Final Fantasy III: Menu Malarky

If you press Y immediately after pressing X, in a dungeon where you are split into multiple parties, the game will switch to the next party and then immediately open the Main Menu. Also, when you exit the Main Menu, you are able to move during the fade-in sequence, and in some cases you can even walk through NPCs.

One of the most infamous symptoms of these two exploits is Locke being able to phase through the guard in South Figaro, and thus Celes never gets introduced. Other symptoms include the ability to bypass the Kefka's Tower bosses Inferno and Poltergeist. This patch eradicates these exploits from the game.

Final Fantasy 3 (US/SNES), Final Fantasy 6 (JP/SFC)
Menu Malarky Bug Fix patch

CONTENTS:
FF3-MenuMalarky-H.ips: The fix patch for a headered ROM file. Apply to fix the Menu Malarky Bug.
FF3-MenuMalarky-HR.ips: The reverse patch for a headered ROM file. Apply to reverse all changes made by the previous patch.
FF3-MenuMalarky-N.ips: The fix patch for a non-headered ROM file. Apply to fix the Menu Malarky Bug.
FF3-MenuMalarky-NR.ips: The reverse patch for a non-headered ROM file. Apply to reverse all changes made by the previous patch.
readme.txt: This file.
Menu Malarky.rtf: An index of the code changes.

ALL PATCHES WORK ON VERSION 1.0 OR 1.1.

URGENCY:
Extreme!

PURPOSE:
Players can exploit some timing tricks in the game in order to bypass key events. For example, there are two bosses in Kefka's Tower that can be skipped as follows: Inferno and Poltergeist. To skip Inferno, step onto the tile that triggers Inferno's appearance, which is at the top of some stairs after a Save Point. While your character is moving, before the event triggers, press Y to switch to the next party. Press Y again to switch to the third party, then press X to open the Main Menu, but press Y before it actually opens. This will have the effect of switching to the Inferno party, then opening the Main Menu. Switch out the party leader for the member immediately after, then exit the menu while holding left. This will allow your character to move off the tile without Inferno ever having appeared. The same trick can be applied to the treadmill outside the stairs leading to Poltergeist, which pushes the player away from the hallway leading to Kefka; the player moves up the treadmill and bypasses Poltergeist. This patch prevents this exploit by preventing Y from doing anything while the game is opening the Main Menu.

The most infamous timing bug is with Locke in his South Figaro escape campaign. There is a guard on the right edge of the town that blocks you from exiting. If you move up close to him and open the Main Menu just as he's about to come back toward you, then exit the menu and hold up, Locke will phase through the guard and wind up on the outskirts of town. As a result, you skip the scene where Locke meets Celes, and she is replaced by Kutan for the rest of the game. This problem is also fixed now.

This patch conflicts with my "Save Point Switch" patch, so if you want both, all you have to do is apply this patch second.

VERSION HISTORY:
v1.3 (November 17, 2017): Fixed a bug that caused NPCs moving diagonally to place their pointers on random tiles, making them impassable. The most serious effect noticed was in front of the path to the Hardened weapon on the Floating Continent.

v1.2 (February 21, 2017): Fixed a bug that caused NPC pointers to be placed on the wrong tiles.

v1.1 (February 10, 2017): Removed an attempted fix for the South Figaro bypass exploit, which did not fix the problem and added an unnecessary restriction to player movement, and replaced it with a fix that actually works.

v1.0 (September 10, 2016): Initial release.

Final Fantasy III (USA)
CRC32: E969BD77
MD5: A684517EBD29308C2E3B55D371E15245
SHA-1: 23422176191B371F01AE3A7CFE7455A2022F8EE8
SHA-256: 6F6911ED4A0E9844770035A3C39157F8C3929C321D5AFACBAFDA39C835B44374
Includes patches for headered and non-headered ROMs
Includes patches for SNES and SFC ROMs