[Update] Easy Cloning Glitch Discovered In Pokemon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl

Following the surf glitch, players have discovered a powerful new exploit in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

The new exploit is a cloning glitch, which allows players to duplicate any Pokemon including Legendaries. Cloning glitches have been found in many games in the series, dating all the way back to the Generation I Pokemon games on the Game Boy. For example, in the original Diamond and Pearl, it was possible to clone Pokemon by cutting the internet connection at the right time when depositing Pokemon into the GTS, although this bug was removed in Platinum.

In Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, a new cloning glitch has been discovered that is relatively simple to pull off, and does not require an internet connection or trading to do. It can be done as soon as the player reached the Nursery in Solaceon Town by following the steps below.

It is recommended to turn off autosave and save the game manually before attempting this glitch in case a mistake is made:

1. Go up to the Nursery Lady inside the Nursery, where you would normally deposit Pokemon for breeding. Ensure that there are no Pokemon currently deposited in the Daycare before starting the process.

 

2. Open up the Pokemon Boxes by opening the Pokemon menu and pressing R.

 

3. Place a Pokemon in the bottom right hand corner of the one of your boxes (e.g. Box 1), and another Pokemon in the bottom right hand corner of the box next to it (e.g. Box 2). The Pokemon that you wish to clone (e.g. Spiritomb) should also be placed in Box 1, along with another unwanted Pokemon to be used as a “sacrifice”.

 

4. Register the Pokemon in the second Box to your Battle Team by pressing X twice, and dragging the Pokemon from the bottom right to the first position in Battle Team 1.

 

5. Speak to the Nursery Lady and say you wish to deposit a Pokemon, select the Pokemon in the first Box at the bottom right hand corner, but do not actually deposit the Pokemon.

 

6. Instead, select “Box List” and hover the cursor over the first Box and press Y. Use this to switch the positions of the first Box and the second Box.

 

7. Back out of the Box List menu, and you will see that the second Pokemon has been selected to be deposited into the Nursery, while also being selected for a Battle Team. Agree to deposit this Pokemon into the Nursery.

 

8. After depositing the Pokemon, open your boxes again and open the Battle Teams. You will notice that there is a visual glitch in the last slot of the Battle Team. This indicates that the cloning glitch is working. Avoid selecting the bugged area as this may softlock the game.

 

9. Select an unwanted Pokemon to be used as a sacrifice for the cloning process and place it in the first slot of the Battle Team. Note that this unwanted Pokemon will be lost forever.

 

10. Select the Pokemon to be cloned (e.g. Spiritomb) and place it in the first slot of the Battle Team, an animation will play where the Pokemon is “cloned” to the second slot of the Battle Team.

 

11. Select the Pokemon to be cloned, and click “Check Summary”

 

12. After exiting, you will notice that there are now two of the cloned Pokemon. Select the first copy and move it back into the box to make the clone permanent.

 

You can check out videos of this bug in action via @kevinfor5 on Twitter, and via PanFro Games on Youtube:

At the time of this writing, it is not known whether this glitch will eventually be patched by ILCA. We will be sure to report back with more details as they come.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

[Update]: A variation of this glitch using similar principles has been discovered and shared on Reddit by u/EmmeKappa_404 with instructions and video below:

[Update 2]: As of the Version 1.1.2 update, the menu storage glitch used for Method 2 no longer works. Presumably, this means that ILCA and The Pokemon Company intend to introduce more patches to remove such exploits in the future.