8 Best Glitches in Video Games

Here are the 8 best glitches in video games. Glitches are often seen as a negative, and while most hamper the experience, others make it much better. Many games would suffer if certain glitches were removed and just wouldn't be the same.

8 Best Glitches in Video Games

Glitches are more prevalent in video games now more than ever. Often a game launches with tons of bugs, only to get fixed months later. It happened to Cyberpunk, Hitman, Halo, WWE 2K, and plenty of others. Sometimes the game can be borderline unplayable for the first few days after release. However, some glitches are actually useful and in your favor. You can use certain glitches to skip past areas, easily kill bosses, or even duplicate items. These are the types of glitches that many don’t want to be patched, so we’re looking at the 8 best glitches in video games.

Resident Evil – Code: Veronica Endless Herb

Code Veronica is one of the harder Resident Evil games, with its rough start, tough bosses, and death traps. In addition, to A Rank the game, you must ensure you don’t die. You can’t save or continue, so you must start at the beginning or the halfway point if you get killed. The sweet thing, though, is that Code Veronica is the only classic RE game to feature an herb item glitch.

Make sure to pick up this green herb, as you can easily miss it.

Make sure to pick up this green herb, as you can easily miss it.

From the start of the game, do not read the playing manual. Most do this from the start, but you need that manual to perform the glitch. You also can’t pick up the knife because it will screw up the process of how the glitch is done. Pick up the first green herb in your cell, and go forward until you get the starter pistol. You need it for the glitch but do anything with it yet. Get the second green herb next to the entrance of the cabins, then go inside and pick up the third green herb found after climbing the steps.

Now it’s time to do the glitch. Mix the three herbs together, but do so in the correct order so that the mixed herb comes right after the handgun. The glitch relies on what you have equipped, so the layout of items has to be that way. Now read the playing manual, but not by using it on the item screen. Instead, you must read it from the files section.

Start from the bottom herb and combine with the higher ones.

Start from the bottom herb and combine with the higher ones.

Exit the item menu, and shoot with your pistol. After one shot, it’s empty, and now the herb is glitched and can be used infinitely. Now you would think there’s an easy way for the herb to undue itself and glitch again due to the method, but that’s not true. You can do anything with it now, and the game plays just as normal. This is a lifesaver for the A Rank run. 

Hitman: Blood Money Final Boss Exploit

The last normal level in Hitman: Blood Money is Amendment XXV taking place in the big ol’ White House. In order to finish it, you must kill Mark Parchezzi III, who can be found in the oval office. Normally after the cutscene plays, an explosion will go off, initiating a chase. However, keep in mind these old Hitman games had a first-person mode.

Maybe this is why first-person mode was cut from all future games.

Maybe this is why first-person mode was cut from all future games.

Before interacting with the door, equip a gun and enter first-person. After the cutscene ends, press fire and Mark will drop dead. This skips the entire chase and fight on top of the roof. Unfortunately, you can’t get a Silent Assassin rating using this method, but it’s still the fastest casual route to kill him. 

Yakuza Kiwami Haruka Skip

If you wanna get to EX Rank on Haruka’s requests, you’ll have to do some tough tasks with the various minigames in Kamurocho. In particular, Billiards and Karaoke at the end are brutal. If you are terrible at rhythm games like me, the latter will be basically impossible. However, there is a sweet exploit you can do to skip the final batch of challenges. Once Haruka’s Trust meter is at SSS Rank after playing Baccarat, you’ll want to make a Game Clear Data save. There’s actually two spots you can do this in, and a lot of people might not know you can make a clear save in the west park.

(Video by: Adrenal Nightmare)

That’s what you want to do, and after that, go to the main menu, select Premium Adventure, and load up the save you just made. Ask to hang out with Haruka, and she’ll request Baccarat again. This is actually kind of tough because you probably no longer have your special one-use items since you’ve likely spent them previously. After doing the task, Haruka’s Trust meter will completely fill up to EX Rank. It’s so much easier than doing it the normal way, and due to this glitch, many can actually obtain the achievement/trophy now. 

Mega Man Pause Glitch

Considering how old the NES is and all the games being designed with a CRT screen in mind, there are bound to be plenty of odd glitches. Mega Man has probably the best and most useful glitch of the era, though. If you continuously pause and unpause, certain weapons like the Thunder Beam will hit an enemy multiple times.

(Video by: hAJPNO)

The reason this occurs is that the invincibility timer still goes on even when pausing, and so that way, the enemy can be hit repeatedly. This was fixed in the first few ports of Mega Man 1, but people liked this bug so much that later versions brought it back. It is incredibly useful for certain bosses, and in particular, the famous Yellow Devil. Almost everyone uses the glitch to beat this fight.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Boss Loops

Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of the hardest but also best titles for the Xbox 360. The boss fights are some of the toughest parts. Certain encounters like GigaDeath and the Drunken Skeleton can take over an hour. The Greater Fiends, in particular, take the most skill to take down, at least normally. All four Greater Fiends, but especially Zedonius and Elizébet, are susceptible to a weapon loop while stunned.

Ryu stunning Elizebet with a Flying Swallow.

Ryu stunning Elizebet with a Flying Swallow.

For Zedonius, you must wait until he winds up both hands to do a four-fireball attack. In the wind-up, before he strikes, flying swallow him, and he’ll be stunned. At this point, quickly switch to the Lunar and perform the XX combo over and over again until he’s dead. For Elizébet, in order to stun her, wait until she leaves the ground and does her drawing blood move. Flying Swallow her while she’s in this state to do the stun. Both loops are very useful, especially since those two are some of the hardest bosses.

Super Monkey Ball 1 Timer Skip

One of the hardest games on the Nintendo GameCube has to be the first Super Monkey Ball. With very few lives compared to future entries, getting far can seem impossible at first. Even in speedruns, SMB1 is played far safer than other games in the series. Master is the final set of levels, and to play it, you need to beat Expert and Expert Extra without using a single continue. That’s beating 60 levels with around only five or six lives. However, there is a way to get to Master by beating only 11 levels.

The first level of Expert is where you can do this skip.

The first level of Expert is where you can do this skip.

Super Monkey Ball has an iconic ticking bomb as the timer, and that’s what’s needed for this glitch. You want to pause the game at exactly two seconds on the timer. If you miss it, restart. Then hold straight up and pause at 16 milliseconds. At this point, hold back left, and you should enter the goal when the timer reaches 0. This causes the game to sort of freak out, so it sends you to floor 50, but it’s still the first level. Once in the goal, you’ll start Expert Extra. You’ll still have to do that mode legit, but it’s still far easier than doing the whole 60-level marathon. 

Doom Straferunning

Doom is one of the most important, if not the most important, FPS game of all time, so its development is well documented. An element that wasn’t intended is the quickness of straferunning. By running in both a horizontal and vertical direction, you’ll go noticeably quicker than just holding forward. This glitch creates many skips throughout the levels for expert players.

However, this glitch is even more important because it made an unbeatable commercially released level possible to complete. In TNT Evilution from Final Doom, the first secret level is Pharaoh. It’s quite a nice-looking map, but at release, the yellow key was missing. You need the yellow key to beat the level, but thanks to straferunning, you can do this skip near the exit.

This is the angle you need to straferun over to the throne.

This is the angle you need to straferun over to the throne.

At the top of the stairs in the central area, you must straferun over to the right throne. Press the use key around the throne until you activate a switch that opens the final area. Now you can beat the level. Team TNT eventually released a patched version of the map, but this glitch was the only way to complete it on launch. 

The Best Glitch in Video Games: Sonic ’06 Infinite Gem Energy

Having a glitch improve an already good game is one thing, but making a bad game more enjoyable is even better. Of the three characters in Sonic ’06, Sonic’s levels are by far the best, and a large reason why it can be enjoyable is due to this glitch. Every character has a Gem Energy meter that drains once these gem powers are used. However, Sonic’s gauge doesn’t go down at all. 

Sonic can use his gem powers repeatedly, and this was never patched.

Sonic can use his gem powers repeatedly, and this was never patched.

Game design-wise, these meters are important because some of the gems are, frankly, overpowered. Due to this bug, Sonic can have a short boost infinitely, skip entire sections of a level, and more. The sky’s the limit, with infinite Gem Energy, and it does make Sonic’s campaign more enjoyable to go through. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. A great video game glitch is one that, at best, objectively improves the experience, and when removed, it takes the title down a few pegs. Sonic ’06 is already quite low in quality, but it would be even deeper in the hole if this glitch wasn’t present. 

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