I just had an awesome experience in Red Version. I need to tell somebody about it but it's so esoteric and dense that it's impossible to just casually explain to one of my uninitiated friends. I decided to post it here rather than the SuMo OT.
Here's the story: I wanted to transfer up a Zapdos from the VC version of Pokémon Red. This is because Zapdos is a great Pokémon, but needs Hidden Power Ice to maximize its usability. I decided to play through the game normally, up until Zapdos, and it took about four hours going as fast as I could. When I transferred my first Zapdos, it had Hidden Power Dark.
So I reset and tried again. I played through the game normally up through Lt Surge and thought how cumbersome it was going to be to play up through Fuschia City over and over again to get Surf to go get Zapdos.
I thought to myself that RBY are extremely exploitable games loaded with miraculous glitches that enable things virtually no other game is vulnerable enough to pull off. I did some research and found a complete-Dex speedrun of Blue Version from SGDQ 2015 by somebody named Shenanigans. It was amazing. He utilized in-game glitches and exploits to repeatedly and drastically rewrite the game code on the fly that let him do basically whatever he wanted. He turned trainers into item balls, he made signposts hand out Eevees, he warped in and out of the Safari Zone and the Power Plant and pulled items from the game memory so he always had what he needed. He walked through walls. He changed the game speed. It was entrancing.
A lot of what he did was too complex for me to truly grasp. Some stuff I understood, and I was able to find step by step instructions on a forum called Glitch City. But much of what he did required a deep understanding of how the game works, not just a series of step by step instructions. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do what he did, but if I could understand even a little part of it, I could maybe get to Zapdos more quickly.
I had already begun a new save file and played up until the SS Anne, obtaining the Cut TM. Even though this only took about an hour, I was tepid to restart from scratch and YOLO through the game with a pocket full of glitches. I decided I would do some light experimentation and see if I could somehow find the HM for Surf in the game memory early and not have to play all the way to Fuschia City. After all, I already had Cut, and the Power Plant is right next to Cerulean City. The only thing blocking me was a tree to be Cut and some water to Surf.
When you overflow the item memory, you're able to scroll through dozens of "items" that are actually the game memory itself. The values are represented by huge stacks of items, mostly in glitched amounts, because the game reads the hex values as items. Your Trainer ID, for example, is represented by an enormous stack of Master Balls. You can actually use these Master Balls from anywhere you can access the Item menu, including in battle, but doing so will change your Trainer ID and make the game think all your Pokémon are traded. Other item stacks represent more crucial values and changing them will break the game. Sometimes requiring a reset and sometimes even wiping your save. You have to be pretty careful down there.
But not TOO careful. Where's the fun in that?
So there I was, in Cerulean, with Cut but no Surf. If I could find Surf, I could reach Zapdos early and catch it instantly in a Master Ball. I just had to yank them from the game memory.
You can overflow the item bag from anywhere your items are visible. I liked to do it from the PC where I could "deposit" items directly from the game memory into the PC for later retrieval. This meant I could still take Master Balls or Rare Candies from the PC after I stabilized the Item Bag and ended the glitch.
As I scrolled through the memory, powering through the graphical mayhem and sticky cursors, I saw lots of items that made me feel close. I found the HM for Strength, Safari Balls, and Gold Teeth, all related to the Safari Zone in Fuschia City. But nothing for Surf. Eventually, the memory started looping back to the beginning and I realized I'd seen everything there was to see. Surf wasn't in there. But then I realized something else: even if I did find the HM for Surf, I couldn't use it without the badge from Koga in Fuschia City. It wouldn't even be helpful if I found it.
Determined, I started thinking about other ways I could get to Zapdos quickly. I remembered something I read about on The Cutting Room Floor once, about a beta item that's still in the game called "?????". This item is referred to affectionately as the Surfboard because it allows Red to Surf without the use of a a Pokémon. It also doesn't require a badge to use. I reasoned that if I could find the Surfboard, I could use it to Surf to Zapdos right away.
But I hadn't seen ????? while I was depositing items in the PC. What I did notice, though, was that certain glitched items that appeared in the game memory seemed to pull data from the area I was currently in. Standing at the PC in the Poké Center had items called PCNIDOKING and TRADECENTER. Maybe, I thought, the items you can find in the memory are partially informed by where you currently are. I remembered back in Shenanigan's speed run where he seemingly entered and exited Diglett's Cave for no reason. Maybe that was why?
So I thought, if I was a Surfboard, maybe I would appear somewhere that Surfing was possible. I left the Pokémon Center and went one door to the right to the closest body of water: Misty's gym. I overflowed the memory and started digging.
Sure enough, only a few units down, there was ?????. I tried it and it worked! Red started Surfing.
So I ran all the way to the shoreline where one accesses the Power Plant path, checked the memory again, but there was no Surfboard. I was so defeated. I tried few different spots but it wouldn't appear for use anywhere that would actually enable me to get to Zapdos. Since it only appeared in Misty's gym, and I couldn't find it once I left the gym, it seemed the dream was dead.
But I decided to test one more thing.
When you overflow the item bag, the first twenty slots are actually "blank" placeholders for items you could conceivably pick up and add to your bag. If you picked up a Poké Ball, for example, one of these blank slots would become occupied by a Poké Ball and display it in the Items. But until then, that slot is kept out of view and occupied by a placeholder item called "j".
These j slots are always there, the first twenty items in the list, because their function is ubiquitous. This is memory that exists in the item bag itself, not just loaded into the item bag by force. I thought: what would happen if I went in Misty's gym, clicked on the Surfboard, and resorted the bag order so it was up at the top of the list with the lowercase js instead of down in the volatile memory below?
I didn't know what would happen, honestly. But in a perfect scenario, I would actually be physically changing where the Surfboard was located and placing it foremost in the RAM. I don't know if that's how it actually worked. I know precious little about code. But not only did it let me move the Surfboard higher up on the list and remove the j slot, the Surfboard stayed in place when I left the gym.
I freaking flipped, my good dudes. I can't tell you how exhilarating it felt to theorize a path through something you barely understand and achieve the desired result. I thought that this must be how scientists feel when they invent a new medicine or something. Like, something you can barely control suddenly bends to your will.
I strolled over to Zapdos, surfed on my trusty ?????, and nabbed Zapdos with a Master Ball. It was incredible.
I transferred it up and got Hidden Power Ice. What a thrill.
Now I'm obsessed with the fastest route to Zapdos. Now that I can bypass Surf, I am trying to find out how to bypass Cut. That damn tree is all that stands between me and Zapdos in, like, a ten minute process.
But it's all just for fun. I know Shenanigans could mess with warp points and appear right next to Zapdos as soon as he got to Saffron. But this was amazing for me because this isn't something I intimately understand. But I made it work for me anyway!
Definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. I'm still reeling in satisfaction.