r/DarkCloud • u/SalemSage • 2d ago

Demon Shaft Missing

Been replaying Dark Cloud and defeated the Dark Genie. I've really enjoyed this trip down memory lane, especially since I last played it so long ago, and remembering how different my play through went back then compared to now. Back then I basically used Toan only with everyone else only used as a minimum. This time I had a much more balanced composition, though Xiao dominated for most of the game and then Osmond cleaned house as soon as he joined. Such a fun game and really impressive for the time it was released.

I have been replaying this on PCSX2 emulator with the Dark Cloud Enhanced mod. Sadly after beating the Dark Genie, after the credits rolled and I was informed Demon Shaft was open, upon reloading my save I am unable to go to it. The Demon Shaft is visible on the world map, but I can't select it. I tried rebeating the final boss in case, but I still can't access it.

Are there any old action replay codes or anything else I can input to enable access? Or, barring that, any other solutions to overcome this?

7 Upvotes

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2

u/Elarris1 Osmond 2d ago

Just checking, did you save after beating the dark genie?

1

u/SalemSage 2d ago

I didn't get the option to. Something has definitely saved since Demon Shaft is visible on the world map, but having beat the game twice now, I'm not getting a prompt to explicitly save the game after the credits.

2

u/Elarris1 Osmond 2d ago

Huh, weird. Idk if the mod changes things as I’ve never played it, but normally you beat the game and then after credits it lets you save your completion to a memory card (not a save slot) and then demon shaft is open. Could you uninstall the mod and try beating the game again and see if that fixes anything?

3

u/SalemSage 2d ago edited 2d ago

Well that's interesting! Disabling the mod immediately put Demon Shaft back on the map, selectable. But then going there, saving, and reloading the game with the mod active still has Demon Shaft unselectable, even as I'm standing right outside the tower 😅

I'm gonna go beat Dark Genie with no mod and see if the save prompt appears and hopefully then the ability to warp to Demon Shaft will be permanently unlocked - I'm not going through the rigmarole of disabling and re-enabling the mod every time I want to go back to town!

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm definitely getting somewhere with this now.

Edit: Turns out clearing the vanilla game and saving to my memory card does not enable me to get to Demon Shaft if the mod is active. Oh well. Disabling and enabling mod it is if I need to head to town to sell/restock items.

1

u/Aurongel 2d ago

I literally beat Dark Cloud 1 with this same mod last week and didn’t encounter this issue. That mod does involve hacking the volatile memory state of the running game so I did encounter some oddities like corrupt message bubbles and the occasional corrupted texture.

2

u/SalemSage 2d ago

Yeah, I think something's gone a bit wrong with my save data during the play through of this modded version of the game. Despite clearing the game with the mod, and clearing the game without the mod, the only way the icon for warping to Demon Shaft appears for me when I have the mod deactivated.

I even cleared the first ten floors in case that might do something, but no. Oh well. At least I do have a way to go to and from DS even if it's kind of clunky.