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Apparently, it's infinite, I used a Gameshark to always get heads and I filled the entire screen with circles, I didn't continue to see if it would eventually get out of VRAM and start corrupting other parts, but certainly, since it's not possible to get more than 20 flips, even if it does corrupt, it wouldn't have much use, unfortunately...
Post subject: zapdos glitch
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Player (42)
Joined: 12/27/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Germany
Interesting glitch there. However, if it only applies to the Legendary Zapdos, it's only useful for a New Game+ run, since you only get this card after finishing the game. It might be that the programmers messed up when a card is knocked out by PokePower damage, though. By looking at the card list, Gengar has a PokePower that can knock out opponents, it might be a good idea to check if the glitch works with Gengar, too. EDIT: The glitch is real! Apparently, the problem is that, immediately before the game displays the Decision... screen, after you've won the match with Zapdos's Pokepower, it saves an invalid state in Continue Duel. I managed to do two curious things: the first, as shown in the video, is to battle an opponent with an empty arena, if you just finish your turn without attacking, you just win the game immediately. But by attacking the opponent, the game starts to think they have a pokemon and the duel gets completely glitched. The second thing is to do the Zapdos glitch when you pick up the last prize, if you do the glitch you will continue the duel with no prizes to pick. This doesn't look exploitable, though, since if you try to pick up a prize when there are none, the game just gives you the victory without any bugs. My feeling is that the game does this invalid save at the end whenever it is still your turn to play. Probably, when you issue an attack command, the game immediately changes to the opponent's turn, and if you win the match with an attack, this wrong save is avoided. However, by using a pokepower, it is still your turn, and the game performs the save. EDIT 2: My theory should be correct. I managed to do it with Gengar! The thing is, in order to use Gengar's Pokepower, the opponent needs to have more than one Pokemon, so the only thing we can do is get a duel with zero prizes. Is there any way to exploit this? EDIT 3: I finished testing, and unfortunately I have to conclude that the only way to exploit this glitch should be with Zapdos. The bug occurs when the duel finishes midturn. the only way to do this is by using PokePowers. If the duel finishes by any player running out of cards, the state you get with Continue Duel is perfectly valid, and no corruption should be possible. If the duel is finished by running out of prizes, the game handles correctly the case when zero prizes are on the field. Initially, I thought I could make the prize amount variable underflow to 255, but that's not possible, the game saves which prizes have been picked with a bitmask, and calculates the amount of prizes left by counting the number of 1's in the byte. The pokepowers that cause damage are those of Zapdos, Gengar and Machamp. Machamp's is useless because it happens during the attack phase and the invalid save doesn't happen (I tested). Gengar's pokepower needs more than one active pokemon to be used, so it can only glitch the prize amount. The final possibility without Zapdos is to lose the duel before the attack phase. Since running out of cards is no good, we need to KO one of our pokemon without an attack. Sadly, no Pokepower allows this. I even tried something very exotic, like putting Gengar against Machamp, and damaging it with Gengar's power to see if it would counter and kill me. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. Machamp doesn't counter Pokepowers. So, unless I am missing some key mechanics here, the only way to exploit this glitch would be with Zapdos. Maybe it works in Pokemon TCG2, where you get the card before the end of the game?
Joined: 4/2/2014
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You can execute code from WRAM and ECHO in TCG 2 with Zapdos. I have no idea if this can be exploited since I didn't do more tests / didn't take the time to disassemble to see exactly what happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B8Z_YoMkcQ Lv 40 Gengar (Power of Darkness) lets you do something similar to Zapdos if you reset after resolving its Pokémon Power on the last CPU's Pokémon. If you use a card that requires your opponent to do a choice after that, it sometimes lets you control BOTH players' turns (you and the CPU). https://www.pixenli.com/index.php?phppage=voir_galerie&id=1376752251032461000
alt: Froggy25
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Joined: 12/27/2008
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Location: Germany
Gengar Lv40 is a promotional card, right? You need to have access to the black box to get it, so you would get it at the same time you could get Zapdos. I'll look at the card list for Pokemon TCG2 and see if I can find some abusable pokepowers.
Joined: 8/7/2011
Posts: 166
Is the RNG for coin flips even the same for TCG2? I know the minigame in the game corner is always winnable with the right timing but haven't experimented with infinite flip attacks.
Player (42)
Joined: 12/27/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Germany
I am not very familiar with TCG2, I am playing it now to understand the mechanics, one annoying thing is that I can't use Gameshark codes to get the cards I want because cheats don't work yet on the Linux port of BizHawk. Someone (in this case, me) should fix this soon. But it seems like the glitch should work with Dark Golbat, when it knocks out the opponent's last Pokémon. I'll try to set things up and test this.
Zarmakuizz
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Joined: 10/12/2013
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Location: France
So there is a slight chance of getting ACE, although the available options to manipulate the opponent's glitched board are limited (and mostly through attacks). Gust of Wind may affect the opponent's glitched board. Here are the cards that may impact the opp's board, other than simply attacking the opp's active Pokémon. I looked at the IRL sets rather than the in-game sets, it was easier to review all the cards available this way. Base Set: Clefairy may use Metronome to copy the opp's active Pokémon attack. Ninetales, Gust of Wind, Pidgeotto, Podgey switch the opp's active Pokémon. Dragonair, Energy Removal, Super Energy Removal remove energies on the field. Porygon changes the opp active's weakness. Raticate does a calculation based on the opp active's remaining HPs. Pokémon Flute moves a Pokémon from the opponent's discard pile to the opponent's Bench. That could be interesting, could it? Jungle: Clefable for Metronome Electrode may spread damages and KO multiple targets. Pidgeot is Scoop Up on the opponent's board (if no KO happens). Venomoth needs to know all Pokémon in play's type to update its own, including the glitched field. Victreebel is a Gust of Wind. Fossil: Ditto becomes the opp's active Pokémon. Magneton, Articuno, Zapdos, Golem, Smogogo spread damages. Promos: Mew may devolve an opponent's Pokémon. In Pokémon TCG 1, we have the following effects available: change the opponent's active Pokémon, discard attached energies (are there any in the glitched state?), devolve an evolved Pokémon (idem), spread damages to KO multiple "Fire energies", do some weird stuff based on the opponent's active Pokémon, Pokémon Flute to both mess with the Discard pile and the Bench. Quite an interesting list. The following are for Pokémon TCG 2. Team Rocket: Challenge! involve a decision making process from the opponent => you take control of the opponent's board Dark Machamp: Scoop Up on the opp's active Pokémon. Promos: Computer Error involve a decision making process from the opponent. So we only get an easier setup and taking possession of the opponent's board. I believe the latter could be useful, if we are able to fill garbage in the opponent's hand first (or put some Scoop Up in the hand).
Joined: 4/2/2014
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Fossil Ditto isn't implemented in these games alas. As a side note, Self-Destruct bench damage takes a VERY long time to complete, as you can imagine. From Aroymart: https://zippy.gfycat.com/MessyOddballHeterodontosaurus.gif
deuxhero wrote:
Is the RNG for coin flips even the same for TCG2?
http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Trading_Card_Game_2:ROM_map#PRNG
alt: Froggy25
Joined: 9/21/2016
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Location: Upstate NY
Hello, I've been looking around for glitches here on and off for a while, but didn't think to look on this forum. Last year I discovered that you can get this glitch without zapdos, instead using Devolution Spray. This lets us start the glitch very early into the game (no need to entirely beat it first!), and it puts the glitch on our own board, meaning we can manipulate it a lot easier. I haven't found anything entirely useful (though a few leads I suppose). I also haven't looked into it since finding it last year. I definitely think this could be used to get ace, though something else interesting might have to be discovered first.
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this is pretty cool! I hope somebody researches it further...
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Player (42)
Joined: 12/27/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Germany
Aroymart wrote:
Hello, I've been looking around for glitches here on and off for a while, but didn't think to look on this forum. Last year I discovered that you can get this glitch without zapdos, instead using Devolution Spray. This lets us start the glitch very early into the game (no need to entirely beat it first!), and it puts the glitch on our own board, meaning we can manipulate it a lot easier. I haven't found anything entirely useful (though a few leads I suppose). I also haven't looked into it since finding it last year. I definitely think this could be used to get ace, though something else interesting might have to be discovered first.
Amazing! Now start breaking the game! I'm looking forward to some developments, too. The memory corruption of this glitch is so huge that there's probably ACE waiting to be discovered. EDIT: This is all speculation, because I haven't looked at the code for this game, for many years. But here is how I think ACE could be obtained: * There are two basic ways to get ACE, the first and easy one is to find where the game is loading function pointers, and corrupt them. The best place to look for it would be PokéPowers. It's possible that the programmers implemented pokepowers by putting a specific address at each card and telling the code to jump to it and execute a function there. If they did that, you just have to write something to that pointer and force the code to go to a convenient location which is programmed to take over the game. * The other way, which is a lot harder, is to override the return values at the stack. Basically, the code stores lots of addresses in a stack that it has to return to every time you call a function. If you can write on that, you can get ACE. The reason this is harder is because.most of the time you cannot write just two bytes, and have to write over a ton of stuff. You have to be incredibly lucky that the game does not crash. * The natural place to store the payload would be in the deck arrangement. The game gives you a lot of freedom to change the order of the cards, and the card IDs come in many types of bytes. * The hardest part seems to be how to get some controlled corruption from the arena. I suspect it should be possible to get some misalignments and for example make the game believe you placed 200 energy cards in a pokemon, so that when you remove an energy card it starts to shift lots of bytes.
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https://old.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/eqrucd/wr_new_glitch_in_pokemon_tcg_breaks_any_more_than/ time for a new tas? maybe this time we can go for console verification!
TiKevin83
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The glitch was found while hunting for the cause of some desyncs, so hopefully gifvex and entr can push the fixes for the desyncs into bizhawk's gambatte before new TASes.