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Beyond the Beyond: Update 111: Act 5 Bonus Material, pt. 3
In the last update I covered a few more things from the manual and then took an extremely detailed look at one scene in the game. In this collection of bonus material I'll be covering events within the game. Keep in mind I'm going to be doing a lot of bouncing around various tests with different party setups and different event flags. With that said, let's roll!
Your Princess Is Definitely In This Castle
With Percy back in the list of things I can mess with I had to check a single line of dialogue in Barbaros. There are two important scenes post invasion but neither have dialogue addressing a specific person on the team or team members speaking. Instead there's one bit of dialogue in the locked storeroom.
Oh and just off the bat, Percy and Finn have nothing to say in this event. Ever.
As Lorele starts to rush out the door someone on the team calls out to her to try to get her attention.
Hold on! We're not your enemy!
You! Wait! We're not your enemy!
And that's it. Just two variations on what is ultimately a simple line.
Before I get started on this next segment I have to clarify something. I am using an early game save but NOT the savefile from St. Baldrick's Garden where I saved right after completing the sliding block puzzle. I actually started a new game and got as far as Marion Town in order to have a save file that I felt was as early as possible in the plot while not being so early that I'd be impeded by starter events - in particular those two sets of events early in the game that put Edward and/or Samson in the party. So, just to be clear the events completed in this save are the opening events in Isla Village and the Cave of Spirits. As soon as the kids reached Marion Town I created this save and that's where we're rolling from.
That clarified, let's roll!
To start, I remembered the fact that Tont can be recruited after the team has scaled Arawn's Tower and received their Light Orbs. I picked up Tont before then so he received his Orb directly from Arawn. I wondered though if the game has a dialogue/event branch if the squishy little summoner is found later in the game. Thus the old save.
I had to cheat in a Magic Bean and a Vase of Life because there's no other way for me to get the team into Arawn's Tower. At least not without a lot of experience grinding and running events. Item codes allow me to skip all that time-consuming stuff. Fortunately in order to create the magic beanstalk only the bean and vase are needed. The game doesn't care if the Water Demon has been slain, if we've even set foot in Zalagoon, or if any other events in the game have been completed. Just place the vase and use the Magic Bean on the vase.
Once I got up to Arawn I found that the game is programmed to account for whether or not Tont is in the party but otherwise assumes that Finn, Steiner, Annie, Samson, and Edward are present. Percy thus vanishes into the ether while Samson (still in hiding in Marion Town at this point) and Edward (still in a jail cell in Marion Castle) poof into the scene. I did mention this back in Update 40 but thought I should re-iterate because there's a lot more to see of the long-missing Percy.
For those who don't remember the sequence of events Arawn automatically sends the party to the shrine on the ridge above Simone for the cleansing ritual with Master Zeon. The game didn't care that Samson wasn't in my party (nor that he wasn't even cursed). It went through the entire scene. Percy never appeared and nothing glitchy happened. Thus I didn't bother grabbing any screenshots for it.
Samson and Edward returned to the ether following the cleansing ritual. I headed over to Simone, picked up the Magic Emerald, and made my way into the village to find Tont. The screenshot above is just to show that I have met Arawn in the Tower of Arawn. Finn has a Light Orb and an Ancient Tablet.
Percy will appear in the two scenes involving Tont in Simone Village. Since the Magic Emerald can be handed in at any point after Simone is accessible this was expected.
Edward, Samson, Domino, and Lorele are also programmed to appear. If you're looking at that second screenshot wondering why Annie isn't present well that's because I had to swap her out. Not because of Percy. It was because I picked up Lorele and, just like Percy, her join event was programmed with the assumption that the player will have already met the active party cap of 5 characters. Thus she too always pops up the "choose who to exclude" windows.
And for completeness I thought to cheat in a second Magic Emerald and hand it to the magician in Simone to see what would happen. This was with Tont in the active party.
As expected the emerald was thrown in, the roof was blown off and then the team came raining back down but Tont was no longer the caped gooey crusader we've come to know. For some reason the game thought his sprite should be replaced with the summoned blob. The team picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and gathered together. Then Finn stood in place and the game refused to accept any inputs.
After somewhere around three minutes the gooey yellow blob suddenly bolted on screen from the lower right corner to the position inside the house where the script demanded it be. Once it had settled into the corner the game again accepted inputs. Crisis averted!
Finn was unable to interact with the little blob. Leaving the screen and coming back erased it from sight - which the game won't do when it actually is Tont ready to be recruited. I repeated the experiment with Tont swapped out for Domino and the result was that while the mage did accept the emerald and the roof was blown off no blob was spawned by the cauldron. The game didn't hold Finn and company hostage waiting for an errant sprite to reach the right spot, because said sprite didn't exist to begin with.
Oh and Tont wasn't affected by any of these shenanigans. He had not so much as a shrug for our playing with the forces of magic.
So... back to that prior task of Finn inducting Tont into the Light Orb Gang. Two things jump out at me with this scene. First, Finn doesn't walk up to Tont to give him the fragment of Light Orb. Instead he either uses telekinesis or lobs the piece at the newest party member. Second the game doesn't play the glowey animation on Tont that happens any other time a character is added to the Light Orb Gang. It feels as if the devs dropped the ball on this one.
With Finn, Annie, and Percy so low level Tont actually fits right in. His low VP still stands out a bit but not as badly as it would otherwise.
As if all that wasn't meeting the weirdness quota here's one more detail. After picking up Samson and Edward, using codes to avoid losing Percy to the Plot Gods, I went to collect Tont. This meant my party was already full and would ya know but the game actually runs a check for that and will call the function to bench someone if there isn't a spot for Tont.
So it will (correctly!) do this for Tont and Domino but if I go get Percy or Lorele early I have no choice in the matter and have to dump someone. Talk about frustrating. I am perplexed as to why the adding-characters-to-the-team script doesn't always do this safety check. For those wondering "does this mean you can force your party above the five person headcount?" the answer is "Yes, sorta." I'll get to that later.
I then went to Bandore to pick up Domino. Once that business was concluded I took a look at everyone's inventory and saw that Percy and Tont didn't actually receive Light Orbs. Unfortunately I don't have a savefile that could be used to scale the Tower of Arawn without skipping any events to check whether Tont not receiving an orb is a result of me doing things out of order. It wasn't just a random one-time bug though because I did several variations on this (mostly just to double-check that scene with Arawn) and the game consistently refused to give Tont a Light Orb during the recruitment scene.
It's not a big deal, just a minor oversight really, and I suppose not having an inventory slot locked up by a Light Orb could be useful in certain circumstances. As for Percy I'm not surprised by this result. He isn't programmed to appear in the scene with Arawn because he should be a prisoner in Marion Castle at this point in time and only characters present should receive Light Orbs.
Domino did get a Light Orb and although it's not evident from the screenshot above this was done by going directly from Marion Town to the harbor in Bandore to witness the emperor's death. Thus Finn never received a Light Orb. The game didn't care though. If a script calls for a character to have an item added to their inventory and there's nothing in the event code to say otherwise well then that item is going into that character's inventory.
And here's a look at Domino. Compare to the stats generated for him back in Update 70. 21 VP, 19 LP, 25 MP, 35 Strength (81 Attack), 14 Defense base (33 Defense), 17 Speed, 5 IQ, 10 Luck. Other than a point of speed Update 70 Domino clearly got the better end of the RNG deal. I'm struck by how much better those stats are. Yeah, it's just two to three points in each category but given how random level-ups can be and how Domino usually shows up significantly weaker than the rest of the mandatory party this sort of variance can drive a player to distraction. It's not a big enough difference to make me think the game gives Domino a bonus if the player clears Bandore at a higher level. It's just the RNG being random.
I took the time to do some further checking (there's a reason I wanted a savefile so early in the game's plot) because recruiting Domino requires triggering the scene at the harbor where the emperor dies. Thus I did some running around to take note of the world's status.
- Bandore and Marion were both in the post invasion of Bandore state. Sir Galahad was in Bandore Castle and not in Marion Castle.
- The Bandore soldiers guarding the bridges and the cave to Simone were still at their posts blocking those respective paths.
- Zalagoon Town was in the post-invasion state with happy people being cheerful.
It's actually a little weird having Domino as the strongest member of the team. Yet there he is with higher stats than Finn, Annie, or Percy. To anyone wondering why he suddenly has 20 VP that's because I had to reset and repeat the task of getting Domino super early due to some... well let's just call them complications for the moment.
I will note just how poor Domino's starting VP and LP are for a character that's level 15. He's eleven levels up on Finn but the difference between them isn't that much. There's a good (but not 100% certain) chance that at level 15 this Finn would be at least 27 VP and 20 LP and likely more due to +2 VP/LP rolls popping up. I have no idea how Domino has managed to survive solo on the monster-infested high seas. Massive amounts of Plot Armor, I bet.
Bandore is behaving strangely. We should be careful. Why do you look so depressed? Did something happen at Marion Castle? I guess not...
The NPCs in Isla are still set as if Finn, Annie, and Percy hadn't left for Marion Town. I assume this is because I haven't met Samson, freed Edward, or returned with aid from Zalagoon. The emperor's death is evidently not an event flag that changes things up here. The war was over before it really started and the people of Isla are just as clueless about it as they were a day earlier. That's rural life for ya!
In my walk around the kingdoms I was just about to concede that everything was in the post-invasion state and call it a day. Then I approached Zalagoon Castle and weird things started happening. A man rushed down from the top of the screen to tell the team of trouble in the castle.
In fact it is the dialogue this kid is waiting to tell Finn and company when they return from getting Samson uncursed. We saw it back in Update 44.
I didn't think you would make it in time, but Sir Bison told me to wait anyways.
Steiner flies towards the boy.
Did you say make it in time? But why? What's going on?
Yes! Yes! Please hurry! Advisor Glade is trying to make peace with Bandore. He's pressuring the king to surrender, saying it's no use to resist Bandore. Of course, the king is opposed to the idea, but the advisor has control of the military. If someone does not intervene Glade will take over Zalagoon. You should visit Sir Bison immediately.
The man just stood there (so does the boy who is supposed to deliver those lines) but on interacting with him he spits out a line belonging to a fellow who roams around town.
This is the free kingdom of Zalagoon, where everyone can live happily!
It seems the trigger for the boy to run down was waiting, probably because in this test I'd gone through the cleansing ritual, but since I saw the emperor die and set that event flag the three kingdoms all had their NPC placement and dialogue advanced to the post-war set. Thus the boy's sprite wasn't loaded. The game instead grabbed what was probably the first NPC on the list - the town greeter - and repurposed them. Normally when the player returns from breaking Samson's curse all the buildings in Zalagoon are locked and the streets are empty. Thus there would only be one NPC sprite loaded for the town and that would be the boy.
Upon approaching the castle a warning pops up to tell the party that Glade is in command of the castle's guards and that they should use the waterways to enter the castle grounds.
Nuts to that though! I have other ways of getting around pesky obstacles. The gate is closed and all the two guards have to say is:
This is Zalagoon Castle. Unless you're here on official business, you should leave! [sic]
The servant woman can be scrolled into view by hugging the left wall so I cheated my way through to talk to her. Because I talked to her from below rather than stepping on the tile ahead of her (because at the time I forgot about that little quirk of this scene) all she had to say was:
Sir Bison is waiting for you.
Then I cheated my way directly to the courtyard.
The immediate thing I took note of is that the NPCs were laid out for the second confrontation in the courtyard as seen in Update 45. The fact that Queen Scarlet is nowhere to be seen is a dead giveaway. Having scaled the Tower of Arawn this was expected. Anyway the important thing is that Sir Samson's curse (which he technically hadn't received yet) was broken which of course is when a player should head to Zalagoon. I moved down into the courtyard. Then things took another turn for the weird...
When I moved down, knowing none of the NPCs on screen can be interacted with, the team spread out to their assigned spots. Percy and Tont vanished even though Tont is programmed to appear in the second courtyard scene. Edward appeared but no Samson. I have no idea why. Neither character was in the party. Then the king started talking.
You are Prince Edward, right?
That's the point where I realized the game was seriously confused. Zalagoon Town and Zalagoon Castle were out of sync because of event flags. Picking up Domino set the townsfolk to their final state post-war with Bandore but apparently because I visited Arawn and went through the cleansing ritual the game thinks the castle's NPCs should be set up for the confrontation with Glade.
But while the NPCs are in position for the second scene the dialogue and scripted actions are actually from the first visit to Zalagoon. Hence why the king is suddenly asking if the boy in fine clothes is Prince Edward. Note that Advisor Glade didn't come out of the front gate to meet the team. The two guards out front wouldn't let anyone in. Due to some weird supercedence issues with event flags in this part of the game Zalagoon Castle is in a bizarre hybrid state. That probably explains why Tont poofed. Because he can't be recruited until after the first trip to Zalagoon he of course isn't programmed to appear in the first courtyard scene.
I am mystified though why Edward appeared but not Samson. It's not like I did anything to kill Samson. He, like Edward, hasn't even been encountered yet. Hmm, very odd!
It took me a while to realize that the three Zalagoon soldiers were flipped from facing down to facing up. Then I went and looked at screenshots in Update 16 and noted that there are four Zalagoon soldiers south of where Finn and company who start out looking across at each other then turn to face up. That "turn to face up" instruction has in this instances made the guards look a bit too interested in those bushes.
Because the king, Glade, and Bison (standing under Finn's sprite in the screenshot above) aren't where they should be for the first scene their scripted actions make them do things like turn and talk to thin air. Also, Queen Scarlet ends up being directly addressed and delivering her lines as a ghost character. Ghost Queen magic is afoot! Well her nephew will end up becoming a rather formidable mage before the game is done so maybe magic just runs in the family.
Then the king asked Sir Bison whether he recognized Edward or Samson. Sir Bison did as he was scripted - walk over to each in turn, play an animation, then move up and to the right one tile to tell the king he was certain of Samson. Then the king nodded, Bison turned to where Annie is standing in the screenshot above and... everything came to a screeching halt.
The game softlocked. On checking Update 16 the next thing that should have happened would be Sir Bison returning to his previous spot - where Finn is standing. If the game seized up because Bison couldn't walk through Annie/Finn to get back to where he was then why didn't him moving out from under Finn and through Annie cause a lock-up? I suppose, speaking hypothetically, that it could come down to minute differences in which command calls are issued. A "move through this series of steps" series of commands versus a "move to X position" command might have critical differences in what they allow the object being controlled to do - such as move through character sprites.
Given the fact that I've seen this behavior before, for the first time back in Update 17 when I mentioned problems with the Border Church, I'm inclined to think that this is an issue with a character (Sir Bison in this instance) being unable to walk through Annie or Finn. If you're asking "but you could walk through NPC sprites before, what changed?" well my answer is twofold: player character sprites always seem to have collision active and sometimes even when the game is glitched NPCs can't be walked through.
After more experimenting I narrowed down the cause. It turned out to be a matter of which tile I stepped on. For some reason walking on Bison (and all of these NPCs can be walked through) causes the game to enter a buggy state. Annie and Samson are deployed in the wrong directions. NPCs are turned and moved incorrectly. Eventually Sir Bison ends up stuck. By walking on the tile behind Sir Bison Finn and company are deployed correctly.
Now the twin screenshots above are with Samson visible rather than Prince Edward. That's because after a reset and trying to set the situation back up (running the Tower of Arawn and going to Bandore to pick up Domino) the game wanted to proceed with the dialogue and actions from the second scene in Zalagoon rather than the first. So I ran over to the Border Church to make sure I'd seen at least one scene with the fugitive pair. Alas, no go. The game refused to enter the hybrid state it had acquired before.
And there's G. Despite standing in the middle of an open courtyard in full view of the team, talking to and approaching them, G is somehow taken by surprise. Keep in mind my team's levels here are minimal. In addition to that, this and what immediately follows were done without going to the Border Church to see Samson and Edward.
There's no way Finn and company can fight G as-is. Not to worry. Four characters with 999 Attack Power can kill G in one round even without double attacks or critical hits. Thus, for Percy fans here's an unplanned boss kill for him.
Domino and Percy aren't programmed to appear in the scene in Zalagoon following the battle but for some reason Edward insisted on joining the scene. He wasn't about to let being locked up in Marion damper his spirit. Adding further to my puzzlement attempting to interact with the other characters didn't result in dialogue as it should but instead just produced the "nothing there" message.
Attempting to leave prompted the non-present Samson to chastise Finn. I like to think this is a telepathic message from Samson who is quite irate that he's still stuck in that basement in Marion Town.
Domino won't appear in the garden when Ramue strolls in to destroy Finn and company. Sir Not Appearing In This Cutscene spoke for everyone when he announced alarm at seeing Ramue. Why doesn't Samson appear at this point? It can't be because he and Prince Edward haven't joined the party. Just entering this screen sets off a script that adds both to the roster. It's because he was having some technical difficulties.
With the battle engaged Edward vanished - hopefully hiding somewhere among the trees like any rational person would in such circumstances - while Samson was revealed to be quite dead. Surprisingly Percy actually managed to be the MVP in this fight. Ramue's block, double attack, and critical hit rates are super high and Finn wasn't being cooperative with combo attacks to get around that block rate. Percy however just wanted to show how well he could crank out double criticals. Go, Percy!
Ramue dealt heavy damage with her critical hits as might be expected. Many blows were traded until at last a combo attack from Finn and Steiner finished the job. Even with max Attack Power this fight still took ten minutes because this Ramue has somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 VP! I was actually expecting it to be at or near 65,535 going into this fight so to have it over so quickly was actually a pleasant surprise.
Keep in mind that in her duel battle with Shutat at the game's end Ramue has around 1,000 VP. Slight difference in health pools...
The reward? 1024 experience and 400 gold. No special item drops. Not even an acknowledgment from the game! The sliding block puzzle will reset (which would be nice if it didn't require winning a ridiculous battle) and if conditions are again met Ramue will respawn as if nothing happened. The devs clearly didn't think any player would be able to win this fight. Given how powerful this Ramue is that's not unreasonable.
As for her AI it's the same as when she's paired with Shutat. She will cast Titan 1, Firedrake 1, Healing Rain 1 (which is laughably pathetic healing only a fraction of a percent of her lifebar), and will buff her Ork Lord minions with Defense 2 if they live long enough. It's like someone made the actual fightable boss version of her then copied that data and changed a few numbers in her stats for this version. Perhaps the saddest part of this is that Healing Rain 1 could have been swapped for Healing Rain 4 or Heal 4. That really would have messed with players trying to kill her.
Oh and the sliding wall was closed. I never opened it by handing in the Royal Pendant but figured I should mention it anyway. Strangely enough Beyond the Beyond seems capable of entering a glitchy state where NPC sprites aren't spawned but the dialogue and scripts attached to those NPCs can be triggered by stepping on the tile the NPC should be occupying. Finn happens to be standing on a table in the screenshot above because I had to walk through the false wall and didn't expect the game to run a dead characters check on the other side. Him standing on the table was the first frame from the recording where the message was fully on screen.
So of course I had to use it. How could I not?
Does This Qualify As Snake Oil?
I spoke earlier about it being odd that the game has a safety check when recruiting Tont or Domino to ensure it doesn't break the game's party cap. I find it odd not only because Lorele and Percy have no such check - they just jump straight to forcing the player to bench someone - but because the Samson + Edward join scripts have no safety check at all. They will allow the party to run over cap. This results in two serious issues. The first is that while Edward will appear in cutscenes party-wise he's nowhere to be found and there seems to be no way to actually get him into the active roster or to appear in town. Secondly, under specific circumstances the game generates Samson at level 0 which means all of his stats are zero. Strangely enough his equipment is loaded and equipped correctly.
0 VP and 0 LP is seen by the game as being dead. 0 MaxVP and 0 MaxLP is seen by the game as perma-dead. Priests at churches and "check to see if Samson is dead" events will in fact try to revive Samson but they can't because his max health is zero. Nothing obviously buggy happened when the game tried. In the screenshot above I used a code to increase Samson's VP and LP and he instantly swapped over to Healthy without having to mess with his condition flag or his maxVP or maxLP variables. His max VP and LP are still 0 so he will quickly return to being perma-dead if the codes holding his current health as positive values are turned off.
I ran over to the western bridge because in a pot on the Bandore side hides a Source of Growth. The hidden chest in Marion Castle containing a Source of Courage was also an option. Using the Source of Growth on Samson awarded the perma-dead soldier an immediate 5,000 experience points. I presume someone just crammed it down Samson's throat. It's not like he was conscious enough to protest.
Despite being dead Samson not only accepted the experience award but leveled up. The game isn't programmed to give stat bonuses when going from level 0 to level 1 (as seen above) but every level above that is fair game.
The same thing happens by having Samson gain enough experience in battle to level up.
HE LIIIIIIVEES!!!
Okay so with the sort-of exception of his Strength Samson's stats are terrible in this scenario. That's what starting with all zeros will do to a character. Stat boosters can help but the only way to really fix Samson when he's hit with this bug would be using codes to manually change each of his stats. I didn't bother. He returned to life which was what I was shooting for.
Convincing Percy to run off for his valiant sacrifice doesn't allow Edward to "move up" into the visible party. There is one more join event - when Samson and Edward leave the party after liberating Marion and then return at the bridge to Bandore - but picking up Domino set Marion Castle to its post war state.
If I go to the Border Church right after picking up Domino (skipping Marion Castle entirely) Prince Edward again gets 6th-slotted into not-quite-in-the-party status but Samson is generated as he should at level 1. Him being level 0 must be due to some weird bug set into motion in the Tower of Arawn or the cleansing ritual.
This series of events also makes checks for whether or not Prince Edward is in the party come back with a big NO. The check in the screenshot above would call Sir Piat and Advisor Glade if it had passed.
So instead I walked-through-walls into the courtyard. None of the sprites for the first courtyard scene were loaded as would be expected but stepping on the right tile still got events running. Now while one might think not having portrait values loaded would call Finn's swordsman portrait as a default. I guess because there are portraitless guards out front the game uses that value. The game didn't lock up so... no extra sillyness but marginal victory?
Oh and because the pillar has to be a sprite rather than part of the background tiles it too wasn't loaded. I presume the shadow, now without a source, is loaded with all the other shadows for this area. Who knows what true power this strange entity holds?
Even if Prince Edward were present escape as the game intended - gathering up the party so NPCs move out of the way - would be impossible because Samson could not be interacted with. For some reason the game moved him one spot up. That mystical shadow from nowhere had likely cast a Confusion spell on poor Samson and we've seen the brain-melting properties of such sorcery. I didn't have to cheat to escape the courtyard in this instance. Both gates are open and with no NPC sprites blocking the way I just walked out.
Finn's Vision of a Career Path
To further elaborate on Marion Castle the only hint of Zalagoon's invasion is this pair of Marion soldiers on the second floor suddenly running through the walls and off screen the first time the player walks up the stairs leading to the hall before the throne room. Because the scene that ends the battle for Marion Castle cannot be initiated with event flags as-is the script where the game temporarily yanks Samson and Edward from the party is but a distant memory. That's the reason I thus can't check the event where they rejoin Finn and company on the way to Bandore.
There's one other thing lying dormant: the long-skipped prison break. Just approaching the door shown in the screen above has the perma-dead (in this run) Samson telling the kids to prepare to kick butt. Oh and I guess I should point out that Domino doesn't appear. Let's just pretend he's a lookout just off screen waiting for the rest of the group to rush the room.
Worry not that there aren't any Bandore Soldiers around to play their roles in this utterly unneeded prison break. Finn decides he'll cosplay the part! These are soldiers who aren't even supposed to have portraits...
Code-boosting the party isn't actually necessary for the battle that follows. It's more an artifact of having fought G right before this. As an added bonus, anyone who wanted to see Domino killing a Bandore soldier gets their wish.
Finn continues the cosplay. He's hardcore like that. The wall closes and while the game continues to run this is the point where it refuses to accept input. Thus, for a not-apparent reason doing this softlocks the game. Finn's cosplay adventures come to a sad end.
When running the sequence of events in Marion as the devs intended I found that the game changes some things in the prison after Ramue teleports away. I never noticed because I always proceeded to the escape tunnel. In this run I was curious to know if the game still had any animations loaded for Ramue's spells out in the darkness just out of normal camera bounds. The answer - nope.
- The sealed wall opens up.
- The door to Edward's cell closes.
- The door leading directly to the staircase up unlocks.
- A Bandore soldier blocks the stairs. This soldier has nothing to say and cannot be interacted with.
Why the game is programmed to do this is a mystery. The soldier is clearly placed to prevent the player from going upstairs but if the wall just stayed closed and the door locked said soldier wouldn't be necessary.
Upon heading to Isla Village Finn suddenly decides he wants to cosplay again. This time he's playing the part of a Bandore soldier blocking access to Sir Galahad's house - another instance of the game triggering an unplaced NPC's dialogue by stepping on the tile the NPC should be occupying. Given that Isla is still in it's early go-to-Marion-Town state this took me completely by surprise. It's also a bit of a pain since it includes an auto-move routine that punts the party away from the door. This prevents Finn from opening the door.
So instead I had to walk-through-walls to get into the house and, because the script to hide the roof wasn't run, walk around searching blindly for a staircase.
I thought that already weird door couldn't come up with any new tricks and the game proved me dead wrong! If only Arawn could have harnessed the powers of this door he could have better sealed the path to the Underworld.
On a side note these 11 frames of the hanging Short Sword are just off screen from the item box. The two swords on the left side are the fully animated versions of this set. Why these were loaded isn't clear. This game was loaded in Marion Town well after Finn took the Short Sword off the wall so why the game still loads this out of bounds is a mystery.
A quick stroll to the west reveals grass and trees and a fence. Also, I have no idea what those orange tiles are supposed to be. They appear several times in the game out of bounds. It doesn't seem to have any purpose.
What's happening with this one is that the devs stuck two smaller maps in one file and counted on camera restraints to prevent the player from ever seeing how they're truly laid out. I suspect the game does this a lot and there are several times where, through walk-through-walls it is possible to just move directly from one room to another. In Marion Castle the tiny hidden turret room is part of the same map as the two tower interior rooms. In Simone Village the last two floors up inside the tree can likewise be walked between.
Anyway, the screenshot above marks the camera bounds for the house's second floor. There's no need to have a copy of the entire village - just the stuff that would be camera-visible from inside that room.
Given the fact that the game takes care to remove Steiner and everyone other than Finn from the active party before the would-be young Hero can enter the Test of Discipline I of course had to see how the game would break if I could somehow sneak everyone in. Turns out it's as simple as walking around the labyrinth doors to reach the hallway beyond. Oh and Steiner sometimes gets stuck on walls when doing this.
Since the Test of Discipline is one of the game's more complicated puzzles and I had to run it numerous times checking various things I figured I might as well show what I know to be the fastest way through it. There's no way to really cheese this. The target is surrounded by pits and the only way to get close enough to search it is to do what the game wants. Because the goal is to reach the chest containing the Mystic Blade as quickly as possible the other two treasures are abandoned in this route.
The first thing to remember that the test is divided into two floors. Random encounters only occur on the bottom floor so getting to the staircase and getting upstairs ASAP is the first step. The second thing to remember is that by default no pathways are active. A glyph has to be stepped on to activate one and by stepping on another glyph the first is despawned so the new one can take its place. Thus there is no backtracking. If you try you'll fall.
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Upon first reaching the second floor walk north. A purple ring is on the ground. Step on it. Walk to the serpent glyph up and to the left. The ring glyph walkway is a circle with the center missing making for a circular path two tiles wide. Make sure to step on the serpent glyph | |
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Head to this green wing glyph. Because the serpent-type walkway has a "tail" it is critical to walk forward at least two steps before turning north. Otherwise you'll either fall off or walk onto the tail and not know where to go to reach the main body. | Walk north from the wing glyph to this serpent glyph. While this is also the route to reach the treasure chest on the chamber's far west side this route skips it. Walk at least one tile north (I usually walk two or three to be safe), turn right/east, and fall. There is no way to reach the chamber's center without falling. |
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You should land on the bottom floor but on the upper section. This route should put you near the staircase. Use it to go back upstairs. Step on the serpent glyph. | Head to the wing glyph and activate it. |
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Move up and to the right/east to reach the purple ring glyph. | Carefully make your way to the wing glyph to the north using the ring pathway. |
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Make sure to walk north at least two tiles before turning right/east. The wings aren't "even" and there's a snag to trip up the unwary player. Stop once you're on the column of tiles next to the chest. | Walk down until you can touch the chest. Once you search it the puzzle is complete. |
There are several consequences to not allowing the game to pare the party down to just Finn. Among them is that Steiner clones himself! Upon exiting Discipline Town the grown up Steiner is found outside. But the game apparently forgot to update Steiner's portrait so either the big golden dragon has an identity crisis or its a puppet or friend being operated/manipulated by little Steiner.
I smell a practical joke gone horribly wrong.
Talking to the Master of Discipline so early in the game causes a bit of bugginess in the team's animations. When asked who their leader is they're supposed to look at one another before Steiner says it's Finn. Instead the group does a weird sort of dance routine.
For level 4 Finn dancing in place does not impress the Master of Discipline.
Sir Finn is not yet experienced enough. Come back when you have more experience.
In other words go grind experience until you reach level 20 then come back. Partly this is the game's way of making sure the player can't enter the trial with a Finn guaranteed to be destroyed by any monster he runs into.
The other reason is that classing up Finn - or any other character - before level 20 is bad for their stat growth. I decided to pick up Tont and do some experience grinding after grabbing the Mystic Blade. Classing up not only sets a character to level 1 but also shifts them over to the promoted class's experience-needed table. For a Hero to go from level 1 to level 2 requires thousands of experience points. It might not be immediately evident from the screenshot above but after some fighting higher-end random encounters Finn has fallen seriously behind his teammates stat-wise because they've gained levels and he hasn't. His LP of 9 is pathetic compared to 27, 28, or even Tont's 15. Those pre-promotion levels are nothing to scoff at.
I wanted to grind Hero Finn up to level 2 because under these conditions Finn doesn't receive the Steiner spell. Little Steiner never stops flitting about the battlefield so it becomes a toss up. Does one prefer summoning a dragon to breath fire over the battlefield or the combo attack with Steiner? There's no clear answer.
I did run around gathering enough Sources of Magic to boost Finn's maxMP over 8 (the MP cost of the Steiner spell) and that made no difference.
Keeping the combo attack with Steiner as Hero Finn does have some rather nice advantages - such as getting around Ramue's high block rate when trying to fight her at the Border Church.
Just to be sure it wasn't level based I loaded up the safety-save made before class changing. That also allowed me to snap the screenshot above where an invisible Samson gets a promotion to General. Samson isn't invisible because he's dead. It's because I skipped the script to have everyone but Finn wait with the Master of Discipline.
Still no Steiner spell.
I must confess that I had an alternate motive for doing some additional testing with early promotions and skipping talking to the Master of Discipline - another detail about recruiting Tont. If Finn is promoted without any shenanigans and has thus lost little Steiner gooey-form Tont won't follow Finn out of the mage's house in Simone. I know the screenshot up above doesn't conclusively demonstrate that but there's no way one shot could. There's no text, no error message on screen, no visible glitching.
It just seems that if Steiner isn't following Finn something breaks.
On a side note I had to grind Finn up to level 20 for this since the plan was to go through the Test of Discipline as designed. My code-boosted trio wasn't exactly invincible though. They got ambushed by a Hippogriff + Lich pair and the Lich decided to come out swinging. It cast Void not only on the ambush round, killing Percy, but also on the first round of real combat, killing Annie.
Oh and I suppose I have unintentionally managed to meet another goal: demonstrating that Liches are able to cast Void outside of the Ice Mine.
Now since Beyond the Beyond doesn't seem to have an actual Dead status and I already had a VP code on for each of the three characters that meant as soon as each character's VP was re-updated back to 200 they were effectively brought back to life. Thus Annie and Percy gained experience and leveled up despite being Void-ed.
A later encounter with a Lich saw Finn and Annie felled by Void. In the following rounds I could enter commands for them and monsters lost rounds trying to target them - resulting in the "%Monster just stands there" error message - but the game refused to execute actions from Finn or Annie.
Next time on Beyond the Beyond - part 4 of game-wide bonus material!
Update One hundred and ten | Index | Update One hundred and twelve
