Bugs:Pokémon Gold and Silver

This page details bugs of Pokémon Gold and Silver.

Pokémon Gold and Silver has some major bugs, alongside more minor ones.

Dude Lengthened Tutorial

In the original Japanese versions of Gold and Silver and Crystal, the Dude's catching tutorial has unusual delays which give the false impression of the game hanging. This was completely fixed in the localizations. In the Japanese Virtual Console releases, the patch files include the following partial fix:

[teaching movie]
Mode = 1
Address = 0x23a9f
Fixcode = a32:FF 00 E0 01 00 00 FF 00 FF 10 00 00 FF 01 00 00 0A 10 00 00 0A 01 00 FF FF 00 FF 00 FF 00 FF 00

This simply removes the delay for the final part of the demonstration by requiring the player to manually press the A button to exit it.

(Source: Háčky and SatoMew)

Disobedience Glitch

In the Japanese versions, if a Pokémon that is locked into a move by Encore refuses to attack due to disobedience, the game crashes. This was fixed in the overseas releases.

Contest Data Copy Glitch

In the Japanese versions, using Fly or Teleport to leave the National Park during a Bug-Catching Contest will generate glitchy and unstable Pokémon data.

(Source: ChickasaurusGL)

Arbitrary Coin Execution

Due to an error in the North American localizations, the message printed when using the Coin Case is improperly terminated in the English version, as a 57 character is used instead of a 50 (the original value in the Japanese versions of Gold/Silver), causing the game to jump to a section of memory used for storing sound effects. This section of memory is usually empty, unless you listened to a Pokémon's cry right before, in which case the game interprets the Pokémon's cry as code. This has some interesting effects on the games:

• The game can enter an alternative colored style due to being tricked into thinking it's in GB Mode. This namely allows one to see Ho-Oh's hidden title screen sprite details, using the player's palette.
• If the player knows how to, they can execute unused data via Arbitrary Code Execution, like the unused memory game, or even run a custom setup.

(Source: Sanky and Wack0)