Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

This page details one or more prototype versions of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.

In July 2012, ASSEMbler games forum member Jackhead purchased a Japanese Estpolis Denki II prototype PCB from famous prototype collector DreamTR. While attempting to dump the chips with a Willem EPROM programmer, at least one of the chips suffered corruption. With no way to undo the damage, Jackhead resold the prototype to Trevormacro. With some examination of the crash logs, enough of the corrupt bytes were identified to get the game up and running. After documenting a mostly complete playthrough of the game in a forum thread, Trevormacro released the prototype along with an IPS patch file on July 12, 2013.

The unmodified corrupt prototype has a size of 2,621,440 bytes / 20 megabit (same as final) with the following MD5: D8CC3BDF62E42B3EE95326DEE3E910BE

The prototype contains significant differences. A textbox displayed during the game's ending includes a date of 7/18/1994, indicating that the build is from that date or later.

Sub-Page#

Notes

Corrupt Bytes#

A list of known bytes damaged. See the Notes page for more details. EPROM writing clears bits; the corrupt bytes will have a lower value than their original state.

EPROM 1#

0x000000-0x0FFFFF

0x000000 0x00 -> 0x78
0x004000 0x02 -> 0xFA
0x004400 0x02 -> 0x03
0x006600 0x00 -> 0x51
0x016600 0x01 -> 0x69
0x077600 0x02 -> 0x1E

EPROM 2#

0x100000-0x1FFFFF

The corresponding locations of those seen on the first chip don't seem to be affected... More research required.

EPROM 3#

0x200000-0x27FFFF

Unused Graphics#

Win Poses#

All characters have winposes after a fight, similar to the ones in the first game. They all look very rough and much different from even the used graphics in the proto, which would indicate they are leftovers from a very early build that never got updated graphics.

Known Bugs#

A list of currently known bugs. If the game crashes, it has the potential to erase the save data.

Lake Cave/Sundletan Shop#

The shop referenced above sells a glitched/unfinished item "F", and simply opening this shop menu overwrites Maxim's name. If you attempt to rescue Tia in Lake Cave following this, the game crashes while attempting to process the player name:

This bug affected Jackhead's initial playthrough attempt, before the EPROM corruption occurred.

(Source: Trevormacro (research))

Lake Cave Entrance#

If you save the game inside Lake Cave, the puzzle at the entrance is reset. Maxim is unable to leave as the water level is lowered and the wood planks are on the other side of the water. Likely caused by the puzzle solved flag being stored to a temporary address in RAM which gets cleared, instead of a more permanent address that gets saved to SRAM. You can walk through walls with the debug mode to leave.

Alunze Castle B5 Underground Waterway Barrier#

When stepping on the switch pictured above after the thieves are washed away, the barrier is lowered but it still acts like a solid wall that can't be passed. One way to bypass this is to enter Pro Action Replay (PAR) code 7F3F7200, step on the switch, and then disable the code. Alternately, use the "walk through walls" function of the debug mode.

ElcidElcid, Elcid South Cave, and Elcid North Cave. SundletanSundletan, Lake Cave, and the Shrine to Alunze Kingdom. Alunze part 1Alunze Kingdom, Foomy Woods, and Nikoru/Koniru (an unused village!). Alunze part 2Alunze Castle. Alunze part 3Alunze Northwest Cave and Alunze North Shrine. TanbelTanbel and Tanbel Southeast Tower. ClamentoClamento, Ruby Cave, and the Small Shrine to Parcelyte. GruberikGruberik. Forfeit IslandIncluding Markao. Doom IslandAn early, unfinished map. Unknown shrineLocation $F1. Shrine of DaosThe final dungeon and the ending. Mystic StonesThe various Mystic Stone chambers. Early, unfinished maps using a completely different tileset.

Location Names#

A summary of map names that were changed. The name changes apply to all floors of a given location. For simplicity, the table below lists just the first floor (e.g., B1 for applicable dungeons):

To do: Elcid North Cave, Elcid South Cave, Lexis Labs

Shop Differences#

Skills Shops#

Skills shops can be found in Nikoru / Koniru, Tanbel, Parcelyte, Bound Kingdom, Narcysus, Treadool, Auralio Kingdom, Treble, Barnan and Chaed. Here, you can buy skills like Arrow and Bomb, which are normally found and used in the game's dungeons. This implementation is far different from what we got in the final version (and this prototype, where you start a new game with a full skill ring).

These shops feature a "Skill" graphic in the upper left corner and a wallpaper depicting a bow and arrow, bomb and chain links (from the Hook or Hammer).

The inventory for each Skills shop is identical no matter which village/city/kingdom you're in. There's ten total items for sale. All of the skills are available for purchase except the Fire arrow.

In these shops you can buy 2 upgraded versions of the bomb skill not seen in the retail version. However, they're identical to the original except for the name and cost.

To do: Each character can equip certain skill tools, it seems.

Description for item $0148:

Description for item $0150 (in prototype only, removed from final version):

Spell Differences#

This spell is not present in the retail version. It's called "Float" in Lufia 1, usage obvious, and it's a carryover from that game. The magic shop in Portravia stocks it at no cost. All party members can learn it except Guy (who can't learn any spells), and requires 2 MP to cast. It can be cast at any time from the menu, but isn't available in battle. Unfortunately, the spell is unfinished - the only programming for it is to play the confirmation sound effect that the spell was cast, and subtract the MP cost.

Hidden Tiles#

There are several invisible event and exit tiles located one step down from Maxim's position in the screenshots below.

Elcid (water)#

Executes this event script starting at offset 0F2905 (SNES address 9EA905):

2B01           Add Selan
2B02           Add Guy
2B03           Add Artea
351A F201      (chrnum 26 in location index F2 related)
3529 F401      (chrnum 41 in location index F4 related)
16F2 6301      Warp to location index F2 Doom Island

The destination:

(take a few steps down for the entrance event)

Also tacked on the script above are some commands used to instantly finish the game:

1A83           Set event flag $83 (destroyed Mystic Stone 3)
16F6 0207      Warp to location index F6 (final room)
00             end

However, there's no known way to reach this part of the script.

Elcid (tree)#

Either of the two tiles behind the tree executes this event script starting at offset 0F291E (SNES address 9EA91E):

2B04           Add Tia
1A0A           Set event flag $0A (this is the same flag set when entering Tia's shop at the beginning of a new game, so no effect)
00             end

WMAP (Nikoru/Koniru)#

An entrance to an unused village!

WMAP (water)#

Step on any of the top three dark blue edge tiles to warp to Doom Island location index $F2.

Unlike the Elcid hidden tile, no party members are added.