You can defeat the Dream Devourer from Chrono Trigger using an int overflow
A Hacker News discussion thread about an exploit in Chrono Trigger: the Dream Devourer, a boss from the game's DS port, can be defeated by triggering an integer overflow. Commenters debate the merits of Chrono Cross as a sequel, praise the game's soundtrack, and joke that memory-safe languages would have prevented such bugs from producing fun glitches like this one.
Yet another downside of using 'safe' languages. You don't get cool stuff like this.
- PlunderBunny
I figured out that, in the early versions of Realmz for the Mac, there was an enchanted item (a helm?) that added a few points to the wearer’s stats when equipped, but when removed it took away more than it added (i.e. left you worse off). It only took a few seconds for my programmer brain to start me furiously equipping and then un-equipping it, and sure enough, when that stat went to -127, one more equip-and-unequip was sufficient to give me a +128 bonus for that stat.
I never understood how that particular bit of logic could have been coded that way - it seemed so unnatural.
- mitxela
Deshittified link: https://breezewiki.com/chrono/wiki/Dream_Devourer
- torlok
Fandom Wiki leaves 5 lines of readable text on my iPhone after about 3 seconds of loading.
- Ndymium
A classic way of getting endless money in Transport Tycoon was to build a tunnel going from one edge of the map to another. The money counter would overflow and you'd get enough money to last you a lifetime.
As kids we didn't know why this would happen, we just knew that it did and used it every game.
- whizzter
Reminded me of SNES Shadowrun, don't remember if my English skills were weak or what the cause of me misunderstanding it was but when you encountered the Jester in the game, you're supposed to shoot him until you get a chance for a conversation and saying his name completes that bossfight.
However, I missed that this part was the key and after a bunch of deaths I went on to level up my character past what the developers had probably intended at that stage of the game and subsequently managed to kill the Jester (he was strong enough that it was hard even when fully powered up).
Killing him probably lacked proper codepaths so the game crashed/blacked out and wiped the savegame forcing me to start over (quite an unusual thing to see in a SNES game).
- SatvikBeri
Similarly, you can defeat the Egg Dragon superboss in Lufia 2 by healing before attacking: it starts with 65,535 HP.
- seam_carver
In Fire Emblem 3 Houses, the final boss of the Azure route has 199 HP and is standing on a 60 HP heal tile.
If you deal 3 damage, it goes to 196. 196+60=256.
This overflows to zero and you win.
- falsaberN1
I don't want Chrono Cross-contamination in my trigger, thanks.
Chrono Cross is a very interesting game on its own but it's a terrible sequel that is remarkably spiteful to its senior. (The thing with FATE and Robo, the Porre thing, the fate of Crono and co., it's a terrible fanfic made canon).
Trigger only worked because of Toriyama gathering the all-star staff (look up the interview with Torishima giving the details). Cross was out of his hands and it shows.