New bug found in the Generation III games on GBA

If you're familiar with the inner mechanics of the Generation III games, then you'll almost certainly know that the Legendary Beasts and Eon duo don't have it easy, being subject to two big bugs. For one, if you had the sense to trap Entei or Raikou, you'd quickly find out it wasn't a smart move: they would disappear from the game forever if they used Roar to end the battle. This was fixed in the recent Switch rereleases of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, they can still be found afterwards. However, curious players have managed to expose another bug in the original Generation III games on the Game Boy Advance that was unknown up until this point.

This newly identified bug happens when a Roaming Pokémon faints at the same time the player whites out, such as by defeating them with Explosion with only one conscious Pokémon. So what happens if you do this? The Pokémon will remain roaming, but at 0HP. Hitting it with False Swipe will even heal it to 1HP! If you're curious: no, this does not do anything to break or dramatically improve the catch rate. Practically speaking, it's just an interesting curiosity. This particular bug was fixed in the Switch rerelease with a new check for this particular outcome, properly despawning the roamer.

Unfortunately, it appears that the other, arguably more infamous bug affecting these Pokémon is not fixed. Until Pokémon Emerald, they were subject to a bug that causes their Individual Values (IVs) to be abysmal, and that still holds true in the ports. Can't have 'em all it seems.

 

Sleepwalking Legendaries...

 

Interesting we can still find glitches in old games to this day.

 

Interesting we can still find glitches in old games to this day.

Yeah, also crackslide in SM64.

 

It is so wonderful to see people still cracking the system just for the funsies, hahaha!

 

Well, at least once they are transferred to a Gen 8+ game (after Home compatibility is added) they can be Hyper Trained and have functionally max IVs. (Assuming the player doesn't already have other battle-maxed ones by obtaining from any of the other ways they are available.)
Though, that doesn't help them in FR/LG for players that want to min-max them competitively there. On the other hand, it does make their stats fairly regular, which is a rarity for any Pokemon.

Or, it might even get patched at some point since it is possible for these releases to get updated. (Though I doubt it, it's a rather minor glitch overall)