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1-year bug discovered in Ruby/Sapphire

Orange Soda

Orange Soda

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http://www.1up.com/article2/0,4364,1405215,00.asp

Bugs Detected In GBA Pokemon
By David Smith
12/5/2003

Nintendo in Japan recently issued a statement regarding a bug that's cropped up in its latest Pokemon RPG. Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire, Japanese gamers recently discovered, has an issue with its internal clock that can disable certain gameplay systems after a year's worth of playtime.

Ruby & Sapphire has a system whereby you can plant trees in the game's virtual world. Those trees eventually bear fruit, which you then feed to your pet monsters to cause them to evolve in useful and interesting ways. Unfortunately, the bug means that once the game's clock ticks over one year after activation, those trees are unable to grow. The bug also apparently hampers the lottery mini-game at the Lilycove department store.

The bug is apparently inherent in the game code itself, so altering or deleting save files cannot correct it. Nintendo has thus invited Japanese players to bring or send their game cartridges to one of many service centers around the country. The service centers will apply a patch that corrects the issue and return the fixed copy of the game free of charge.

Nintendo's statement indicates that the bug will not, however, affect the upload and download of Ruby & Sapphire data to its upcoming GameCube Pokemon battle game, Pokemon Colosseum.

The issue has yet to be discovered in the American version of the game, of course, since Ruby & Sapphire has only been available in the United States since March. Nintendo of America representatives offered the following official response today:

"Nintendo is aware of a minor issue in the Pokemon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire Game Boy Advance games. It affects only very minor areas in the game (such as growing certain berries) after one full calendar year of game play. For North American consumers, this issue would not occur until one year after the game has first been played.

"The earliest the issue could appear is March 2004, which is the one year anniversary of the first sale in North America. All main game play activities, such as collecting and battling Pokemon, are not affected. Please continue to check the Nintendo website for an update."

We'll be sure to pass on any such updates as well.
Click to expand...
 
You've given me quite something to look over.And I also have some questions.

1. will this in any way affect the total of my poke'dex
2.will this have any effect on poke'rus
3.will it effect the appear/dissapear nature of mirage island.
4.will it increase or decrease the appearence rate of shiny poke'mon.
 
Here are some questions I also wanna ask:

1. If we dont fix this bug, will it affect our gameplay with Pokemon Box and Pokemon Colluseeum?
2. Will it affect my pokemon training?
3. Will it affect the linking abilities of Ruby/Saphire and Fire Red/Leaf Green?
 
Alex:
1. I think not. Pokedex is a major part of the game, and the article only said it affects minor aspects.
The rest, I don't know.

Arthas Zero:
1.
Nintendo's statement indicates that the bug will not, however, affect the upload and download of Ruby & Sapphire data to its upcoming GameCube Pokemon battle game, Pokemon Colosseum.
Click to expand...
2. Doubt it. I think training counts as one of the important parts.
3. I'd guess no, based on the answer to your first question.
 
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I believe that the Pokedex won't be a problem. As it's not affected by time, that shouldn't be a problem.

Because the Pokerus only lasts for 24 hours of play time, and is based upon the clock, I expect that it will be affected. My guess is that if the time system locks up, then a pokemon with the Pokerus will have it forever....

With Mirage Island, as far as I know, a new number is used each day. On the one hand, if you don't have the Mirage Island on the day when your game clock breaks, then you're not likely to ever have it with the pokemon you have in your party at the time. However, if you have the Mirage Island that day, then I don't expect you'll ever be able to get rid of it. :) Mirage Island works in pretty much the same way as the Lilycove Lottery, but it looks at your party pokemon, not the pokemon in your pc.


Shinies shouldn't be a problem. That's based upon randomization, just like whether a common or uncommon pokemon appears. If Shinies were affected, then it'd mean that you'd only ever find one type of pokemon in each area, which isn't mentioned above, so it shouldn't be a problem.

ArthasZero, I think that your queries should be okay, as 'Soda was saying.


The bit that worries me is that Nintendo has no service centres (that I know of) in Australia. In fact, support from Nintendo here is so bad that I bought the E-reader as soon as it was released, (a few short weeks ago), and for the Pokemon Trading Card Game, we haven't got the Dragon set released out here yet. In fact, at the Card place that I get my stuff from, we have more support from the makers of the DragonBallZ card game than from Pokemon.
So will this mean that my cartridge won't be able to be fixed??? I don't want to risk sending my Pokemon game overseas or even interstate, for fear that what would happen if it got lost in the mail? Or if it was exposed to a magnet, or if it got wet? It's not something that can ever be replaced.
(Let's just say that one of the characters you can get in the Mauville City Pokemon Centre tells stories about legendary trainers. One of my friends has jumped over 3080 ledges, and I've moved my Secret Base 14 times, and I've created a new trendy phrase 16 times, and I've saved the game 2235 times - these are all things I know from that character.) Sure, the cartridge can be easily replaced, but not the data saved upon it.

I just pray that there is somewhere here in Adelaide that I can travel to and acquire that patch on my game, without having to send my game away....
 
I hope this doesn't effect us, I know that I didn't pick some berries and they died and never grew back, so when I grow them, I constantly watch them, like 5 times a day. I like the berries, for the occassional contest and getting Milotics.
 
No, Silcoon and Cascoon randomly evolve. Nothing to do with time. Try evolving several Wurmple in a few minutes, you won't get the same evolution.
 
Kooky...

Uh, I'm new here, as you can see... I just registered to help, but I think I'll participate in the future.

About the clock stopping. I think that maybe the article is a little misleading. I suppose... Berries would probably grow only when you play, uh... the entire game would work fine, except the clock would only work when you play. Seeing someone's game clock broken did this kind of thing. I forgot the correct error, but it involved all this. I just bought my own copy of Ruby, after losing a previous one, so I don't have to worry about this for another year. ;)

You all did notice that if you didn't play, the berry trees grew up, possibly even died, didn't you?
 
It's quite a possibility that we'll hear about this in a few other regional copies of the games. The only things that will really be affected by the clock stopping are the growth of berries, Pokérus, and Mirage Island. The berries are affected even if the game is off because unlike Gold/Silver/Crystal, once they're picked, they don't grow back unless you replant them. And it takes time to grow and replant them. Pokérus is a questionable one..cause then it would mean you wouldn't lose it. As far as I know, I don't think anyone would be complaining about it. >_> I could be wrong about it though. Mirage Island is factored by I believe the DVs of the Pokémon. If you don't have the right DVs to go to Mirage Islands, then you'll have to go the next day and try again. Because the clock would be broken, Mirage Island wouldn't appear at all if the old man can't see it. :\
 
okay.

MIRAGE ISLAND
If you have it enabled when you're clock stops, you wont lose it. If you dont, then you wont be able to get it. END OF STORY.

POKERUS
You can still catch it, but you cant lose it if you're clock stops. END OF STORY.

BERRIES
Berries will not grow. END OF STORY.
 
I just got the latest issue of Nintendo Power. They said that getting Jirachi will correct this problem in the Ruby/Sapphire versions. :mad: Getting Jirachi is an entirely different story. Check in the other forum that tells how to get Jirachi please. :D ^o^
 
Yeah. Apparently jirachi has some funky bug fix on it, because you know, its like the friendly pokémon of time.
 
If the rumor is true which I doubt. That if you catch all 200 pokemon and go to the Space Center and can catch Jirachi-Ruby Deoxys-Sapphire, then that will mean Ruby players who catch all 200 pokemon can be lucky. Also, if Jirachi fixes the time problem.
 
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