August 25th 2000 Prototype

This is a sub-page of Proto:Skies of Arcadia.

This prototype is documented on Hidden Palace.

This prototype is documented on Sega Dreamcast Info.

A prototype build dated 24th/25th of August, 2000. 4 days before Eternal Arcadia was finalized. This is an unpolished English localization where only the main story and a handful of miscellaneous messages were translated. The splash screen now says Skies of Arcadia.

It features an extensive variety of debug displays, such as showing which area you’re in, encounter step rates, enemy formation data, stage number, number of particles and frames of animation in battle, and even a BUSY FADE pop up each time you transition to a different map. It cannot be completed by itself.

To do: Many messages were left untranslated. Compare them to the Japanese version.

Playability#

The first part of the game can be completed without the use of debugging features. There are a few issues in regards to Super Move animation frames constantly looping, and a chance at the game hanging up if Soldier type enemies use Counterstance at low HP, but otherwise nothing that hinders the user from seamless playtesting.

Normally, after clearing Yafutoma, the user is asked to change to disk 2. Here, it is reversed by inserting disk 1 at the end of disk 2. The game will crash after going back to Ixa’taka as fiel32b.mld is missing(it’s not, but the game doesn’t have it listed with the other .mld files). One way to circumvent this is to do the “Bypass Collision” button trigger to skip South Ocean entirely and go directly to Crescent Isle instead. Unfortunately a script error disallows the user to continue past the cutscene, and in a regular playtest this would be the end, but there is a way to get around that as well.

If the user save right before returning to Crescent Isle, load up Disc 2 of the Japanese retail build, go through the cutscene and save the game afterwards, then boot up the prototype again, it works fine and the user can continue. After clearing Glacia, fiel32b.mld is replaced with fiel32d.mld. The game can then be finished.

Debug Menu#

CESA ROM - Aug 24 - 2000 - 11:46:42

マップ (Map) - Allows you to teleport to an area. May glitch or crash occasionally. Some maps require Disc 1 instead of 2. For a comprehensive list, please check out SEGA Dreamcast Info above.

_{Maps with Warp Selection:}

a355a - Hydra(Debug)

• Talking to Galcian too many times in Disc 1 can trigger a rare GOSUB: Stack over flow error.

Naval Ship Debug Fight

A test fight of Gadianos and Gaditaos can be seen if the user jumps to area ID 581 and 582. 583 is used for when you go through Soltis via Shrine Island for the first time. Gaditaos is an unused variant.

戦闘 (Battle) - Able to select enemy formations, stage background, and which characters to deploy. In the case of Fina, you can select which type form Cupil will take.

• Gilder and Enrique are very prone to crashing if using a Super Move or regular attack.
• The game will crash due to memory reallocate error -1 if more than 3 party members are selected in stages that are programmed for two people or less, such as Valuan Railroad.

船戦闘 (Naval Battle) - Selection of ships and whether the selected party members have all magic on or off. Interestingly, among the upgrades you can obtain in the game, there is a fifth option from the debug menu that lists an airship you’ll never see in the game. That ship is the Valuan Warship(バルア駆逐船 ). While it has a model when fighting against one, it doesn’t have a model of its own when boarded.

サウンドテスト (Sound Test) - Allows you to listen to various sound effects, voice lines and music in the game.

• Will give a bank error if you try to access something that doesn’t exist.

_{Notable Music Changes or Addons:}

m0323: BankNum:3, ReqNum:0

A slow, suspenseful track of unknown origins. An update was made between May 9th and August 25th. It was likely abandoned within that timeframe.

m0371: BankNum:3, ReqNum:0.

Unknown. May be related to Yafutoma or the Silver Shrine. Had a small tweak in volume before it was cut.

m0375: Unknown.

It was added somewhere after the May 9th build.

OPTIONS - Purposed to check battle screen and status. One can insert items or ship parts into a savefile’s inventory. This includes cut items such as Alfonso’s Key or Silver Crystal. Dummy items cannot be used.

つづきから (Continue) - Inaccessible in this build. It is intended to bring you to the Homepage, which does not exist here.

Field#

Port A: Hold L + R + Y to bypass collision. Encounters are disabled. Using this will disable most overworld events. Missing a storyline cutscene can lead to TaskOff: NO TASK #3003 error.

Port B: Press the B button. A small Nindows will appear. Use the D-PAD to maneuver through various options.

Ninja Info

Overview over Ninja to see matters like Texture Memory, Vertex Buffer, Native Buffer and more.

Texture Viewer

Allows the user to view textures, global index, memory flags, error codes, etc.

Peripheral Info

External information from a Jump Pack(known as PuruPuru Pack in Japan)

Window Info

Displays current, active windows.

User(Undefined) - Greyed out.

Debug Window

Opens up a giant window.

Font - Able to make the current font bigger.

Port B: In the character menu, pressing the Y button levels a highlighted character by one.

Port C: Press X and Y to enable Free Camera. Works during cutscenes, allowing the user to see parts of a map that would normally be inaccessible to the player.

Port C: Press LT + RT + X to view collision data.

Port D: Press X to pull up system debugging.

Battle#

Port A: If L + R is selected during battle, a menu will show up.

企画制作データーのチェック - (Production Data)

(Current Party Member name on screen, e.g Vyse) - The selected Party Member’s stats can be adjusted for balance testing.

(Current Enemy name on screen, e.g Sentinel) - The selected Enemy stats can be adjusted for balance testing.

こう術、技 (Magic, Super Moves) - Overview of individual Magic and Super Moves, their descriptions and their move cost. Despite being able to select variables, it prohibits you from editing a moveset.

アイテム (Items) - Allows you to view individual items, their description, usage and amount. This includes ship parts.

エネミー攻撃 (Enemy Data) - Blank

パーティデータ (Party Data) - Contains variables related to editing the flee rate, exp gain and a myriad of other options.

Port A: In Naval Battle, pressing Y brings up a text on the upper left that shows how many turns the battle is at, and the HP of both the player ship and the enemy ship. Pressing Y again brings up another text where you can access your character’s inventory mid-flight. This may create a glitch where the ship is always set to 0 HP should the user retry the fight, resulting in an instantaneous game over.

Port D: Pressing Start while in combat brings up a small window with three choices;

Flags:

Character Data

Cancel Frame

Related to skipping a Super Move with the Start button.

Changes#

NPC’s previously only had their names categorized by gender or occupation, e.g “Boy”, “Girl”, “Woman”, “Man” or “Air Pirate”. This has been changed to personalized names.

Censorship had not been fully implemented yet. Dyne and the weapon shop keeper in Sailor’s Island are shown with a cigarette bobbing up and down from their mouths. Bellena’s model initially starts with the outfit she receives overseas, however, in the Temple of Pyrynn she simply reverts back to her illustration art design. And just like Bellena, Vigoro had his outfit altered as well, although the boss battle falls back to his original clothing. His dialogue had an additional revision to tone down sexual harassment towards Aika.

In Esparanza, an oversight happens with how Don’s top jacket clips through his body.

August 25th	Final(Japan)

Ramirez had a voice line cut for when he commands the Armada to go on defensive mode instead of attacking the crewmates of The Claudia, ending the script with a seemingly random “Die” clip to his own soldiers. Alfonso also had a voice line cut for when he speaks to Empress Theodora before the Rains of Destruction. He incorrectly refers to her as “My Lord”. And one of Moegi where she says “Yes” after saying “No…” as she goes to hug Enrique before his departure. All of these were removed from the Dreamcast version, but were later reinstated in Skies of Arcadia: Legends.

Characters#

Most of the characters had their English voice line set in motion. Some still had Japanese dubbing.

• In the second fight against Ramirez, his Drillnos spell causes Japanese voice lines to be played instead of English. To reverse this, have a character use a Super Move.

Some shop keepers and NPCs had a few name and design tweaks.

• Secret Arms Dealer became Zack’s Weapons.

• Secret Drug Shop became Erinn’s Items.

• Dog-like Animal became Stray Huskra.

• Kururu became Dhuru.

• Lindsi and Alan’s face is no longer big and round.

In Maramba, a script error can happen where the dialogue box gets stuck when interacting with Dhuru, Mystery Man, Trader and Bellena. In Nazrad, this can happen with the sailor north of the Inn and one of Khazim’s men by the docks.

The Shishkebob Lady changes to Shishkebob lady at the end when talking to her for the first time.

Text#

Aika and Vyse retain some of their lines from the E3 build.

More rough edges and errors can be seen while progressing through the story. Excluding font quirks, following the attack on Pirate Isle, Vyse’s mother will quote something from Dyne, and promptly stops half way through the actual sentence.

Another one is Drachma switching between calling the Archwhale “Mobius” and “Rhaknam” early on – the former being the Japanese name for the creature.

The prototype had a story narration error saying that you somehow reobtained Moon Crystals after being forced to give it to The Armada.

Aika had a line change from when Vyse and Gilder rescued her from Vigoro.

Vigoro says “Royal Palace” instead of “Imperial Palace”. The Royal Palace is a place within central Yafutoma, which would’ve sparked some confusion.

After defeating Belleza and Vigoro in Yafutoma, the Ships Part Dealer mistakes Bluheim as an Island rather than bird.

A structural grammar improvement involving the Deep Sky blueprint made its way to the final build.

De Loco’s vengeful crash out in The Vortex was slightly adjusted.

Baltor’s informant calls Vyse commandeers instead of commander.

After the attack on Crescent Isle, Brabham states the ship is fine. The final version gave the text a little bit more flavour.

After Ramirez slays one of the Elders, Galcian makes a typo. Fina calls Elder Prime “Elder” in the prototype build.

Galcian capitalizes “Pirates.” The final build lowercases it.

Occasionally, the characters’ reading speed would slow down significantly. This was fixed in later builds.

Field#

In Jessica’s house, the comments about tableware and storing old pirate rags were swapped.

After asking Kirala to re-model your home for the first time, a leftover letter can be seen on the choice selection.

<Remodel your living quarters?t>

When revisiting Shrine Island after Soltis appears, a bug is present where the previous rings you lit up around the area are still up, yet when you walk near it causes a new ring animation to overlap with the previous one.

August 25th	Final