In 2008, inichi demonstrated the full extent of
subframe reset abuse in Chrono Trigger.
When Ersnes Rerecod Van Daaz Octava Deltius graced the land with his presence
on the tenth of May, men fell to their knees as calamity brewed in the north.
Divine wrath descended upon a distant tundra.
Thunder raged for several hours and the ground was carved anew.
Soon the gods' message had reached even the farthest of lands:
"- Mid-frame reset support"
primary10bit444
- Heavy glitch abuse
- Uses sub-frame resets
- Corrups save data
- Demonstrates the glory of lsnes
Chrono Trigger (U) [!].sfc md5sum: a2bc447961e52fd2227baed164f729dc Chrono Trigger (U) [!].sfc sha1sum: de5822f4f2f7a55acb8926d4c0eaa63d5d989312 Chrono Trigger (U) [!].sfc sha256sum: 06d1c2b06b716052c5596aaa0c2e5632a027fee1a9a28439e509f813c30829a9 Chrono Trigger (U) [!].sfc
Tricks and glitches
Loading corrupted save data
The game writes hash checksums upon saving; if the checksums don't match,
the save(s) will be unloadable and displayed as empty.
Howewer, due to an oversight, it is possible to bypass this check and load
corrupted save data by pressing Up+A on the save load screen.
Detailed commentary
Millennia Fair
Marle is picked up.
If the Imp's house is entered without her in the party, the game will crash.
Zenan Bridge R1
The game is saved twice to set up save corruption at a later time.
Guardia Continent, Eastern Nebula
The position value 1F3E is partially overwritten with the party's current
position, 4A50, resulting in the position 4A3E being stored in SRAM.
Guardia Continent, Imp's House
If Marle isn't in the party when entering this area, the game will crash.
The End of Time
The game is saved on a save point,
resulting in the corresponding flag being set in SRAM.
The subframe reset here is just for show - allowing the save to complete
would yield equivalent results.
Zenan Bridge R2
The Zenan Bridge save is loaded. The game is then saved over the End of Time save
and interrupted after the location values are written but before the save point
flag is removed. This allows us to save anywhere.
Zenan Bridge R3
The game is saved on Zenan Bridge, resulting
in a save file with a location value of 2000.
We then exit the area and reset while the location value F001 is being written
to the save file, resulting in SRAM containing the location F000.
Nu Ending
The location value F000 corresponds to the Nu ending, so the run ends when the save
is loaded. Since triggering the ending in this manner wasn't intended, glitched
graphics are briefly shown.
Special thanks to
- inichi: for demonstrating the concept and making the extremely fabulous published runs.
- Ilari: for making lsnes and helping with emulator usage and Lua scripting.
About obsoletions
The published any% and NG+ movies both abuse save corruption. This run is faster
than both; obsoleting both of them seems to make the most sense.
Suggested screenshots
TBA
Nach: Reje... er... Judging.
turska: Replaced movie file. The new movie file is 46 frames faster.
turska: Replaced movie file once more. The new movie file is 12 frames faster.
Nach: I had a lot to consider in judging this run, the acceptability, the entertainment, the star issue, single or double obsoletion, and so on.
This run is clearly faster, made with a better emulator, and more real than the last run. Under these conditions, this run should be accepted to obsolete the current normal run. However this run is nowhere near as entertaining, so should it still obsolete it or not?
I watched the previous run a few times, my first reaction upon seeing it was that it was amazing and very entertaining, the second time was quite interesting too. On a third watch however, I found that the novelty wore off and the run wasn't all that entertaining. Since both these runs are about abusing SRAM, I'm accepting this run to obsolete the previous run, however, since there is very little entertainment in this run compared to the previous, it should be published without a star, a moon would be fine though.
Regarding the New Game+ obsoletion, I've mulled over it for a few days. It is loaded with a very pre-abused SRAM file. Technically, this current run here can also be loaded with a pre-abused file and cut the time down to mere few seconds. I find that pre-abusing a file sort of misses out on the point, and really is not deserving of a record. Since the main point of NG+ is to either show off new things in the game that can't be accessed otherwise, or beat the game significantly faster thanks to higher stats at the start, and the current NG+ run doesn't do the former, and it loses for the latter, I'm accepting this run to obsolete the NG+ as well.
Despite this double obsoletion for an abusing SRAM category, I think this site deserves a non abused version of CT and CT NG+, and I hope TASers will try to fill in these categories.