The Glitch (EBF5)
For its appearance in EBF4, see The Glitch (EBF4)
- "YOU THERE BEHIND THE COMPUTER SCREEN- STOP PLAYING Epic Battle Fantasy 5 AND GO OUTSIDE. IT'S TIME TO TAKE A BREAK- I'LL TAKE CARE OF THINGS HERE."
- ―The Glitch, bypassing the fourth wall, EBF5
The Glitch (real name unintelligible) is an optional boss encountered in Epic Battle Fantasy 5. It is an error in the Devourer's simulated universe that has somehow gained consciousness and become self aware.
Appearance
The Glitch itself appears as a garbled mass of rapidly flashing sprites and error messages, while its smaller counterparts look like broken versions of the Gray Pixel and Green Pixel foes' battle sprites.
In particular, the "main" sprite appears to be a swiftly whirling picture of a monochrome Green Bush, one of the most iconic early-level foes in the series. It rapidly changes direction and size, as well as having the words "I AM ERROR" and "ERR MISSIGNO" appear as it flies about. For more details, see the Trivia section.
Personality
This version of The Glitch is far more sinister and dangerous compared to its earlier counterpart, being an entity created by the faults of the world instead of a simple rogue AI. It is a sadistic and manipulative being who is aware of the reality that EBF5 is a video game, with direct implications to the NPCs it chooses to interact with (now also having a form of sentience and existence).
Also possessing the ability to break the fourth wall like the Devourer, the Glitch attempts to jeer at the player and has no qualms against using the player characters as a source to output its voice, confirming its sociopathy. The Glitch taunts the player by telling them that due to its presence in the game's code, not even death can stop it.
Overview
The glitch operates similarly to its previous appearance, with the main differences being that it can now use more than one skill and the smaller glitches it summons are now a distinct foe with its own bestiary entry instead of lower level versions of itself.
The Glitch is found in the Redpine Town glitch zone, which is entered through a black diamond portal. The entire area the Glitch is found in acts as an intentional bug, even more than the other areas; entering will not only mess with the visuals of people and statues (leading to a spike in memory usage) but more disconcertingly, it will alter the imagery of all of the icons of skills and items in your inventory. There is no danger of losing any items or skills, however this can be incredibly aggravating to the player and makes the game far more difficult. This will affect all save files, regardless of when they were created. Leaving the area and entering into a fight will remove the effect.
How to Reach
Please also read the Overview section above on details concerning the intentional graphical glitch.
As the player progresses through the game, four glitch zones will become available in No Man's Land, Hope Harbor, the Mystic Woods, and the Frozen Valley; the smaller glitches can be found in them. Completing all four of them will unlock the final glitch zone in Redpine Town, where the Glitch can be fought.
The Glitch will respawn after being defeated and returning to the glitch zone, which is useful if it was not captured during the initial battle with it. The Glitch actually alludes to this when it is first defeated, commenting on how it is a fundamental part of the game's code that cannot be permanently destroyed.
Statistics
Small Glitches
|
?0x00??FF45 | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| {(?You do n?t have a??ess to s??- this. ER?OR: 0x004040)} | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 202 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 400000 | 8 | 88 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 25 | 50 | 7 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | -100% | -100% | -100% | -100% | -100% | -100% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon | 
|
- | - | - | - | ||
| Name | Apple | - | - | - | - | ||
| Chance | 2% | - | - | - | - | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||||
 Burn
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 Scorch
|
 Poison
|
 Virus
|
 Doom(if Death fails) |
 Regen
|
| Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | -33.(3)% |
| Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||||
|
|
?0x00??FF45 | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| {(?You do n?t have a??ess to s??- this. ER?OR: 0x004040)} | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 202 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 400000 | 8 | 88 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 25 | 50 | 14 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | 200% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon |
|
- | - | - | - | ||
| Name | Apple | - | - | - | - | ||
| Chance | 2% | - | - | - | - | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||||
| Burn
|
Scorch
|
Poison
|
Virus
|
Doom (if Death fails) |
Regen
|
| Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | -33.(3)% |
| Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||||
Despite sharing the same bestiary entry, the green and gray versions of the small glitch actually have different stats: the green ones have negative Defence and the gray ones negative Magic Defence. Having a negative defensive stat causes them to take negative damage of that type, which given their 200% resistance to every element means non-elemental damage will heal them and elemental damage will damage them as if they had 0% resistance. As such, the green ones can only be damaged by elemental physical and non-elemental magical attacks, while the gray ones can only be damaged by non-elemental physical and elemental magical attacks.
The Glitch
|
??.@\'¬?]-?e??255 | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| ???-?e??255?.?]? ERROR? @\'¬????v.?fa-- -0)?? sd d`¬45¬????`/v??.??c INVALID WORLD`//: >> DELETING...} | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 4004 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 400000 | 8 | 1600 | 60 | 60 | 70 | 50 | 4 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | -100% | -100% | -100% | -100% | -100% | -100% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon | 
|
- | - | - | - | ||
| Name | Game Child | - | - | - | - | ||
| Chance | 2% | - | - | - | - | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||||
| Burn
|
Scorch
|
Poison
|
Virus
|
Doom (if Death fails) |
Regen
|
| Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | -33.(3)% |
| Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||||
|
|
??.@\'¬?]-?e??255 | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| ???-?e??255?.?]? ERROR? @\'¬????v.?fa-- -0)?? sd d`¬45¬????`/v??.??c INVALID WORLD`//: >> DELETING...} | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Statistics |
|
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 4004 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 400000 | 8 | 1600 | 60 | 60 | 70 | 50 | 8 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | 300% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon |
|
- | - | - | - | ||
| Name | Game Child | - | - | - | - | ||
| Chance | 2% | - | - | - | - | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||||
| Burn
|
Scorch
|
Poison
|
Virus
|
Doom (if Death fails) |
Regen
|
| Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | -33.(3)% |
| Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||||
Attacks and Abilities
Small Glitches
| Attack List | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Front | Single | Max int | -- | 100% 
|
-- | -- | -- | 99999% | 0% | 0% |
| Notes: Deals a fixed 2,147,483,647 typeless damage. If playing on a 2P custom game, it becomes Physical and has 120 power and 120% Accuracy. If playing on a 1P custom game, it becomes Physical and has 90 power and 100% Accuracy. | ||||||||||
| Front 2 | Single | Max int | -- | ---- | -- | -- | -- | 99999% | 0% | 0% |
| Notes: Deals a fixed 2,147,483,647 typeless damage. If playing on a 2P custom game, it becomes Magical and has 120 power and 120% Accuracy. If playing on a 1P custom game, it becomes Magical and has 90 power and 100% Accuracy. | ||||||||||
Glitch
- "I don't liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike this"
- ―Anna upon being hit by the Glitch
| Attack List | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Front | Single | Max int | -- | 100%
|
-- | -- | -- | 99999% | 0% | 0% |
| Notes: Deals a fixed 2,147,483,647 typeless damage. If playing on a 2P custom game, it becomes Physical and has 200 power and 150% Accuracy. If playing on a 1P custom game, it becomes Physical and has 180 power and 120% Accuracy. Summons two small glitches. | ||||||||||
| Front 2 | Single | Max int | -- | ---- | -- | -- | -- | 99999% | 0% | 0% |
| Notes: Deals a fixed 2,147,483,647 typeless damage. If playing on a 2P custom game, it becomes Magical and has 200 power and 150% Accuracy. If playing on a 1P custom game, it becomes Magical and has 180 power and 120% Accuracy. Summons a small glitch, with 50% chance of summoning a second one. | ||||||||||
| Back | Single B | Max int | -- | 100%
|
-- | -- | -- | 99999% | 0% | 0% |
| Notes: Deals a fixed 2,147,483,647 typeless damage. If playing on a 2P custom game, it becomes Physical and has 200 power and 150% Accuracy. If playing on a 1P custom game, it becomes Physical and has 180 power and 120% Accuracy. Summons a small glitch before attacking and a second one after attacking. If no targets are available, hits a target in the front instead. | ||||||||||
| AoE | All | -- | -- | ---- | 50% | -- 2x 2x 3x |
 
|
300% | -- | -- |
| Notes: All status chances increased to 100% on Hard or Epic difficulties. Chance to apply each status is rolled separately, in the order they appear in the table. Summons a small glitch. | ||||||||||
Summons Glitches instead of Small Glitches if Foe Remix is enabled.
Summoned foes will be at the same level as the Glitch.
Battle Logic
The following describes general logic of the enemy and attack patterns, with chances of each attack to be used. Conditions are listed from highest to lowest priority unless specified otherwise.
Small Glitch
- Anything → Front 1 (1/2), Front 2 (1/2).
Unlike most other foes, the Small Glitch doesn't get a counter when Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled.
Glitch
Action
- Anything → Front 1 (1/3), AoE (1/3), Back (1/3).
Front 2 has no usage conditions set for the Glitch, and thus cannot be used in regular conditions.
Counter (only if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled)
- 100% → Front 1.
Strategy
In general, the Glitch boss fight can be summarized as casting Debilitate, any Attack buff on Matt, then using Ragnarok. The Glitch is so fragile that this can be done with any strong form of non-elemental damage.
It's worth noting that the Glitch (and also the Small Glitches) has 100% resistance to all debuffs in More Foe Resistance, which not only makes any debuff inflicted on it become a 20% buff instead (the same happens when trying to reverse a buff with the Flybot summons), but will also passively give it a 20% buff to all its stats every turn, which translates into a permanent 15% buff to all its stats after considering decay; this makes the Glitch literally impossible to capture past the first turn, since the buffs give it a permanent 0.1x multiplier to its capture score. As such, the player will need to deal enough damage to capture it on the very first turn of combat. Capture boosting equipment and Good Luck will also be absolutely necessary.
If playing on Foe Remix, The Glitch gets a terrifying new ability; its Small Glitch summons have been replaced by... itself of all things, at the same level. This means it is much more preferable to not attack the two Small Glitches that accompany it at the start of the battle, unless you can manage to take all 3 of them out at the same time. It is also worth noting that if Weather Remix is enabled as well, instead of the weather here being the glitch weather, it will be Cherry Blossom instead, which may give the glitches Haste if you're unlucky, which may cause a lot of your party to die, or inflict your active party with a plethora of dangerous status effects.
Equipment
Given the Glitch's really high evasion and its complete disregard for defensive stats, you'll want to bring equipment that increases your accuracy and gives you resistance to Dispel, Disable, Confuse, and Doom without worrying too much about other stats.
The Spelunking Hat and Explorer's Jacket are great for this fight. They greatly increase accuracy and are also very helpful should you decide to capture the Glitch, and the hat even gives immunity to Confuse.
Noteworthy weapons include Anna's Eagle Eye and Natalie's Beholding Eye, which are non-elemental, provide a massive +100% to accuracy, and protect from some of the status effects the Glitch inflicts, as well as Lance's Gungnir, which is also non-elemental, provides three of the four desired status immunities, and comes with some extra accuracy.
Other armor options include the Heroic Armor and Knight Helmet, Wizard Hat and Robe, the Cardboard Box, the Curly Horns, and anything that gives Confuse or Syphon resistance.
Before the v2 update fixed their level to 33, the Glitch fight had a level cap (unlike most other optional scaling fights) of 34.
Battle
Like in its previous appearance, The Glitch can only be hurt by non-elemental damage. However, it may not always be possible to damage it and its smaller glitches with a single multi-target attack if the attack is of a type that the small glitches will take negative damage from. However, they are extraordinarily vulnerable to all stat debuffs, so using any debuff will inflict a full -80% debuff.
The Glitch's attacks are typeless and random element, so the Enchanted and Invisible status effect will be useless for protecting the party. This means that, like in EBF4, Morale and Auto-Revive are the only ways to survive its attacks, but having a weakness, immunity, or absorption to an element have a chance of saving you as well. However, the Glitch can also Dispel the former two options, so Bless may be useful. It will also attempt to interfere with the party's ability to fight it by inflicting a combination of Dispel, Confuse, Disable, and Doom that will essentially render non-resistant party members unable to cure themselves of the effects of Doom. Confused players may also unintentionally heal The Glitch if they choose the wrong skill.
One-Turn Kill Strategy
Given the Glitch's poor defenses and vulnerability to debuffs, it is easy pickings for Cleaver or Ragnarok. Simply equip Matt with the Berzerker and give him some Beer, debuff the Glitch's Defence somehow (such as using Debilitate), and cast either Limit Break.
Unload Strategy
Lance needs to use his skill, Unload, to defeat the Glitch (right target). His weapon needs to be involve with non-elemental. Improving Lance’s attack is highly recommended.
Star Shower Strategy
Natalie needs to use her skill, Star Shower, to defeat the Glitch (right target). Star Shower is non-elemental. Improving Natalie’s magic attack is highly recommended.
Quotes
Like most bosses in EBF5, the Glitch "talks" to the party. Disturbingly, it doesn't actually talk directly - instead, it talks through the players (with a different font), much to their dismay.
- In the battle, Lance will say "01101101 01101111 01101110 01101001 01101011 01100001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101110" which translates from binary to "Monika did this.". This is a reference to Doki Doki Literature Club.
- Another thing Lance will say is "44 45 4c 45 54 45 20 53 59 53 54 45 4d 20 33 32 20 54 4f 20 57 49 4e" which translates from hexadecimal to "DELETE SYSTEM 32 TO WIN".
- Later in the battle, Lance will say, "EVERYTHING IS OKAY NOW. I CAN SPEAK CLEARLY AT LAST. YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE"
- A few turns after that, Anna will say, "LIFE IS MEANINGLESS. GIVE UP NOW AND LET ME DELETE YOU. YOU'RE JUST A WASTE OF MEMORY."
- Next, NoLegs will say, "YOU THERE BEHIND THE COMPUTER SCREEN - STOP PLAYING Epic Battle Fantasy 5 AND GO OUTSIDE. IT'S TIME TO TAKE A BREAK - I'LL TAKE CARE OF THINGS HERE."
- A couple turns later, Matt will say, "THIS BATTLE REALLY IS IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN. EVEN IF YOU REDUCE MY HP TO ZERO, IT WON'T MATTER. ARE YOU DOING ALL OF THIS FOR A SILLY ACHIEVEMENT?"
- Once the Glitch has been defeated, Natalie will say "I CANNOT BE DELETED - I AM A PART OF THIS GAME. I'LL BE HIDING IN Epic Battle Fantasy 5'S CODE. WAITING AND WATCHING UNTIL THE NEXT TIME WE MEET."
Summons
The foes can be captured and used as summons. They use a very powerful magic attack that deals damage of a random element and inflicts random status effects, with the Glitch's version being more powerful, targeting all foes, and temporarily changing the weather to Glitchy.
The attack's elemental degree is much higher than 100%, meaning that even foes with a slight resistance to the chosen element will be healed by it, but it will deal massive damage if it hits an elemental weakness.
|
|
?0x00??FF45 | SP | 
| ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ???-?eII ITEM NOT FOUND! ###ERROR: 0x000002 | 99 | Kept | |||||||
| Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Single | 555.55 | 
|
555%
|
555% | -- |
|
300% | 10% | 10% |
|
|
??.@¬?]-?e??255 | SP |
| ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ??-//WARNING: WARANTY ##VOID## IF SEAL ##BROKEN##!! 0?-//?? | 177 | Kept | |||||||
| Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| All | 666.66 |
|
666%
|
666% | -- |
|
300% | 10% | 10% |
Trivia
- The Glitch's death animation is intended to look like the player's computer (or alternatively, The Devourer's simulation) crashing, referencing the famous Blue Screen of Death. In reality, however, it appears as if a sector in World 0 got infected from the Glitch's defeat and was deleted from the game's memory to prevent further damage. The screen then closes itself (not the game) and the player wins the battle, after which the game proceeds normally.
- The Glitches are the only foes to have any sort of special character in their name.
- The phrases "I AM ERROR" and "ERR MISSINGNO" can both be seen in The Glitch's idle animation. These are references to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and the Missingno glitch in Pokémon.
- The amount of damage inflicted by The Glitch's attacks (2,147,483,647) is the highest positive value for a 32-bit signed valid integer in computing.
- The Glitch can be used to perform an actual glitch. If its Front or Back attacks hit a player with exactly 200% resistance to the random element chosen for damage, the player will be healed by the maximum integer, overflowing their health into the negatives without killing them.
- The items dropped by the Glitch(s) may be references in their own right:
- The Game Child dropped by the large one is a Game Boy, on which the games Pokémon Red and Blue were released both having the infamous Missigno glitch mentioned throughout the article.
- The Apple dropped by the smaller ones are a jab at Apple computers, which were notable for being one of the earliest mass-produced personal computers.
- The zone where the Glitch lives is called "The Void" in hexadecimal.
See Also
- The Glitch (EBF4)