I wanted to compile a list of known glitches in this game. Feel free to add on in the comments if you find one that isn't on this list and I will edit the post to include it!
Glitches with Probable Time Save
- Tell Duplication and Partial Scene Skip [TDPSS] (Discovered by DissidiaMarlQ**)**
This glitch involves going to the cave where Tell is located and playing the horn to get him into your party. Once Cornet finishes playing her horn, the egg brothers will thank you and will "help you find your prince" Once you clear that dialogue box two things will happen, First Kid and Tell will do their bouncing animation, and second the player gains control over Cornet. However, there is still one more dialogue that has to happen before the cutscene is over. If the player leaves the scene (by running right as soon as the player regains control) the game will be in a weird state where Tell will be in your party but his flag for having been obtained hasn't been set yet and the game still thinks you should be in a cutscene. Going back into Tells' room in this state will result in the room not loading and a dialogue box showing saying Tell joined the party. If instead, you were to talk to a shopkeeper or any actor that gives you a choice or Ledgem right outside the cave then the cutscene is cleared and you will still have Tell in your party without the game setting the flag that you have obtained him, allowing you to get infinite Tells on one save file.
The more interesting part of this glitch comes with the game still thinking you are in a cutscene. as long as you don't interact with specific actors in the game the next cutscene (some exceptions IE getting swallowed by the earthworm scene is not affected) the player enters will be glitched. Similar to the battle with the monsters prior to popping up in the men's room, the room will not load, and the character avatars for their text boxes also will not load. the cutscene will also do one of several things, (I doubt I have found all the outcomes) it will skip the first few text boxes, or if there is a Yes/No option in the scene it will skip to that part of the cutscene and assume you said yes (since you already answered yes to allow tell into the party we think the game transfers that option over to the new cutscene and proceeds from there) there are more of course but feel free to try and see where more timesave can be acquired. once whatever cutscene you were in ends the map and sprites will not be loaded but all the collision will be, the player can move about blindly if they wish, or open and close the menu and the map and sprites will refresh. Note: some scenes spawn Cornet out of bounds which can be fun to mess around with but aren't particularly useful as far as I can "Tell"
- Player movement During Terras joining Cutscene. (Discovered by the_everafter**)**
Similar to the tell glitch but not as powerful, there is a small window of time after Cornet plays her horn to allow Terra to join the party where the player regains control of Cornet. The Cutscene does disable the loading zones for this room so there isn't a way to exit this room in this state and duplicate Terra in the same way but, as long as the last dialogue box is open the player can not be hit with a random encounter. While it's not a big timesaver, if you are already getting Terra, then using this glitch and not clearing the final text box until you are near the exit going towards the Catseye chest, will at least guarantee not having a time loss due to a RE in this room.
When moving it is recommended to move down and left to avoid walking into Sharte and to avoid accidentally attempting to talk to Sharte and soft-locking the game
- Reward Counter Transfer [RCT] (Discovered By the_everafter**)**
For some reason, after you beat the game, and the credits have rolled and the "Fin" screen is up. if the player goes to the main menu (Without resetting) if the player immediately starts a new game, (PS and PC not verified on switch) the Reward counter from the previous game will transfer over to the new game. This can possibly save maybe a minute in the first part of the run if not more it's still a new glitch as of writing this and has not been fully tested and routed but it's incredibly easy to set up just play a game through to Marjolly and in the ancient weapons battles ensure you end with a full stack of counters, then at the wedding save the game so you can get to this point quicker in subsequent setups. wait for the credits to roll and start a new game.
interestingly rolling over to the title screen like this will also result in the player being able to pause the game when they shouldn't like on the Atlus or NIS screens etc.
- Frog Mercy [working title] (Submitted by: Moka**)** During the Couples Counseling questline (solving the relationship issues with the soldier and the captain's daughter in Mothergreen) you have to go back to Natalie River and get the "Toad" key Item from defeating the toads. However, defeating only one of the toads in that encounter is necessary, for the story flags to be set for this quest to be allowed to continue. Acquiring the Toad key item does not appear to be necessary. This may not save time in Any% but it is one less item that would need to be acquired if a Low% Category is ever run for this game!
Glitches Unlikely to Save Time
((Place Holder Section))
Glitches that will hinder a Speedrun
- SoftLock in the bathroom Scene (Discovered by: unknown**)** After Cornet cooks the Bobo and Kururu leads her to the underground tunnels to Mothergreen, there is a cutscene at the end of the underground that triggers the battle, Specifically Kururu hitting the switch to make monsters appear. After that battle, there is one text box, Clearing that text box too quickly will cause a softlock in the next screen that will look like TDPSS but once the scene finishes the game will no longer progress to the bathroom battle.
I'll add more in the future and as we find more!
Thanks, Edit log: 5/11/2024 - Added "Frog Mercy" submitted by Moka. Changed some formatting and grammar fixes. Added Hyperlinks to videos showing the glitches
You can also skip the song with the prince and Cornet. I don't know what to do precisely, but if you mash cross and circle fastly when L-kun leaves the scene, the song is skipped.
At the point where Cornet obtains the Frog, the event proceeds if she escapes after defeating the frog, even if he does not win the battle with the frog.
This video is for the PS version, but the glitch works for the PC version as well.
@Uloora This is intended mechanics and not necessarily a glitch, several cutscenes in the game are skippable this way, for instance if you select "yes" to Kururu asking Cornet to sing, once she is done with her movement animations to get to her singing spot you can hit circle (or whatever other key/button the skip action is bound too) and it will skip the scene, for the prince dance song, that is considered one of the skippable cutscenes. I wish that were the case with more of the cutscenes but as far as i can tell those two instances are the only two we encounter in the current any% route
