Q Trick

The Q Trick or Charizard 'M Trick is a Pokémon glitch which takes advantage of the Glitch Pokémon with an index number of 255, which appears as Q in Pokémon Yellow, or "Charizard 'M" in Pokémon Red and Blue.

This glitch allows the player to give nearly any attack to any Pokémon without the use of a cheating device. The Q Trick can also make a Pokémon have the stats and type of another Pokémon and can essentially combine the data of two Pokémon into one, with the species of one Pokémon and the characteristics of another.

Method

To perform the Q Glitch, the player needs to have a particular Glitch Pokémon which occupies a hexadecimal identifier of FF (Q in Yellow Version, or Charizard 'M in Red/Blue versions).

For example purposes, the following summary uses a Magikarp and a Rhyhorn. Their stats can be seen below:

Presuming that the player wanted to give the move Horn Attack to a Magikarp. First, he or she would have select an empty box on the PC, and then deposit a Pokémon in the box (any Pokémon will work, but Rattata is used in this example). Next, the player has to deposit Q or Charizard 'M in the box. After that, the player has to deposit the Pokémon that he or she wants to gain the new moves, in this case Magikarp. Finally, deposit the Pokémon with the moves that the player wants the other Pokémon to have, in this case Rhyhorn. After depositing these Pokémon, the contents of the player's box should be similar to this:

• Rattata
• Q/Charizard 'M
• Magikarp
• Rhyhorn
• CANCEL

However, because a Q or Charizard 'M causes all Pokémon below it to become invisible, the box would look like this:

• Rattata
• CANCEL
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

The player should acknowledge that the CANCEL button is really his or her Q/Charizard 'M, and that the three blank spaces are Magikarp, Rhyhorn, and the CANCEL button, respectively. Now, the player should withdraw the Rattata (or any other Pokémon above Q/Charizard 'M) and he or she would have just combined the two Pokémon. The contents of the box should now look like this:

• Q/Charizard 'M (Q/Charizard 'M)
• Q/Charizard 'M (Magikarp)
• Magikarp (Rhyhorn)
• CANCEL

The names in parentheses show which Pokémon each of these really is. The player's Rhyhorn has now become a Magikarp, and the player's Magikarp has now become a Q or Charizard 'M. However, these Pokémon have retained their own stats. Their stats should look like this:

The player now has a Magikarp with the stats and name of a Rhyhorn. This is what is often referred to as an unstable hybrid. It is unstable because the data concerning the Pokémon's identification has been mixed up, and it is no longer a normal Pokémon. Hybrid Glitches could also be considered as unstable hybrids because they have some of the data of another Pokémon.

In order to stabilise this Magikarp, the player can evolve the Pokémon into a Gyarados. When this Magikarp becomes a Gyarados, its stats will become those of a normal Gyarados, but it will retain its altered moves. This Gyarados is now a perfectly stable, normal Pokémon. Stabilizing hybrids by evolving them is important if the player wants to trade the Pokémon to Pokémon Gold, Pokémon Silver or Pokémon Crystal because unstable hybrids will be blocked by Gold/Silver/Crystal's error trap, as if the player had tried to trade a Glitch Pokémon.

Note that Magikarp and Rhyhorn aren't the only Pokémon which can be used in the Q Trick and that the player can simply replace the Magikarp and Rhyhorn in this demonstration with any other two Pokémon.

Obtaining Shiny Pokémon / Alternative Colored Pokémon

If the Pokémon that has the moves the player wants on a different Pokémon was a Shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Gold, Pokémon Silver or Pokémon Crystal, the resulting Pokémon, once stabilzed, will be shiny when traded back to a Generation II Pokémon game, however the player would have to stabilise the Hybrid Pokémon by evolution first, otherwise he or she would have that Pokémon blocked by an error trap.

How to stabilise Hybrid Pokémon which are unable to evolve

In order to stabilise a Hybrid Pokémon made by the Q Trick which cannot usually evolve the player will need to obtain a copy of Pokémon Stadium 2 (as unstable hybrid Glitch Pokémon will appear as Rhydon Dolls and freeze the game in the original Pokémon Stadium 1 as well as being unusable, or in this case the last Pokémon before the player used the Q Trick but only temporarily in Pokémon Stadium 1. They do not change back permanently on the cartridge if transferred to Pokémon Stadium 1 but they do if transferred to Pokémon Stadium 2.)

How to trick Pokémon Stadium 2 into changing a Hybrid Pokémon into an 'opposite' Pokémon

This method will not allow the player's Pokémon to have the other Pokémon's stats but it will allow it to have attacks it wouldn't learn otherwise.

To do this method, simply perform the Q Trick as normal on the player's Generation I game. However this time, turn the Pokémon into the opposite of what the player wants it to be. For example, if the player wanted a flying Mewtwo he or she would turn the Mewtwo into a Pidgey as opposed to turning the Pidgey into the Mewtwo. The player can then teach the Hybrid Pidgey Fly, or any other moves which Pidgey can normally learn.

If the player uploads the Pidgey onto Pokémon Stadium 2's lab via a transfer pak he or she would notice that the Hybrid Pidgey would have changed into a Mewtwo. If the player looks at the Mewtwo's stats the game will show that it seems to be just a normal Mewtwo. However while its stats will be normal, its attack roster will not. The player will notice that if he or she taught Fly to the hybrid Pidgey the move would still be there on that Mewtwo. Also, if the player saves the game after moving around the Mewtwo in the storage system on Pokémon Stadium 2 would have permanently became a flying Mewtwo.

Effectively, Pokémon Stadium 2's error trap will also turn any Pokémon which was previosuly turned into a Charizard 'M/Q's by the Q Trick back to the original Pokémon, however any moves the player taught that Pokémon as a Q/Charizard 'M will be kept. It is possible to make Ditto or another Pokémon know attacks that they wouldn't normally know with either of these two methods.

See Also

1. Sketch glitch
2. Mimic glitch

External Links

Pokémon Stadium 2 Method Video