Walking through walls

Walking through walls is possible via glitches in the Generation I games.

Glitches

To walk through walls, the player must first trick the game into letting them exit the Safari Zone while it still thinks the Safari Game is running. To do this the player must enter the Safari Zone, paying $500 to play. Next the player must try to exit the Safari Zone, but when asked if they want to leave early, they must select no. Now, the player must save the game and restart. When the game loads, the player must again exit the Safari Zone, but this time, the attendant will treat the player as if they entered from Fuchsia City, and when the attendant asks if the player wants to play the Safari Game, the player must select no. From there on there are two methods to doing the glitch.

Ledge jump method

For this method, the player must first get a poisoned Pokémon before entering the Safari Zone, and deposit all of their other Pokémon in the PC. Either the poisoned Pokémon must have high HP (over 124) or the player must have enough Potions to keep it from fainting too early. Then the player must enter the Safari Zone only with the poisoned Pokémon, then follow the above steps.

After setting up the glitch, the player then jump off a ledge exactly when the game thinks the Safari Game should end. When the player jumps off a ledge, they temporarily lose collision interactions with solid objects until they land on the lower ground, so if the game transitions to another map before the player can land, the collision interactions are never restored. To make extended use of this glitch, the player must also black out while inside the Safari Zone's entrance building after being warped back when the Safari Game ended.

From there, the player must walk 499 steps, ending at a position in the city where they can jump off a ledge with one more step. (The poisoned Pokémon loses HP every four steps and causes the screen to flash, so it is possible to count 124 flashes and take 3 further steps. By the same token, it is also possible to calculate a loss of 124 HP for the poisoned Pokémon and track its HP.) If the poisoned Pokémon has less than 124 HP, a Potion must be used on it to prevent it from fainting.

After the player has walked 499 steps and is in an appropriate position, they must jump off the ledge so that they are in midair when they run out of steps for the Safari Game (with the glitched drop shadow sprite underneath the player). They will be warped back to the Safari Zone entrance building and the background music will stop. The player is now able to walk through walls, but attempting to leave the building without the doors at this point would cause the game to crash. Talking to the man will only cause him to say "Welcome to the Safari Zone" without actually asking if the player wants to enter. If the player enters the Safari Zone, they will have over 100 Safari Balls and possibly infinite steps, but the player can't walk through walls anymore. If the player walks around in the building until the poisoned Pokémon faints, they will black out and be warped to the last Pokémon Center they healed at, and from there they will be able to walk through walls anywhere outdoors. The glitch wears off when entering a door (the normal entrance square to the bridge to the S.S. Anne where the NPC normally stops the player counts as a door).

Pewter Museum guide NPC method

Another simpler method is to use the NPC that guides the player to the Pewter Museum of Science. What the player must do is run out of Safari Zone steps during the cutscene where the NPC is guiding the player to the museum. If done correctly, the player will be teleported to the Safari Zone entrance, then upon leaving will instead be exiting from the PokéMart in Pewter City and a textbox pops up. Then they must save and reset.

Afterwards the player will find the NPC infinitely walking downwards and looping each time he goes offscreen. The player must then talk to him while standing to the right of the Pokémon Center entrance, which begins a walking sequence with the menu repeatedly popping up. Holding B allows the player to walk anywhere except down. If player uses Fly, they will be able to walk through walls in any direction while holding the B button, until they enter a door or Trainer battle.

Outcome

If done correctly the player will enter a state where they can walk through any solid object. If the ledge jump method was used, the player can still talk to NPCs and interact with them as normal. If the Pewter Museum guide method was used, the player cannot interact with NPCs or objects on the overworld. Trainer battles will still trigger (however, upon completion of the battle, normal collision effects will be restored) and normal chat dialogue will remain. The player can interact with the "on display" Pokémon in Fuchsia City where their only dialogue is "!". If the player heads to Cycling Road and finishes a trainer battle, they can walk around without a bike. If the player battles a trainer while standing on water, they will be unable to move in any direction without the use of Surf after the battle.

The player is also able to fly and retain the ability to walk through walls. Under certain scenarios, this glitch may trigger the Glitch City glitch. Depending on the location, the overworld can have incorrect tilesets. For example Indigo Plateau has a unique tilesets, thus Flying there then walking in other places in Kanto causes buildings and other tiles to look unusual.

Saving the game and reloading it restores normal collision effects. If the player stands on Cycling Road and saves and loads the game, they can walk around on Cycling Road without a bicycle. Saving and loading the game while on a water tile causes the player to be unable to move without the use of Surf. Saving and loading the game while standing on top of the guard to the S.S. Anne allows the player to enter the bridge and then the ship. If an NPC forces the player to move, the glitch is cancelled.

This glitch may also replace the sprites of some Trainers.

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