Interesting, do you also know what exactly happens during these 64 NAS Frames?
Also, how do you figure all these things out? Did you disassemble (no clue if correct word) the complete game? o-o
Edit: I mean, currently I keep getting ideas where I need little pieces of information. If I could find these things out myself I wouldn't have to bother you ^^;
And... Speaking of keep getting ideas: In your huge post on Page 22 you mention:
If the character's magic skill is 8, the spell will only be at level 7 unless magic experience is greater than Random*128+1, although the game will call it level 8.
This basically means, that a normal runner shouldn't bother to get spells above level 7, since at the "Level 8" I merely get a ->chance<- to to cast a level 8 spell, is that correct?
Edit 2: I just somehow managed to make the bridge appear on the sunken continent, just after I got Flammie... But it didn't help me at all, since one character is stuck in a dialog, which then sends me outside again when cancelled..
Edit 3: Also, for some reason the "which character controlls flammie" seems a bit weird.. Might be normal though and I simply never noticed before.
Hello I'm currently RTA'ing this game, and I was wondering if the JP version actually loses frames while buying/selling items multiple times over the US version of the game.
not arguing that the JP version is definitely faster overall but I was just wondering.
And also, when I perform the Neko glitch, aka save at the corrupted Neko right after Mech Rider 2, beat Aegragophilion, save on another slot, reset at Underground city, load 1st save, enter Tree Palace reset and load the 2nd save.. but when I beat Mech Rider 3, on trying to buy the latest armor before Mana Fortress since the RTA uses them, that Neko has Ice Country armor FIRST, and you need to talk to him a second time to get the actual latest armor
any reason for that or any way to skip that?
Nothing in particular happens when it's showing "NAS". It just waits for the NMI handler to clear $EC 64 times. Yes, most of the game has been disassembled and analyzed. Getting level 8 spells probably isn't worthwhile, since you have to cast 150 spells after reaching level 7 to get to where you have a 77% chance of casting a level 8 spell. Since you have the charge glitch, spells aren't that important anyway.
At the very end of the game, it's a good idea to keep the man's weapon experience points high due to the flawed Mana Sword damage formula. For example, if a weapon is at 7:99, try not to level it up.
that Neko has Ice Country armor FIRST, and you need to talk to him a second time to get the actual latest armor
If you upload a savestate from before that point, I can figure out the reason.
Quick question - does anyone know how the defense down from Acid Rain works? I don't think it's useful in a TAS, but might give an edge in normal runs if it hits certain key values
If you mean Acid Storm, the defense stat is multiplied with 3/4 and rounded up. This lasts for an amount of time corresponding to the attack power divided by 4 and rounded down, in units of 20 frames.
I have a theory that you could use blats to get flammie's drum early and save a bunch of time in the speedrun. I don't really understand the glitch though, but if someone wants to explain it to me better, or outright tell me glitching flammie's drum isn't possible, I'd appreciate it.
Ok, Luigimeister and me figured out some interesting stuff regarding soft-resets and specifically the first cutscene. We managed to complete the sequence break from when you acquire Flammie, directly going to Jochs trial without completing the palaces first and then shortcutting our way more or less directly to the Snap Dragon after defeating the Aegagropilon (or as we call it, Watermelon).
The skip directly to the Snap Dragon is - while not a huge time gain over the current route - necessary because we don't have the required spells to activate the orbs to progress (namely Lumina and Shade) due to the previous skip.
Here's what we do step-by-step
1. Get a Frost Neko Save
2. Reset (No need to hold for 5 sec)
3. Start a new game and get to the Cutscene where the boy will fall down
4. 5-sec-Reset (Hold)
5. Load the Frost Neko Save
6. You now have the actor glitch. Heal one of the characters and call Flammie
7. Go over to Jochs place
8. Actor Glitch your way into the Dopples Area and go defeat the Dopples
9. Go to the sunken continent and beat the Watermelon
10. Get another Frost Neko Save
11. Get the Actor Glitch again
12. Fly over to the Sunken Continent
13. Use 2 controllers with 1 person being actor glitched - while the textbox ("we can't go on" or something like that) is open, you can go through walls
14. Get onto the staircase to the right
15. Get to the previous room through various means and then go back to the main room where NOW Snap Dragon awaits
16. Proceed as 'normal' (as in, defeat the Machine Rider 3 and then skip the Barrier going directly into the Mana Fortress)
Now, the interesting part is this "Actor glitch". I don't even know whether that's the proper name for this thing, but that's simply what we called it. Does anyone know exactly what happens here?
http://www.twitch.tv/luigimeister/c/2156556
Some known characteristics of that state
- Characters are invisible
- It's removed by healing or taking magic damage
- Calling Flammie or Barrelling characters does NOT remove the state
- Some enemies can't seem to hit you (~Dopples)
- While a textbox blocks one character, the glitched character has essentially "noclip"
- You can walk through map-transitions without triggering them
- You can talk to specific "loaded" NPCs from anywhere on the map by simply pressing "B" (No idea how those are determined)
- When hitting a Rope-Pole, normally your characters briefly stop. However, a glitched character does not stop and during this short time he can noclip to anywhere
- Status effects such as "unconscious" does NOT remove the state
Any ideas as to "what" this glitched state actually is?
The introduction probably started at the bridge originally, with the "ancient civilization" screens being added later. The game therefore makes all characters invisible at the bridge (although they are already invisible from before). It also has the same initial script as the black screen you start at. When you load the saved game, the introduction script sees that you have the sword and therefore just starts you out in the town, which could be a remnant of a New Game+ mode that was taken out.
When any character is invisible, everyone can pass through walls during scripts. There is a single command which toggles the visibility for every player character, so they will be visible when they're actually supposed to be invisible (for example, when you use a cannon you can see them walking out of the cannon). The distance between a player and NPCs, and what kind of tile you are on, is not checked when you're invisible. This also means that it won't correctly determine if an attack is long range or not, but enemies can still see if you're near. Invisibility can be removed by beaing eaten by Aegagropilon, Great Viper or Dragon Worm, or by certain spell animations. Tonpole won't eat invisible characters.
Thank you for your insight, HHS :)
Funny how that works out from leftover code. I did not expect a potential New Game+ to be the reason for this. This probably also means, that there is no way to create this glitch outside of the beginning area?
Another question - In the submission comments from Touch-me (http://tasvideos.org/3311S.html) he mentiones the Equipment Glitch. Do you (or anyone else for that matter) know whether it could be technically possible to "create" items that you don't own yet?
I'm still trying to understand how this works out in the first place.. Is there a simple explanation for how it works?
And one more thing - On certain screens you can make your Ring Menu appear outside the screen by going past the wrap-around-boundaries (walking through walls with the Invisibility), but the screen doesnt move along (happens in front of the Mushroom Castle). Would that affect the Equipment glitch in some way?
Thank you for your time
Edit: In the submission comments he mentions "GP" as one of the changable values. Would that technically mean, that you could change the GP-amount under certain conditions by throwing away equipment? Could that be potentially faster than executing the money glitch? (Probably not, but its a possibility?)
Edit2 : One more thing about resetting in the cutscenes: Some door/screen-transition triggers are set in the cutscene-stages and they always send you to certain locations (seems to be tile-based, since certain more broad-screen transition triggers lead to multiple locations). Easiest tested by resetting in the start-cutscene on the mana-fortress entrance. The top door leads to the Frost Forest. I don't think there is a way to manipulate the destination though, is there?
You can only lose money with the equipment glitch, not get more. The way it works is that the code that trashes the currently held equipment continues into the unequipping code. The variable that normally holds the offset to the displayed equipment list has now been overwritten by the X position of the last menu item by the function that updates the menu selection. The top 2 bits of an equipment byte specify who is wearing it. It's supposed to search for the equipment that is being worn by the character, and clear the top 2 bits. If you can get the X position to be high enough, you may be able to change some other values, but there doesn't seem to be anything interesting. The variables at 7ECD00 and up are related to calling Flammie, I think (saves information about the current screen to show for the landing).
All screen transitions are triggered by stepping on specific tiles, but scripts can also be triggered in this way, so that you can go to different rooms depending on current events. The rooms in the introduction and the ending don't have any scripts, so they'll use the data from the next room (00C2), which is the room with Salamando in it. That's why you go to the room above it.
Ok, so that probably also means that the numbers never go from 0 to the highest possible number when trashing items (I think underflow is the term?) - so it's not possible to get a higher value when its already 0?
The Flammie calling would be very interesting... If you could call Flammie anywhere, this would completely break the game.
Other than that... Do the values for the "last entrance" happen to be there somewhere? I mean those that are not set when you land in the Frost Forest at the Neko and save there and you can use to savewarp with that savegame anywhere you last soft-reset to?
What does the "X position of the last menu item" mean exactly? Is that the absolute value of the X-position on the current map, or is it something relative to the characters?
Again, thank you for your time :)
Edit: I skimmed through the thread but I probably missed it - wasn't there a list values with description what they actually do somewhere?
The variables at $7ECD00 are only temporary and just say where you were so that it can show the screen that you were just on. The byte that tells whether you can actually use Flammie (and the magic rope) is at $7E011F (bit 7 for Flammie drum, bit 6 for magic rope).
The entrance number is stored at $7E010E. If you came there by air, it is just the room number with bit 15 set. So when you load the saved game, it doesn't recognize it and does nothing. Soft resetting at the title screen ensures that variables don't get zeroed out since the D register points to the title screen stack instead of the zero page.
The X position of the menu item is relative to the screen. It is stored at $7E186A.
I don't know if I've posted these already, but if people don't have them, here they are: http://www.mediafire.com/?6ga1vidqcoc8coz,s971u01cs1gh5eq,l328ub6gu17t8i6
This is the game script, a listing of all the rooms, and the behaviours for enemies and computer controlled players.
Thanks a lot for the files, I'm not quite sure what to do with them yet, but I'll gladly look through them.
Ok, please bear with me I've never done that kind of Memory research / test / watching before. Feel free to correct me if I do anything wrong (well, I will most likely..). Also, I'm not even sure I'm using the correct notation.
For the X-position of the item Menu I assume its a value between 0x0000 and 0xFFFF is "possible". So technically we can access a range of memory adresses from 0x7ECC00 to 0x7FCBFF?
Or is the added value only a maximum of 0xFF? That would be 0x7ECC00 to 0x7ECCFF (Which would be what touch-me describes in his TAS-notes)
Now, the reason why I'm specifically asking whether the value can be greater than 0xFF is because I'm now watching memory address of the X-Value and using "2 bytes" I can see that the value changes between 0x0000 and 0xFFFF. Specifically, I currently have the value 0xFEF9 displayed on my screen by glitching with the screenwrap in the mushroom kingdom entrance.
Do you happen to have a list of values more specifically for the range in where we might be able to access the addresses with the Trashing of equipment?
Nvm, that's on your earlier page
Thank you HHS ^^
Edit: I think I just figured out why the Mushroom Kingdom entrance behaves in such a weird way. (As a note to what it actually does: When you move a certain distance past certain coordinates to the X or Y direction, your characters suddenly disappear and your menu glitches out when you open it - because the position of the menu is way off screen.) I just frost-neko-save-resetted after being glitched out and I happened to land in a similar (not sure if the same) version of the entrance of the mushroom kingom as it is used in the ending sequence/credits. The reason I know its a similar version is there is no collision on anything, you can walk straight through everything without having the invisiblity - exactly the same as when you reset in the credits and walk around there.
Edit2: Ok... I don't think I'm getting too far with the equipment glitch. I'm fairly sure I understood now how it works for the most part, however the problem is quite simply this:
7ecc00 Player names
7ecc24 Hats
7ecc30 Vests
7ecc3c Bracelets
7ecc48 Items
7ecc54 Weapons
7ecc6a Money
7ecc6d Button configuration x 3
7ecc73 Action grid quadrant x 3
7ecc76 Mana sword power
7ecc77 Man's old weapon when using Mana sword
7ecc78 Woman's mana magic timer
7ecc79 Sprite's mana magic timer
7ecc7a Action grid configuration x 3
7ecc7d Auto charge configuration x 3
[...]
7ecf00 Sword picked up
According to your value list, there is a huge gap between some options the story elements. Now - even though I can access some extremely high X-coordinates via the glitched menu, I can not use it. As soon as I open the ring menu and it happens to be off-screen, activating the equipment seems to quite simply softlock the game.
So, this basically means - I'm roughly 0x200 short of a useful value, regardless on whether it would actually subtract more than a max. of 0xFF.
Btw. I recommend using noclip to skip getting the Mana Sword in the beginning and mess around with it. It has some very... interesting - and almost creepy - effects.
EDIT: I actually thought about the "we cannot create items" some more. That's not entirely true. We can in fact "create" BLAT. While this is basically nothing more than selling "nothing" and creating 7 total of that "nothing", it proves that we can change the values to a high number in those areas... Or more like, those numbers already are fairly high (FF FF FF FF..). Now, subtracting the correct amount might result in an early Flammie drum?...
I'd love to know whether that is actually possible.
Can you tell me what the individual values of the items actually are? - Got that
Edit 5: And... Maybe how much the individual armors/helmets/armlets subtract from the value?
Editomania: For the calculation in the RAM when unequipping-glitch, does the value actually subtract or add? I mean "No item" is signified by the memory readin "0xFF" for one slot. So actually subtracting the correct amount from the correct position would do the trick to get the Flammie drum early?
Editorsagain: So... I did some calculation and used touch-mes numbers considering the reduction.. And I think I misunderstood the part before about the reduction, so that's discarded. So now I know the hex-values reduced are always 0x40, 0x80 and 0xC0.
Since the number on the "right" indicates the item type there is probably no way to change that via equipment glitch oô.. I'm pretty sure you already wrote that, HHS, but at least now I understand it ^^
Editingeverythingnotreally:
The variables at 7ECD00 and up are related to calling Flammie, I think (saves information about the current screen to show for the landing).
Impressive how much better I understand this statement now than I did before 3 hours. You say it's related to "calling flammie", I assume thats simply the "depart" location of it? Since, if you Frost-Forest-Neko-Reset in on Flammie in the Mode 7 you still end up at the location you called Flammie from, that probably doesnt help. Unless you tell us that we can actually make the Flammie call from there somehow ^
Edit: Unless.. It swaps over?
Edit, the next day: I wonder, does the trashing equip glitch only work with throwing stuff away as the Girl?
Nevermind, I think I understand it now
Interesting occurrence:
http://www.twitch.tv/gaming_4_a_cure/b/394035267
~1:31:20
Flammie Drum sound plays.. It may simply be a sound glitch, but hopes are that it's an actual call to the Flammie Drum item
-> What happens if you would actually use the Flammie Drum indoors? Would simply the sound play, but nothing else happens?
I can't seem to view that video. But if Flammie Drum was used indoors, you'd just end up at a slightly random location on the map like when you exit the Mana Fortress.
Ok, so in case this would NOT be simply a sound glitch it should've at least transported him outside, gotcha.
Way to ruin my hopes ;)
Thanks HHS
It's still interesting though, how the sound seems to glitch out like this, let me describe what happened:
- He is running through the Fire Temple
- The cloud casts level 4 Blaze Wall on the Girl
- Girl is AI controlled, running when caught
- Girl only has 9 HP left (would die if not healed)
- Luigimeister uses Medical Herb on Girl, controlling the Boy
- Luigimeister uses Chocolate right after on Girl, before Blaze Wall animation ends
- Sound occurs
My assumption is, that the sound effect for Chocolate/Medical Herb somehow got mixed/modified and called the wrong sound file... ?
Quick question here: Are the enemies ordered by coding table-order? (or however that is called)
=> Why is the glitched item "F" called 'Blat'?
I mean, there are a total of 11 usable items. Each item has it's own number. 0 = Candy, 1 = Chocolate, etc.
- Barrel = ?
- Candy = 0
- Chocolate = 1
- Royal Jam = ?
- Cup of Wishes = ?
- Faerie Walnut = ?
- Medical Herb = 4
- Flammie Drum = ?
- Magic Rope = 6
- Midge Mallet = ?
- Moogle Belt = ?
- Midge Mallet = ?
touch-me describes in his notes:
In Secret of Mana, collected items are stored in 12bytes of RAMs: 1 item per 1 byte. There are 32 kinds of items and you can possess at most 7 items of the same kind (though usually limited by 4 items). In the memory, lower 5 bits indicates what kind of item you have, and upper 3 bits tells you how many items you have. For example, 0x40 means two candies and 0x20 is one candy, or 0x26 means one magic rope and 0x06 is zero magic ropes.
There are a total of "32 kinds of items". I would have assumed it's 16, since 0xF is the highest single digit Hex number. How are those ordered/stored in the memory?
My first assumption was, that the item 0xF is called "Blat" because it happens to take the name/values from the monster table.. But I really don't know.
Edit: Also, sorry for bugging you again, but: What happens if my item list is full, and I should receive a fixed item, such as the Flammie Drum, Escape Rope, Midge Mallet and Moogle Belt?
Edit2: Also, how do I get into the more coding-related-knowledge? I'd like to figure out these things myself so I don't have to bug you constantly, but I have no idea where to start ^^;
The enemies are ordered by their index, yes. Enemy names can be found in somscpt.txt starting at 08CF.
=> Why is the glitched item "F" called 'Blat'?
Item F is not Blat, 1F is. The item names start at 08BA in somscpt.txt, so item 1F would be the one at 08D9. We have 0=Candy, 1=Chocolate, 2=Royal Jam, 3=Faerie Walnut, 4=Medical Herb, 5=Cup of Wishes, 6=Magic Rope, 7=Flammie Drum, 8=Moogle Belt, 9=Midge Mallet, A=Barrel.
There are a total of "32 kinds of items". I would have assumed it's 16, since 0xF is the highest single digit Hex number. How are those ordered/stored in the memory?
As touch-me said, the lower 5 bits indicate what kind of item you have, and the upper 3 bits tell you how many items you have.
Edit: Also, sorry for bugging you again, but: What happens if my item list is full, and I should receive a fixed item, such as the Flammie Drum, Escape Rope, Midge Mallet and Moogle Belt?
Nothing happens. 7ECF0F is set to 2 to indicate that the inventory is full.
Edit2: Also, how do I get into the more coding-related-knowledge? I'd like to figure out these things myself so I don't have to bug you constantly, but I have no idea where to start ^^;
I have disassembled most of this game already, which is where the information I have comes from. IDA Pro is required to read the disassembly. If needed, I can post the IDB file along with the files necessary for SNES support in IDA Pro.
There are a total of "32 kinds of items". I would have assumed it's 16, since 0xF is the highest single digit Hex number. How are those ordered/stored in the memory?
As touch-me said, the lower 5 bits indicate what kind of item you have, and the upper 3 bits tell you how many items you have.
In other words, don't read the number in hex. Read it in binary.
xxxyyyyy
If we have 0x20, converting to binary would be 0010000. Over in the 00100000 part is how many we have, and 00100000 is the ID of the item.
All values in the range 0x20 to 0x3F means you have exactly one item of whatever ID it is. Of which there are 32 different items. The ID doesn't fit in one hex digit, as it also takes up one more bit from the upper digit.
I believe that is what it means. I figure a secondary explanation would help.
Oh.. With the binary it makes perfect sense now. I was too locked into thinking with the Hex digits that I didn't even realize what this meant - thank you, now the 1F-item is also logical.
I always wondered why the "item counter" (well.. left Hex-Digit) always goes in steps of 2 - I didn't realize that this is the reason.
Nothing happens. 7ECF0F is set to 2 to indicate that the inventory is full.
Yes, I also tested that. The Rope Chest simply disappears and it can never be attained anymore. So sadly nothing useful there.
I have disassembled most of this game already, which is where the information I have comes from. IDA Pro is required to read the disassembly. If needed, I can post the IDB file along with the files necessary for SNES support in IDA Pro.
I'll probably read up on what these things are - thanks for the pointer :)
edit: I don't know why I didn't think of the somscp.txt for the names list.. There's a ton of stuff written in there, thanks for reminding me
Oh.. With the binary it makes perfect sense now. I was too locked into thinking with the Hex digits that I didn't even realize what this meant - thank you, now the 1F-item is also logical.
I always wondered why the "item counter" (well.. left Hex-Digit) always goes in steps of 2 - I didn't realize that this is the reason.
Nothing happens. 7ECF0F is set to 2 to indicate that the inventory is full.
Yes, I also tested that. The Rope Chest simply disappears and it can never be attained anymore. So sadly nothing useful there.
I have disassembled most of this game already, which is where the information I have comes from. IDA Pro is required to read the disassembly. If needed, I can post the IDB file along with the files necessary for SNES support in IDA Pro.
I'll probably read up on what these things are - thanks for the pointer :)
edit: I don't know why I didn't think of the somscp.txt for the names list.. There's a ton of stuff written in there, thanks for reminding me
Regarding the full item list, I'd be more curious about Midge Mallet. I don't know much about the game code, but it may be the case that the chest disappears simply because opening it caused a flag to be set, regardless of whether or not you obtain the rope. [Another thing to test - have one character start opening the chest, have another character leave the room?] Since you get Midge Mallet in a different way, it may have different effects.
It works in the exact same way. The flag is at 7ECFD7 for magic rope, and 7ECF5C for midge mallet. It's also impossible to leave a room in the middle of something.
