Request for information about glitches

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Main - Secret of Mana Hacking - Request for information about glitches

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Yagamoth

Posted on 11-27-13 07:20 PM (rev. 2 of 11-27-13 07:26 PM)

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Greetings,

I'm a Secret of Mana speedrunner (with the current record) and I'm searching for information about the game. Since this community looks very dedicated and seems to understand a large portion (everything?) of the code I figured I could simply ask here.

I have a very basic understanding of how the RAM address-layout looks and I have a source to look up what a lot of useful values (which you can find here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=160945#160945), so I'm not entirely foreign to those things.

However, what I currently can only do via trial and error is testing glitches. However, I seem to have a rather interesting problem with 2 glitches, in that, I can not reliably reproduce them and I do not understand how those work.

The version we use is the standard NTSC (U) version and everything seems to work the same on the japanese release. Now, I am aware that the mechanics are not exactly the same - for some reason the Japanese version runs some cutscenes quicker and can softlock the game (~ not open a passage it should) after defeating some bosses.

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Glitch #1: Soft-Resetting and starting a new game

Secret of Mana does not properly clear the memory when you soft-reset via holding START + SELECT + L + R for about 1-2 seconds. The most common use for this is the "early Mana Sword" glitch, where you use the Frost Forest Neko to savewarp into areas you shouldn't be able to enter. Now, the savewarp is mostly understood. However, here are 2 ways the game gets... weird when you do that:

Weird controls
1)* Power on the console (or emulator for that matter), and then don't press anything until the title screen loops once or twice
2) Soft-reset via holding START + SELECT + L + R for 1-2 seconds
3) Start a new game, enter name and press start
4) At the bottom of the waterfall where you should get control over the Boy, the controls are messed up. Instead of moving with the 1st controller, the 2nd controller can move around. During cutscenes you can still move
5) And here is where I stop understanding completely: When another runner discovered this (StingerPA), he could somehow move with the D-Pad on one controller and attack on the other controller. When I tried to reproduce this, I could only move around, but not attack. Further, the initial Mana-Sword was in one of my attempts way out of position, and stuck about a screen higher inside the water instead of the stone.

* I'm not sure this step is needed. But that's basically why I'm here, I don't know much about this at all.

So... How can that happen? Another possible glitched-setup is this:

1) Load a game where you have the Girl in your party
2) Select the Girl
3) Soft-reset via holding START + SELECT + L + R for 1-2 seconds
4) Start a new game
5) Now You can not really move at all at the bottom of the waterfall. Instead, if you press left and B, you will start the Mana Sword cutscene, but the game will softlock and scroll infinitely to the upper left corner. I assume this is because it can't find the Boy to center the screen on.. ?

Again, I would love to hear why this happens.

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Another thing I was unable to reproduce so far went approx. as follows:
- I fought the 2 wolves in Elinees forest, the Sprite got knocked to the floor because I forgot to equip him
- I equipped the Sprite while he was still on the floor
- Defeated the wolves, talked to the Girl and..
- Suddenly I had 2 of the Girls basic armor in my equipment inventory

Unfortunately I do not know anything more about this. But there seems to be a weird behavior when equipping things on characters that are currently lying on the floor. Another runner once equipped the Axe on the Girl while she was on the floor before the statues in Elinees forest. The Girl showed still the attack-animation of the knuckles, but was able to knock down the Statues still.

Any ideas how this might happen?

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This is not necessarily relevant here, but I really like to know more about Secret of Mana. Also I'm generally interested in weird glitches, easter eggs and quirks. I feel like I can say I know about most of those things, but I do not necessarily understand why. And here's one of those things:

If you savewarp into the intro-cutscene with a full party, you get warped to Potos-village. But your characters are still in what I call "cutscene-mode" and invisible, which brings a few advantages for a speedrun with it. But, why do you get warped to Potos village? Our speculation right now is, that it might be a leftover from a newgame+ mode?

If you'd like to see this used in the Speedrun, you can find it here:
http://youtu.be/9WcViu73WWI?t=42m40s

In any case, thank you a lot for reading and.. I'll probably dig through your information for a while now

- Yagamoth

Edit: Oh and... The ending screen is always a little different each playthrough. Sometimes a crescent moon, full moon or 2/3 moon. The stars are also in different positions. Does anyone know what that is caused by?

Main - Secret of Mana Hacking - Request for information about glitches

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