1st Gen Where did MissingNO. get its awful reputation?

[Naemuti]

In all my days of messing with the R/B MissingNO's, I've never had a problem with them (other than the usual Pokemon menu flashing/blank sprite, the garbled hall of fame, and the backwards sprites). They all seem pretty harmless. Is it just something some second grader invented back when Pokemon was in its prime just to sound cool, or is there actually some backing to the fact that MissingNO. can corrupt your save file? Because I haven't seen it yet.

Also, I'm not including glitch trainers here. I know those can backfire pretty badly. I'm exclusively referring to the MissingNO. and 'M' Pokemon and the Rhydons/Kangaskhans they "evolve" into, and nothing else.

 

[Ivysaur]

Well, it does corrupt your Hall of Fame- and its caused by a glitch. Probably since it is very useful if correctly used (sixth item x 126 ^^), Nintendo decided to scare away the people. And then AR and Gameshark found similar but more dangerous gliches which, some of them, could mess up the game realy badly, and they were confunded with the good Missingno.

 

[Tanooki]

MissingNO's have been claimed to corrupt people's save files. I myself have never saved the game after capturing one, so...

 

[MoonlightUmbreon]

You don't save your game after catching it, and you should be fine. What's really bad is when you catch an M and send it to the PC...

Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun...

The box crashes and you can't get into any of that box. You need to remove M with Pokemon Stadium 1 or 2 to get rid of it. This has been known to much more occasionally happen with MissingNo. M is far more dangerous in my opinion.

 

[Improfane]

Missingo is annoying in that it ruins your Hall of Fame.

Not sure if this is an isolated case but when I used the East shore of the Seaform Islands to get missingo, the current box of Pokemon was erased. Shame really.

 

[JX Valentine]

To add to Improfane, you get varied results, depending on what you do with it. I once messed with Missingno by repeatedly duplicating my sixth item (i.e. not using any of the item in my sixth slot but just failing to move it when I encountered multiple Missingno after that), and for some reason, that erased half of my items list and wouldn't let me go past eight slots. That only happened on one game, however. On others, I've deposited 'M and wound up crashing my game, others report messed up save files, and a lot of other people just report the messed up Hall of Fame. Because, even if you do the trick perfectly (or, rather, even if you think you did it perfectly), you might get negative results out of nowhere, the code got a bit of infamy.

 

[Improfane]

Perhaps I could use that item list erasing to my advantage.

I have my fair share of 128 bicycles, town maps, super rods and itemfinders.

Gah!

 

[Naemuti]

Perhaps I could use that item list erasing to my advantage.

I have may fair share of 128 bicycles, town maps, super rods and itemfinders.

Gah!

Lol. I did that once and tried to deposit them all. Bloody hell...

Anyways, for the record, I've never done anything wrong and never gotten any negative results, but my look on it is that maybe when someone does it in a different way, some chunk of the save data or game data gets overwritten or misplaced in some way it shouldn't by MissingNO. This would possibly explain the Hall of Flame having garbled graphics and weird Pokemon like Mew and MissingNO.

Also, to the people that don't save after catching MissingNO., even if you release him first, SAVE THE GAME. It's been proven that when you encounter MissingNO. your game saves, but it's nothing more than a garbage save. I can't think anything good comes out of not saving over that, but I've never tried.

 

[JX Valentine]

Perhaps I could use that item list erasing to my advantage.

I wish I could tell you that my stroke of stupidity would work 100% of the time, but alas. XD; Good luck if you'd like to see if it does, though.

Also, to the people that don't save after catching MissingNO., even if you release him first, SAVE THE GAME. It's been proven that when you encounter MissingNO. your game saves, but it's nothing more than a garbage save. I can't think anything good comes out of not saving over that, but I've never tried.

Actually, this is true for 'M (which is a different but similar glitch), not Missingno. I know 'M is often confused with Missingno (what with a very similar encounter process and sprite), 'M is actually the more destructive of the two, with the ability to save your game upon first encounter and generating messed up Halls of Fame that also apparently save your game. Missingno might mess up your Hall of Fame a little, but other than that, it doesn't force the game to automatically save. (I admit I drew this information from the Glitch Dex and TRsRockin.)

 

[Monzae]

Rhydons and Kangaskhans are only found in Safari Zone yes?
So Missingno must be a glitch of a Pokemon that was to be a Safari Zone Pokemon..
Why the hell he's a flying type, and evolves into Rhydon/Kangaskhan gets me..
What also gets me is why you find him in Cinnibar Island..
He's a prick to battle when you're low level, I know that much.
I've never had the guts to catch him.. I don't want to screw the game over too much..
Although he's such a mystery, he's SO GOOD for that item duplication reason. Makes life so much more easier.

 

[JX Valentine]

Rhydons and Kangaskhans are only found in Safari Zone yes?
So Missingno must be a glitch of a Pokemon that was to be a Safari Zone Pokemon..

Rhydon can also be found in Cerulean Cave. Also, Missingno is a placeholder for Pokemon data, not the remnant of a Pokemon that was meant to be put into the game.

Why the hell he's a flying type,

He's not. He's a Bird-type, which is actually apparently different. It's not known why, although there's been rumors that Bird was actually a beta-type.

and evolves into Rhydon/Kangaskhan gets me..

It doesn't. Missingno shifts into Rhydon after awhile of being stored in a PC, but it doesn't evolve into Kangaskhan ('M does.), nor does it actually go through an evolution process. I'd say it's a bit like catching 'M for a second time in the battle, only to have 'M turn into Ditto.

What also gets me is why you find him in Cinnibar Island..

Because the strip of land/water was never programmed for Pokemon data, although it was programmed to allow players to encounter wild Pokemon. Because the game doesn't know what to put there, it instead borrows data from the last area you've been in. (This is why going into the Safari Zone and surfing up and down either Cinnabar's coast or Seafoam's coast produces Safari Pokemon.) However, since the last Pokemon encounter you were in was in a demo battle in an area with no wild Pokemon, the game instead borrows data from the last place where Pokemon data was saved: your name. So, the game gets a little confused, throws a bunch of stuff that shouldn't be encountered together, and gives it to you in the form of glitched Pokemon.

 

[Monzae]

Because the game doesn't know what to put there, it instead borrows data from the last area you've been in.

o.o
Wow.
You went to quite an effort there, buddy.

But don't you fly directly from Viridian city, and the old man, to cinnabar? Or has my memory failed due to not playing the game in over 6 years?

 

[JX Valentine]

o.o
Wow.
You went to quite an effort there, buddy.

Yeah, I'll admit I have no life and have been gathering information about Missingno since I was twelve. So, that means I've spent eight years messing with the glitch and reading about it. XD

But don't you fly directly from Viridian city, and the old man, to cinnabar? Or has my memory failed due to not playing the game in over 6 years?

Yes. The thing is about his encounter is that:

1. There's no wild Pokemon in Viridian City, so the game can't retrieve Pokemon data from the last place you've encountered a wild Pokemon battle.
2. Because of the nature of the demo battle, rather than storing the information for that particular battle in a normal place, it does so in the same spaces that store both your name and a wild Pokemon encounter so that when you watch the demo battle, the old man's name appears instead of your own. Unfortunately, this also means that the next encounter recalls your name instead of regular Pokemon data because that single strip along Cinnabar Island's east coast doesn't have wild Pokemon data programmed into it in order to overwrite what the last encounter had done. So, because of that, the game recalls the hex for each letter to your name to assign to a level and species of Pokemon, hence why you tend to get really messed up stuff, like level 150 Haunter if you name yourself MATT (T being the third letter, whose hex corresponds to the hex for Haunter).

I hope that made sense. It's a bit hard to explain without spending hours trying to get the numbers for examples. ^_^;

 

[Monzae]

Oh my lord.
I will give it to you, you know a freaking DAMN LOT about Missingno/how it operates..

Props.
Thanks for the lesson <3

 

[Naemuti]

Actually, this is true for 'M (which is a different but similar glitch), not Missingno. I know 'M is often confused with Missingno (what with a very similar encounter process and sprite), 'M is actually the more destructive of the two, with the ability to save your game upon first encounter and generating messed up Halls of Fame that also apparently save your game. Missingno might mess up your Hall of Fame a little, but other than that, it doesn't force the game to automatically save. (I admit I drew this information from the Glitch Dex and TRsRockin.)

Oh, I know 'M' is different as similar as it looks. And MissingNO. in fact DOES do a garbage save. Fight one in Pokemon Stadium on the GB Tower and watch the "Saving..." appear when he comes up.

The GlitchDex and TRsRockin are very good. Probably the best place to get glitch information on the net! :p

Rhydons and Kangaskhans are only found in Safari Zone yes?
So Missingno must be a glitch of a Pokemon that was to be a Safari Zone Pokemon..

It's been said; MissingNO. is placeholder data. There is a question that's been nagging me, though. Why the mess of pixels rather than some sort of proper sprite?

Why the hell he's a flying type, and evolves into Rhydon/Kangaskhan gets me..

I remember loosely how this was explained, but it was something to do with how the game tried to fix the glitch, and Kanga/Rhydon were next on the list. Or something.

He's a prick to battle when you're low level, I know that much.

Depends on the level of the Pokemon you use and whether he uses Sky Attack or Water Gun. MissingNO. has ridculous attack, so even at low levels he might kill you with Sky, but Water Gun is Special, and his special is horrible.

He's not. He's a Bird-type, which is actually apparently different. It's not known why, although there's been rumors that Bird was actually a beta-type.

Are bird-types weak to the same things as flying?

Oh my lord.
I will give it to you, you know a freaking DAMN LOT about Missingno/how it operates..

Heh. It's not actually that hard to find stuff on him if you know where to look. :P

 

[Monzae]

Okay, enough with the quoting. xD

I guess you're right about where to find the info though, I guess all I really knew/cared about was that he was a weird glitch that used flying attacks and made my items go up ^_^

But props to people who study him really hard. It's quite an interesting glitch.

 

[Naemuti]

Okay, enough with the quoting. xD

Damn 25 character limit....

 

[JX Valentine]

Oh, I know 'M' is different as similar as it looks. And MissingNO. in fact DOES do a garbage save. Fight one in Pokemon Stadium on the GB Tower and watch the "Saving..." appear when he comes up.

That's through Stadium, not on RBY itself. It doesn't save RBY whenever you encounter them.

The GlitchDex and TRsRockin are very good. Probably the best place to get glitch information on the net! :p

In that case, lemme quote TRsRockin.

"MissingNo does not make your game save when you encounter it."
- From this page

Also, lemme quote what they say about 'M:

"'M seems to cause much more damage to your records and Hall of Fame than MissingNo. Even encountering one will make your game save (you can see this happening while playing on Stadium 1 or 2)."
- From here

Also, this is from the Glitch Dex I've found. (I realize it's not the Glitch Dex, but it's close enough.)

"However, your game automatically saves when you encounter 'M, unlike MissingNo,"
- Here

So, I'm thinking you might've confused 'M for Missingno here unless they did.

It's been said; MissingNO. is placeholder data. There is a question that's been nagging me, though. Why the mess of pixels rather than some sort of proper sprite?

Because the mess of pixels is a placeholder as well. Occasionally, you get actual sprites (e.g. Ghost Missingno), but more commonly, you'll get the garbage that's left in the slots that were never meant to be called up in a Pokemon encounter.

Are bird-types weak to the same things as flying?

I've tested this, and apparently not. On the other hand, I had also created my test by Sharking a Missingno in place of Bulbasaur at the start of the game, so that might have something to do with it.


Also, thanks to Monzae, but you'll probably find better information in the Missingno sticky or on other websites. I just gave you what I could remember and a sort of messy explanation about it. ^_^;

 

[Monzae]

Damn 25 character limit....

Made me laugh though. =3

Sorry for off topic.

 

[Naemuti]

So, I'm thinking you might've confused 'M for Missingno here unless they did.

Well, I'd like to say they're confused, because I remember reading about and experiencing the fact that MissingNO. does in fact save garbage. But, it's a mighty big claim to say something on TRsRockin's GlitchDex is wrong. That's like the holy bible of glitches.

But then, you have to think, why would it save on stadium but not RBY itself? I assume Stadium does nothing more than run the RBY game on the TV, similar to an Emulator. Does it work differently?