Pseudo New Game+ (without gameshark)

If you are stuck in the Dunan Unification Wars; or wish for more details on the gameplay systems, this is the place.
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dann
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Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2011 8:08 pm

Pseudo New Game+ (without gameshark)

Post by dann »

Apologies if this has already been posted before, but there is a trick I remember using in the past which can still be done with the PSN version of S2.

I forgot where I saw this trick posted on the internet since it was ages ago, but it is possible to make a "New Game+" using your gamesaves without using a Gameshark. The first time I did this was on my old PS1 with physical memory cards way back when. I would recommend making another internal memory card if you're using the PSN version like I am right now.

So what you need to do after preparing a new memory card is to put one save of your main file there(with only Riou, Gengen, and Tuta in your party) and two saves of a New Game(likely saved in Ryube with Gengen and Tuta in the party when you're on the errand to get flour). I advise two saves since if you don't get the trick right it will just be a normal overwrite and then we'd have to do the whole New Game thing all over again, which gets pretty tedious. Then load up your main file, and prepare to overwrite one of the Ryube saves. Keep your finger on the PS Home button, then answer Yes when overwriting the file. Immediately press the Home button and then quit the game, confirm yes. Quitting the game should be done around the 2 second mark. Normally overwriting the game takes about 3 seconds.

Load up the game again, and load your memory card. The Ryube file should now read "Headquarters" or wherever your main file was saved in along with the total hours of the main file. Load that file up, and if the trick was successful, it should load at Ryube with Riou, Gengen, and Tuta. Only this time their levels carry over along with their weapon levels, rune set-ups, your potch, and your inventory.
If for some reason your game loads up in Headquarters but the castle is empty, then the trick still worked, only this time you have to walk all the way back to Ryube from North Window to continue the story.

This is a good way to start the game over with things like the Hunter Rune, Fire Sealing Rune, and all the other rare stuff you only get very late in the story or only once in the game.

Here are some pics I took of the trick's results:

Link 1: m.imgur.com/GTMrkb3

In this picture, I loaded Gengen up from my main file with some Dragon Armor and other stuff I got mid-game(which is grayed-out since he hasn't technically joined the army yet). Notice Pohl and Leona in the background of the Mercenary Fort.

Link 2: m.imgur.com/fUzeVV4

In this picture, I have an inventory full of stat stones. I had some errands to run so I didn't put all the rare runes in my inventory but you get the point.

Hope you guys enjoy. If you find out some other cool stuff to do with this, feel free to share it here.
Last edited by dann on Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Celes
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Re: Pseudo New Game+ (without gameshark)

Post by Celes »

You posted the same link twice.
Omnigamer
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Re: Pseudo New Game+ (without gameshark)

Post by Omnigamer »

A player by the name of gamemaster1982 tried to push this in a speedrun context sometime last year. It is essentially just save corruption; you interrupt the process that saves certain blocks to the memory card. It has different effects depending on when and where you interrupt it in the process, but if I remember right the general order is recruit data -> player & location data -> story triggers & misc. There's an FAQ on GFAQs that goes over some of the structure of the file; you can use that to get a rough guess as to where blocks of data you are interested in go to.

But at the end of the day, it's just interrupting a hardware process to wind up with a frankensteined save file. You can get some pretty silly effects (like multiple Jowys in your party), and you can use it to preserve recruits and equipment as you describe. You can also use it to wind up in impossible locations given certain story triggers (ie, just got to Ryube, but surprise! now in L'Ren). Could be fun to play around with casually, but if you want it for a truly NG+ type of experience, you may be better off just using a cheat device of some variety so you can be sure of what effects will be present.
dann
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Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2011 8:08 pm

Re: Pseudo New Game+ (without gameshark)

Post by dann »

Whoops sorry, didn't notice I posted the link twice. Edited it now.
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