*casts Revive on thread*
So, 2 days ago,
Chuckolator streamed the new Xenogears any% RTA route made by
KadMony and
Bif over the course of the past 4 years (!) which showcases what they called the KM glitch (Kernel Menu), which is basically obtained by crashing the game, provoking essentialy a BSOD, and allowing the player to navigate a non-practical yet very helpful menu.
KadMony posted more explanations regarding the KM glitch with videos on Twitter
Second big improvement on the route is glitching the world map to skip several parts of the game, saving 2 hours in the process
Finally, a second (much less reliable sadly) Kernel Menu is used during the Babel Tower ascension to trick the game into thinking we're at the part of the game where we have to get back there, near the end of CD1, essentialy skipping yet another 2 hours
All in all, the KM glitch has been this far extensively mapped (mostly by Bif if i'm not mistaken) to try and understand what was accessible from it. From what I can gather, it lets you access any shop in the game, even ones who are not normally accessible ingame. And because the KM glitch gives you the maximum amount of money, you can basically buy anything, rendering any money route or upgrade needed for your characters easily reachable extremely early.
I'd like to add that KM is no Debug Room (no way to get to it has been found (yet)) and most of the inputs in there has led to crashes (no surprise there). Finding a way to access the Debug Room would be... even more lethal to the run duration (as in: the game would probably end in mere minutes after accessing it).
This far, the KM glitch has been done on the US version of the game on a PS1, and the JP demo (the one offered with Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon) on a PS2, but not the JP retail game (yet). It seems like the JP KM was already known beforehand.
This whole new route opens a lot of new perspectives on the game, and I believe there's still a lot that can be found.
Japanese glitch-hunter of SaGa fame kyotosagauoa has posted
a cute video about his own findings on the KM glitch, and his talk with KadMony, and how he kindly waited a couple weeks for the new route to be revealed before documenting his findings.
It also leads to new potential improvements to be added on the route, like skipping Blackmoon Forest, or skipping Nortune entirely (though that would require a whole new array of improvements). The KM still has several things to offer which have yet to be explored (glitched items mostly, seeing how it affects memory adresses, etc), or even more skips using KM on more occurences.
Anyhow, wondering if anybody saw that, and seeing the crazy glitches found there, if it interested anybody.
