Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica

Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica
Also known as: Ar tonelico II Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujo-tachi no Metafalica (JP) Developer: Gust Publishers: Banpresto, NIS America Platform: PlayStation 2 Released in JP: October 25, 2007 Released in US: January 20, 2009 Released in EU: June 5, 2009 This game has unused areas. This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

To do: This has some unused events that were discovered by the folks at Project Metafalica, some of which they re-enabled for their patch. There may be yet more to discover! Unused music?

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Prototype Info

Debug Options

Much like all of Gust's PS2 games, a few debug options remain in this game as well. All codes to access them are for the USA version only.
If you want to fully play around with these debug features check out the Ar tonelico II Debug Build

Animation Viewer 1

Much like the previous game, there is mostly the same animation debug tool in this game as well. This debug option first originally appeared in Viorate no Atelier: Gramnad no Renkinjutsushi 2.

Enable Animation Debug (press Triangle in-game to enter)
201CDCD0 0C04AA28

Additionally, you may want to activate the below code as well to change the sprite and animation the sprite is doing.

Animation Debug Adjustments.
D1FFFBAE 00003F80
11FFFBB0 0000xxxx Current Player / Monster. Higher values are objects and map stuff. Monsters start at value 00B4.
D1FFFBAE 00003F80
01FFFBB4 000000xx Current Animation.

Animation Debug Buttons

X = Play Current Animation
O = Exit / Back
L1 = Flip Sprite Upside Down
R1 = Flip Sprite Left / Right
L2 (Hold) = Loop Animation.
Start = Enter Frame-by-frame Debug Option.
Select = Change BG to Black or White.

Animation Viewer 2

This option allows you to view various animated states from battle sprites.

Enable Animation Debug (press Triangle in-game to enter)
201CDCD0 0C089E63

Additionally, you may want to activate the following codes to change the sprite and animations the sprite is doing.

D1FFFB4C 00000176
01FFFB90 0000000x 0 = main characters 1 = enemies
D1FFFB4C 00000176
11FFFB94 0000xxxx sub sprite dependent on above
D1FFFB4C 00000176
01FFFB98 000000xx animation type
D1FFFB4C 00000176
01FFFB9C 000000xx animation state

Level Select

To do: See if there are any more unused areas here. QvMaps 529+ are noted below.

A debug level select option. You can choose any map to enter here.

Enable Level Select (press Triangle in-game to enter)
201CDCD0 0C069F65
201A86E4 240F0001
D0A7405C 0000BFFF
201A7E30 00000000
D0A7405C 0000FFFF
201A7E30 144F0005

Press START while in a map to bring up map position info.

Unused Areas

Map #529 Map #530 Map #531
Map #532
Map #533
Map #534

Note: Maps 535-546 do not contain any geometry.

BGM Test

In this menu you can select all of the music in the game as well as SFX and voices.

Enable BGM Test (press Triangle in-game to enter)
201CDCD0 0C052942
2014A89C 0C048201
2012081C 00000000

Controls:

Left / Right = Move through options of current selection.
R1 / R2 = Move through options by a lot.
X = Confirm

Additionally, you may want to activate this code to move through the options in this menu.

D1FFF908 00000172
01FFF92C 0000000x
xx=
00 SePlay
01 SeStop
02 VoicePlay
03 VoiceStop
04 BgmVolume
05 SeVolume
06 VoiceVolume
07 BgmChVolume (doesn't appear to work)
08 StreamPort
09 StreamPlay
0A StreamStop
0B StreamFadeOut
0C StreamPause
0D StreamReplay
0E StreamEv 1
0F StreamEv 2

Fade Out Test

A simple test option that fades the screen when pressing X button here.

Enable Fade Test (press Triangle in-game to enter)
201CDCD0 0C0A3D6A

Map Effect Editor

It's unclear what this option is. You can select effects and make them display at a set position in this option. It appears you would be able to save these edits to a dev kit or memory card or upload the result to a PC.

Enable Map Effect Editor (press Triangle in-game to enter)
201CDCD0 0C05B095

Controls:

Triangle = Lock current effect. This makes it so you can move around without selecting a different effect. Press two more times to disable.
Circle = Reset position.
R2 (Hold) = Remove cursor.
X = Display current effect.
Right Analog Stick Up / Down = Move Z axis inward / outward.
Left Analog Stick Up / Down = Move up / down.

Additionally, activate the following code to select what effect you would like to display.

Current Effect
105991B0 0000xxxx

Replace xxxx with a value starting from 0001.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Graphics

An unused graphic which is oddly from Gust's first PlayStation 2 Atelier game, Hermina to Culus.

An extremely strange unused file. This is the animation that plays in Fullmetal Alchemist: Omoide no Sonata for the Game Boy Advance whenever the player opens the compilation of alchemy combinations that Edward can use in said game.

An unused map select screen that is not translated. Most likely an early development screen capture.

Regional Differences

Phase 2 World Map

The original Japanese version had a black mist-like effect obscuring the world map unique to Phase 2, which was gradually removed as the player unlocked its areas, and it also showed a notification whenever an area was unlocked. However, in the NA and EU versions, for some reason all the routines that created that effect were deleted, leaving the whole map unveiled from the start. Additionally, the unlock notification was removed even though the text string for it is still present in the executable.

"Crash..." Bug

While in the JP version the "Crash..." graphic is reserved solely for when the player has insufficient DP to pay the cost for an event and gets kicked out from the Cosmosphere, in the NA and EU versions a bug was introduced that causes the "Crash..." graphic to show up but allows the player to still continue as normal unless the player has double the required DP amount for the event. In some events this is impossible, so they will see the bug regardless.

Boss Key Feature

While originally the game showed one of five possible illustrations whenever the Select button was pressed during a Cosmosphere event, in the NA and EU versions the routines that called these images were removed and instead only the loading screen appears. However, the images are still present among the game's files.

EXEC_METAFALICA/. Scene

When Luca and Cloche start singing the EXEC_METAFALICA/. song, Luca and Cloche had a short conversation that was voiced and whose length was determined by the song's own timing after the short video cut to Frelia in the cold sleep pod. In the EU and US versions, the voices were removed entirely from the scene.

METHOD_IMPLANTA/. Scene

When Cloche starts singing the METHOD_IMPLANTA/. song, there were a few more voiced dialogue lines that appeared and disappeared according to the scene's timing. In addition to the voice-overs being removed entirely for the scene in the NA and EU versions, the timing element was removed and the lines were relocated to be spoken before the song begins.

Graphical Problems

• The gray plates that show up before the player engages an IPD and after winning a battle against them used to have notifications in colored letters overlaid on them, which in the EU and NA versions were rendered invisible due to their CLUTs being damaged.

• The world map used to have its arrows colored in red, but show up as gray in the EU and NA versions due to damage to the image's CLUTs.

• The "Battle Records" screen is supposed to have a red background behind the area where the Song Magic with the highest Burst percentage reached and damage dealt is shown, but it shows up as black in the EU and NA versions because its transparency was set to 100%. Similarly, the semicolons separating the guard scores from their categories were set as transparent and rendered invisible, as well as the category "Terrible" being renamed to "Poor", which causes inconsistencies between this screen and how the guard scoring shows up in battle.

• The "Terrible" -> "Poor" inconsistency is also present in the battle results screen that shows up after winning a battle.

Equipment Duplication / Infinite Money Glitch

The original Japanese version had a glitch that allowed players to equip a single piece of equipment to multiple characters through the Item menu if they only had a copy of that item in their inventory, which would set the number of owned items for it to negative. This negative number item could then be sold infinitely at any store to quickly gain money. This glitch was patched out for the North American and European releases.

Raki Glitch

The original Japanese release had a glitch that caused Raki's stats to be reset to their original values when she used Fractal Change regardless of how many times she had powered up after being defeated by the player in the bonus sparring battles at Sol Marta. This glitch is impossible to see in the North American version due to the Fractal Change glitch explained below, and it apparently still remains in the European release.

Raki Patterns Glitch

While one of the effects Raki's Fractal Change skill has is applying one of the four Jamming statuses at random, the other one is changing her stats and AI patterns between four different profiles that are focused on attack, defense, speed or balanced between the three. However, in the European version, the random number range for the selection of profiles was changed from 0x3 to 0x0, leaving her stuck in her initial profile regardless of how many times she uses the skill. Like the previous glitch, this one is also present in the North American version but it cannot be observed due to the Fractal Change Glitch.

Fractal Change Glitch

The most infamous glitch that was introduced in the North American version, which causes the game to crash as soon as Raki tries using the Fractal Change attack during the final story-mandated battle with her in Sol Marta and in the successive bonus sparring battles. While its cause seemed to be a buffer overflow due to the length of the translated strings, that is not the case: the problem is caused due to an incorrect calling index when the skill is executed. The issue lies in that the game uses the index value 0xDB to find the area in the game executable where the skill data for Fractal Change is located, but during the localization the index value was changed to 0x165, which is far higher than any of the values contemplated in the skills table for characters, items and enemies. So instead of going to the area where the skill data is located, the game ends up in an area where there is no data, and it crashes as soon as it reads the first 00 value.

This glitch was corrected for the European release.

Raki AI Patterns

When Raki is damaged enough to bring her HP below 50%, she uses the "X: Side Slicer" skill to then shift to another attack pattern, which is detailed below:

100%: Delay Attack -> Vesper -> Minute's Knock -> Combination -> X: Side Slicer

However, this pattern was changed in the American and European versions to the following:

50%: Delay Attack -> Vesper -> Minute's Knock -> Combination -> X: Side Slicer
50%: Minute's Knock -> Minute's Knock -> Combination -> Minute's Knock -> X: Side Slicer