Interesting Secret of Mana Glitch

[Palin]

Yes, I'm aware that SoM is full of bugs. This is one I haven't run into before though. I was looking for information about armor statistics on Gamefaqs, and I happened to notice a trick listed to get a 9th sword orb.

Fly to the ice country on Flammie and look for a small circular island off the immediate coast (trial and error are best here, but its NOT those little itty bitty ice chunks everywhere). You'll know its the right island if you are in a frozen grove with Neko surrounded by purple crystals (this looks like the same area you may encounter Neko on the way to the Ice Palace to fight Frost Gigas).

After that, Save the Game with Neko.
Immediately after, do a soft reset (L + R + Select + Start).
Start a New Game, and get to the Mantis Ant fighting as few (i.e. none) Rabites as possible. When you and Elliot take a dive into the pit, wait for him to say "You've got a sword don't you, use it!"
WHILE THIS TEXT IS ON THE SCREEN, perform another soft reset. BE SURE TO HOLD THOSE FOUR BUTTONS FOR 5+ SECONDS. I don't know why those 5+ seconds are required, but they are.
When you get back to the title screen, load the game you saved with Neko in the Ice Country. If you did the trick correctly, all three of your characters will be in the pit fighting the Mantis Ant! (If you did it wrong, you'll stare at a blank black screen and the game will freeze) Kill the weak boss (took me one hit...), and collect your "1st" sword orb again. Jema will pull you out and Timmy will call you to the elders house. Rather than risk a crash, call Flammie and high tail it to the nearest Watts location.

You now have the most broken weapon in Secret of Mana at your disposal, without needing to cast Mana Magic ever again.

Now, I figured this was probably a hoax, but what the hell, it would only take a few minutes to test. So I followed the steps in BSNES, flew to the island, saved the game, soft reset, boss fight, soft reset. Well, when I went to load the save game, all I got was a black screen and a lock up (like was mentioned in the guide.) I guess the timing on the soft reset is important after all. So I did a hard reset and loaded the save file. Still a black screen. Did a complete shut down and restart, still black.

Look like I managed to permanently corrupt my SRAM. I'm more curious than annoyed, being that I can't imagine how this glitch works. In the future when I'm working with game breaking bugs I'll make a backup of my srm file. Oh, also something strange, I went to try loading the save file in ZSNES 151, but it doesn't recognize the srm file. I checked the paths a few times and it isn't seeing the file. My best guess is that it has something to do with the IPS patching behavior (this is a retranslated rom.)

*Edit* Woo, lurker status. Damn straight, I've been lurking for three years now.

[byuu]

Sorry you lost your save, we've all been there before.

As for the trick, I'm betting that holding in reset slowly causes WRAM to lose information. Unless WRAM refresh occurs while reset is held high, it will deteriorate with time.

Sounds like a really dangerous trick to try. I'm hard pressed to believe someone really did all of that on a whim to find that bug, but who knows.

[Tallgeese]

This trick does work on a real cart, I've performed it myself. So, if BSNES won't let you do it, it's an emulation bug.

Be aware it's US only though.

Coolest glitch in the game.

[Palin]

This trick does work on a real cart, I've performed it myself. So, if BSNES won't let you do it, it's an emulation bug.

If what Byuu said is true, I don't think emulating this is trivial. Besides, what's the reasoning behind including it? Allows you to break one game on purpose?

[byuu]

So, if BSNES won't let you do it, it's an emulation bug.

Thankfully we are all entitled to our own opinions. Though I am hoping to one day emulate the behavior of connecting a 240VAC power source directly to the 5VDC SNES PCB. Because right now, bsnes doesn't let you do that, either.

[ZH/Franky]

Of course, you are joking, right?
I'm British, so I plug 240V plugs into my consoles. But the power supply inside the console will step down that voltage to whatever the system needs (my ps2 slim has an external transformer that steps down the 240V to 8.5V (unlike original, fat ps2's, the slim ps2's have external PSU's, while the fat one's have internal PSU's).

Putting 240V in my PS2's PCB, directly, would create a miniature nuclear motherboard bomb

PS:
(I sense that you are being incredibly sarcastic anyway, so it's all cool).



...
If you did emulate putting 240V directly onto teh PCb, you'd be simulating what a European would do. To be complete, you'd also has to simulate plugging 120V (what US/JPN plug sockets give). Of course, the result would basically be the same, except it wouldn't be as explosive as what 240V would do (yeah! Brits rule!!!!! ).

Of course, you wouldn't have explosions on a PC monitor. You'd have to either make a "explosion" sound pop up, along with a picture of an explosion or something; or you could just make bsnes close, saying "too much power, your virtual snes has exploded". And when the user tries to go on bsnes again, it would not load, and come up with a message saying "your snes is broken. If you want to play snes, you'll have to buy a new snes". Of course, "buying a new snes" would mean "downloading another copy of bsnes from byuu's homepage".

But then, you wouldn't be emulating it (emulation is when you reproduce all the stages that a cpu (and other hardware) goes through. you simulate the maths, not the physical things like heat, transistors, etc). You'd be reproducing physics if it was something like putting too much power into something and creating an explosion, in which case it would be a simulation. I could be wrong on this, tho.




but man, plugging 240V into Snes's PCB, which is meant to have 5V running through it. You'd be giving the snes 48 times the amount of power it should be getting. Talk about extreme.

[grinvader]

This trick does work on a real cart, I've performed it myself. So, if BSNES won't let you do it, it's an emulation bug.

Be aware it's US only though.

Nope. Also works with french cart.

plugging 240V into Snes's PCB, which is meant to have 5V running through it. You'd be giving the snes 48 times the amount of power it should be getting.

Someone missed the watt 101 lesson. Not that it matters much.

[ZH/Franky]

watt 101 lesson

You said that it doesn't matter much, so I guess I shouldn't be worried (well, I should actually, because after highschool, I'm taking physics (along with double maths, and computing) at college).

But what is the "watt 101 lesson"? Something to do with the heat? (less voltage means more current, leading to more heat, thus resistance -- and vice versa).
Please explain. I don't care if I don't need to know. I want to know, just because.

[zennx2k3]

I can't WAIT for AC atapter emulation. Finally!!!!
lol.


Hey wait, this isn't the same glitch that gives you 9lvl sword is it? Would this make it a 10th orb?????

[Deathlike2]

Hey wait, this isn't the same glitch that gives you 9lvl sword is it?

Yes.

Would this make it a 10th orb?????

No, it would be the "8th orb". Remember that level 1 is the original weapon, and you have 8 orbs total to change the weapon to level 9. Unfortunately there are only 8 weapon charging levels, like there are 8 spell levels.

If one were to hack in another orb and attempt to forge that weapon, a lots of stranger things occur, which includes the weapon switching to something different altogether.

[ZH/Franky]

But lol, that video where they put 240V directly onto PCb's, reminds me of this:
Oiled SNES, anyone?

[Dullaron]

Ha Ha Ha... It went to game over after it been oil!

Why did he put the water on it? Water will ruin his cart and machine. All he had to do is let it dry after those been wipe off.

[Tallgeese]

So, if BSNES won't let you do it, it's an emulation bug.

Thankfully we are all entitled to our own opinions. Though I am hoping to one day emulate the behavior of connecting a 240VAC power source directly to the 5VDC SNES PCB. Because right now, bsnes doesn't let you do that, either.

...I fail to see how that is even remotely equivalent. Excuse me for being blunt and honest. That is what the game does under real hardware under a specific set of circumstances. If it doesn't happen in your emulator then it is an emulation bug or limitation. Simple as that. There's no opinion involved.

I mean, if you're gonna try to be as hardware accurate as possible, and the game does this screwy thing like the 9th Orb trick...

---

Regardless of byuu being snarky for some strange reason, the given instructions are wrong in one stupid detail, I just checked. The trick works fine in BSNES so there's no bug to start with except what's in the game.

The glitch only works if you soft reset while you have control of your characters. That's why it's not working for the topic poster, you're supposed to hold the soft reset when the fight starts, or in the middle of it, doesn't matter. The instructions say to hold it while the characters are talking, this is wrong. It's also not restricted to doing it on the first boss, you can do it anywhere where you have control over your characters.

Topic poster, your save is actually fine. Just do the appropriate soft resetting and it will load. I just checked.

[byuu]

...I fail to see how that is even remotely equivalent. Excuse me for being blunt and honest. That is what the game does under real hardware under a specific set of circumstances. If it doesn't happen in your emulator then it is an emulation bug or limitation. Simple as that. There's no opinion involved.

If it works under emulation, then the original instructions that reset needs to be held for five seconds is incorrect. That's good, because the only reason continuing to hold the reset button in would change something would be for some sort of internal state to decay. And as far as we know, no such decay occurs.

As that is not the case, you are correct that it's something I can emulate. So congratulations, you're correct in this case. I couldn't have known that the info was wrong, but I should've known better about reset not causing decay.

Now if you'll bear with me to assume the original information was correct ... I'm sick of coming across the phrase "emulation bug" every time something doesn't work exactly like real hardware. I'm the first to point out real known emulation bugs, but I use discretion. Emulators aren't real hardware. They're computer programs. How would you expect an emulator to "hold in" a reset switch for five seconds and let various physics properties apply that decay internal state over time to reproduce something like this?

In other words, if the original post was correct that it really did take five seconds to work, why would an instant reset option in an emulator make it an emulation bug?

If you're counting something as asinine as that, then you may as well include other physics actions such as powering an SNES off and back on again, where real state decay would occur (I've heard something like this was used on the NES with DW3), or ejecting a cart and putting it back in during a certain scene (eg that Banjo stop-n-swop thing), or counting games that rely upon pseudo random initialization of "undefined" startup values, or games that rely on oscillator imperfection in the timing clocks.

Essentially, where do you draw the line between emulating a running game system and trying to emulate the physical world? Not everything should just flat out be declared an emulator bug. I'm sure I do get much too upset over it, though, I'll give you that. Sorry if that comes across as snarky or arrogant.

[adventure_of_link]

But what is the "watt 101 lesson"? Something to do with the heat? (less voltage means more current, leading to more heat, thus resistance -- and vice versa).
Please explain. I don't care if I don't need to know. I want to know, just because.

no, a device will use as much wattage and current as needed.

that said byuu, I once requested a similar feature for ZSNES

[odditude]

If it works under emulation, then the original instructions that reset needs to be held for five seconds is incorrect. That's good, because the only reason continuing to hold the reset button in would change something would be for some sort of internal state to decay. And as far as we know, no such decay occurs.

Slight reading issue here, byuu. SoM has a built-in soft-reset (L+R+Start+Select), which is used while performing the glitch. This is a software feature, not a hardware reset.

Does this change your interpretation of the situation?

[byuu]

Oh, then yes. Reading failure on my part, sorry.

[Tallgeese]

I apologize for my tone, I thought you were getting unduly defensive of your emulator for no reason.

[byuu]

No worries, I'm sure it'd come off that way to anyone with reading comprehension skills. Given my own lack thereof, I really do need to stop getting so defensive all the time. But that's much easier said than done :/

Anyway, Palin, if you ever feel like trying it again, be sure to let us know how it goes.

[Palin]

The glitch only works if you soft reset while you have control of your characters. That's why it's not working for the topic poster, you're supposed to hold the soft reset when the fight starts, or in the middle of it, doesn't matter. The instructions say to hold it while the characters are talking, this is wrong. It's also not restricted to doing it on the first boss, you can do it anywhere where you have control over your characters.

Topic poster, your save is actually fine. Just do the appropriate soft resetting and it will load. I just checked.

Indeed, that fixed it. Now I have an extra sword orb and a lingering sense of guilt...

[Rashidi]

... then you may as well include other physics actions such as powering an SNES off and back on again, ... (I've heard something like this was used on the NES with DW3) ....

confirming:

• its indeed used in NES, atleast in my 42-in-1 pirate cart.
  
  the 42-in-1 were divided in two part: 20-in-1 and 22-in-1
  on first power up, it will select either the 20-in-1 or 22-in-1 (the game selection menu),
  hitting the reset button will not change its menu selection,
  but hitting the power button then immediately turn-on it, WILL change the menu selection (if previously was 20-in-1 then it will turn to 22-in-1, vice versa).

i'm not aware wether there're snes cart that employ this stuff...

[grinvader]

lingering sense of guilt...

No guilt at all



Also for some slightly related fun:

Code: Select all

7ff8bf xx MYSTERY CODE 1 LINE 1
7ff8c0 xx MYSTERY CODE 1 LINE 2
7eb0a7 xx DEATH FROM ABOVE

Have fun finding which game these're for and what they do.

[byuu]

If my Googling is correct, they're for Seiken Densetsu 3.

http://www15.atwiki.jp/seiken_binary/pages/41.html
http://www15.atwiki.jp/seiken_binary/pages/97.html

7ff8bf,7ff8c0 = enemy experience amount
7eb0a7 = enemy level

EDIT: yeah, SD3, not 2.

[odditude]

Seems to say SD3, not SD2.

Combining byuu's interpretation of enemy level and Grin's DEATH FROM ABOVE, does it set some flying enemy's stats absurdly high?

[grinvader]

Well, considering the highest monster you meet ingame is a level 50 shadow-zero that can at worst mimic Kevin if he's in your party, you can see what happens if you make lesser stuff level 99.
(Smart code, it generates stats and rewards based solely on the level !)
That one is for the challenge.

For an easy (yet tricky) time through, the first couple codes will make the SECOND enemy appearing onscreen drop relatively monstrous exp. That ram area is heavily used, though, so you want to disable that code everywhere you're not fighting monsters.

Also don't forget that class changes remove several caps on your stats... levelling too fast isn't as productive as it may appear at first. I usually just grab enough to pump to 18 on the first mana gem, use the summon trick to kick the random ??? and equipment seed generators (from my experience, if you grab a lot of them with a code, they're all producing the same item. Gotta grab at least a real one, then it launches the randomisation), then get the eq and seal i need, hit 38 and class up at the holyland.

That's when I do 14-hours runs, mind you. Doesn't remove much fun from the game once you're on your >8th time through it.

Also bah humbug. I actually got these myself. Not like it was hard, but heh.
Too cheap checking on a site. :p