History GoodBadBugs / PlatformGame

** Any ability that changes Kirby's appearance, that is Hammer, Parasol, Sword, and UFO, can be kept permanently if you press start and select simultaneously and leave the level. Kirby will have no ability according to the status bar, but he'll keep its powers and not have the ability knocked out of him if he takes a hit. Since you normally lose UFO when you finish a level, the ability to keep it and use it in any level is an outright ludicrous GameBreaker that neuters a lot of puzzles and reduces all but two bosses (Meta Knight and the FinalBoss, who force you to use specific abilities) to {{zero effort|boss}}s. By the way, you can find it in the ''first level'' if you [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAAvTHWwnns know where to look]].

* The [[UsefulNotes/GameEngine Hedgehog Engine]] (which was used in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Generations]]'') works by [[DynamicLoading loading the textures of the next part of the level when the player hits loading triggers]]. When playing the game normally, you get detailed levels that load seamlessly and without texture pop-in. However, if you're a SequenceBreaking {{speedrun}}ner, sometimes you will miss one of these triggers, and now your supersonic hedgehog can add [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpc8lOkMTY#t=495 walking on air]] (some explanation of how this works can be heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpc8lOkMTY#t=431 here]]) to his list of superpowers until you hit the next one.

** It's also possible to skip certain cutscenes and even bosses by taking advantage of screen scroll. A notable example of this is the "Armadillo skip" in Sigma Stage 3 - by very precisely pushing X through a door with the platform that charged Shotgun Ice makes, it's possible to bypass the trigger to scroll the screen upward and make the Armored Armadillo rematch happen, so a savvy player can easily stroll through the boss room undisturbed as long as they dont't jump.

** Additionally, the split-second morphing effect makes Mega Man invulnerable until his transformation to his selected weapon is complete, though this is a brief fraction of a second. A clever player can pause and unpause rapidly, maintaining him in a constant invulnerable flux state long enough for a weapon to fly ''through'' him with no ill effect whatsoever. Excellent for dealing with attacks that move too fast to be dodged.
** Another that was trickier to use, but incredibly invaluable when used well, would be to intentionally cause slowdown right as Mega Man got hit - this would extend MercyInvincibility to much longer than it usually lasts. In particular, using it properly would turn the Mecha Dragon into a BreatherBoss (particularly as the best weapon to trigger this glitch, the Quick Boomerang, was its weakness). However, this was due to a glitch that involved, among other things, the clock speed of the NES. Attempting this on other platforms with higher clock speeds (like all of the releases of ''Mega Man Anniversary Collection'') causes things to backfire - it instead ''eliminates'' the Mercy Invincibility and causes a dramatic increase in speed and aggressiveness of foes.

** Another glitch allowed a high jump by jumping and shooting precisely simultaneously. It makes the Rush Coil completely useless.

** Another useful glitch involving Zero is the Guard Shell glitch. When Zero uses his Z-Saber while he has the Guard Shell out, the area of the Z-Saber's [[HitboxDissonance hitbox]] where the Guard Shell is active completely bypasses the MercyInvincibility frames that enemies and certain bosses have, allowing them to be hacked to ribbons in mere seconds by regular Z-Saber attacks.

* Similarly, ''VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission'' had an ''amazing'' glitch involving the two Black Zebesians who face you right before you reach the escape ship. Under normal circumstances they are DemonicSpiders in their own right, and you face them ''after'' the final boss ''and'' during a TimedMission. However if you climb onto the ledge above the ship they'll climb just to the top and fire helplessly away from you, letting you spam them with fire until they're dead.

*** The way that things are treated while they offscreen can also be abused to let Tails jump on spikes while playing in tandem as Sonic and Tails. It's the easiest to perform on Carnival Night Zone, where Tails can stand and jump on spikes as long as the spikes themselves are out of view, treating them as a basic platform and only hurting Tails when the screen scrolls down far enough to expose the spikes.

* In ''Sonic 2'', if Sonic gets hurt and it knocks him backwards into one of Oil Ocean Zone's cannons, he'll fall out of them. Afterwards, his physics will be messed up in various ways: he'll move twice as fast and jump twice as high, and the slope glitch mentioned above will also be constantly occurring. Doing this with Super Sonic completely destroys the level. In a good way, of course.
** Another ''Sonic 2'' example (though it has zero impact on gameplay, it's just a glitch people have taken to fondly) is the ability to garble Sonic's colour palette. Executed using debug mode, if you place a lot of waterfall objects in Emerald Hill Zone, when you transform back to Sonic, he'll appear out from behind the waterfalls with a neon green hue with black spots around his head. This is called the "Ashura" glitch ("Ashura" is just a name fans made up for the now-green Sonic). The fandom likes this and has turned "Ashura" into a fanon character on the side, but the glitch itself is just a simple palette error generated by the debug mode.

** Some of the ''Sonic & Knuckles'' lock on cartridge content was already in ''Sonic 3''. This could be discovered by accident in the some copies of the game by staying in the water in the Hydrocity Zone mini-boss fight until the drowning music played. Then leave the water and voila, S & K mini-boss music.
*** The kicker, of course, is that the initial music in Hydrocity Act 1 in Sonic 3 isn't the ''Sonic 3'' miniboss music but the main boss music, which unlike the miniboss themes is used in both games as well as the locked-on version (as opposed to how ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'' uses the miniboss theme from ''Sonic & Knuckles'' in that case). So it's a bug WITHIN a bug.

** E-123 Omega's hovering ability can be exploited to reach basically any part of any stage he's playable in. If one rapidly taps the jump button in midair, the flight can be extended almost infinitely. Doing so however while pushing against invisible walls wil cause Omega to rise up high into the sky, eventually high enough to fly over all boundaries and explore any area of the current section one could imagine.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkGCtlWoOTc&feature=youtu.be&t=2m54s Click here]] to see an example of someone (unintentionally) abusing Omega's ridiculously buggy glide.
** The entire physics engine used in the game is hilariously broken: you can topple a massive, fifteen-story tall tower built from solid rock by '''throwing a wooden box at it'''.
*** [[https://youtu.be/qrFlXvie6i4 ROCK LAUNCH!]]

** In an ironic way, you can ''fix'' Silver's telekinesis against other characters through a glitch (specifically by pausing the game).
*** There are also other glitches involving Silver's telekinesis and pausing, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ9CqtTAcRA as this video shows]].
* Similar to the above, ''VideoGame/SonicBoom: Rise of Lyric'' had a glitch where pausing the menu while in the middle of the jump [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPwXKHqdXDw allows you to jump again]], allowing for ridiculous [[SequenceBreaking sequence breaks]] (including a 1 hour speedrun finished ''a day after the game's release''). Sadly, this was patched later.
* The [[Platform/GameEngine Hedgehog Engine]] (which was used in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Generations]]'') works by [[DynamicLoading loading the textures of the next part of the level when the player hits loading triggers]]. When playing the game normally, you get detailed levels that load seamlessly and without texture pop-in. However, if you're a SequenceBreaking {{speedrun}}ner, sometimes you will miss one of these triggers, and now your supersonic hedgehog can add [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpc8lOkMTY#t=495 walking on air]] (some explanation of how this works can be heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpc8lOkMTY#t=431 here]]) to his list of superpowers until you hit the next one.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' has an odd bug that had no explanation for years (until about ''2005''!) and got many gamers called crazy. The sound effects for tail-wagging and a one-up interacted in a way the developers did not anticipate. Because of the way the sound chip handles interrupts, attempting to play both at the same time results in playing the one-up sound, but reading in more data than it should. Because NES sound effects are written in reverse order, this results in a corrupted beginning, followed by the complete normal sound effect. Oddly, some people have remarked that the "extended version" sounds pretty cool. The effect can be observed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOhJk0PAp1A here]].

** Also from ''Super Mario 64'', with tool assists and some incredible knowledge of the game engine, it's possible to get the star in Watch for Rolling Rocks with ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&feature=iv&src_vid=X-zAWbM50JM&annotation_id=annotation_737456123 a single half-press of the A button.]]'' How? By building up enough speed running backwards to [[MemeticMutation fling Mario into a parallel universe]].

** Another allows Mario and Yoshi to clip through a building in Delfino Plaza and end up running beneath the water as if they were on land. This is limited in use, but is relatively easy to perform and is memorably useful for [[ThatOneSidequest bypassing riding the boats to the island]].

* ''VideoGame/DisneysPocahontas'': In Stage 2, the player can skip the wolf spirit section altogether and jump right into the encounter with John Smith. Skipping the wolf spirit challenge does not hinder the game, as the player starts the next stage with the wolf spirit.
* ''VideoGame/KirbysAdventure'':
** A puzzle in the third level of Orange Ocean that leads to a switch that will activate an event in the HubLevel; you're faced with a cannon, which has a fuse that you have to light. The only problem is that the fuse is underwater, which means that using fire is out. In concept, you're supposed to get the Laser ability from a Laser Ball just outside the room and then shoot a laser at the (slanted) ceiling above the fuse, which will light it. In execution, however, you can also inhale a Hothead, walk over to the fuse, and then swallow it, which makes the fire from the resulting TransformationSequence light the fuse. This was fixed for ''[[VideoGameRemake Nightmare in Dream Land]]'' but became an AscendedGlitch in ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar'', as there is a certain treasure chest in ''The Great Cave Offensive'' can only be reached if you know to light a fuse this way (although you can also get a helper to light it for you).
** Any ability that changes Kirby's appearance, that is Hammer, Parasol, Sword, and UFO, can be kept permanently if you press start and select simultaneously and leave the level. Kirby will have no ability according to the status bar, but he'll keep its powers and not have the ability knocked out of him if he takes a hit. Since you normally lose UFO when you finish a level, the ability to keep it and use it in any level is an outright ludicrous GameBreaker that neuters a lot of puzzles and reduces all but two bosses (Meta Knight and the FinalBoss, who force you to use specific abilities) to {{zero effort|boss}}s. By the way, you can find it in the ''first level'' if you [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAAvTHWwnns know where to look]].
* In ''Citadel'' (a mid 1980s platform game by Superior Software for the Platform/BBCMicro), if you drop a trampoline in the room furthest to the right (the room where you find the hieroglyphic statuette), and use it to jump high enough to reach the top of the screen, you end up on the title screen.
* The freeware game ''VideoGame/{{N}}'' (which some may know better for its enhanced and bug-fixed console version N+ ) had a huge number of bugs which were so popular with the community that many were eventually embraced by the producers in later levelsets, and all were explored heavily in custom levels. This includes, among other things: At least a dozen ways of getting past any one-way walls whose placer hadn't been very careful about the nearby terrain, placing huge stacks of gold on top of mines or switches to delay their activation until all the gold was collected at a rate of one per frame, freezing moving enemies by starting them surrounded by doors, making floor sweepers fly, starting moving enemies inside a wall to allow them to move around inside it until they escaped, using the floating elastic cloud blocks to make superjumps, manually editing launchpads in the level editor to create one-way teleporters, and placing thwumps facing into a wall at just the right distance so that they would be immobile until you touched them, at which point they would slowly move backwards through walls until they left the level, acting as moving walls. Sadly, almost all were fixed in N+ , to the original creators' protests as well as the fans.
** There is also the thwump cannon effect, where being between two thwumps moving in opposite directions somehow launches the ninja with a huge velocity.
** And glitched tiles that would launch the player in random directions.
** There is also a bug where if you hit a launchpad and a deadly object (rocket, drone, thwump, or floor sweeper) in the same frame, N gains the ability to phase through any object (unfortunately, this also includes the exit door).

* ''VideoGame/Spyro2RiptosRage'' and ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'' both had a few levels with the 'swimming' glitch - if you charged out of the water just ''so'' at certain points where the ground is level with the water, you can trick the game into letting you swim through the entire level.[[labelnote:Explanation]]How it works is that Spyro's dive animation has him move forward in a slight arc: if you dive into the top of solid ground, the ground holds Spyro up in the air while his moveset is switched to swimming.[[/labelnote]] It makes finishing the stage a cinch and you can even finish a few of the challenges in a level by using this bug to cheat at them, like swimming around collecting sprockets instead of riding a cart for them.
** ''Ripto's Rage!'' also had a fairly easy to pull off 'double jump' bug, which allows you to go many, many places you should not be going. Viewable [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWI8pjMj1Yo here]], and in many other places across Website/YouTube, to impressive effects that often constitute GoodBadBugs ''themselves''. Like skipping the first third of the game by double-jumping onto normally-inaccessable boundry hills then using some skilled gliding to fly through walls and into the 'go to next stage' boundries. Or managing to completely and utterly ''wreck'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWU6p5_63CM Aquaria Towers]].
** Showing off this trope in ''Spyro 2'' and ''Spyro 3'' is the entire point of [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjcuJWG-XqDlCRqR3I697CZ4D6Mf20K4i these two 'Let's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjcuJWG-XqDm9uJOCI-DQQy-BO35oKXFq Break' playlists, respectively]].
** That's not all. There are glitches in the game in which one can skip to all three boss fights without collecting all the talismans or orbs required to enter the levels. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNKYX6syyewThis This video]] shows you how to enter Crush. [[https://youtu.be/AZxVu8AGRHk?t=2m22s This one]] shows you how to enter Gulp (*extremely* difficult). And [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SvXxx-wdjs this one]] shows you how to enter Ripto.

* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'':
** In [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002 the first game]], if you enter the first Hoverboard race wearing the Hologuise, the other racers and the boards disappear, leaving Ratchet free to walk to a ramp near the end, hit the Taunter, and wait as the boxes above break. And break. And break. It's possible to tape or weigh the Circle button down for a few hours and come back to be able to afford every weapon in the game.
** In several of the games, it's possible to clip through walls by using weapons that spawn objects; the Decoy Glove in ''Ratchet & Clank'', the Decoy Glove and Miniturret Glove in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando Going Commando]]'', the Miniturret Glove in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal Up Your Arsenal]]'', the Hunter Mine Launcher and Mini Turret Launcher in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked Deadlocked]]'', the Nano-Swarmers and Visi-Copter Device in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction Tools of Destruction]]'', and the Nightmare Box in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankIntoTheNexus Into the Nexus]]''. While fun to mess around with in general, clipping is also one of many tricks that's ''mercilessly'' abused in {{speedrun}}s to get through levels faster.
** In ''Going Commando'', beating the game unlocks a mode where you play in first-person constantly. However, you can climb walls by simply jumping at them and spamming Square to throw the wrench - the throw bounces you upwards slightly, while being next to the wall causes the wrench to return instantly. Interestingly, Insomniac knew about this bug and [[ThrowItIn left it in]] as a sort of EarnYourFun reward, which also explains why it was gone by ''Up Your Arsenal''; that game lets you play in first-person from the get-go.
** ''Tools of Destruction'' has a wall-climb bug with the Razor Claws, where doing the aerial attack into a wall allows you to do a high jump off of midair, which can be interrupted by another aerial attack, which allows you to do a high jump... thus allowing you to climb almost any wall in the game as long as the Claws have ammo to use and {{sequence break|ing}} the game to high hell in [[NewGamePlus Challenge Mode]].
** It is possible to encounter a glitch in ''Tools of Destruction'' that can prove useful: in the final level, about midway through, you have to ascend a grav-ramp in order to go inside a nearby building. However, if one approaches the grav-ramp just wrong, Ratchet will wind up falling through the level, and a little adjustment with Clank's hovering abilities can send him right to the outside of the Court of Azimuth, and the location of the final battle. This locks the door behind him and sends him into the final boss battle without requiring him to play the rest of the level. Which would cause you to miss out on a couple of goodies (a Gold Bolt and a RYNO IV holoplan), but if one restarts the level, they will find that the game thinks they've cleared everything; all of the doors are open (including the Gold Bolt one), and all of the enemies are already dead, allowing you to pick up everything in the level at your leisure.

** Another, which HAS been fixed is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azAR4MmldP8 Constipated Sackboy]] where the player chooses the 'reset button' holding it down and then pressing START the START Menu would block the screen so only your friends could see the paused player. The Glowing Sackboy glitch let the player glow with a Sackboy skeleton.

** Material Properties Glitch: By changing an object into Horrible Gas, using the Material Changer, and delethalizing the object, you could make an object with the physical properties of the first material, while having the texture of the second. Could be used to make things like Floaty Metal, movable Dark Matter, etc. Fixed, but pre-existing "changed" objects still work, and it functionally [[AscendedGlitch Ascended]] in the form of the Material Tweaker in ''2'' and beyond.
*** Similarly, doing this on the PSP without delethalizing it allows for the material's texture to be transferred into gas form.

** Gravity Glitch: Very few people know how it works. It involves Pistons, and that's about all that's commonly known.
*** There's another, simpler version of this glitch that only affects individual platforms, allowing the gravity to change from jump to jump.

** Another glitch, as discovered by [=FattyMcIntosh=], allows the player to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nthV2T59Ocs&index=12&list=PL47cKdy5sz9I_vARFCtRBmwnK6TDuXZjA access Create Mode while in the Pod.]] (This has been patched.)

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' has some [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrFkwDdp-b0 really]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvXb-ZAXxoo dodgy]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC7COFJ_Osw collision]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYzNj91epjA detection.]] Mercilessly abused by players attempting {{Speed Run}}s.
** There's a technique (also mercilessly abused by speed runners) that allows Donkey Kong to ''fly through the air'' with a carefully timed combination of attacks on sloped surfaces, dubbed the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOqg3IFC-qI Moonkick]]. Although very tricky to pull off, it's possible for the player to enter Fungi Forest ''at the start of the game'' using this method. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kdh43sSU00 Behold!]]
** It's also possible to fall through the stairs in the Troff n' Scoff areas (the gates to the level bosses, seen in one of the links above) and thus not have to collect any bananas at all... or fight a boss with the wrong character. Fighting Mad Jack with Chunky Kong (who spontaneously turns into Tiny Kong during the introduction cutscene)? It's possible.
** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'' has a glitch where mashing buttons while [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Qmth3RrVE traveling between the first two levels on the main map]] (about 1:20 in) will warp you over halfway through the game. Used in practically every non-100% speedrun, and very easy to pull off.
** You can avoid the difficult [[ThatOneLevel Bramble Race against Screech]] in the [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest second game]] by exploiting a glitch at the start. If you come up right behind Screech to where the race will not start yet, and you fly upwards (you must have both characters at this point for this to work), you will then hit the the ceiling and hurt yourself causing yourself to blink. Quickly, while you are still blinking, pass Screech and head off to the rest of the level without having to worry about doing it in good time.
** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' has Murky Mill, a dark level where you must play as Ellie the Elephant who is terrified of rats and so must avoid spotting the Sneek enemies when they're in the light. Normally you're forced into the Ellie barrel as it outright blocks a door, but with good timing you can build up enough momentum and duck to slide under it like [[Music/TheWho Pete Townshend]] and do the whole level as the Kongs who couldn't care less about the Sneeks. Granted Murky Mill's not a hard level even with the gimmick, but without it it's basically the easiest level in the game.
* ''VideoGame/RocketRobotOnWheels'' has a pretty good physics engine, with one slight exception: The game includes cheat codes for things like lower gravity and higher strength, which the game wasn't ''necessarily'' programmed to deal with on a normal basis. Thus, by using both the Low Gravity and High Jump cheats, it is possible to jump outside the game world in the very first area and plummet into nothingness.
** The Extra Strength cheat also has a habit of not playing nice. Picking up vehicles, in particular, tends to make the game do odd things. It tends to make player character Rocket "hop"--sometimes it's just a little bunny jump, but other times (seemingly at the whim of the RandomNumberGod), Rocket will be ''catapulted'' into the air until he ''collides with the skybox.'' Letting go of your impromptu jet before getting there will let you descend quickly, while you get to watch a go-kart shaped like a hot dog gracefully bound across the landscape.
* ''VideoGame/LaMulana''
** The trigger for the right side MiniBoss of the Twin Labyrinths can be avoided with a well-timed jump, so it will just sit there and get killed.
** In the original version, the player could time a jump through the far left door of the Infinite Corridor and have Lemeza stuck in the wall on the next screen. Continuing to jump causes Lemeza to "climb" the wall until he goes through the ceiling and ends up on the bottom floor of the area. This allows the player to completely bypass the third floor of the Corridor filled with the annoying block puzzles.
* [[Creator/BenCroshaw Yahtzee's]] ''VideoGame/TwelveThirteen'' has a final boss battle that involves running, climbing, and shooting the boss over and over again in a difficult pattern. Unless you shoot the boss once, pause the game with the projectile still intersecting the boss, then unpause several seconds later. Instant win. Might be a reference to the first ''VideoGame/MegaMan1'' game, which had the same bug.
* ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'':
** [[FallingDamage Fall damage]] normally kicks in if you fall for about a full second. However, it's possible to preemptively avoid this by using the [[GroundPound Beak Buster]] near a ledge, then steering Banjo and Kazooie over the ledge during the move's recovery animation where the duo leaps up to put Banjo back on his feet; this animation makes them immune to it.
** The Freezeezy Peak mission to clear a path for the Twinklies can be vastly simplified if you simply attack the first Twinkly Muncher to incapacitate it, then move to a position where the path is off-camera - [[RuleOfPerception none of the enemies will respawn as long as their spawn points aren't in view]], allowing you to [[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing stand there]] as the Twinklies safely march to the end.
** There exists [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK1cxh5d_PI a glitch]] in the game which makes the infamous propeller room Jiggy from Rusty Bucket Bay, widely regarded as the most difficult in the entire game, much easier to obtain.
** The [[https://youtu.be/8WpHc2KdYoM "Reverse Bee Adventure" glitch]], which allows you to take your bee transformation in Click Clock Wood outside of the level's bounds. It breaks the game wide open. The only catch is that the glitch is ''extremely'' hard to pull off, and it can [[ItOnlyWorksOnce only be done once per save file.]]
** During Grunty's Furnace Fun quiz, normally if you get the question wrong on a skull space, Banjo and Kazooie are chucked into the lava below the board, costing you a life and making you redo the quiz from the start. However, if you crouch while moving (to perform a sliding crouch) on a space adjacent to the skull tile and mash C-left, it's possible to enter Talon Trot while on the quiz board. If you receive a quiz question (as opposed to a timed challenge) from the skull space and get it wrong while in Talon Trot, Banjo and Kazooie take damage but remain in place, and the invisible walls preventing you from skipping spaces without answering their questions, or just leaping around the board, are all removed. This lets you skip the rest of Furnace Fun and the cutscenes that come after its completion, and instead head straight to the [[FinalBoss final battle with Grunty]].
* ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'' has the [[https://youtu.be/aLUlBwHmGbA Pack Jump]], which allows Banjo to DoubleJump if you do his Pack Whack attack in midair. While not entirely game-breaking, it does allow quite a few shortcuts to areas, as well the ability to get certain items before you were intended to, cutting down on the backtracking. This is actually considered a legitimate move in the Official Player's Guide and [[AscendedGlitch remains in the XBox 360 port]].
* In ''Zorro 1995'', if you press Escape, it will ask you if you want to leave the game, yes or no. When you're falling from a great height, when you open that menu when you're near the ground and select "no," Zorro will be unharmed from the fall. This is a really good thing since the [[FakeDifficulty game was horribly programmed]] and without this cheat, you'd be [[PlatformHell constantly dying from all of the poorly-placed platforms and poor hit detection.]]
* In the old Spectrum / C64 game ''Stuntman Seymour'', you had 4 lives indicated by the "Take #" indicated on a movie clapperboard at the bottom of the screen. It incremented by one as soon as you took a hit (so it was game over when it said "Take 5"). However, the game only checked for the presence of the number 5 immediately after taking a hit. Occasionally if you took a hit right as you killed the boss of the level, the counter would increment ''again'' as the level ended, meaning if you lost your penultimate life just as you killed the boss, it was possible to start the ''next'' level already on Take 5, effectively giving you infinite lives (the Take counter would go up to 9, then A-Z, then a-z, with some punctuation symbols in between.) Certainly more than enough to get to see all the levels in the game.

* ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'': Zangief can be quick-killed the same way Kraid can in ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid''; this was purposely programmed into the game as a ShoutOut, but being able to save at the hostile save point in Impossible (which otherwise has no save points) if you have frame-perfect timing is a genuine bug.
* ''VideoGame/HappyTreeFriendsAdventures'': Die while fighting the boss/being on the level end gate. The blood will move, the boss will reappear, the game will go onwards to the next level. The Good Bad Bug? The health bar will show zero and you will be invincible until you collect a red heart or die by insta-death traps like pits, lava or explosions.
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'':
** Alucard will be sent flying uncontrollably until he hits something if half of his max health or more is drained in a single attack. Starting in "Luck Mode" (Where entering X-X!V''Q as your name severely reduces Alucard's stats in exchange for 99 luck) and letting a specific Warg attack you will send you flying right through Death's room, preventing him from stealing your GameBreaker Alucard Gear and letting you keep your TasteOfPower for the whole game.
** There is an [[http://www.execulink.com/~maggi/wbw/index.html entire website]] dedicated to being able to "nudge" Alucard beyond the boundaries of the map and add so many extra "rooms" to it that your completion percentage will exceed 450%, rather than the normal absolute maximum of 200.6%. The Walk Armor, which increases in power as you add to the map, is already a borderline GameBreaker at 200%; with it ''that'' high Alucard becomes [[InvincibleHero literally invincible]].
* The "Undead Han" glitch. The Sega Master System ''Franchise/StarWars'' allowed you to recruit Han in Mos Eisley, then if he died, you could head back and recruit him again. That's not the bug. What ''is'' the bug is that for some reason, Han still had 0 health - and this rolled over into him having [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 255 health]], in a game where 3 is the standard. So long as you don't pick up health-restore items, which "raise" health to 3, Han is essentially invincible.
* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'':
** ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'' and ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'' have the "Extra Items Cheat", where one can get extra crystals, gems, and even relics by abusing the game's combo system. [[https://www.neoseeker.com/crash-bandicoot-3/faqs/1245469-item-glitch.html The specifics of how it works]] is far too elaborate to list here, but in a nutshell it requires you to jump on an arrow crate at least 200 times and then directly onto an enemy, with the exact number of jumps determining what prize you get. This can even be used to create a warp pad for [[SecretLevel Hot Coco]], which is normally only possible to enter via Road Crash, by using this to acquire 31 crystals.
** Similarly, these two games have some lax physics regarding the edges of levels which can be abused to bypass tricky segments. Among others, they can be used to dodge the mole pits in jungle levels and get the clear gem in Diggin' It without completing the death route by entering the route from the end and walking along the edge of the pit.
** There are also glitches involving controls. Such as "slide-spin" (sliding and then spinning), crouch jumping or slide-jumping and spinning while jumping, using this, [[spoiler:Crash can get the red gem in Crash 2 without going in the route '''needed''' to get the gem]], there is also other glitches with controls.
** In ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'', in the level "Dino Might!", Crash can ride Baby-T in the triceratops chase.
** In the Tiny Tiger boss fight of ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'', there is a glitch in which Crash can avoid getting eaten by the lions by standing in the upper-left-most area. The ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy'' made fun of this by [[AscendedGlitch keeping the glitch]] and having the audience throw cheese at you for doing it.
** In ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootTheWrathOfCortex'', you are somehow immune to BottomlessPits under MercyInvincibility. This means you can intentionally take a hit to clear some areas faster, best used in the levels with unbelievably slow monkey bar segments where you can instead of using those just run across the floor instead which is ''much'' faster (and subsequently can turn the Time Trial Relics for any levels with monkey bars, which are designed with their slow speed in mind, into a joke).
* ''VideoGame/YookaLayleeAndTheImpossibleLair'' has several [[PlotCoupon Beetallion]] members hidden in the overworld that you're supposed to get by finding secret exits in nearby levels. However, a number of these can be gotten with exploits. Considering that Playtonic has [[ApprovalOfGod tweeted videos of people performing these exploits,]] it seems fair to say [[AscendedGlitch they appreciate the ingenuity it took to find them.]]:
** The Beetallion hidden outside the level "Gasping Glade" is supposed to be gotten by waiting for a hidden platform to appear near the end of the level. However, it can also be gotten by jumping off a nearby fence and spitting a Bomb Berry in mid-air with good precision.
** The Beetallion hidden outside the level "Queasy Quay" is supposed to be gotten by finding a secret pathway in the level. However, the level itself is located on a bridge that can be raised and lowered. It's possible to raise the bridge while you're still standing on it by using projectiles, carefully balance on the bridge's narrow edge, and then jump to the Beetallion's platform.

* The [[UsefulNotes/GameEngine Hedgehog Engine]] (which was used in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Generations]]'') works by [[DynamicLoading loading the textures of the next part of the level when the player hits loading triggers]]. When playing the game normally, you get detailed levels that load seamlessly and without texture pop-in. However, if you're a SequenceBreaking {{speedrun}}ner, sometimes you will miss one of these triggers, and now your supersonic hedgehog can add [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpc8lOkMTY#t=495 walking on air]] (some explanation of how this works can be heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpc8lOkMTY#t=431 here]]) to his list of superpowers until you hit the next one.

* In ''Citadel'' (a mid 1980s platform game by Superior Software for the UsefulNotes/BBCMicro), if you drop a trampoline in the room furthest to the right (the room where you find the hieroglyphic statuette), and use it to jump high enough to reach the top of the screen, you end up on the title screen.

* [[Creator/BenCroshaw Yahtzee's]] ''VideoGame/TwelveThirteen'' has a final boss battle that involves running, climbing, and shooting the boss over and over again in a difficult pattern. Unless you shoot the boss once, pause the game with the projectile still intersecting the boss, then unpause several seconds later. Instant win. Might be a reference to the first ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' game, which had the same bug.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' has three memorable glitches, all involving Yoshi:
** One allows for infinite flutter jumps by performing it and, with ''very'' precise timing, backflip off of him to immediately reland on his back and be free to perform another flutter jump. Though difficult, mastering this is easier than [[ThatOneLevel doing a few mind-numbingly hard stages the proper way.]]

* The MinusWorld in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' and the Secret Worlds in ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'' are 'hidden' areas resulting from reading game code as level data. They can be far, far stranger than anything a human designer could have imagined. There are websites dedicated to exploring these strange wonderlands-that-were-never-meant-to-be!

** Notably, after doing the hat-in-hand glitch, any other object Mario picks up will not be visible; presumably because his hat is already occupying the hand's "held item" memory slot. When you try to throw the item, Mario does the motion but no item appears. You can then walk around the level a bit and suddenly see the object appear out of mid-air in the same state as it was when thrown. The item was thrown at the holp. The holp in VideoGame/SuperMario64 is a global variable that stores an item's x and y position when Mario is holding an item. When the hat in hands glitch occurs, the holp remains at its previous value because the item is invisible. For example if you picked up a box and threw it, after doing the glitch and throwing another, the second will appear at the same position as the first. You can even take this from level to level if you throw an item in one level, quit or die, then preform the glitch in another, it will appear at the same x and y as the last. This allowes you the throw items in places that Mario can't reach. The downside with cross level hat in hands is unless you have a tool that displays Mario's x and y position, you have little control where the item goes. The reason why it appears out of midair is that the levels are also loaded and unloaded as Mario moves to save memory. If he's not in the area, objects are deactivated and temporarily cease to exist as far as the game is concerned. This can be viewed if you enter any level with a large field and some enemies, they clearly "blink into existence" as you approach, and will appear to have been "paused" in motion.

** The same game has a great one in world 4-2. If you climb a vine you can go to the warp zone, right? Well, it turns out that only one sub-area like that can be loaded at a time. In levels with more than one zone, the game determines how far ahead in the level Mario is. That means if you enter a pipe later in the level that should lead to a room full with some coins, if you can manage to use one of several methods to move Mario further right than he normally would, you can take the pipe and find yourself at the warp zone because the game hasn't swapped it for the coin room yet. The "wrong warp" trick works in more than one place and more than one Mario game, but to speedrunners it's more than a fun trick here: you shave a few ''very'' precious seconds off of your attempt at that world record because you don't have to wait for the vine to rise.

** Almost every little interaction between every item in Super Mario Maker has been exploited by the community. A notable level maker called Psycrow has taken this to the next level, making levels that blatantly break the rules of level making (No scrolling, blending level modes, etc.) Due to Nintendo's "no glitches" policy, he's been banned multiple times, but you can see his levels on CarlSagan42's channel.

** There's also the fact that the HitPoints meter becomes the air meter when Mario is under water, which creates the (probably unintended) ability to completely refill his life by diving into the nearest body of water that's deeper than Mario is tall. Your life points refill when you surface. (Later games use a separate oxygen meter instead, except for ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'', which lacks drowning due to its nature as what Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto calls "a 3D Mario game that plays like a 2D Mario game.")

* In ''VideoGame/MegaManTheWilyWars'', though all the fondly-remembered glitches from their NES counterparts were removed, ''this'' game's engine allows you to [[KnockbackEvasion cancel knockback]] by pausing just as you take a hit. It doesn't let you avoid damage like spamming the pause button in ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', but it ''will'' stop that little flying asshole from knocking you off a ledge and into a BottomlessPit, which neuters some of the tricky platforming like that found in Air Man's stage.

** When Zero performs an Ensuizan (the circular slash he learns for beating Rainy Turtloid), he is completely invincible until the move is completed. However, if the animation were to be interrupted while Zero is standing on solid ground due to said ground ceasing to exist (i.e., the Ensuizan itself breaking a destructible platform underneath him or him sliding off the platform he is standing on due to it being slippery), the game will think that Zero is perpetually still performing the move, rendering him completely invincible to enemies, spikes, and certain other hazards. The glitch will wear off if Zero performs the Ensuizan again, falls into a BottomlessPit, is crushed, or goes through a screen transition, such as into a boss corridor. This glitch can be performed in many different stages, most notably during the fight with ThatOneBoss, Gate.

* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'' and ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'' have the "Extra Items Cheat", where one can get extra crystals, gems, and even relics by abusing the game's combo system. [[https://www.neoseeker.com/crash-bandicoot-3/faqs/1245469-item-glitch.html The specifics of how it works]] is far too elaborate to list here, but in a nutshell it requires you to jump on an arrow crate at least 200 times and then directly onto an enemy, with the exact number of jumps determining what prize you get. This can even be used to create a warp pad for [[SecretLevel Hot Coco]], which is normally only possible to enter via Road Crash, by using this to acquire 31 crystals.

** Similar to the "zip" glitch, and often caused by it, is the "level wrap". Essentially, if Sonic somehow manages to get further left than the very first pixel in a stage, he'll warp to the end of the level, or to the stage's end boss if there is one. This is because the game is unable to recognize Sonic's X-axis as a negative number. So instead, it puts it as a very high positive number, which just so happens to place him at the rightmost pixel of the stage, which is usually the very end.

** The life underflow glitch. Taking damage at the right moment while drowning can cause you to lose 2 lives instead of 1, and if this happens when you're on your last life, the game will [[FissionMailed appear to end... and then resume]], with the number having looped back around to 255 lives, although the life counter can't display numbers that massive correctly (even when gained in [[InfiniteOneUps non-glitchy ways]]).

* ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'' has the [[https://youtu.be/aLUlBwHmGbA Pack Jump]], which allows Banjo to DoubleJump if you do his Pack Whack attack in midair. While not entirely game-breaking, it does allow quite a few shortcuts to areas.

** Another that was trickier to use, but incredibly invaluable when used well, would be to intentionally cause slowdown right as Mega Man got hit - this would extend MercyInvincibility to much longer than it usually lasts. In particular, using it properly would turn the Wily Dragon, ordinarily ThatOneBoss, into a BreatherBoss (particularly as the best weapon to trigger this glitch, the Quick Boomerang, was its weakness). However, this was due to a glitch that involved, among other things, the clock speed of the NES. Attempting this on other platforms with higher clock speeds (like all of the releases of ''Mega Man Anniversary Collection'') causes things to backfire - it instead ''eliminates'' the Mercy Invincibility and causes a dramatic increase in speed and aggressiveness of foes.

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' introduced Eddie, a robot who would show up once in certain stages and give you one of the four "big" power ups at random. However, the code that triggered him to not return only kicked in if you actually ''took'' the power up. If you didn't, left the screen and came back, Eddie would show up again and give you a new one. Effectively you could pick whatever power up you wanted by patiently gaming this bug, as long as you didn't actually grab the power ups you didn't want. This mechanic is still present in ''VideoGame/MegaMan5'' and ''VideoGame/MegaMan6'', but by then in the form of an AscendedGlitch.
* In ''VideoGame/MegaMan7'', it was possible to kill some bosses (like Turbo Man or Spring Man) by shooting Shade Man's weapon as you're entering the room. It will bounce off the walls and hit the boss as his HP is beginning to fill, causing an instant kill.
* Additionally, the tendency of the NES Mega Man games to slow to a crawl whenever a mass of bullets was being fired, while not a glitch in any way, was still so useful at allowing players' brains to catch up to the action on-screen ("Nature's Bullet Time", some people call it), that [[AscendedGlitch the engine was designed with the default option to replicate it exactly]] in [[{{Retraux}} 2008 sequel]] ''VideoGame/MegaMan9''.
** ''[=rRootage=]'' also features intentional slowdown, for [[NintendoHard a similar reason]].
** In the first two games, this could also be used to slow the internal timer used for determining how long MercyInvincibility would last, greatly extending its potential usefulness. Possible to trigger in the first game, but much easier in ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' where the Quick Boomerang's rate of fire could reliably activate it.

* In some of the games, if a weapon took more than one to eat up one pixel of weapon energy, you could use the weapon for free by using the weapon once, pausing, reselecting the weapon, and unpausing. This was highly useful for the last boss of ''2'', by conserving uses of Bubble Lead as you fought.

** It's also possible to skip certain cutscenes and even bosses by taking advantage of screen scroll.

* Snowman's Land in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' has a bug in which, after Mario's hat is blown off by a gust of wind, warping between points in the level [[https://youtu.be/scILosAELj4 causes the hat to replicate.]] Not only was it possible to scatter hats all over the level, it was possible to get Mario to hold his hat in his hand rather than wearing it.

** In the first five games, it's possible to clip through walls by using weapons that spawn objects; the Decoy Glove in ''Ratchet & Clank'', the Decoy Glove and Miniturret Glove in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando Going Commando]]'', the Miniturret Glove in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal Up Your Arsenal]]'', the Hunter Mine Launcher and Mini Turret Launcher in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked Deadlocked]]'', and the Nano-Swarmers and Visi-Copter Device in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction Tools of Destruction]]''. While fun to mess around with in general, clipping is also one of many tricks that's ''mercilessly'' abused in {{speedrun}}s to get through levels faster.

** There's a bug in [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002 the first game]]. Enter the first Hoverboard race wearing the Hologuise, and the other racers and the boards disappear, leaving Ratchet free to walk to a certain ramp, hit the Taunter, and wait as the boxes above break. And break. And break. It's basically possible to tape or weigh the O button down for a few hours and come back to be able to afford every weapon in the game.
** In the same game, as well as the next two, it's possible to 'wallhack' with the Decoy Glove/Miniturret Glove and thus push yourself through walls and get places you aren't supposed to go. This is also possible in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked Deadlocked]]'', though it's pointless due to its "arena combat" nature. Insomniac appeared to have wised up by the ''Future'' trilogy, as the turret-type weapons will only let you throw two at a time - wallhacking requires three turrets.
** In ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando Going Commando]]'' you can climb most walls by going up to them in first person, jumping, and then spamming your wrench at a downwards angle. The only downside is that you have to be in Challenge Mode to unlock the First-Person mode.
** It is possible to encounter a glitch in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction Tools of Destruction]]'' that can prove useful: in the final level, about midway through, you have to ascend a grav-ramp in order to go inside a nearby building. However, if one approaches the grav-ramp just wrong, Ratchet will wind up falling through the level, and a little adjustment with the hover-pack can send him right to the outside of the Court of Azimuth, and the location of the final battle. This locks the door behind him and sends him into the final boss battle without requiring him to play the rest of the level. Which would cause you to miss out on a couple of goodies (a Gold Bolt and a RYNO IV holoplan), but if one restarts the level, they will find that the game thinks they've cleared everything; all of the doors are open (including the Gold Bolt one), and all of the enemies are already dead, allowing you to pick up everything in the level at your leisure.
** ''Tools of Destruction'' has another one with the Razor Claws. If you jump and use the claws, you normally speed down to the ground; but if you hit a wall, the game thinks you are on flat ground for a second, allowing another jump. Combine this with high jumps, and it's possible to get to the Court of Azimuth ''while it is still daytime.'' The glitch also allows you to get a few Gold Bolts without having to figure out the normal way to get up.

** Similar to the "zip" glitch, and often caused by it, is the "level wrap". Essentially, if Sonic somehow manages to get further left than the very first pixel in a stage, he'll warp to the end of the level, or to the stage's end boss if there is one. This is because the game is unable to recognize Sonic's X-axis as a negative number. So instead, it puts it as a very high positive number, which just so happens to place him at the rightmost pixel of the stage, whcih is usually the very end.

** Similar to the "zip" glitch, and often caused by it, is the "level wrap". Essentially, if Sonic somehow manages to get further left than the very first pixel in a stage, he'll warp to the end of the level, or to the stage's end boss if there is one.

** The same game has a great one in world 4-2. If you climb a vine you can go to the warp zone, right? Well, it turns out that only one sub-area like that can be loaded at a time. That means if you enter a pipe later in the level that should lead to a room full with some coins, if you perform the trick ''perfectly,'' you can take the pipe and find yourself at the warp zone because the game hasn't swapped it for the coin room yet. The "wrong warp" trick works in more than one place and more than one Mario game, but to speedrunners it's more than a fun trick here: you shave a few ''very'' precious seconds off of your attempt at that world record because you don't have to wait for the vine to rise.

** There's a technique to create a level that [[UnwinnableByDesign cannot be beaten unless it's started from the editor]]. This includes upload clear testing, but not normal playing. Create a level that becomes [[UnwinnableByDesign unwinnable if you collect too many keys]], then place a red coin in the submap without an entrance, and another one where it cannot be collected without also collecting another key. During normal play, the unreachable red coin is helpfully removed from the red coin count. So collecting the remaining single red coin, which can't be avoided if you collect the first key, gives you your second key, making the level unbeatable, until you quit out of your 100 mario challenge run and load it in the editor yourself, revealing the trickery. One such level was called One Key, Two Key.

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan1'': The pause glitch, where rapidly tapping Select would cause continuous damage to enemies being hit, especially with the Thunder Beam. Due to the game being NintendoHard, this is exploited quite a bit.

** Another glitch allowed a high jump by jumping and shooting precisely simultaneously. Makes the Rush Coil completely useless.

** Arukoitans and Orudakoitans, the bipedal fire-spitting Reaverbot that relies on it's radar-like partner are "paired" in the game's code. Destroying only the former won't register it as "dead" until you also destroy the latter, allowing you to enter and leave rooms to keep destroying them.