Cosmic Fantasy 2

Cosmic Fantasy 2 is like Final Fantasy II, only COSMIC!!

This was the only game in the Cosmic Fantasy series to make it out of Japan until 2024, though it might have been better off staying there: while the cutscenes are impressive for 1991, the gameplay is decidedly lacking in the "fun" department (but quite overstocked when it comes to "endless, tedious random encounters").

To do: Dig into the Cosmic Fantasy Collection re-release. See if it has the developer notes, map notes, or Valis III references. Find out if the "Multi-Debugger" assets still exist but go unused. This version uses a redrawn title screen. Do the changes to The Captain and the bugged chest exist? It seems to have at least one of the Working Designs changes (the middle finger), there may be others.

Developer Message#

This message is stored with the data for the hidden cutscene viewer at 0x5A5806 in CD track 2 of the Japanese version of the game. Line breaks have been added for readability.

VISUAL DEBUGGER-B Ver1.05 BY JUNPEH
--- Message to HU7CD programmers. --- 
Hellow everybody. How are you?. 
I am fine. Please phone to me when read this message. 
(044)541-9704 
It is my pribate phone number. 
I will waiting for your friendly messages.

Map Notes#

Most of the game's maps have hidden notes drawn outside the visible area using scenery tiles. Usually, they indicate the map's internal number in the format "No. XX" or "T-No. XX". Many maps also contain "interior" areas on the same map as the "exterior" areas, warping the player between them when appropriate; sometimes, the interior "sub-areas" are each labeled with a letter hidden in the margins. A few maps contain additional notes of unclear significance, such as "SON".

These are most easily viewed using a walk-through-walls code, e.g. locking $1F0B42 to 0x00.

To do: Someone sufficiently motivated should document all these. Unfortunately, no such person exists.

Developer Credits#

Scattered throughout the game's data are ASCII (and occasionally Shift-JIS) notes crediting the programmers, or at least JUNPEH and SHIMIZU. Offsets refer to the Japanese version. Some line breaks have been added for readability.

Start up and all Hu7CD-system maintenance by JUNPEH
清水君、ビジュアル手伝ってくれて有難う。

JUNPEH

HU7-CD SYSTEM VISUAL PROGRAM BY JUNPEH 

VISUAL NULL PROGRAM LASER SOFT 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program by JUNPEH.

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT D by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT E by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT F by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT G by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT H by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT I by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT K by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT L by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT N by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACT o by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTP by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTR by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTS by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTU by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTV by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTW by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTX by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTY by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTZ0 by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTZ2 by SHIMIZU 

Cosmic Fantasy visual program  ACTZ3 by SHIMIZU 

To do: There are probably more of these, and there are definitely a few extra "Visual program by..." credits in the other data tracks (used for cutscenes).

Unused Text#

Some other bits of normally-unseen text are found here and there in the data. Apparently, portions of the engine were recycled from Valis III.

Valis-III OVRSEG module

Field_01

Valis-III PSGSEG module 

VALIS_III 

STG1A

@VALIS3@

VISUAL NULL PROGRAM ONLY 'RTS'.

KNO386=ABCDEFG
LIB=a:\qb\lib
TMP=e:\
DEF=e:\
PAGER=five
VCOM=-N1
HELP=A:\VZ
COMSPEC=e:\bin\command.com
PROMPT=[$p]

KNO386=ABCDEFG
LIB=a:\qb\lib

Cutscene Viewer#

The game contains a somewhat elaborate cutscene viewer/sound test, which it bills as a "Multi Debugger". To access it in the Japanese version, boot the console to the BIOS screen, hold Up + Button I + Button II + Select simultaneously, then press and hold Run until the menu appears.

In the menu, Up and Down scroll the cursor, and Button I selects an option. In a pointlessly elaborate quirk, Select toggles the menu between "Normal" mode, in which pressing Up moves the cursor down and vice versa, and "Reverse" mode, which does the opposite.

The US TG-CD version changes the access code to Left + Select and removes the "OMAKE" option, as described below, but is otherwise the same.

The "Multi-Debugger" can't be accessed in the Switch re-release as there's no longer a BIOS screen. Instead, the cutscene viewer and sound test are moved to the Collection's main menu, meaning you can watch all the cutscenes without ever having played the game. The OMAKE content is still removed.

Regional Differences#

Most notably of all changes, the Working Designs dub is not present in the US Switch re-release, and instead uses the original Japanese audio with subtitles.

Graphics#

Japan	US (TG-CD)	US (Switch)

The title screens were changed appropriately between the JP and US releases, and Working Designs credit was added. For unknown reasons, the Switch version redraws it again, and Working Designs credit was removed again (they were not involved in the rerelease, having closed in 2005, and most of their changes were reverted).

JP	US

In the game's best-known change, Rim flips the bird during her introductory cutscene in the Japanese version. Her hand was redrawn into a clenched fist for the US release. The Switch re-release keeps this edit.

JP PCE-CD, Switch	US TG-CD

JP PCE-CD, Switch	US TG-CD

The version opts for a more standard romanization of the love interest's name. As a result, a couple of instances of "LARLA" written using English characters were edited to "LAURA".

Despite renaming Rim to "Babette", the US version does not remove or edit an instance of the original name in the background of the news bulletin regarding her disappearance.

JP PCE-CD, Switch	US TG-CD

JP PCE-CD, Switch	US TG-CD

JP PCE-CD, Switch	US TG-CD

JP PCE-CD, Switch	US TG-CD

The handful of cutscenes that contained visible Japanese text had it removed or replaced.

This short sequence, which gives the code to access the hidden cutscene viewer and encourages the player to watch Rim's shower scene again, appears after the ending credits in the Japanese version. It was removed in the US version.

Finally, these two scenes are accessible by selecting "OMAKE" from the hidden cutscene viewer in the Japanese version. They seem to be instructions for entering a giveaway related to the game. The "OMAKE" entry was removed from the cutscene viewer in the US version, making this inaccessible.

Difficulty#

This was a very, very early Working Designs publishing effort, and as with some of their other early games like Lunar: The Silver Star, the changes to the game's difficulty are relatively subdued. Unfortunately, this phase didn't last for long.

In this case, the only difficulty-related changes were to three of the bosses. The Captain is probably the most noticeably changed enemy; it's the first boss in the game, and while it's a complete pushover in the Japanese version that can't even hit Van for more than the minimum 1-4 damage, its attacks are so much more damaging in the American version that beating it more or less requires filling up the inventory with the free Herbs available at that point in the game.

As some small recompense for the extra trouble, the Captain yields 20 experience points upon defeat in the US version. It gave none in the original game.

Miscellaneous#

The Japanese version of the game displays three credits for the major designers between the Laser Soft logo and the introductory cutscene with Planet Idea and Van.

Credit Screen	Translation
	Concept/Director - Kazuhiro Ochi
	Character Design - Kazuhiro Ochi
	Mechanics Design - Shohei Ohara

Working Designs removed all three, with the game instead jumping from the logo to the cutscene. The Switch re-release restores them, with subtitles.

JP	US

In the Japanese version of the game, there is a treasure chest in Cerum's dungeon that doesn't contain an item and instead gives a message that the chest is empty. In fact, this is the only empty chest in the game that the player can access; while there are a few other empty chests at the very end of Galam's fortress, they're just used to lure the player into pit traps and can't actually be collected without cheating.

In at least some versions of the US game, this empty chest is filled with Bingleberries. This was done to fix a bug: the "chest is empty" message wasn't translated for the US version, causing it to display a single kanji instead. Given that this is the only accessible empty chest in the game, and that the message wasn't translated, the absence of an item in the chest may well have been a mistake in the Japanese version.

There exists a report of the bugged message displaying in this dungeon in the US release, so it appears there may have been multiple revisions of the US version, some with the bug fixed and some without. Unfortunately, since the game sold in very small numbers, there isn't much documentation of this available.

Oddities#

• The game does not contain magic attacks but has a set of accessories that reduce magical damage.
• The game does not contain status ailments but has a set of remedies and accessories that cure and prevent such ailments.