Can you beat Pokemon Red with just a MissingNo.?

This was without a doubt my most bizarre run ever!
Edited by: @SimplyAJ
Original Music by: Shelby Leon Wright
Complete Playlist: • Kanto Solo Challenges
Rules and Explanations
Rules: (1) Only use the one Pokémon in Battle, others for HMs are fine. (2) No Items in battle (3) No Glitches*, other than MissingNo., of course! (4) Set Mode (5) No saving in the Elite Four (6) No evasion moves
Badge Boost "Glitch" Explanation: When you collect odd numbered badges the game boosts a stat by 12.5%. Brock gives ATK, Surge DEF, Koga SPE, and Blaine SPC (in game text is wrong). When any of your stats are modified (even by you using a move like Withdraw, or your opponent using Leer) the badge boosts are re-applied. So If you use Swords Dance, you also gain *an additional 12.5% in Speed/Defence/Special (on top of the 12.5% you were supposed to be getting). When you level up, the game corrects this error, and only the non-glitch 12.5% remains. Because of how difficult it is to avoid, I've allowed for it to be exploited, since opponents will spam Leer/Growl anyways, and this way battles are less random. Red/Blue are extremely buggy, so there's always going to be some glitches present, and because of how unavoidable this one is, it is allowed in runs, and considered more like a special Generation 1 mechanic as opposed to a glitch.

[@danielhale1]

I love how MissingNo hits so hard it shatters the opponent's sprite and leaves them eternally mangled

[@abhinandhari7812]

@Sniper man there are waayy too many shatters

[@jeremyortega3666]

Was gonna say the same thing in the comments. Mega punch literally destroys the Pokémon.

[@parrot998]

And their trainers

[@Katapultski]

It hits so hard it turns opponent’s pokemon into minced meat

[@Begeru]

I also noticed some enemy sprites are mirrors.

[@adamg2031]

The fact that Missingno appears in the party as a trainer sprite is absolutely horrifying.

[@soundwavesuperior28]

Wimp

[@Takintomori]

Doubly horrifying when you fight that stupidly overbuffed Blaine that crashes your game

[@Megafish117]

he is your friend you have captured him

[@songofthieves]

But sometimes he's a happy cloud! 😊

[@TheModdedwarfare3]

Release me.

[@mattypaul87]

MissingNo knocking itself out from FULL HEALTH due to confusion gave me a good chuckle.

[@sirembrum49thegreatmoth2]

Imagine Missingno punching itself and it plops to the ground

[@nox_luna]

thats what happens when youre all attack and no defense

[@nicholasbradshaw]

its one brain cell hurt itself in its confusion

[@lmaoeyisdead]

@@nox_lunaall guns and no guts

[@ChrisHinners008]

⁠@@nicholasbradshaw[404 ERROR] [I_POOED_MYSELF] *MissingNo. has fainted!*

[@JakeIGuess]

An explanation for the names (buckle up it's a doozy)(Also note that I paused the video at 11:15 when JRose mentioned it so forgive me if any of this information is redundant later on in the video): The most commonly used method to obtain MissingNo. is the "Old Man Glitch". The Old Man in Viridian City teaches you how to catch Pokemon by showing you a battle where he catches a Weedle. For this battle your name is changed to "Old Man". The game needed somewhere to store the data for your name so it stores it in the data (in hex values, not plain text) where the grass encounter table for the area is kept. It's important to note that there's three different sets of encounter tables; one for "grass" tiles (or basically any tile you can encounter pokemon by walking on it), one for "Surf" tiles (for when surfing), and one for Fishing encounters. It is also important to note that the game assumes these are decimal values, which will come into play later. So after doing the Old Man's catching tutorial, you currently have your character's name data in the place where the encounter table is. The reason they chose to put it there is because there are no "grass" tiles inside cities. Whenever you go into a new map, the old encounter map is overwritten with the new encounter map. So in order to actually encounter a pokemon in the grass you'd have to walk out of the town and into a route, which would refresh the encounter table to what it should be. And in a perfect world that would be the end of it. But this is Gen 1 we're talking about, the "broken generation", so of course there's a way to exploit it. If you fly to Cinnabar town, you've gone from one city to another. Cities do not have grass encounters, so that data is blank, meaning it won't overwrite your current encounter data (which is your trainer's name). And extremely conveniently for us, the surfable tiles on the very edge of the right side of Cinnabar island are considered "grass" tiles. You're still inside Cinnabar island here, so your encounter table does not get refreshed by the route right next to it. So, you can get an encounter and the game pulls from the data that's in the encounter list, which is your name. The second letter of your name is stored where the level for the first pokemon on the list would be. The third letter determines what pokemon it is. For example, if your name was "DAVE" in all caps, you could encounter a level 128(!) Alakazam. Looking at the name "DAVE", you ignore the first letter, then the second letter is A. A = 128 in decimal, so it's level 128. V is 149 in decimal, which is Alakazam's index number (note: not *pokedex* number. Pokemon were not coded in order of the pokedex. Rhydon was the first pokemon coded in, and has an index of 1, and is also why Missingno. turned into Rhydon of all pokemon at the start of the video). This continues for the rest of the list, letters 4+5 making Pokemon 2 in the list, 6+7 making pokemon 3, 8+9 making pokemon 4, and 10+11 making pokemon 5. However, trainer names can only be 7 characters long. And at the end of any custom name is a special character used to denote the end of the trainer's name. This character will be read by the game as a level 0 glitched pokemon called " 'M " (which is very similar but not identical to MissingNo). So the last two pokemon on the encounter table would always be 'M. One last thing to note is that you can also find **trainers** this way too. Trainers have index values just like pokemon. I won't get too into how their teams are decided because this comment is already a wordburger, if you're interested let me know. So, now that you hopefully understand *why* the names matter, let's look at JRose's name and rival name and see what they would result in (According to Glitch City Laboratory's index table): JRose's name: *m(MN)a.♀tF* Pokemon he could find on the coast of Cinnabar: MissingNO. Level 226 Channeler (trainer battle) Margikarp Level 179 However, I believe this was a mistake, because of we just add another letter to the start of the name we instead get: Professor Oak (Trainer Battle) Gary 2 (Trainer battle) Wartortle Level 245 You read that right: There is a Professor Oak battle programmed into the game. He has his own team and uses whichever starter you and the rival did not take. As for the Rival's name: *AaRRSAx* Marowak Level 160 MissingNO. Level 145 Aerodactyl Fossil Level 128 The Aerodactyl Fossil is a MissingNo. That uses the same sprite as the fossil of Aerodactyl you can find in the museum. Neat! MissingNo. was the thing that got me interested in game glitches as a kid and I spent a LOT of time messing around with it. It's been a long time and I'm by no means an expert but if you find this sort of stuff interesting let me know and I'll post some more info that might be interesting. **sources: Glitch City Laboratory (now shutdown, archived), TRsRockin (shut down, archived), Bulbapedia**

[@fossilfighters101]

+

[@runaway74]

My name was DAVE in all caps for the first four generations so when you said that I got hyper aware Doesn't help that I have a friend named JRose lol

[@JakeIGuess]

@@runaway74 Hope you enjoyed your level 128 Alakazam!

[@DJEevee257]

Note that the Professor Oak trainer battle is the strongest in all of Kanto in level. There's also glitch versions of trainers that are absolutely busted in difficulty

[@brutusthebear9050]

Wouldn't a channeler with a magikarp make more thematic sense, seeing as JRose got his start with challenge runs on KZbin losing the magikarp run to the channelers?

[@Arrzarrina]

It's so cool that Missingno glitches into Rhydon (first pokemon designed) rather than Bulbasaur (first pokemon in the dex) at the start. Indicates that pokemon are stored in design order rather than dex order in the ROM.

[@Ocarinist_Drew]

They actually are. The Pokemon are stored in a list by index number, which is different than their Pokedex number. The index order is just the arbitrary order they were programmed into the game. Rhydon is index #1. MissingNo (and other glitch mons) are just Pokemon whose index numbers are outside the intended range of 151 Pokemon. (I assume their are actually 256 Pokemon, including all the glitch mons, since computers tend to think/count in powers of 2...but don't quote me on that.) Some of them will actually turn into legit Gen 2 Pokemon when traded to a Gen 2 game, because their index numbers match an actual Pokemon in those games.

[@Arrzarrina]

@@Ocarinist_Drew It would be 256 as that's 2^8, or the maximum unsigned non-floating point number that an 8-bit word length processor can deal with. Given the space constraints of the time, however, I wouldn't be surprised if the remaining 104 available numbers in that byte were actively being used for something else. Thinking this through further, the 256 integer limit is remarkably close to Gen 2's 251 pokedex size, so that seems a good theory to go with.

[@lythd]

@@Arrzarrina they most definitely were being used for something else as there werent 256 planned pokemon, there were some scrapped but most of them are just random data, hence why missing no has random stats that clearly aren't from a removed pokemon

[@Ocarinist_Drew]

@@Arrzarrina It makes sense that those slots are being used for something else. After all, how do you get MissingNo to appear? You watch the old man's catching tutorial, which moves the player name into the "wild Pokemon encounters of the current route" slot of memory. Then you surf on the edge of Cinnabar, which for whatever reason, calls wild Pokemon from the most recent route you were on. So effectively, you're encountering Pokemon whose index numbers correspond to your player name. So yeah, the game was constantly using every available resource, shuffling data around into available memory and whatnot.

[@CntRational]

@@Ocarinist_Drew The Cinnabar coast was programmed to have wild encounters because they intended for it to be part of the ocean, but they made it part of the city "biome" by accident -- the city has nothing in its list of catchable Pokemon, so it leaves whatever data is in there alone.

[@hammerstix5791]

I like that Missingno is just a walking attack stat

[@GlennMagusHarvey]

It's just a walking attack stat and nothing else lol

[@StFido]

More like crawling attack stat with such low speed

[@phyllotaxis]

Gen 1 Rampardos

[@Lord_Doodle]

More like a 800 ton glass cannon

[@ChargeQM]

He's a literal beat stick.

[@TheSolitaryEye]

This run gave me a strange urge to see a MissingNo Pokemon movie where everyone is freaked out by the implications of this thing's existence but the protag is just hyper curious to figure out its strengths, weaknesses, what moves it can learn, etc. And then at the end he has to save his weird, glitch Pokemon from an angry mob that wants to destroy it because they're tired of being discombobulated for having looked at it one time, by accident.

[@Pyxis10]

K̵͉̏i̸̘̓ĺ̷͕l̵̜̊ ̴̝͌i̴̥̎t̵̪̅!̸̥͝!̸̗̀!̷̺͗

[@nirgunawish]

fanfic time

[@randomdeliveryguy]

The protag starts training it at age 10 like any protag and after years it only levels up one time. Everyone thinks that "thing" is a waste of time and resources but he keeps on training it, until suddenly it keeps getting stronger and stronger faster and faster. In the end it keeps leveling just by breathing and becomes literal GOD.

[@joaovithorcastro6799]

There's a cartoon showing it, where Charmander sees himself as a trainer and Mewtwo appears to destroy it (or try)

[@IJustExploded]

Arceus sees missingno and immediately flees

[@raineob4996]

Fun fact: in Yellow this would probably be straight up impossible. MissingNo in that game has a stat spread of 178 in HP and 19 attack, 11 defense, 23 special and 0 speed, and it doesn't get TMs, only getting Pay Day, Bind and Water Gun. Even if that wasn't bad enough, in Yellow its "experience group" is actually broken and will always reset to level 1.

[@maliciousshark9248]

Well now I wanna see how far JRose could get with a MissingNo in yellow

[@The_Light_of_Stars]

Well, that's to say if Yellow MissingNo's Normal Form doesn't immediately crash the game.

[@2401blue]

From what vagueties I remember, Yellow MissingNo. is by all appearances a frightful beast that will eat your game alive, more like Red/Blue's 'M in its instability and extra degrees of unintendedness. Probably makes the most sense to use glitches who behave more or less like intended Pokémon for these runs.

[@AVUREDUES54]

You say "as if that isn't bad enough"- I think resetting to 1 on level up is WAYYYY worse than any of the other things you listed, lol Bad moves and stats are things this challenge is about, leveling is like the core strat to overcome them

[@DJIncendration]

@@The_Light_of_Stars In Yellow, if you clear your save file with Up+Select+B, the first encounter with Missingno will never crash your game (if you don't see any other glitch pokemon first.)

[@donkarasu-9644]

Gotta give several of MissingNo's opponents credit. Even after turning into mangled messes, they pressed on and managed to beat it multiple times. Determination at its finest.

[@Nightmare-kn6ee]

They were determined to make their trainers proud of them no matter what.

[@DylanSon2]

the idea of one day beating that glitched pokémon, it filled them with determination

[@Agent719]

When you're fighting an eldrtich horror.

[@sandtrap175]

But in defeating it, it only made it stronger, and angrier

[@calamelli209]

I don't know what was funnier, watching the graphics randomly break and send Pokemon into the abyss or watching Missingno seppuku itself in confusion. This run was so blursed and I loved it.

[@drascia]

Seppuku in Confusion is my band name now. Those moments were so great

[@icedo1013]

6:29 it's always a small tragedy to see you run away from pikachu's in Viridian Forest. I have vivid memories of never leaving that place until I had one when I was a kid.

[@BoldActionSkitty]

That is so relatable. Although it meant I never had a chance at beating Brock, I would not stop until a Pikachu was in my party.

[@forzajuve4935]

Same, had to rewind and pause when he encountered it. Made me smile seeing it again. Even with that old ugly animation :3

[@CozyButcher]

+1 Cozy has those feels

[@SimonFrack]

Just introduced my kid to pokémon for the first time and they had this exact same experience too…

[@hotramen5936]

The names you gave yourself and your rival are pretty much an ingame code that is required to perform the MissingNo glitch, thats a really nice touch!

[@alexszulczynski5546]

Wat if you dont have the names?

[@GedanJ]

@@alexszulczynski5546 probably you don't find missingno

[@alexszulczynski5546]

@@GedanJ dawn

[@theelectricneko]

You can always find Missingno, no matter what your trainer name is. Because Missingno's encounter letter is the End button.

[@daniellewilson8527]

It’s going too fast for me to read either of their names, what are they?

[@twilightjoltik3151]

The names are Missingno encounter codes- the player’s at the beginning would let you encounter a level 145 Marowak, a level 145 Professor Oak, and a level 153 Gentleman trainer, the rival’s would let you encounter a level 160 Marowak, a level 145 Missingno, and a level 128 Gentleman Trainer (or possibly Aerodactyl Fossil Missingno because the characters look identical), and the run’s player’s would let you encounter a level 226 Missingno, a level 242 Channeler trainer, and a level 179 Magikarp.

[@JACKHARRINGTON]

I thought it was this. Also the level for Professor Oak I think instead controls his team, like which starter to use.

[@wizardsummoner9124]

My initial guess was some kind of ACE. Looks like I wasn't completely wrong.

[@pkinsect6618]

That's also what I thought at first, but there's probably much more to it, since any name can give encounters with the old man glitch, and these encounters have nothing in particular, so that's probably not what jrose was going for. After searching a bit, I found that the run's player's name is the one used for the viridian forest oxF8FF glitch (you can look it up on glitch city), but I have yet to find an explanation for the others.

[@timothyquinn4919]

Real shame Magikarp can't get passed ghost tower. Because a how fast can you beat the game with a level 179 Magikarp run would be hilarious.

[@PresidentScrooge]

If I remember correctly, OleDau was the name you have to choose for yourself to encounter Lv100+ Mewtwos when doing the cinnabar island surf glitch.

[@shirotenkai8180]

The glitchy background was a very nice touch. Mad props to AJ

[@SimplyAJ]

Haha, thanks! I had a lot of fun with this one.

[@UpstreamNL]

@@SimplyAJ your editing is out of this world!!! Keep it up ❤❤❤

[@wasneeplus]

Say, what does "props" actually mean in this context?

[@darkn04]

@@wasneeplus credit

[@wasneeplus]

@@darkn04 yes, but what does it stand for? I know what a prop means in a theatre setting. There it's short for "theatrical property". Is it some different abbreviation here?

[@G33KST4R]

I would love to see the rival's reaction as you reveal your starter to be a shambling eldritch horror, that constantly shifts in shape, features, and dimension. He nervously sends his Squirtle to tackle MissingNo, and thought it looks like the hit misses, it connects and a blood curdling screech is heard as MissingNo faints.

[@butthemeatwasbad]

This was one of my favorites. Missingno. is so nostalgic for me. I loved teaching it fly and evolving it into Kangaskhan. It felt so illegally good to then have a flying Kangaskhan in Stadium lol

[@jwatts94]

Wait wha-

[@glitchedoom]

MissingNo. doesn't evolve into Kangaskhan, that's 'M.

[@mrtrollnator123]

💀

[@HenryXLII]

Imagine if they made MissingNo into an Ultra Beast. It would pretty much retcon all of its previous appearances into a brief tear in reality, which imo would be one of the coolest retcons of all time.

[@saiyaddanapudi9216]

And it gets Spacial Rend, too.

[@MijmerMopper]

There is a ROMhack out there, firered Team Rocket edition that actually gives a really cool in universe role to Missingo.

[@MrTylertherockstar]

Damn, I didn’t even think about this. Ultra Beast would have been cool, or tie it into S/V as an Area Zero form of something like a porygon

[@sintheemptyone8108]

Now imagine a skeletal monstrosity with a wisp filling up the hollow shell tear its way through reality. Also, why stop at Ultra Beasts? I would give him a role similar to that of the Old Ones, a creature that would originate outside the universe/reality created by Arceus. This harkens back to when I theorized before S/M came out that the Ultra Space would have been a passage way between universes instead of being just another dimension of what I dub the "Alpha Universe". In the lore sense, the glitch pokemon could be interpreted as elements outside the domain of even Arceus himself the true forms of which the denizens of the Pokemon World are incapable of grasping, as those elements are not from the "Alpha Universe".

[@AlfaXi]

@@MijmerMopper how is it called

[@SimplyAJ]

I do not know a single 12 year old in 1998 that wasn't scared of this thing when it popped up while searching for their level 300 Squirtle off the coast Cinnabar Island. Also just wanted to say ya'll have been super kind in the comments, just putting this here to say that I HAVE read a lot of the kind words lately, so, thanks so much for tolerating my dumb antics during Jrose's videos!

[@xylsky1300]

Or when doing that rare candy hack around cinnabar lol

[@cjohnston13]

Thanks for the amazing work collaborating with JRose! It's fantastic

[@AlwaysRobert]

Great editing! ❤

[@douglaswills4624]

You're a great character.

[@roymerkel8008]

I was lucky, I was in college when these games came into existance and this glitch was found out, but this kind of glitchy graphics thing always gives me the spooks (and the physical shivers -- always have since the first time I saw one of these glitches in Link to the past, due to dust in my game pack), sometimes even as an old man.

[@lillithplays6514]

Missingno's experience group is so weird because it uses a quadratic formula (33L^2-155L+80), while the normal ones use cubic ones. The game was balanced for a cubic exp group.

[@MetaFanWing]

That’s actually pretty neat.

[@dylanrush184]

It’s still cubic. Just 0*L^3 + 33*L^2 + 155*L+80

[@janisir4529]

​@@dylanrush184that's not how that works

[@JohnDoe-id5ih]

☝🤓

[@mirandakeith8108]

Honestly this run does a really good job of showing how base stat totals don't tell the whole story. MissingNo has a very low base stat total, but most pokemon with similar BSTs have mediocre stats in everything. It's really cool to see how missingno having vaguely "optimized" base stats by having a bunch of near zeros and one good number makes it perform a lot like something with a much higher actual BST would.

[@tabeebyeamin9986]

shoutout to Poliwag being better than Moltres

[@magik97]

Yeah, having avg special atk stats on a physical attacker might make the total look good, but does not contribute much to the usability of the pokémon

[@hotschokolade4265]

So MissingNo basically started MinMaxing even before it was cool. I was surprised to see how decently it could take hits with literally 0 Base defense though, the Scaling works in interesting ways

[@dopesickdog]

MinmaxingNo.

[@TheMCcreepermen]

Shout out to taurus 4 having a better statpool than flygon.

[@oEllery]

Because MissingNo levels up very slow at first, and very fast later on, I wonder if a good strategy would be to use the Rare Candy as early as possible. It's the opposite of the normal logic where you use them later on because training for levels will take more time later. In the case of MissingNo, gaining levels early on will save a TON of time because it's difficult to get the needed EXP. And later on, when you can get lots of EXP, the levels will require less per level up.

[@Adrevenue1331]

The best time would be right after level up so xp is not wasted

[@ChickenJoe-tq6xd]

Ye I don’t know why he Waited so long

[@rlbsbc163bel]

If you're going to game shark a missingno into the game from the start, there is no reason you shouldn't max out stats as well. This isn't an actual missingno either, it's just a displacement code. Also...in red, blue and yellow when you use rare candies to level you miss out on the extra plus one to a random stat

[@llSuperSnivyll]

Actually, I've just checked and that's not really the case. MissingNo. does not require less experience to level up as it progresses, but rather that the required experience advances so slowly (just 66 more to level up per level) that opposing Pokémon give experience faster than what the curve requires. It's still better to use the Rare Candies later, though when you do it, at the end, makes for a negligible difference.

[@spudmuffin2744]

Missingno: uses one water gun Geodude: Literally explodes on screen

[@teukufarhan2434]

also does like 2 damage

[@GFCOLCQuote]

I love how menacing the opposing pokemon look with this pallet. The shading on Kakuna's eye and the pitch black raichu with 2 dot eyes make this feel like a horror rom hack.

[@pehnusaur4379]

The most amazing glitch in this video was Bruno actually winning a battle.

[@jwatts94]

💀

[@R0bilicious]

My head canon is that you’re just going through Kanto, ripping apart reality with this Missingno

[@marcosdheleno]

to me, MissingNo is actually a pre-evolved Lugia. look at the hints: 1) its a flying pokemon that can use water moves. 2) it uses its not yet able to control its psych powers, which ends up bending reality around it, so it ends up using it as adefense mechanism. 3) its a flying pokemon that can use mega punch, meaning, it has fists.

[@ellisdee5304]

@@marcosdheleno wasn't MissingNo supposed to be Ho-Oh originally?

[@meticakolli1237]

@@ellisdee5304 it was also supposed to be other pokemon that were removed but hooh was one of them

[@marcosdheleno]

@@ellisdee5304 dunno, but it fits better as lugia instead.

[@pkinsect6618]

My personal theory on bird type is that it was not a beta for flying type, but just another additional type that was removed because it seemed too similar to flying, and all instances of bird were replaced by normal. My main argument towards that is that it would explain why all bird pokemons are normal/flying (because they were originally bird/flying), and why gust is normal too

[@jjabbott7249]

That makes sense. But then why would bird Pokémon beyond Gen 1 be normal/flying? I don't know why, really, but there are, like, only three pure flying types, one being Tornadus and the other being the first two of the Corviknight line.

[@pkinsect6618]

@@jjabbott7249 I think they just kept the idea for the following generations that "bird" could be a meaning of the normal type. Tornadus is the exception precisely because it's *not* a bird (there were already flying types that were not birds but they always had another type: butterfree, beautifly, masquerain, ninjask, rayquaza, shaymin-sky, etc.). And for the corviknight line I don't really see another explanation than them just not wanting to follow this rule anymore, maybe they even forgot the meaning behind it. More generally, one of the meaning of the normal type is "animal pokémon" (normal can also be the type "by default" for pokémon that does not fit into another type, but all pokémon that have the normal type and for which it is not their only type are similar to real animals), so that ties it way more to the bird type than it may originally seem.

[@Fran-rd1nl]

So if Bird is Normal...what are the other Normal pokemon refering to? Like,for example, Snorlax

[@pkinsect6618]

@@Fran-rd1nl In my interpretation, normal can basically either mean "default type" or "directly based on a real world non-bug animal" (and when bird type existed, it was "non-bug non-bird"), mostly for pokemon that have another type in addition to the normal one Snorlax probably just fit into the "default type" category

[@AcemanXD]

"Water gun does nothing." Nothing? It turned Geodude into a Chimera! Imagine if someone slapped you and turned you to a fish!

[@terraSpark902]

As something who turned into a fish after someone else slapped me, I can confirm its crazy

[@joseortega7815]

MissingNo was such an awesome glitch back in the day. When it corrupted my Hall of Fame I began to see all of these different sprites of Mons that I didn't have. It was mind-blowing. And the fact that we could get x999 Nuggets, Master Balls, and Rare Candies. Those were the playground days. Lol

[@Lord_necromancer]

255, not 999. It was based on hexadecimal, so only 255 digits with "FF" in the slot. Still a lot though lol

[@joseortega7815]

​@@Lord_necromanceryes, that. 😅😅😅

[@hellboy19991]

@@Lord_necromancer that is also not QUITE correct. missingno flips the first bit of the number of the 6th item in your inventory, meaning it either gives you 128 items or takes 128 away depending on if you have less or more at the time

[@um_idkw]

The more you battle with missingno the more the ball of game gets corrupted.

[@terraSpark902]

@@um_idkw No not really

[@bakarogers7146]

6:56 "Water gun does almost nothing" jrose's voiceover says, while the most family-unfriendly pieces of a completely shattered geodude rest in the background

[@justcral]

Love how missingno's mega punch is so strong that it breaks the opponents sprite. Lmao

[@MishKoz]

Imagine how terrifying that would be. A mass of distorted reality comes up to you, hits you harder than a Machamp, and you're shattered into vertical slices that are all mirrored.

[@estefaniac.1011]

I love how all the sprites turn into spaghetti after being hit by Missingno. Also thanks, AJ, for helping make the month of Jrose happen!

[@xanderwu8813]

Missingno. Is good

[@Dravenick]

KZbin glitched when I tried to interact with your comment.

[@liketrainslol420funni]

@@Dravenick MISSIGNO is so glitchy it glitched the comment

[@chopperbrosadvance9760]

Don't ever send that silly ass emoji again

[@pigmentpeddler5811]

​@@chopperbrosadvance9760 tell em slugger

[@kylerichardson7019]

Also for future reference, or if anybody wants to try for themselves, its easier to use the "encounter Missingno" code once, but catch him twice. The first one you catch will turn into a Rhydon and mark Cubone as seen in the dex, so the second one you catch will stay as a Missingno

[@TheXenoEnder]

It feels like it also would have been an easy enough alternative to use a code to add Cubone to the dex before picking the starter

[@angelpardo1530]

@@TheXenoEnder Yeah. I thought he would go for the typical "complete all the Pokedex" code for that.

[@Willingmess]

Oh my gosh!? I didn’t think you would do this run! I’m ready to see how this bird type holds up in the Kanto gauntlet!

[@flightloungebeats]

birb

[@philipmurphy2]

Didn't expect to see a Missingno Pokémon Challenge run but it exists now.

[@o7ViiGHTMAREo]

Apparently it was done 3 years ago, but I didn’t want to watch to ruin the run

[@philipmurphy2]

@@o7ViiGHTMAREo I must of not watched the Pokemon Challenges videos back then

[@minejack7773]

Poketips did a run with it a few years ago! Highly recommend checking him out :)

[@o7ViiGHTMAREo]

@@philipmurphy2 I feel you, I certainly didn’t, I didn’t know they were a thing till early this year

[@philipmurphy2]

@@o7ViiGHTMAREo Personally I prefer gen 1 runs to the later games.

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

I love how MissingNo's backsprite just randomly changes all the time

[@jamesR1990]

I used to always do the Cinnebar Island glitch to catch MissingNo and over level 160 Pokemon that all evolve into Kangaskans 😂 as well as get the item duplication

[@PinBoxLtd]

It hadn't even crossed my mind that this could be a run, but I'm genuinely excited to see it!

[@Jordan-bp5cs]

Geodude got absolutely scrambled by that water gun 😂 6:50

6:54

[@infinite_sun_rays]

That extra base attack literally shreds

[@idok333odikay]

6:55 “water gun does like, nothing” *shows the very fabric of Geodude being torn into strips and reassembled in the incorrect order, creating a perpetually agonized existence for a sentient clump of rocks who’s only wish is to be able to die and rid itself of the torment of a shredded existence*

[@LadyBrightcynder]

This video came out just after I submitted a university essay on glitches and the online culture surrounding them, so this is really cool to see! I adore MissingNo. and I was really hoping you'd do a video on it!

[@bookmew1081]

Is there any way to read your essay? Also what do you think of the other Glitchmons?

[@LadyBrightcynder]

@@bookmew1081 thank you for your interest! It's still in the marking phase but I'm hoping I can put it online sometime and add to it, the word count was very short so I had to cut a lot! As for other glitches, I have a lot of fond?? memories of playing around with chest codes on a Sapphire ROM, getting the digits mixed up and spawning a Decamarks XD I'm really interested in the Q glitch in gen 1 that let's you hybridise pokemon too!

[@creeperman1295]

39:34 "I've never heard of a Pokémon with stats like these because you'd never intentionally make one like this" Shedinja: Allow me to introduce myself

[@archivelibrarian6818]

shedinja doesnt have stats like that. he just had 1HP. everything else is normal

[@goksir5845]

@@archivelibrarian6818 might as well have 0 DEF, would make no difference. it also is a glass cannon with ATK as its only decent stat

[@sand-attack]

Allow myself to introduce... myself

[@krishparwani2039]

@@goksir5845 mew or ditto can transform in it and then the defenses will matter

[@oliverleonard7730]

And Shedinja also levels up slower at the start of the game and quicker at the end.

[@NFLsCowboy2010]

I hope this video gets to trending! You and AJ work so hard on these videos and I don’t think I have ever seen someone use Missingno for a whole game! I didn’t even know that it was possible!

[@Pyxis10]

I've seen somebody do it like 3 years back. Don't remember who though.

[@Begeru]

There are just search it. Also I recommend Big Yellow’s video where he reviews all glitch Pokémon in terms of competitive viability.

[@NFLsCowboy2010]

@@Begeru I wasn’t saying that no one else had done it, just not that I had seen is all!

[@javierperez9188]

I thingk Poke Tips channel made missigno run once but im not certain

[@dropfish3109]

@@javierperez9188 yup

[@Thomas-fl5zi]

You definitely should put it on the official tier list

[@BackToSui]

39:37 I guess Ultra Beasts are a bit of an homage to Missingno because their stats are all over the place as well

[@oelboy]

Their stats are all prime numbers though

[@JayHankEdLyon]

Would love a game where Missingno appears as a legendary or mythical mon. Obviously changed from a Bird type to something that's actually usable competitively, but aesthetically and thematically a glitch in the game personified.

[@splitsee2526]

probably Ghost/Dark

[@themanwithsauce]

While not an official game, the 2nd gen romhack "Fool's Gold" does exactly this. It's a very well executed bit of fun towards the end game to find where missingno is located and exploring the area around it. But the whole game is remixed types/designs for all the pokemon and new events and locations as well. So it's not traditional gen 2, but it's definitely worth a look. Very fun to do blind, and the surprises keep on coming.

[@bnijdam]

You should play the pokemon fire red Rocket edition. You can catch it in that game!

[@Zyklon_B_still_and_know_God]

@@bnijdam this!!!! Team rocket edition is an amazing rom hack

[@datboi5906]

Pokémon Clover does something similar to this.

[@melaniabladeofmiquella]

The way missingno sends everyone to the shadow realm is funny af 41:20

[@brianlentz8762]

Props to AJ for the glitched background... that was a nice touch

[@ace_stallion]

Answer for the trivia: Those player and rival names influence what type of pokemon appear when surfing along Cinnabar! I'm too lazy to look up what they spawn, though.

[@IAmMissingnoMaster]

Aaaah, I was so thrilled to see this! One thing, though- you actually could've taught Missingno. Body Slam, and even Rock Slide and Hyper Beam were you so inclined. If you look at its stats while it's in the PC and then withdraw it, it becomes this weird Missingno.-Rhydon hybrid, and in that state it has Rhydon's TM and HM compatibility. You can change it back to "normal" Missingno. by putting it in the Daycare and taking it back immediately, but since the Daycare doesn't admit Pokémon that know HM moves, you obviously would've needed to do this before teaching Fly. But yeah- nice to see you excel with Missingno. even without that! I've used Missingno. ingame myself before (used the Trainer Fly glitch to catch it near Cerulean City- the level 12 Abra on Route 25 sometimes have the right Special stat), and I know the struggle. Getting it to do anything worthwhile in the early levels. OHKOing itself in confusion. Water Gun doing laughable damage even against the likes of Geodude. It's an objectively terrible "Pokémon", and I absolutely adore the thing.

[@llSuperSnivyll]

BTW, I just checked MissingNo.'s experience growth. Its glitch experience group has the following formula to calculate total experience per level: e(n) = 33*n^2 + 155*n - 80. To calculate how much experience it needs to go from one level to another, we just have to do e(n) - e(n-1). That gives us the following result: 66*n + 122. The conclusion is that MissingNo. only needs 66 more experience per level to level up (its cubic coefficient is 0, which is why it always increases experience requirements at the same rate; all true experience groups increase experience requirements at a quadratic rate), but in exchange has a very high minimum experience to level up from 1 to 2 (the Slow experience group only catches up at Level 20). tl;dr MissingNo. does not require less points to level up as it grows in level. It's that it gets lower *in proportion* to how much experience you get per opponent as you progress.

[@pigmentpeddler5811]

Ah yes simple I understood every word

[@JohnDoe-id5ih]

​@@pigmentpeddler5811I glitched like MissingNo reading allat

[@youtube-kit9450]

The fact that gen 1 is so glitchy that getting a glitch pokémon is glitched unless you glitch it by having a Cubone just makes me so happy. Gen 1 really is that fucked-up, somehow 20 year old, blind, nearly deaf, barely walking family doggo you still love because all its defects and it somehow being held together by sheer force of will just make you want to still call it your little precious pupperoni and feed it treats.

[@ClamantesDaemonium]

The fact that I can watch these videos and be completely immersed, and then hear "Hand of FATE!" and without a moments hesitation, mentally finish it with the "HYAAAH!" that comes after feels both like a skill and a symptom

[@theunknownsissel9943]

What game is it from it sounds so familiar

[@ericwilliams8420]

@@theunknownsissel9943 It's Angemon from the Digimon anime.

[@zeemaster99]

I thought he was making Yu-Gi-Oh reference since he was talking about the mind crush and the shadow realm. One of the monsters in the show does have an attack called Fist of Fate.

[@raziyatheseeker]

@@zeemaster99 Eh, those first two were Yu-Gi-Oh. Hand of Fate is also Angemon's main attack in Digimon. I will also use this time to say two things. One, awesome Jrose liked Digimon as a kid. Two, I feel Pokemon had the better games but Digimon the better anime. Mostly, in both cases.

[@Jaesthetic_music]

I have watched every video of yours. You are one of the few channels where I actually have the Bell on. This has been the best Month of the year. Runs like the Mewtwo run are comfort videos for me that I watch when I have a bad day. Every Video is a banger. Thank you for all the hard work you two put into this!!

[@simonusc849]

31:01 hahahaha going into your pokemon menu an there's a dude "hello good sir 🎩"

[@HECKproductions]

i choose to believe that the reason for the enemy sprites being mirrored is that they cannot bear to lay eyes upon the eldrich abomination that is missingnno.

[@munchkin2465]

The harsh color palette gives off a very "beta/early build" vibe to it. I like it.

[@Marcomanexists]

After watching your videos for all these years I never saw a Missingno run coming. I’m pretty sure nobody else on KZbin has done this

[@Acacius1992]

Actually there is. The KZbinrs name who done it before (3 Years infact) its Poketips

[@daniellewilson8527]

Yup, I remember seeing Poketips’s video, MissingNo runs are still rare though, given this seems to be the second one

[@kylerichardson7019]

Ever since I found this channel I've been waiting to see Missingno in the impossible series. There was always this misconception that it had to be overpowered because it's a glitches Pokemon, but it actually has terrible stats. Also, it's considered a "bird" type which was a prototype that eventually turned into flying, so it has no weaknesses or strengths. Thanks for this one Jrose, I'm heading to AJs channel right now to drop a sub

[@egosumv3112]

39:34 Practically, Shedinja is pretty similar in terms of having low speed and no bulk whatsoever with decent attack. Cranidos, Shedinja, and Trapinch are the three most similar statistically.

[@BoldActionSkitty]

The one thing making Shedinja god tier is its ability though. Although I suppose abilities didn't exist in Gen 1

[@JohnDoe-id5ih]

​@@BoldActionSkittyI don't think Shedinja is even gen 1

[@NoLongerNeedThis]

I did not ask for this. I did not expect this. But I am all for this.

[@SilverStormShadow]

I remember asking about the possibility of a MissingNo run back when you first started red and blue solo runs because of just how bizarre it's stats are, it is essentially the ultimate glass cannon and I was incredibly curious to see how it would do in a solo run. Also, if anyone is using a MissingNo in red and blue and wants to fix the reversed/ scrambled sprites, if you look at a Pokedex entry for a pokemon you have caught, that should fix it.

[@TheDan14]

This is awesome, i remember catching one (because I had unlimited master balls i caught everything) but when it janked things up I got scared and reset my game. Never realized you could actually just use one, but it's appearance in FireRed Rocket Edition is one of the many amazing things about that game.

[@Schnort]

Good thing you didn't save haha

[@GFCOLCQuote]

Also, did you know there are *other* Glitch pokemon with different stats? I haven't watched the rest of the video (still viewing) but some have DISGUSTING stat spreads. I know there's one call C1 and one called P that have a BST of like 780-800. It's insane! They aren't nearly as well known, but it is funny to think about how fast they could beat the game.

[@Hateandhatred]

Weedle and MissingNo were the two Pokémon I wanted to see you do the most, and you covered them practically in the same week! This is so cool! Thank you Jrose11 and SimplyAJ for your hard work in producing and delivering these videos. You guys are incredible! Question/Suggestion: would you consider using the Stadium Psyduck for its run? The one with amnesia? I'm not sure where that fits with your rules for Pokémon, but it would certainly help it a lot and make it stand out from the other first form water types that learn psychic. I'd personally love it if you elected to do this!

[@Jrose11]

Thank you so much, that's so generous!

[@DJFracus]

yeah I'd like him to do an event Pokemon mini-series: Amnesia Psyduck Surf Pikachu Dragon Rage Magikarp there's also a Fly Pikachu but probably just worse than Surf. that's pretty much it for Gen 1 event Pokemon.

[@InternetLad]

There's a dragon rage karp?

[@TheMrMatthew721]

@@InternetLad even a “Bubble” one from gen II, transferable to gen I

[@InternetLad]

@@TheMrMatthew721 That's dope. I had no idea.

[@timothyquinn4919]

Subbed to AJ for making the glorious month of Jrose happen.

[@MercenaryGreil]

"Hand of fate" references Angemons attack in Digimon. And yes I agree with what you said about the franchise.

[@slowpoke9364]

Digimon was the first time I ever remember being disappointed by humanity. I couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8. Everyone loved Pokémon. It was awesome, we all had the games, we all had the cards, we all watched the show. Then digimon shows up - an absolutely _shameless_ rip-off spawned in response to Pokémon as a way of cashing in on a popular trend. But 7 year old Slowpoke thought, “ha, these fools! They’re trying to rip off Pokémon, no one is going to let them get away with that!“ But… they _did_ let them get away with that. It seemed like nobody but me cared that this was a soulless cash grab rip off. Nobody cared at all. And I was like “whoa,” because that’s a heavy thing for a small child to realise about human nature.

[@IsaMariaUu]

Loved hearing the joy in your voice when you completed this run. Fun stuff.

[@kudrzyk]

Youre not dealing with a pokemon anymore, it has risen beyond and become a legend. A legend that you fear.

[@magicball3201]

If memory serves, the rival and player names are how you get Missingno without GameShark. That strip of Cinnabar Island has no encounter data, so it reads random data as its encounter table, which uses the player and rivals names as references as to where the table is. Or maybe it reads them to generate the encounters, but I think it's just a reference to other code that also isn't a real encounter table. Also, thanks AJ for editing the month of JRose!

[@bmelnyk7822]

I think the player name is the hall of fame warp glitch

[@velvetbutterfly]

The way the Cinnebar surf thing works is you talk to the OLD MAN for how to catch Pokemon. His name overwrites yours for the battle and yours gets stored in the RAM for encounter data. As soon as the battle ends it gets copied back over your name but stays, usually moving to an area with an encounter overwrites the RAM value with what it needs, but Cinnabar Island has no encounter data, so it doesn't get over written. The Rival name has no impact for this method

[@slateportraichu5416]

Thank you for the explanation=)

[@strongerthanever2039]

I remember seeing a creepypasta about a player with missingno when I was little. Basically he went around obliterating people (deleating trainers and their pokemon from the game) because the game didn't allow him to do anything else. It ended in post-game, after he deleated every single trainer and pokemon in the game, when it was his turn. Missingno turned against him and because he had no other pokemon he himself had to fight him, except he obviously didn't know any moves, so he couldn't. Then the sprite of everone he annihilated appeared on the screen and finally missingno took players soul as well (the game went black and couldn't be turned on again). At least that's what I remember.

[@Reginald_Ritmo]

That sounds a little like "Ketsuban", a creepypasta that takes place in the pokemon universe and examines what missingno would be like to someone in the pokemon universe.

[@benjamincooper358]

I believe you’re talking about Creepy Black, technically it’s not Missingno but technically it is? The story features the Lavender Tower Ghost which is a form Missingno can famously take but I don’t think it’s meant to be Missingno itself?

[@strongerthanever2039]

@@benjamincooper358 No idea. Maybe?

[@TheWolfyHero]

I never imagined a run like this was possible! I loved it, keep up the good work, Jrose! These videos make my day everytime! :D

[@Red-yt2dk]

No for real, AJ is amazing at this the animated info boxes while talking about mon stats add a lot to the videos

[@Atroz7]

For the names going off memory, I know that having specific names affects your trainer ID and thus when the missingno glitch is triggered different actions can occur. Don’t remember the codes exactly but I’m guessing the rival name is the one that triggers a Blue fight with Reds being the one that triggers Red?

[@DanHowsen]

I think you're on the right track. I think they're lines of characters from what you use for Pokémon storage box names in the Gold/Silver any% speedruns, thus triggering the Red and Blue fights, as you said.

[@Schnort]

As far as I'm aware, this only applies to getting glitch pokemon in Cinnebar using the Old Man and 2×2 tile glitches. When watching the Old Man's tutorial, your name gets stored in what usually determines the type of encounters you can have. It does this so it can change your name to Old Man. Usually, you get your normal name back and the encounter information updates before you ever have the opportunity to get into an encounter, so this works fine. However, Cinnabar Island doesn't have grass or encounter spaces like that, so when you fly there right after the tutorial, your name is still in the possible encounter info. This is where the 2×2 tile glitch becomes important: the left side of the tile holds the encounter info (your name is here now) and the right side determines whether the encounters are grass, water, or none. If you look on the area used to surf to find glitch pokemon, you will see that the left side of the tile is the island and the right is the water. Thus, the right says "water encounters!" and the left says "ok, these are the encounters you can have!" and reads your name as a possible list of encounters. Depending on your name, different things can occur. I don't think your name holds any other bearing to MissingNo.

[@qweschuning]

My favorite part about this run is that it sent every pkmn to the shadow realm

[@IkEisawesome7]

This looked so cool with the color filter and background. Great work Jrose and AJ!

[@briancaster2876]

It brought me back to when I was a kid and playing on the Gameboy pocket. I had the yellow one.

[@XenoMonicals]

MissingNo is probably the one thing I've heard about the most, but not knowing anything about This is something I never expected, but I am absolutely thrilled about. You continue to impress, Jrose!

[@Lotus_RT]

If you're gonna run with glitchmons, you should definitely consider running with the ridiculously broken glitchmons as well. C1, P, and 94 come to mind. The former two have a bonkers BST (788 if you consider special as 1 stat), while the latter has the best overall type in Gen 1 (Normal + Ghost). Assuming it's possible to get them in red and blue that is ^

[@milcac3626]

That is a cool idea - although dont some glitchmons have game crashing level up moves

[@IamGrimalkin]

On glitvhy level up moves: you can just not learn them. But looking these Pokémon up: unlike Missingno (which you can get with the fly glitch); it seems many of these glitch Pokémon can only be obtained by trading with gen 2. So can they really be considered gen 1 Pokémon?

[@EsoiTheGrumpyMawile]

A big problem with using these pokemon is that several glitch pokemon just crash the game when sent out, the highest base stat ones I believe are unusable because of this.

[@kaloz429mobile9]

@@EsoiTheGrumpyMawile there are safer ones like 'Q'

[@jamesR1990]

I love that MissingNo hits so hard w/ mega punch that it often scrambles other pokemon's sprites 😂 That's real power

[@bezoticallyyours83]

I'll rearrange your face-Missingno

[@Breadfan14]

Def gonna rewatch this a bunch of times!! Great run as always! 😃

[@JC-hi8fk]

This wasn’t the Cubone Solo Run I was expecting…

[@airforcejuan7437]

Damn, never thought this could be done, I hope this gets mega viral and you get the recognition you deserve, greetings from Spain, you're awesome!

[@troqu]

Watergun might not have done much damage at 6:57, but it sure was effective based on the state it left that geodude in.

[@anAngeal]

I found my sister’s old copy of Blue last year. Somehow the battery still works, which is honestly amazing. I looked at her Hall of Records entry. …6 MissingNo.

[@songofthieves]

I remember being totally fascinated by MissingNo as a kid. The kids at my school called it the Fog Man. I don't know if this is the reason for the names, but I know that the name dictates what Pokémon you found off the coast of Cinnabar when doing the item duplication glitch. I don't remember any specific examples, but you could make just about any Pokémon at any level - sometimes even higher than level 100, even though I'm pretty sure that's just a visual bug. You could even encounter Professor Oak with that method

[@Lord_necromancer]

Yeah I caught a lvl 190 Nidoking - I didn't know why lol

[@adamrojas9235]

This was honestly such a surprising but such an amazing run to watch!!!

[@chaosvolt]

This has to be one of my favorites so far, between the intersection of just how weird the pokemon is and your ability to find useful strategies.

[@dyslexictunes248]

i used to watch every video of yours for maybe 3 consecutive years, but than had to stop because of work/studying, but this is so hilarious, this sums perfectly up why i love your videos

[@zacharyheflin6794]

LOL, few hours ago I was just waiting… wondering who was next.. Never would have guessed MissingNo to make an appearance. Way to keep it interesting Jrose!

[@mwmheps]

Yessss what an incredible run! Was so excited when I saw this in my sub box - have always found MissingNo fascinating. This was magnificent to behold. Loved the ever changing back sprites and the shadow realm bans as well as the crazy confusion result. Fantastic!!!! You and AJ really spoil us!!!!!

[@westonmeyer3110]

I was not expecting a Digimon reference in a JRose Pokémon solo run video.

[@Genowhirl910]

I LOVE when glitch Pokemon get used for stuff like this. They're so fascinating. Amazing video as always, keep up the great work!

[@flamingbull3438]

The flipped + glitched sprites of wild and trainer Pokémon is fantastic!

[@Lugitaro]

very interesting run. Yellow's Missingno might be even tougher since it learns no TMs

[@V1CT1MIZED]

Sounds like a nightmare run

[@mistashadow]

Its front sprite is also EXTREMELY likely to just crash the game, too!

[@ProgMega]

Thank you AJ and Jrose for all your work

[@mitchcoleman1238]

I really like the glitchy effects on the background! Really nice touch!!

[@marcmardini6873]

Honestly think that maybe using Rare Candies as soon as you got them may have actually been the play with how the levels became faster and faster as you went

[@roymerkel8008]

Nice work, and well run! Didn't expect you to run this one, but really glad you did as it was a hoot!

[@insigpilot]

I greatly admire the dedication to complete this journey. Well done 🎉

[@Morvven]

Your editor plug reeks of love, and I love it. Awsome dude, giving the other awsome dude very deserved credits!

[@ChrisPierreBacon]

I've always wondered how missingno got the stats that it did. As with most glitches in gen 1, it's probably accessing values from other parts of memory that it shouldn't be. That's why the missingno items glitch works by the way: it's trying to update your Pokedex when it sees missingno... But there's no slot for missingno... So instead of updating your Pokedex, it updates a different part of memory, in this case, your sixth item slot.

[@apples6684]

I may be wrong about the specific part of the data, but I heard once that MissingNo's stats are derived from the trainer data on cycling road

[@igokoma]

there is an EXTREMELY detailed article on smogon about it, and yes the tl;dr is that it's reading other data as pokemon data all its stats are derived from said bikers

[@petrie911]

Missingno's Pokedex number is 0, which due to the way the game accesses data tables means it accesses entry 255, far beyond the end of each data table. That's why its catch flag is cubone's encounter flag and its encounter flag is the first bit of item slot 6's count.

[@Djuntas]

The fact that Rhydon spwaned the way it did, was that because its the first pokemon that was made, or is that just wrong guess.

[@masterslowpoke]

@@Djuntas Rhydon is the first Pokemon by internal index number.