Pokémon Crystal - Examining the "out of bounds" glitches

Gen II is notorious for its weird out of bounds glitches. Walking out of bounds causes many different effects, seemingly at random. How does OOB work in Gen II, and why do these effects happen? Let's investigate!
In order to make the game ignore all map connections, patch RO25:6877 (CheckTileEvent+0x0003) to 0x18 (hex edit the ROM and change byte at offset $96877 to 0x18).
About out of bounds in Gen I games: • Pokémon R/B/Y: What's ...

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

Player: walks off map Music: time to get *_FUNKY_*

[@Only30CharactersThatsBullshit.]

gen 2 out of bounds: *HMM YES ENSLAVED FUNK*

[@dorukayhanwastaken]

funccy*

[@jadoggoman7120]

I like big

[@raptorgator]

*EEËƏÈÅßÆÅŒÕÒÒ*

[@basedduck224]

Why do i here clown music

[@RoseBleueDuRosierSec]

I didn't know my anxiety could write music.

[@OrlovKruskayev]

Terrifyingly accurate

[@spicybreadproductions1972]

Your anxiety is a great musician. It wrote some of the Earthbound OST, didn't you know?

[@pillowcasecorner7519]

Sounds more like my nightmares but anxiety works too

[@TheZZAZZGlitch]

there must be a Pikablu hidden somewhere out of bounds I swear

[@Kerrmunism]

Yeah there is, but only if you beat the elite four 100 straight times without dying first.

[@hiimemily]

@@Kerrmunism within 24 hours

[@SiriusGG]

There is an easier way: You can find wild Pikablu's on Route 42 in Crystal. Due to a bug in the game it's name may be corrupted and show as "Marill", but the correct sprite loads!

[@Kurzov]

probably just on VBA

[@renakunisaki]

@@hiimemily without pressing any buttons

[@mariosonicfan2010]

"My (...)Pokemon(...) are all completely normal now." _His pokemon: AAJRR RRR, KT, AAAAAtttta, BBBBBD, & AAAS RJ-I_ Yes, seems normal to me.

[@gamerskills1571]

One day I buyed a Pokemon blue gb and it had a save file name: gaz badges: 8 pokedex: 59 time:32:58

[@gamerskills1571]

@MimiKyushu Productions yeah

[@MathyOld]

geez i do wonder where they got those names

[@laharl2k]

What? He has dyslexia and parkinson.

[@TwinDragonsOfChaos]

That's for a reason! The player name and Pokemon names are from the Twitch stream Twitch Plays Pokemon. Twitch Plays Pokemon is a Pokemon stream where button presses and input are controlled by the live chat. The preparations for this video involved loading a save state that the stream developer made right after the chat beat Crystal in 2014. (shameless plug incoming) BTW, go check us out, we're playing Pokemon Sword as a group right now! After that, we'll be playing a modded version of Pokemon Battle Revolution that has betting.

[@Titan0l]

I like that the "Glitch City Ghost'" really should not exist, according to emulation.

[@zoroarkdx4491]

Interesting to meet you here 3 months later...

[@lpfan4491]

VBA:"Oh, something is here that does not load. Let's fix it real quick..." Glitch Ghost:"Hello there." VBA:"AHHHH"

[@battlefield2lover]

jesus christ the music

[@Skul1ManEXE]

Pokemon Crystal - Full Soundtrack (Out of Bounds Remixes)

[@TheBrawlUnit]

@@Skul1ManEXE Yes please, I'd love that

[@RyuDouro]

Perfecf

[@Talondrone]

Imagine the earrape! I can just hear it now! and it hurts... send help pls.

[@MetaBloxer]

me: steps out of bounds game: What the FUCC did you just do!? *Starts convulsing*

[@MetaBloxer]

"fucc" has a VERY specific tone of voice to me.

[@Only30CharactersThatsBullshit.]

Yep

[@ipaqmaster]

You cannot escape the pidgey!

[@qsyki]

i just noticed ive been spelling fuck like fucc for longer than this video was a thing

[@jeiku5041]

Gold: *Walks out of bounds* Game: *Pained shrieking to the tune of Pallet Town*

[@ginger_queen8108]

My favorite corruptions are the sound channel corruptions. I don't know, they just either trigger my zoomer humor and send me into hysterics, or they haunt my dreams for the next 4 years, and I'm honestly fine with either outcome.

[@pillowcasecorner7519]

It comes with the territory. I’m still traumatized about Windows XP shutting down sounds at night alone. Dunno what it is tbh.

[@TheKickboxingCommunity]

I have the same and it's weird lol. Just childhood trauma coming back up

[@raptorgator]

Player: *Steps out of bounds* Game: *screams in pain*

[@LycanWitcher]

Need a video that explores corrupted/glitchy music. Some of them sound very awesome while others are very creepypasta/nightmare fuel... I find it odd how the voice channels seem to get desynced or modified/corrupted to create neat variations of the music we are all familiar with.

[@InkAirplane]

Me too! Would love a video that explores this.

[@__mk_km__]

IIRC it's the same thing that causes inventory corruption - too much object events on a map. The reason the music still resembles the original is because this corruption only affects a few bytes, but on a large area.

[@rightfalse5856]

That crash sound in Slowpoke Well made my day :) 11:25 11:25 11:25

[@RoKishDubbz]

Loving how the soundtrack goes full Bach while OOB

[@californium-2526]

Trills everywhere!

[@LadyBrightcynder]

"fucc" - TheZZAZZGlitch, 2019

[@kliop00023]

the game has its ReVENge lol

[@rzeka]

I seriously had no idea this happens, I thought it just crashed everh time. PS the game corner music is your equivalent of the vsauce music

[@elecmetala7220]

Or the Mario 64 save selection screen for pannenkoek

[@russianbot8576]

that music in the beginning sounds like one of those classic at&t desk phones is trying real hard to be a gameboy

[@MuzikBike]

4:57 your abuse made the game actually start crying.

[@halfi3154]

Oh my god, why did u write that. Now I can hear it too, sad

[@omegahaxors3306]

The musical equivalent of fff--f-f-f-.... f-f-f-f-ff....

[@ryanwwest]

Sounds like one of those horrible r/therewasanattempt remakes of a song.

[@pillowcasecorner7519]

It cried itself to sleep

[@Nightcaat]

This is what happens when you take a 3rd vitamin.

[@Gabriel2005Gaming]

experience yourself!

[@Only30CharactersThatsBullshit.]

No a third tylenol

[@riantwoninety]

i was OBSESSED with ghost of glitch city as a kid lol. always creeped me out with their burned tower encounter theme and them being able to see you from random directions

[@classymarowak7001]

3:14 Wario shall now play the "Symphony no.Fart" to commemorate your failure.

[@strawberriiluna]

music: *goes off key* my anxiety: 📈📈📈📈📈

[@tenebrisdumplin4583]

TheZZAZZGlitch: uploads a new video Me: "finally, some good fuccing content"

[@Shyreenify]

I'm obsessed with watching these even though I don't understand anything about code and inner workings of games

[@KirbyMario12345_939]

1:40 “The radio starts up and I get a most unusual broadcast...” Hey, trainers! It’s that hip and happening hour again, the Outta Bounds, Outta Sight, Outta This World Show once again! Darkness as far as the eye can see? Odd structures scattering the landscape? Don't worry, our show is sure to guide you along the right path! Twelve oh nine sharp, twice a day, brings you a three minute guide to the land beyond boundaries, with upbeat, inspirational music 24/7 to get you in the mood for spelunking! This is Scott the Explorer, signing off!

[@SoftwareAgentsTV]

Lmao

[@ryanbauman8966]

this actually seems like it could be a legit channel

[@S3lvah]

11:25 ... ...Okay, we get it, touching the AUX cord to metal makes the speaker produce a funny sound. You can stop that now. Stop. Staaaahp

[@ruko9876]

That random "fucc" is just too funny.

[@mitdergesammtsituationunzu9319]

....?🤔🤨🧐 At?

[@Noxedwin]

​​​​@@mitdergesammtsituationunzu9319 Late reply, but they're at 8:25, 8:59, 9:56 and 10:14. Hope this helps.

[@plushifoxed]

"in phantom quadrant right now" sounds like some kind of surreal meme also, *f u c c*

[@Noxedwin]

You know shit is about to go down when there's silence, and _then_ the Game Corner music starts up. It's the musical equivalent of cracking your knuckles.

[@unrevoked7137]

In lance’s room, If you walk out of bounds up north, your game won’t crash. Instead the entire world corrupts. The music will change from the pokemon league music to route 42’s music. walking too much south and north will crash the game, but walking left lets you walk a very long time. This glitch made me like that route music alot.

[@dpterminusreal]

so just a different glitch map

[@therealax6]

There's only one map group large enough to reach $22, namely map group $03. Map $0322 is a room inside the Ruins of Alph, namely the map with some words you reach after solving the Kabuto puzzle. Sadly, that map isn't reachable via any connection... The good news is that the group is *very* large (the last map in it is Victory Road, map ID $035b), so there might be some interesting IDs in that list.

[@TheTrueMissingLink]

I like how the music starts having a stroke the second you step out of bounds.

[@redtachyon2718]

So, in this case, gen1's programming was actually better than gen2.

[@Cello2WC]

Do you know if there are any glitch maps in Gen II with NPCs in them? I've always thought the VBA-only greyscale girl was super interesting, so I'm curious if there's anything like that which can actually happen on cartridge.

[@akaiuwu]

if you could mess around and somehow access the object events in the one they showed which works in vba then maybe? this is out of my depth tho lol

[@samario7935]

it's a statistical impossibility to have *no* maps where the practically random loaded flags just happen to line up to load an NPC properly... it's just that you'll practically never find them as there's easily over 60,000 glitch maps, of which only like 40? are easily accessible, and something else might well crash the game even if an NPC would fall into place

[@skitten4671]

sadly, the chances of this are close to 0, as most NPCS have invalid flags for appearing. maybe if you removed flags we could see more npcs?

[@NunofYerbizness]

In both the Spaceworld '97 protos of Gold / Silver, and the debug-enabled builds of Ruby / FireRed / LeafGreen, holding the run button (B on GBC, R on GBA), will simultaneously net the ability for the player to run through walls. Bizarrely, there appears to be a safeproof measure that's absent from these games' retail releases, where the player bumps into a wall whenever they're about to head into corrupt territory. Is this safeproof exclusive to these protos, or no?

[@princesscarl1656]

It's an oversight in gen 3's wtw cheat, since holding the b button activates the same (singular) bank that the good old GameShark cheat does.

[@princesscarl1656]

It's an oversight, since holding the b button activates the same (singular) bank that the good old GameShark wtw cheat does. The gen 3 games had an extra four banks for the OOB areas and their boundaries, though there's nothing in them.

[@orjnad641]

I JUST watched the video of the VBA recording of the girl in glitch city last night, and then this video comes out... what a coincidence

[@chickerinoradio6617]

im surprised there werent checks for many glitched values like these in gameboy games, it would avoid so many issues, but i guess adding a check into everything including unlikely events would increase the rom size during a time where they had to squeeze every little bit out, so eh

[@jagger8595]

Watching these videos before and after a computer engineering course results in a completely different experience. I love that I can understand things now!

[@kimmekinder]

The oob music sounds like when you get hit by lightning

[@luisjogos821]

in mkwii

[@MrCheeze]

0xFF04 has to be the most exploitable of the reachable ones, based on what you said. Consistent if you enter it in the same way, yet totally different effects based on where you enter it.

[@SkyTheLeafeon]

For some insane reason, I'd like to see an extended version of the glitched Pallet Town music.

[@AhnafAbdullah]

When I heard 2:29, I was like *"All right, who made a mistake this time?"*

[@itstimeforsomeaction]

Your channel makes me happy. Straight to point. Thank you. ❤️

[@smivan.]

I love the music distortions on these glitch maps.

[@Skul1ManEXE]

Sick remixes, tho.

[@eugiblisscast]

Your videos are always the best 😍 The ones about OOB are my favorite

[@shivur5073]

Dragonmon - through the glitches and the flames..now in 8 bit

[@jamesthedragon2344]

Apparently going beyond the boundaries of the universe from your room, there's random furniture in that abyss-

[@WishMakers]

It's honestly really nice to see a new video from you. I'm sure the glitch rabbit hole is probably beginning to look dry at this point (at least for Gen I) but it's always nice to learn about a new glitch in one of my favorite series in very nice detail. I just wish I knew assembly better to be able to do something with this knowledge, haha.

[@arandomgamer3162]

I don't know why, but I find corrupted/glitched music oddly appealing.

[@SgvSth]

0:14 - "Normal" nickname like BBBBBD

[@OhYppop]

It's twitch plays Pokemon

[@salmon-stan]

I'm a big fan of "WWWEEE"! (11:16)

[@glitchedpokestudent911]

This reminds me of how MissingnoXpert got the Team Rocket theme while going out of bounds to the right of Violet City.

[@TH3S4MUR4I]

Never have I clicked on something in my subscriptions box so fast. Great video as always, love your work!

[@TH3S4MUR4I]

@Ramadan Steve Thanks!

[@stardmg]

YES HOLY SHIT I REQUESTED AN INVESTIGATION INTO THIS A WHILE AGO AND NOW ITS HERE. Now this personal mystery of mine can finally have some answers

[@strawberrycrisis5592]

Another amazing video from TheZZAZZGlitch. Keep up the great work!

[@LeeNeighoff]

Hey man, miss your videos! Hope you're staying safe during these trying times :)

[@Anders0429]

I'm fairly sure I saw something like that npc "seeing" the player in a glitch state in a nightmare as a kid once.

[@olipolygon]

i love coming back to this video every now and again and marvelling at the glitch music. who knew they put free jazz, drone, and noise music into this game! 😛

[@polyhex]

I love your videos but wish the text was a bit larger! I feel like only two paragraphs at max are needed onscreen most of the time, so you could probably get away with increasing it. Keep up the good content!!

[@spacebiker69420]

holy crap, i wasn't expecting to see you here of all places!

[@twilightjoltik3151]

Are you using the save file from Twitch Plays Pokemon Crystal for this?

[@user-wo6tc6um3b]

0:14 "My Pokémon are completely normal." Meanwhile, the third Pokémon in your party: *AAAAAtttta*

[@veilsideRX710]

3:20 that goofy ahh sound 💀

[@r4masami]

Any chance you can cover the TMTRAINER effect caused by Super Glitch? I haven't seen anyone talk about it.

[@olbluelips]

This was very interesting, thanks

[@pentagonyx]

man i have little to no idea what he's talking about a lot of the time but idk why but i just realized; this guy is so cool dude he's so smart and shows us all this cool stuff bro he's awesome

[@JackBond1234]

Would it be possible/worth it to write a routine that keeps oversized maps from overflowing?

[@paincreatesfame]

For unknown reasons, the term “oob” is funny as fuck to me 😂

[@bittersweetvictory8541]

i’m not sure how much knowledge you have with the platinum version of gen iv’s engine, but i was wondering if you could help me figure out what causes a weird crash i accidentally stumbled across while messing with my mystery gift data

[@ipaqmaster]

6:32 oddly beautiful music crash

[@KosmonautKong]

What does "tile permission" mean? The control options that are available to the player when they enter the tile?

[@rzeka]

I think it just means if you're allowed to walk on it or not

[@firstnamelastname8684]

our lord has uploaded

[@CubemasterXD]

The random encounters made me laugh so hard XD

[@bruh.____.]

thank you zzazz,very cool!

[@outofcontexttacoboi4004]

What pokemon were in all those random battles that occurred in the video? I know it's dumb but I'm just curious.

[@daikonbou]

What would happen if you entered a glitch map then used Teleport to leave it?

[@Fortuna1]

Unknown zones, maybe unknowns encounters of the third type in this maps

[@MyHandleIsAplaceholder]

Is there a video talking about why the zzazz glitch (no pun intended) works?

[@shayne537]

Thank you I wanted to know if the game cuts off after walking to the edge of the map. That’s same as Red & Blue

[@ReachSkyla]

**Goes out of bounds** Music: *sweats*

[@chaoticchild519]

I remember a glitch from another video I can’t remember it but his sprite changed to the female sprite and someone commented: you walk out of bounds you lose your pp privilege

[@alexwimmer5198]

Can you use coin case glitch to set event flags and time of day to make some of these glitchy NPCs appear? Procedure: -Get Coin Case. -Set up WTW and then the code for the NPC. -Go to a favorable location, save and reset. -Use coin case, then step into the void. -Navigate to the NPC.

[@lpfan4491]

6:52 cool, my emulator has exclusive content.

[@katieg1071]

10:53 Is this the plot of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon? Get it? Cause it's a Ninetales cry? And then the game crashes?

[@krmiistudios2479]

What happen to the music is what I think should’ve been in the game, I just like how it sounds like it was sang by an Alien.

[@icecreamsamwich]

glitch cities are honestly really pretty in gen2... less glitch tiles and numbers everywhere

[@carlalynch9612]

this is beautiful

[@14239]

would be fun if you used broken game corner bgm instead normal one

[@cursedflamed174]

please investigate the cry at the beginning of battles where the music fades out because i don't think anybody knows why it happens i think you could tell us

[@cy-bernet-ix]

8:53 there are heatbutt trees! what will you encounter if you headbutt those, since i assume this glitch city has no encounter pool 10:28 teru-sama!

[@DankyMankey]

Could you potentially do arbitrary code execution with this?

[@thebandanadee8265]

This warbly music is pretty great

[@MetaBloxer]

Could we potentially get to $FF22 by using one of the OAM dependent maps?

[@fluttermorp]

6:47 this gave me anxiety jesus christ

[@nokiasnakes]

русские

[@fluttermorp]

@@nokiasnakes ах я вижу вы тоже человек культуры

[@nokiasnakes]

Алиса Сметанкова русские фанаты zzazz'а объединяйтесь

[@spikerthedragonbear]

5:04 what a fitting item

[@gamerskills1571]

I liked your video because it's the best video

[@AzureLazuline]

my favorite thing here is how *immediate* it is. You take one single step past the wall and everything goes to heck! Graphic corruptions, sound corruptions, maybe save corruptions, all 1 frame after you step 1cm outside the intended bounds. 😆

[@torracat1185]

Why does the music get all weird when you walk out of bounds?

[@c.d.3892]

Im so confused. I thought Gen I crashed OoB on the x plane, but copied shifted iterations across y planes?

[@frogdog8124]

How do you translate asm to 8f code?

[@abarette_]

I need the full version of that music though

[@DankRedditMemes]

Why does the game crashing seem to boot the game into GB/DMG mode sometimes?

[@aggserp4340]

What is the music that plays when he's explaining stuff in all his videos?

[@LeeNeighoff]

Aggserp4 I believe it's the gen 2 game corner music

[@aggserp4340]

@@LeeNeighoff Indeed it is! Thanks.