Beyond the Beyond: Update 113: Bonus material, pt. 5

[ladyabaxa]

Beyond the Beyond: Update 113: Bonus material, pt. 5

Welcome back. At the end of the last update I posted a teaser screenshot. Now what was that?

 

The Guards Must Be Asleep At the Wheel

Oh yes. That one. This is the result of a fairly complex set of interactions in the game's code that turned up something interesting with a high risk of softlocking the game. In fact in the shot above the game is locked up and required a savestate reload.

The astute will note that I've promoted Finn - promoted sprite and little Steiner is absent. No running to Bandore early or sequence breaking through the Tower of Arawn or anything like that. All I did was rush off to get Finn promoted in order to advance Marion Town.

See, just the core three and Sir Galahad is back in the castle. Yes the core trio has some levels under their belts (for safety reasons) but I've covered in previous updates the multiple ways I have to grind experience or give them level ups directly. No event flags were involved and that's the key part.

This particular tile next to the bed in the prison has some odd properties when stepped on. Nothing happens the first time - or should I say it looks like nothing happens. Behind the curtain something gets flipped in RAM.

If the player steps on the same tile again the game activates a script that, if conditions aren't exactly right, causes everything to lock up. Finn rushing through the wall in the second shot is because when this walk-through-walls code is on Finn goes running off in whatever direction he is facing when NPC scripts start running. Usually it's just an annoyance but in this instance, where Finn and company stand around refusing to accept input and at any point I can instruct Finn to go rushing off into the darkness, it tells me such a script is getting hung up somewhere.

The game trying and failing to move an NPC is the usual culprit and I suspect the same is true here.

But that's not the end of the story. So here's the core trio long before any promotion shenanigans. The two shots above are for reference about their spot in event flags - pre-promotion and having skipped meeting Sir Samson in the tunnel - with the two doors still closed, Prince Edward in his cell, and the Bandore soldier in place guarding the staircase.

Finn then walks through the soldier to head upstairs. No walk-through-walls involved. Once upstairs the trio immediately turns around and goes back downstairs.

When the screen fades in a little surprise is waiting. Rather than being at the base of the staircase Finn, Steiner, Annie, Percy, and Sir Samson are all on the other side of the adjoining room being admonished about leaving the area. The Bandore soldier runs off, the walls slams shut, and the group reforms letting me walk around. I head over to the table.

"Finn searches the area. Finn receives the Prison Key!"

Well hello there Prison Key. Nice to see you spawn in a spot where you're easy to pick up. Now a word of caution: if I hadn't set up things just right the game would have locked up after the team reformed. That means Finn stuck in the corner unable to move while I stare helplessly at a key just out of reach.

It really is the Prison Key and will open Prince Edward's cell. Even though I skipped meeting Samson he appears in this scene as he normally would.

When I said earlier that the game quietly toggles something in RAM this is what I was primarily referring to. The search point on the table for the Prison Key is loaded and activated just by stepping on the tile. If I tried to search the table without stepping on that tile Finn would find nothing. I did this both with and without Sir Samson and it was the same so long as I hadn't advanced Marion to the post war state. This avoided getting stuck in the corner and with the key in inventory I could just walk out the one unlocked door. Just stepping on the corner is enough to flag the game to deactivate those trigger tiles for Sir Samson's "let's take on the guards!" scene.

Now, referring back to the teaser screenshot that started this update, that test didn't work out so well. I tried many different combinations of talking to various NPCs, avoiding or triggering events in the immediate area, and even trying to wait to see if the lock-up just needed time to resolve. It was a no-go. Stepping on the tile not only fails to spawn an invisible key but there appears to be no way to avoid a softlock. What the game does is suddenly spawn, or more likely move an already existing, Marion soldier sprite onto the table. The key sprite (and search point along with it) wouldn't be needed in post war Marion so there was no need to have it on the list of sprites to be loaded post-war. It's just as well. The only thing the Prison Key unlocks is Prince Edward's cell and if he isn't in there the game softlocks when the door is unlocked because the game needs to move his sprite into position at the door. With him missing the game goes into an infinite wait.

But just leaving it with the invisible key wouldn't be doing this buggy event justice. In fact I tried to find a way to avoid the softlock when the key sprite pops up on the table and the wall slams shut. That wasn't easy given there are multiple overlapping issues. First of all I had to skip meeting up with Sir Samson in the tunnel. That was how I found any of this. I wanted to see what would happen when Samson isn't in a series of scenes he's needed in. It turns out the game doesn't care and shoves him into said scenes anyway. The only difference I found was that if I fought the Bandore guards they couldn't attack because Samson wasn't in my party and they're programmed to only target him.

The next step was being sure to step on either of the two tiles next to the hole in the floor. That prompts the game to display some dialogue from Samson before forcing the player away from the hole.

For some reason this triggers a glitch that makes it possible to walk through the Bandore soldier blocking the staircase. Otherwise that guard would be impassible without cheating. I know that sounds like a weird thing to worry about when I'm literally cheating my way through walls but when the guard is impassible it heralds a bigger problem waiting to ruin everything.

Heading upstairs as-is and going back down causes the game to become extremely confused in a way that I've become familiar with. Welcome to one of myriad fast-scrolling screens that greet the player when the game can't figure out where the player is supposed to be. There are several ways this glitch can be triggered and it can appear in many places outside of the overworld map.

Amazingly this doesn't outright crash the game. It just makes it utterly unplayable. If there's a way to escape an area that's become jumbled like this I haven't found it. I can move around but obstacles and barriers are invisible as are any possible exits. Escape and Guiding Branches don't work so teleporting out isn't possible. Also, the Light Orb doesn't work in interior spaces or dungeons so no using that to escape.

But in this scenario there's a way to avoid the game getting all scrambled up: talk to Edward while he's still in his cell. Then head upstairs and turn around to come right back down. Why does it work like this? I have no idea. It just does.

And ta-da! That avoids the softlock so the team can see the wall slam shut and collect that nice, shiny key someone left on the table. I will note that the key has both a unique sprite and that it's shadow clearly doesn't align with it lying on a table. Maybe it was originally designed for an NPC to be holding it? Hanging on a wall?

I go through this series of steps because doing it this way is just plain safer. My best guess is that this part of the game went through several revisions, events being changed or branched away from as the devs changed their minds, with old code remaining in place because they felt they'd done enough to make it inaccessible.

Here's the Chain Key, dropped on the floor by a dying Bandore Soldier in Bandore Castle as seen in Update 59. Different sprite and the shadow is properly aligned for an object sitting on the ground.

The Silver Key tossed down by the Black Knight in Update 61 uses the same sprite.

And rounding off the assortment of keys that appeared during the Bandore segment of the game here's the Gold Key from the volcano's depths as seen in update 63. It has the same base design as the Prison Key but a gold and white palette, sparkles, and a properly aligned shadow.

The Skeleton Key uses the same sprite as the Chain and Silver keys. All these keys as items that can be picked up and they all use the same sprite instead of just finishing up an almost-ready sprite. I don't get it either.

 

Taking the Longest Route Possible to Skirt Curfew

One detail I've wanted to check are night palettes. There are two points in the game when night does or can occur. At the beginning after business is complete in the Cave of Spirits the game automatically flips to night. Much later when the team finds the Moon Crescent deep within Arawn's Palace they gain the ability to briefly make it night. Now I could cheat in a Moon Crescent but the night time effect is so short-lived I opted to take another trip through the Cave of Spirits and use that event instead. Important Note: the trigger, where the game actually makes the day to night toggle, is stepping on the tile where Steiner says "Finn, it's getting dark. We should hurry back home." Skip that and the plot won't advance even if everything in the cave is complete.

Rainbow Valley	Plains
Water Shrine	Mountains
Desert	Forest
Passage to Simone	Just Growin' Some Beans Here

I was actually surprised by how many in-battle palettes shifted because of this. The outdoor ones were expected. Every terrain type except being on Domino's boat is accessible without cheating at the point in the plot where the player is required to get the Moon Crescent. Of course that just makes me wonder why the Water Shrine, an interior dungeon not accessible until after the Moon Crescent has been traded away, is affected. I know it might not look like it just from the screenshot but compare it to battle shots in updates 33, 34, and 35. It's definitely a darker palette. I wonder if there's a bug involved.

I can understand the outdoor areas of the Passage to Simone and Rainbow Valley being altered. The Moon Crescent is required at that point in the game so a player can flip to night immediately before entering either location. Day - Night cycles are a common staple of RPGs and I suspect the devs wanted Beyond the Beyond to have one as well but couldn't implement it in time.

I should note that this ONLY applies to the overworld and battle backgrounds. Dungeons, even those which have outdoor sections, are as bright and chipper as usual. The other point I should make is that the game quietly fixes this, resetting the game back to day, either by scaling the Tower of Arawn or it will sometimes spontaneously revert for reasons unknown when entering and exiting a town. This means that upon entering the scene with Arawn at the top of the tower the game returns to its normal day setting so no cutscene weirdness there or in the cleansing ritual. Likewise, the battle against G is always set in the daylight.

 

A Step Into the Rift of Time

So let's cheat a Moon Crescent into Finn's inventory and enter Isla Village. Every other town just reverts to daytime so just Isla.

Entering from the north immediately puts Finn face to face with a closed gate which he has no way of opening. In fact he refuses to acknowledge it's even there. Lorele is presumably laughing her butt off at Finn's inability to navigate a simple wooden impediment.

Alright, exit on the north side to reset the game to day. Then walk through Isla so Finn can use the Moon Crescent while standing just outside the south entrance.

Back in the village Finn finds the townfolk are huddled in their houses and a man speaks of going to Marion Castle to find out why Bandore has been acting so strangely. This is dialogue from the beginning of the game but it takes on an entirely different context when seen at the end.

Oddly enough the traveling merchant Michael has Illusion Powder in stock. I checked and at the start of the game when he's in Isla he has Herbs, Healing Herbs, Antidotes, and Cure Herbs but never Illusion Powder. I then progressed through events up through fleeing Marion with Prince Edward, running back to Isla to see if Michael was still selling the same things, but his inventory didn't change. It isn't terribly surprising that this merchant would have two inventory lists given how long Isla is accessible at the game's start. I can even understand why this version didn't make the final cut since Illusion Powder is so expensive for the early game. I just wonder why it appears now. Another night scene planned for later in the game that didn't make it in?

UPDATE: After further testing - initially to see if this shop's inventory might have other states - I can safely say the Illusion Powder is in fact being added because it is flagged in the game as a "rare item" and is thus being offered because I sold at least one to a vendor earlier. After buying out Michael's stock here I had three such powders. This is a little feature in Shining in the Darkness and later Shining Force where some of the items the player sells off are in fact stored in one of two "special deals" lists. There's one for weapons/armor and another for generic items.

This tripped me up because I don't sell many of the rare consumables or generics (the World Map, for example, can be sold and will appear in the item vendor's special deals but it only sells for 2k gold so I always chuck it into the storage box) and there's nothing about Illusion Powder to suggest it is flagged as a rare/unique item. There's no special deals submenu like there is in Shining in the Darkness and Shining Force. Every standard vendor appends the special deals automatically at the end of their individual wares. If you don't already know what is and isn't flagged you have to sell things and then go into the Buy menu to see if they show up. Illusion Powders are pretty darn useless so I have every reason to vendor trash them as soon as possible and no reason to ever buy any back.

To add further confusion the hidden merchant in Barbaros is in fact a non-standard vendor. They don't load the special deals at all. They also sell Illusion Powders - as many as the player is willing to buy. Hence all the confusion over this one item.

Sir Galahad pulls off being in two places at once. He's both in Marion Castle and in his home in Isla. Instead of launching the scene were Percy appears on the verge of death Sir Galahad just thinks Finn is about to head off to the Cave of Spirits. Sonya also has nothing new to say.

 

The Moon Crescent Glitch

The following glitch can be pulled off with any of the game's three vehicles: Domino's ship, Steiner, or the Flying Palace. I'm using Steiner here because the effects change slightly depending on vehicle. The ship is the toughest to work with and the Flying Palace the easiest but the glitch provides the smallest possible benefit. Steiner's somewhere in the middle.

To start with I go into Finn's inventory and use the Moon Crescent.

It is critical that I'm standing next to Steiner when using the Moon Crescent because walking around the overworld will run down the timer. For this glitch to activate the timer must run down while using a vehicle. Having no particular goal in mind I fly north.

And there's the effect expiration message! Not only is this message critical to bugging out the game but it must be left open. Normally the game won't allow the player to move around while a text box is open but this is an exception.

I keep flying and flying and flying until I feel Steiner's gone far enough and at last dismiss the message. The effects are immediate.

The the camera starts flying off leaving Steiner hovering on the spot I dismissed the message.

It comes to a rest here, over Mistrall. It always goes to Mistrall. I can move around but without a visible character navigating gets tricky. The camera is still centered on what the game thinks is my character location meaning if I were to move up immediately I'd enter Mistrall. Just keep in mind throughout the rest of this part of the update that the camera stays centered on where the game at that moment thinks the player is - no matter how confused or jumbled up or incorrect that thinking is.

Why go to Mistrall? It's the town closest to the upper left corner and that's often a default 0,0 position in video game maps. I can only guess Mistrall is some sort of default or failsafe for overworld positioning.

The main part of the glitch at this point is how confused the game becomes about what terrain I can cross. I cannot move over the shoals or the mountains south of Mistrall but the grassland and forest is navigable. There also aren't any random encounters. The camera is still zoomed out at the Steiner flying height. My best guess is that it thinks I am both flying (camera, no random encounters) and walking (no mountain or shoal crossing) at the same time mixing properties of both.

And everyone thought the Moon Crescent could only warp the team through time. Turns out it can screw up the space-time continuum far worse!

Hitting the X button tells the game to land whereupon it figures out Finn's true coordinates. He's just went of Zalagoon and far north of Luna. I flew straight north from Luna so this is expected.

Alright, no need to reset. Just use the Moon Crescent again and hop aboard Steiner for another test. Just east of Zalagoon (somewhat hidden under the text box above) the land suddenly can't decide whether it's supposed to be plains or high mountains and mashes the two together. This is something I'm used to see because of the walk-through-walls code. When a menu or text box is open the game can't update the player's surroundings as the player moves around the world map. This is critical because only a small portion of the map is loaded at any given time. Everything is just ocean.

Weird things will happen like a shrine sprite out on the open water. It's not quite as cool as seeing the castle sprite up on top of a big mountain but still amusing. Unfortunately landing on actual water isn't possible with this glitch nor is there any hidden Atlantis to explore.

Upon landing the game tries to catch up in placing geography around the player but while also darting over to Mistrall. This makes for some split-second weirdness where pieces of the map get jumbled up.

This time instead of landing by Mistrall I work my way around the shoals and mountains using the open water so I can float on down to Bandore. The rivers aren't barriers and it's not hard to hit the castle considering it's blocked by mountains on two sides.

Upon "stepping" onto the castle Finn and company warp to the town map with nothing unusual happening. Exiting puts them on Steiner. No need to take time to land or take-off for these adventurers!

Next up is the Flying Palace. It isn't on screen in the screenshot above (just its shadow) because the effect fading message causes the camera to become unable to keep up with the Palace while it is in flight.

This is something of a problem because going too far off screen causes the camera to start auto scrolling in a different direction. Here it is going right/east after my having gone off screen left/west. Because this kind of screws up trying to position the Palace I had to thus make sure to frequently stop and let the camera catch up. So much for being faster than Steiner!

Landing the Flying Palace causes the camera to jump over to Mistrall. It remains zoomed out but the same movement restrictions apply that did when I was riding Steiner.

Here's some more weird sights from my time flying around over the messed up world map.

When glitched continents collide forests run right up to the waterline.	Sadly there are no actual villages up on mountains in Beyond the Beyond.
Passing by Isla the party finds out someone put up a huge bouncy castle! (I approve.)

 

This entire process can result in landing somewhere the Flying Palace normally wouldn't be able to - such as in the middle of the ocean. It's also possible to land on top of mountains and lose access to it. Landing on a spot that is itself impassable but adjacent to terrain that is passable enables this. The game only cares if the target spot is accessible. Now in the screenshot above the Palace isn't lost. The team can just lift off again. Otherwise I'd have to use the Light Orb to get the team and the Palace back to safe ground.

Alright, next test. This spot on the western side of Aridia looks promising so let's land and use the Moon Crescent.

I fly a short ways to the east stopping on this spot. I have a goal in mind but no idea at this point if my wild scheme is going to pan out.

The camera zooms off to Mistrall as soon as I close the message. I float over to this spot where I then land. Why this spot? Well I'm just spitballing a distance and seeing where the team ends up.

Then the camera figures out the party's real location and its on the edge of this river.

Success! I have glitched the Flying Palace into Quamdar. If I were to do this earlier in the game's plot, say right after raising the Palace, this would skip the Sand Cave completely. Walking into a town for the first time flags it to appear on the teleport list. The only concern would be not having a fifth character for the bench but I could in theory walk over to the Sand Cave to free Percy.

I wasn't able to accomplish this during tests with Steiner but the same steps should work.

The third and final vehicle is Domino's ship. I saved this one for last because it isn't as useful. There are no random encounters while the message is on screen but the ship is still constrained to the water. This severely limits where it can go and makes it easy to get boxed in. The game also won't let the team disembark while the message is still up.

With that in mind dismissing the message automatically causes Finn and company to step off the boat. In this case it means standing directly upon the open waves. Fortunately, since the ship is always supposed to be sitting on water it is programmed to allow the player to move onto it.

The camera zooms over to Mistrall when the wear off message is dismissed but the town graphic either doesn't load or gets placed somewhere that I can't see it. I can't say whether the town warp is still present because moving around in this state isn't allowed. Because I was on the ship and the ship can't sail through land the game might still think my movement mode is naval.

The ship is a glitchier beast than Steiner or the Flying Palace. More than once the screen raced back from Mistrall to reveal Finn standing on ocean too far from the ship to go anywhere.

The reason for this is because the game accepts D-pad input while the camera is rushing around the map. For example if I hit or hold Down the game might think I'm somehow in the mountain range shown in the screenshot above. When this happened I had to use the Light Orb to warp back to Luna.

And here is Finn, all three vehicles, and Luna out on the open ocean a fraction of a second before the game realizes there's supposed to be terrain under all of them and loads it in.

Okay, reset for another round of tests. This time I'm going to be using the Moon Crescent while already aboard the ship. Yes, the order does matter. By boarding the ship first using the Moon Crescent makes the camera immediately jump over to Mistrall.

I want to test it this way because as long as I hold a direction on the D-pad the camera never reaches Mistrall. Instead it stops and rushes back to Finn. Once it reaches its destination the effect wearing off message pops up and the team is suddenly standing north of Luna. The time window for this is too short to go far so its applicability is limited. I suppose it could be used to get onto and maybe, if one is lucky, across the mountains around Zeal Village. Maybe across the shoals that surround Pity Island? There just aren't many potential targets close enough to the shore.

As if I needed further confirmation that inputs made while the camera is on its way to Mistrall is interpreted by the game as the player moving doing so can trigger a random battle. I was deliberately looking for this because some off camera testing showed this has some weird results.

Oh come on! Like the Bat who deflects three attacks needs a defense boost!

When the battle ends the game reveals the ship and everyone on it is suddenly in the mountain range south of Mistrall. I can't do anything but spin in place so it means using the Light Orb to return to Luna.

The next time I get a battle to start as desired the game dumps the ship just north of Mistrall. Again I can spin the ship in place but it is stuck in place. Finn and company disembark but once they do there's no getting back on. Stepping on the ship sprite does nothing. Entering and exiting town also does nothing. Whoops, stuck again. Gotta teleport.

Next time on Beyond the Beyond - bonus material continues!

Update One hundred and twelve | Index | Update One hundred and fourteen