10 Most Important Glitches in Video Game History
Mistakes just as amazing as the games they were in.
Published 4 years ago in Facepalm
1
Minus World In Super Mario Bros., you can take advantage of a walk through walls glitch in World 4-1 into a warp room. From there, you can take a certain pipe that leads you to a “new” world labeled -1. It’s not really new because it’s basically a version of World 7-2 that you can’t actually exit from. And due to the popularity of Mario, this became one of the most famous glitches in gaming.
2
Pokémon and MISSINGNO The Gameboy Pokémon games kicked off the “gotta catch’em all” craze of the series. However, one of the most iconic creatures in Pokémon Red and Blue isn’t actually a Pokémon at all. After you perform some very specific steps, you may start running into a Pokémon labeled MISSINGNO. This stands for “Missing Number” and was a failsafe built into Nintendo’s code. Simply encountering this Pokémon would boost the sixth item in your inventory slot to 99, so players quickly turned this glitch into a tactical advantage.
3
Final Fantasy 6’s Sketch Glitch Speaking of “tactical” glitches, Final Fantasy 6 has one of the most infamous ones. It can happen when Relm uses the “sketch” ability and misses. This glitch causes multiple things to happen, including dangerous consequences like corrupting the game’s memory. But it can also give you multiple copies of really rare items. For brave players, activating this glitch is a high risk, high reward strategy.
4
Early versions of Ocarina of Time had a glitch that wasn’t exactly tactical, but it was memorable. And it all starts with the final fight against Ganon. At the beginning of the fight, you lose your Master Sword and must fight with other weapons. This is meant to be temporary, but you can save your game now and then restart outside of the boss area without your sword. This lets you use other weapons on horseback, use child Link’s weapons, play the game in first-person mode, and unlocks many other wild side effects.
5
World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood Plague Once upon a time, World of Warcraft featured a dungeon boss, Hakkar the Soulflayer, who could infect players with “Corrupted Blood.” This was meant to be temporary because players would either heal themselves or die. However, if a pet got infected, the player could dismiss the pet and retain the infection. This led to players taking infected pets to large cities and spreading a plague of mass death. Not only did this crazy glitch make major headlines, the CDC ended up studying the glitch to better understand how a plague would spread in real life.
6
PlayStation Demo Disc Unless you’re a veteran gamer, you may not have heard of the PlayStation Underground Holiday 2004 Demo Disc. But those who played it experienced a glitch they would never forget. When players tried to play Viewtiful Joe 2’s demo on the disc, the unthinkable happened: every save file on their memory card was erased. In some cases, players lost thousands of hours of collective game progress simply because they tried to play a demo.
7
Tiger Woods Walks on Water A glitch is definitely memorable when a gaming company gets in on the hijinks. And that’s what went down with Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08. One player discovered a glitch where Tiger Woods walked on water and uploaded the clip to YouTube. A year later, EA promoted Tiger Woods PGA Tour '09 where the flesh and blood Tiger Woods walked on water. The tagline of the ad was, “It's not a glitch. He's just that good.”
8
Super Metroid's Machball For some players, certain glitches are vital to how they play the game. One such glitch is famous among everyone who has ever tried to speed run in Super Metroid. With the right moves, a player can transform Samus into her morphing ball while still moving at the normal running speed. Known as “Machball,” this glitch allows players to access areas early without the Speed Booster and beat the game much more quickly.
9
Ultimately, glitches can either make a game better or make it worse. And for Grand Theft Auto IV, the infamous swing set glitch definitely made the game better. All you had to do is park your car near certain swing sets in the game. Inexplicably, the swing sets will launch your car into the air with an insane amount of force. With a little practice, players used this glitch for everything from fast travel to crazy stunts.
10
Pac-Man's Kill Screen Gamers of a certain age may remember “kill screens.” These occurred when a player advanced farther than programmers ever thought they would and encountered a glitchy and unbeatable final level. The most famous example comes from the original Pac-Man arcade game. On level 256, the right side of the screen turns into a crazy jumble of sprites. Not only does this look weird, but it keeps you from collecting all of the pellets, effectively ending your game. But if you got this screen, you basically experienced the first “achievement” in video game history, so it wasn't a total loss.
Most Popular
