I probably should have read the list of known bugs, but instead I learned the hard way that Very Strange Things happen when you try to nickname the Gift Tindle by Nugget Bridge, and lost about an hour of grinding (but not my Shiny Litleaf, so we're ok). After learning my lesson and making my way back there I decided to play with it a little bit, because I was the weird kid with a party of MissingNo's growing up and I enjoy me some bugs. Dunno if it will be useful for fixing it, but here's what happened:
- Mostly softlocks when I select “YES” to nicknaming it upon receiving it.
- When it DOESN’T softlock upon selecting YES, it puts Tindle into the party or current PC box if the party is full, and instead attempts to rename the first Fakemon in my party. Only the nickname is changed, otherwise the first party member remains unchanged. The name will not be changed if you cancel without typing a name. Tindle will not be named regardless of what you do.
- If I first pick up the TM 45 next to the trainer that gives you Tindle, and select YES, it shows the box sprite of Xerogon and says “??????????’s nickname?” However, Tindle is still deposited in the party/PC without a nickname, regardless of whether you enter anything here or not. So it looks like I can’t glitch myself a free legendary this way, alas. Can’t confirm the same result for all items picked up before talking to him, but it’s the same if you grab the hidden Pecha Berry on the ledge next to him, or the TM 43 behind the cut tree on the path to Bill’s house, so it probably is the same.
Technical Info:
Rom Version: Fire Red 1.1
Emulator: Open Emu 2.2.1
OS: MacOS Mojave/10.14.6
(I’m afraid I don’t know what GBA core I’m using, just the default latest one for OpenEmu)