If you played Pokémon Red, Blue, or Yellow back when Game Boys ruled the Earth, there is a very good chance you heard a playground legend about a weird block-shaped monster named MissingNo. There is also a very good chance that same legend somehow ended with someone proudly holding 128 Rare Candies, 128 Master Balls, or enough Full Restores to survive a small apocalypse.
Good news: the item cloning trick in Generation I is real. Better news: it is not magic. It is a famous glitch tied to the way the original games handle wild encounter data and the sixth item slot in your bag. Slightly less magical news: it can also mess up your Hall of Fame data and produce some graphical weirdness, so this is not something you should do on a save file you treat like a family heirloom.
In this guide, you will learn exactly how to clone items in Pokémon Red and Blue in eight clear steps, plus how Pokémon Yellow differs, what items are worth duplicating, and how to avoid turning your game into digital mashed potatoes. We will keep it practical, readable, and just a little nostalgic, because any guide involving MissingNo. deserves a tiny dramatic pause.
What This Glitch Actually Does
Despite what old rumors said, this is not truly an “infinite items” cheat in one single use. What the glitch really does is increase the quantity of the sixth item in your bag by 128. So if your sixth item is Rare Candy and you have 3 of them, the game bumps that stack way up. Once you use, toss, or rearrange items, you can repeat the process again to stockpile more.
That is why players often call it the Rare Candy cheat, even though you can use it on many other useful items. The trick is most straightforward in Pokémon Red and Blue. In Pokémon Yellow, the classic route was patched, but the duplication effect still exists through alternate glitch methods. Translation: Red and Blue are the easy mode, Yellow is the “advanced users only” version with extra chaos sprinkled on top.
Before You Start
Before diving into the steps, make sure you have the basics ready:
- Access to Viridian City
- Access to Cinnabar Island
- A Pokémon that knows Fly
- A Pokémon that knows Surf
- The item you want to duplicate
Also, a practical warning: do not do this on a treasured “perfect” save unless you accept the risk. The glitch is famous because it works, but it is also famous because Generation I code is held together with chewing gum, courage, and wishful thinking.
How to Clone Items in Pokémon Red and Blue: 8 Steps
Step 1: Make Sure You Can Reach Cinnabar Island
The classic item cloning method depends on the Cinnabar coast setup, so you need to be far enough into the game to reach Cinnabar Island. You also need Surf to move along the shoreline and Fly to travel quickly after triggering the setup. If you are still wandering around Mt. Moon with three Potions and big dreams, finish more of the game first.
Step 2: Put the Item You Want to Clone in the Sixth Bag Slot
This is the most important preparation step, and it is where many players accidentally duplicate something useless, like an Antidote they forgot was sitting in slot six. Open your bag and rearrange items so the one you want to copy is in the sixth position. Rare Candies and Master Balls are the classic choices, but Max Elixirs, Full Restores, and other rare supplies can also be smart picks.
Double-check the slot before moving on. Seriously. This one small moment can be the difference between “I am a genius” and “Why do I now own 131 Escape Ropes?”
Step 3: Go to Viridian City and Talk to the Old Man
Head to the old man in Viridian City, the one who originally blocks your path early in the game. Once he has had his coffee and resumed being useful instead of horizontal, speak to him and let him demonstrate how to catch a Pokémon. This little tutorial is the key to the glitch setup.
Why? Because the game temporarily uses memory in a strange way during this sequence, and that memory later affects what appears on the Cinnabar coast. In normal software, this would be called a problem. In Pokémon history, it is called free stuff.
Step 4: Watch the Catching Demonstration All the Way Through
Do not mash through the whole thing mentally and then forget what you are doing. Let the old man finish the demonstration completely. Once it ends, do not wander around fighting random Pokémon or opening unnecessary menus. You want to transition cleanly into the next travel step.
This part matters because the demonstration changes data the game later reads when it should not. The result is that the Cinnabar shoreline can start producing glitched encounters, including MissingNo. and other oddities.
Step 5: Fly Straight to Cinnabar Island
As soon as the demonstration is over, use Fly and go directly to Cinnabar Island. The classic route is simple for a reason: the fewer extra steps you take, the fewer chances you have to break the setup. You are not here to sightsee. You are here to commit a tiny, pixelated robbery against the item economy.
Once you arrive, head toward the eastern side of the island, where the land touches the water.
Step 6: Surf Along the East Coast Where Land Touches Water
This is the signature moment. Use Surf on the east coast of Cinnabar Island and move up and down along the edge where the water touches the land. Stay aligned with the shoreline. The coastline is important because this specific area loads encounters in a famously broken way.
If you are in the right place, you should soon start encountering strange wild Pokémon. Depending on your trainer name, you may see glitchy enemies, bizarre levels, or the famous blocky legend itself: MissingNo. If the screen lingers a bit longer before a battle appears, that is usually a good sign that the glitch is working.
Step 7: Encounter MissingNo. or Another Pokédex-000 Glitch Pokémon
Once the glitched encounter appears, the sixth item slot is affected. In practical terms, that means the quantity of your sixth item jumps by 128, provided the stack was below 128 before the encounter. Most players either run or defeat the glitch Pokémon rather than catch it.
Catching MissingNo. is where the story often turns from “fun exploit” into “why is my game acting like a haunted toaster?” If your only goal is to clone items, encountering it is enough. Do the smart thing and leave the glitch monster to its mysterious geometric lifestyle.
Step 8: Check Your Bag, Then Repeat Carefully
Open your bag and look at the sixth item. Its quantity should be much higher than before. If you cloned Rare Candies, congratulations: your leveling problems just packed their bags and left. If you cloned Master Balls, the Legendary Birds are now sweating.
You can repeat the process again as long as you manage the item count properly. If the stack becomes too large, use or rearrange items before triggering the glitch again. That is how players turned one rare resource into a huge stash without external cheat devices.
How Pokémon Yellow Is Different
Here is the important twist: Pokémon Yellow does not use the classic Old Man route the same way Red and Blue do. The standard Old Man setup was fixed there. However, the underlying item duplication effect still exists when you encounter the right Pokédex-000 glitch Pokémon. In Yellow, that usually means using a more advanced setup, such as a Ditto-based or other alternate glitch method, rather than the simple Viridian-to-Cinnabar routine above.
There is another catch: Yellow is generally less forgiving. Certain MissingNo. forms in Yellow are much more likely to freeze the game or cause nastier visual bugs. So if you are playing Yellow and mainly want a smooth, low-drama item duplication session, you may prefer to use Red or Blue instead. Yellow can still do it, but it is the version that says, “Sure, but only if you enjoy risk as a hobby.”
Best Items to Clone
Not every item gives you the same value. The smartest choices are usually:
- Rare Candies for fast leveling
- Master Balls for legendary catches
- Full Restores for endgame battles
- Max Elixirs or PP-restoring items for long runs
- Revives if your team has a dramatic flair for fainting
Some players also experiment with unusual items or stackable key items, but that is where things can get messy. If your goal is practical gameplay rather than glitch archaeology, stick to normal high-value items.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Using the Wrong Sixth Item
This is the number-one classic blunder. Always check slot six before triggering the encounter.
Surfing in the Wrong Spot
You need the Cinnabar shoreline where land touches water. If you are drifting too far out or using the wrong coast, the setup will not behave the same way.
Catching MissingNo. Just Because You Can
Tempting? Yes. Wise? Usually no. If your main objective is item cloning, catching it adds risk without adding much value.
Expecting It to Work Exactly Like a Modern Cheat Menu
This is a glitch, not a polished feature. It can be inconsistent, weird, and slightly dramatic. Treat it like vintage software mischief, not a guaranteed convenience button.
Is the Item Cloning Glitch Safe?
“Safe” is doing a lot of work here. Many players used the glitch for years and got away with little more than scrambled Hall of Fame entries. Others ran into stranger side effects, especially after catching or battling with glitch Pokémon directly. In Red and Blue, graphical oddities are common. In Yellow, some encounters can freeze the game outright.
The safest practical advice is simple: use the glitch only if you are comfortable with some save-file weirdness. If you are playing on a casual file and want a stack of Rare Candies for fun, that is one thing. If this is your precious completionist save from a nostalgic replay, maybe let MissingNo. stay in the ocean where it belongs.
Player Experiences: What This Glitch Feels Like in Real Play
Part of the reason this trick became legendary is that it does not feel like a normal cheat. It feels like you are sneaking backstage in a game that was never supposed to have a backstage. First you do something completely ordinary, like watching the old man’s catching tutorial. Then you fly to Cinnabar, surf in a very specific place, and suddenly the world starts acting just a little off. The encounter delay feels strange. The music feels normal, but your brain knows something is not normal. Then a crooked tower of pixels appears where a wild Pokémon should be, and that is when every player has the same thought: “Well, this seems extremely responsible.”
For many fans, the real thrill was never just the cloned item. It was the fact that the rumor was true. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Pokémon rumors spread like wildfire. Most of them were nonsense. Mew under the truck? Famous. Real? No. But MissingNo. was one of those rare schoolyard myths that actually worked. That gave the glitch almost mythic status. You were not just duplicating Rare Candies. You were confirming that the older kid on the bus was not lying for once.
There is also a weirdly funny emotional arc to the whole thing. Before the encounter, you feel clever. During the encounter, you feel brave. After the encounter, when you open your bag and see the sixth item count explode upward, you feel like a stock market genius who just manipulated the candy economy. Then, ten minutes later, when you peek at the Hall of Fame and it looks like a printer lost a bar fight, you feel a tiny flicker of regret. Not enough regret to stop, of course. Just enough regret to save more often next time.
Players who used the glitch for practical reasons often remember it as a shortcut that changed the pace of the game. A stack of Rare Candies could turn tedious grinding into a sprint. A pile of Master Balls made the late-game legendary hunts much less stressful. Even cloning healing items could make the Elite Four feel more manageable. That is why the glitch stuck around in memory for so long. It was not just bizarre; it was genuinely useful. In a game that could sometimes demand a lot of repetitive leveling, MissingNo. felt like a secret pact between the player and the code.
At the same time, the experience always carried a tiny edge of danger, and that edge is part of the charm. Modern games tend to explain everything, patch everything, and surround every feature with guard rails. Generation I Pokémon often just shrugged and let you poke the machinery. The item cloning glitch is a perfect example of that era’s accidental magic. It is messy, not entirely safe, and absolutely unforgettable. Even players who only tried it once usually remember the exact beach, the exact moment, and the exact item they duplicated first. Usually Rare Candy. Occasionally Master Balls. And once in a while, because fate enjoys comedy, a completely unnecessary stack of Antidotes.
Final Thoughts
If you want to clone items in Pokémon Red or Blue, the classic MissingNo. method is still one of the most famous and effective glitches in gaming history. Put your desired item in the sixth slot, trigger the Old Man setup, surf the Cinnabar coast, encounter the glitch Pokémon, and enjoy your inflated inventory. It is simple, weird, and delightfully old-school.
If you are playing Pokémon Yellow, the idea still works, but the setup is more advanced and more risky because the standard Old Man route was patched. Either way, the key lesson remains the same: in Generation I, the code sometimes opened a side door and said, “I probably should not show you this, but here we are.”
Use the trick carefully, keep expectations realistic, and maybe avoid catching the haunted barcode monster unless you truly enjoy chaos. Your bag will thank you. Your Hall of Fame may not.
