Fight Safari Zone Pokémon trick

The Fight Safari Zone Pokémon trick is an officially-acknowledged glitch in Pokémon Red and Blue. It is performed by entering and exiting the Safari Zone, then going to Route 20 without traveling through any area that contains wild Pokémon on land, and finally Surfing along the east coast of any island on the route. This is most commonly done by Flying from Fuchsia City directly to Cinnabar Island, then Surfing on the island's east coastline which is considered part of Route 20. The glitch can also be performed using the east coast of the Seafoam Islands, as there are no land wild Pokémon on Route 19 in between.

When performed, the wild Pokémon that appear while Surfing will not be the usual water encounters for Route 20, but rather will be wild Pokémon from the Safari Zone area the player was most recently in. This glitch thus allows players to battle and catch normally Safari Zone-exclusive Pokémon as if they were regular wild Pokémon, bypassing the Safari Zone's mechanics, hence its name.

Cause

This section is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it. Reason: Link to explanation on Smogon forums. Explain how this leads to the Viridian Forest/Safari Zone encounters oversight where certain grass tiles will never give wild encounters (this oversight is currently undocumented on Bulbapedia).

The maps in Red and Blue are made up of groups of tiles, each of which are composed of 2x2 subtiles. For example, the player takes up four subtiles: one of them is the player's top left, another is the top right, and so on. Correspondingly, every tile onto which the player can move is made of four subtiles. When the game is checking if an encounter is possible it uses the bottom-right subtile. An encounter is only allowed if this subtile is grass or water. Due to a programming error or oversight, when checking which Pokémon is encountered, the game uses the bottom-left subtile instead. (This is not the case in other Generation I games.) While choosing the Pokémon to encounter, the game assumes that non-water subtiles are grass tiles.

Each boundary tile between land and water contains both land and water subtiles. Because of this, shore tiles on the western and northern sides of islands cannot have wild Pokémon encounters, as the bottom-right subtile is non-grass land, while the southern shore tiles are treated as water. However, the eastern tiles (called left-facing shore tiles) have a bottom-right water subtile and a bottom-left land subtile. While Surfing on these tiles, the player therefore encounters Pokémon as though on land. However, the game only updates the grass encounter list when entering an area where there are grass encounters. If the player uses this trick in places without grass encounters, like Cinnabar Island and the Seafoam Islands, they encounter Pokémon from the last area they visited with grass. The player can thus enter and exit the Safari Zone to load its encounters, fly to Cinnabar Island, and surf along the eastern coast to encounter Safari Zone Pokémon.

Extensions

The glitch is not exclusive to Safari Zone encounters, but can in fact be performed using any area. The wild Pokémon that appear on the east coast of Cinnabar Island and Seafoam Islands will simply be the wild Pokémon that appear in grass in the area the player was last in that has grass.

Old Man glitch

Main article: Old man glitch

During the Old Man's catching tutorial, the player's name is overwritten with OLD MAN. Because there are no wild Pokémon in Viridian City, the player's name is stored in the grass Pokémon encounter list. Using this glitch allows the player to encounter wild Pokémon based on the characters in their name, which can be any Pokémon in the game, potentially over level 100. Depending on their name, the player can also encounter the glitch Pokémon MissingNo. and 'M (00), as well as Glitch Trainers.

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Glitches in the Pokémon games Multiple generations Transform glitches • Glitch Trainers • Cloning glitches • Error messages • Arbitrary code execution Generation I Glitches • Battle glitches • Overworld glitches -- • 0 ERROR • Broken hidden items • Cable Club escape glitch • Dual-type damage misinformation Experience underflow glitch • Fight Safari Zone Pokémon trick • Glitch City • Item duplication glitch • Item underflow Mew glitch • Old man glitch • Pewter Gym skip glitch • Pokémon merge glitch • Rhydon glitch • Rival twins glitch Select glitches (dokokashira door glitch, second type glitch) • Super Glitch Time Capsule exploit • Walking through walls • ZZAZZ glitch Generation II Glitches • Battle glitches Bug-Catching Contest glitch • Celebi Egg glitch • Coin Case glitches • Experience underflow glitch Glitch dimension • Glitch Egg • Teru-sama • Time Capsule exploit • Trainer House glitches • GS Ball mail glitch Generation III Glitches • Battle glitches • Overworld glitches Berry glitch • Dive glitch • Pomeg glitch • Glitzer Popping Generation IV Glitches • Battle glitches • Overworld glitches Acid rain • GTS glitches • Pomeg glitch • Rage glitch Surf glitch • Tweaking • Pal Park Retire glitch Generation V Glitches • Battle glitches • Overworld glitches Charge Beam additional effect chance glitch • Charge move replacement glitch • Choice item lock glitch Frozen Zoroark glitch • Sky Drop glitch Generation VI Glitches • Battle glitches • Overworld glitches Charge Beam additional effect chance glitch • Charge move replacement glitch • Choice item lock glitch Lumiose City save glitch • Symbiosis Eject Button glitch • Toxic sure-hit glitch Generation VII Glitches • Battle glitches Charge Beam additional effect chance glitch • Charge move replacement glitch • Choice item lock glitch Toxic sure-hit glitch • Rollout storage glitch Generation VIII Glitches Charge Beam additional effect chance glitch • Charge move replacement glitch • Choice item lock glitch Toxic sure-hit glitch • Rollout storage glitch • Party item offset glitch Generation IX Glitches Glitch effects Game freeze • Glitch battle • Glitch song Gen I only: Glitch screen • TMTRAINER effect • Inverted sprite Gen II only: Glitch dimension Lists Glitches (GO • Mystery Dungeon • TCG GB • Spin-off) Glitch Pokémon (Gen I • Gen II • Gen III • Gen IV • Gen V • Gen VI • Gen VII • Gen VIII) Glitch moves (Gen I) • Glitch types (Gen I • Gen II)

This article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games.