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Beyond the Beyond: Update 17.5: More bonus material
A Case of the Deads
Remember how I said Shining Force 2 tries to avoid scenarios where dead party members would be forced to participate in scenes? Yeah, Beyond the Beyond continues that tradition.
When we first get Annie it is possible for her to die. It was not easy to engineer this situation and she made it to level 3 despite Finn's efforts to stand around doing nothing while enemies divided their attacks evenly between the two of them. This is the sort of thing that requires either extraordinary bad luck, poor planning (such as trying to grind too much in the cave), or deliberately trying to kill yourself.
Finn! Annie is in terrible shape. We need to get her to a church right away.
However the game won't let you go home without Annie. Despite the fact that she is by all indications stone cold dead we cannot revive her using Spirit Water. This means you literally cannot continue the game unless you can pay the fee at the church in town. This is bad.
Why? Because that traveling salesman is still here. That means it is possible to spend your money and be unable to pay said revival fee. You also can't sell weapons and armor you have equipped, the game prevents the player from ever emptying the weapon, armor, or head slots, and it is possible to use all the expendable items available at this point in the game and have nothing to sell.
It is also possible for Finn to be so weak he cannot survive another random encounter and there is no way for him to get free healing short of cheating.
This is what we generally call an Unwinnable scenario. Oops. As I mentioned it is highly unlikely a player would ever fall into such a trap so the danger here is minimal. This is the sort of situation a player pretty much has to try (and try hard!) to get themselves into.
Of course I wasn't going to test just the first event where it is possible to have a dead character talking. So we give Annie a mulligan, run the beginning again and instead allow Percy to take a dirt nap.
Down in the tunnels Finn and Annie have bats stare into their souls. The fights are slightly more annoying with two characters but having done them with a solo Finn it is easy and boring.
Without Percy the game hits a snag and won't let us proceed. Since it is still possible to rest for free in Isla the same danger of getting stuck isn't present here.
Unless we have everyone, we won't be able to budge it.
This is the real reason this rock is here - to force the player to have the entire team for the scene just up ahead. Nuts to that, however! These are agile kids and there's plenty of room for them to climb over that rock so that's what they do.
Which brings us to an interesting new chapter of Beyond the Beyond - the misadventures of Ghost!Percy. How is he managing this while dead? I have no idea. How does everyone see and hear him despite being dead? Heck if I know. They just do and this scene continues on its merry little way as if nothing was amiss.
That includes the conga line into the prison with Ghost!Percy invisibly following Steiner and Annie politely leaving plenty of space for her dead brother to walk in front of her.
On our way out Ghost!Percy is suddenly forced to reveal his true form! Why? I don't know but the script here glitches (even though I didn't react fast enough to screenshot it) and initially starts with Samson in his hiding spot from the prior scene in here. That's probably because I skipped the rock event and the game quickly cycled scripts as it went through event flags. Fortunately this did not crash.
In other news this was the first time Samson did NOT end the fight in the prison in two rounds. The Bandore soldiers attacked him but he didn't counterattack any of them. Thus it took three rounds and three critical hits for him to mop up. I've played through that segment at least a dozen times now and that's the first time it went so long.
In doing all this I did find novel ways to hasten character deaths. For instance with three party members it went much faster if I stuck the poor sacrificial lamb up front as a meatshield.
During this I also found out that Poisonous Frogs can cast Slow 1 which hits my entire team. As if these enemies needed any help shredding Percy! Jeez Beyond the Beyond you know how to kick my characters when they're down.
The priest in the Border Church won't let you into the shrine with dead party members. He can tell someone is dead even when you sneak up behind him. I couldn't avoid this without walk-through-walls because a check is run when you step on the tile to exit onto the path.
With walk-through-walls it is, of course, possible to avoid stepping on that tile. This presents a new risk because if I kept the code active and entered the next screen the code would activate and can potentially end up with Finn stopped somewhere the game cannot run the puzzle generating script. That would bring the game to a screeching halt as it doesn't accept player input until the puzzle is set up. Thankfully in the several runs I made to test all this that only happened once and seemed to be because Finn stopped right in front of impassable tiles and that script won't let him walk through or into something impassable. (Samson stops Finn's group in the clearing. Before the puzzle is generated the game moves the whole group north several steps. Then it starts shuffling pieces. Thus if it cannot move the party forward it can't set up the puzzle and the script breaks down.)
I have mentioned that walk-through-walls and script breaking can be dangerous, right? Well, using this particular walk-through-walls code can be dangerous given it can be activated by some scripted events that call for NPCs to address the group.
After a little persistence the puzzle was ready to be solved... again. No, this cannot be skipped by using walk-through-walls on the doors. What will be warp tiles when the door opens are flagged as impassable when the doors are shut. Using the code to exit back to the church is fine as long as you don't trigger the fight with Ramue.
Ta-da! I have officially done this puzzle too many times now. Despite my attempts at clever script breaking the devs obviously took this possibility into account for when the priest walks up to block the path the game again checks to see if anyone is dead. (That or this sequence underwent some re-writes and the check is something left over from a pervious version.)
Oh. There is someone dead in your party. Oh great Arawn... Once again grant these people life. *does glowy special effect and fanfare plays*
Then Percy came back to life and the misadventures of Ghost!Percy were well and truly over.
Now you may be thinking "But Abaxa just run outside and kill him off again!" because that's exactly what I was thinking at this point and precisely what I attempted to do. However the devs thought out what could happen. The tunnels below the shrine are an area where random encounters can be found but there's also that big scene where Percy seals the portcullis shut and all player characters must be present. To prevent the player from possibly getting someone killed - especially the two new characters who just joined at level 1 - the devs sneakily keep an event flag active after you complete the puzzle that disables random encounters. (The game starts with this flag active until after the Scooby Doo chase in the Cave of Spirits which is why I mentioned having a bit of a runaround earlier.) Leaving the church and exiting to the overworld would normally enable random encounters but not in this instance.
Here it means we won't encounter any enemies until the portcullis scene is completed. Now there are technically still ways to kill our characters even with no random encounters. There are scripted enemy encounters I could use but the team as-is would be too weak to win such a fight and they're also impossible to run away from once triggered. I could go through the cave backwards with him dead to reach the trigger point. I could also set it up so Percy gets here poisoned and dies after this check is run.
It's something I might do later but truthfully I'm tired of running the beginning over and over again. Instead I'm going to move forward with the game's plot. I did take advantage of being able to go anywhere without the threat of being attacked to do some script hijinks that we'll see later due to spoilers. (Update: We'll be coming back to this as I created a hard save at this priest for further... adventures.)
As a final note in that regard it isn't necessary to rescue Brother Thomas. He will appear in the Border Inn regardless of whether you meet him in the caves so there's no way to screw up and have no save point after Percy leaves.
In the forest east of Zalagoon Samson and Edward meet a brutal end to satisfy my curiosity. Being able to keep them low level makes it easy although these Kobold Lords would also shred Finn and Annie if given half a chance.
With them dead we run screaming to Zalagoon Castle begging for help. It starts out fine enough.
What? Marion's Prince Edward is here to see the King of Zalagoon?
But then the game runs a check to see who is alive in the party and we get the following line.
Then, where is Prince Edward? If he is not here, then you must be lying. Now leave!
That... actually makes sense. I doubt the King of Zalagoon holds many audiences with dead people.
So we run to the local church and pay to have Edward revived. Not Samson, though. We're stingy.
So when the game again runs that dead character check it makes the guard think we're pulling his leg. Well, I guess this thing just sort of happens when you don't have a seven foot tall guy with the eyebrows of doom to scowl at everyone.
You're just a bunch of kids! Quit playing tricks and go home!
Ok, ok, let's reset, NOT get either of them killed and proceed with meeting Advisor Glade. Then we have to go through the sewers to meet Sir Bison.
During the trip Sir Samson dies (again). I let him get poisoned by a zombie and he did indeed take damage walking around and even burned LP when his VP hit zero. When we reach Sir Bison we then learn the man is pretty sharp and thought to have a pastor on hand for just such a possibility.
Oh! Someone in your party is dead. Pastor, could you please heal these people?
Of note is how generic Bison's dialogue is. Why write a line for every individual character when a general statement can do the job?
Sir Bison then steps aside so the priest can do his job.
Oh, great Arawn. Once again, grant this person life so that they may fulfill their destiny! *does glowy special effect and fanfare plays*
I actually do like how all the priest invocations are different. This is something that could have been easily copy-pasted but someone took the time to write something different for each one.
Sir Samson then poofs back into existence causing a bit of excitement in the group. There's no dialogue but they all jump a bit before Sir Bison walks back into position to continue the scene as originally scripted.
That of course isn't going to stop me from jumping back down into the sewers and letting Edward die. Then I just use walk-through-walls to go right to the trigger for the next scene. I'm not walking through a dank sewer if I don't have to!
Sir Samson, I was just about to go find you. Allow me to take you to the King.
So far, so good...
But where's the prince? I cannot take you unless you bring the Prince as well.
Denied! But wait, there's more! These two guards share dialogue (meaning they both call the same line when you talk to them) but what you get if you talk to them a second time is different. I don't know why they bothered programming in two lines like this but they did. I also don't know why prince is capitalized sometimes and not others. Yeah, Beyond the Beyond had some translation problems when it was released.
Prince Edward's friends! We've been waiting. Let me show you... Say, where's the prince? I can't let you in unless you bring the prince along with you.
If Sir Samson is dead their lines change as follows. Again, note the inconsistent capitalization and punctuation.
Prince Edward, I was just about to go find you. Allow me to take you to the king. But, where is Samson? I cannot take you unless you bring Sir Samson with you.
Prince Edward! We've been waiting. Let me show you... Say, where's Sir Samson? I can't let you in unless you bring Sir Samson along with you.
However that's not going to stop us. The pillar scene is already set up and ready to go. With walk-through-walls it is a trivial matter to reach the right trigger and start the scene anyway which is precisely what we do.
Since Sir Samson is dead his sprite doesn't appear. That means there is no sprite to animate and nothing for the camera to follow when he's supposed to walk to the left and try lifting the pillar. We thus have a scene where an invisible ghost tries and fails to lift a pillar and the whole thing happens just offscreen. This is the sort of bizarre situation that screenshots just can't fully convey.
Afterwards we would be stuck in the courtyard without the walk-through-walls code. The guards won't let us leave until we gather our team. Doing so normally means talking to Edward and Samson. However, Sir Samson has no sprite on screen to interact with so we cannot talk to him and thus cannot trip the "talked to Samson" flag. Thus the guards will never let us leave and we can't enter the keep because the gate is shut. We therefore FINALLY break the game by bringing a dead character into a scene. Well, sort of break it since we had to cheat to get into this situation and can just cheat our way back out.
Just to be thorough I thought to check if someone other then Edward or Samson was dead. In this case Annie dies of poison damage - an event that lets me know that characters take no poison damage while on a town/castle map. (Apparently a flag must be set for the damage to track steps and deal damage from poison.) It actually does make some changes in the pillar scene when Annie is dead.
As we saw in update 16, when Sir Samson starts to lift the pillar a sequence of 4 character portraits are shown with exclamation points for dialogue to show the characters are surprised. The 4th portrait is usually Annie but if she is dead it skips her and jumps to Edward's next line instead.
Annie has some dialogue where she's reassuring Finn. Because dead characters shouldn't be talking and the dead character check isn't set up to bar entry if Finn or Annie are dead that means there must be an alternate branch to cover Annie's lines. I guess this sort of makes sense from a narrative perspective. Finn, Annie, and Steiner are just escorting Prince Edward after all and they don't factor into the scene in any meaningful way. They might be the children of high ranking Marion knights but that relationship doesn't mean anything in Zalagoon given the current situation. (Doubly so because neither Sir Samson nor Edward bother to introduce their friends to the king.)
Cheer up Finn! This is just a minor set back. We'll find a way to save Marion yet. Let's regroup, and consider our options. All right?
And that's it. The rest of the scene plays out exactly as it would in the full team version. Just bumping off Annie, however, wasn't enough. Finn is directly addressed so I ran the scene again but with Finn dead. First the game skipped his portrait in the surprise sequence. It then skipped the line where Annie cheers Finn up. Then Steiner addressed Annie rather then Finn.
Cheer up Annie! This is just a minor set back. We'll find a way to save Marion yet. Let's regroup, and consider our options. All right?
Ok, one variable change. That makes sense. Then Annie and Steiner walked up to Edward.
I... I don't know what to do anymore. Zalagoon won't help us, and Sir Samson is cursed... 
I understand how you feel, Prince Edward, but we shouldn't lose hope. We haven't given up yet.
*nods* Thanks, I'm glad that I can count on you guys.
Edward's lines are identical to the full team version but Annie for some reason takes Steiner's line and adds to it. That is an odd change to make. Puzzled I then collected Sir Samson.
Prince Edward... I'm sorry I let you down. If it weren't for Ramue's curse we could've proven ourselves.
Don't be silly, Sir Samson! Aren't you supposed to be the proud hero of Marion? All is not lost. I'm sure Bison is waiting for us. We'll think of a plan by then. *nods* You're right.
Huh, that's not how it goes in the full team version. I wonder why they added extra dialogue and characterization in the optional, less likely to be seen version?
Intrigued I set out to discover how events would unfold if Annie and Finn were dead. Killing them took some time but poison-inflicting enemies down in the sewers made it significantly less tedious. Once Finn dies he can't lead the party any more and Sir Samson takes over. The last time Finn died Annie took over.
The first difference is that the game skips Finn and Annie in the surprised portrait sequence and goes straight to Edward encouraging Samson. Then once the Zalagoon royals have stormed off there's no one to get Edward moving.
That means he has to pull himself together. I was worried I'd suddenly have to command a dead party to collect Edward and Sir Samson via an invisible player character. Instead another alternate version of events plays out.
I... I don't know what to do anymore. Zalagoon won't help us, and Sir Samson is cursed.
Then Steiner flies over and addresses Edward directly. See? It's not just me! The devs ignore the whole "Steiner can only communicate with those pure of heart and by that we mean Finn" when it suits them! There's a reason I threw that out at the first opportunity. (Yeah I know Steiner talks to Edward directly in the full team version but I'm having a bit of a rage here.)
I understand how you feel, Prince Edward, but if you give up now, who will save Marion?
You're right. I won't give up hope.
Then Sir Samson strolls over to join the pack.
Prince Edward... I'm sorry. If it weren't for Ramue's curse, we could've identified ourselves to the King of Zalagoon.
Sir Samson, don't be silly! Aren't you supposed to be the proud hero of Marion? I'm sure Queen Scarlet is waiting for us. We'll think of a plan by then.
I guess you're right.
Then another version of the expanded dialogue appears. Annie and Edward deliver almost the same lines with one major difference being Annie refers to Sir Bison but Edward refers to his aunt Scarlet. Then Samson apologizes and has a totally new line at the end. I'm glad the devs thought through the various possible scenarios and accounted for them but still baffled about the dialogue changes. It seems minor but consider that the only time Sir Samson apologizes directly to Edward is when Finn (or Finn and Annie) aren't present and that makes me scratch my head and wonder.
The scene with Sir Bison and Scarlet will happen without any changes with a dead Finn and Annie. However, the first time I tried this with just Annie dead I used walk-through-walls to go straight from the courtyard to the outer wall (all the Zalagoon exterior areas are one map) intending to jump down the well and climb back up. Once I stopped next to the well the bean script started but since Sir Bison and Scarlet had been moved offscreen at the end of the pillar scene they weren't where they were supposed to be for the bean scene. Everything went just fine until Sir Bison generated the chest with the bean. The two are scripted to say a few more lines then walk back into the castle afterwards but after generating the chest the script hit a snag and I had to reload because the game wouldn't accept any input and mashing buttons to see if the game was waiting on invisible text boxes to close yielded nothing. Oops.
The second time around I avoided this by just walking into the outer bailey as the game expects the player to. I did check this scene with Samson and Edward dead but since they don't have any lines or actions scripted specifically to them the devs apparently thought it no big deal. The scene unfolds the same way as it usually does.
Doing all this I also discovered two things: a glitch (perhaps) and that I missed a couple lines of dialogue that only appear for a brief window of time. The two are related so let's see what they are.
First comes a screenshot that doesn't appear to make any sense when seen. I must stress that I haven't altered any of the screenshots in this update except to create obvious composites and to add those location markers up in the out of bounds goodies section. This shot was snapped just after the first meeting with Sir Bison. I created a savestate there so I could easily get back into the sewers for various dead character tests. That meant I usually went from the scene with Sir Bison directly back into the sewers then came back and used walk-through-walls to reach one of these guards to get the pillar scene rolling. Yeah I could have used walk-through-walls to go directly to the courtyard but I wanted to keep things as designed to eliminate variables.
Imagine my surprise when I decided to skip going into the sewer and head back to town instead. I walked through the castle wall and talked to the guard on the right which put the gate in the bizarre situation that can be seen above. The portcullis into the keep is also open at this time. This is because Zalagoon Castle is set into a strange state where it is halfway between our initial visit and the pillar scene. In normal play this cannot happen but... well, we're not exactly playing normally now are we? (Also of note, there are two gates but the game uses the same graphics for both, resulting in a shadow on the wall to the left of the outer gate being suddenly erased when the portcullis is raised because the game replaces the tiles for the upper arch in addition to the portcullis itself. Whoops your graphics oversight! See these two screenshots from update 14 for this in action.)
First things first. I mentioned I missed some dialogue. That's because the two guards have different lines after you first meet Glade. Usually this is when the player leaves the castle and meets Sir Bison's messenger back in town. Since there's no reason to go back to the castle and the game directs the player into the sewers this is something that is easily missed. Immediately after meeting Glade the guards express admiration for Sir Samson. After meeting with Sir Bison they usher the party into the castle. In the time between those two events the following is what they say:
I'm sorry, but you must remain here until the advisor sends word that you may enter.
The advisor has not yet sent permission for you to enter the castle.
Warning! Animated GIF ahead!
In the glitched (?) state I found the guards the left one said zir line as expected but the right one didn't have any dialogue. Instead interacting with zie causes the game to play the animation sequence to raise the portcullis. I wonder if this was something programmed in to test the animation and was then left in?
At least we can end on something more upbeat - Sir Samson peeking into a well, about to jump down. This is one of those lines were it would have been easy to just code it as "Finn peeks into the well" rather then "%Player_Character peeks into the well" yet the programmers actually thought to use the variable and account for the fact that Finn might be dead.
Next time on Beyond the Beyond - the show must go on.
