In my opinion, anything lower than core rules should be frowned upon since it alters enemy damage and I think boosts your hit rate as well (although this might be an IWD thing). If everyone is doing normal in the current version I guess that'd be the standard though.

I'll admit I never thought of Turbo being necessary for someone to run the game, and I agree wholeheartedly with it being used for that reason. However, thats a pretty niche case, and even then I would hope any other community would be fine with such a person using turbo even if it wasn't allowed.

In response to the gatekeeping argument, I can see the logic in that. However, isn't the opposite true as well? If someone wants to run the game and compete with the best times, then sees that turbo is all over the board, but doesn't want to buck up for a controller, we've lost a potential community member right there. In a competitive hobby like speedrunning, you don't want to be outclassed right from the get go due to something silly like not having the "correct" hardware. Sure in this case its only a matter of seconds, but that really can mean everything in a hobby that is based entirely on timing something.

To me, its more than just removing part of the skill set from the run with turbo. It removes part of the human factor, and gives those with optional hardware a distinct advantage. In a longer run, such as glitchless, you'll get tired, you'll lose focus, and you'll get sloppy on your mashing after doing it repeatedly for 5 hours. However, with turbo, despite it possibly being slower than mashing, you are getting rid of all that and everything associated with it. An even footing for competitors is a must for any real competition, and I believe this is a big part of the reason turbo isn't allowed in the majority of speedrunning communities.

I am at a loss as to why turbo became a thing in the first place to be honest. I just remember it kind of showing up one day. I assume there was some kind of discussion behind the scenes, as I cant really find anything here on the site. Any clarification would be welcome, it'd be nice to have it out here in a public forum for people who were curious such as myself.

I want to reiterate, I do not think banning turbo outright will solve anything and agree with mrstarbird that there really is no easy solution that will please everyone. Its no secret I'm not a fan of using anything but the basics to speedrun (which might be odd considering I play a genesis game on my computer using a playstation 3 controller) and I'm glad to see some more opinions on the subject. In the end its just some people playing a video game fast, and not a serious matter at all, but I think that this discussion on a somewhat controversial topic is healthy for the community.

I've been thinking a little about the usage of turbo in this game in particular as of late. I generally do not mind the usage of turbo, although it may add another barrier of entry to become competitive in certain games. However, I think that Phantasy Star 2, far more so than the other titles, has mashing as a definitive skill. Dialogue for instance can be triggered on every frame using different inputs, and therefore the style and quickness of one's mashing is definitely a factor in the run. In any%, the repeated inputs of the item stats glitch test the runner as well. These inputs are trivialized using a turbo button, and can create an impossible standard for people running without them.

So I put forward my question: if you think that mashing in this game is a skill, do you think turbo should still be allowed? If you don't think its a skill I would like to hear your thoughts on that as well. I want to be clear, I am not advocating getting rid of runs with turbo already posted, But I would like to create a dialogue on how we move forward.

I know turbo is a tricky subject for all games, but I've been thinking about this title in particular since I worked on the latest TAS and thought a lot about the inputs that were used and how much quicker they are when they're automated. Hopefully we can get some discussion going here.

https://imgur.com/a/1xSb641

Another useless glitch. To get this to happen, just enter and leave the monitor map while hitting C repeatedly (I recommend turbo C and fast forward on) and hold a direction. Seems like A and C can be hit during other fade outs as well - might be worth looking into.

I've looked into the JP version a bit, and I'm getting the same results - sometimes a freeze, sometimes a reset. I'll keep at it and revisit the Saturn version as well. One thing I found was really interesting in my testing is when I tried using the game genie codes (no encounters, walk through walls) I had for the English version it instead called up Sean's ending when an encounter was supposed to be initiated. I wonder if this means that there might a bit of a switch up in the programming between the two versions.

Added PSP Sega Genesis Collection and Wii VC to the list. Makes sense that thats why it works on GBA, but might as well test it all just for posterity. I've tried a ton of items, but maybe theres a golden goose that stops it that I've missed. Worth checking out the inventory of characters who start with less than 4 items as well, the final slot could have something worthwhile. Reusable items behave normally, the spells are cast and thats that - I've tried having two people use the same item but that doesn't work either. Just have to keep at it and think outside the box, and hopefully we can stop using the GBA version lol.

Hi guys, I figure it'd be nice to catalogue what happens when you attempt the inventory underflow (empty the inventory and use an item in battle) in the various versions of the game that have been released. Obviously the GBA version doesn't crash, but perhaps there are others as well. I'll start with the ones I've done:

Genesis EN/JP: Crash to title Steam EN: Crash to title GBA (Phantasy Star Collection) EN: Inventory underflow Saturn (Sega Ages 1998: Phantasy Star Collection) JP: Hardlock PSP Sega Classics Collection EN: Crash to title (odd stall compared to other consoles, but might be an emulation error) Wii VC EN: Hardlock Nintendo Switch EN: Crash to title.

I'll keep testing as I get my hands on other versions. Hopefully we can get some contributions and I'll update the list periodically.

Some interesting discussion about how the shift works in the TASVideos submission forum, might be interesting for code warriors who have some idea of what they're talking about (unlike me). http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20619

Very cool. Sounds like its basically down to getting a credits warp at this point. Awesome job from both you and Mormot on the code stuff.

Here you go:

All Chaz because my inventory was empty. I suspect that the death corruptions stop because Chaz becomes considered Android Dead, or perhaps something to do with the macros (no more corrupted ones? might need to make a few more before starting the corruption). In any event thats my best guess there.

Big thing we need to look into is chests. I've set the flag for the principal of Piata to think Hahn (pre-Edge) is in the party by opening up one of the chests in Piata basement. I wonder if we can push these event flags into actual useful stuff like opening up the edge or skipping the towers on Rykros if we open the right chests.

So I was experimenting with multiple glitches, with chaz being dead bumping it up one slot multiple times then performing the final one. Whether or not you can do it multiple times seems to depend on the xp that Chaz has when you start it, since that presumably influences what the stats are for the next iteration. I'm not sure how deep we can go, I think in some of my testing I got up to 4 or 5, but sometimes it just seems to stop at 1 or 2 without being able to be pushed again. Not really sure why.

Anyways, if you do 2 before you do a big one, once you hit Piata you can either Ryuka or Telepipe your way directly to Rykros (by selecting one of the Piatas) - skipping DF3 and Zio. I am assuming that with further corruption it would be possible to reach places on Dezolis as well.

This is pretty cool stuff. I'm going to say that Chaz being dead is some kind of smaller increment for shifting stuff based on how his TP only shifts up one. Its very interesting that using Rune/Rika instead of Gryz/Rune resets the flags. Gryz/Rune would always call up the seth transformation scene on the world map, albeit with the entirety of the Vahal Fort dialogue. Clearly, every little thing you do has some kind of consequence for doing this stuff.

I ran through a bit of your route here and noticed some things. Its really odd how with the Rune/Rika set up here, the only place that the macro will have an effect is the cave - and its pretty tough to get a clean run here since after shifting everything one shots you. I wonder if a different equipment set up would allow it to happen on the world map, I noticed that it could change stuff like that when I was doing my testing with Gryz/Rune.

Seems like you have to delete your macros in order for Hahn to take the place of Gryz before igglanova, don't want anyone to get caught by that.

Edit: Figured out my meseta questions. Still very curious as to why I was getting the Seth transformation scene instead of the event reset, as I tested with a Gryz/Rune setup and it did the event reset this time - definitely something to look into.

Had a thought about something I came across while skipping Rika, and tooled around with it for a bit. This is what I've come up with for now:

(Copied from Youtube description): If you skip getting RIka, you end up with glitched characters you cant use. However, using Macro A while they're in your party can have a variety of effects (try doing it without Chaz being dead). When Chaz is dead, it will bump up his TP value to his HP and greatly mess with the game. Doing it a couple more times allows for him to "level up" to 99 despite being dead. Terrain and enemy configurations are important for the glitched character macro to actually succeed, generally if its on a beach on Motavia it will work. Very interesting stuff.

Did a little preliminary testing. Seems like what techs you can get are based on what skills the character can pick in the macro menu. Since these are all techs, if its actually a skill it will crash the game - but there are exceptions (vortex/flare to a degree). Heres the entire list and their associated skills: Chaz:Saner (Earth), Foi (crosscut), Githu (Airslash), Gifoi (rayblade), Gelun (Explode) Alys: Nawat (Vortex), Feeve (Moonshadow), Res (Death) Hahn: Astral (Vision), Tsu (Astral), Doran (Eliminate) Seth: Shift (Shadow), Savol (Corrosion), Regen (Mind Blast), Nares (Death Spell) Rune: Wat (Flaeli), Zan (Hewn), Seals (Diem), Gizan (Tandle), Nazan (Efess), Sar (Negatis), Gra (Legeon) Kyra: Dblslash (Medice), Disrupt (Flaeli), Nasar (Telele), Hewn (Hewn lol), Crosscut (Warla), Rever (Bindwa), Tandle (Tandle) Wren: Burstroc (Recover), Giwat (Flare), Efess (Spark), Legeon (Barrier), Deban (HyperJammer), Gigra (Burstroc), Nagra (Positron Bolt) Rika: Gisar (Illusion), Nafoi (Doubleslash), Airslash (Eliminat), Nathu (Disrupt) Raja: Hinas (Blessing), Gires (Holyword), Vortex (Ataraxia), Flaeli (Miracle), Vol (St. Fire) Demi: Rayblade (Recover), Rimpa (StatisBm), Rimit (Spark), Arows (Barrier), Flare ~cutscene (Medical Power), Brose (Phonon) Gryz: Anti (Crash), Ryuka (War cry), Megid (Sweeping)

Skills are proving to be pretty interesting, and whether they work or have other fun effects seems to be on a per character basis, gonna continue looking into it.

Edit: Played with the skills, seems like whether or not they can be used is based on a memory value, and this also determines how many times they can be used. Of course its different for each character, and the same skill modifies different values as such. For example: Rune using Hahn's vision takes away from the first letter in Rika's name - allowing her to become who she always wanted to be: Mika ( https://imgur.com/a/l4zPSvP ). Similarily, using Astral with Chaz gives Rune the business: https://imgur.com/a/FO4x5ts . These are just some examples, there are other letter changing ones. However there are a bunch more that I dont understand what they do, definitely need some RAM watch or somesuch thing to figure it out and thats a bit beyond me in all honesty.

Finally got it done. Macros featuring spells that the characters cant cast are a reality. Lots of testing ahead. https://imgur.com/a/CMWt4zo https://imgur.com/a/FGdc7ZX

Edit: Forgot the How-to

How to:

1. Have at least 3 characters, and an item inventory that can go to 3 pages.
2. Initiate the macro glitch (do it 3 times in a row). Select either Techs, Skills or Items to store the menu for that respective option (techs are picked in this video).
3. Go to a new area, and initiate the glitch again, but once its done hit B ONCE and the glitched options will show up. Selecting these will put them in the macro for whatever character you chose. Once this is done, finish creating the macro.
4. Select a different macro slot, and select item. Scroll to the right and if you have 3 pages it will break you free of the "minus menus".
5. Go and use your new macro!

Seems impossible to do the dezolis skip. Simply initiating the glitch makes it so the stairs down are unable to be accessed. However, the glitch is very possible to do in real time, the second instance can be bypassed by completing the second input and then backing out and doing it again, same timing as the first and with the same lenience. Only the last one is frame perfect with no fallback and its just something you have to practice. This sets up some interesting stuff. If you do things correctly after getting Rune, you can access Aiedo using the Ryuka glitch with Rune. This allows for bypassing both Rika and Gryz. I'm in early testing with this stuff but having only Rune/Gryz and Chaz sets up a glitched character after 1st Zio such as: https://imgur.com/a/jFcWfhT . While not immediately useful, each "Eliminator" is worth around 10k a pop, and they come infinitely. Finding out if we can manipulate this glitched character's inventory would be huge, an Elsydeon 35 minutes into the game would be a gamechanger but I'm not sure what we can do at this moment. Other uses, such as skipping Kyra and keeping Raja for Dezo are something that need further exploration as well.

You're right, of course, MrStarbird. If you dont have Gryz (and not Rika for whatever reason) before you grab the Landmaster the game goes into an infinite dialogue loop when you enter the area. Gonna be tricky figuring stuff out with the restrictions we have in place.

Edit: This glitch is a hoot. You can use it to reveal Demi's hidden talent which results in some knowledge being dropped.

Well well, got something going here. Extremely hard to do manually. Seems to swap you to the world map and you can potentially walk through objects. Save and load and you'll see what I mean.

Update: Definitely works in other places, but a lack of save states is making things difficult for me to test. The only other place I've been testing is the basement of the temple in order to see if we can get the Dezo skip to work. This was on the japanese version but I'm pretty sure it doesnt make a difference, no luck so far though. Even if it doesnt work out, you can get into a really bugged out map in the temple and when you save and load you appear on the world map. It could be possible to just skip the Air Castle altogether by finding our way to Garuberk Tower in the glitched map - provided we cant reach the stairs in the temple of course.

Very interesting, I wonder if the guys over at TASvideos would have a better idea of whats going on. The macro skill one is extremely cool, and its what I was talking about when I was talking about the ghost characters. It lets you do things like: https://imgur.com/a/TI2InJu Of course the real trick is figuring out how to keep the macro around. If you end up doing it 3 times in a row it really messes shit up, like I had it resize the window and even reset the game. Gonna keep poking around with it. Another thing I've found is saving and reloading seems to set everything to a static state across the board, might be worth checking out stuff after saving+loading since I'm sure small things like exp probably contribute to what happens if you do the glitch. Who knows though.

Good to know people are looking into it, this seems like it could definitely lead to something.

I've continued looking into it myself and have made a couple of discoveries...I think.

1. Hitting an input that allows you to move after selecting an option, such as doing the glitch and selecting battle speed and being able to move while the input is blinking definitely stores the menu selected in memory.

2. What will happen when you initiate the glitch is definitely dependent on the lead character's position when you do it. A square that leads to an immediate crash might be right next to one that allows you to store a menu, it really seems quite random.

3. Storing a menu and then initiating the glitch on the same map (eg. top floor of piata's school -> top floor again) will almost certainly always crash the game (but you might be able to save before it does).

4. However, moving to a different floor and initiating the glitch while a menu is stored will definitely produce different results.

5. What options you choose (Battle Speed, Message, Button, Save) through out the entire series of glitching will again change the final result dramatically. Edit: So does equipment and who is in the lead, but im really not sure how or why it works like it does. For example, if you have Alys first and manipulate her equipment some of the options change (crashes into dummy dialogue), but if you put chaz first and dont remove alys equipment the game will crash before it even gets into the "shop" dialogue - really wierd.

For example: When I did Battle Speed -> Message I was able to access a menu which allowed me to hit A and access different strings (which changed based on which frame and inputs were used before the dialogue popped up) and gave me results such as: https://imgur.com/a/5Cr4FQA

However, when I did Button -> Button, the menu I was able to access didn't allow me to access these strings but instead I could move left through a menu, and when I pressed right it would do different things based on how many left inputs there were before. Examples: https://imgur.com/a/S27WDYY

6. Finally, it is only 100% consistent if you do things starting from a new game. Loading a previous file seems to have different results.

Unfortunately theres not a whole lot I found that could be immediately useful for a real time speedrun. Note that all this stuff is based on the start menu stuff, the macro scenario seems a bit different, as results require you to intitate the glitch twice in the same area in order to get deeper into the code. However it has the added benefit of sometimes allowing you to access the menu and with a ryuka/hinas option selectable we could hypothetically get some kind of wrong warp if the data is corrupted enough. I haven't done much testing here, but I'll give it a whirl right after the party gets Rune to see if anything sticks sometime in the future.

So I accidentally stumbled onto a glitch when I was doing attempts the other night that softlocked the game right at the start. I looked into it a bit further and found that if you hit B exactly 17 frames after the A/C input to accept in the Battle Speed/Message Speed windows it'll trigger this glitch. It seems what it does changes depending on your position, but this is based on pretty limited testing. Not a whole lot of useful stuff comes from it, aside from a save anywhere scenario sometimes. Mostly I've found it just hardlocks or straight up crashes the game. It also works with the macro menu if you press B 10 frames after accepting the created macro - this can result in things such as a macro with a ghost character using holy word. It seems that you can compound this glitch ontop of itself (2+ frame perfect inputs, ouch.) to create different results as well.

I'm going to do a bit more testing, but I figured it'd be helpful to post this here to spread the word.