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Ok, I hate FFIV's Pause so much.. I don't wanna have to waste 30 seconds typing it all up.. So, here's what happened. I started a new game on the emulator..

When Cecil got in a battle, and killed that Zuu (whatever it is), right when the screen was about to flash dark, i pressed start and wondered what would happen after the battle.. And you know what? The music in the airship had a lower volume like the battle!! What a weird glitch, Square should've checked that.

Quote (NeoEx-Death @ 6th August 2005 14:03)

What a weird glitch, Square should've checked that.

Programmers aren't omniscient (well... that's what we like people to believe; in truth, we're just lazy.)

The bug results from a check the game should make but doesn't, as it's an unlikely situation. From what little FF4 hacking I've done, I know pause calls the music handler routine with the proper parameters to decrease the volume, then sets a flag saying "Hey, the player paused!" The second time you press start and the function is called again, it notices the flag has been raised and unsets it, then undoes its operations (raise volume back to full, etc..) Repeat ad-nauseum.

The bug arises because the game only does this when the player presses start. The battle state ends after you've won and the game leaves that part of the code, moving back to the map-handling code. Unfortunately, nothing has ever told the game "Hey, the player paused!" because start wasn't pressed. What the game should do, as it exits the battle, is check if the flag raised earlier when first pausing is set, then just run through the pause function one last time.

Luckily it's not a major bug. I suppose someone may come up with a patch for the ROM (won't be me; I've done very little FF4 ROM hacking. ) I believe the bug should right itself next battle if you pause again.

Nice find though. I can think of a few people who've categorized FF6's many bugs into a list; maybe someone'll start an FF4 buglist.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Does the code specify an amount to decrease or a volume to set to? By this I mean does it specify how much the sound has to come down or simply say "this lower volume, right here"?

I'm wondering this because: what if the player did this glitch repeatedly--what would happen?

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No, it directly sets the value (0x80 for half volume, 0xFF for full.)

As far as I understand it, this bug should only occure in event battles and not actual battles. The reason for this is because the game forcibly unpauses if you're paused when the victory music/dance begins. Events, however, fade out without going through the victory scene, and thus the code is never executed.

Another interesting pause bug lies in the fact FF4 uses the same sound channel for all sounds. Pause plays the "clink!" sound effect. Try pausing while a boss is dying or during a spell and the sound effect will stop entirely.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."