Getting General Leo in Final Fantasy VI (Pixel Remaster + SNES + More!)

[@ChronoTriggerHappy]

Kefka: I KILLED YOU Leo: the stories of my death were greatly exagerated

[@TorkelBurger]

Wow. No idea how the algorithm recommended this video, but that was an awesome bit of work you did. Thank you. Subscribed

[@madgodsrageon1268]

So glad I saw your Reddit post and I'm definitely trying out the PR method as soon as I have the time! Just wanted to add that for the SNES/GBA version using the Airship Glitch you don't actually lose Leo when you go into a character select screen, you just lose his 'portrait' in the status window, but if you leave his party slot 'open' then he still shows up when you get into battle. I posted a written guide on Gamefaqs as well as a video guide on my KZbin channel a few years ago which I titled "New Game L" which shows how you can take Leo through the entire WofR up to and including The Phoenix Cave, Kefka's Tower and the Dragon's Den w/ only a single use of the Airship Glitch. I just wanted to add that little tidbit since I never seem to see anyone else mention it when they talk about Leo and the Airship Glitch. Great video and thanks for whetting my appetite for another run of FF6!

[@patches365]

Huh, I wasn't aware of that regarding Leo in the party after the airship glitch. I did wonder if it would be the case where you could still keep him if you left an empty slot for him, since I knew the party reset code only cleared out characters 00-13. But when I tried leaving an opening for him and he was still gone from my party menu, I assumed that meant I'd still lost him. Didn't actually try getting in a battle that way, though. I also wonder if you just never really "lose" him, anyway. I had a bug when coding Antinomia, where I changed Mog to a guest character to open party position 10 for Leo, but Mog is recruitable at any point as long as you have an open slot. However, I found that if I took Mog in a full party to recruit Cyan, if I looked in Cyan's treasure chest, Cyan still popped out of my party to scold me, even though he wasn't there in the menu and it would mean I had 5 characters. I realized that when the game counts how many party members you currently have, it doesn't count guests. The game has to manually add and remove guests from the party during scripted events because the generic party update functions don't account for them. So when I had Mog + 3 characters, it only counted that as 3 characters and added Cyan to my party, anyway. But if it wasn't for the event that checks if he's in the party, I wouldn't have known he was there. If you try the PR method, also check out Rain's video, because they use the glitch to duplicate Ragnarok a bunch of times, too, by pulling the event where you get it into a save where you already have it. I was going to add that to my video, but you know how I mention that it's easy to overwrite saves when you meant to load them? Yeah.... They also kidnap a ghost from the Phantom Train to Possess a bunch of bosses to death. Rain also recently released another video that's even more convoluted, where they do a "the Empire are the heroes" run, where they get a party of Biggs, Wedge, Kefka, and Gestahl and take them to the final battle. Biggs and Wedge are the only ones who can do anything, though, since Kefka and Gestahl have no battle commands, and only have party sprites for battle-window cutscenes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/epCtgYWIgq-gqsk

[@madgodsrageon1268]

Oh wow! That's wild about getting the bad guys into the party lol! Yeah, I actually reached out to ElephantGun when I found out about Leo staying in the party during battles and the 5-character/game doesn't fully erase guests thing is almost verbatim what she said when she started thinking about why. So now I def gotta check out both the PR and your Antinomia mod!@@patches365

[@madgodsrageon1268]

@@patches365 Looks like my earlier reply didn't go through lol! So yeah, I reached out to ElephantGun when I stumbled on Leo staying in the party during battles and she said almost verbatim what you did about the 5th char/party not being fully cleared in battles. Having him this way does for sure come w/ some caveats: if you add another char to 'his' slot that char will take his place until his spot is 'open' again then he reappears. He still can't change gear or learn Espers/Magick and he can only be healed in battle - inns/tents/healing tiles/etc don't work on him. And he can only appear in the 1st party of multi-party dungeons and the final battle w/ Kefka is the one battle I have not found a way to take him into since that version of the party select screen does seem to clear everyone out first. But still very cool to have him from the FC onward w/ his ridiculously broken stats lmao! Great video and I am really looking forward to both PR and your Antinomia mod!

[@iamthehobo]

Who knew ff6 was secretly chrono trigger

[@cyrahomega]

Everybody

[@regi3756]

I think of Beatrix as Leo’s spiritual successor.

[@SeventhheavenDK]

The lunatic genocide and the honorable general. I don't see why she would be his spiritual successor.

[@dougkinzinger]

What a great compilation! Leo was the best.

[@JonathanGbrg81]

Thanks for the tutorial! And the music choice was amazing! I dusted off the OST CD I purchased back in 1995 just to listen to the MIDI music again. Keep it up!!!!

[@AndyHoward]

Also Psycho Cyan, Wind God Gau no longer work in the PR version.

[@squeakysneakers6685]

This is wild! The airship glitch has more directions than a LEGO assembly manual. 🐭 Thanks so muxh for the video. Youre funny!

[@patches365]

Thanks! The end goal is fairly simple: have the game set Leo as the guest character and then go to a point where it puts the guest character in the party. All the steps are just being able to get to that point without getting stuck, haha.

[@monopoman]

Leo killing Kefka is so satisfying the game did him dirty.

[@RedYDG]

Aside from a couple missables I'd say Antinomia is just shy of a straight upgrade to base game. If that hack and this video are anything to go off of I humbly request you continue in your content creating endeavors.

[@patches365]

Thank you! Unfortunately, I tend to have very narrow - and often fleeting - fixations, and only create content when they align. FFVI has stood the test of time in my interests, at least. As for the missables in Antinomia, I can understand that. Because they're ultimate weapon quests, I didn't want to make them straightforward, but I also completely understand it's kind of a dick move to make something that you did before you even started the quest permanently lock you out from being able to complete it. Leaving Leo behind on the Floating Continent is something I can assume the player would anticipate they'd end up losing out on something later, but I do agree that locking you out of a quest just because you recruited Sabin before Leo is kinda OG FFXII levels of "don't touch these random unspecified treasure chests that we never warn you about" shenanigans. But because missables have been a presence in most games in the series, I'm still inclined to keep it as such.

[@Supah_Sayin_Rick]

​@patches365 why not make an optional patch to make the ultimate weapons more easily obtainable?

[@AerospaceCoot35]

35:26 At least we got Dissidia sprites for Galuf and Faris before that happened lol

[@LucidDreamer013]

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start on Title Screen. Play as Leo cheat code.

[@mielthesquid6536]

lmao, I read "get Leo -black-" at first and then thought of a way to alter his color palette in the original game to turn him black.

[@patches365]

Lol. Well, there IS a mod for the SNES version specifically for that, too: www.romhacking.net/hacks/5154/ Thankfully all of his appearances in the mobile ports and onward have recolored his sprite to match his character art. His SNES appearance can sort of be chalked up to only having 5 static color palettes to share among all the characters and NPCs, coupled with the fact that because he's temporarily playable, he's subject to status ailment code which expects the skin tone to be a specific entry on that palette so it can be modified to indicate poison/berserk/zombie. Later releases that introduced new graphics didn't have this limitation. Even the above mod and the Antinomia hack which modify his skin tone in the SNES release do so by sacrificing his ability to accurately show status ailments.

[@ArkThePieKing]

Algorithm be praised, this video was fantastic!

[@Whosaneca]

This was incredible. Thanks for the video!

[@tufrabza]

I didn't realize HOW i did it... but ya, i've had leo from the sketch glitch, so cool to even see him show up, mine had like 17 versions of the fire spell with one being like 340 mp.

[@idle_serge]

Maaaan and to think, someone figured this out in the 90s...my brother's and I owned this game on SNES. Our mother picked it up at a yard sale in the mid 90s and the game still had a saved file...lo and behold, General Leo was on the team. Granted, at the time, we didn't realize it was a glitch and eventually started a new game only to discover that we couldn't keep him alive through normal game play. Anyhow, super rad! Definitely need to get back into these classics and all-time greats!

[@TarkinBaroth]

Can you imagine just accidentally doing all this. “Man this story is like a Tarantino movie, wtf, I thought FF7s story was convoluted…”

[@monopoman]

This took decades to figure out, for a long time no one knew if it was possible to get Leo as a permanent party member.

[@patches365]

Both the Airship Glitch and Title Screen Glitch were originally found during targeted bug-hunts. NovaliaSpirit found the Airship Glitch and originally just reported it as "You reload on the airship after dying on the Floating Continent, even if you didn't have the airship the last time you saved." ElephantGun then did a bunch of further experimenting with what you could do with this knowledge, which also includes taking Terra to the opera, recruiting Maduin, kidnapping the ghosts from the Phantom Train and having them one-shot Kefka, and permanently turning Sabin into a suplexing moogle. Similarly, Eddie found the Title Screen Glitch during one of his "Free Debugging" streams, but it was originally just "you can open the menu at the same time as a dialogue box pops up and keep the menu open during battles/events". Rain then did a bunch of experimenting to find that you can also use it to permanently recruit pretty much all the temporary characters, even as far as recruiting Kefka, as well as give yourself infinite copies of any items you receive via event, such as Ragnarok. Might do a video later on how to use that glitch to get unlimited Ragnarok/Lightbringer.

[@tylerdurden7965]

HannibalGraham was actually the first person to discover how to get Leo to the world of ruin

[@patches365]

Ah, thanks. I'd seen that video and have run that version before, but I didn't know if he was the one who found that method or if he was repeating someone else's. His method also requires you to land the airship in a very specific spot to keep it accessible, but I'd seen a different version that had Terra move Figaro to get back to your airship so you didn't have to worry about where you landed it, and found that to be more straightforward.

[@tylerdurden7965]

@@patches365 Yeah, he was the first to discover the method like 11 years ago, so i wouldn't be surprised if in that time frame people have copied his method without giving credit and improving upon it.

[@younesakdah1803]

Awesome. Thank you.

[@Uryvichk]

So regarding Leo in the SNES version: If you don't mind cheating, it's very easy to get him with the code that enables the full party on the airship, as he'll appear (along with a version of Kefka) in the Falcon. More interesting is why he can't use Magic. It's not that he can't -- he has a unique and fully functional spellcasting animation, even -- it's that he does not have the Magic command. Basically, every "real" party member in FF6 has MP and the Magic command, they're just dummied out on everyone but Terra and Celes until you acquire Espers (or possibly until you equip them with one); once they have something to spend their MP on, the command becomes visible. Leo doesn't, to my knowledge, have this command in the SNES version, and it's specifically having the Magic command that allows equipping Espers in the first place. This might be how the original developers prevented equipping an Esper on a temporary party member to prevent them from disappearing with it. If you use a save editor to give Leo a Magic command, he can equip Espers just fine, get their level bonuses, and even summon them with his functioning cast animation! But if you look at his actual Magic menu, you'll notice it has every spell in the game at varying weird learn percentages, and those percentages never increase no matter what Esper he has equipped, so he never learns any spell. This is because, I think, party slots 15-16 were never intended to have a spell table, and memory was insanely limited on the SNES cartridge, so his "spell table" just looks ahead to what is probably some part of memory after the playable character spell tables that is garbled nonsense when parsed by the Magic menu. So he cannot learn spells but can at least cast something via summoning. The interesting thing is that the Pixel Remaster seems to have completely changed this. Leo DOES appear to have the Magic command, so I suspect that the same behavior is being applied to all playable characters where they have MP and Magic by default, but now there is a manual lock on the Abilities menu to prevent them from equipping Espers which the menu glitches can circumvent. What's interesting is that every character now DOES appear to have a unique spell table, allowing Leo to actually learn the spells from the Espers he's equipped and cast them; I assume this is because memory is much less limited and the Pixel Remaster probably uses a more sensible database to keep track of which spells everyone knows, and they just didn't bother writing any special code to disable learning by temporary party members because they figured locking out Abilities was enough. The equipment situation has, to my knowledge, always been a manual lock. There are enough temporary party members in the game that they clearly anticipated the situation and didn't want the player stealing gear from Biggs/Wedge, the Moogles, Banon, etc. My guess is they took the idea of the Equipment lock flag and just made an Abilities lock flag that operates the same way (it wouldn't surprise me if they could lock out any menu they wanted in the Pixel Remaster, they just don't).

[@patches365]

Yeah, the SNES save data is a static number of bytes, and it only has spell tables for 12 characters (since Umaro and Gogo can't equip Espers). It also locks out the Skills menu for any character ID greater than 12 (Umaro and guests), and the equipment menu for any character ID greater than 13 (guests). The Pixel Remaster save data is a variable-length array of JSON objects that contain each individual character's data. The JSON object schema is common across all characters, so even characters who don't normally learn magic like Biggs, Wedge, Leo, Banon, and Kefka can be taught magic in that version if you smuggle them into your party.

[@Uryvichk]

@@patches365 Does editing the JSON allow for removing stuff like the lock on Abilities and Equipment? I mean, if you can edit their character data you can probably just edit the stuff they're holding anyway, but you know what I mean.

[@patches365]

@@Uryvichk I have not tried to actually edit the save file, I only ran it through a decryption tool to see what was in it. The menu lock is likely in the code itself and not the save data, but it's probably locking out certain character IDs, so it may work to just change the character ID number in the save file (though that might just transform him into that character). There's an equipment object there but each slot is enumerated, so you'd have to figure out which number is which equipment. It doesn't appear to match the SNES enumerations since I see some values greater than 255.

[@Draeco]

Woo 100th sub!

[@mikemccann978]

Cool video! Very informative and entertaining. You’ve got a new sub.

[@patches365]

Thank you! It's amazing that getting Leo back was the subject of so many rumors back in the 90's, only for it to turn out you actually COULD, and then every time they port or remake the game, there's STILL a way to do it, lol.

[@TheresNothingHereNataZero]

@@patches365 Not the old mobile/steam ver.

[@ProfessorxVile]

Only way I ever managed to get Leo back on SNES was using the invisible/sketch glitch, and that only lasted until the end of the battle.

[@planescaped]

If they ever remake FF6 to the degree they've remade FF7 (they should!) then they need to make it so Leo can be saved, just as they made it so Aerith is saved. And oh my god, that sequence of events to get Leo using the airship in the original game is mind melting. XD And seeing them side by side, it's crazy that the pixel "remaster" looks so much worse than the original SNES version.

[@patches365]

If they do remake the game, I do hope they do more of a straightforward remake rather than spending the whole time trying to fake people out who played the original game, like their Schroedinger's Zack and Aerith. If they do add in a way to save Leo, I would prefer it be something like FFX-2 where 100%-ing the game brings Tidus back or something. Hell, make you actually have to kill 255 dinosaurs. Not this, "Oh no, he died! .... or DID he?"

[@LBoomsky]

high quality video 👍

[@xristo702]

Since we're talking about FF6PR on the PC, how do save editors work for enabling temp characters? Could you just reach WOR and plug temp chars in a team before recruiting the others?

[@patches365]

I haven't really used save editors for PR, but looking at the JSON file it spits out, it looks like all you'd need to do is set "isEnableCorps" for your desired character to "true", and that would make them available in the party menu. However, I have not actually tried this and I don't really want to manually mess with the save data myself.

[@dekky3908]

The only thing I ever got out of the sketch glitch as a kid was losing my save data.

[@patches365]

Yeah, that's why there's the very specific setup of Mute in slot 28, your first party member being an Imp, and battling a Mould 1 enemy formation. The Sketch Glitch causes random memory locations to execute, so that specific setup puts the right values in the right memory locations to get it to give you Leo instead of completely breaking your game.

[@EnjoySackLunch]

Wow this is awesome

[@svankensen]

Well, it may be time to replay FFVI again. We have the technology to bring him back.

[@Wyndorn]

These all sound so preposterous! Lmao. Crazy that people figure this stuff out.

[@PinkMawile]

I imagine it’d also work on iOS since it’s just a wrapper on a rom file. I do hope someone breaks open the engine for full modding at some point.

[@princevaliant]

Since Pixel remastered is on steam, a mod should solve the problem.

[@xristo702]

Everything on nexusmods are cosmetic. Maybe there are some tables for cheat engine?

[@Zarathustra-rj4yz]

You pronounced it "Ē-gis". THANK YOU

[@patches365]

I wasn't really sure how it was pronounced so I checked the Japanese spelling, which is phonetic, and it was イージス (iijisu), so I went with that.

[@zacharythomas8617]

You should be a Games Tester if you're not already.

[@patches365]

I actually am a professional software tester! Not for games, though, for microcontrollers. Though experience in that field did help me interpret the FF6 SNES assembly to see what was going on under the hood with some of these glitches.

[@zacharythomas8617]

@@patches365 incredible, I'll be checking back on you. Good work, wish I could be as good with games.

[@iggy9790]

Gau can use Shock off of Retainer

[@GuardianOfUltima]

Howtoff6 is another channel of mine where i showed the world how to bring bannon back too, also with the airship. Works on console without cheat codes or mods, just need the airship glitch