Remember way back when in #earthbound chat, I told everyone that I had
a huge secret that was big and important? By now, you've probably
forgotten all about it. But I wasn't just blowing steam; this is
probably the biggest thing to hit the game of EarthBound since the
discovery of the Debug menu. I won't keep you in suspense:
I found a GameGenie code that lets you walk through walls.
Well, that's very oversimplified. The credit of actually creating the
code goes to LordTech.
icEFusioN and I worked together in translating it from Pro Action
Replay format to GameGenie format, which we thought would be more
useful to most of you. Thanks to Mog of #earthbound for testing this
on an actual GameGenie. And thanks to everyone for not picketing my
house.
Now to talk about the actual code itself. What the code does, in
technical terms, is treats every tile like a land tile. That is, you
can walk through anything: trees, walls, water, even off the edge of
the screen. If it's water that you'd normally be swimming through, it
will still appear like you're swimming. You'll still take damage from
the Deep Darkness, for example. This code does not work when you're on
your bicycle (sorry Xodnizel). This code only works when you would
normally be able to move.
You can't walk through everything, however. Any sprites whatsoever will
stop you dead in your tracks. THIS CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS!! For
example, let's say that you use this code to walk into the backyard of
the Onett Arcade before you beat the Shark Bouncer guarding the
backdoor. Then you walk south into the arcade. You will appear INSIDE
the Shark, totally unable to move in any direction. (Luckily, you can
talk to this Shark and fight him, thus getting him out of the way. This
isn't true in many cases, however, such as the rundown Onett house for
sale.)
However, sometimes this code is a little TOO good. While the code is
turned on, you cannot walk through any doors, caves, etc. If you want
to leave the current map, you'll have to turn the GameGenie off, walk
through the door, and turn it back on. This can get a little annoying,
but it's worth it in the end. Which brings me to the many things that
this code can do.
The most obvious use of this code is to get to points in the game before
you're supposed to. You can leave your house at the beginning of the
game, still in your pajamas, walk south through the trees (bypassing the
police blockade of the roads), keep on going south (past another
blockade) and waltz right into Twoson! Still in your PJ's! There are
unlimited possibilites of things that you can do, and places that you
can go out of order. Experimenting is a whole lot of fun.
The actual reason that I pushed for the discovery of this code was to
make complete maps of the entire EarthBound world. You see, before
this code, the only way that maps could be made was by piecing together
screenshots of EagleLand. You'd have to have Ness walk everywhere
possible, along all the curving roads and up and down each hill, so
that you could get the whole map. And even then, your map wouldn't be
complete; Ness can't see the whole thing from where he stands. It
looks kind of funky to have maps with jagged corners. However, now
that the code exists, you can simply turn it on and walk in a zigzag
pattern back and forth over the entire screen, getting EVERY part of
the map. Even the parts that you'd never be able to see without the
code. To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check out
Onett at Day,
Saturn Valley with Long Ladder,
Happy Happy Village, Blue, and
Happy Happy Village, Normal.
I made these four maps in under a day. Notice the details in the corners
of the maps -- stuff you'd never normally be able to see. I'm eventually
going to recreate all the maps in the game, so that they can be used
for zOiFf.
You're probably getting tired of me blathering on, and wondering when
I'm going to tell you the code. Well, here it is. For GameGenie
users, your code is CB93-746F. For Pro-Action Replay users (or people
who use ZSNES. Don't use ZSNES. ROMs are illegal. You're missing out
on sooooo much of the game, and it's such a cool game. But if
you do use ZSNES, you're a sinful, sinful person, but this is the code
you want), the code is C054EAA9. No dash.
You learn a lot of cool stuff about the way EarthBound is built when
using this code. Many of the little one-room houses and caves were all
cramped into the same space in memory. Thus, you can turn on the
GameGenie, walk through the wall of one building, and appear in another
building in a different town even! To give you an example of what I'm
talking about, start out with Ness in his room. Go to the very top, and
walk straight left! Whoa, check it out! You're in the Onett Hospital!
(You'll notice that the colors are all messed up. That's because the
game was never told to modify the tiles for a new palette. You can
either put up with it, or you can turn off the GameGenie, walk out of
the room, and walk back in.) If you go straight south, you'll be in
the upstairs of the hospital, but that's boring. Why don't you walk
North? Hey, there's Paula's room! If you walk north from there,
you'll be in the Onett police station, with the five cops ready to
fight you! (I wouldn't talk to them, though; you're still at Level 1!)
I've figured out a whole ton of these "connections," as I've ended up
calling them, and I'll tell them all to you in a later document. You'd
be amazed at the places you can walk to! Like Magicant! With this
code, you can go to Magicant with all four members of your party. Yes,
it rocks.
Have fun with the code. Starmen.Net has been long overdue for a new
development in the game of EarthBound, and I hope this is it.
- Mars
