Glitch Unown

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Reason: Information for other generations, such as Generation IV. More information in general.

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Glitch Unown (Japanese: バグアンノーン Bug Unknown) are invalid Unown in the Pokémon games.

In Generation II, they can be found with glitches on the Unown Mode and occasionally result in side effects. If their sprite is forced in battle with an external device, these side effects may differ.

The term is also used to refer to a class of glitch Pokémon in Generation III, and glitch Pokémon with index values greater than 684 in the main-series Generation V games, although more glitch Unown most likely exist in other games.

Causes

Normally, the Unown Mode should display an entry for each Unown. This limits the valid values to 26, while there are 256 possible values. For this reason, there are 230 hexadecimal values in the Unown Mode where the data does not consist of a valid Unown's picture and name. Index numbers past 26 presumably represent unrelated data encoded as "Unown" data.

Registering glitch Unown

To register a glitch Unown in Unown Mode, the player must obtain a ????? (Hex FF) as a bad clone from the Celebi Egg glitch. If the ????? is placed as the first Pokémon in the party, the player can use the "MOVE PKMN W/O MAIL" option to withdraw 6 Pokémon.

This corrupts RAM data located past the expected end of the Pokémon data structure, although there are only a limited amount of Pokémon that the player can withdraw before the game freezes.

If details about a 'post-6' Pokémon conflicts with data about Pokémon in the Unown Mode, then it is possible to replace entries with glitch Unown, provided that the player already has the Unown Mode. For example, the index number of the current fourth move's PP of Pokémon #11 conflicts with RAM data associated with the first Unown.

It is possible to replace the first Unown with a glitch Unown this way provided that the player used PP Ups to raise its associated index number past 26.

In the process of obtaining glitch Unown, the player will be corrupting the values of other RAM addresses such as those determining seen or owned Pokémon in the Pokédex, or the number of different options on the menu.

Glitch Unown types and forms

Types

  • Static: The glitch Unown takes its data from an address in the game's RAM which is not related to the player's location. As a result, the glitch Unown will have a unique sprite.
  • Dynamic: The glitch Unown takes its data partially from the player's location. The glitch Unown will change its sprite depending on where the Unown Mode is displayed.
  • Influenced by the Pokédex Mode: By changing the Pokédex Mode, the glitch Unown will change.

Forms

  • Letters: The glitch Unown is composed of Unown's letters on a black background.
  • Lines and/or squares: The glitch Unown is made up of black lines or of black/white squares.
  • Mixed: Means that the glitch Unown is made up of symbols and/or of scrambled Pokémon pictures.
  • Unknown: Some glitch Unown can't have their description shown because they freeze the game when accessed.

Gallery

Effects

 
A Pokédex corrupted with a glitch Unown displayed
 
This glitch message may appear displaying a glitch Unown

A glitch Unown can trigger several other glitches when displayed, including corruption of the Pokédex, corrupted graphics, the Trainer House glitch, corruption of the saved file, and/or the glitch dimension effect. The message "No windows available for popping" can also appear. Glitch messages, which will be placed directly in the player's mailbox (listed below), can appear as well.

List of glitch Unown that can cause glitch messages

This is a list of glitch Unown that change the values associated with the player's mailbox, with the exact amount of glitch messages that will be added. Missing hexadecimal values will not corrupt the player's mailbox.

Hex Number of glitch messages
00 205
1C 201
1D 201
1E 70
23 194
24 193
27 1, can be converted into a Fire Stone
29 232
31 62, can be used for the GS Ball mail glitch
32 124
38 57
39 12
3A 142
3C 207
3D 248
41 17
43 252
46 20
47 10
48 179
49 95
4A 201
4B 126
4C 33
4E 136
4F 119
50 254
52 129
53 206
54 115
56 209
58 15
5A 1, can be converted into a Master Ball
5C 205
60 80
67 12
69 206
6B 107
70 192
73 251
74 1, can be converted into a Silver Wing
7D 124
83 209
84 222
86 15
89 57
8A 63
8E 220
91 88
97 251
99 243
A1 33
A2 57
AA 95
B0 251
B2 1, can be converted into a Master Ball
B8 9
BC 57
C0 197
C1 52
C5 206
CF 224
D3 17
D6 206
DA 50
DC 57
DE 42
DF 195
E3 208
E5 241
E6 15
EC 1, can be converted into a Master Ball
ED 50
F1 105
F2 175
F9 53


Generation III Glitch Unown

  This section is incomplete.
Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it.
Reason: More general research needed. Is this doable in the regular game through Action Replay/PKHeX or is this an unintended consequence of ROM hacking?

Modifying the sprite ID of an Unown may result in glitch Pokémon for the invalid values; namely regular Pokémon sprites with a glitched palette (also called Generation III hybrids), no sprite Unown, or game freezing Unown.

By ChickasaurusGL
This video is not available on Bulbapedia; instead, you can watch the video on YouTube here.


Generation V Glitch Unown

  This section is incomplete.
Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it.
Reason: More general research needed. These Pokémon are likely different enough from the generation II glitches to warrant a specific page, not too sure though

Some Pokémon with an index value of greater than the largest valid index number in the game (684 in B2W2) can also be referred to as "glitch Unown". These glitch Pokémon use the sprites of Unown, alongside the cry of a Bulbasaur. Their names consist mostly of question marks (sometimes incorporating kanji and even Korean hangul in B2W2), and their Abilities match those of alternate forms of Pokémon like Deoxys, Wormadam, Darmanitan, and Keldeo, as these are almost certainly the points where alternate form data is stored. It may be the case that, like Generation III, only the sprites are given these index numbers, and all information is instead pulled from the true Unown index number, leaving these other values to be filled in with either garbage data, or the data corresponding to other Pokémon forms which may be stored there instead.

By SuprRooster
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External links

Video

By GlitchchampionPKMN
This video is not available on Bulbapedia; instead, you can watch the video on YouTube here.



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Generation II: ????? (00GSFCGSFEGSFFGS00CFCCFECFFC)
Glitch EggGlitch Unown
Generation III: -???????????Bad Egg
Generation IV: -----Bad EggGeneration IV hybrid
Generation V: -----Bad EggGlitch Unown
Generation VI: Bad EggGeneration VI 724+ glitch Pokémon
  This glitch Pokémon article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games.