Phantasy Star IV - Forums - Menu Glitch

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.

She/Her

I've got Lory looking into it in the Assemby portion to see what is causing it. Mor_mot discovered that the glitch can be used to save anywhere, which can be handy but nothing too game-breaking so far. Newer runners I can see using it a bit to save before Triplets, Lashiec, DF2, or PD, but experienced runners with good times won't have much use for it unless they are ahead of their splits by a huge amount.

Using it for Macros, however... now this could be interesting, especially if you can technically get a 6th character in there casting other abilities. But, one thing at a time.

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.

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

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.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

She/Her

This is from Lory:

"the game keeps track of the number of opened windows....normally when it reaches 0, you regain control of the characters (technically there's a mode switch) however when you press Cancel in that exact frame, the game calls the destroy window subroutine and decrements the counter and it becomes negative unfortunately everything starts becoming too random to discover what can be done via code; I think it's faster to just mess around."

"so I found out there are 2 other windows where that bug happens; I'm not sure if you get slightly different results if you do it from different windows anyway the other 2 windows are the BUTTONS option and the Skill list in the Macro for the Skills, the bug is done after you select a Skill for a character"

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.

She/Her

this was something I brought up last night in discord as well, about things like experience influencing what happens. I'm also getting reports that different emulators give different results. I'm going to test out the Wii version slightly later today.

Though the fact that you got Megid to appear in a Macro is sweet. I am curious what sort of other skills/techs can come of this and how badly it breaks the game. also makes me wonder if insta-death skills can override the game's coding to kill bosses in one shot (unlikely, but depending on what this glitch can do, it is possible it could shift byte values to the point where a bosses, normally immune to the ability, would be guaranteed to be hit by it).

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.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

She/Her

Very nice find. The thing I have found when working on the randomizer that trying to do events out or order without the right flags set (i.e. getting seth before going to birth valley or getting rune in ladea tower before getting him in molcum) seems to mess a lot of things up. That being said, there is still a lot of potential even so to skip a ton of parts in dungeons, like the air castle.

Definitely will have to get more testing done. This could potentially get to the rykros warp in piata.

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.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

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:

Have at least 3 characters, and an item inventory that can go to 3 pages.
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).
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.
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".
Go and use your new macro!

Edited by the author 6 years ago

She/Her

Lol. That Demi video looks like it calls up an anti-piracy check? Maybe? I got similar issues when getting Seth early when I tested out a rando theory.

With the macro glitch, Rune looks like he's going to be more OP than thought. Get him to cast Sar or GiSar and the route changes entirely... if it can. Hell, Saner alone is huge.

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.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

wew

EDIT: if you try to use efess by itself as anyone but rune, you'll crash the game. i guess that makes this pretty risky because if you get outturned and the combo breaks, rip

Edited by the author 6 years ago

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.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

veo_ likes this

figured i'd update this thread with the findings me and mor_mot have been doing with jiseed's latest discovery.

so basically what's going on is that the game is shifting a whole bunch of bytes to the left by 4. this has a massive effect on the game, as you can imagine. even better, we found out that depending on the party order and some other factors we don't quite understand, you can change the scope of the byte shift. for example, chaz in front with rune in 2nd position will shift almost all of the bytes in the entire region of ram dedicated to stuff that goes in your save file. specifically, it seems to shift everything from F000 to F800, approximately. the implications of this are huge. here are a few of the ones we've found:

the first 3 items in your inventory get shifted into your party order. so you can basically use this to get whatever party members you want, including a massive range of glitched party members that were previously inaccessible to us. a lot of potential testing to be done with those glitched members.
your meseta gets shifted into your inventory. this is huge. we can use this to get whatever two items we want (it's possible to get a third but it would require a ton of meseta grinding). in this case, the most useful two seem to be the psycho wand and the hydrofoil, acquired by setting your meseta to 14,744 (or 39 98 in hex) before performing the byte shift.
all affected characters' EXP gets shifted into their level. this affects character stats in a lot of weird ways that are hard to understand. gryz gets byte shifted in a way where levelling him up corrupts a whole bunch of stats, not just of his but of other characters too. if we level up gryz after doing the byte shift, rika will level up to 99, for example. if chaz is around level 5 when we perform the byte shift, chaz will also level up to be quite strong afterwards. again, this is hard to understand, and probably requires more experimentation.

while there's still a lot to be done and experimented with, i already came up with a preliminary route that i think is worth testing out:

play normally up to tonoe
set up inventory so the first three items are lthr cloth, lthr helm, lthr crown (gryz, rika, demi)
skip gryz, get the alshine
ryuka glitch to aeido, then go through the cave
use alys and rune to make a nawat macro, then go through zio's fort and fight juza with rune
get demi. then ryuka to zema and get rika
set up meseta to 14,744, then go to valleymaze and perform a byte shift with chaz at level 5
flags get reset, returned to the start of the game. go inside and talk to alys
use a telepipe to ryuka glitch past hahn and give gryz 1 level
go back and replace gryz with hahn (if we don't have hahn, the iggy cutscene will crash the game)
kill iggy again, then take the hydrofoil to zio's fort
use an escapipe to hinas glitch past the magic barrier, then go through nurvus and fight zio
after zio, go to zelan and get wren, then return to motavia
fly to df3 and kill him
do rykros normally
afterwards, go to kuran and kill df1 to get the ice digger
go to espmansion, get elsydeon
go to motavia and walk through the edge. due to messed up flags, we dont have to fight PD, the game thinks shes already dead, so gg

EDIT: nvm, some stuff about this route is wrong. chaz needs to be level 2 or 3 but with level 1 stats (dont update them), hahn needs at least 750 exp to become super hahn.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

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.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

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.

veo_ likes this

that sounds awesome! i'm going to experiment with it. regarding doing a shift in the cave, mor_mot and i have been doing it by waiting for either a surprise attack or a group of Carrion Crs. even with those, it still requires luck (surprise attack requires chaz to wake up, carrion crs require chaz to wake up AND requires the surviving carrion cr to use thread instead of attack) but it's more consistent than just hoping.

okay so i figured out how the planet warping works. F400 is the byte that determines what planet we're on, and what planet we'll end up on if we use a telepipe. if you set this to 02, we'll warp to rykros. gonna try to figure out a consistent setup to do this with characters who can finish the game

EDIT: removed a bunch of dumb incorrect speculation i should have actually tested before posting about lol

i'm having trouble reproducing the multiple shifts you're talking about. the only time i can do multiple, they're too small to even effect past the 500 range. can you post a video reproducing the effect you're talking about? i want to see what's different about your setup.

Edited by the author 6 years ago