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Vampire Savior - mystery flag in save data

xhul - Apr 12, 2025

		xhul		Apr 12, 2025
			Welcome =] Recently, i messed with the Vampire Savior save, the goal was to locate the flags that cause stuff to become unlocked. That journey was quite boring, since it's basically a guessing game, while comparing the data in hexadecimal. Anyway, i successfully managed to locate everything. Accidentally, i spotted a flag that the game sets once it's completed (in any way according to my tests). The thing is, if you look online, just completing the game (without additional conditions) isn't supposed to unlock anything. I tried to identify what gets unlocked in the process by myself, without success. Out of curiosity, anybody knows what it could be? Thanks in advance for your time. Note that there's of course the possibility that the game sets the flag, but never actually checks it. For some reason, i doubt it.

		Danthrax		Apr 12, 2025
			When you beat Vampire Savior the first time, it unlocks the ability to bring up the extra options screen by highlighting "options" on the main menu, holding L and R, and pressing Start. The EX Options screen has RGB, life bar type, each unlocked character ending and English language select.

		xhul		Apr 12, 2025
			Danthrax said: Yo Danthrax, and thanks for the reply =] Actually, the access to the extra options requires to beat the game without losing a single round (BTW, L or R suffice), and i've already identified the corresponding flag in the save data. The mystery flag i'm talking about unlocks something else, and probably something pretty cheap, considering it's set even if you use continues. To be clear, i've already identified the following flags, so it's not one of those: - oboro bishamon playable - ex option menu accessible - all 22 endings listed+viewable - "clear data" ex option usable

		Danthrax		Apr 12, 2025
			xhul said: Oh OK, well that’s interesting! I wonder if @bbayles... could see what it is.

		rorirub		Apr 13, 2025
			It could be just a generic test since "beating the game once in any way" is a fairly common thing in Capcom fighters. While I struggle to come up with an example, I'm sure that at least one of those CPS2 uses this for something. But I could be confusing it with some other game like VF2. Maybe try to test at what point (if any) is the flag accessed?

		xhul		Apr 14, 2025
			rorirub said: That's exactly what i wanted to avoid when i created this topic, hoping somebody already knew about an obvious unlocking i wasn't aware of. Anyway, considering how old the game is, i guess it would have already been documented if somebody noticed an actual effect on the game's behaviour. I've been dissecting save data on other capcom titles since, and i've encountered similar stuff, such as "times the game has been played", that doesn't seem to affect anything either. From a development perspective, it makes sense that some recorded data never gets used, depending on the evolving decisions, who works on what, and in which order things are implemented. I'll consider that flag a leftover for now, which is probably what it is, it seems.

		rorirub		Apr 14, 2025
			Keep in mind arcade games also have their own bookkeeping (not sure how much of that CPS2 games do) so it may have been just leftovers from when porting that.

		xhul		Apr 14, 2025
			rorirub said: Good point =]

		bbayles		Apr 16, 2025
			What are the addresses of the flags? I can probably figure this out.

		xhul		Apr 17, 2025
			bbayles said: Honestly, i doubt it's worth a deeper investigation, since the chances that it's a leftover flag are pretty high. Anyway, if you're really curious, and have enough knowledge and time, here's what i can share: - save data offset (relative): The Vampire Savior save data is 0x3B0 bytes long. To be clear, i'm referring to the actual save data here. The mystery flag is byte # 0x342 (byte # 0x000 being the very first one). - Internal save memory (RAM) address: Because save locations can vary, we'll have to assume the internal memory was just cleared, and the Vampire Savior save was the very first one to be written. In that case, the mystery flag byte is located at 0x0018087D (mirrored at 0x0019087D|0x001A087D|0x001B087D|0x001C087D|0x001D087D|0x001E087D|0x001F087D). If your intent is to look for a read at that specific location, don't bother. Indeed, considering the game has a backup mode setting, it's very likely that the code duplicates save data in bulk to a temporary location, and updates the actual save data only when needed (either when the player does a manual backup, or automatically if the "back up" option is set to "auto"). Regarding the flag itself, all i know is that: - It's in the area where all the unlocking flags are located, and the only one i found that doesn't seem to have a purpose. - The data is 0x00 by default (after the game just created a fresh save). - The data switches to 0x01 when the game is completed for the first time, apparently without any additional condition (any difficulty, with or without using continues, etc.). - I haven't witnessed any other value, nor any case where the data switches back to 0x00.