How to catch ANY Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal
As a young little kid I wanted to be the very best trainer there ever was. To be the very best, you needed to complete the Pokémon league and acquire all Pokémons in the game. Becoming a league champion will take some time, but is rather doable. However, acquiring all Pokémons within the game is a near-to impossible task. Some Pokémons are only acquirable in a specific version. Other Pokémons were only distributed during some specific events. In a time where the internet was not as big as it is now, it was impossible to complete this task. As a kid you always kept wondering where the last few Pokémons could be found. In the end I, as many others, stopped playing with an incomplete Pokédex. A rather sad feeling, knowing that is was very well possible to acquire all Pokémons in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal. It is even possible to catch all 251 Pokémons without having to trade with a friend! It will require some work, whilst you need to activate ‘the coin case glitch’ in order to get the Pokémons you want, but once done you will be able to complete the Pokédex which at that time was known to be impossible.
Requirements
In order to make this glitch work you need to fulfill a certain set of requirements. First of all you need to complete the game and need to beat Jasmine in Fushia City in order to acquire TM 21 Toxic. It is not possible to activate this glitch earlier than this point in the game. Next, in addition to TM 21 Toxic you need some other items. The list can be seen below. Note that you sometimes need more than 1 piece of the specific item. This is displayed by a number after the item showing the amount you need for this glitch.
- [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - X Accuracy x7 - TM26 (Earthquake) x1 - [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - Super Repel x94 - Stardust x1 - [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - Dire Hit x87 - Super Repel x55 - Ether x3 - Poke Ball x94 - Berry Juice x1 - [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - Dire Hit x95 - Super Repel x3 - Pass (x1) - [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - Potion x46 - HM03 (Surf) (x1) - X Speed x1 - Full Heal x18 - Flower Mail x51 - TM06 (Toxic) x1 - [Any Item] x[Any Amount] - TM41 (ThunderPunch) x[Any Amount]
Note: you need the items in this specific order with the correct amount as described above stored in your pc. Otherwise the glitch will not work. Also adding more items in your pc than described above, results in a not working glitch.
Next you need to collect several specific Pokémons.
- 1. A Quagsire holding a Protein and having Sleep Talk as its first move at slot number 4.
- 2. A low IV, low leveled Pokémon at slot number 3.
- 3. 2 Magikarps, one of each gender. This will be for breeding purposes only.
Preparation: change name of Box 9
Now you need to give Box 9 a specific name. This name will determine which Pokémon you will later hatch from the egg. For this example we will obtain an Umbreon. Now the first Pokémon in your party can be modified. This will be done by a code injection by misusing the coin case and reading the memory out of the name of Box 9. The RAM address for the first Pokémon is DA2A whilst the hexadecimal value of umbreon is equal to C5 (Umbreons number in the Pokédex is 197. Convert this to hexadecimal and you get C5.) So now you need to convert these values to memory values the game can understand. The mapping can be found here. For this specific example the values will be converted like this: DA becomes !/ ; 2A becomes ’v and C5 becomes v♂ . Your Box 9 should look like this now:
You are finally done with the prepartions. Luckily the glitch itself will be easier than the preparations.
How to catch ANY Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal: Step 1
Go to the breeding center and put away both Magikarps. Walk around the Breeding center for a couple of minutes. After some time the Day-Care man will be outside and you will be able to acquire the soon-to-be glitched egg. Make sure your Pokémons are still in the right position; Quagsire at slot 4, the low leveled Pokémon at slot 3 and your newly acquired egg at slot number 1. The picture below shows an example party which was able to execute this glitch.
How to catch ANY Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal: Step 2
Now fly to Cherrygrove city and enter the PokéMart and go outside right away. Now you have to take 4 steps right. The position you should be in now is visible on the image below.
How to catch ANY Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal: Step 3
Now open your menu and go to your Pokédex. You need to hear the cry of one specific Pokémon. You need to hear the cry of either a Machop, Machoke, Bellsprout, Omanyte or Celebi. The cries of Machop and Bellsprout are the easiest to perform, because both Pokémon should be in the Pokédex at this stage of the game. Open one of these Pokémon’s entry and then hear its cry. You only have to hear the sound of the Pokémon, so it is not necessary to open the cry tab.
How to catch ANY Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal: Step 4
Now you you need to open your bag and make sure you open all tabs first. After you cycled through all you bag tabs once, go to your key items. Now open your coin case. If you game freezes or restarts you have performed the glitch wrong. The best option is that your low-skilled Pokémon is still too strong. It might be useful to check the items in your box as well. Try to catch some more Pokémons at the first route of the game and then retry the glitch. In case nothing happens, you succeeded the glitch.
How to catch ANY Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal: Step 5
Hatch your egg. After a while your desired Pokémon should come out of the egg. In our case the Umbreon is hatched.
Summary
By combining the infamous coin case glitch with a glitch to adapt your eggs, we are able to catch any Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Silver & Crystal. The preparation of this glitch will take some time and work, but the result will be fruitful. You can finally get the certificate in Celadon City, once you completed your Pokédex. The first generation of Pokémon also contained a big glitch. You can read more about it here. In case you find a nice Pokémon glitch, let us know because we are always curious to try new glitches!
