Pokemon Emerald Glitches: Find Rare Pokemon and Dominate Battles in No Time

Over the years, Generation III of the Pokemon games have become totally broken by the community. All of Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald have their own glitches that can change how the game is played.

We want to focus exclusively on Pokemon Emerald today, giving you a look at some of its more unique glitches. Some have an actual use in-game, while others are just for fun.

The Dive Glitch (Teleportation)

If you head to the submarine room of Aqua Hideout, surf on the water. You’ll notice there are some darker tiles in the water, which usually means you can use Dive. However, if you try it, it doesn’t work.

Save and reset while surfing on these dark water tiles. You’ll now be able to use Dive. However, rather than actually diving, you’ll be teleported to Petalburg City.

This glitch doesn’t have much utility, unless you want a very specific quick teleport to Petalburg City. However, it’s an interesting look into how the game actually works.

Battle Tower Cloning Glitch

The Battle Tower cloning glitch is by far the most overpowered exploit in Pokemon Emerald, even though it does come with some risks.

First, head to the Battle Tower and open up the Pokemon PC inside. Then, deposit the Pokemon you want to clone into one of the empty boxes. This can be as many on your current team as you’d like. Afterward, save your game in front of the PC, then take the Pokemon back out of the deposit box and back into your party. Head to the counter at the Battle Tower, and speak to the clerk. During the conversation, press the “Challenge” option, and proceed through the dialogue until you reach the part where they offer to save your game. Don’t press anything here. Instead, restart your console at this step. The game will say that your save file is corrupted – don’t worry about it. Load back into the game, and you’ll notice that your Pokemon should be in both your party and your PC, cloning them.

While this glitch is certainly overpowered, you need to be careful while using it. As you’re essentially corrupting your game in order to clone your Pokemon, this can result in bigger issues if you do it in a different order as described above. Not only is it possible to lose your Pokemon, but you can also lose your save file completely.

Pomeg Berry Glitch

The Pomeg Berry glitch is one of the strangest you’ll ever encounter in Pokemon Emerald. When it was first introduced, the Pomeg Berry’s effect caused the HP EVs of a Pokemon to be lowered by 10. Essentially, this means that using a Pomeg Berry lowers the HP of a Pokemon upon use. So what happens when you use this on a Pokemon with 1HP? Chaos ensues.

If you’ve got a Pokemon with 1HP after a battle, use a Pomeg Berry on them. Because of the way the game calculates health, they will drop to -1HP. In practice, what this achieves is it technically gives them 65,535 HP due to how Pokemon Emerald interprets negative numbers. This will be displayed in-game as “?35,” and it seems like they have infinite HP.

There is one issue with this glitch that means it can’t be used as an infinite HP glitch in Pokemon Emerald. Whenever an opposing Pokemon uses a life-steal move, your HP bar will continue dropping forever. This essentially soft-locks the game, making it impossible to finish the battle.

Walk on Water Glitch

This glitch can be done by heading to any cave entrance while having a Pokemon in your party that knows the Dive move. While surfing in the cave, move into the cave exit and press B simultaneously. If your timing is right, you’ll be placed inside the exit while being offered the option to use Dive. Press Yes.

After this, you’ll be teleported as though you used the Dive move, but the game doesn’t really know what to do as you move locations. Rather than putting you underwater, you’ll find that you’re actually walking on water instead. You can run around, ride a bike, and even challenge other trainers like normal.

There’s not much actual use for this glitch in-game, but it’s definitely interesting to see in action.

Do Pokemon Emerald Glitches Work on Any Version of the Game?

Yes! We’ve ensured that all of the Pokemon Emerald glitches we’ve shown you here work on every version, both GBA and emulated on PC. Nowadays, it’s quite rare that the game is actually played on a Game Boy Advance, with most choosing to use a ROM and an emulator such as Visual Boy Advance. That’s why it’s so important to make sure they work on both.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Screenshot from Pokemon Emerald..