Imadame glitch
The Imadame glitch (Japanese: イマダーメバグ) is a bug in Densetsu no Starfy. It allows Starfy's HP to underflow from 0 to 255 hearts by getting caught by Imadame during the no hearts sequence.
Requirements
- Access to the vehicle Catfish Boat.
- Starfy needs to break the orange Ogura blocks.
Steps
- Go to the bottom right room in Pufftop. This requires Starfy to break the Ogura blocks.
- Ride the Catfish Boat across the lava and enter into the next room.
- Move on through the next room and save at the Mermaid (optional).
- The player will now reach the room with Imadame where the glitch is exploitable. Go to the top-left of the screen, while avoiding the Imadame, there should be a Nubble walking back and forth.
- Collect all the Pearls surrounding the Nubble (optional) and then reduce Starfy's health to 1 heart while avoiding the Imadame by hiding behind the wall when necessary.
- Wait until the Imadame are about to open their eyes, and then make Starfy lose all his health to the Nubble.
If timed correctly, the Imadame will open their eyes and Starfy's health will roll under from 0 to -1 (255) hearts.
Side effects
Since values for heart bar graphics (memory address: 03000F7A) greater than 05h are invalid, the game displays a glitchy mess on the screen when it tries to draw Starfy's health. For certain values (e.g. 248-255 hearts), Starfy, the treasure chest at the end of the room and enemies, including the Imadame and Nubble are made invisible due to the glitchy graphics, while other values keep them visible on the screen. If the player completes the level with an invalid number of hearts, a large glitchy graphic will be displayed on the screen in replacement of Starfy's walking animation. The number of hearts is reset to 5 if the player exits and enters the same or another stage.