History GoodBadBugs / RolePlayingGame

** The Staff of the Magi is already an exceptionally powerful item, but in early versions of the game it was downright game breaking in the hands of a dual or multiclass Thief. Equipping it makes its wielder invisible, so you'd just do that, backstab an enemy, quickly unequip and re-equip it, and repeat until everything in the room was dead. This was quickly patched out; now backstabs can only be performed with weapons natively usable by a Thief, though for whatever it's worth, the best backstabbing weapon in the game is a different quarterstaff (Staff of the Ram +4 to be precise).

** The Staff of the Magi is already an exceptionally powerful item, but in early versions of the game it was downright game breaking in the hands of a dual or multiclass Thief. Equipping it makes its wielder invisible, so you'd just do that, backstab an enemy, quickly unequip and re-equip it, and repeat until everything in the room was dead. This was quickly patched out; now backstabs can only be performed with weapons natively usable by a Thief, though for whatever it's worth, the best backstabbing weapon in the game is a different quarterstaff.

** The Staff of the Magi is already an exceptionally powerful item, but in early versions of the game it was downright game breaking in the hands of a dual or multiclass thief. Equipping it makes its wielder invisible, so you'd just do that, backstab an enemy, quickly unequip and re-equip it, and repeat until everything in the room was dead. This was quickly patched out; now thieves can only backstab with weapons intended to be wielded by their class (though for whatever it's worth, the best backstabbing weapon in the game is a different quarterstaff).

* ''Might and Magic 2'' for the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis had a bug where if you dismissed your hirelings before opening a chest, the chest would have ludicrously valuable treasure. Also, in dungeons prohibiting Etherealize spell (go through walls), it would sometimes forget it wasn't supposed to allow that, making the final dungeon a cinch.

** Since at least ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'' (both on the UsefulNotes/{{PS3}} and UsefulNotes/PSVita versions) and possibly earlier, any enemy that just so happens to be Level 99 accidentally has its experience calculated improperly and winds up having the Experience Points of an enemy that's Level 297 or so, which can be rapidly exploited (in ''Disgaea 3'''s case, by combining three Level 33 zombies during a certain level in Chapter 5) by getting your characters dozens of levels within an hour or two, allowing you to breeze through the main quest -- assuming, of course, you manage to be able to kill them.\\

*** ''MOTHER 1+2'', the Japan-only CompilationRerelease of the first two games for the [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance GBA]], has a very odd glitch during the FinalBoss battle against Giygas. If the player uses a Viper (an item that [[AlwaysAccurateAttack always]] inflicts poison) on Giygas during the second phase, a programming oversight will allow Giygas to be poisoned, unlike in the original SNES version where he is immune to it. Once this occurs, if the DamageOverTime from the Viper causes his HP to reach 0, instead of [[ScriptedBattle automatically moving on to the final phase]], Giygas will instead "die" like a regular enemy (awarding 0 EXP), and the ending will proceed to play as if the battle was won normally.

** In an utterly ''bizarre'' example, a glitch on a physical copy of a first-generation Pokémon game (the 8F arbitrary code execution glitch) can be used to reprogram other games. As in, games on other physical cartridges. You can use this to warp right to the credits in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand2'' (as demonstrated [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL_Zuc0tlvo here]]). And while no one's got a practical use for it yet, [[http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php?topic=7722.msg203493#msg203493 this can be used to write code onto a SNES game]]. Getting it wrong could damage the Game Boy, but getting it right can let you manipulate any game on the Game Boy and potentially any game on the SNES.

[[SeinfeldIsUnfunny As bizarre as it may sound for what would now be considered]] a simple act of PVP on a dev who didn't realize his power was turned off, at the time this was a ''really'' big deal. An actual in-game riot started very shortly after it happened, there were articles about this event in mainstream PC gamer magazines afterwards, interviews with the perp in question ('Aquaman') and more -- it turned into a huge debate over PK-ing, the act of 'Player Killing', whether or not it was fair and what could be done about it. The article in PC Gamer magazine itself treated PK-ing as a threat to the average gamer and something that could turn people away from this relatively new genre of game. Re-reading these old articles is exactly as quaint as you'd imagine, proto-MMO'ers 'discussing' (read: arguing bitterly over) what could be done about [[HilariousInHindsight what would eventually become one of the largest draws to the MMO market]], PVP.