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SUPER MARIO RPG: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN STARS
DEBUG ROOM FAQ
version 1.0 (October 23 2003)
Author: Kamek (kamek minus spam at cox dot net) (remove "minus spam")
Copyright 2003 by Kamek. All rights reserved.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================
1. Version History
2. Discovery of the Debug Room
3. Required Codes
4. The Debug Room
5. Closing
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1. VERSION HISTORY
==================
Version 1.0: first public release.
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2. DISCOVERY OF THE DEBUG ROOM
==============================
Many games have what is called a debug mode. Debug modes are normally used
by the programmers to test out certain features of their game. There are
many games for which some type of debug mode has been found. For example,
in Sonic the Hedgehog, you can use a debug mode to place level objects
into the level, skip levels, move to any location in the level, etc.

In Super Mario RPG, the debug mode is in the form of a special room that
I have dubbed the Debug Room. Square refers to it as the World Map.

I originally stumbled upon the Debug Room when I was messing around with a
third-party game saver for my Super NES. I incorrectly saved my game using
this third-party device, and as a result, all of my game saves were lost.
I was disappointed, but realized that although the games had been erased,
they had not been completely wiped and the save file was still accessible.
So, I played using the first save slot which appeared to be wiped. I was
placed in a strange-looking room, and received this message:

"The World Map
Talk to the person of the place
you wish to go."

I explored what was left of the Debug Room and realized I had struck gold.
Although much of the functionality of the Debug Room had been erased, this
was still an amazing breakthrough!

I couldn't reproduce the glitch that allowed me to access the Debug Room,
so I eventually forgot about it.

A year or so later, I was fooling around with Super Mario RPG on my
emulator, making some PAR codes. Then I thought back to that day where I
discovered the Debug Room. I decided that if I could hack some kind of
warp code, I could find the Debug Room and do some more research.
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3. REQUIRED CODES
=================

The final results of my code hacking were as follows:

7FF40400
7FF40501

These codes modify the exits to a room. This particular pair of codes
modifies the uppermost exit (normally). The quantity digits, 00 and 01,
lead to an invalid destination. The game gets confused and puts you in the
Debug Room.

You need a Pro Action Replay or an emulator that supports Pro Action
Replay codes (such as ZSNES) in order to use these debug codes.
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4. DEBUG ROOM
=============
Much of the functionality of the Debug Room has been removed. However, you
can still perform a few nifty tricks.

When you're dropped in the Debug Room, you'll get a message saying "Talk
to the person of the place you want to go."

A special note. Here, you do not need to press A to talk to anyone --
simply walk into the person and you'll get a prompt.

Code:
The layout looks something like this (forgive the poor ASCII drawing)

R    R  R

R    M M

R  R
The second "M" is you. The first "M" seems to be a dummy Mario and doesn't
appear to serve any purpose at the moment. You'll find Bowser on the
screen to the right, as well.

Except for the Retainer in the upper-left hand corner, all of the
Retainers will ask if you want to visit a certain place. You can go to
Barrel Volcano, Land's End, Nimbus Town, Bean Valley, Monstro Town, or
Bowser's Keep (if you talk to Bowser on the next screen).

The Retainer in the upper-left hand corner seems to have the coolest
options that you can access. You'll get a menu:

PAGE 1:
NEXT PAGE -- brings up Page 2
SAVE -- lets you save your game
OOPS, TALKED TO HIM! -- exits this menu

PAGE 2:
NEXT PAGE -- brings up Page 3
TREASURE SEEKER -- gives you the Signal Ring
999 COINS -- does just what it says

PAGE 3:
NEXT PAGE -- brings up Page 4
PRINCESS JOINS PARTY -- makes Peach join the party
BOWSER JOINS PARTY -- makes Koopa join the party

PAGE 4:
NEXT PAGE -- brings up Page 5
MALLOW JOINS PARTY -- makes Mallow join
GENO JOINS PARTY -- makes Geno join

PAGE 5:
NEXT PAGE -- brings up Page 6
WORLD MAP "ON" -- This option makes all locations in the World Map
accessible
WORLD MAP "OFF" -- This option makes all locations in the World Map
INaccessible

PAGE 6:
END -- exits menu
STAR MENU TEST -- Unknown
ENDING -- Shows game ending

Choosing "Star Menu Test" makes the Retainer keep bouncing up and down,
but he won't react to your presence again. My guess is they ripped this
feature out or you need some special requirement to activate it.

It appears that the Debug Room was designed to hold more Retainers,
most likely one for each area in the game. It also explains the big
empty space in the rest of the area. It's a fairly large area but there
is nothing to be found other than these few retainers and Bowser.

This is not the first Squaresoft game where gamers have discovered a
debug mode. Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy Tactics had debug modes
that could only be accessed by Gameshark or other cheating devices.

I suspect that there was a lot of cool stuff in this room at one point,
but now all it's good for is getting tons of coins, and getting party
members early.

Something interesting to note. When the Debug Room was accessed with the
game saver device, I was controlling MALLOW instead of Mario with the
controller. He didn't have all the required sprites so he glitched up
occasionally, but it leads me to wonder if that was an intended feature
at one point in the game development.
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5. CLOSING
==========
The Debug Room is still fairly mysterious. Feel free to explore the Debug
Room on your own. If you manage to find something I didn't cover, please
email me so that it can be included in this FAQ. My email address is
kamek minus spam at cox dot net (take out the "minus spam" part).

You may download the necessary ZSNES cheat, save state, and SRM files
to enter the Debug World at http://members.cox.net/kamek/smrpgdebug.zip.

Thanks to GameFAQs for hosting this site.
Another thanks to Naki, who made the game save device that led to the
discovery of this Debug Room.
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