Surf glitch
- This article is about the glitch in Generation IV. For glitch in Generation I which uses Surf, see List of glitches in Generation I#Save Surf glitch.
The Surf glitch is a glitch found only in the Japanese versions of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl best known for allowing the player to catch the event-only legendary Pokémon Darkrai and Shaymin. It is one of two glitches in Generation IV officially acknowledged by Nintendo, with the other being the broken escalator.
Performing the glitch
Due to a mistake, the door in Aaron's room of the Pokémon League can be Surfed through, by facing the door and selecting Surf from the party screen. This allows the player to step into the void around the indoor area and walk to other areas.
By counting steps using the Pokétch pedometer app, the player can travel to Newmoon Island and the Flower Paradise without the event-exclusive Member Card and Oak's Letter items, respectively. The player can proceed to catch Darkrai and Shaymin at these locations, then Fly or Teleport back to a normally-accessible area and resume play.
As this glitch bypasses the usual event flags, neither Pokémon will regenerate if the player later acquires the Member Card or Oak's Letter and travels to the area normally. To partially remedy this, the two event Pokémon were given through direct Mystery Gift distributions rather than Mystery Gift distributions of the event items. The items were not legitimately distributed until the release of Pokémon Platinum, in which the glitch has been fixed.
Arceus is strongly believed although not conclusively proven to be unobtainable with this glitch, as the Hall of Origin is not an outdoor area unlike the other two event-only areas.
Danger
Venturing into the void provides for some interesting and potentially hazardous consequences to those who would exploit this glitch. As the area has not been programmed properly, since the player would normally not be able to access it, it runs the risk of causing the player to get stuck forever. Saving outside of the boundaries of a building or in the Mystery Zone may cause corruption of game data, including the loss of the save file completely, with the player required to start their game anew.
Remedy
Nintendo has acknowledged the glitch and offered workarounds and methods of recovery. The glitch was removed from international versions of the games; however, Tweaking can lead to the same result in these games.
In the case where the player has saved the game while trapped, it is possible to repair the save state with a program that was distributed to DS Download Stations in Japan starting October 27. The player will be able to resume the game, reappearing outside their house in Twinleaf Town.
If one does not have access to a DS Station, one may mail their DS game card for repair to Nintendo of Japan at this address:
〒601-8501 京都市南区上鳥羽鉾立町11番地1 任天堂株式会社 「お客様ご相談窓口 ポケモンＤ＆Ｐ係」
Videos
Performing the glitch in order to get Darkrai
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| This video is not available on Bulbapedia; instead, you can watch the video on YouTube here. | |
Performing the glitch in order to get Shaymin
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| This video is not available on Bulbapedia; instead, you can watch the video on YouTube here. | |
Trivia
- While the Surf glitch has been removed in the international versions of Diamond and Pearl, another glitch that allows the player to enter the void, tweaking, still allows players to catch Darkrai and Shaymin. Like the Surf glitch, there is no known way to use it to encounter Arceus.
External links
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This article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games. |
