Breaking the game from the inside

[Jax Mandrake]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night will forever be among my favourite games ever.

There is something that you can do in it to make the upside-down castle hella easier. I forget if you get the Shield Rod in the normal castle or the inverted one, but the worst is over once you get the Alucard Shield. Equip the rod in one hand and the shield in the other, press both buttons at once, and you've got the advantage over everything. Hitting any enemy with the shield will cause massive damage and recover both health and hearts, and the effect lasts for a nice long time.

In the revamp included with the Dracula X Chronicles on PSP, the effect exists but has been nerfed.

Still, I'm wondering... have you had an instance where you encountered an in-game event, technique, item, combo, or anything else that just OP's you to the point where the game feels like it isn't even trying anymore?

[Damashii!!]

sooooo... Debug Mode/Cheat/haxx thread?

the only thing that comes to mind is one of the oldschool Shining Force games. You could fight the very first battle over and over by teleporting back to the village ("Egress" spell, i think). I'd pretty much repeatedly level up each party member to the point where it was a one-hit killing spree for every enemy, and it made some of the later battles hilarious.

I'd also screw around with the AI of some of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, but at the expense of wasting some valuable weapons.

[Eino Keskitalo]

Cool thread! I'm pretty sure there's a kazillion examples. I'm usually disappointed to find overkill techniques, I can't keep myself from using them but they tend to kill the challenge and a lot of the enjoyment from the games.

SotN seemed to have a lot of items that break the balance (or just make it a bit too easy): the weapons that let you fire projectiles with the hadoken move, the mana-regenerating (or was it doubling) amulet, the acid mist transformation.. I also remember using the basilard as a weapon for a very long stretch since it was possible to rapid-fire lots of damage with it. No need to use the slower weapons.

--Eino

[Devyn]

I love Shining Force. I have two as well and they both rule. Anway, I'm gonna go with the obvious one and say the original Sonic games once you get Super Sonic. Minus the final bosses you can pretty much rip right through everything. It's almost too much.

The secret Street Fighter moves from the first two Mega Man X games were awesome as well, but you have to do it right. If you connect - BLAM - boss gets ripped to shreds. The only thing that sucks is how your life must be full. I guess they can't make the game that easy.

Oh, and Ultima on FF6. Just give everyone Ultima and let 'em fight the dinosaurs with exp egg. Game over.

[Bleck]

There's an ability in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep where you get one experience point for every step that you take. As soon as I unlocked, I taped my joystick to the left in the middle of a town and went to bed.

Woke up the next day and I was unstoppable.

[Mirby]

There's an ability in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep where you get one experience point for every step that you take. As soon as I unlocked, I taped my joystick to the left in the middle of a town and went to bed.

Woke up the next day and I was unstoppable.

Exp Walker returns in Dream Drop Distance.

And since you can start a new game+ with all the Dream Eaters you've synthesized (albeit at level 1), you can easily get the ability again.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

If you collect and junction all the right spells, get the guardian forces, weapons. etc. Most bosses in Final Fantasy VIII die in just a few hits. Sad really.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. Terrible game, but I remember that if you play as the chick from portrait of ruin and equip two items (I forget which two) it creates some sort of trade off between magic and health and you become completely invincible.

[Calpis]

I love Shining Force. I have two as well and they both rule. Anway, I'm gonna go with the obvious one and say the original Sonic games once you get Super Sonic. Minus the final bosses you can pretty much rip right through everything. It's almost too much.

The secret Street Fighter moves from the first two Mega Man X games were awesome as well, but you have to do it right. If you connect - BLAM - boss gets ripped to shreds. The only thing that sucks is how your life must be full. I guess they can't make the game that easy.

Oh, and Ultima on FF6. Just give everyone Ultima and let 'em fight the dinosaurs with exp egg. Game over.

Ultima? That must take awhile to grind. I just do either genji glove + Illumina and Atma Weapon or offering + Illumina. Do that with one/two character(s) at a time and you'll do just fine.

Or you could just do auto battles on the Lete River (low level enemies, but earlier in the game) or burning house in the infinite enemy room. I prefer the latter because you level up faster.

[BardicKnowledge]

Holding down the right arrow on the 2nd player controller in Megaman 3 gives you a permanent high jump ability. If you mess around with toggling this on and off in a pit, you can be in a living state with 0 HP, granting you immortality (until you hit a life energy capsule).

Holding down the up arrow would put everything into slow motion, and holding Up and A freezes almost everything. Combos of these make the game a joke, but it's a lot of fun to fool around with the game in this debugging state.

In case you're looking for a less "outright cheating" thing, the Gladiator ability in Final Fantasy V Advance allows you to get a 50% chance of 9999 damage every time you strike, in addition to an attack-modifier that rivals X-Fight. Totally broken.

[FenixDown]

Speaking of Final Fantasy V, I've learned in my most recent playthrough of the game that using the Magic Lamp item to summon Odin can instant kill certain bosses, including a component of the final boss.

Also, using the Chemist's Combine/Mix command can be really broken depending on what items you put together. A Phoenix Down and a Dark Matter can be combined into a single target instant death attack with 100% accuracy (as long as the enemy is susceptible to instant death skills). It really comes in handy against King Behemoths in the last leg of the final dungeon. Following that, the optional super boss Shinryu can be made into a (relative) pushover by using the Time spell Quick and then combining two mixtures that blind and berserk the boss. Throw up Golem for the stray accurate physical attack, and you can pretty much take your time with it.

[Devyn]

Ultima? That must take awhile to grind. I just do either genji glove + Illumina and Atma Weapon or offering + Illumina. Do that with one/two character(s) at a time and you'll do just fine.

Or you could just do auto battles on the Lete River (low level enemies, but earlier in the game) or burning house in the infinite enemy room. I prefer the latter because you level up faster.

Yep. Genji glove, offering, the atma and illumina. It will tear Kefka up really quick.

[Bleck]

Exp Walker returns in Dream Drop Distance.

And since you can start a new game+ with all the Dream Eaters you've synthesized (albeit at level 1), you can easily get the ability again.

ahahahahahah

[Gario]

X-com and Mind Control. Holy crap, is that an amazingly broken ability, once you get it.It works both ways just as well, though - for that reason, Ethereals fucking suck.

[Eino Keskitalo]

the only thing that comes to mind is one of the oldschool Shining Force games. You could fight the very first battle over and over by teleporting back to the village ("Egress" spell, i think). I'd pretty much repeatedly level up each party member to the point where it was a one-hit killing spree for every enemy, and it made some of the later battles hilarious.

Mmmm, Shining Force.. that's pretty much just ordinary grinding though, isn't it? I do have to agree that Shining Forces are sadly a bit too easy. If the battles had e.g. a turn limit, you would have to fight aggressively. As it is, you can pretty much take your time to cheese the too-passive AI.

OTOH, if you lost a fight, the way you keep the exp gained and can just go battle again, gives it a sort of a self-adjusting difficulty level. They're great games, just rather relaxed on the challenge department. SF2 had a difficulty choice in the beginning though, I never tried that.

I just recently played through Shining Force Gaidens 2 & 3 - definitely recommended if you haven't played them. Shining Force CD of course is Gaidens 1 & 2 + additional content - haven't played that myself. Anyway, the US version of Gaiden 2 has, for some strange reason, ridiculously powerful Blaze/Freeze L2+ spells. The radius is increased, as is the damage. Your spellcasters can wipe out several enemies on their own. OTOH, that also goes for enemy spellcasters. I think it was actually quite a fun game, increasing the difficulty, and also making the casters more important, real glass cannons for your party.

Never got the hang of psychic abilities in X-COM, but you're right about the Ethereals. Especially when played Right (no loading upon failure!), I pretty much left the Ethereals alone (unless I needed to capture their leader) and tried to get the game completed before they completely swarmed the place. Having them attack your base was sUpEr fUn.. (the best game ever, by the way)

--Eino

[RoadiePC]

SotN?

One word:

Crissaegrim.

...Not TOTALLY gamebreaking, as it doesn't grant free health/invulnerability, but between soul-steal and dark metamorphosis, that's easy enough to come by that it invalidates most of the challenge of the game. I had two of them, and ignored them for a long time. Once I tried one, though, they were all I used.