A G
The name is bookended, an A at the front and a G at the back with a katakana u wedged between them, like the first and last initials of something that lost its middle. Index 212 is the second creature in this catalogue to wear Gengar's grinning shadow, a twin in body to h POKe a few doors back, the same Ghost and Poison spirit with the same 130 special and the same haunting opening of Lick and Confuse Ray and Night Shade.
But arm a ghost differently and it becomes a different creature entirely, and this one is armed all wrong. Its learnset hands a floating spirit the tools of a bruiser: Crabhammer at level 20, Bind, Jump Kick twice over, moves that need fists and feet a ghost does not have. Gengar's actual attack stat is a soft 65, so watching this specimen wind up a Jump Kick is like watching a cloud try to throw a punch. It should not work, and mechanically it barely does.
Then there is Fissure, learned at level 101, the move that splits the earth open and knocks a target out in a single hit. On a spectral body that floats above the ground, a creature with no feet to stomp and no weight to drop, an earthquake attack is pure contradiction. Aゥ G is a ghost carrying a pickaxe, a shadow that learned to crack the planet, its evolutions drifting toward Raichu and Tauros and the ever-waiting MissingNo. Where its twin hid as the thing it was, this one just picked up every weapon it was never built to hold.
GHOST POISON
The bytes
| What | Where in the ROM | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Index number | slot 212 of the species table | 0xD4 (212) |
| Pokedex byte | 0x410F7 | 94 (borrowed from a real species) |
| Stats entry | 0x38E0A | 5E 3C 41 3C 6E 82 08 03 2D BE... |
| Size byte | entry byte 10 | 0x66 = 6 wide, 6 tall (the buffer holds 7x7) |
| Name bytes | 0x1CA5C | 38 CD 3E 80 EA D3 CC CD 86 34 |
| Catch rate | entry byte 8 | 45 |
Front sprite pointer 0x5B76 resolves into ROM bank 0x0D (deterministic) at file offset 0x35B76. The decode is deterministic: it looks the same on every cartridge, every time.
Byte for byte identical in Blue.
Base stats
Its stat spread, straight from the entry bytes. Glitch specimens love extremes, a wall with zero attack, or a paper-thin speedster.
Moves
Knows from the start: LICK, CONFUSE RAY, NIGHT SHADE.
Learnset (read straight from its pointer)
| Level | Move |
|---|---|
| L20 | CRABHAMMER |
| L205 | JUMP KICK |
| L21 | BIND |
| L138 | JUMP KICK |
| L70 | SUPERSONIC |
| L101 | FISSURE |
| L41 | MIST |
| L82 | BIND |
| L32 | GLITCH MOVE 0xE8 |
| L138 | GLITCH MOVE 0xB8 |
| L193 | FLAMETHROWER |
| L163 | SEISMIC TOSS |
| L48 | GLITCH MOVE 0xD0 |
| L82 | CRABHAMMER |
| L197 | SCRATCH |
| L82 | VINE WHIP |
| L158 | HYDRO PUMP |
| L26 | SCRATCH |
| L184 | GLITCH MOVE 0xC1 |
| L49 | DREAM EATER |
| L168 | GLITCH MOVE 0xE4 |
| L160 | FLASH |
| L115 | COUNTER |
| L195 | BLIZZARD |
TM and HM compatibility (flag bits, entry bytes 20 to 26)
| Machine | Move |
|---|---|
| TM01 | MEGA PUNCH |
| TM05 | MEGA KICK |
| TM06 | TOXIC |
| TM08 | BODY SLAM |
| TM09 | TAKE DOWN |
| TM10 | DOUBLE-EDGE |
| TM15 | HYPER BEAM |
| TM17 | SUBMISSION |
| TM18 | COUNTER |
| TM19 | SEISMIC TOSS |
| TM20 | RAGE |
| TM21 | MEGA DRAIN |
| TM24 | THUNDERBOLT |
| TM25 | THUNDER |
| TM29 | PSYCHIC |
| TM31 | MIMIC |
| TM32 | DOUBLE TEAM |
| TM34 | BIDE |
| TM35 | METRONOME |
| TM36 | SELFDESTRUCT |
| TM40 | SKULL BASH |
| TM42 | DREAM EATER |
| TM44 | REST |
| TM46 | PSYWAVE |
| TM47 | EXPLOSION |
| TM50 | SUBSTITUTE |
| HM04 | STRENGTH |
Evolutions
| Trigger | Becomes |
|---|---|
| LEVEL 107 (glitch method 0x04) | RAICHU (0x55) |
| LEVEL 206 (glitch method 0x04) | MISSINGNO. (0x86) |
| LEVEL 40 (glitch method 0x8C) | TAUROS (0x3C) |
| LEVEL 138 (glitch method 0x97) | \x5d\x22 (0xCD) |
| LEVEL 53 (glitch method 0xE6) | \x17\x43\x56\x23\x0b (0xE2) |
| LEVEL 16 (glitch method 0xE8) | h\xcaPOKe\x1f\x06\x1c\x21\x6a\x7b\xcd (0xC3) |
| LEVEL 117 (glitch method 0x89) | GRIMER (0x0D) |
| LEVEL 233 (glitch method 0xA4) | MEOWTH (0x4D) |
Hear its cry
A cry is three bytes the game looks up by index number: a base sound, a pitch, and a length. This specimen reads a base that points past the real cries into data that was never a cry, so it comes out broken straight from the table. I rebuild the sound live from the Game Boy's two pulse channels and its noise channel. This is not a recording.
Does it still work?
This is the question people actually ask about a glitch, so here is the honest answer for this one.
| Where | Still works? |
|---|---|
| Original Game Boy cartridge | Yes. The source of every byte on this page. |
| Game Boy Color / Super Game Boy | Yes, with the auto-assigned palette shown above. |
| 3DS Virtual Console (2016 re-release) | Yes. Nintendo shipped the re-release unpatched, so this is the most accessible way to reach it in 2026. |
| Later remakes (FireRed, Let's Go, and newer) | No. Rebuilt engines, the empty-slot overflow that produces this creature is gone. |
Fight it yourself
This is our from-scratch recreation of the Red battle engine. The enemy team is preset to this specimen; pick your own fighter, glitch or otherwise.
Every number on this page was read from a Pokemon Red ROM by reproducing the game's own out-of-bounds memory reads. Nothing is invented. Part of The Glitchhouse.