In Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow there are a number of useful glitches that can allow you to catch any Pokemon you want. An often-used glitch is known as the “Soft Reset”. This involves resetting the game to erase all but your top Pokemon or item from memory. As a result, it resets numerous variables in the game, among them the memory address of which Pokemon is to be found in a given location. By then loading your saved game, the chance that a Pokemon matching that criteria will appear is increased significantly.
Before you can do any of these glitches, you need to have a Pokemon that knows Fly and at least one other attack move (Preferably a damaging one). You can go to the S.S. Anne and battle a Pokemon that only knows the moves “Struggle” and “Scratch”, but you might as well simply catch a Spearow from the area by Viridian City, which is much faster.
Soft Resetting with an Attack Move:
1) Enter a wild Pokemon battle and swap to your Spearow/Spearow equivalent.
2) End the turn without using any other moves (i.e., spamming the “B” button).
3) Enter your Pokemon’s name as “#$#$#$#$#$#” (where $ represents the last item in your inventory, if you have less than 10).
4) Use Fly.
You will be taken to the S.S. Anne, then immediately go into a wild Pokemon battle before exiting the ship again. The game will freeze upon doing this if your attack move affected encounter slots other than 0, but doing it on 0 slot will not freeze the game.
Soft Resetting with no other Moves:
This is the more useful version of soft resetting. What you have to do here is simply enter a wild Pokemon battle, swap to your Spearow/Spearow equivalent and end the turn without using any other moves (i.e., spamming the “B” button). The game will freeze upon doing this if your attack move affected encounter slots other than 0, but doing it on 0 slot will not freeze the game.
Soft Resetting without a Pokemon or Items:
1) Enter the start menu and press the Up key four times.
2) Fly to Cerulean City (You can’t use Surf, you need Fly).
3) Get out of Cerulean City and enter a wild Pokemon battle.
The game will freeze upon doing this if your attack move affected encounter slots other than 0, but doing it on 0 slot might not freeze the game. This can be used to activate the Mew Glitch or catch any Pokemon you want.
Soft Resetting with a Pokemon:
- Enter the start menu and press the Up key four times.
- Swap to your Spearow/Spearow equivalent and Fly to Cinnabar Island.
- 3) Enter Seafoam Islands.
- Go to an encounter slot other than 0.
- End the turn.
- Fly to Fuchsia City.
- Swap to your Pokemon that has a very low level, preferably under 5 or 10 for an easier reset.
- Enter any wild battle with the enemy Pokemon at full health. 9) Use your attack move on yourself/your ‘M (in Red/Blue) or ‘M (in Yellow).
- Use your Pokemon’s move that is affected by the glitch, then immediately swap to your Spearow/Spearow equivalent.
- Fly to Lavender Town and immediately end the turn.
- The game will show you as in a black area, but don’t worry; this is normal.
- After you’ve taken a step, the game should freeze (if it doesn’t then reset and try again).
- Open your menu and swap to either ‘M or Spearow/Spearow equivalent.
- Fly to Cinnabar Island.
- Enter Seafoam Islands.
- Swap to your Pokemon that has a very low-level, preferably under 5 or 10.
- Enter any wild battle with the enemy Pokemon at full health.
- Use your attack move on yourself/’M (in Red/Blue) or ‘M (in Yellow).
- The game should stop recognizing button presses except for Start and Select.
- Swap to your Spearow/Spearow equivalent and Fly to Lavender Town.
