The Berry Glitch

The Berry Glitch is one of the more commonly known glitches to have existed in the Pokémon series, and the first to ever receive a fix. This glitch exists in all Pokémon Ruby & Pokémon Sapphire games and, at a certain point such as passing 100 hours of play, will prevent any and all time-related events. The major events that are affected are:

  • Eevee Evolution - You'll only be able to evolve Eevee into one of the evolutions
  • Berry Growing - Berries will no longer grow
  • Shoal Cave - The tide will never change
  • Lilycove & Slateport - The markets & Dept. Store will not have any sales
  • Mirage Island - Mirage Island will no longer be available
Fixing the Berry Glitch

There are a few ways that have been offered in order to fix the Berry Glitch. Many of these can be done at home, while others were provided worldwide in case of lack of access to the various materials

  • Connect with FireRed, LeafGreen or Emerald
    If you load up the Pokémon FireRed, LeafGreen or Emerald games in another GBA and hold down Select and B on the title screen it will open up a special Berry Program Update. Using the GBA Link Cable to connect to a GBA with Ruby or Sapphire connected, it will send the fix to the glitch over to the games.
  • Connect with Gamecube games
    If you connect to Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon Box: Ruby & Sapphire or, in Europe, Pokémon Channel, these games will automatically send the Berry Glitch patch to the Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire games.
  • Connect with Demo Pods
    Across the world, from 2003 to around 2007, there were various interactive Gamecube demo pods in retailers. Inside these demo pods, there was an option to send the berry glitch patch to your game. Doing so gave you a special Shiny Zigzagoon, as well.
  • Send to Nintendo
    A final option was to send your game into Nintendo. They would fix this for free. However, they no longer provide this service..