Destiny of an Emperor - Bug Exploit - Chi Tu Ma + Nu Long

UPDATE: For info on how to duplicate this bug, please see my FAQ at IGN:

http://faqs.ign.com/articles/974/974431p1.html

There is a very well-known bug in Destiny of an Emperor for the NES that causes some of the items in the game to suddenly disappear from their treasure chests and hidden locations without warning. Often enough, a player will get to a part of the game where either a necessary item for plot progression is not in its chest and appears to have been taken already, or one of the ultimate weapons is missing later in the game from its chest.

For a long time, the origins and causes of this bug were unknown. One thing that was known, though, is that in some seemingly random cases, the bug allowed more than one Chi Tu Ma to be acquired in the game. However, since the bug has been such an unpredictable anomaly for so long, it was never possible to "force" the bug to cause this situation, and it has always been as random an event as the missing-items bug. Essentially, the bug can be a curse or a blessing without warning.

With enough debugging, I was able to get to the root cause of the bug, and figure out exactly why and how it happens. As a result, I can now reproduce the bug at will, but with a positive side effect instead - repopulating opened treasure chests and hidden items.

Theoretically, any treasure can be repopulated. However, there are only 7 items in the entire game that you would actually want to repopulate - Chi Tu Ma, Nu Long, Qing Long, Bo Ye, Wan Sheng, Qing Guang, and Halberd. Everything else can either be bought from stores, or has no real practical value.

The bug can only be triggered when a level is raised, and only if a new tactic is learned. As a result, you must be currently on level 30 or lower to trigger the bug, since level 31 will be the last level in which a new tactic is ever learned. Obviously, using the bug to one's advantage requires that you get the item in the treasure chest first, then repro the bug, causing the chest to become available again, and then reopening the chest again to get the treasure once again. This means that you must be able to reach the item you want to repopulate first, and then reproduce the bug in order to get it a second time.

Due to the static experience points you will forcibly gain from the many boss battles in this game, it is mathematically impossible to reach Bo Ye, Wan Sheng, Qing Guang, or Halberd before reaching level 31, and therefore, none of these 4 items can be re-acquired through the bug. Qing Long is given to you by a villager, and therefore, the bug cannot be exploited to get this item again either. Therefore, Chi Tu Ma and Nu Long are the only 2 items in the entire game that you can access before level 31 is reached, AND that you would actually want to duplicate in the first place.

In this video, I first show my current inventory, and show that I have successfully exploited the bug in previous level-ups to acquire 7 Chi Tu Mas and 4 Nu Longs. I then proceed to acquire one of each again, and then show that the items are taken and no longer available. I then proceed to trigger the bug by raising a level, and then I go back to acquire another Chi Tu Ma and another Nu Long.

The details of the repro are somewhat complex, and I intend to write a FAQ on how to do it correctly. For now, you can try to repro the bug by formulating the exact same party formation and follow the exact same steps, but be aware that there are some behind-the-scene details that require some preparation, and you might not be able to get the repro working exactly as needed. I actually got my 7 Chi Tu Mas during Chapter 3, using completely different characters, which required a different set-up as well.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Destiny
• of
• an
• Emperor
• Bug
• Exploit
• Chi
• Tu
• Ma
• Nu
• Long

[MaskOfHorrors]

why would you want more than one chi tu ma? its usless.. people say it makes the holder go sooner in battle.. but it has never done that for me. not once.. more often than not, ill put it on the seemingly slowest member, and they wills till go last.

[mzmexe]

@MaskOfHorrors A long time ago, someone in GameFaqs made the same claim. Chi Tu Ma is not useless. It increases the holder's AGI by 1.5. There have been debug trace dumps of this as proof. The problem is that most Generals have very low AGI, and only a handful of them have high enough AGI that the 1.5 factor would be enough to compensate for being dead last. It's difficult to prove this by observation alone though, which is why you would need to prove it by looking at the code.

[mzmexe]

I finished writing the FAQ on how to duplicate the bug a few months ago but I had forgotten to add the info here. See the info side bar for the link to my FAQ explaining the bug in more detail. (Warning: The FAQ is considerably long. :p)

[TheArtofUTube]

I made sure I never put Ma Chao or Guan Xing in my party. I used Jiang Wei and Zhuge Liang with anyone that had the An Sha tech as my tect. Zhuge Liang has 255 INT. More than even Si Ma Yi. So technically you can An Sha Si Ma Yi. Try it. :D

[steviekeyz]

I remember I had to start over due to that bug, man that pissed me off.

[fogn1]

I wish i had friends like these guys all they ever do is smoke pot. Sounds fucking awsome

[yakushi77]

haha wow, thats a load, i never new this whole joint was ever in the game!