
Top 10 Super Nintendo Game Glitches
Helpful exploits and strange oddities

Written by Alex Legard for SNES on
Many SNES glitches have side effects that you never thought were possible so here are 10 cursed and crazy ones that you can pull off.
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Super Mario World - Glitched Smoke in Yoshi's House
At the beginning of Super Mario World, you can enter Yoshi's house then all you have to do is keep tapping the L and R buttons. This glitch takes a minute to pull off and it might not happen at all but you can re-enter Yoshi's house and try again. v1d30chumz 3-235-186-94
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Super Mario World - Credits Warp
This is the glitch that speedrunners exploit to complete Super Mario World in 45 seconds. You can arrange several in-game objects in a specific manner to manipulate the game's ROM data and the end result is that it's forced to run code that displays the end credits.
Super Mario Bros. 3 vs. Super Mario World
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Mushroom Glitch
Have you ever tried warping into the light world on the same tile as the forest mushroom? Well, that's all you need to do to pull off this glitch. Also, you can't possess either the mushroom or magic powder or else the mushroom won't appear.
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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Wall Clip
Wall clips are very difficult to pull off but this is an important glitch nonetheless. In the light world, find a diagonal dirt wall such as the ones on the road to the desert. You should familiarise yourself with the pattern of pixels on the wall as well as Link's shadow so you can put Link onto a specific pixel. Face north and prepare a spin attack then tap dash and ← or → so you can inch into the wall, get Link onto that specific pixel, and then release the spin attack to execute either a north warp or a south warp.
Check out SuperSKUJ's excellent tutorial if you want to pull off this glitch for yourself:
A Link to the Past: Basic Wall Clipping Tutorial →
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Screen Transition Into Wall
You didn't think I was done with A Link to the Past already, did you? While trying the previous glitch, I managed to wall-jump up the wall and onto the cliff above the Bombos medallion. You're not supposed to be up there but it's possible to screen transition into a wall and when you do that, the top part of the screen is normal while the bottom part of the screen turns into some forested area. If you screen transition on a specific pixel, you can also trigger an infinite scrolling glitch. During this infinite scrolling, there's also something weird going on with Link as he seems to keep inching down the screen while the world keeps flying past him.
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Super Metroid - Murder Beam
The murder beam is a well-known Super Metroid glitch and it was even covered in an issue of Nintendo Power. This is a glitched beam that you can use by activating all 5 beams at once while in the pause menu. Normally, Spazer and Plasma beams can't be activated at the same time. However, while Spazer is activated, you can also turn on Plasma by hovering over the hi-jump boots and tapping ← and A.
Using the murder beam has several caveats. First, it must be fired while facing straight left as any other direction will immediately crash the game. You must also fire the beam with a charged shot. This means that you must hold the fire button before you enter the pause menu and hold it when leaving the pause menu as well. The murder beam is very useful when fighting Mother Brain so check out the gameplay video attached at the bottom of this list to see what the Mother Brain fight is like while exploiting this glitch.
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Super Metroid - Spacetime Beam
Have you ever wished you could New Game+ your 100% save file? The spacetime beam is another crazy beam that un-collects all collectibles in the game, un-opens all the special doors, and un-kills every boss. First, find a large hallway but not all of them will work so try some different rooms if it doesn't. Open the nearest door so that the next part is easier to execute then enter the pause menu. Turn on every beam except wave beam (enable Spazer and Plasma the same way as we did in the previous glitch) then fire the beam. Now, the game will experience extreme lag but go through the door and with some luck, the glitch will be successful. If you don't pull off the glitch correctly, the game will likely crash or Samus might appear in the floor in the next room.
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Donkey Kong Country - Invisible Barrel
At the start of the first stage (Jungle Hijinx), jump on top of the trees and jump down onto a patch of dirt to reveal a metal barrel. Throw the barrel into the left wall and when it rebounds, jump onto it to ride the barrel. Ride it through the first part of the stage until just before the checkpoint barrel then pick up the barrel, hit the checkpoint barrel, and you'll now be holding an invisible barrel; how mysterious. 🤔 I went through the whole stage holding the invisible barrel and found a couple weird side effects. The vulture that usually throws nuts at you no longer does. At the end of the stage, jump over a pit to collect a banana bunch and keep running then run back where it used to be. Some of the bananas are still there and you can jump over the pit again to pick up the rest of the bananas.
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Donkey Kong Country 2 - Castle Crush Glitch
This is one of the most infamous SNES glitches but be careful; rumour has it that you can permanently ruin your cartridge or your console with this glitch when used on an original Super Nintendo. I should note that it's also not possible in all versions of the game.
Donkey Kong Country 2 is a hard game and Castle Crush is one of the final stages. You must enter the stage leading with Diddy. At the beginning of the level is a DK crate so pick it up, run to the left wall, quickly lower it, and pick it up again. Diddy will now be holding an invisible barrel. A Rambi barrel will appear where the barrel is thrown and depending where you enter the Rambi barrel, you might turn into a Klubba, Squitter the Spider, King K. Rool, or one of many other NPCs. After that, the game will probably crash and you may lose your save data as well. I tried this glitch on the Nintendo Switch Online version and a Kremling came out of the invisible barrel instead which killed me immediately; very strange, maybe that is Nintendo's way of fixing this glitch in that version. 😅
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Yoshi's Island - Fuzzy Level Select
First, you need to have already completed Stage 1-7: Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy so you can tap start and select to return to the level select screen. While in the stage, all you have to do is touch a fuzzy and the moment the screen turns dizzy, press start and select and make sure to press both buttons simultaneously. Once the glitch is successful, the map screen should be distorted just like it is in the level. Strangely, all the Yoshis will still be at their normal resolution. I guess these Yoshis are quite resilient after babysitting Mario all day! 😆
Revisiting Yoshi's Island Super Mario World vs. Yoshi's Island
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