Pandaxclone2
Pokemon Sprite Artist Hobbyist
Towns Folk
In this tutorial, I'm going to be showing you how you can capture Mew utilising a glitch known as the Mew Glitch, and explaining why it works.
This glitch was truly a gem of a discovery and would've been lost in its time since it was discovered around when false Elite Four, Yoshi and Pokegod rumors were running rampant back in the day and it was initially believed that this was just another false rumor until it was confirmed to work.
Why am I making this? Mainly to give a consistent and easily understood tutorial to the glitch with images (because everyone knows words without images are boring) and to also give myself a refresh course on how this glitch works since I myself have gotten rusty. Case in point it took me several tries to get it working again.
To execute the glitch you will need:
Step 1: At this point in time you won't be able to obtain the move Fly, but you can capture an Abra in Route 24/25. Note to Pokemon Yellow players: Bar trading an Abra over, you can only catch Abra in Route 5 at the earliest.
Whatever you do though, DO NOT walk into the trainer in the grass. He's what is known as a "Long-Range Trainer" which is a trainer who will spot you if you're in their line of sight the moment they're on the screen. If he has spotted you, don't worry too much; just make sure you turn off your game, reload and try again, this time not running into him.
Step 2: Deposit all your Pokemon but the recently caught Abra into your PC Box. This is not really required per se but trust me, you'll want to do this if you wish to use this glitch several times.
Step 3: Heal at the Pokemon Center. This might not seem like an important step but Teleport works in the overworld by sending you back to the last Pokemon Center you healed at. This could be very bad if you haven't healed at Cerulean City's Pokemon Center yet so just in case, make sure you do this.
Step 4: Save your game at this point and then make your way to this spot on Route 24:
Keep in mind that if you trigger the trainer here, you'll have to turn off the game and reload. Save here again to make this a little easier. Now, using your quick motor skills, you must press down on the D-Pad and press Start in quick succession. Doing this too slowly or waiting for your trainer's step to finish before pressing start will alert the Long-Range Trainer below, so you'll have to start again if you don't get this the first time.
If you've done it successfully then you'll end up on the menu screen just like the above image. DO NOT exit this menu or else you'll trigger the trainer and be forced to try again.
Step 5: Open up your Pokemon Party screen and select Abra. Use the move Teleport and the trainer will spot you but before he can do anything you will teleport back to the Pokemon Center.
Now that you've escaped suffering another tedious battle you'll probably notice that you can't open up your menu. This is because the game thinks you're currently battling right now, so those buttons don't have any function at the moment. You'll get control of the menu back soon.
Step 6: Walk over to the second trainer dubbed the "Slowpoke Trainer" and engage him in battle. BUT, and this is very important, do not walk directly in front of him. If you do that, well...
...the game will freeze here and there's nothing you can do about it except turn off the game and try again. To avoid this, make sure you keep at least a block of space between yourself and the trainer so he can walk up to you. Just to be safe you might want to hug the wall and then walk in front of him.
Step 7: Wait for the sweet embrace of Slowpoke death to claim your weak Abra. You don't necessarily need to do this but as said earlier this is why you've left your other Pokemon in the PC Box; by allowing yourself to be defeated you'll be able to redo this glitch over and over to your heart's content.
Just make sure it's a weak Pokemon and not something high-leveled or else you'll be stuck here for a bit. Unfortunately my Abra was in the daycare and gained too many levels so mistakes were made.
Step 8: Now that you're back at the Pokemon Center, you can open up your menu again. Now you may go collect your Pokemon from the PC Box. After this make your way to Nugget Bridge.
...You'll have encountered Mew! Congratulations! What you do now is up to you but you'll most likely want to catch it. Just keep in mind that barring pure luck Mew is a real nuisance to catch unless you've got Great Balls or higher, even then it's a tough battle.
Hopefully that explains how the glitch works and helped you nab a free Mew too. Sources and credit for this go to:
This glitch was truly a gem of a discovery and would've been lost in its time since it was discovered around when false Elite Four, Yoshi and Pokegod rumors were running rampant back in the day and it was initially believed that this was just another false rumor until it was confirmed to work.
Why am I making this? Mainly to give a consistent and easily understood tutorial to the glitch with images (because everyone knows words without images are boring) and to also give myself a refresh course on how this glitch works since I myself have gotten rusty. Case in point it took me several tries to get it working again.
To execute the glitch you will need:
- A copy of Pokemon Red, Blue or Yellow (The Virtual Console releases on the 3DS work with this too.)
- To make your way to at least Cerulean City, past Nugget Bridge.
- To not have fought either of these trainers:
- To have a Pokemon that knows either Fly or Teleport. (Fly can't be obtained at this point in the game but don't worry; you can catch Abras in the grass on Route 24/25.)
- (Optional but recommended) Poke Balls. Lots of them. Personally I find Mew to be difficult to catch this early on so I just wait until I can get a Great Ball (S.S. Anne earliest) and keep redoing this glitch until I can catch it with that.
Step 1: At this point in time you won't be able to obtain the move Fly, but you can capture an Abra in Route 24/25. Note to Pokemon Yellow players: Bar trading an Abra over, you can only catch Abra in Route 5 at the earliest.
Whatever you do though, DO NOT walk into the trainer in the grass. He's what is known as a "Long-Range Trainer" which is a trainer who will spot you if you're in their line of sight the moment they're on the screen. If he has spotted you, don't worry too much; just make sure you turn off your game, reload and try again, this time not running into him.
Step 2: Deposit all your Pokemon but the recently caught Abra into your PC Box. This is not really required per se but trust me, you'll want to do this if you wish to use this glitch several times.
Step 3: Heal at the Pokemon Center. This might not seem like an important step but Teleport works in the overworld by sending you back to the last Pokemon Center you healed at. This could be very bad if you haven't healed at Cerulean City's Pokemon Center yet so just in case, make sure you do this.
Step 4: Save your game at this point and then make your way to this spot on Route 24:
Step 5: Open up your Pokemon Party screen and select Abra. Use the move Teleport and the trainer will spot you but before he can do anything you will teleport back to the Pokemon Center.
Now that you've escaped suffering another tedious battle you'll probably notice that you can't open up your menu. This is because the game thinks you're currently battling right now, so those buttons don't have any function at the moment. You'll get control of the menu back soon.
Step 6: Walk over to the second trainer dubbed the "Slowpoke Trainer" and engage him in battle. BUT, and this is very important, do not walk directly in front of him. If you do that, well...
...the game will freeze here and there's nothing you can do about it except turn off the game and try again. To avoid this, make sure you keep at least a block of space between yourself and the trainer so he can walk up to you. Just to be safe you might want to hug the wall and then walk in front of him.
Step 7: Wait for the sweet embrace of Slowpoke death to claim your weak Abra. You don't necessarily need to do this but as said earlier this is why you've left your other Pokemon in the PC Box; by allowing yourself to be defeated you'll be able to redo this glitch over and over to your heart's content.
Just make sure it's a weak Pokemon and not something high-leveled or else you'll be stuck here for a bit. Unfortunately my Abra was in the daycare and gained too many levels so mistakes were made.
Step 8: Now that you're back at the Pokemon Center, you can open up your menu again. Now you may go collect your Pokemon from the PC Box. After this make your way to Nugget Bridge.
Huh? The menu popped up? And there's a creepy guy looking at me in the top-left corner? 
When you see this just close the menu right then and there. Immediately after doing so...
When you see this just close the menu right then and there. Immediately after doing so...
So you may be wondering a few things, most importantly "Why does this work?" The start of this glitch comes from the fact that all trainers in the game are automatically pointed south for the first frame when they are drawn onto the screen. The game obviously makes quick to rectify this and set trainers back to their correct position if not already south, but it's in that split-second that you're able to bring up the menu.
From the teleport point onward the game is attempting to initiate a battle between you and the trainer, but because you've up and left some values in the game are incorrectly read. You begin to see these effects in the form of no longer being able to use the Start button and the trainer freezing your game if you left no space for him to walk up to you; the game still thinks you're fighting the Long-Range Trainer from before, so it'll try to have Slowpoke Trainer walk up to you. If you left no space he'll get stuck, causing the freeze.
When the battle is finished and you walk into the same area as the Long-Range Trainer you fled from, the game will think that you haven't shut the menu down from the last time you opened it. Shutting it down then makes the game think you haven't had a battle yet again and generates an encounter using the Special stat from the last Pokemon you fought and attack modifier for the level (Attack modifier is referring to the temporary gain/loss of attack from a move like Growl or Growth.)
In Mew's case, this Special stat number is 21 (a.k.a Mew's index number) which is exactly what Slowpoke Trainer's Slowpoke has. At this point you're probably wondering, "What if I use a different trainer and Pokemon? Will I find another Pokemon instead of Mew?" The answer is yes indeed, you can use this to encounter and catch a majority of Pokemon including even glitch Pokemon, although you might want to keep away from that unless you know what you're doing. Here is an index chart showing what number each Pokemon is indexed as.
This glitch is more commonly known as Trainer-Fly glitch and is only popular as the Mew glitch due to how unobtainable Mew is in normal gameplay. You might also be asking for some reason, "Will this work in Pokemon FRLG/[insert title above Gen 1]?" and the answer is no. The game engine has been updated in Gen II and reworked from scratch since Gen III, so the exploits being used here don't work at all.
Despite this, Game Freak saw fit to rub in how useless it is to try by changing how Long-Range Trainers work in FR/LG; either by moving them, making them as blind as a bat or giving them superhuman vision that could spot planets in the night sky.
Put simply, this glitch is exclusive to Generation I games only and will not work on other Pokemon games.
From the teleport point onward the game is attempting to initiate a battle between you and the trainer, but because you've up and left some values in the game are incorrectly read. You begin to see these effects in the form of no longer being able to use the Start button and the trainer freezing your game if you left no space for him to walk up to you; the game still thinks you're fighting the Long-Range Trainer from before, so it'll try to have Slowpoke Trainer walk up to you. If you left no space he'll get stuck, causing the freeze.
When the battle is finished and you walk into the same area as the Long-Range Trainer you fled from, the game will think that you haven't shut the menu down from the last time you opened it. Shutting it down then makes the game think you haven't had a battle yet again and generates an encounter using the Special stat from the last Pokemon you fought and attack modifier for the level (Attack modifier is referring to the temporary gain/loss of attack from a move like Growl or Growth.)
In Mew's case, this Special stat number is 21 (a.k.a Mew's index number) which is exactly what Slowpoke Trainer's Slowpoke has. At this point you're probably wondering, "What if I use a different trainer and Pokemon? Will I find another Pokemon instead of Mew?" The answer is yes indeed, you can use this to encounter and catch a majority of Pokemon including even glitch Pokemon, although you might want to keep away from that unless you know what you're doing. Here is an index chart showing what number each Pokemon is indexed as.
This glitch is more commonly known as Trainer-Fly glitch and is only popular as the Mew glitch due to how unobtainable Mew is in normal gameplay. You might also be asking for some reason, "Will this work in Pokemon FRLG/[insert title above Gen 1]?" and the answer is no. The game engine has been updated in Gen II and reworked from scratch since Gen III, so the exploits being used here don't work at all.
Despite this, Game Freak saw fit to rub in how useless it is to try by changing how Long-Range Trainers work in FR/LG; either by moving them, making them as blind as a bat or giving them superhuman vision that could spot planets in the night sky.
Put simply, this glitch is exclusive to Generation I games only and will not work on other Pokemon games.
Hopefully that explains how the glitch works and helped you nab a free Mew too. Sources and credit for this go to:
- Bulbapedia for its extensive page on the subject.
- Youtube and its countless playthroughs for providing me suitable FRLG footage to convert into gifs because I was too lazy to record it myself.
- Myself for a majority of the screenshots and gifs taken and uploaded here.
- Game Freak for making the awesome foundations of this franchise.
- Nintendo for publishing said awesome franchise's games.
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