Honorable Mentions:

Gradius – Less a glitch and more the result of a programmer with a poor memory, the famed Konami Code was born when Kazuhisa Hashimoto forgot to remove debug mode from the console port of the game. (If you goddamn kids don’t know what the Konami Code is, then you can get the hell off my lawn.)

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – The Bomb Arrows that appeared later in Twilight Princess are thought to have been the result of a glitch, though this has neither been confirmed nor denied by the creators.

Mortal Kombat – The characters Ermac and Skarlet were both rumored to be the result of a palette-swapping glitch, though Ed Boon has denied this.

Quake – The method of travelling known as strafejumping has become almost as well-known as rocket jumping.

World of Warcraft – The Corrupted Blood incident was studied by real-life scientists as a model for epidemic research, and possibly inspired the in-game “Great Zombie Plague of ’08.”

Halo – In the original game, aiming all the way down with a pistol would cause the head of the character model to revert back to level, even while their gun was pointed at the ground, making it appear that the character was “at ease.” This was famously used by Rooster Teeth in their Red vs. Blue machinima. Bungie fixed the bug in Halo 2 but added a new feature that would allow characters to hold their weapon in a neutral position.

Ninja Gaiden (NES) – Ryu was meant to climb by jumping between two different walls, but savvy players discovered that he could still gain elevation with only one wall. Levels that require single-wall climbing were added to the sequels.

Super Mario Bros. – A glitch that would allow Mario to jump again if he hit a wall in a specific manner is possibly the inspiration for his wall-jumping ability in the newer games. The ? Blocks that contain multiple coins are also thought to be inspired by a bug.

Painkiller and some Metroid games are designed in such a way that some secrets can only be found by abusing glitches in the game’s engine.

Tetris – The technique known as the T-Spin is thought to have originally been a glitch, and is now necessary for high-level play.

Warcraft 2 – An easy-to-perform glitch granting the player 100 extra Lumber at the beginning of a game became the standard opening in many official tournaments, as it allowed matches to get underway quicker.

Super Robot Wars Alpha 2 – A hilarious glitch causing Elzan V. Branstein’s theme to automatically override any other music when he appears was so well-received by the community, that it has since been written into every successive game in the franchTROMBE!

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 – After a fan named Levinator25 posted a video of the in-game Tiger Woods hitting a golf ball while standing on water, EA Sports used this “Jesus Shot” in a commercial for the next game.

Half-Life 2 – The Combine Gunships are programmed to attack whatever currently represents the biggest threat (usually the player). However their AI decided that rockets are more dangerous than the person launching them, so they would shoot any flying rockets, requiring the player to guide them through erratic flight paths to score a hit. Valve liked this so much that they kept it in the game. Likewise, the sugar mill level of Left 4 Dead 2 with dozens of Witches was the result of a glitch that the developers enjoyed.

Bethesda games are typically replete with bugs, and Skyrim in particular is home to a plethora of hilarious glitches, many of which have notably not been patched.

Adventure – It’s hard to call it a “feature” per se, but the infamous “Created by Warren Robinett” room (read: the first video game easter egg ever) was accessed by intentionally triggering a glitch known as “sprite flickering,” which was a common bug up through the third generation of video games.



While glitches are usually seen by programmers as something to be avoided, the best developers know when to capitalize on a bug that makes their game more memorable. Just like with many movie scenes, sometimes the best moments aren’t in the script. I hope you enjoyed this look at particularly serendipitous bits of errant code, and if you have any [questions/comments/complaints that this list didn’t feature a single Tales game], feel free to drop by the Top 10 List Board or Gaming Symmetry to [ask/share/blame it on someone other than me].

List by Eesgooshee (02/26/2013)

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