main.srl

This is a sub-page of Proto:Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky.

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Fill out more of the details without simply copying the Time/Darkness Dungeon Debug page. There may be more differences including previously non-functional features now working and vice versa. Figure out a foolproof method to get the debug menu working in MelonDS, the ROM's compression complicates using AR codes on this emulator.

main.srl is a Japanese-language demo build contained inside the SYSTEM folder found within the Japanese and North American/Australian versions of Explorers of Sky, alongside the DS Download Play demos. It is of a similar small size, and appears to have been used to test the Send Demo Dungeon feature during development. Unlike the retail versions of the game, this demo build still includes a mostly functional debug menu for use within dungeons.

Since the Misc. debug menu normally causes a crash due to a memory allocation error, it requires a patch to work. The following Action Replay code circumvents the crash on DeSmuME or DSi/3DS hardware through TWiLight Menu++:

02000DBC E3A0381A
020010AC E260381A
020013B4 E3A0181A
020018A8 E268281A

Title Screen#

The ROM boots up to a screen displaying the same background art used in the full game's main menus and the title screen seen in the Download Play demos. However, the digitization of the art is considerably less polished, and the accompanying logos are missing.

main.srl	Download Play Demo (JP)

Button Guide#

The next screen curiously displays the exact same button guide seen in the Japanese kiosk demo of Blue Rescue Team. None of the Download Play demos nor the kiosk demo include such a screen, but its presence here suggests one had been considered during development.

Gameplay#

Compared to the main game or even the other Download Play demos, there are a number of both minor and significant differences.

• The dungeon banner text seen during floor transitions is positioned at the upper half of the bottom screen as in Explorers of Time and Darkness. In the retail and demo versions of Sky, this text has been centered.
• The only available dungeon appears to be a copy of Drenched Bluff.
• The player controls Turtwig as the hero, while the partner role is filled by Piplup. This is the default team seen in the various debug menus of Time/Darkness.
• The "Others" and "Rest" menus are accessible, unlike the final Download Play demos. The "Others" menu appears to be closer to Time/Darkness than Sky, as it still refers to the "Dungeon hints" (ダンジョンのヒント) menu as "Hints" (ヒント), and the "Window" option introduced in Sky is not available.
  • Curiously, this build's "Options" sub-menu uses the checkmark icon () for the confirm button on the touch screen, instead of the maru icon () used in the final Japanese versions of Time/Darkness/Sky.
• It only appears to contain a single track of music, Cave and Side Path. Unlike the Hidden Shopkeeper Village demo, buying or stealing items from a Kecleon Shop simply resets the music instead of playing the correct track.
• Sound effects are cut down even further compared to the Download Play demos, causing most moves or actions to stay silent.
• Only very basic move effect animations are available.
• Text boxes still use the default borders from Time/Darkness. Like in the other Download Play demos, no menu is accessible to change them.
• Item descriptions are completely missing, and the "Info" option in the item menu does not function.

Debug Menu#

Just like in the leaked debug builds of Explorers of Time and Darkness, the debug menu can be found within the "Other" category in the menu.

Misc.#

This time around, all of the following options are in English.

MONSTER A#

These options appear to function the same as in Time/Darkness.

MONSTER B#

"JOIN SURELY" appears to be non-functional in this build.

ITEM#

Compared to Time/Darkness, this menu's organization has been improved, using sub-pages for large item categories. It uses the final names for every item, and the unused item strings have been replaced with "ただのタネ", the Japanese name for the Plain Seed. Additionally, the POKE option is now functional; it will change the amount of Poké the player is holding upon use.

NEW ITEM A#

Item icons now display instead of their control characters.

NEW ITEM B#

The many new exclusive items introduced in Sky appear to be covered here; the "POKEMON ITEM" category now goes up to #1351.

MOVE#

This menu has been completely reorganized: each sub-menu now contains all moves corresponding to a row of the gojūon (for example, the "あ" sub-menu contains all moves starting with あ, い, う, え, お and their katakana equivalents) and usually contain multiple pages. While moves appear to function correctly, nearly all of their animations are missing or simplified as in the Download Play demos.

TRAP#

There appear to be no changes here. Notably, this sub-menu does not include the new Grudge and Random traps that were introduced in Sky.

MAP#

Despite none of the demo dungeons using this feature, forcing a Monster House spawn (listed here as POKEMON-HOUSE) functions as normal. As previously mentioned, this will reset the music instead of playing the correct track.

FIXED MAP JUMP#

A new option that allows for a number between 0 and 164. 0 will regenerate the current floor, but all other numbers will crash the game, displaying the following error message:

!!!!! Assert !!!!!
file = 'file.rom.c' line =  281
SearchFile error 'BALANCE/fixed.bin'

In the full debug build, this would have been used to directly jump to one of the total of 165 fixed dungeon floor IDs in the game; this includes boss floors, final treasure floors, outlaw/challenge floors and Treasure Memo floors.

ENEMY STOP! JUMP TO#

Identical functionality to Time/Darkness; it will jump the player to the specified floor and set all enemy Pokémon to STOP, preventing them from moving or attacking.

ENEMY STOP! DIRECT JUMP TO LAST FLOOR#

Does exactly what it says on the tin, and works the same as in Time/Darkness.

Other Menu#

This menu has been considerably trimmed down since Time/Darkness, losing both non-functional (Kanji Font) as well as functional options (Metronome).

Map#

Previously, this option was used to cycle between the game's various dungeon tilesets. In this build it only shuffles various wall and ground details instead, as only a single dungeon tileset is available. It cycles back to No. 1 after scrolling past No. 129, which would not cover the new tilesets introduced in Sky.