY. Not that Ditto being able to use any move is at all helpful.



I'll probably never need the TM again but I duplicate it anyways. It was always annoying that most TMs only have one copy of them per save, requiring a restart if you want more. Well, not anymore!



Anything except Ditto can learn this, I think. Some people think Ditto is a failed clone of Mew, due to them sharing the same colors - regular and shiny - and they are both the sole users of Transform. Kind of silly, but given how glitchy Ditto is, I think that theory might hold some water.



Next we send out our shiny against any Ditto, and Mimic Transform. This was hard because I still don't have any badges and the Gyarados is traded.



Er, that's normal, I think.



Ditto Transforms once, copying Gyarados's moveset, including the copied Transform.



And then Transforms again.



The end result of this? Well let's head over to Stadium 2 and take a look!



BOOM! Instant shiny Ditto. I mean, Ditto's still not that cool or anything, but on the bright side, it will have the shiny colors of whatever it Transforms into! Interestingly enough, Mew can never be shiny, because all event Mews have fixed IVs, so the only way to see its shiny colors without hacking is to get a shiny Ditto and Transform. Unless you get a lucky IV roll with the Mew Glitch. 1-in-8192 chance, people. Good luck.

"But Ephraim, doesn't Mew have Transform too?"

Well, yes, but he learns it at Level 10, so you can't really use the Mew Glitch to--

...wait. Wait a minute.

The glitch allows an enemy who Transforms twice to copy over the IVs of its target. There are only two Pokémon who can do this, Mew and Ditto.

Mew can be encountered by facing an enemy with 21 Special, which is easy, but Mew learns Transform at Level 10. I would have to raise the enemy's attack modifier.

What move can raise the attack modifier?
* Growl
* Charm
* Swords Dance

Swords Dance can raise the attack modifier! But it raises the user's attack, not the enemy. Do any Pokémon ahve both 21 special and Swords Dance?

Which Pokémon learns Swords Dance at a low enough level?
* Farfetch'd
* Pinsir
* Scyther
* There aren't any

Nobody can learn the move at a low enough level. There is a TM for Swords Dance, but no enemies ever have TM moves in Generation 1. There's got to be a way...think!

How can any enemy learn both Swords Dance and have 21 special
* Mew Glitch encounter
* Memory hacking
* Get your own and have a Ditto Transform

GET YOUR OWN AND HAVE DITTO COPY THE MOVE AND SPECIAL

Shiny Mew, here I come!



See, I knew I'd come here eventually!



Relevant items. TM03 is indeed Swords Dance.



Oh, sure, I can't Teleport out of the building with literal Teleporters. Was I supposed to have Dig instead?

...Actually, apparently Dig CAN get you out of any building in the game. Since they're indoors. Indoors obviously means dungeon, right?



Excellent. Could probably do without Sand Attack but this fits our needs!



By the way, if you want an easy setup for the Ditto version of the Mew Glitch, this is a really good trainer to use. This route is right next to the one with the wild Ditto, and there are multiple trainers that can see very far.



It's working! Somebody call The Führer!

(Turn captions on!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDo1XtcdzeU

What the heck do I do with all these Ditto, though?