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"Pokémon Gold and Silver" is one of the games from the second generation of the Pokémon games. Compared to the previous series, Pokémon Red and Blue, many new features and gameplay changes were introduced. And it turned out that one of the features, storing the game corner coins in a coin case that is, would allow to beat Red in under an hour, while never defeating the Elite Four in the first place.

Categories

  • Heavy glitch abuse
  • Low% completion
  • Uses a game restart sequence

Emulator and ROM

The movie was recorded on VBA-RR v23.6 svn480. I used a standard EU Gold Version ROM found on the Interwebz. MD5: a6924ce1f9ad2228e1c6580779b23878, filename: Pokemon Gold Version (UE) [C][!].gbc
VBA seems to have problems with emulating the Real Time Clock while recording a movie, and Bizhawk seems to really like desyncing movies. Since having a movie is much better than not having it in the first place, I decided to use VBA, despite its RTC problems.

Comments

This is my second, way better attempt of using Coin Case glitches to beat the game; you can see my previous (absolutely failed) attempt here: #4084: TheZZAZZGlitch's GBC Pokémon: Gold Version "game end glitch" in 1:30:08.36.
The run uses only two glitches: Pokémon cloning glitch and the Coin Case glitch. The Coin Case glitch is what the run is focusing on, since it allows for getting the Holy Grail of glitches - arbitrary code execution.
On Pokémon Gold/Silver, there is a popular glitch involving opening the Coin Case after listening to Machop/Machamp's cry. Usually it just causes the game to restart in a weird color scheme - however, there is much more to it than expected. The Coin Case text script is improperly terminated, so the game tries to execute commands past the actual script, leading to arbitrary code execution. This text script error causes the game to jump to address $E112. By listening to specific cries, manipulating the party Pokémon list and by standing in specific locations on the map, it is possible to redirect that accidental jump to a useful location, giving me a possibility to run my own code by storing specific items into the PC box.
So the goal of the run is to turn the Coin Case's bad habit of executing arbitrary code into our favor, by forcing it to:
  • Somehow warp me to Mt. Silver
  • Make Red appear at Mt. Silver (he doesn't normally appear there before beating the Elite Four)
  • Give me a chance to defeat him with a level 20 Croconaw
  • Not crash the game in the process
I won't be getting into much detail about how the Coin Case glitch works: instead read this thread on Glitch City Laboratories Forums: http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php/topic,6716.0.html. We already have a possiblity to execute some code, by storing items into the PC box. Now, how to make the code do everything mentioned above? Since we can execute anything directly on the console/emulator, it's possible to write any part of memory. So everything can be done by just changing a couple memory addresses:
  • DA00 -> 03, DA01 -> 56: Will warp me to Mt. Silver after leaving the current building.
  • D8A3 -> 00: Will make Red appear on Mt. Silver.
  • DA22 -> 00: Will cause the game to think I don't have any Pokémon, allowing me to instantly win the battle with Red.
To change those addresses, I created a simple "memory writer" program, which allows me to write a more complicated "memory writer" program, which finally writes the memory addresses I want.
Below is a list of items I had to acquire before doing anything:
Flower Mail     x17         
Potion          x(High nibble)      
Energy Root     x1          
ANY ITEM        x(ANY QTY)   
Escape Rope     x7           
Ice Heal        x7           
Awakening       x7           
Repel           x7            
Fresh Water     x(Low nibble)        
Berry           x2           
X Accuracy      x(Position)          
TM28            x1          
ANY ITEM        x(ANY QTY)  
Parlyz Heal     x34         
Full Heal       x17        
Flower Mail     x46        
Poke Ball       x2         
X Defend        x1         
TM49            x1         
Antidote        x1         
PsnCureBerry    x1           
Burn Heal       x2          
TM41            x1   
Thankfully, all those items are available at the game beginning, in Goldenrod Department Store.

What happens

The first program

Doing everything possible with just items is not a great idea, since we don't want going around the whole region just to get necessary items. A better solution is to make a simple program, which will write to a specified memory location, and jump to it afterwards. The first argument, controlled by the quantity of Potions, is the lower 4 bits of the byte I want to write. Quantity of Fresh Water controls the high 4 bits. Then the amount of X-Accuracies controls the least significant byte of the address to write, with the most significant one is always 0xDB. This allows me to write something more complicated to the (DB01-DB10) address range.
Because it saves time and items, the program exits in a wrong way, which will cause a very annoying side-effect: the menus will scroll the text like they were textboxes.

The second program

As soon as I deposit all the items in their respective places, I start writing the payload. Thankfully, the nearest place which allows the Coin Case to work is 4 steps from the PC. I optimized the withdraw/deposit combination so it would display the least amount of menus as possible (saves a lot of time, because of the side-effect mentioned above). Eventually, DB01 contains a sequence:
D6 12 21 FE DA 2C 2C 22 33 00 AF 3C 21 F6 12 E9
Or in assembly:
sub $12
ld hl,$dafe
inc l
inc l
ldi (hl),a
inc sp
nop
xor a
inc a
ld hl,12f6
jp hl
What the code does is takes the value set with the items (Potions and Fresh Waters), and subtracts 0x12 from it - this is to allow me to write values less than 0x10. Then it loads this value to $DA00, and returns control back to the game. By swapping the last item (TM41) with Parlyz Heals, the code is modified to jump to the second part.
One of the bytes is skipped, and set to NOP, which does nothing. The problem is that DB0A is actually in the middle of the fifth party Pokémon data, and specifies if the Pokémon has any status problems. Setting it to anything but 0 would cause the addresses to change around, which would mess up the code.
Next, this program is delicately modified, so it writes a value to $DA01 - it only requires to change one byte.

The third program

The two last addresses need to be set to the same value - 00. To speed things up, I write a yet another program - which will replace parts of the previous one. I change the bytes at $DB03 to:
EA 22 DA EA A3 D8
Instead of writing one address at a time, this one writes two: $DA22 and $D8A3. This modification is entered and executed exactly like the previous one - by running around, changing the amounts of Fresh Waters and Potions.
Finally, I execute the final piece of code, and by going through the stairs in Goldenrod Pokemon Center... I end up on Mt. Silver. The game must be saved once more, because of the previously described side-effect, which causes the credits to require mashing A to go through. Saving and resetting gets rid of this effect, and after reloading the game, we can finally talk to Red and win the battle with him, without even fighting.

Remarks

Special thanks to Sanqui, for discovering the actual arbitrary code part of the coin case glitch.

Noxxa: Judging.
Spikestuff: Removed Branch Name "glitched" as reasoning are within this discussion.
Noxxa: This movie displays a very impressive technical trick to glitch to the end using arbitrary code. However, during the first half of the movie, the gameplay is plagued by a significant amount of suboptimalities and sloppiness, and is clearly improvable in many areas, including overworld movement and item collection. Rejecting due to noticable suboptimality.


Spikestuff
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Understood thatguy and Slowking. This should be accepted like this blue and it will be improved on even more like this one. Yet again I don't want to bring this one up. BTW why is that "no memory corruption" there is only 1 glitch that happens.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Joined: 7/30/2013
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Impressive glitch manipulation. But the pre-glitch part was really sloppy. Luck manipulation should actually be easier in this game than the newer ones given the AI can even change their moves during the frames. This one should go, but it demands a future optimization. Oh another note, is it viable to make a similar run on Pokémon Red/Blue or Yellow using the 8F item for arbitrary code execution? Just a thought, but I'm pretty sure the Walk Through Walls glitch would do better.
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Joined: 12/6/2008
Posts: 1193
Spikestuff wrote:
Understood thatguy and Slowking. This should be accepted like this blue
So can you tell me where that one shuffels items for 18 minutes? Or can you tell me where that one doesn't manipulate stats correctly and picks up tons of items that would be a lot faster if bought, or where this one screws up movement so badly, even non-TAS runners do it better? If you can tell me these things then sure, we can call these movies even. If not then I would like you to refrain from such backhanded tactics in the future. On the poor TASing alone this movie has to be rejected. That it's boring as hell doesn't even come into it with this current version.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Understood thatguy and Slowking. This should be accepted like this blue and it will be improved on even more like this one.
No. Just no. I'm very aware that a "perfect" TAS, especially for games like this, is nearly impossible (to achieve and to prove). So if a run has potential improvement, then I often won't let that affect my entertainment (too much) when I vote. But if said improvement was that noticeable even in real time, then something's not right, and imo, distracts the run quite a bit.
Joined: 12/29/2007
Posts: 489
Excellent proof of concept, but like others have said, the run's quality just isn't quite up to par for publication. Voting Meh.
Spikestuff
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Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6440
Location: The land down under.
YouTube:
ChickasaurusGL wrote:
Well done on this run TheZZAZZGlitch. I agree with Mothrayas on the TASVideos workbench thread that there's room for improvement but I enjoyed the run. Something to note that Mothrayas didn't mention is that when you're cloning it's possible to reset earlier like after the Yes/No box disappears.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
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Spikestuff wrote:
YouTube:
ChickasaurusGL wrote:
Well done on this run TheZZAZZGlitch. I agree with Mothrayas on the TASVideos workbench thread that there's room for improvement but I enjoyed the run. Something to note that Mothrayas didn't mention is that when you're cloning it's possible to reset earlier like after the Yes/No box disappears.
Uh....So, are you against this run being accepted or not? Your earlier posts seem to indicate you want this run published, but this post seems to give another reason why it shouldn't.
Spikestuff
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I was quoting someone on youtube >.> You silly goose.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
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http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php/topic,6716.msg191372.html#msg191372 MrWint indicates in his post that Bellsprout's cry serves the same purpose as Machop's cry (indeed, they leave the same string in memory). Bellsprout is also far quicker to encounter, since it is a random encounter on Route 31 (the route near the beginning just prior to Violet City).
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... om, nom, nom... nom nom
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For the fun on it I'm starting a gold run that uses the bad clone map distortion route. Will be a good reference as to what route is faster (I'm guessing the route in this movie)
Patashu
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Bobmario511 wrote:
For the fun on it I'm starting a gold run that uses the bad clone map distortion route. Will be a good reference as to what route is faster (I'm guessing the route in this movie)
I'm 99% sure there's a faster way to do map distortion type stuff than the way used in the RTA route, just that no one's investigated it deep enough to have any idea how it is controlled, so it won't be a definitive 'coin case is faster' vs 'map distort is faster'. But yes, I'm interested in how such a TAS would look :D
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu