List of glitches in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series

This is a list of glitches in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.

List of glitches

Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team

Slot 2 wipe glitch

The original Japanese release of Blue Rescue Team could wipe the save data of inserted GBA games outside of Red Rescue Team. This was fixed in a subsequent revision of the Japanese version, which was offered to owners of the original release through a replacement program until March 2018.^[1] None of the international releases are affected by this glitch.

Boss health duplication glitch

Boss Pokémon have more HP than normal, but will revert to their normal HP values upon being recruited. However, if the player places a Reviver Seed on the ground and allows the boss to pick it up, then recruiting them after they revive with it will result in the recruited Pokémon having the same amount of HP they did as a boss.

By Mystaldi

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

Dungeon shop glitch

By placing an item on the carpet and quickly saving the game, after the game is restarted, Kecleon will continue to think that the item has been sold recently and will pay the sell price every time he is spoken to.

By MrAlbrave

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

Powder Snow map glitch

When an enemy Pokémon is knocked out with Powder Snow, its red map indicator may linger on the map for a few seconds before disappearing.

Relearnable move glitch

Some Pokémon will lose access to relearnable moves at the Gulpin Link Shop if their Evolution does not occur in a specific order. In order to permanently gain access to moves that only the middle Evolution can naturally learn, a fully evolved Pokémon must achieve the level required to learn these moves as all of its previous forms. For example, if a Lotad evolves into Lombre at level 31 and then into Ludicolo at level 49, it will be unable to relearn Hydro Pump because it did not achieve level 49 as a Lotad, and Lotad does not learn Hydro Pump. This affects most three-stage evolutionary lines that evolve through Evolution stone, as well as Alakazam and Slaking. It does not affect Pokémon that were already evolved when recruited.

Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness

Entei and Suicune animation oversight

Entei and Suicune animations have oversights present only in the Japanese version of the game.

Entei's up-facing charge animation mistakenly uses a placeholder animation, which features misspelling of its name as エンテー, whereas Suicune's left-facing walking animation cuts off the right side early.

False thief oversight

In Explorers of Time and Darkness, if a wild Pokémon is knocked out on a Kecleon shop and drops an item, the item can be picked up like usual, but this will be considered stealing. Even speaking to Kecleon before leaving the shop won't do anything, as the item wasn't set as a Kecleon shop item.

In Explorers of Sky onward, Kecleon will ask whether the player would like to sell the item as if they set it down themselves. The player can also pick up the item with no risk.

Member join glitch

If the player completes a job with a reward listed as ???, it means that the player will either receive an Egg, the client will join the exploration team, or—in the case of Magnezone and Magnemite when Chansey already has an Egg—receive 1000 Poké. If one of these jobs is completed before the player can recruit new members, the game will half freeze after the text: "Thank you for rescuing <Pokémon>!" However, the background music will stay an infinite loop.

Shadow Ball oversight

In the Japanese version only, Shadow Ball erroneously affects a target's Defense stat, instead of Sp. Def.

Explorers of Sky

Giratina stat modifier oversight

Due to differences in stat calculation in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, Giratina's forms receive passive stat stage modifiers in Explorers of Sky, with Altered Forme receiving -2 to its attacking stats and +2 to its defensive stats, while the opposite is applied to Origin Forme, to reflect their respective defensive or offensive characteristics in the core series. However, in the Japanese version, the Defense and Sp. Def modifiers are erroneously applied to the opponent Giratina is currently facing instead rather than Giratina itself, causing Altered Forme to be significantly weaker than intended, and Origin Forme significantly stronger.

By ライねる

Luminous Spring softlock glitch

In the North American and Australian releases of the game, the game may softlock if the player attempts to evolve a Pokémon whose name or nickname consists of exactly ten characters. This glitch is fixed in the European version of the game.

The glitch will be avoided in any of the following cases:

The hero and partner remain unaffected by this glitch, and will always be able to evolve once story requirements are met.
The last recruited Pokémon will avoid the glitch.
The next recruited Pokémon was recruited on a boss or special floor, or in an overworld location such as Treasure Town or Spinda's Café.
The next recruited Pokémon is male, genderless or female-only (such as Nidoran♀) and has a National Pokédex number up to and including #229 (Houndoom).
The next recruited Pokémon is a male Leafeon, a female Ariados, or a female Torterra.

These criteria can be used to effectively immunize certain Pokémon from being affected by the glitch. For example, if the player recruits any male Wooper right after recruiting a Charmander without a nickname, this Charmander will remain unaffected by the glitch unless the Wooper is released. Coincidentally, it is possible for an affected Pokémon to evolve if the following glitch-susceptible recruits are released.

Move transference glitch

It is possible to copy one Pokémon's current moveset to another, regardless of whether they can learn the moves. This glitch has three different methods, differing whether used on recruited Pokémon or the hero Pokémon, partner Pokémon, and Manaphy.

This glitch only works in the Japanese version of Explorers of Sky.

The first method works for recruited Pokémon:

Form a party consisting in order of a leader, a Pokémon with a move to copy, and the target.
Travel to 3F of Sky Peak's 1st Pass, as it has an easily accessible waypoint.
Send the copier home, and reach the waypoint of the dungeon without recruiting any Pokémon.
Open the menu and check the move that was copied to the target. The move menu for the Pokémon that was sent home should then open, thus successfully copying the move.

The second method works similarly and has limited use on the main trio:

The copier Pokémon must be recruited mid-dungeon and learn the move mid-dungeon.
Form a party with a recruited Pokémon as the leader, and one of the main trio in slots 2 and 3, with the latter being the target of the copied move.
Dismiss the Pokémon in slot 2 and recruit the copier on the same floor. The move to copy can be taught via level up or TM if they do not already know it. Now send the copier home.
As in the first method, reach the waypoint of the dungeon without recruiting any Pokémon and open the move menu of the target Pokémon, causing the copier's move menu to open instead.

The third method requires the use of two games and two consoles, but is more versatile than the second method for copying moves to the main trio:

One console performs a rescue and supplies the Pokémon with the move to be copied to the main console.
On the main console, form a team similar to the second method. Enter Sky Peak, send the slot 2 Pokémon home, then get defeated and wait for rescue.
Complete the rescue request on the other console, sending the copier Pokémon as the helper.
On the main console, similar to before, reach the waypoint with the helper as the second team member and refrain from recruiting. There, the copier will depart, and the target Pokémon should have the copier's moveset upon checking the menu.

Wonder Mail S exploits

Wonder Mail generators for Explorers of Sky contain various exploits exempt from Time and Darkness. These include turning the first floor of Beach Cave into the final floor of Zero Isle North, obtaining Primal Dialga or multiple copies of legendary Pokémon, and unlocking dungeons prematurely.

Red and Blue Rescue Team and Explorers of Time and Darkness

Faint animation glitch

When a Pokémon is locked into a move such as Whirlpool or inflicted with poison and is knocked out on the same turn right afterwards, their faint animation may not play. Instead, the Pokémon will simply become transparent and disappear during their idle animation.

Growl range glitch

AI-controlled Pokémon will only use Growl when a target is two tiles away. While this is intended behavior, due to the discrepancy between the AI range and actual range, a Pokémon standing on the entrance tile of a room may attempt to use Growl on a Pokémon inside a corridor, which will cause the move to fail.

Explorers of Time, Darkness and Sky

Recruit exploit

A glitch utilizing Wonder Mail allows any Pokémon in the game to be recruited, including normally unobtainable Pokémon such as the shiny Celebi. A mission to find the Gabite Scale in Labyrinth Cave can be created using a mail generator, with the reward being an egg using the ID of the desired Pokémon.

This exploit requires no eggs presently at Chansey's Day Care and no Gabite Scales in the player's bag.

Violent Seed glitch

A glitch causes Violent Seeds to not increase the Attack and/or Special Attack stats by the proper amount when those stats are at a negative stage. Internally, each stat stage in the game is assigned an ID from 0 (-10) to 20 (+10). For Violent Seeds, the game adds the ID to the stat stage, which does not function properly for negative values. For instance, at -6 Attack, an increase of only 4 would be granted, resulting in -2 Attack.

This glitch is only present in Explorers of Time and Darkness, as well as the Japanese version of Explorers of Sky.

Female Feraligatr recruit rate oversight

While male Feraligatr use the intended recruit rate of -12% used by all fully evolved regular first partner Pokémon, female Feraligatr are normally set at an abnormally low -33.9% due to an oversight. The latter value matches the species' recruit rate in Rescue Team, meaning this was most likely a value that was only partially adjusted. Feraligatr is the only Pokémon in the Explorers series to have recruit rate differences between male and female individuals of the same species.

In Explorers of Sky, answering "Yes" to the "Did you play "Explorers of Time" or "Explorers of Darkness"?" question at the beginning of the game will set female Feraligatr's recruitment rate to -12% until any Feraligatr has been recruited, upon which it will be set to -33.9%. The question notably does not affect male Feraligatr.

Red and Blue Rescue Team and Explorers of Time, Darkness and Sky

Level-up moveset oversight

If a Pokémon is supposed to learn multiple moves at a specific level, it will be prompted to learn only one of them after achieving that level, randomly chosen between the possible moves; the missing moves will have to be remembered at the game's relevant town facility to be accessed. This oversight is most notable with Deoxys's Defense Forme, who has two instances of moves learned at the same level, but is incapable of using the facility, and requires usage of Doom Seeds if the player wants it to learn both moves at once.

Aggressive Kecleon glitch

If a team member attacks Kecleon before any items are stolen (such as via explosion or Blast Seed), the Kecleon will proceed to become hostile and can be defeated. If Kecleon is attacked while the player is within the shop, the shopping theme will continue to play. When items within the shop are stepped on, a price tag will still be displayed as if they could be purchased, regardless of whether or not the Kecleon was defeated. Regardless of whether or not any items are taken, once the player exits the shop, Kecleon will accuse the player of being a thief (even if the initial Kecleon is already defeated), causing the music to change and more Kecleon to spawn.

The glitch is still present in Explorers of Sky but the player will not be considered a thief unless they take an item after the shop Kecleon is defeated. In Gates to Infinity onward, the glitch can still be triggered with a Blast Seed.

Kecleon team member glitch

Similar to above, a glitch allows the player to make a Kecleon merchant follow the team around and attack nearby enemies as if it were a team member. This is caused by an enemy Pokémon damaging Kecleon; they will not deliberately attack Kecleon, but can be forced to by having a Pass Scarf pass their attacks onto it, or with moves such as Explosion and Roar. In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, enemy attacks cannot be passed to Kecleon.

Gates to Infinity

Defiant text oversight

A text glitch occurs when a Pokémon with the Ability Defiant has its stats lowered at the same time as a team member placed after it (such as from Growl). The message log will use the team member's name, instead of the name of the Pokémon with Defiant, when displaying "<Pokémon>'s Defiant Ability was activated!"

Mienfoo dialogue oversight

When playing as the partner Pokémon, after the player Pokémon has returned to the human world and has yet to return to the Pokémon world, the Mienfoo acquainted with the team will salute the partner Pokémon with a "Morning, <player's name>!" instead of "Morning, <partner's name>!", when spoken to in Post Town.

Serperior walk animation oversight

If the player chose Snivy as their partner and evolved them into a Serperior, the partner's walking animation will fail to loop correctly when walking slowly in an area outside a dungeon, such as the Paradise Center.

Low HP error

If an Align Orb is used while a teammate is at low HP, the Low HP indicator will persist even after recovering HP past the threshold. Falling below the HP threshold and recovering again will remove the indicator.

Staircase error

In Silent Tundra, a subterranean dungeon, floors with detours on them incorrectly use the upward staircase tile, rather than the downward staircase tile as seen on other floors.

Super Mystery Dungeon

Strong winds text oversight

When strong winds come into effect, the message log produces "Flying-type moves have no weaknesses!" instead of "Flying-type Pokémon have no weaknesses!"

Camera glitch

When activating the room camera (Y + B) in a dungeon immediately after switching to or from a Gigantic Pokémon, the game camera will lock in place, despite the room camera still being able to move around. This may be a result of the zoom effect that occurs when switching to a Gigantic Pokémon to accommodate their larger size.

Pokémon model glitch

In town areas, it is possible to rapidly talk to and push an NPC Pokémon away, which can eventually cause them to snap back to their position. When used with Pokémon on water, they may hover in the air at an angle closer to the camera, giving the appearance that they are larger.

References

↑ Nintendo of Japan