Glitch City
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Location  Location of Glitch City in Kanto. | |||
Glitch City (Japanese: 故障都市 Broken Down City) is a term used by players of the Pokémon games to refer to corrupted maps that result from a glitch present in the Generation I games of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow. Glitch Cities in Pokémon Yellow are different from those in Pokémon Red and Blue.
Accessing Glitch City
To access Glitch City, the player must enter a Safari Game, then immediately after entering, attempt to leave. The attendant will ask if the player wants to leave early to which the player must answer "no". The player must then reenter the Safari Zone. The game should then be saved and reset. The player must now attempt to exit the Safari Zone. The attendant will ask if the player would like to join a Safari Game, to which the player must answer "no". The player should then Fly anywhere.
After taking 500 steps, the Safari Zone's PA will ring, and the player will be warped into the Safari Zone gate. By leaving the gate through the south exit, the player will enter Glitch City.
Glitch City cannot be accessed if the player runs out of steps in Celadon City, Cerulean City, Lavender Town, Saffron City, Fuchsia City, Viridian City, Pewter City, Cinnabar Island, Vermilion City, or inside any building.
Escaping Glitch City
The only way to escape the glitch is to Fly or Teleport out of Glitch City. If the player saves in Glitch City and does not have a Pokémon that allows them to leave, they will be unable to escape.
Explanation
In the Pokémon games, doors and cave entrances are coded as "warps" that are placed on tiles. Warps have two values: one value specifies what map the player should be warped to, and the other specifies which warp on the map the player should be teleported to (warps can only lead to other warps).
This glitch occurs because the player manages to trick the game into letting him or her out of the Safari Zone while the step timer is still running, by saving the game. When the steps run out, they are warped to the Safari Zone gate, regardless of whether or not they are actually in the Safari Zone.
The reason the player may find themselves in Glitch City upon exiting the gate is because the door that would lead out to Fuchsia City is coded so that the warp points to warp 4 on the last map the player was on. This would work perfectly normally; however, many areas in Generation I Kanto lack a warp 4, and so the glitch goes through. The maps that have a warp 4—Celadon City, Cerulean City, Lavender Town, Saffron City, Fuchsia City, Viridian City, Pewter City, Cinnabar Island and Vermilion City—do not result in a Glitch City, instead taking the player to wherever the warp 4 is and letting them leave it normally.
Due to warp-breaking, of course, this means that Glitch City is nothing more than a corrupted version of whatever map the player was on when he or she ran out of time. When the Town Map is viewed in Glitch City, the map will say that the player is in the area they were in just before entering Glitch City, because they technically are in the area, just a corrupted version of it. This is why the Glitch City found by running out on Route 17 will cause the player to constantly walk downward and why attempting to use the Bicycle results in the message "You can't get off here.", and why wild Pokémon data is the same as that of the map that the player entered Glitch City from.
The dimensions of the source map are apparently preserved: going too far in any direction while in a Glitch City will cause the player to walk outside of the map, thus crashing the game. The only crash-free Glitch City is that of Pallet Town, which does not allow the player to move at all. Pokémon Stadium's Game Boy Tower mistakes such crashes for a corrupted game.
Although some aspects of the source map of Glitch City are preserved, such as tiles, most other attributes are completely changed, such as what is and isn't walkable terrain. There are essentially five types of tiles in Glitch City: walkable tiles, ledges, walls, water tiles, and traps (which can be walked onto but not walked off). Map links, which allow players to travel between two adjacent areas without a warp (such as from Route 22 to Viridian City), are also apparently ignored, so if a player manages to navigate to where an adjacent map should be and try to walk into it, the result will be the same as if they walked outside of the map.
Normally cuttable trees cannot be cut down in Glitch City, no matter how many times the move is used on it. No signs are readable, doors cannot be entered, and doors and cave entrances will not work. This is because objects (such as the invisible ones placed over signs) and warps (such as those placed over doors and cave entrances) are not present in Glitch City.
In Pokémon Yellow, Glitch City has a profound effect on Pikachu's overworld AI, causing it to run to and from random places. Walking onto certain glitched tiles also make it disappear, though after the player leaves such tiles, Pikachu will reappear and follow the player's recorded path. Pikachu's happiness will reset in Glitch City, causing it to dislike the player.
Specific Glitch Cities
Route 20
In the Glitch City accessed through Route 20, players are sometimes able to Surf north until they reach the barrier that normally prevents them from leaving Route 20 to the north.
Because invisible walls exist on the western side of this Glitch City, traveling north is the easiest way to escape it. If the player goes to the westernmost checkerboard pattern of water in the area, goes left of it one step, then back right, and presses start, the entire area will become Surfable water.
Rock Tunnel
While this location's Glitch City is not anything special, if the player runs out of time in this area without using Flash, the darkness effect will carry over into the Safari Zone itself. At this point, the player may pay to re-enter the Safari Zone and explore it in its entirety in the dark. Exiting into Glitch City simply results in the effect going away as usual.
Route 13Wrong template. See Template:Sup/doc.
In Pokémon Yellow, if a player goes to Route 13 to activate the glitch, after leaving the gate the player will be transported to a Glitch City where any move the player makes will send them to the Saffron Gym. After leaving the Gym, the player ends up in a completely different Glitch City.
Other effects
If the final step is taken as the player jumps a ledge in an area with a fourth warp, when returning to that area, the player may be able to walk through walls. If it is made while the player is spinning, the player will always be spinning while walking, even if this occurs in an area from which it is impossible to enter Glitch City, such as Viridian City.
If the player has one Pokémon in the party that is poisoned, when it faints, the player will appear in front of a Pokémon Center. This makes areas such as Cerulean Cave and Indigo Plateau accessible earlier than normal. The glitch is deactivated once a building is entered.
Fishing or pressing the start button while in Glitch City to bring up the menu often changes the appearance of the glitched terrain. This is sometimes permanent for the remainder of the time spent in Glitch City, and will at times change all of the tiles into water tiles.
Prevention in later games
In Generation II, the Safari Zone was not included; however, a similar effect can occur after catching or defeating ?????.
In all post-Generation II games, the warps are programmed differently, which prevents this glitch from occurring.
Trivia
- The fansite Glitch City Laboratories is named after the Glitch City glitch.
External links
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This article is part of both Project Locations and Project GlitchDex, Bulbapedia projects that, together, aim to write comprehensive articles on locations and glitches, respectively. | 
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