Under the microscope: Arc the Lad II & III (PlayStation)

Part of the Arc the Lad Collection

After finding some hidden secrets in some other games that Working Designs localized (like Shining Wisdom, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Vanguard Bandits), I decided to look at the rest.

This led me to the Arc the Lad games. The PlayStation entries in this series were published in Japan between 1995 and 1999, but didn’t appear in the U.S. until 2002, when Working Designs released them as part of a six disc collection.

I found a cheat code that enables a hidden debug mode in both Arc the Lad II and Arc the Lad III. Details are below!

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Arc the Lad II

Enter this sequence at the main menu:

Square, Circle, Circle, Circle, 
Square, Circle, Circle, Circle, 
Circle, Circle, Square, Square, 
Square, Circle

You can now save at any point in the game. Hold L1 or R1 and press Square to bring up the file select screen:

Before a battle starts, you can hold Select+R1+R2+Triangle+X to cause all of the enemies to die immediately:

During battle, press L1+R1 to show the target cursor. Highlight an enemy and press Circle to destroy it in one shot:

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Arc the Lad III

This game’s cheat sequence matches its predecessor’s. Enter it at the main menu:

Square, Circle, Circle, Circle, 
Square, Circle, Circle, Circle, 
Circle, Circle, Square, Square, 
Square, Circle

You can now hold down Triangle to display a meter at the top of the screen. It’s actually a movie select menu. Press R1 or L1 while still holding Triangle to adjust it. Press Start while holding Triangle to confirm your selection. You’ll be prompted for the second disc if you pick one of the later movies:

Left: The selection meter on the menu screen. Right: The disc change screen.

During gameplay, you’ll see Debug active on the menu:

On the Items screen you can make adjustments:

• Press R2/L2 to increase/decrease the quantity of an item you have.

• Hold Circle and press R2/L2 to change the type of the item.

Left: The items screen. Right: Upgrading an item and increasing its quantity.

Press L1+R1 to enable a viewpoint adjustment mode. You can use the D-pad to move the camera around. The shoulder buttons adjust the camera angle:

Left: The normal camera angle. Right: A head-on view.

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Technical details

For Arc the Lad III, I first used the RALibretro Memory Inspector to locate the memory addresses that store player input (using this process). Then I set a read breakpoint for the “pressed button” address.

This led me to the function at 800f0ab8 (NTSC-U version), which has logic that looks like this:

if p1_pressed_01 != 0:
    cheat_counter_local = cheat_counter_global
    cheat_counter_global += 1

    # Check if the pressed button matches the expected button in the sequence
    if cheat_buttons[cheat_counter_local] != p1_pressed_01:
        cheat_counter_global = 0
    
    # Check if we’ve reached the end of the sequence (marked by 0)
    if cheat_buttons[cheat_counter_global] == 0:
        cheat_counter_global = 0
        cheat_effect ^= 1  # Toggle the cheat effect
        play_sfx_01(WORD_800d7230, 0, 0xd)

The cheat_buttons array starts at 800f03c4. It uses the standard PlayStation mapping of bit patterns to buttons:

# Square, Circle, Circle, Circle
800f03c4 80 00
800f03c6 20 00
800f03c8 20 00
800f03ca 20 00

# Square, Circle, Circle, Circle
800f03cc 80 00
800f03ce 20 00
800f03d0 20 00
800f03d2 20 00

# Circle, Circle, Square, Square
800f03d4 20 00
800f03d6 20 00
800f03d8 80 00
800f03da 80 00

# Square, Circle
800f03dc 80 00
800f03de 20 00

# End of sequence
800f03e0 00 00

The cheat effect flag is at 8007b978. The game reads this flag on the screens that use these cheat functions.

Arc the Lad II uses similar logic to activate its cheat mode. The function at 80137dcc listens for the button presses, and sets the flag at 801a0f98 when they’re all correct.

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Outro

Many thanks to Jason at PlayStationLibrary.com for figuring out that game 3’s cheat code works for game 2 and for testing out the effects in game 3.

The article for this game at The Cutting Room Floor mentions another set of debug screens that can be accessed by changing a memory address that the game reads at bootup. I didn’t find any cheat codes that make those screens easier to access — alas.

There will be more Rings of Saturn soon, but in the meantime you can check the archive for more cheat code mining articles.

Logo by Ashlyn Anstee