Glitches

With the release of Melody of Metafalica in the US, several errors on the part of NIS America have come to light - including ones that previously existed as well in Melody of Elemia without most players' knowledge. As most people probably have absolutely no idea what's going on when they encounter the glitches caused by these errors, a need for this page has come into being.

If you have a glitch you have run across that is not on this list, please let Enoki know on her talk page, and she'll try to confirm the error before adding it to the list. This is the one page on the wiki where all additions MUST be first confirmed if possible before being added.

Melody of Elemia

 * While fighting ELMA-DS at the S.P.U. in Phase 2, there is a glitch that occurs after an unknown amount of time (several turns, and the player must be fairly underleveled in order for the battle to drag out long enough, so most players do not see this glitch) that will cause the game to freeze. The reason for this glitch is currently unknown, but it is speculated it may happen when ELMA-DS calls in reinforcements after that unknown amount of time has passed. It can be bypassed by defeating ELMA-DS before enough time has passed for the glitch to occur. (Confirmed by Enoki - five times in a row, in fact...)

Melody of Metafalica

 * After leaving Lakra's facility for the first time and confronting her after breaking through Cocona's Boundary Gate, there is a chance the game will freeze when Luca stops Frelia from singing "Hibernation" and the scene shifts back to Lakra in the Binary Field. The reason for this is unknown, but it's likely a memory spike caused by the scene switch that can happen on other transitions as well. It can be bypassed by resetting the game and trying again. (Confirmed by Enoki.)
 * During Phase 5, very near the end of the game, there is a mandatory boss battle with the tower guard robot Raki which can be impossible to beat. On the third Defense Phase of the battle (though sometimes it can happen on the second, or even (rarely) delay until the fourth if Raki's HP is depleted enough), Raki will use an attack called "Fractal Change" which freezes the game. The reason for this glitch is a buffer overflow caused by a coding mistake in the localization, though some players had speculated it was because the actual attack was removed from the game in localization while the code to trigger it was not (which has been proven false through inspection of the code.) It can be bypassed through several methods, listed below in order of success. (Confirmed by Enoki and pretty much every player who's gotten to Phase 5.)
 * Defeat Raki before the third Defense Phase. (Success rate: very low. The player must be highly overleveled AND have recruited at least 15% of the I.P.D. Reyvateils into Cloche's fan club. There is also a chance Raki will use the attack in the second Defense Phase.)
 * Deal over 40,000 damage to Raki before the third Defense Phase. (Success rate: low. To deal that much damage requires the player to be overleveled and/or have recruited at least 15% of the I.P.D. Reyvateils into Cloche's fan club. However, there is a chance Raki will use the attack despite the HP drop, or randomly use it in the second Defense Phase instead.)
 * Cheat. (Success rate: medium to high, depending on how it's done. There are various codes that will allow the player to level more quickly, which would certainly help; there is also a Codebreaker code, confirmed to work by Enoki, that will give the player an unlimited Attack Phase (phase switching can be triggered by holding Select to drain the turn bar, and this does not affect the time of the Defense Phase), but does not allow the extraction of song magic or raising of skill attacks to level 3 that phase switching triggers. It is, however, useful if the player does not mind a drawn-out battle with the use of only level 1 and 2 skills and level 1 song magic.)
 * Download and burn the fan-patched ISO of Melody of Metafalica. (Success rate: very high. Only useful for players with a modded PS2, however.)
 * NIS America has issued a statement on the Raki glitch, but it has been found to be highly inaccurate and does not state any plans whatsoever to fix it. They have stated that lowering Raki's HP by at least 40,000 points and defeating her before the third Defense Phase are foolproof ways to prevent the glitch from happening (see why this is inaccurate in the list of methods above), that this glitch does not occur on backwards-compatible PS3s (an outright lie, as this has been tested by several players with PS3s and confirmed to happen), and that the freeze is caused by "heavy memory usage" (when there are in fact other areas of the game with even heavier memory usage that do not cause it to freeze, and simply looking at the code can disprove this.) Sadly, it seems NISA cannot be depended on to provide any sort of foolproof fix for their own mistake or even give us accurate information on it, and it is up to the player to find their own way of bypassing this glitch.