The Magical Wonders of SAVE STATE HACKING

« Page 1 »
1. Introduction
2. Hacking Utility
    - Cygnus Download
3. Hex Editing Basics
4. Hex Addresses
5. Hacking! Hacking! Hacking!
    - Converting to Hex
    - Finding/hacking money
6. More Hacking!
    - Finding/hacking stats

« Page 2 »
7. A Little More Hacking!
    - Finding/hacking inventory
8. Hacking Ramblings
9. Hacking Resources
    - Links to hacking documents
    - Direct links to GameFAQs
10. Conclusion


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A LITTLE MORE HACKING!

Now we're going to do one more exercise. We're going change all of Crono's items to 99! Now I want you to enter the Millennium fair and buy 4 Tonics, 3 Heals, 2 Revives, and 1 Shelter. Save your state and open up it up in Cygnus. Let's jump to line 321 where Crono's HP/MP is so click on Edit then Go To and type in 3210 then click OK. The item list offsets should be around the stats somewhere. They would either be on top of the stats or under the stats. There are a three ways RPGs like to organize item lists...

Method #1: "Position 69"

BD	DD	F3	A1	4D	76	9D	52	21
00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00
01	02	03	07	12	0A	0D	02	01
00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00

This one is tricky. Those hex values on the top line signify items. Like DB could be Cure and DD could be Elixir. The hex values in the third line is the amount of each item. So the items are on top and the item amounts are below them. Keep in mind that this is just an example. A R0M will list hundreds of items and then list the item amounts like 100 lines below.

Method #2: "Partners"

BD	01	DD	02	F3	03	A1	07	4D	12	76	0A	9D	0D	52	02
21	01	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00	00

This is the most common method. I used the same values that I used in the first example, so do you see the pattern? The first value is the item and the next one is the item amount and so on. Item, item amount, item, item amount, item, item amount, item, item amount... get the idea?

Method #3: "On/Off"

01	00	00	00	00	03	00	00	00
00	00	01	00	00	00	00	0A	00
00	02	00	02	00	00	12	00	0D
00	12	00	00	07	00	00	00	00

So far I've only seen this in Squaresoft's Front Mission and Treasure of the Rudras (Rudora no Hihou). I doubt you'll encounter it in any other games. Anyway, the "on/off" system does not require values to signify items. Let's say the above example is the full chunk of hex for all the items in a RPG. Each value (even the 00's) represents a different item. Let's say the very first value in the upper left represents 'Potion'. There's a '01' there so you currently have 1 Potion in your inventory. Each value that has a '00' means that you do not have any of that item. If you decide to hack each value and replace everything with '01' then you will have 1 of every item in the game. You cannot switch around which value "turns on" a different item. Each specific hex location will always represent that item.

OKAY back to hacking! Crono's items should be under all the character stats or above them. Let's try looking above them. If Chrono Trigger uses method #1 then we're looking for 04 03 02 01, but if Chrono Trigger uses method #2 then we're looking for ?? 04 ?? 03 ?? 02 ?? 01 (we don't know the item offsets yet so for now they will be ??).

OH! Look what's on line 311!! There we go! So Chrono Trigger uses method #1. So that means the item offsets should be somewhere nearby. Let's look for them! Try looking above these hex values.

OH! There they are!! In line 301! So BD is Tonic, C6 is Heal, C7 is Revive, and C8 is Shelter. Exciting huh? Calm yourself down. Now let's hack! Change 04 03 02 01 to 63 63 63 63. Save it, bring up Chrono Trigger, and load the state. Viola!! All of Crono's items are now 99. Isn't that so cool?! You can duplicate items too! Let's say you replaced BD C6 C7 C8 with BD BD BD BD. You'll have 4 Tonics in a row! All with 99 for the amount.

HACKING RAMBLINGS

RPGs are very easy to hack since you're given tons of numerical clues and there are little tricks you can do to figure out which values are which. Non-RPGs are a bitch to hack into like finding the Lives value in street fighting games. Hacking guides tell you where all the important values are. They've done all the work for you! And most hacking guides have lists of all the attacks, spells, items, etc. so that you can add whichever ones you want (and as many as you want) to your current game. Save state hacking is pretty much the best I can do. Other types of hacking are insane and require lots of patience, like changing around dialogues and graphics. Advanced hex editors offer many useful features to make difficult tasks like that much easier. So don't bother using Cygnus forever if you plan on doing some advanced hacking. Cygnus is just a free hex editor for basic little tasks like save state hacking. Refer to my next article for some resources.
If you're saying to yourself "So I can hack into SNES save states... what about other systems??"
Well well, it just so happens that these techniques work with... almost every video game emulator. If you're unable to hack into any game saves for a specific emulator, then that most likely means that emulator uses a form of compression for its saves. Anyway, just to mention some video game emulators that I've tested my techniques with and was successful:
- (NES) Nestopia save states
- (Genesis) Gens save states
- (Genesis) Gens Sega CD *.srm saves (NOTE: the values are not backwards!)
- (PSX) Virtual Gaming Station memory card files
- (PSX) ePSXe memory card files
- (Gamboy/Color) BGB save states
- (TurboGrafx16/CD) MagicEngine save states

HACKING RESOURCES

Want to learn how to hack into ROMs and change whatever you want?? Check out RomHacking.org, the hacking documents at RPGd or the hacking documents at Zophar's Domain. Or how about save state hacking guides that I've mentioned a couple times throughout this section, want to check some out? The following RPGs have save state hacking guides at GameFAQs:

Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 6
Final Fantasy 5
Earthbound
Seiken Densetsu 3
Tales of Phantasia
Sailor Moon: Another Story
Romancing SaGa 3

Those are links directly to the pages where you will find the save state hacking guides. Also keep in mind that I don't have all RPGs with hacking guides listed there. Those are just some that I managed to stumble upon when I went out looking for some.

CONCLUSION

Well I hope my introduction to save state hacking was enlightening for you. See how easy it is?? All you need to do is find the number you want to change, convert it to hex, find it in the save state, and change it to a higher value. The bigger the number, the easier it will be to change it. *TIP* if you're going to do lots of experimenting with hacking into a specific save state then I suggest that you copy that save state somewhere else so if you screw it up then you'll always have a backup. You might be asking yourself "what's with the pink baby dragons?". They're there because... I don't know... I think they're kinda cute. So what of it. What? Stop laughing at me! What was that you said?! Punk! I'll shove my pink baby dragon up your ass!!

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