Final Fantasy 3us/6j Glitches & Bugs guide By Master ZED (cytekzed@aol.com *OR* http://masterzed.cavesofnarshe.com/) Table of Contents: 0. Version history 1. Intro 2. In battle - Blitz - Commands - Disappearance glitches - Equipment/Items - Quick - Slot - Spells - Statistics - Status - Swdtech - Miscellaneous 3. Overworld/Locations 4. Miscellaneous 5. Version specific - Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) • In battle • Overworld/Locations • Subscreen • Miscellaneous - Final Fantasy Anthology, Greatest Hits (PS) - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) (PS) - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) • In battle • Overworld/Locations - Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) • In battle • Subscreen - Final Fantasy 3 U.S. version 1.0 (SNES) - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom) • Overworld/Locations • Subscreen 6. Undetermined - In battle - Miscellaneous 7. Glitches/bugs seen via hacking - Final Fantasy 3 U.S. (SNES) 8. Removed bugs 9. Credits, links, and contact info 10. Elongated table of contents Non-numbered. Legal bull ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. Version history ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- v2.6 (5:04 PM 12/14/2004) 161 bugs as of this update (2 additions) 2. In battle updates: - Equipment/Items Dice weapons have numbers on the wrong sides - Spells Second Charm makes first charmer's spell useless - Status Dying from the first Rage turn loses Rage-inflicted status [edit] Death, Petrify, and Zombie lose permanent status beginning battle, but not immunity [edit] Imped Ragers keep automatic movement, but not anything else [edit] Mute steals your Rage-inflicted status on attempted spell casts [edit] 5. Version specific updates: - Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) *Section has been renamed • Overworld/Locations Phantom Train music cuts out and back in randomly after battles [edit] • Miscellaneous Fast loading can cause an idle game to have problems with or completely stop loading *changed to* Loading problems with idle games [move] [edit] • PS2-only glitches *Section Removed - Final Fantasy Anthology, Greatest Hits (PS) *Brand new section Remove Locke and Celes from the party after Zozo, before Vector [move] - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) *Section has been renamed X-type instant death weapons/Dragon Horn [edit] - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) • Overworld/Locations Garbage Chocobo rider [edit] - Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) • Subscreen The red/yellow streak in Gogo's command options window [edit] Miscellaneous updates: Entire doc reformatted for 80 character limit. Table of Contents and section 10 updated to account for new sections. 9. Credits, links, and contact info updated. -------------------- You can find the entire version history here: http://masterzed.cavesofnarshe.com/GameDocs/ff3bugVH.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Intro ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ragnarok's Flare damage is affected by attacker row, proof that the game hates anyone who wants to understand it." - Assassin The above is pretty much the truth. It's why I made this beast of a guide. Welcome to the Glitches and Bugs guide, an overview of the mistakes made in the creation of Final Fantasy 6 and its latter incarnations. This guide is to tell you what went wrong in the code, and the rules of FF3 only a man snorting crack cocaine would be able to come up with and put into practice. Now keep in mind, this is no FFX, this battle system isn't anywhere near bugfree. We're talking a couple massive failures in the testing department of Squaresoft show up in this doc. Studying this game is like a training course for beginning law practitioners; here's your rulebook, now try and nail me on a certain charge in such a way I can't squirm out of it based on lies, technicalities, exceptions, loopholes, rumors, and stupidity. The difference here is simple; lack of documentation. There isn't a big bad law book ready to crush your widdle head, just ever-expanding nothingness, meaning you'd better have some friends or be ready to test your theories in court, on-the-fly, and be ready for Judge Judy to throw everything you got back in your face for no apparent reason. Oh, and that rulebook I handed you? Doesn't exist. That was vaporware, my friend. And even if you do have documentation, who cares? Rippler is one of the best examples. It says only specific status, and yet this spell allows frogs to kidnap and kill your dog. You like your pal Interceptor? Avoid that Reach Frog then, or Interceptor's going to sleep! No, Rippler's not supposed to do that. Yet it can. The lie that says it can't is the spell's own stats. Even the game's hex data lies! Hence why you definitely want to read this. If there's something happening in battle you think shouldn't, read on, I might have the answer you seek. Otherwise, just have fun reading about the different kinds of glitches that pop up all over the game. There's plenty of rule-breaking for everyone! Some very minor clarification here when you start seeing Dragon Horn bugs; I'll use the terms non-landing jump/attack and landing jump/attack a lot. If you don't know what this means, non-landing is in reference to hits within the combo and landing is the attack that ends the combo. In non-landing jumps, the character comes down to hit the target and jumps again, in the other, he lands and goes back into formation. One last note; I do know the difference between a glitch and a bug, but most don't, and most aren't going to care, hence my own changing between words in this document. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. In battle ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- Blitz -------------------- Mantra defies all mathematical logic! - Normally, Mantra's damage is caster's HP / (number of targets - 1), while deliberately missing the caster. If you don't already see where this is going, try this; lower the number of enemies in a fight to one if it isn't a lone enemy already. Order Sabin to cast Mantra, but before he does, Muddle him. While Sabin won't change his attack from what you already told him to do (Mantra), he will change his aiming, and will target the enemy group. If there is only one enemy left, Mantra's formula will end up calculating, and more importantly, dealing caster's HP / 0 worth of HP restoration/damage. On the SNES, this comes out to the highest possible value the accumulator can hold, which in this case is 65535. Truncated, Mantra ends up doing 9999. -------------------- Commands -------------------- Capture + Offering = bad pickpocket - Don't try this combo unless you like losing items. If you steal more than one item in a single turn, you only get the first item you nabbed. What's worse, the subsequent steals still count as far as the monsters are concerned, so if you nab a second item off of a monster, you won't get the item AND you won't get a second chance at it. Finally, there is a chance text bugs will crop up, i.e. listing that you stole an item from an enemy that doesn't even carry that item, although it will only list items that can be stolen from someone in the battle. Psychot/Wizard is a nice example of this. However, the combo is perfectly acceptable if there is only one enemy on the battlefield, the glitch only affects multiple enemies. Certain weapons lose functionality with Capture - Some weapons, such as Atma Weapon, Drainer, and Fixed Dice, have special effects that tell the game to treat them differently and to what extent (drain HP/MP, new damage formulas, etc.) Capture negates a weapon's special effect to replace it with a steal attempt. This results in some weapons not functioning correctly. Here's a list of weapons and subsequent functionality errors: Atma Weapon; Does normal damage, cannot ignore defense, and is stuck as a short knife. Striker, Assassin, Wing Edge, Trump/Doom Darts (dependent on game version); No instant kills. The game version is in reference to Trump and Doom Darts, as the names are switched between the two weapons on FF3us and FF6 PS (Anthology or the European release). Man Eater; No 2X damage multiplier for human targets. Drainer; Does normal damage, can't absorb HP. Soul Sabre; Does normal damage, can't absorb or otherwise affect MP. Rune Edge, Ragnarok, Illumina, Punisher; Can't use MP to do critical hits. Hawk Eye, Sniper; Can't do random 1.5X damage to grounded enemies or random 3X damage to flying enemies, also can no longer use throw graphics (used in place of normal strike when doing 3X damage). Dice, Fixed Dice; Does normal damage, Hit Rate serves normal function instead of as the number of dice to throw, resulting in a 2 or 3 Hit Rate depending on the weapon, no longer unblockable (making it near impossible to connect with an enemy due to an extremely poor Hit Rate), graphic glitches caused by the loss of a special damage formula as the game doesn't know what side the dice/die landed on. Needless to say the dice weapons are the most affected by this bug and you should avoid pairing them with Capture at all costs, unless you just want to see the terrible results for yourself. ValiantKnife; No longer defense ignoring and no more bonus from max HP - current HP. Tempest; Can't cast Wind Slash. Heal Rod; No longer heals HP, does damage instead. Scimitar; Can't dice up enemies. Ogre Nix; Can't use MP for critical blows or break. Change row in a Pincer attack - Normally, when you begin a fight in a Pincer attack, all characters are in the front row. You can use the Row command to turn around, but oddly it also switches rows. This isn't a visable change, but something you'll notice in damage dealt and received. Since there should be no rows for characters in a Pincer (and for enemies, no rows in a Side attack, but they don't change rows midbattle anyway), the effect on damage becomes a very sneaky bug. Jump doesn't reload weapon data - Palidor-induced jumps and Jump itself have a tendency to not reload any weapon data between Dragon Horn combination strikes, causing all of the strikes to, if they have special effects that are supposed to randomly kick in, be the same once that effect is loaded. For example, if ThiefKnife uses Capture on any given Dragon Horn jump, all subsequent jumps will Capture. If Ogre Nix breaks, that and all subsequent jumps in the Dragon Horn combo will still act like Ogre Nix is there. Tempest and Striker, etc. are the same way, but due to those weapons creating disappearance bugs AND Square treating them seperately, Tempest/Dragon Horn and X-type instant death weapons/Dragon Horn both get their own listings (see 2. In battle - Disappearance glitches and 5. Version Specific - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy Anthology (PS) respectively). Jump only uses one weapon of a dual weapon wielder... or so it seems! - If you use Jump with two weapons, the command will pick one of the two weapons and use it. However, no matter which hand it picks, it always uses the right hand weapon graphic. Also, if either weapon is a spear, it will give a 2X damage multiplier disregarding which weapon is actually used. Mimic treats resources inconsistently - Unlike the games that came after it, FF6's Mimic ability doesn't waste any resources period besides the one turn it takes to use. Neither items or MP are wasted whenever you use it. However, GP is certainly not a part of this, as Mimic or no, GP Rain will always eat a hole in your wallet. Prophetic Jump predicts broken Ogre Nix - Normally, when Ogre Nix breaks, you still get a sword strike, then see the message "Ogre Nix was broken!" afterward. With Jump and Palidor attacks, however, the character will come down weaponless, then you will get the message that the sword was broken. This is weird since it appears as though the weapon shattered before it ever hit anything. Swordless Runic - Runic and SwdTech both share a trait in that they both require weapons to make them available for use in battle. SwdTech works properly; no/improper weapon, no SwdTech. Runic is faulty however, in that if a character is acting automatically (Colosseum, Muddled, Charm), that character can use Runic regardless of equipment. Swordless Runic; broken sword edition - This one is different from the Swordless Runic bug above in that it comes from Ogre Nix breaking during a Palidor jump, long after the command was chosen. To see this, have someone cast Palidor first, then have Celes/Gogo choose to use Runic before or during the cast so that they execute Runic upon landing. If Ogre Nix breaks from the jump attack, Runic will be used anyway even though there is no longer a weapon to support it. -------------------- Disappearance glitches -------------------- Jump/Launcher - Have all of your party members jump, and wait for the enemy to use Launcher. If it uses Launcher when everyone in your group is in the air, the Jump attacks will cancel out, your group members will be hidden, and while you'll be able to select attacks again, you won't be able to target yourself manually or actually do anything, and neither will the enemy. In order for battle to continue in any fashion, the enemy must attempt Launcher again. While you will still be invisible and not manually targetable, both sides will now be able to attack again. Jump/Super Ball - Same as Jump/Launcher, but with Super Ball. While enemies don't use Super Ball, they can jump, so you can execute the same glitch on some enemies such as Umaro and Reach Frog. The same effects will occur, with the enemy becoming invisible instead. Since the enemy is invisible, you'll have to either Mimic Super Ball in order to get out of the glitch, have two people ready to execute a Super Ball attack when the enemy(ies) take(s) flight, or you'll just have to run away. Once you use Super Ball again, the enemies will reappear. Read on for a way to use this bug without enemies disappearing, in case you want to experiment freely with the loss of targeting. Jump after Jump/Super Ball - If you try to use Jump after executing the above and not subsequently restoring the ability to attack, you'll leap into the air but never attack, resulting in yet another disappearance bug. Larry makes revived brothers disappear through acts of cowardice - During the battle with the Dream Stooges, sometimes Larry will run away, and if the battle doesn't end in time, comes back to battle. This happens only if one of his brothers is dead. To easily see this bug, cast Reflect on Curley and kill Moe. This will make Curley go on the offensive and not use Life 2 on anyone. If Larry runs away, remove Reflect from Curley. He won't be able to use Life 2 on either brother because he starts with Larry first, who has run away and is not dead. When he comes back, Curley will cast Life 2 on Moe, who will revive invisible. X-Zone striking a monster causes it to disappear - If X-Zone strikes a monster, the monster's graphic will disappear. Most of the time, this is nothing to worry about as when X-Zone strikes an enemy, they die. However, if you or another monster were to revive the enemy target or in the case they had Life 3 and are revived automatically, this becomes a problem as you will no longer be able to manually target that particular enemy. This doesn't effect anything but that particular monster however. Living monster Life 3 revival + Undead monster instant death revival - You can only see this with X-type instant death weapons and multiple hits (Dragon Horn or Offering) because it requires multiple kills to witness. Give Life 3 to a living monster and finish it and an undead monster in the same turn with something like Striker/Offering for example. When revivals take place, the undead monster(s) will return and then Life 3 will activate. For whatever reason, the game "forgets" to restore the living monster's graphics when this occurs, rendering revived living monsters invisible in yet another disappearance bug. Whether you use Life 3 on the undead (in a Life 3/Doom bug attempt) is irrelevant, and using X-Magic will not work (unlike Offering and Dragon Horn, X-Magic isn't a "combination" attack). Muddle/Palidor and its subsequent oddities - A simple trick with multiple minor repercussions; cast Muddle on someone just before they cast Palidor. Once they cast Palidor, a few mishaps may occur. First, the caster will jump on Palidor and fly off of it in the direction Palidor's going. Next, you'll find you won't be able to hit any enemies though you can still target them and attempt an attack, and that's because Muddle/Palidor targets the opposite party, appearing to only target the caster (who has just become the victim of a disappearance glitch), so all enemies have jumped. Also, when the caster ends their turn, they'll be one extra step ahead (formation error). For some extra fun with this bug, you can use this to execute the Jump/Super Ball bug on pretty much any enemy (use Super Ball before any enemies land). With the enemy always remaining targetable (the image never disappears in this bug), you won't have to worry about not being able to win the battle when you're done, unless the enemies can jump. This bug is also indirectly responsible for the Condemned does kill flying undead monsters bug (under 2. In battle - Miscellaneous) and for the vast majority of battles is the backbone of the ailments/Jump bug (Monster death by ailment in the air gives no earnings except Magic Points, under 2. In battle - Miscellaneous). Tempest/Dragon Horn - Wind Slash can be cast from a Jump attack, and gain the damage bonus from Jump on top of that. This is also true when you combine Jump and Tempest with a Dragon Horn, but that can easily cause the user to become invisible. Here's how: With Dragon Horn and Tempest, use a Jump attack. If Wind Slash is used in place of Jump on any attack besides the landing jump, when the user hits, jumps back up, and casts Wind Slash, all subsequent Jump attacks left will be completely replaced with more Wind Slash spells, not allowing the character to land, resulting in an invisibility bug for the character in question (can't be seen + manually targeting the character becomes impossible) just as X-Zone does for monsters. This only affects the user, not the rest of the group or the enemies. -------------------- Equipment/Items -------------------- Atma Weapon can carve up stones - If you use Atma Weapon against a petrified character, its special damage modifications will cause it to do one point of damage, whereas it shouldn't do damage at all. All you have to do to see this is petrify one of your characters (Break for example), then Fight them with Atma Weapon. Note that Atma Weapon/Capture won't do this since the special effect is missing in that combo (see Certain weapons lose functionality with Capture under 2. In battle - Commands), and that Petrified monsters won't work as not only are they not targetable, they also can't be struck with anything that won't cure their status, much like dead and Zombified monsters. Barrier Ring, etc. can cast their spells at full HP - Barrier Ring, MithrilGlove, and Czarina Ring can all be made to cast their spells at any time, even at full HP. The trick is simple; knock an enemy down to below 1/8 HP to get them in Near Fatal status, then Rippler the status onto yourself. Near Fatal will only last one turn doing this, but in that turn, Barrier Ring, etc. will cast their Safe and Shell spells. This is because all they check for is Near Fatal status, there's no check on current HP. The only reason this bug exists is because Rippler itself is bugged (see Rippler trades everything under 2. In battle - Spells), otherwise Near Fatal would not be traded anyway. Black Atma Weapon - For this glitch to work properly, you need the Atma Weapon, a Rage with a damaging Special for its second attack, and enough HP to get the longest blade animation. All you have to do now is mix Atma Weapon with the damaging Special Rage, and wait for the Special to be used. In FF6j and FFA, this is easy as the Atma Weapon is compatible with the Merit Award, but in FF3us, Atma isn't compatible, so you'll need a monster who can use Rippler to switch Rage status to the Atma holder and hope for a damaging Special Rage (see Rippler trades everything under 2. In battle - Spells for why Rippler can trade Rage). Monsters that can help with this include Dark Force (not recommended), Reach Frog, and Blue Drgn. Depending on which hand you put the sword in and what direction the character is facing, it will either be a long sword (hand behind the wielder) or a thrown knife (hand in front of the wielder). If you have too little HP and only get the short dagger version of the Atma Weapon, the bug won't occur at all, and if you get the medium-size Atma Weapon, the game will either hang up, crash, or reset on FF3us and FF6j, so be careful. For FFA, the bug looks different in that the character's weapon sprite is random and the enemy strike graphic is a white slash with a tiny black core. More on the FFA version of the bug will come next update. Cursed Shld has a beneficial use!? - Status-causing equipment, if equipped in battle, will not cause the statuses they are supposed to, but will still cause immunity to them. Force Shld and Cursed Shld are the only two normal game examples of this. Force Shld causes immunity to Shell and Cursed Shld, although this does not affect Condemned, does protect against Mute, Muddle, Seizure, and Sleep. The only known beneficial use for the Cursed Shld. The fact that they do not set the appropriate status is the real bug here. Dice weapons have numbers on the wrong sides - In a minor graphics bug that obviously doesn't affect gameplay, the sides of each dice are drawn wrong. While the tops are correct, the sides are not, as the numbers do not match. Dice in real life have each opposite side add up to 7, say, if you see a 2 on the side directly facing you, the side you can't see without turning the die around is 5. This is the only arrangement Square got right, as the 1, 3, 4 and 6 sides aren't correctly matched. Dragon Horn fakes damage against undead monsters w/ Striker, etc. - This one's rather strange. Use Dragon Horn and an X-type instant death weapon (Striker, Wing Edge for examples) together in a Jump or Palidor attack, and if you hit an undead on a non-landing jump, the game will tell you how much damage you did. This is a bug because the damage is a lie; you always attempt instant death with one of these weapons against an undead monster (Anthology may not always do this but I assume the bug will pop up occasionally anyway, future guide versions will confirm the truth behind my assumption). This is confirmed by the fact that even if you don't subsequently hit the same monster on the landing jump (thus invoking the X graphic), it will still die/revive. Fenix Down double block - Give a character a shield that will produce a shield animation on blocked attacks. Go into battle and use a Fenix Down on the character in a situation you know it will miss (when they are alive for example). The "victim" will block once, then not two seconds later block again with a differently colored shield. Genji Glove reduces single weapon damage - Most likely intended for two weapons, Genji Glove reduces physical damage done when you are carrying one or no weapons by 25%. Like Offering, this cut affects all physical attacks. Hawk Eye and Sniper can throw Rage weapons... even Gau's hand - Hawk Eye and Sniper share a special effect that differs between a floating and a non-floating target; for floating targets, it does 3X damage randomly and causes the weapon sprite to switch to its thrown variation. For non-floating targets, it randomly deals 1.5X damage. This bug arises against a floating target while using Rage; it uses the throw graphic of the Rage's weapon graphic, not Hawk Eye/Sniper. For example, if you use Orog Rage with one of the two weapons equipped, and Gau/Gogo uses Fight/Battle on a floating target and gets the 3X damage multiplier bonus, the Hawk Eye/Sniper will not be thrown, a Partisan spear will, as Orog uses the Partisan as its "weapon." Likewise, if you use a Rage that has no weapon graphic (fists are used), Gau/Gogo will throw a dirk, as anything that can't normally be thrown uses a thrown dirk graphic. Heal Rod targets the wrong groups - Heal Rod's aiming byte is set up to target your characters by default. However, this results in two bugs; for one, when using Fight, the Heal Rod still aims at the enemy party, and two, when you go to Throw it, the game will target your character by default. It doesn't read the aiming byte for Fight, but it will for Throw. This is especially bad since when used with Fight, Heal Rod restores HP, while it does damage under Throw. ThiefKnife/Dragon Horn is also bad at "treasure hunting" - Same as Capture/Offering, only this involves jumping with ThiefKnife and Dragon Horn equipped. A nice little c/p and edit job for the lazy: Don't try this combo unless you like losing items. If you steal more than one item in a single turn, you only get the first item you nabbed. What's worse, the subsequent steals still count as far as the monsters are concerned, so if you nab a second item off of a monster, you won't get the item AND you won't get a second chance at it. Finally, there is a chance text bugs will crop up, i.e. listing that you stole an item from an enemy that doesn't even carry that item, although it will only list items that can be stolen from someone in the battle. Psychot/Wizard is a nice example of this. However, the combo is perfectly acceptable if there is only one enemy on the battlefield, the glitch only affects multiple enemies. ThiefKnife/Offering is just like the above - If you thought THIS would be any better than Capture or Dragon Horn, you're wrong. See the above bug's description. -------------------- Quick -------------------- CPU-controlled characters AND monsters lose turns to Quick casters - This one might actually prove a tad useful if you're good at timing attacks; if anyone who is CPU-controlled has their gauge fill to maximum while someone is casting Quick, the CPU won't select an attack, and the victim(s) won't do anything. Even worse, their gauge will freeze for a few seconds before finally resetting, effectively cancelling their turn. On a side note, characters who are under CPU control that fall victim to Quick but knocked out of CPU control before the gauge is reset will still lose their turn. Infinite turns w/ Quick and X-Magic - Whenever you use Quick, use X-Magic for your second extra turn. The gauge won't reset, so you can input your next attack immediately. While you can go on for eternity this way, you still have to wait for the character to set up and then attack, which leaves an opening for enemies to get their own attacks in. You can rattle off a storm of attacks, it's just not infallible. Also, while Morph does the same thing on the last turn, it's not meant to reset the character's gauge so that's not really a bug at all. Jump defies Muddle, etc. on player-initiated Jump attacks - This one's odd, but not exactly useful; have at least two people in a group, one with Jump, one with Quick and Muddle. Have the latter cast Quick and order the former to Jump, but don't have him actually Jump until after Quick is finished. On the second person's second turn, cast Muddle on the character with Jump. He'll jump and on his first or onlystrike, hit whoever he targeted. For Dragon Horn users, this will only occur on the first strike, subsequent strikes will come back at the party anyway. -------------------- Slot -------------------- Joker Doom anyone at pretty much any time with Gogo's Mimic command - Both variants of Joker Doom (triple 7 and 7-7-BAR) carry a unique property under Slot; one forces the caster to target enemies no matter what (triple 7) and the other to target all allies no matter what (7-7-BAR) even if status should say otherwise. However, this only concerns usage via the Slot command. Once you have that and the initial targets out of the way, Mimic can retarget (after one wasted turn due to no retarget if target dead property) Joker Doom, which will default on the enemy party. One "safe" way to exploit this is through the use of the Palidor Esper, Gogo Mimicking, and Setzer casting 7-7-BAR in a fight where either you've lost track of Slot's random number generator index or a fight that has triple 7 usage banned (the three tiers before Kefka or Phunbaba before your fourth battle with him, for example). First, make sure no one (save maybe Gogo) has Life 3 as this will stall your ability to exploit this bug at the least. Second, have one person cast Palidor, and ensure that Setzer has 7-7-BAR ready to cast and Gogo is ready to Mimic, both upon landing. Setzer must land before Gogo and any fourth member (along with the Palidor caster after landing) should remain idle for this to work (save for landing from Palidor's forced jump attack anyway). Once Setzer casts Joker doom, Gogo should land afterwards and attempt to Mimic. However, the targets that Joker Doom hit are now invalid and nothing will happen. Have Gogo Mimic again on its next turn while the rest of the party does absolutely nothing. Joker Doom, having already attempted to hit invalid targets the previous turn, will now pick new targets and default to all available enemies. Safety measures, such as Quick, Haste, and Slow, wouldn't hurt anything, and if you want Gogo to Jump instead of having someone cast Palidor, it can work although Jump won't allow you to combo Mimic into the landing attack, meaning you'll have to waste one more turn than necessary. On a final note, Gogo can't take advantage of this alone for a 7-7-BAR exploit as it cannot be a target of Joker Doom, else there will always be a valid target and Joker Doom will never seek out the opposition in such a case. If you want to exploit this with triple 7's, try this with a Reach Frog group that has just now begun to jump; have a third member cast Quick, then have Setzer confirm Joker Doom, and Gogo confirm Mimic, while making sure Setzer is faster than Gogo so he'll go first. Have the Quick caster Muddle Gogo and kill any Reach Frogs that might still be on the ground. Setzer will try to use Joker Doom and encounter all invalid targets so nothing happens. Gogo, being Muddled, will reverse the default aim in its Mimic (this is probably the only time Muddle ever screws up Mimic's targeting is when it has to default on aiming) and target all allies. It doesn't matter if the frogs land after Setzer has attempted Joker Doom, but if one lands beforehand, Setzer will strike the frog and Gogo will encounter an invalid target. With that in mind, unless Gogo chooses to Mimic on the next turn on its own, the exploit attempt will fail. Joker Doom sets you up in the opposite direction - Try using Joker Doom via the Slot command (Mimic won't work for this bug) with someone in the third position (upper-left position), front row, of a Side attack. When that person gets into their ready stance, they'll face the opposite direction until they use Joker Doom. Learn L.5 Doom from... Setzer? - In the game, Joker Doom, Setzer's ultimate Slot technique, is really a modified L.5 Doom that has instant death protection removed and replaced with the Unblockable property. This is most evident by the fact that Strago can learn L.5 Doom from watching Setzer cast Joker Doom. -------------------- Spells -------------------- Enemy Roulette cancellation - If enemy Roulette is cast once, then again before the first Roulette could determine a target, the first Roulette will be effectively canceled out. Strago's Roulette is not affected by this. The best and perhaps only real chance you have of seeing this is versus multiple Veterans by using Magic on all of them at once and hoping more than one counters (they can counter with Roulette approx. 34% of the time) or against two Dark Force (has a chance of starting its first turn with Roulette, approx. 34% of the time as well). Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 1 - Using Imp on a monster that has Clear status or having an enemy absorb Imp with Enemy Runic will always cause a monster's graphic to change to that of an Imp or vice versa, even if they are invulnerable to the ailment. In this same vein, a monster's graphic cannot be changed to that of an Imp simply by causing the status (see Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 2 under 2. In battle - Status). Imp can also do this to a character casting Runic, but in that case, the Imp sprite only lasts for the duration of the spell. This all has to do with the fact that only the Imp spell itself can change a character or monster's graphic to an Imp directly and the fact that Imp status doesn't automatically cause the change in monsters (again, see Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 2). Muddle/Palidor vs. Gau - Same as Muddle/Palidor vs. enemies, but in this case the combination is used against Gau for a much less disasterous result. All you'll get in the way of bugs is a formation error (the caster won't step back after the summon). He may combo his return speech with his attack, meaning that he'll attack you, land, and execute his speech within the same turn, but that's not a bug as far as I can tell (the party can do the same with menu commands). Multiple Love Tokens make the target forget previous casters - To see this bug, you'll want Gau and Gogo. Have them both use Barb-e Rage to cast Love Token on the same target. Kill and revive the target, and then try to use a physical strike on the one that cast Love Token first. The Love Token target will protect that individual, even though the bond between the target and the last person to cast Love Token was broken at death. When a target is afflicted with multiple Love Token spells and then killed, only the last spell cast is broken, the rest remain intact beyond death in an obvious bug where the Love Token "status" byte isn't wiped completely clean. Quick/Rippler allows desperation attack without low HP - Another bug associated with Rippler (see Rippler trades everything), get an enemy's HP low enough for them to be in Near Fatal status (lower to or under 1/8 max HP), cast Quick, then use Rippler on the enemy. You'll gain the enemy's Near Fatal status for the second extra turn, which you can then use to *possibly* trigger a Near Fatal attack. Although this bug fulfills the Near Fatal status requirement, all other restrictions still hold. See Terii's Algorithms doc for more info, which can be found at his site (see 9. Credits, links, and contact info). Also, if the enemy were slow enough and you fast enough, it may be possible to see this without Quick, but the odds of that would be low indeed. Rippler missed... but it worked? - There's a bit in the attack stats (that I neglect to mention in the Attack guide due to how little an effect it has) that makes an attack miss if the target has all the ailments in question, has immunity to those ailments, or a mix of both status and immunity. This bit is also set in Rippler, but it doesn't actually cause the spell to have no effect. Rippler will trade the caster's and target's statuses anyway, which is all it does, so in essence the spell doesn't actually miss at all. The only bugs that creep out of this are the Miss message that pops up and the text "Status exchange" not showing up when a monster casts the spell. For all of the status and/or immunities you need to have to see this bug, see the very next bug, which is also a Rippler bug... Rippler trades everything - It was supposed to switch only what was listed in its stats, but due to more bad code, every status from Dark to Float is switched. If you lost Interceptor, you fell prey to this bug. This isn't an entirely negative bug however; through a little manipulation of aiming using Muddled status, you can also switch Rage and Morph between characters w/out the help of Reach Frogs. This is the only way that any character not named Terra can Morph, and the only way Strago can go into a Rage or Dance. With Reach Frogs though, it's possible anyone can Dance or go into a Rage. Status that Rippler, under bug-free conditions, would trade include Dark, Zombie, Poison, Clear, Imp, Condemned, Image, Mute, Berserk, Muddled, Seizure, Psyche/Sleep, Regen, Slow, Haste, Stop, Shell, Safe, Reflect, Life 3, and Float. Roulette doesn't always live up to its name - Roulette's random target bit only works when used through a menu command (Lore or Control). Any other way, and it acts like a single-target attack spell (Mimic, Rage, monsters when muddled/charmed/zombified/in the Colosseum, etc.). Please note that the Roulette used when Roulette is cast from an enemy's command script isn't the same spell and is not the attack talked about here. Second Charm makes first charmer's spell useless - Charm, an enemy spell cast by NightShade Rage, can inflict a special "status" that causes the afflicted to exhibit symptoms almost exactly like Muddle with at least one difference. One of the rules of Charm is that you can only charm one target at a time with any given character (one character, one target). However, you can still have multiple people Charm the same monster. The bug here is that the previous charmers' spells become useless as a result; not only are they still tied to the monster, which means until either the monster or the casters die, their spells can't strike anyone else, but the spells no longer have an effect on the original target, the latest caster is the one in control. If the latest Charmer dies, the monster will no longer be charmed even though there were multiple Charm spells tied to it. To sum that up, Charm makes sure it only strikes one target, but it doesn't care who that target is, and if the same target is Charmed by more than one caster, the preceding casters' Charm no longer has any effect, but they're still tied to the same target so they can't Charm anyone else. This is something you can see with Rage or when fighting the NightShade x3 group. Skean spells cause formation errors - Any party member that uses a skean spell (Fire Skean, Water Edge, Bolt Edge) may or may not return to their original positions after use. The best example of this is the Ninja Rage since it uses Water Edge. This glitch is not in reference to the actual skeans that Shadow can throw, but the spells that are used by Ninja and Covert. Tapir lies about when it works - Tapir (Mog/Gogo's Tapir spell) heals any ailment besides Freeze or those that can't be healed normally (such as Charm), but unless you watched closely or knew how it worked, the only time you'd see it hit is when someone had Sleep status. In reality, it is lifting bad status, but the game registers a Miss message anyway unless you have Sleep. The reason is that the special effect in Tapir forces the game to produce a Miss message whenever the target in question is not under Sleep status. When they are, the game will not give the Miss message but will restore the victim's HP and MP completely, alive or undead. -------------------- Statistics -------------------- Evade is worthless - The Evade stat has no function in battle due to bad coding. As a result, every Evade boost in the game is about as valuable as lint to a Saudi oil tycoon. M.Block takes care of all evasion alongside Stamina (in the rare cases it gets involved with anyway). See the status section for other effects of the bug, minor and major. Invert damage if Undead only affects healing abilities - Believe it or not, those Whispers you encounter on the Phantom Train were supposed to regenerate HP. It doesn't work however, because of a bug in the Invert damage if Undead attack property. It will clear the Heal bit, but it will not set it. As a result, a few attacks and status don't work correctly. Here's a list of affected abilities and status: Attacks: Poison, Bio, Acid Rain, Virite Status : Poison, Seizure, HP Leak (Phantasm) The end result is that the vast majority of undeads absorb all Poison-elementals, when there were supposed to be a few select spells that hurt the Undead (including the status itself), and that Seizure hurts both the Undead and the living. Undeads and the Poison element should have been a little more complicated a matter than it turned out to be. -------------------- Status -------------------- Auto-expiring statuses don't reset their timers with manual removal - Statuses such as Stop, Reflect, Sleep, and Freeze eventually wear off after awhile unless, in the case of Reflect, they can become permanent. The game does this through the use of individual timers for each status, for each target. Stop makes all other timers, along with Regen, Poison, and Seizure, halt execution for its duration since it is supposed to be a time freeze. The bug here, however, is that if you remove the timed statuses with a spell such as Dispel, the timers will not be reset and will still count down on their own, not even checking to see if their respective status still exists. While this doesn't affect anything with most of the statuses, Stop's superceding of Regen, etc. and other timed status can cause problems such as prolonging timed status and keeping Regen and co. from doing any HP healing/damage. For example, if you remove Stop as soon as it is cast on a Regenerating character, you'll still have to wait for the period of time it would have taken for Stop to be removed before the character regenerates any HP again. Likewise, a beneficial use for this would be casting Stop, then Reflect on a character and using the Remedy spell to remove Stop, which would cause Reflect to last much longer than usual since it must wait for the recently removed Stop status' timer to expire before its own timer can count down. The only timed status that checks for its own status is Sleep, but that's only to keep the unique Tapir spell it casts to remove itself from activating when Sleep status isn't around. More than likely, this bug was only caught and fixed with Sleep because the Tapir spell made the bug abundantly visible to anyone in a prolonged fight involving Sleep status; why Square didn't go further and check all of the status timers this way is another issue for another day. Becoming a zombie cures the uncurable - Status immunities in this game are two-way: if a target is immune to a status but doesn't have it, it can't be given to it; if a target is immune to a status but already has it, it can't be removed from it. For the game to give a permanent status, e.g. Reflect from Wall Ring, it must give both the status and immunity to it. However, if a target is turned into a Zombie, it'll always lose certain statuses (Dark, Poison, Near Fatal, Berserk, Muddled, and Sleep), even if they were supposed to be permanent (e.g. from the Cursed Shld). If you try to give the target the status again that battle, you won't able to, as it's still immune to the status. This can hurt you in one very minor way associated with Rage; if you are taking advantage of Gau's Poison absorption by giving him Poison status before implementing a Rage that has Poison immunity, Gau will have to lose his current Rage before he can reattain Poison status. Clear overrides certain checks - Most importantly here, Clear status, caused by such spells, summons, and items as Vanish, Fader, and Inviz Edge, overrides instant death protection, resulting in the infamous Vanish/Doom and Vanish/X-Zone combos. However, what few also know is that Clear status overrides the check on such spells as Life and Life 2 that forces those particular techniques to only hit dead targets, so combos such as Vanish/Life 2, Vanish/Phoenix, and Vanish/ChokeSmoke also work. While the former may have been intentional (who can really say), the latter certainly doesn't seem to be in the same boat, hence their inclusion here. Death, Petrify, and Zombie lose permanent status beginning battle, but not immunity - Equip something that applies a permanent status, such as RunningShoes or Force Shld, and enter a battle with the equipped character dead or petrified. Revive or heal them in battle, and notice that the status that their equipment or relics should be providing don't show up. Even worse, try to apply said status and watch it have no effect at all. That's because while the game could not apply the status due to Wound or Petrify, it could still apply immunity as there's no code that prevents immunity application. The same can be said for the Cursed Shld and Zombie (see Becoming a zombie cures the uncurable in this very section for specifics). A returning Gau, while an irrelevant subject, also demonstrates the bug's effects as, in layman's terms, he is not considered "alive" until he pops up at the battle's supposed end, so any equipment and relics he wears won't inflict status either. Dying from the first Rage turn loses Rage-inflicted status - Best demonstrated by Balloon Rage since it gives a status and uses Exploder, if you die from your first attack under Rage, the game will not give you Rage-inflicted status. While this doesn't matter for Dark, Poison, and Clear, it does for all other statuses as you should retain all other statuses through death and revival in the same battle. This bug's effects are made worse by the Permanent miscellaneous status bug later in this section. It also shares its cause with Mute steals your Rage-inflicted status on attempted spell casts, also later in this section. Here is a list of status you need to worry about if this bug comes into play, so you don't have to look up the Mute/Rage bug: Mute, Berserk, Muddle, Seizure, Regen, Slow, Haste, Shell, Safe, Reflect, and Float. For the Balloon example specifically, Float is what you should worry about there. I would also say the same thing for Intangir's Pep Up because of its many positive effects, but Gau can't be revived from that spell during the same battle so it doesn't make much of a difference. Imped Ragers keep automatic movement, but not anything else - Normally, during Rage, on every attack the character makes, the properties of the monster in question are reloaded for the character. However, if that character has become an Imp, the property reload routine will ignore the fact that the character is still in a Rage and not even call Rage's reload routine. They will still attack anyway though, making this a dangerous bug. It's also the reason why Critical Hits if Imp doesn't work for characters. Once Imp status is healed, the Rager must still take a turn before the Raged monster's properties are restored to them because the Rage command isn't used during Imp (it's swapped for Fight). Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 2 - The status Imp, while it will change a character's sprite automatically, will not change a monster's automatically. A prime example of this is Sour Mouth; while it can cause the status, you won't visually know it's been done until the monster takes a turn or two (depending on the monster anyway). Another example of this can be found with Pugs and the like; Pugs tends to walk forward every few turns, then return to their original position using a fade in/fade out animation combination. If you hit one of those with Imp, and it uses an animation to move back to where it started, the Imp sprite is lost even though it is still an Imp. This all has to do with the fact that only the Imp spell itself can change a character or monster's graphic to an Imp directly (see Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 1 under 2. In battle - Spells) and the fact that Imp status doesn't automatically cause the change in monsters. Missing effects - The following do not occur as a result of the Evade bug: Dark; was to cut victim's Hit Rate in half, and increase by 25% an attacker's physical hit rate on an affected target. Beads; besides an Evade boost, was to cut the hit rate of an attacker in half. Zombie, Muddled, Life 3; was to increase an attacker's hit rate on the affected by 25%. Poison, Near Fatal, Seizure, Haste; was to decrease an attacker's hit rate on the affected by 25%. Muddle makes Controlled enemies face forward - If you Control an enemy, then Muddle it, it will face the same direction it normally does (i.e. it won't have its back turned toward the enemy), while Muddled, even though it should be turned around. Once knocked out of Muddle though, they continue to face the same direction, correcting the bug. Mute steals your Rage-inflicted status on attempted spell casts - If Gau/Gogo is Mute when one tries a spell-casting Rage in which the MP cost of the spell was originally above zero on their first Rage turn, status given by the Rage may not be inflicted. For example, Mute Gau/Gogo and then use Intangir Rage. Clear, Haste, Shell, Safe, and Float, all status inflicted by using Intangir Rage, will be missing if they try Pep Up on the first turn. Not only that, but now Gau/Gogo is immune to all but Clear and can't have those status for the rest of the battle (see Permanent miscellaneous status later in this section for why getting out of Rage status doesn't fix the problem), although Clear will be applied the next time someone makes a successful move (another spell stopped by Mute or Imp for example won't do it). Another example would be Anguiform; Mute, attempt the Rage, and if Gau/Gogo fails to cast Aqua Rake, Dark won't be given to them until someone else makes a working move. This bug usually only occurs on the initial Rage attacks. Once beyond the first attack, there's no need to worry about this bug unless you're dealing with removable status (Dark, Poison, and Clear), in which case, when the game reinflicts the status next turn, the bug can come in and prevent this from happening. Say someone cured Gau/Gogo of Dark status in Anguiform then Muted them, if Gau/Gogo uses Aqua Rake, they'll fail and Dark status won't be reapplied. However, these three statuses are reapplied every Rage turn, so a physical attack or the curing of Mute/Imp will apply the correct status next turn. Here is a list of status you need to worry about if this bug comes into play: Mute, Berserk, Muddle, Seizure, Regen, Slow, Haste, Shell, Safe, Reflect, and Float. Near Fatal and Zombie; guests that won't leave - Status immunity merely prevents the toggle of a status; you can't gain the status, but you can't lose it if you already have it either. This is used to make effects from relics and such permanent (except in specific cases where the game won't apply immunity, like Image). However, there are two instances where immunity is ignored. When your HP drops below 1/8, you automatically gain Near Fatal status no matter what. If you're immune to the status, you can't get it from Rippler and you can't lose it, but you can still get it if your HP drops below 1/8. Also, if Overcast hits you, you can gain Zombie status at death whether or not you're immune, so don't wear something that protects from Zombie if you're not protected from instant death or Condemned status as well for the battle with Goddess. Near Fatal allows True Knight to protect the strong - A bug that can easily be seen from the above immunity bug involving Near Fatal and Overcast/Zombie, equip a True Knight relic on one character and make sure one other has Rage. Enter battle, get the Rage character into Near Fatal, use a Near Fatal-immune Rage (ex. Magic Urn), and heal back to maximum. The True Knight character will still guard the Rage user even though his HP is above Near Fatal requirements. Another, but more difficult method, is to have Strago/Gogo use Rippler to take Near Fatal status from a monster (see Rippler trades everything under 2. In battle - Spells) while above 1/8 max HP. If the next move is a monster using a physical attack on Strago/Gogo, the True Knight character will protect him. Beware though, as Near Fatal is cleared on the next attack, even if its a status affecting HP (Regen, Poison, etc.). Permanent miscellaneous status - There are three ways of executing this bug: Cursed Shld, Force Shld, and Rage. First, the shields; when you equip the Cursed Shld midbattle, it causes immunity to Mute, Berserk, Muddled, and Seizure. However, due to the relationship with Regen, setting Seizure immunity also sets Regen immunity (this is a normal rule of the game, same goes for Haste/Slow). With this in mind, the bug about to be mentioned is easy to predict; when you de-equip Cursed Shld in the same battle, the immunities it sets are stripped, and only those it set. This does not account for Regen immunity, so Seizure and Regen immunity will remain until after the battle is over. For Force Shld, just have it equipped at the beginning of battle or for one turn during battle. It will apply Shell immunity and it won't come off. For Rage, simply use a Rage that has immunity to or inflicts one of the following status: Seizure, Regen, Slow, Haste, Stop, Shell, Safe, Reflect, and Float. Any of those immunities and given status (if applicable) will become permanent. For an example, cast Regen on Gau/Gogo then enter Intangir Rage, not casting Pep Up hopefully. Now because Intangir gives Clear status, kill Gau/Gogo off with Doom (see Clear overrides certain checks earlier in this section) and then revive them. Clear will be gone, but Regen, Haste, Shell, Safe, and Float will still be there. Try to Dispel the effects and you'll find immunity still exists (immunity is two-way in the game, it keeps you from applying or taking off a status). Now Gau/Gogo has Regen, Haste, Shell, Safe, and Float for the rest of the battle due to implied Regen immunity and Intangir Rage giving permanent Haste, Shell, Safe, and Float. The entire bug comes from the fact that immunity to Regen, Slow, Haste, Stop, Shell, Safe, Reflect, and Float are never removed during battle as there's no code to do so. Other immunities that are also affected but never appear in the normal game include Dance (technically, it does exist, but only for four monsters in the final battle), Rage, Freeze, Life 3, Morph, Chant (Control & Magic chant), Hide, and Interceptor. Permanent Morph status until the end of battle - There are three ways this can be achieved; the first requires good timing, the second's very easy to pull off, and the last is random. The first way is to cast an ailment that stops movement on the character w/ Morph (Sleep, Stop, or Freeze) just after the meter runs out but before they can revert. The timing aspect comes from the fact that the green duration meter must run out during the ailment attack. The second is to have the person morph, and another cast Quick. Now just sit there and wait for the Morph gauge to drain. They won't Revert because time is stopped, and the game won't remember to do so when the two turns are up. The last method isn't really a method, but a random glitch; if you trade morph status w/ Rippler (see the Rippler trades everything bug), the character that gets Morph status may or may not get the green Morph duration bar, thus making Morph permanent. Random sword gets the MP with multiple Runics on an ST spell, but all drop afterward - When a multi-target spell like Ultima or a potentially multi-target spell like Fire 3 is cast with more than one person in Runic status, everyone under Runic gets an equal share of the MP cost of that spell. However, when a single-target spell like Flare is cast amongst multiple Runic casters, only one random person to cast Runic gets any of the MP cost, although the game only gives them their fair share of MP as it would have been divided amongst all casters. The bug here is that even though only one person absorbed the spell, every Runic caster will lose their Runic status and have to recast (if not under enemy Runic anyway), and with the exception of the lucky one to absorb the spell, no one will get any MP. X-type instant death revives instant death-immune undead - Normally, Striker, etc. will revive an undead monster or character on any hit through the use of its X-type instant death. This does not trigger if the undead is immune to instant death, however, it will revive anyway. For monsters, there will merely be the sound of its revival if the damage wasn't enough to kill it, and if there was enough damage, it will go through the normal death/revival sequence. -------------------- SwdTech -------------------- Retort counters any physical attack - Simply use Retort, then die before Cyan/Gogo gets hit by a physical attack. Now revive whoever used Retort, and they will counter any physical attack, not just those that hit them. Retort lasts forever, but only uses a physical strike - Use Retort, now hit the user with Imp before he gets hit with a physical attack. Now the Imp will only counterattack with physical attacks, but Retort will never come off. Infinite Fight combo, a.k.a. the Psycho Cyan bug - Combine the two glitches above by killing and reviving Cyan or Gogo while Retort is in effect, then either before or after they die and return, turn them into an Imp. The next time a physical attack that can be countered by Retort is used, Cyan/Gogo will go "berserk" and constantly attack the enemy with regular physical strikes in an endless combo. This is due to the fact that they are counterattacking their own attack, and that with Imp status, Retort status is never cleared. This can only be stopped by either a) winning the battle, b) running away, or c) let a status ailment on Cyan/Gogo eventually kill them. Choice c only works if they are given the ailment beforehand, since obviously you're not going to be able to give one to them during the onslaught without hacking. Swordless SwdTech - Another bug involving Palidor, equip an Ogre Nix to Cyan/Gogo with no other weapon and enter battle. Have someone else cast Palidor (whether through Magicite, 3-BAR, or the Esper itself) and have Cyan/Gogo confirm a SwdTech skill to use during or before the cast, making sure the Palidor caster goes before the SwdTech is launched. If Ogre Nix breaks when Cyan/Gogo comes down, they will still execute their SwdTech skill even though they are now swordless. You'll have better luck seeing this at low current HP since the lower the HP, the better chance you have of breaking Ogre Nix. -------------------- Miscellaneous -------------------- Air Anchor responds to Poison, etc. - Air Anchor's special effect is that once the enemy is hit, it can take one more turn and then it dies automatically. However, if it has HP Leak, Poison, Regen, or Seizure, that may not happen, as Air Anchor's effect treats these as a turn and kills the victim if any of these statuses try in heal/inflict damage. Attain a living 0 HP character - There are a number of ways to zero a character's HP without killing them. Here are the known methods: Condemned/Jump; Have a character Jump with the Condemned timer close to 0. If the timer runs out while they are in the air, their HP will be zeroed but the character will survive until they land. However, should you end the battle before the character lands they will remain alive with 0 HP. Zombie/Petrify; Petrify a Zombified character, heal the Zombie status with Revivify, then heal their Petrify status. Revivify won't restore any HP due to Petrify, so when Petrify comes off they will remain at 0 HP. Zombie/Rippler; Have a monster use Rippler to take a character's Zombie status (ex. Reach Frog), or simply command a character currently being struck with a Zombie-inflicting attack to use Rippler on their next turn. The character will still retain their command so once they become a Zombie, their next action will be a Rippler attempt and if a hit is made, their Zombie ailment will be cured but leave them with 0 HP. Zombie/Tapir; Heal a Zombified character with the Tapir spell found in Mog's Love Sonata Dance. Tapir restores all negative status except Freeze, but doesn't restore HP/MP unless Sleep status is present. Clear confuses MagiTek armor graphics - If Clear status (given by Inviz Edge, Vanish, etc.) is given to a person who is wearing MagiTek armor, the Clear graphics of the character will make their legs and feet appear outside the armor. This bug will persist when Clear is lost, but this only lasts so long as the person has Clear status or if removed, for the remainder of the battle. Condemned does kill flying undead monsters - If the Condemned timer runs out on an undead monster while it's in the air for a Jump, the monster will die the moment it hits the ground even though Condemned's Doom spell should have healed it, and looked like it should have, since the only way you can see this bug is through the use of Muddle/Palidor (see Muddle/Palidor and its subsequent oddities under 2. In battle - Disappearance glitches) as no Undead can use Jump normally. For an example of this, cast Condemned on a Bloompire and when the timer is about to run out (you will probably want to study exactly how many of Bloompire's turns this takes before attempting an exploit), use Muddle/Palidor against it so the timer runs out before Bloompire can land. Bloompire's graphic will appear to die and come back, then subsequently land a Jump attack and die upon landing. This odd bug can hinder the execution of a bug found later in this section (Monster death by ailment in the air gives no earnings except Magic Points) if Condemned is the ailment used and the Undead in question doesn't normally have Seizure. Control menu responds poorly to MP change - This bug deals with the fact that Control takes a turn, two at most, to notice a change in a monster's MP rating. Once you have Controlled a monster, wait for the Controller's gauge to fill up, then try something like zeroing the monster's MP. Take a look at the menu, and you'll see that all MP-dependent attacks are still available. Not only that, you can still use them for one turn since attacks initiated from the Control menu ignore MP cost in practice. This also works in reverse; for example, Control a Sprinter after you have zeroed its MP. Now use its Special (Drainbeak) to replenish 20+ MP. On the Controller's next turn, Cyclonic, the only MP-dependent attack in Sprinter's Control menu, will still not be available even though it gained sufficent MP from the previous turn. Crusader redecorates Reflect barriers - If you cast Crusader during a battle and then proceed to bounce a spell off of anyone with a Reflect status, Reflect will show up colored in red tones. This is because Crusader's palettes have overwritten the Reflect palette stored in RAM. It only lasts for the rest of the battle, the original Reflect palette is rewritten to RAM at the start of each fight. Doom Gaze dies, but doesn't cough up Bahamut - When you get into a fight with Doom Gaze, cast Vanish on him (or just give him Clear status somehow), and then one of the six instant death spells that stall final attacks by one turn (X-Zone, Odin, Raiden, Cleave, Snare, X-Fer). Doom Gaze won't be able to execute his final attack which is a requirement to make the game acknowledge his death and execute the Bahamut acquirement cutscene. Keep in mind that this bug may not occur if the Regen status is in play (see Counterattack from beyond under 6. Undetermined). Face the wrong way with Blow Fish and co. - A very minor character sprite animation bug. Spells such as Blow Fish and Tek Laser that use the struck sprite of a character always have the sprite face left. The bug becomes evident with Back, Pincer, and Side attacks where you can have a character facing right, or in the case of formation error bugs. A right-facing character will turn around when they switch to the struck sprite, appearing to take the spell from behind. FC 05 becomes an omni-counter after its first strike - FC 05 is first triggered when HP or MP damage is done to the target, then anytime it is struck by anything from anyone after that unless other counters take precedence. This second part is incorrect behavior, as it should only counter HP or MP damage, not everything. It happens because the bit FC 05 checks is not reset after the counterattack, or at any time during combat. FC 05 only strikes the last person to do damage, not the last attacker - Another FC 05 bug (see above for the first and most evident of these two bugs), FC 05 only retargets who to counterattack if damage is done. For example, use Reflect status during a fight with 3 L.30 Magics to bounce their spells back at them. Look for someone's spell to strike one of the other monsters instead of the original caster. That one will counterattack the caster. Target the victim of the Reflected spell with Dispel or something else non-damaging, and it will use its FC 05 counter on the monster that struck it via Reflect again, even though it didn't do anything. Gau, dead man standing - When Gau returns from the Veldt, try using Doom or Roulette on him. If he's hit, he'll die, and you'll win the battle and get whatever profit you should have earned from it instead of Gau returning to the group (don't worry, it's the same as scaring him off, he'll be back). Any instant death attack will kill Gau, but anything damage-wise will cause him to flee. That's not the bug though. The bug is when you kill him with Doom or Roulette, he won't fall down, he'll just stand there like normal, only he's dead. Have a dead/zombie party and not get Annihilated - Have someone get zombified in battle or bring a zombie with you to battle. Once there, have the enemy use something like Sneeze or Engulf on the zombie, and then have the rest of the team die in the battle. You'll escape the battle because the zombie technically ran away, but you'll have a team outside of battle that technically should have gotten you Annihilated and game over. However, don't get into another fight with this team or you will become Annihilated when the battle begins. Items are cancelled upon Muddled and subsequent healing - This bug causes item attacks to not have a target after their targeting is affected by Muddle or Charm and their effect is removed before the item is used. To see this easily, have at least three characters on a team. Have a character choose to Muddle the item user, then the other heal him immediately after (whether it be a physical strike or a spell). The item user should go last. If it does, the caster will try to use the item but nothing will happen. Magicite and Super Ball seem to be the only exceptions as they don't need a target. Warp Stone won't cast Warp as a result, but will still get you out of battle if possible. Jump like a coward - A graphics bug, try ordering someone to Jump, and as they Jump into the air, attempt to run away. The jumping character will leap into the air appearing to be running away instead of the usual poses throughout the animation, unless you stop running before it completes, in which case the character's Jump poses will start midway through the animation. Kill the undead twice! - Cast Life 3 on an undead (you can use Muddle for a direct cast or simply have Strago/Gogo use Rippler to trade the Life 3 status), then strike it with any instant death weapon or spell that revives undead beings (Doom, Striker, etc.). The enemy will die, come back, cast Life on itself, and die again. This does not work on undead characters because they do not go through any special death/revival sequence. L.70 Magic and Retainer protected from single targeting - If you get into a fight with two L.70 Magic and a L.50 Magic in the Fanatic's Tower, you may find you can't target the L.70 Magic in the back unless you target all enemies at once. This is probably caused by the way the enemies are positioned on the battlefield, as when you kill either the front L.70 Magic or the L.50 Magic, you'll be able to target the L.70 Magic in the back normally. The same thing happens with the Retainer x2/Dark Force group in a Side Attack. The right-hand Retainer becomes impossible to manually single target unless you first point the cursor at the first slot character. If you don't have a character there or the cursor can't point at party members, that Retainer will be impossible to single target until one of his teammates dies. Mag Roader's script has a missing end - The brown Mag Roader, found in the Narshe mines in the WOR, is missing a FF command (End script) in its command script, causing it to take on Wild Cat's script as a counterattack script. This may come from the script pointers being set up automatically if Square left that job to a computer. These are Mag Roader's and Wild Cat's scripts as found in the game in hex format: Mag Roader: F0 EE EE EF Wild Cat: FC 13 01 01 FD F0 B3 FE FE F0 00 05 05 FE FF F0 EE EE FE FC 13 01 01 FD F0 B3 FE FE F0 EE EE EF FE FF F0 EE EE FE FF FD F0 EE EE EF FF And this is how the game interprets them from my tests (Wild Cat left in for clarity): Mag Roader Main script F0 EE EE EF - Random attack: Battle, Battle, Special FD - End turn F0 00 05 05 - Random attack: Fire (34%), Fire 2 (66%) FF - End main script Counterattack script FC 13 01 01 - If there is only one monster left... F0 B3 FE FE - Random attack: Fire Ball (34%), no attack (66%) FE - End counter F0 EE EE FE - (implied "If attacked...") Random attack: Battle (66%), no attack (34%) FD - End counter (implied "End script") Wild Cat FC 13 01 01 - If there is only one monster left... F0 B3 FE FE - Random attack: Fire Ball (34%), no attack (66%) FE - End conditional attack F0 EE EE FE - Random attack: Battle (66%), no attack (34%) FD - End turn F0 EE EE EF - Random attack: Battle, Battle, Special FF - End main script FF - End script Monster death by ailment in the air gives no earnings except Magic Points - This bug is a bit difficult to set up and is far easier to see with a single target. You'll need one monster vulnerable to either Condemned and instant death or an ailment such as Poison and either a monster with the ability to Jump (Reach Frog) or knowledge of how to use Muddle/Palidor (see Muddle/Palidor and its subsequent oddities under 2. In battle - Disappearance glitches). Using Condemned however can be difficult since the timer is invisible, I'd recommend studying how long the timer takes on average to kill the monster in question if you take that route. The easiest way I can think of is to use Black Drgn as your test subject. Form at least a three person party with one character vulnerable to Muddle and equipped with Palidor, another with Muddle, and another with W Wind (Gau using a Rage with Cyclonic will do if you're in a pinch). Hit Black Drgn with W Wind/Cyclonic as soon as combat begins or very soon after (X-Magic with Vanish/W Wind if you're having trouble connecting), then execute Muddle/Palidor to get Black Drgn in the air. If all works out as it should, Black Drgn should die of Seizure in the air and you won't get anything but Magic Points if applicable. In a multi-target battle, any monster you attempt this against can still come down from the jump even in death, so the battle must end BEFORE that can happen, or they'll hit you, die, and you'll still get the earnings for that monster. Also, beware using Condemned against undeads that don't have Seizure like Black Drgn as they will die and come back in midair from Condemned. Although they die as soon as they land (see Condemned does kill flying undead monsters earlier in this section), once they land you can still get their Experience and other earnings, so it would be better to get rid of them by other means, or to apply Poison or Seizure before they take off (make sure they're damaged by Poison-elementals before using Poison). Black Drgn and the like, however, get killed by their ailments before they can return, so the use of Condemned on those types is OK. Multitarget Dance spells from the Control menu target in favor of enemies - Spells found under Dance that show up under Control typically target in favor of monsters when they are multitarget spells even though the cursors clearly point at enemies. The reason behind this is the Randomize Target bit that is set in these spells, as single target Dance spells such as Plasma don't show this odd behavior (the bit isn't set in these spells). The auto-confirming cursor associated with these spells however is NOT a bug, it was intentionally set into the cursor byte to do this, for what reason is outside the scope of this document. Overflow the damage counter - If you exceed 65535 max damage, the damage counter will reset, and depending on just how much max damage you did, you may do a very low amount of actual harm. It takes a lot of power to get this to happen, and won't be seen unless you obtain a massive amount of levels and Vigor/Mag.Pwr and use a very powerful attack, preferably defense ignoring. LV. 99 + 140 Mag.Pwr + Ultima should provide a clear example of such a case. No monster in the game has enough power to overflow the counter. Reflected Regen, etc. graphics have to go *somewhere* - Have one party (monster or character, doesn't matter) jump into the air, while the other reflects Regen off of one of their own (for jumping characters, try the Fanatic's Tower; L.60 Magic, L.30 Magic, L.10 Magic x2. For jumping monsters, find Reach Frogs, which are on the WOR map near such places as Narshe and Maranda). No matter which party jumps or which does the reflecting, the Regen spell's graphics will appear to hit the first character even though it really doesn't hit anyone. You can also use Muddle/Palidor (see Muddle/Palidor and its subsequent oddities under 2. In battle - Disappearance glitches) to execute the bug against jumping monsters in nearly any fight. Other spells, such as Haste, Haste2, Slow, and Bserk, also give the same effects but in their own way. Reflected spells turn party members around - If you bounce a spell off of an enemy whose animation effects the character sprite itself, the afflicted character will be turned to face right, even if they are on the left side of a Side attack, for the duration of the spell's animation. Such spells include Bserk, Haste, Regen, and Slow. Specials against party members that use a block animation result in formation error - Use a Special attack against one of your own party members, and should they use an animation to block it, such as Interceptor or a shield, the caster will be stuck where they are with their arms in the air, only coming out of the pose (but not the formation error) when they take another turn or they move in some fashion from taking or blocking a hit. To see this in the normal game, Muddle someone that's going into a Rage that has a Special attack, and have someone else with enough M.Block and something that gives a blocking animation (Zephyr Cape, Paladin Shld, and Interceptor to name a few) that can deflect the hit. Spell counters become omni-counters until another spell is used - FC 02, the spell counterattack conditional command in the enemy command scripts, simply counters one of two spells from the game's spell list, which contains a majority of usable attacks. However, whenever this counter is tripped, the variable that holds the spell used isn't cleared, so when an attack not on the spell list is used on the same target using FC 02, the FC 02 counter is triggered again. A normal game example of this is the living SrBehemoth and his Flare/Pearl counter. He should launch Meteo only when one of those two spells hits, but when one of the spells is followed up by something like Fight, Special, Jump, Steal or a few other possibilities, he'll launch Meteo again even though neither Flare or Pearl were used. Tyranosaur's temporary pseudo-row change - A Colosseum-only bug, if Haste or Slow are used on Tyranosaur, its graphic will shift back a tile or so while the animation plays out, and switch back to its normal position afterwards. Umaro can't give himself Regen - When Umaro powers up after using/receiving a Green Cherry, all he's really doing is adding all of the status Marvel Shoes would give: Regen, Haste, Shell, Safe. However, he has Seizure immunity, which causes Regen immunity (and vice versa), not unlike how the Haste/Slow immunities work in tandem. Because the FB command wasn't programmed to override status immunities, Umaro can't give himself Regen status due to an implied Regen immunity. This is a bug because it's obvious Umaro was supposed to get Regen status, but the programmer either forgot or didn't know what Seizure immunity would do to this "attack" and made Umaro attempt the status addition anyway. Undead SrBehemoth no-shows the Veldt - In the same manner that Doom Gaze screws you out of Bahamut (see Doom Gaze dies, but doesn't cough up Bahamut earlier in this section), if you use Vanish/X-Zone on the living SrBehemoth, you will never fight its undead form which in turn will keep it from ever showing up on the Veldt. However, while you will no longer have an infinite supply of BehemothSuits as a result, you will get one from the living SrBehemoth because there was no formation switch, whereas normally you would end up winning some other weird item from him and get a BehemothSuit from beating the undead form (see SrBehemoth rips you off under 4. Miscellaneous). Zephyr Cape is always out in front when facing right - The Zephyr Cape's unique blocking animation has two frames of animation. Facing left, the Zephyr Cape has one frame behind the character and the next in front. Facing right, the first frame is in front of the character, but the second is also in front even though it shouldn't be. Just a minor graphics bug. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Overworld/Locations ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blocked-off doors do not like being opened for no reason - At South Figaro, go to the basement of the rich man's house where you rescue Celes, and then go to the room where you use the old clock-key. Go to the door you uncover by winding the clock, open it, then enter and exit the subscreen. Once you return from the subscreen, you'll find that the door has shut itself and the graphics of the record player beside it have glitched up. The door will shut even if you're standing inside of it, which will result in the upper half of your lead character being completely hidden from view until you step away from the door. In another odd twist, this will allow you to walk behind the record player, even another step north if you're on its left side, although you can only walk from left to right completely (going the opposite direction stops you on the right side of the player). You can fix this bug by exiting and reentering the room. You can open the door again and glitch the game over and over without leaving the room, but the same junk graphics always appear. This bug also appears at Owzer's house, basement, and the Fanatic's Tower, namely the doors blocked off by paintings and the door to the Air Anchor room. Those doors don't permit you to walk within a section of wall though. Chocobos lose tails and decapitate themselves - A sick title for a very minor bug, stand above a Chocobo as it passes by you going left or right and you'll notice that whatever is on its upper left side is cut off from view by your character's torso upward. This only affects the tail and head. This can be seen in any Chocobo stable or at Figaro Castle. Note that the Figaro soldiers themselves are not affected by the bug although their Chocobos are as vulnerable to it as any other. Colosseum steals an item from your 99 stack if you win the same item you bet - As the title says, get 99 of an item that you get back upon winning the fight at the Colosseum, and proceed to bet it. Win or lose, you'll have 98 when the fight ends (unless you get sneezed, run, etc.). It only happens in that specific situation though. The easiest items to test this with are Fire Knuckles, Tao Robes, and Trumps since you can buy those. Die at the Colosseum, but don't get a game over - If you send all of your party members into battle at the Colosseum and have them all perish, you won't get a game over and can walk around with a dead party all you wish. Just make sure to heal up before you get into a battle outside the Colosseum because that will result in Annihilated if the party is still dead. Duncan leaps into the unknown - If you visit Duncan w/out Sabin and before acquiring Bum Rush, you can see him jumping around inside his house. If you go to the subscreen, Duncan's jump routine will be reset no matter where he is in the room. Since his routine starts with two jumps to the right, you can push him as far right as you wish, not even the wall will stop him. Event-based healing/damage ignores character status - Any type of healing or damage done via event code completely ignores any status the character may have, namely Wound, Petrify, and Zombie. For example, a Petrified character can still be hurt by the spikes in the Phoenix Cave, and the Cure casting kid in Vector on your first visit can heal Wounded and Zombified team members. However, these specialized events don't affect the statuses of your characters at all, so you can have such things as a dead character that has more than 0 HP. This is all because the event code that does the healing/damage has no way to check status to make sure that what it is doing isn't nearly pointless. Fanatic's Tower doors are a window to the omnious sky behind - If your brightness is up high enough, you'll be able to see a wall of clouds travelling behind the tower at a fast-paced speed. If you open a door in the tower and walk away from it, you can see the upper half of the interior of the door isn't solid black like the bottom half, but transparent. This allows you to see the background clouds through the room doors in a minor but odd little bug. Figaro Castle pops up in the wrong place - In the WOR, when journeying between Figaro desert and Kohlingen using Figaro Castle after getting the Falcon, Figaro Castle won't return to the surface in the same spot it appears on the world map. It is about one tile off vertically and horizontally, northwest in Figaro and southeast in Kohlingen. Gogo mimics Shadow at the Colosseum - When you bet the Striker at the Colosseum to fight Shadow, pit Gogo against him. If Shadow was the last to move and Gogo attempts to use Mimic, it will mimic Shadow's last attack and hit itself. NOTE: This has NOT been tested on Anthology. Invisible stepping stones - Using both groups available, it is possible to turn two of the stepping stones in the Phoenix Cave invisible. To do it, get to the end of the cave, where one group has to hold down a switch to make two stones pop up so the other group can cross to the same ledge. After both groups are on the same side, have one step on the switch if one isn't on it already, and step off of it while holding Y/square. When the group switches, you'll still be able to see the stones because the switch is still depressed (see Switching parties confuses switches and doors later in this section). Have the group that didn't step on the switch step on it now, then step off of it, but do not switch parties. Try crossing over the gap once again, and even though the stones are no longer visible, the group will still cross over the gap as if they were there since the other group is still stepping on the switch from the game's perspective. A second way to do this is to have one group stand on the switch, get off of it while holding Y to switch parties and keep the switch depressed, then have the other group stand on the switch and proceed to switch parties again. When you come back from the fadeout, the stones will turn invisible since the first group is no longer on the switch. In Phoenix Cave, no one moves - This one has to do with the door evading/switch confusing bug listed later in this section (Switching parties confuses switches and doors) and is a game-freezing bug. The area you need both parties at is the rock area just north of the Red Dragon's nook. Have one party at the switch that changes the path and the other north or south of the formation ready to cross through vertically. Have the party at the switch step on it, then switch to the other party. Locate the event trigger by taking single steps until the party crosses through the formation by themselves. Once you have located the trigger on either the north or south side, have the party step on it again, but this time while the party is walking forward onto the trigger, hold down Y. Done correctly, they will not cross through automatically, but you will switch parties. Now have the party at the switch walk to the path and stand directly in the way of the other group. Switch parties, and the game will try to make the now current party cross through the rocks. However, while the game can make your current group go through the rocks, it cannot make them go through the other group. Now your current party has no way to cross the formation, effectively freezing the game. Leafers and Dark Winds in the World of Ruin, but not just on the Veldt - There's a peninsula with 6 trees on it east of Kefka's Tower in the WOR. It's as far east as you can go on the southern continent. Walk around the eastern side of this peninsula, and you will encounter Leafers. Miraculous, death-defying always-left-facing jumps in Zozo - When you jump between buildings in Zozo, jumping left, your character doesn't look like it's doing anything out of the ordinary. Jumping right, however, looks awkward. It starts facing left, jumps facing right, and pulls itself up while facing left in what would probably take a contortionist to pull off in real life, if its at all possible. The Zozoian jumping between buildings doesn't exhibit this bug, it's limited only to the party. Monsters in the wrong area - Somewhat related to the glitch above (it was discovered in the same location), in order to understand this glitch you must know how the world map battles are layed out. The maps are cut up into squares, and within each of these squares lies 16 different battles; four for grassy plains, four for forests, four for deserts, and four for dry land (the charred land of the World of Ruin). This glitch relates to the boundary lines of those squares. If you fight or just walk on one side, then fight on the immediate other side of the border without going any further in, you'll encounter the same monsters from the previous area. Using the Leafer/Dark Wind peninsula on the southern continent, you can see this glitch. On the southernmost tip, the boundary splits it in two; Leafer/Dark Wind on the right, Lunaris, Osprey, etc. on the left. Land the airship on the left, and walk to the right side of this tip. Your first fight will be Lunaris, whatever. The second fight will be Leafer/Dark Wind. Walk back over to the left, and your first fight will be Leafer/Dark Wind, the second Lunaris, whatever. That's the glitch; if you go one step over the boundary, the fights will not change until either after a battle, you take another step away from the boundary and the previous area, or board the airship. Long explanation for a minor bug, eh? :) Orchestra's a bit loud, yes? - When you first enter the Opera House from the world map, the music is playing at the normal volume, but it really shouldn't be. Exit and re-enter the room from another part of the house (dressing rooms, balcony, whatever) or enter and exit the subscreen, and listen as the volume drops. The volume is always supposed to be at this level for the front room and the dressing room, but, like a whole lot of other things, the game screwed this up too. Order switch in Magitek armor at Cyan's soul causes it to reappear with Wrexsoul's death - At the third part of Cyan's Soul, you get to pilot Magitek Armor in an unknown cave area. Whoever is the leader of the party will get MagiTek Armor on the map screen. If you switch out leaders, however, the previous leader will still technically have the MagiTek Armor vehicle. This becomes evident at the ending cutscene of Cyan's Soul after you defeat Wrexsoul; all of the party members who weren't in the lead at the end of the MagiTek Armor portion, but took the lead sometime during that part, will show up in MagiTek Armor at this time. Simply switching someone into the lead and back without leaving the subscreen, however, won't trigger the bug. Owzer's basement floating chests left behind by Zozo citizens - Much akin to the Cave to the Sealed Gate's buried treasures (see The buried treasure in the Cave to the Sealed Gate; Zozo's hidden treasures? later in this section), the floating chests in Owzer's basement lie about their contents. Each chest really contains the following, fake prize first, real prize second: 2000 GP -> 293 GP Potion -> Tonic Ether -> Tincture Remedy -> Soft Phoenix's chest doesn't stay shut - At the end of the Phoenix Cave, you find Locke opening the chest to the Phoenix Magicite. If you return afterwards though, the chest has mysteriously shut once again and refuses to open. A very minor mapping bug almost not worthy of listing, but it gets mention here because sometimes people wonder if the chest is supposed to contain something else, when in fact, it does not. It's made enough people curious to where a listing is necessary. Pink Gogo in Cyan's soul - When you first enter Cyan's soul, your now-three-man group is seperated with you in control of the last character and the other two captured by a Dream Stooge. If Gogo is one of those captured, it will appear with a pink palette until you rescue it. This is because the game mistakenly gives it the Moogle/Umaro palette for this particular scenario. Returner cave treasure chest only opens from one side - There's a secret passage in the treasure room of the Returner's Hideout that leads to a chest which contains a White Cape. When you approach this chest, you always come from its left on which side you can open it. However, if you try to open it from the southern side, it won't open. I admit this one seems pretty petty since Square intended you to open it from the left side and probably didn't think anyone would bother trying to open it from the bottom, but someone did and here it is.... Save anywhere in Kefka's Tower or Phoenix Cave... or the deck of the Airship.... - The title is *slightly* misleading, as you can only save in one spot on the Airship. Anyway, this very well-known bug is simple in execution: get someone to a save point, change groups, and access the menu screen. You should now have the ability to save or use a Tent or Sleeping Bag. The effects of this bug disappear when you move the current group and only when you move the current group. Movement does not count loading a save (the bug will still be there if you load a save even with someone that isn't on the point), Warping, or using the hook to get back to the airship, only taking a step counts. This also means that should you Warp or use the hook to return to the airship with someone at a save point (even the party at the point), you can save your game w/ Setzer near the controls of the airship so long as Setzer doesn't move. This can be done at Phoenix Cave, but only by using the hook since Warp isn't allowed and the red point at the end of the cave requires you take a step to use. Setzer's coinflip scene makes Edgar and Sabin come out of the closet - Here's a bug that might make any yaoi-obsessed fan of Edgar and Sabin's happy; bring either Figaro brother to the Opera House after finding Terra in Zozo so they can get on the airship for the ride to Vector. When Setzer mentions marriage to Celes as his condition for letting the party on the ship, Celes will blush, but so will the Figaro brothers since all three share the same color palette. Shadow leaves your one-man party - This one takes a little effort to see and can only be done between the big Narshe battle and the Opera House event as Shadow must be at Kohlingen in the WOB. First, form a one-man group with Gau, go to Figaro, and travel to Kohlingen. Pay Shadow the 3000 GP to join you and head for the Veldt. That means you need to take Figaro back under the mountains and head for the cave to South Figaro. Take the same route you did at the beginning of the game through Mt. Kolts, to the Returner's Hideout, and access the Lete River through a hidden door on the south side of Banon's room (about south of the save point). The river will ditch you where Sabin came out near Gau's father's house. From here you can either take a Chocobo to Baren Falls (immediately head south and follow the path to Nikeah, the landslide is gone after Sabin's scenario) or just walk straight there. Hop in to reach the Veldt. Once there, have Gau leap in a random battle and take Shadow, who is now alone, back through the Serpent Trench and then take the ship at Nikeah to South Figaro. At this point, head back to Narshe. As you pass under the main gate or head for the secret mine entrance, Shadow will leave your one-man group, stranding you with no characters. You can still access the subscreen at this point, though it is not equipped to handle zero party members so things like trying to reorder the party will cause the game to freeze up (can't move though the game appears to be functioning fine). Also, if you exit the subscreen the screen will default to some unknown part of the Narshe map that has only mountains and snow visible. This bug does keep you from progressing any further once triggered so be ready to reset or whatever once the novelty wears off. Start a new game with the wrong leader - Before starting a new game, let the title screen and subsequent game intro play all the way through past the credits and back to the title screen (don't hit anything to skip the beginning credits!). Now start a new game, and when you get back through the intro and credits (you can skip these if you want), Wedge and Vicks will be in the top two slots respectively and Terra will be in the fourth slot. The bug here is that when the group reforms and finally gives the player control, Terra will be the character shown on the screen even though Wedge is the leader. Simply going to the subscreen or moving past the town portion of Narshe will fix this however. Switching parties confuses switches and doors - A bug that can only be exploited in the Phoenix Cave and Kefka's Tower, you can play with switches to have them set while not standing on them (or vice versa), and you can also elude door triggers to walk around in the area beyond them (if it exists, some doors don't have anything behind them). For switches, get a group to step on a switch, and while they're walking on the switch, hold Y/square to switch groups as soon as they stop moving. When the group is switched, you may notice (depending on the switch and the next group's position anyway) that the previous group hasn't triggered whatever the switch did. When you switch back to that group, the switch they're standing on will then activate. This also works the opposite way: step on a switch, walk off it while holding Y/square to switch groups. The switch will stay activated even if another party walks on and off of it (see Invisible stepping stones earlier in this section for an example effect). For doors, find out exactly where the trigger is (the place you stand on to switch maps), and get one step away from it. Step forward onto the trigger, but while walking press and hold Y/square. When you stop, you'll switch groups instead of switching rooms. Now switch back to the group that stood on the trigger. If successful, you won't switch rooms, and if there is anything behind or to the side of the door trigger, you can now walk around on it (try the room in Kefka's Tower with Movers and Steroidites for a nice example of this). Keep in mind though, some doors will not fall for this trick, and some have dangerous areas beyond them that will trap you (the big doors in Kefka's Tower that have arrows pointing down at them, for example). Event triggers will also fall for this, but once you switch back, they will activate (side note, switches are event triggers as well). It does have uses though, even if one of them is a bad one (see In Phoenix Cave, no one moves, earlier in this section). The buried treasure in the Cave to the Sealed Gate; Zozo's hidden treasures? - If you don't already know about the treasures underneath the grand stairway, just after the save point in the Cave, there's a large staircase that, at the bottom, resides a small rocky field with treasures buried beneath the surface that you can dig up by pressing A/X/whatever on the right spot. One of these items is supposedly a Remedy, or at least that's what the game would have you believe. Instead, this item is really a Soft potion, there's no Remedy here. As if that weren't enough, you can also pick up a "Water Skean" here, or in other words, a misnamed Water Edge. Let's make things worse with the fact that the 2000 GP find behind the treasure chest in this area is really only 293 GP. No wonder that Ninja enemy looked like a Zozo citizen... and the only truth-telling item here is the Inviz Edge. There was only one guy who told the truth in Zozo too... an uncanny resemblance, isn't it? White Drgn misplaces the room camera - When you fight White Drgn in the Fanatic's Tower, the camera adjusts its position to focus on you and the dragon, but does not replace it after the fight, leaving the camera off-center when it shouldn't be. This lasts until you leave the room. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Miscellaneous ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Kefka with no name - Here's a nice bug having to do with the final battle. Enemy #282, named Kefka, is a Narshe guard in looks but in coding, not only is it untargetable, it is invisible (given where it was to show up, you'd never know it was there), has a name that appears in the enemy name box, and looks like it was supposed to handle switching between battles. However, this did not work out and the programmers went with pure 65816 assembly code to handle this (65816 being the name of the SNES CPU), leaving the Narshe guard Kefka dummied without any further purpose albeit he still remains in the code. The bug here is that while everything else it was supposed to handle was taken care of, the name Kefka was not, leaving the first three battles with unnamed enemies. With that in mind, it's very safe to say that all of the enemies before the fourth and final fight are in some respect an extension of Kefka as there's no in-game data that contradicts the point *at all*. Allo Ver doesn't appear on the Veldt, or give you a Magic Point - All that's wrong here is a formation mixup; formation 515 was used instead of 126. So what's the problem here? Well, 515 is not a formation that can appear on the Veldt, and you can only encounter Allo Ver once, which means Allo Ver is never an available Rage. Also, 515 doesn't give Magic Points, as it is incapable of doing so, so the bug also keeps you from your well-deserved 1 Magic Point. Celes doesn't learn Muddle from level averaging - If Celes levels up past or at 32 due to level averaging, but does not reach at least 40, she will learn Haste but not Muddle. Both Haste and Muddle are supposed to be learned at 32, but due to the way her natural spell list is ordered and the way the list is sorted through during level averaging and characters joining up, Muddle is lost because Bserk, learned at LV. 40, is stuck between Haste and Muddle. Also, should this occur, Celes won't be able to learn Muddle through level ups period. Incorrect descriptions of spells, items, etc. - This is a short list of spell/item descriptions that contain erroneous info. As of now, there aren't enough to warrant more than a simple listing. Debatables like Remedy (both) aren't going to be included. Keep in mind that this doc will NOT cover any foreign language versions, foreign language fan translations, or English fan translations, just the official English translations. Also, ALL incorrect descriptions fall here, including those that are version specific. Jewel Ring; Says it gives Dark and Petrify immunity, but it only gives Petrify immunity. Found in FF3us, both versions. L.4 Flare; Says it affects LV. 2, 4, 6... targets, though the spell's name and the spell itself indicate it hits multiple enemies. This erroneous description also shows up in combat in FF3us when monsters cast L.4 Flare, but not on the PS versions (Anthology and European). Life 2; Says it revives the dead with full HP/MP, but it only restores HP, no MP restore whatsoever. Miscolored command names - This bug's description is brought to you purely by Assassin, namely because neither of us could figure out how to shorten this thing: The long list of commands on the right-hand side of Gogo's Status screen often lies about their availability. For instance, it might wrongly have SwdTech lit up even if you lack a sword, or Runic darkened even if you hold a bladed weapon. The cause is that when you enter somebody's Status screen, all four character's lists are generated (nevermind that only Gogo HAS a right-hand menu) *before* anybody's equipment data is read; thus, they'll be based on the equipment data for whichever character whose Equip/Relic/Status menu you visited most recently. For example, put Gogo and empty-handed Locke in a party together, and give Gogo the SwdTech command and a Man Eater. Enter Locke's Status screen, exit it with the B button, then enter Gogo's. The game is still using Locke's equipment data, so SwdTech will incorrectly be grayed on the list. Note that switching to a Status screen with the L or R button isn't quite the same as entering it from the main menu; the lists aren't regenerated. To illustrate, put Locke, Gogo and Celes in a party. Enter Celes' equipment menu, exit it, then enter Locke's Status screen. Hit L and/or R until you reach Gogo s Status screen; we'll still be using Celes' equipment for the mimic's right-hand list. An easy way to get an accurate view is to enter Gogo's Status screen, exit, and enter it again. If you've avoided seeing this bug, it's largely thanks to coincidence: a dirk-wielding Gogo in a party full of dirk enthusiasts will be rescued by conformity. SwdTech and Runic are the only commands that can be grayed on menus outside battle, so they're the only ones affected by this bug. Also, the normal 4-command lists on the Status screen and on the arrangement of the Short layout under the Config menu are perfectly fine, as they're generated after the game reads the proper character's equipment data. "This bug description isn't finished!" you say, "For I am clever and don't visit ANYBODY's Equipment/Relic/Status menu before Gogo's. Then what happens? Eh?!" The "magic character" whose equipment is used for the list varies, depending on what you did most recently: - Load a saved game => party member with highest ROM index. Gogo is high at #12, so his Status menu should be correct unless Umaro, the unlucky and unbathed #13, is also in your party. - Exit the main menu => last party member. So if you enter the main menu, leave it with the B button, then re-enter it and go straight to Gogo's Status screen, it'll be based off the 4th party member (or 3rd if that slot is empty, etc). - Finish a battle => the first slot that holds a party member, as the game loops through the party's slots in reverse order when battle starts. - But if you change a character's equipment during battle, have them exit a Rage (e.g. due to Death or Petrify), or toggle Imp status on them, the last one to undergo such a change will become our "magic character." Great merciful crap.. that was a long description for a bug that doesn't actually affect gameplay. :/ Setzer's Bandana - This bug is in reference to startup equipment. Setzer starts out with a Bandana equipped in the Head slot, however, he can't equip this item normally, so he really shouldn't have this equipped at all. SrBehemoth rips you off - Both the living SrBehemoth and the undead SrBehemoth give up Behemothsuits as win items. While that sounds good, most veterans will recall that the prize for the duel SrBehemoths battle in the Cave in the Veldt is actually one BehemothSuit and one ThunderBlade, or in very rare cases, perhaps a Jewel Ring instead of the blade. The monster stats guide and the ROM itself both claim the former about both monsters giving up BehemothSuits, so now the question is why so many people claim the latter is true. That, unfortunately, is because it is true, due to a bug that occurs as a result of the formation switch that brings in the undead SrBehemoth. The two monsters are not only in seperate formations, but also in seperate slots; the living monster in slot 1, undead in slot 2. What was supposed to happen was that by not having the monsters in the same spot, the win data from the living SrBehemoth would be carried over to the new formation containing the undead version, resulting in your getting 2 BehemothSuits. What happens instead is that when the battle ends and the game goes to check for win items, it reads the first formation slot for the monster number needed to retrive win item data, and gets FFFFh, the number that says there's no monster in the slot. Since the game did save the data that says you defeated the monster in the first slot, it will try to retrive the win data anyway, and ends up going to offset 1031FE, where the common win item is listed as a ThunderBlade and the rare item a Jewel Ring in FF3us. Keep in mind that in FF6j and the PS versions, these are not the same. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Version specific ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) NOTE: These were all found and tested on the Greatest Hits version of Anthology released in America (i.e. the latest version there is). It is highly likely that these bugs appear in all of the PlayStation FF6 games, but any tests done on the original FFA, FF Collection, or FF6 European would be appreciated as one bug has already been found to be version specific between the PS games (Remove Locke and Celes from the party after Zozo, before Vector under Final Fantasy Anthology, Greatest Hits (PS)) and there could be others. In battle: FC 08 responds to the wrong status - Magic Urn has commands to respond specifically to Petrified or Wounded characters with Soft and Life/Life 2 respectively. However, in Anthology, these commands were coded wrong, so that it now responds to Safe status as if it were Petrify and Reflect as if it were Wound. Magic Urn is merely an example however, all monsters seem to exhibit the same behavior, such as an Imp ed living SrBehemoth. He should use two-hit Battle combos every turn for three turns, then use the Imp spell on himself to change back, but in Anthology, this never happens. Reflected spells may cause a monster to glow - Related heavily to a bug in 6. Undetermined (Prevent manual character targeting with certain attack animations) as this one has to do with the same spells, namely Bserk, Haste, Regen, and Slow. If one of these is reflected off of a monster, they will receive a strange graphic bug that may cause them to glow with the spell's effect while they are reflecting the spell. Wavy animations are now broken - Try casting Demi, or watching a heart/song note animation Special such as Wing Snap, in Anthology's version of Final Fantasy 6, and pay attention to the animation. It will fly straight at the target with glimpses of the wave-type path it followed in its previous versions, making it obvious this new straight-flying behavior was not intended. Overworld/Locations: Phantom Train music cuts out and back in randomly after battles - A strange, seemingly random bug with no pinpointed cause yet, sometimes after battles the music will be replaced with the same repeating train sound that you hear in Cyan's Dream, and sometimes after battles the music comes back. This can also occur by entering/exiting the subscreen and going into/out of train cars. Sprint Shoes + Dash leaves characters in action poses - In FF6 PS, you almost always have the function of Sprint Shoes by default. You can activate it by holding down the O button in towns, dungeons, etc. You can have the Sprint Shoes too if you don't like holding a button down, and you can also add Sprint Shoes and dash together for an even faster running speed. However, this unveils a very minor bug; when you combine Sprint Shoes and dash, whenever you stop moving, your character will sometimes stand still in a walking pose instead of the traditional standing pose. This has no other effects, but is still worth inclusion. Subscreen: Equip any weapon - For this bug, you need to put a weapon in Item slot 256 (the very last one). Sell all of the weapons a given character can equip, and hit Optimum. The weapon in slot 256 will now appear in the character's right hand. This bug also works with the Genji Glove if there are at least two copies of the weapon, but not with Gauntlet. Miscellaneous: Item slot 256 active on the subscreen, but not during combat - The title pretty much says it all. Item slot 256 can be accessed in the subscreen, but not in the Item or Throw menus during battle. Loading problems with idle games - Anthology has a loading routine that becomes unstable with time spent idle. If you don't do anything during the game for too long (i.e. wait at the subscreen a long time or leave the game paused too long during battle), the game tends to hang up in what appears to be a total game freeze, which is caused by the game not loading from the CD. For whatever reason, if you're playing on the PS2, hitting Eject will cure this, as it will not eject the disc, but the CD loading routine "wakes up" and the game will continue given a few seconds. Note that this has NOT been tested on the original PlayStation system. Also, this only happens if you wait a few minutes or so. Careful, however, if you enable the PS2's fast loading feature, it will cause this bug to appear faster for reasons I can only guess at. So long as the game is continually loading from the CD though, you won't ever see this bug. NOTE: because fast loading only made it appear faster and wasn't the actual cause, I have eliminated the PS2-only glitches section. However, if it does not appear on the original PS, I will restore that section, but I have no reason to believe it won't aside from perhaps another fault in the PS2's emulator. Final Fantasy Anthology, Greatest Hits (PS) Miscellaneous: Remove Locke and Celes from the party after Zozo, before Vector - The party selection screen between the Zozo and Opera House events forces the party to have Locke and Celes as active members. In previous versions, removal was impossible, but in Anthology, this isn't true. The only thing protected here is the default spots the game selects for Locke and Celes, and only from being picked second. Try selecting either Locke or Celes first, then move them to a spot neither one occupied when the selection screen was first displayed, even out of the party. This alone is all it takes to get rid of them, but some potential hazards creep up from this. First, leaving one or the other out of the active party, if not both, makes the Opera House event impossible to finish, and secondly, the bug makes it possible to create a game that can only be won via cheat device. You can do this by using the bug to form a team of Cyan, Edgar, Sabin, and Gau. This eliminates all four members you can find at Arvis' house at this time as Locke and Celes will not appear there if you take them out (they reappear at the selection screen if you've already removed them but they won't walk around Arvis' house like the other members). In turn, changing party members will no longer be possible along with the Opera House becoming impossible. Needless to say, if you make this particular group with this bug, DO NOT SAVE THE GAME, because only a cheat device will bring Locke or Celes back to you in that event. That doesn't mean leaving Locke and Celes out for a little bit isn't something you should avoid at all costs, but if you do, you must make a party of three or less characters so that at least one can be left behind to change party members later. NOTE: If anyone can confirm or deny this for FF6 European, it would be appreciated, as it has already been discounted from the original Anthology version. Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) In battle: X-type instant death weapons/Dragon Horn - This bug has its roots in the same area as Tempest/Dragon Horn (see said bug in 2. In battle - Disappearance Glitches), however, it's different as this was fixed in FF3us and Tempest was not, but strangely enough this bug shows up in Anthology AND FF6j, hence the new subsection. For this, jump with an X-type instant death weapon (Striker, etc.) w/Dragon Horn equipped and get an X-type death on a non-landing jump. All subsequent jumps will be X-type death, causing a disappearance bug. This also unfortunately works with Scimitar's dicing effect. Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) In battle: Setzer resents bird-hating comrades, sneaks off - Whenever Setzer/Gogo lands from a jump executed by their Palidor spell from 3-BAR, they take a step backwards that they aren't supposed to. One of a few formation error bugs. Setzer resents bird-hating comrades, walks off - A formation error bug, if you cast Phoenix under Slot using 3-BAR, Setzer/Gogo will take an extra step forward for each party member who is currently on the battlefield. This also occurs if 3-BAR's Phoenix is mimicked. Keep in mind however, this only works when the spell is blocked using a shield animation. Step Mine glitches MP cost display - Whenever the MP cost of Step Mine is at 100 or up to 109, the in-battle MP cost display for the Lore menu will glitch and not display the middle digit. The formula for a character's Step Mine MP cost is playtime in hours * 2, so you can only see this bug between 50 and 55 hours, at which the middle digit of Step Mine's MP cost will be a 0. Overworld/Locations: Chupon is listed under Shadow at the Colosseum - When you bet the Striker to fight Shadow at the Colosseum, Shadow's name is listed under him, but Chupon's name is listed beneath Shadow's name as well. Garbage Chocobo rider - During Terra/Edgar/Banon's scenario, change your party leader to Banon and head for the Chocobo stable near Figaro desert (the small forest next to the southwest corner). Pay to ride a Chocobo, and notice how while riding Banon's sprite screws up. Obviously, he wasn't ever meant to ride a Chocobo. In the PS versions, however, the bug is fixed by having Terra ride in Banon's place. Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) In battle: Can't even list names right, part 1 - This bug is in two sections because while you can see one effect of it in the game, the other is something you only see with hacks. In this case, a section of the coding was not modified for the new 10 character limit for enemies, and as a result, names may end up duplicated between multiple types of enemies. The only in-game example of this are the Mag Roaders on the mine cart ride in Vector and the ones in the Narshe mines in the WOR. Subscreen: Skills menu can't clear previous text - In the Skills menu, there's a window near the top-right corner that tells you what command's abilities you're viewing, or under Magic, how much MP the ability costs. In FF3us, this window can't clear the previous text, so if you were to, for example, load Gau's Magic menu and then his Rage menu, you would get "Rage" and the MP cost of whatever spell you highlighted in the Magic menu last. The red/yellow streak in Gogo's command options window - There's a red/yellow streak in Gogo's command options window that shouldn't be there. About the only thing I can elaborate on is the cause, which is that the line comes from the very last line in Gogo's subscreen portrait. This portrait is mysteriously reprinted behind the window, and the last line comes out from behind the window due to a sprite priority bug. Final Fantasy 3 U.S. version 1.0 (SNES) In battle: The infamous Sketch bug - Follow this link; http://masterzed.cavesofnarshe.com/GameDocs/ff3sktch.txt If not, here's the short of it; the Sketch bug occurs whenever you miss an enemy with Sketch. What happens is that the game loads up a pointer from an unknown spot in the ROM and uses it to load a monster sprite even though there's no point because it missed. The unknown spot is dictated by offset 7E:20FF/7E:2100 in the RAM, which is part of the first character's in-battle spell list, the 28th spell to be exact. 7E:20FF is an unknown byte that also serves as the byte that dictates whether a spell is greyed out, and 7E:2100 is the spell's aiming byte. Normally, this bug produces nothing, but under the correct circumstances, the game will go haywire from this bad sprite loading. The effects range from messed up item lists, equipment changes, town/dungeon PC sprite glitches, blackouts, freezeups, intense graphic glitches, etc. This can be seen rather easily when Mute or a spell with the same aiming type is in slot 28, and Sketch misses. There are coincidentally three known methods of seeing the bug in FF3us v1.0 with Mute and the like; normal, being an Imp at the beginning of battle, and becoming an Imp in battle. So long as the first character casts no spells, the unknown byte will only change from Imp transformations, so the bug is easy to get. Beware, however, that the bug could erase your saves on the cart, so usage there is *NOT* encouraged by myself. For further information, check my Sketch bug guide, linked to above. This bug also exists in FF6j SFC, however there is no known method of getting the game to go haywire yet. When that is found, the Sketch bug guide will be the first of these two guides to be updated. Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom) Overworld/Locations: Return to the World of Balance - In the WOR, go to the Opera House and head for the rafters above the stage. If you left at least one behind during your first trip to the house, find a rat, enter battle with it, and lose. You should end up outside the Opera House in the WOB. NOTE: While the glitch is true, the problem is that the reason this bug isn't found in later versions is that the rats are taken out upon entry to the WOR. I don't know if FF6j does the same, and I'm only listing it here because it's an old bug that's been tossed around in various places, so I can only assume that at least one rat is unaccounted for in the original. I'll test this at some point in the future, but if I can't find any rats, this bug will no longer be listed here. Subscreen: The Equip Anything bug - Although commonly known as the Equip Anything as a Helmet bug, this glitch can work with any Equipment slot except relics. To equip anything to a certain slot, eliminate all equipment that the character you want to equip can use (i.e. if you want a new weapon, eliminate all weapons from your inventory the person can equip by de-equiping their weapon and selling, throwing, or using everything else), put what you want to equip in the bottom right-hand slot, go to the character's equip screen, and use Optimum, Best, or whatever it's called in FF6j or whatever translation you're using. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Undetermined ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE - This section is meant for miscellaneous nuances in Final Fantasy 3/6j that look like bugs, but are not actually confirmed as such, as in it cannot be determined if the effects listed are what Square intended or if they are actually symptoms of a bug. In battle: Colosseum monsters and characters on the field!? - Try combining Muddle and Charm on a single target. Sucessfully mixed, the targeting of spells is redirected twice, resulting in the target using random attacks on monsters, or monsters using Control attacks against the party. The description of this unlikely mix comes from the fact this produces effects not unlike those battles at the Colosseum. Control attacks ignore MP cost in use - Whenever you use an attack with a MP cost via a Controlled monster, the game will ignore the cost entirely, not taking it from the Controller or the monster. The menu doesn't do the same, however, though it's kinda slow at actually noticing a change in MP under certain circumstances (see Control menu responds poorly to MP change under 2. In battle - Miscellaneous). Counterattack from beyond - A bug made famous by Intangir, sometimes when X-Zone/Odin/Raiden/Cleave/Snare/ X-Fer is used on it, it will use its final attack anyway. The culprits in this are Poison, Seizure, and most frequently, Regen. If someone in your party has one of these statuses, there's a chance the enemy will use their final attack anyway even if X-Zone, etc. was employed. This is not limited to Intangir, as this was also tested successfully against Retainer. This "glitch" doesn't always occur because it could very well be the result of a queued Poison/ Seizure/Regen attack, which, while it never happens, knocks out the stall from X-Zone, etc. on final attacks and allows the monster(s) to attack. Now, whether it is a glitch has yet to be confirmed, as that requires a check on the game code, which is why this bug is still undetermined. Prevent manual character targeting with certain attack animations - Specifically, the following are what this bug involves: Antdot, Bserk, Dischord, Eyedrop, Haste, Regen, Revivify, Slow, X-Potion, and X-Ether. When any of these are used on a monster, nothing one would consider abnormal happens. On a character however, while the spell's attack graphic is playing out, the character is untargetable. It only lasts for the duration of the attack graphic, but it's abnormal enough for me to list here. Also, keep in mind that if you're targeting all characters at once trying to utilize this bug as an advantage *coughCrusadercough*, you must target all characters while the animation is playing out. If you target all characters before the animation plays, the bug will not occur. I just can't tell if this was supposed to happen (it doesn't for monsters) or if this is some side effect of the animations. Rich man's basement; a window to the past - In the rich man's basement during Locke's scenario, all of the enemies are Vector Pups and Commanders. The basement retains these enemies throughout the game, which is a bug/oversight/plothole. Why? When the Empire pulled out of South Figaro, the Vector Pups and Commanders should have left with them. Instead, they never disappear, not even in the WOR, even though they are obviously Imperial troops. There is only supposed to be one soldier remaining in the WOR, and he's at the Colosseum. While troops on the Veldt isn't a plothole because they are technically monsters (their presence is part of the Veldt structure, nothing to do with the story at all), the troops in the basement shouldn't be there as there's no game device or text that explains their continued presence. NOTE: The reason this is undetermined is because it will probably be debated and I'd rather wait for the potential bickering to end before sticking this in section 3. Shadow's early Dirks strike in odd ways - Dirks such as the Imperial, Kodachi, and Blossom are dealt with in an odd fashion when swung with the Fight command from the left hand (or right hand on the left side of a Pincer); they're disconnected from Shadow's hand. In fact, it looks like they're attached to his wrist. Spell cost decrease doesn't affect Runic's intake - If a character uses a spell with the Gold Hairpin of Economizer equipped and Runic absorbs it, it will not affect the amount of MP Runic absorbs. For example, Ultima may take 1 MP to cast, but Runic will still heal 80 MP. Waste an extra turn with X-Magic - If you use Quick as the first spell in an X-Magic attack, the second spell will count as one of your extra turns. Don't rob yourself of free time now.... Miscellaneous: ProtoArmor on the Veldt - This one is very widely known but the inclusion here is highly debatable, hence why I've listed it in this section. If you fight a group of one ProtoArmor and two Pipsqueaks in the MagiTek Factory, you'll be able to find the formation on the Veldt despite the fact that ProtoArmor has no Rage and Pipsqueak is found in more than one formation not including this one. The reason this is debatable is because not only does this formation serve a purpose (Pipsqueak), but also because of how the Veldt works in general. It is unknown if Square simply forgot to exclude this formation or if they intended it to appear on the Veldt, and can't be deduced at this time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Glitches/bugs seen via hacking ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE - This section is under very strict controls as to whether something seen while hacking will show up here and no submissions will be accepted for this area. Health changes colors? - Have Reflect status on at least one party member, and have someone cast Health. When reflected, the Cure 2 spell Health casts will regain its normal greenish palette. While it is confirmed in FF3us, it is not confirmed elsewhere. This section is very low priority, so this glitch may not be confirmed for all platforms and versions for a long time, if ever. Item counters supercede all counters until another Item is used - Akin to the related FC 02 bug (see Spell counters become omni-counters until another spell is used under 2. In battle - Miscellaneous), if an Item counter (FC 03) is triggered, the item variable it uses is not cleared, making it counter anything as if it were the same item until another item it won't counter is used on the target. The only two in-game examples of this are Umaro and a returning Gau from the Veldt, however, Umaro's Green Cherry counter is preceded by a variable check (meaning he never makes it to his FC 03 twice) and while Gau's FC 03 Dried Meat counter precedes his variable check, the only way you would ever actually see the bug's effect is in a code trace. Version specific: Final Fantasy 3 U.S. (SNES) Can't even list names right, part 2 - If you try to put together a monster group, be careful how you order them. Sometimes names won't even show up on the list. This is a very rare bug, and it has to do with which enemies you rename and then how you group them/who you put into a group for this part of the bug to be seen. Needless to say, it is a rare bug you'll more than likely never encounter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Removed bugs ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE - This section contains oddities that at first seemed like bugs, but after careful study proved to actually be part of the game's intended workings. This section contains the bugs in question and after them the reason behind their removal. Dragon Horn can't do X-type instant death against undead characters on non-landing jumps - Title says it all. Namely, if you have a character with an instant death weapon akin to Striker equipped w/ Dragon Horn, and have him attempt a Jump or Palidor attack against the team, any undead members hit by nonlanding jumps will NOT be instantly revived, but dealt damage, guaranteed. The only time you can get the X to show up against characters when using the Dragon Horn on a Jump is on the landing jump. If you think that sucks, at least for characters the game tells the truth... REASON - This was done in an attempt to avoid a bug such as Tempest/Dragon Horn from appearing and making the attacker disappear. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Credits, links, and contact info ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits: "I give credit where credit is due! If memory serves, anyway." - ZED Mnrogar - For being on AIM when I decided to write this. See, I capitalized the name this time! What a purty M that is! :P And for discovering a few of these glitch/bug thingies I guess. Like I said, if memory serves. It doesn't, except for the boundary bug apparently, which I was reminded of by reading my AIM archives. Also for helping with the proofreading of this doc. Akira Slime - For informing the FF3 board long ago of Psycho Cyan. Although we may never know who found it, I could at least thank the messenger. Terii Senshi - For the data concerning what effects were missing from certain status as a result of the Evade bug. Assassin - For the Leafer/Dark Wind and Colosseum bugs listed in the Overworld/Locations section. Also a "warm-hearted thank you" for badgering me about adding Allo Ver and for being the first to get a bug removed from the guide, not to mention coming up with the majority of the method for the no party members bug. :P Finally, thanks for summing up and adding a truckload of bugs on Mnrogar's boards so that I didn't have to go looking for them making v2.5, including the description for Miscolored command names, and also for the load of edits made in v2.6. Oh, and that quote in the Intro. It's the truth, after all. :) Shark - For his input on the wording of the boundary bug's description. The way I had it, it might as well have been a college book, i.e. overly wordly and complicated for a simple task. Lord J - For the Mag Roader bug under 2. In battle - Miscellaneous. Kardis - for the black Atma Weapon glitch. deathslinger - for informing us about Strago's ability to learn L.5 Doom from Setzer's Joker Doom. Djibriel - For the info on Bserk preventing manual targeting and quite a few other bugs listed in v1.6 and beyond, including, but not limited to, Hawk Eye|Sniper/Rage. AspiringSquire - For providing a few clarifications on a couple FF6 PS bugs and telling me that the Remove Locke/Celes bug did not appear in the original Anthology, giving us our first version specific bug between PlayStation versions. bebi vegeta - for the graphics bug in the basement of the rich man's house in South Figaro. Lenophis - for originally discovering Jump/Reflect/Regen. HolyKnight199 - for some additions made in v1.8. Imzogelmo - for reminding me of the Owzer's basement chests lying about their contents. mblock129 - for the Zephyr Cape animation bug in v2.3 and the Dice side mismatch bug in v2.6. AWJ - for the Shadow's early Dirks bug in v2.1. Detah - for inspiring the hunt for the no party members bug added in v1.8. Misc. people - For discovering these bugs and other random stuff related to this doc. Yeah, my memory's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I did remember Akira Slime! That says something, right? In particular, I'd like to thank the two people that brought up the Celes/Locke/Opera House bug that was confirmed in v1.8 (Remove Locke and Celes from the party after Zozo, before Vector) from the Anthology and FF3us G'FAQs boards. I don't remember your names but I remember that seeing both posts convinced me to check it out even though everyone else said it was impossible. Oh well, better than no credit period, right? :) Links: Here's a few links that might interest you if you're still on the bug hunt; RPG Legion - http://www.rpglegion.com/ Terii's site, many bugfix patches can be found here. Assassin's barren webpage - http://www14.brinkster.com/assassin17/ *OR* http://assassin17.home.comcast.net/ Lots of bugfixes and an alphabetical Rage patch. But hey, he does provide commented assembly for each patch for you hackers and programmers still learning 65816, or those just genuinely curious! Mnrogar's Den - http://www.mnrogar.com/ The Advanced Tactics Quiz provides more in-depth explanations for a lot of the bugs listed here. I seem to be the Cliff Notes to his War and Peace here. :) Also, check out the links section and the message board! The Unoriginal White Sheet - http://masterzed.cavesofnarshe.com/ My little igloo. More bugfix patches here. Also, this is where the doc will be updated first, so if you really want to be around for the updates, you have no choice but to visit here, as I don't always update GameFAQs! Bwa, ha ha ha! >:) Contact: E-mail addresses - cytekzed@aol.com *OR* master.zed@gmail.com Boards I frequent - My name's the same on all forums I visit, so finding me isn't very difficult. http://cgi.gamefaqs.com/boards/gentopic.asp?board=8998 GameFAQs SNES FF3 board http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/ Caves of Narshe forums http://forums.opgaming.com/ Omniplay Gaming forums (this one is down due to DNS-related issues) http://cfv5.conforums.com/ Crossfire (this last one's not exactly game-related (I don't visit the Entertainment portion, PM recommended if you try it) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Elongated table of contents ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For you Ctrl+F'ers, here's an extra table of contents containing the titles of every bug listed. NOTE: Some titles have lines in-between them. This is because they were too long for the 80 character limit, so lines were added to avoid confusion. Elongated table of Contents: 0. Version history 1. Intro 2. In battle - Blitz Mantra defies all mathematical logic! - Commands Capture + Offering = bad pickpocket Certain weapons lose functionality with Capture Change row in a Pincer attack Jump doesn't reload weapon data Jump only uses one weapon of a dual weapon wielder... or so it seems! Mimic treats resources inconsistently Prophetic Jump predicts broken Ogre Nix Swordless Runic Swordless Runic; broken sword edition - Disappearance glitches Jump/Launcher Jump/Super Ball Jump after Jump/Super Ball Larry makes revived brothers disappear through acts of cowardice X-Zone striking a monster causes it to disappear Living monster Life 3 revival + Undead monster instant death revival Muddle/Palidor and its subsequent oddities Tempest/Dragon Horn - Equipment/Items Atma Weapon can carve up stones Barrier Ring, etc. can cast their spells at full HP Black Atma Weapon Cursed Shld has a beneficial use!? Dice weapons have numbers on the wrong sides Dragon Horn fakes damage against undead monsters w/ Striker, etc. Fenix Down double block Genji Glove reduces single weapon damage Hawk Eye and Sniper can throw Rage weapons... even Gau's hand Heal Rod targets the wrong groups ThiefKnife/Dragon Horn is also bad at "treasure hunting" ThiefKnife/Offering is just like the above - Quick CPU-controlled characters AND monsters lose turns to Quick casters Infinite turns w/ Quick and X-Magic Jump defies Muddle, etc. on player-initiated Jump attacks - Slot Joker Doom anyone at pretty much any time with Gogo's Mimic command Joker Doom sets you up in the opposite direction Learn L.5 Doom from... Setzer? - Spells Enemy Roulette cancellation Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 1 Muddle/Palidor vs. Gau Multiple Love Tokens make the target forget previous casters Quick/Rippler allows desperation attack without low HP Rippler missed... but it worked? Rippler trades everything Roulette doesn't always live up to its name Second Charm makes first charmer's spell useless Skean spells cause formation errors Tapir lies about when it works - Statistics Evade is worthless Invert damage if Undead only affects healing abilities - Status Auto-expiring statuses don't reset their timers with manual removal Becoming a zombie cures the uncurable Clear overrides certain checks Death, Petrify, and Zombie lose permanent status beginning battle, but not immunity Dying from the first Rage turn loses Rage-inflicted status Imped Ragers keep automatic movement, but not anything else Imp... or not an Imp?: Part 2 Missing effects Muddle makes Controlled enemies face forward Mute steals your Rage-inflicted status on attempted spell casts Near Fatal and Zombie; guests that won't leave Permanent miscellaneous status Permanent Morph status until the end of battle Random sword gets the MP with multiple Runics on an ST spell, but all drop afterward X-type instant death revives instant death-immune undead - Swdtech Retort counters any physical attack Retort lasts forever, but only uses a physical strike Infinite Fight combo, a.k.a. the Psycho Cyan bug Swordless SwdTech - Miscellaneous Air Anchor responds to Poison, etc. Attain a living 0 HP character Clear confuses Magitek Armor graphics Condemned does kill flying undead monsters Control menu responds poorly to MP change Crusader redecorates Reflect barriers Doom Gaze dies, but doesn't cough up Bahamut Face the wrong way with Blow Fish and co. FC 05 becomes an omni-counter after its first strike FC 05 only strikes the last person to do damage, not the last attacker Gau, dead man standing Have a dead/zombie party and not get Annihilated Items are cancelled upon Muddled and subsequent healing Jump like a coward Kill the undead twice! L.70 Magic and Retainer protected from single targeting Mag Roader's script has a missing end Monster death by ailment in the air gives no earnings except Magic Points Multitarget Dance spells from the Control menu target in favor of enemies Overflow the damage counter Reflected Regen, etc. graphics have to go *somewhere* Reflected spells turn party members around Specials against party members that use a block animation result in formation error Spell counters become omni-counters until another spell is used Tyranosaur's temporary pseudo-row change Umaro can't give himself Regen Undead SrBehemoth no-shows the Veldt Zephyr Cape is always out in front when facing right 3. Overworld/Locations Blocked-off doors do not like being opened for no reason Chocobos lose tails and decapitate themselves Colosseum steals an item from your 99 stack if you win the same item you bet Die at the Colosseum, but don't get a game over Duncan leaps into the unknown Event-based healing/damage ignores character status Fanatic's Tower doors are a window to the omnious sky behind Figaro Castle pops up in the wrong place Gogo mimics Shadow at the Colosseum Invisible stepping stones In Phoenix Cave, no one moves Leafers and Dark Winds in the World of Ruin, but not just on the Veldt Miraculous, death-defying always-left-facing jumps in Zozo Monsters in the wrong area Orchestra's a bit loud, yes? Order switch in Magitek armor at Cyan's soul causes it to reappear with Wrexsoul's death Owzer's basement floating chests left behind by Zozo citizens Phoenix's chest doesn't stay shut Pink Gogo in Cyan's soul Returner cave treasure chest only opens from one side Save anywhere in Kefka's Tower or Phoenix Cave... or the deck of the Airship.... Setzer's coinflip scene makes Edgar and Sabin come out of the closet Shadow leaves your one-man party Start a new game with the wrong leader Switching parties confuses switches and doors The buried treasure in the Cave to the Sealed Gate; Zozo's hidden treasures? White Drgn misplaces the room camera 4. Miscellaneous A Kefka with no name Allo Ver doesn't appear on the Veldt, or give you a Magic Point Celes doesn't learn Muddle from level averaging Incorrect descriptions of spells, items, etc. Miscolored command names Setzer's Bandana SrBehemoth rips you off 5. Version specific - Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) • In battle FC 08 responds to the wrong status Reflected spells may cause a monster to glow Wavy animations are now broken • Overworld/Locations Phantom Train music cuts out and back in randomly after battles Sprint Shoes + Dash leaves characters in action poses • Subscreen Equip any weapon • Miscellaneous Item slot 256 active on the subscreen, but not during combat Loading problems with idle games - Final Fantasy Anthology, Greatest Hits (PS) Remove Locke and Celes from the party after Zozo, before Vector - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 6, all versions (PS) X-type instant death weapons/Dragon Horn - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom), Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) • In battle Setzer resents bird-hating comrades, sneaks off Setzer resents bird-hating comrades, walks off Step Mine glitches MP cost display • Overworld/Locations Chupon is listed under Shadow at the Colosseum Garbage Chocobo rider - Final Fantasy 3 U.S., both versions (SNES) • In battle Can't even list names right, part 1 • Subscreen The red/yellow streak in Gogo's command options window - Final Fantasy 3 U.S. version 1.0 (SNES) The infamous Sketch bug - Final Fantasy 6 (Super Famicom) • Overworld/Locations Return to the World of Balance • Subscreen The Equip Anything bug 6. Undetermined - In battle Colosseum monsters and characters on the field!? Control attacks ignore MP cost in use Counterattack from beyond Prevent manual character targeting with certain attack animations Rich man's basement; a window to the past Shadow's early Dirks strike in odd ways Spell cost decrease doesn't affect Runic's intake Waste an extra turn with X-Magic - Miscellaneous ProtoArmor on the Veldt 7. Glitches/bugs seen via hacking Health changes colors? Item counters supercede all counters until another Item is used - Final Fantasy 3 U.S. (SNES) Can't even list names right, part 2 8. Removed bugs Dragon Horn can't do X-type instant death against undead characters on non-landing jumps 9. Credits, links, and contact info 10. Elongated table of contents Non-numbered. Legal bull ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©2003/2004 Master ZED The Unoriginal White Sheet: http://masterzed.cavesofnarshe.com/ Final Fantasy 3/Final Fantasy 6/Final Fantasy Anthology copyright ©1994 Squaresoft. I'm not responsible should anything stated in this FAQ/guide do anything. I'm not responsible should anything stated in this FAQ/guide do nothing. I'm not responsible for whatever you or anyone else do with this FAQ/guide or the contents within it. I'm not responsible for whatever you or anyone else don't do with this FAQ /guide or the contents within it. Not to be reposted anywhere else without my permission. All rights reserved. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------