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| Jul - Posts by Abaxa |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14     Posts: 1/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| Hmm, some interesting glitches I can think of offhand...
There's a bug in Shining Force 2 that allows enemies to immediately break Sleep/Stun because double and counter attacks are checked for before the battle scene begins and they give the character another resistance check. It is funny, however, watching sleeping characters counterattack is funny and went on to happen in Shining Force CD. ---- In Dark Wizard, due to an item property error, you can temper the Seal of Demons and get a lowly Short Sword. Oops. In Dark Wizard are three other bugs/oversights that are beneficial. First is the Rusty Weapon. You can find an infinite supply of these on one map near the end of the game. Anyone can equip it and it tempers into a Ghost Scythe - one of the best weapons in the game at 70 attack power and the chance to paralyze struck foes. Tempering does not unequip the former Rusty Weapon. Secondly is a glitch with Gunpowder. A ninja who dies with Gunpowder in their inventory detonates it and damages all adjacent units. Normally in order to kill Karmak on his last castle you need to go through a quest so your magic using lieutenant can summon the water spirit Wendeine. However it's possible to miss this character for the ruler you're playing as. No problem! Just place a ninja with Gunpowder adjacent to Karmak, get both of them to near death then have the ninja attack Karmak and be killed by his counterattack (or hit both of them with an AE since Dark Wizard's spell system doesn't distinguish between friend and foe). The Gunpowder will then blow the fire fiend to kingdom come. The last glitch (which might be an oversight with a stat table) causes Susan's class level 4 job to gain 16 attack power every level. This is far FAR more then a sorceress should get and quickly rockets her attack power to utter absurdity. ---- Summoner is a buggy, sometimes broken game, but it does have its beneficial errors. On the PS2 version you can walk around the poison fields in Liangshan Forest using Solo Mode and hugging the zone wall. You just have to be careful of the oni in the area. There's also the "enter the menu to shortcut casting times" bug that is practically required if you need to cast anything as Rosalind while something's trying to attack her. The nastiest bug I know of for the PS2 version is the flag glitch in Liangshan Forest. You need to get the Forest Dragon ring from an NPC at the very end of the Liangshan Forest following several boss battles and scripted events. Without this ring you cannot enter the Jade Temple and confront Emperor Murond. At the back of the forest, behind the giant tree this NPC lives in, is the zone-out line that goes back to the overworld map. If you zone out before getting the ring it mistakenly flags the events as complete but you don't get the ring. From then on the NPC will be in his resting state acting as if you defended the tree from Murond's soldiers. Cue another Oops. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 2/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| Yup, I've been to David Wonn's site. It makes for an interesting read now and then.
I've been playing a lot of Phantasy Star 4 and the developers did their best to hide the many problems they couldn't fix before release. One such rather slick one is hiding the fact that Dark Force 2 has a dialogue trigger on the front of its sprite. Normally you'd never reach it to activate it because the trigger tiles to start the fight with it have to be crossed first. However with the Debug Mode you can turn off these triggers. What you get is something that looks like this: 
This is the default behavior for a dialogue box that has no scripted text (or a bad pointer). There's one instance in the NA release you'd see this and that's a mistakenly empty text box for Raja when you first reach Dezolis. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 3/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| YouTube won't take it? Hmm, well what are the following for the video you're trying to upload: file type (extension, such as avi), video codec, audio codec, framerate, and aspect ratio? If you're not sure what any of these are Media Info can tell you (provided it can read the file format). |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 4/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| As far as I know YouTube just discards frames until it hits 30 fps. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 5/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| I was wondering what the end goal of 120 fps was. Although I haven't tried it myself there's a demonstration of how to get Virtual Dub to blend frames and achieve a 60 fps look at 30 fps here. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 6/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| Phantasy Star: End of the Millenium, usually referred to as Phantasy Star 4, has some unused elements due to space limitations and the changing whims of the developers during development. Fringes of Algo has a page dedicated to PS4 here with some items of interest. There is also a thread for a debug menu (note: I've only gotten the debug menu working in Gens as the code given doesn't work in KEGA Fusion).
What those pages don't list are things you wouldn't see at all by playing the game. First I'd like to give a hat tip to FreshFeeling who provided the necessary tables for item, encounter, and spell name hacking and also provided much-needed basics for offsets and whatnot. Ok with that out of the way there are numerous things dummied out in the name lists by just calling them NOTHING. These include 7 enemy names (not including Acacia and Shadow Mirage as those were translated; only the formations where removed so you can't fight them*), one NOTHING sitting at the end of enemy names and the beginning of enemy abilities, 3 dummy entries in enemy abilities, 2 dummy abilities in vehicle abilities, and one additional item not listed on Fringes of Algo which is a plot item that would only be equippable by Seth were it not set as type 09 (plot item) instead of an actual item slot. At offset 2ab9a3 an unused dungeon name is listed - GHOULFORST. There's some evidence more was originally planned for Dezolis and ended up cut for time/space like the ability to use the Aero-Prism outside of battle to do nothing. Whatever was planned for the Aero-Prism either got cut early on because there's no message for whatever the success message was supposed to be or it was going to be an event trigger and jump to a dialogue script. There's still much to do but this is a start. (The Shadow Mirage's unique spell, Star Dust, was also translated into english.) |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 7/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| That reminds me that there's an unused enemy from Phantasy Star 2. I went looking for codes specifically to enable meeting a Van Leader but didn't find anything useful. You can see a screenshot of this robot in question at this page - scroll all the way down to the bottom. That writer also discusses some differences between the english and portugese versions of the 4 classic games throughout the website which has some things of interest for TCRF. For example some text was accidentally cut from PS2 due to an error. The full line appears in the portugese translation.
EDIT: On a whim I decided to savestate hack in the 4 unknown items in a fresh Japanese game and take screenshots. (Also a correction: the plot item listed in my OP could be equipped by anyone but Seth if it were flagged as an equippable item slot.) First up is a screenshot that covers both Items 1 & 3. These have blank descriptions because their entries in both the tables for the DESC command and shops are empty. Both consist of only the null byte and thus display a box of nothing. 
It is indeed equippable by Gryz and is a 2-hander. (Note to self: remember to make animated gif of Gryz using a 1-handed weapon as that animation went unused.) 
I also made a little animated gif for the Blood Axe's attack animation sequence. I'll get the Spiral Slasher when I remember to get around to it. 
The Japanese description for mysterious items was much shorter then the English version's "Nothing is known about this weapon." 
Description for the Motavia/Dezolis map in Japanese. 
The map also has some untranslated text that shows up as garbage in the English version. I assume it's just the name of the planet. The following screenshot is the map's default state when used from the Motavia overworld. 
Finally, the map can be scrolled using the d-pad. Doing so shows what should have been the default position to better layout Motavia's geography.  |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 8/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| I'll create a page once I figure out how to do so. I've never used wikiware before. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 9/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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Alright I'll try to get to it some time tomorrow as it is rather late today and I'm still in the process of gathering information. Until then though here's more goodies! I also found a PAR code for the debug menu that works with KEGA. It is FFEC9E:06 (found by digging through a Portugese fan site). I also noticed on that site that it seems what they got is the North American version with a text translation. The Portugese version has the same Chaz-destroying-the-carnivorous-forest mini-cutscene added for the North American release.
This is the debug menu. I'm hoping more debugging features survived because this is pretty barebones basic. This is from the Japanese version but it appears no changes were made during localization as it is exactly the same in the final english release. I did trace back everything I could to a savestate so I will include those addresses in brackets. Pressing Start, then Confirm opens the menu. Start exits it. On the lefthand side are 3 buttons which set the character's walking speed. It defaults to 2. 1 is slower and 4 is faster. To change this use the Up or Down buttons to select the desired value. This will take effect as soon as the menu is closed. The A button toggles the Enemy box and turns enemy encounters on and off. This value is forced on or off in certain very specific areas such as the final floor of the Garuberk tower. Turning this on in an area where you wouldn't normally be attacked causes the game to freeze when an encounter starts because the game cannot find enemy formation data. The B button toggles a poison damage switch. If it is turned off poisoned characters no longer take damage while wandering about. The C button toggles the Block function. When enabled all tiles except those displayed at the highest layer (translation: stuff you walk behind) are shifted to a darker palette, all tile-based collision is disabled, and the player will no longer trigger events when walking over tiles. This does not allow the player to walk through other sprites which means no getting back into Birth Valley after Seed self-destructs (grrrr). As far as I can tell the number under that references what tile out of the current set the player is standing on. Position is pretty self-explanatory [0xe4a8 and 0xe4ac]. Scroll is, well, for scrolling [starts at 0x11408]. The value by DUNGEON is the dungeon number. If this number is not 0 the game cannot be saved and Ryuka/Telepipes cannot be used. It is found at 0x111c9. (It is unknown where the toggle controlling Hinas/Escapipe use is located but it's not this one.) This value is reset when changing rooms or exiting battle. Underneath it is the ESCAPE toggle which cannot be changed from within the debug menu. This is turned on in space stations and causes the Hinas spell to take the party to the entrance. [address unknown] The numbers next to MAP refer to the 2 layers the Genesis can display. In areas where only one layer is used the second value is usually FFFFF. [0x110a0 - 110a3] These are also reset when changing rooms or exiting battle. Finally (phew!) is the STATUS section. In the center is the lead character with any other sprites masked out. The 8 surrounding values are the tile types for the 8 adjacent tiles. ON is the type of tile the player is standing on. Here's the map as seen on Dezolis. This screenshot has already been scrolled so the world seems are at the edges instead of the middle. 
Akasha/Acacia and Shadow Mirage as encountered in the Japanese version.  
In the Japanese version the sound test had a nice fade in effect and a special little track, Dezoris de Don, played. It also had graphics that were pulled from the English version. To the best of my knowledge Dezoris de Don (and the track Pao-Pao!) thus ended up unused in the North American release. I don't know why they changed that because they didn't change any theme names to match their English translation names. 
--- To Do: Redo the Spiral Slasher animated gif whose cropping I goofed up; check all the shopkeepers and see if any of them say anything otherwise unviewable; check if Chaz can reach Elsydeon's pedestal in the sword cave without using the debug mode to view the search description; see about hacking in those dummy vehicle abilities; finish collecting video for Japanese/English version differences. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 10/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| I upload 640 x 480 resolution screenshots to photobucket chiefly so detail is easy to see but yes they are higher resolution then what is native to the Genesis.
I'm not particularly surprised the Acacia shot got pulled. A vaguely human female showing frontal nudity tends to get knee-jerk reactions. I do find it funny they yanked that one but left the Shadow Mirage. No worries though they are just examples of what will eventually go on the wiki. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 11/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| No problem I've already started downscaling needed screenshots in the interest of conserving server/page space. I did want to ask if it's alright if I make a blanket diagram to cover the many, many interior maps in the game which extend beyond what's visible in game. It would probably be a screenshot with character collision and max sight boundaries drawn on it. It seems the developers just did some blanket padding (or built from a larger-then-needed template and ended up not culling their tilemaps). This padding is needed for maps that have enemy encounters due to limitations in the graphics engine.
Rather then noting every single instance of this I think one solid description will cover most of it. I got the page started at least. ETA: There's a page over at Hugue Johnson's site about unused stuff in PS3 for those who expressed interest in that game. Discussion thread over at Fringes of Algo. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 12/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| I'll get back to editing the wiki entry either late Monday or sometime Tuesday. I got sidetracked while looking through a VRAM viewer when I noticed it still has quite a few Japanese characters in the tile maps. It appears they were left in because the Japanese version used 127-value character tables and the English version didn't need all of those entries. This lead to me having to fill in my records for those hex values and eventually tracking down the map names for translation. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 13/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| Great minds think alike! *evil laugh, somewhere in the background is a distinct cry of "shenanigans!"*
Ahem.. The wiki is coming along although I still have to extract some video frames for Gryz. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 14/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| I uploaded an OGG version for you. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 15/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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Hi everybody! I was playing Eternal Filena today - grinding out some new weapon skills when an enemy died and the game apparently kicked into its error handler. The translation patch notes said some development tools might kick in at times. I couldn't exit this screen but pressing any button caused the screen to flicker and update the value listed by PC. The text isn't translated so this is cavespeak. (Eternal Filena is, unfortunately, only partially translated.)
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 16/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| I'm keeping a savestate for that error handler in Eternal Filena for the time being. According to the translator Satsu's notes the game is programmed in such a haphazard way that finding and translating text is difficult and time consuming. There is actually a lot of stuff that isn't translated and I don't know the game well enough to start digging through it. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 17/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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Some stuff from the PC version of Chaos Legion:
and  |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 18/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| Ahh, that makes perfect sense then. In english the two Legion modes are Active and Passive.
Edit: I remembered that I've had quite a few images pulled from Space Griffon's TIM files that are placeholders left in the final game. There's too many to post here but they can be found in this folder on Photobucket. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 19/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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| Hmm, interesting. I can imagine where some of those scenes would fit into the narrative. The game got a remake on the Dreamcast but it never left Japan and information is extremely limited. |
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Abaxa Member Level: 14 Posts: 20/45 EXP: 11832 For next: 1239 Since: 08-05-10 Since last post: 1290 days Last activity: 1275 days
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This is part of a video memory dump from Shining Force 2 but I don't remember all those icons being used. I can't seem to find any display of the little sword, the E next to it, the Max among the status effect icons, the little blue and red gems next to the health bar tiles, the curly icon or the red and green dots at the end of the line. Those last three also show up in memory for the first game but I'm at a loss in finding a use for them there. The Max tile shows up in Shining Force CD's memory but instead of the red and blue gems next to the health bar there's an empty tile and a red heart - all unused as far as I know. Maybe they were initially going to sit next to the respective bars? 
This is video memory dumped from Dark Wizard. I never really thought about it but the two Generic Intermission Helper Guys have faces obscured by windows. 
This is what it looks like in game... 
...and this is after GSavestate strips away all the other elements. |
| Pages: 1 2 3 |
| Jul - Posts by Abaxa |
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Acmlmboard - 07/23/2013 b378.03
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