Difference in Phantasy Star III level cap between version...

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Difference in Phantasy Star III level cap between version...

Postby xellos667 » Mon Jun 28, '10, 12:41 am

Ok just something I wanted to tell people that have no impact really, but fun to know.

Back then, I managed to cap my character in PSIII in the GBA PS Collection. This port, like the original cart capped (with Aron) at LV47 with him, and 85 with the others

Today I managed to cap with Aron in the japanese Playstation 2 Phantasy Star Complete Collection.

What was weird is that now the new cap is 46 with Aron, and 84 with everyone else. Knowing M2 did the emulation for this one, maybe it was to correct a possible bug.

My point is, M2 also corrected the LV99 bug in PSIV, and were the one who also did the emulation for the Virtual Console version. And what I discovered a long time ago is that the LV99 bug in PSIV was also corrected in the VC release, unlike all the other release on the crappy emulated (just my own personal opinon, from my experience on PSIV on the Genesis Collection on PS2) Genesis collection.

So what I'm wondering is: Did the VC release of PSIII also got a LV46 Cap with Aron, and 84 cap with everyone else. My guess is yes, since M2 once again handled the emulation on PSIII VC!!! But someone else will have to try it.

(Random not though. At lv46, you'll get another "Next Level" value around 3000000 XP. Though when you will reach it, the "Next Level" value will then change to 99999999, without giving you any level, thus you're still stuck at 46, and don't go at 47 like the original Genesis version...Why they did this? There must have been a good reason)

Anyway, I hope this useless fact will entertain someone :)
Last edited by xellos667 on Mon Jun 28, '10, 12:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Difference in Phantasy Star III level cap between versio

Postby hugues » Mon Jun 28, '10, 3:37 am

Disclaimer #1: I have only played the GBA version so I can only speak to differences between it and the original.

Disclaimer #2: I haven't gone through and compared ROM images but am making the assumption they are the same.

Anyway, yes I think these are emulation bugs. One thing I noted on my site is that three enemies appear in the GBA version that don't appear in the original. I chalked it up to:
I doubt they intentionally fixed anything to get these three to appear. What's more likely is some "glitch" in the emulation accidentally unlocked them (or accidentally fixed whatever kept them hidden). The battles aren't entirely random. There's a formula like [location]+[generation]+[random number]=[enemies you fight]. There's no such thing as a true random number (to a computer at least) so it's using a lookup table or CPU clock or both. In the Genesis version the conditions required to get a Twistbot/Swivlbot/Rotabot battle were never hit but they apparently are on the Game Boy Advance. A small difference in either the random number tables or CPU clock in the Genesis emulation could account for this.

I suspect these would also be math or random number generation differences.

It's also possible that there is another build of the game that wasn't released to retail. There are several Genesis games that were slightly changed when they had a second or third printing. It's possible there was a slight revision of PSIII that passed QC testing but never made it onto a cart. When it came time to ship a ROM image out for emulation they grabbed the most recent approved build even though it was never released commercially. It's not like the person who grabbed the image off wherever Sega stored them was part of the original team or even knew anything about PSIII.

Applying Occam's razor... I have to go with "emulation bug" though.
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Re: Difference in Phantasy Star III level cap between versio

Postby xellos667 » Mon Jun 28, '10, 12:04 pm

Very interresting read. Maybe this is just a bug indeed, but this is really the first time I saw one that put a level cap one level below what everyone was used to know. In all the FAQ I've read on the sibject, even about the original cart, the cap was always 47 and 85. So if it's a bugged rom, it's the first time it got out in the public...
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Re: Difference in Phantasy Star III level cap between versio

Postby Thoul » Wed Jun 30, '10, 8:23 pm

This is really interesting info. I wish I had the time to level up the characters to the max in each generation to see if any of the other level caps have changed. From what I recall of looking into the patch included with PSIII's Virtual Console release, there wasn't anything about a level cap in the patch. It has been a while since I looked at that though, so I could easily be remembering incorrectly.
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