Grandia II Save Editing Guide

A guide on how to edit Grandia II save files.

Intro

If you already have done some hex editing before I would recommend just skipping to the offsets section as the data structure is pretty simple, otherwise follow along it shouldn't be too difficult.

All you need to edit Grandia II saves is a hex editor, in this guide I will be using HxD[mh-nexus.de]. If you want to Grandia II saves on a Dreamcast use Dream Explorer[bswirl.kitsunet.org].

Todo in the future

• Check if Roan and King Roan are different characters
  
• Add more offsets

If you want more offsets added ask nicely.

Using HxD

First we need to open a Grandia II save in HxD, Grandia 2 saves are located in the data\saves folder in the Grandia II installation folder. Note that the save numbers in the folder are one less than they appear in the game, ex GRANDIA2_000.VMS is save slot 1.

Once the file is open make sure that HxD is in 'Overwrite' mode, if it is in 'Insert' mode double click it to change. Also make sure you never use delete or backspace to delete values since it won't override the bytes and just delete them. Make sure you backup your saves.

Editing Numerical Values

First find the data range you want by pressing ctrl-g and entering the offset of the data you want to edit. In this example we are going to be editing the party's gold which is a 'Little Endian 32bit Unsigned Integer' at offset 2C0.



Entering the value into a Hex to Decimal Converter[www.scadacore.com] shows that it's value is 68.




Next we need to figure out the little endian 32bit equivalent of the new value we want, in this example the goal will be to make the party gold 100000. First we need to find the hexadecimal value of the amount we want, using an online Dec to Hex converter[www.rapidtables.com] we get 0x00 01 86 A0, converting that to little endian we get 0xA0 86 01 00. Replace the old value with the new one and save.

Editing Strings

First find the data range you want by pressing ctrl-g and entering the offset you want. Next on the right hand side enter the text you want, make sure it is within the allowed data range specified in the offset list, finally save the file.

In the example below the text that indicates the party's location was changed.

Data Offsets

Currency (Little Endian 32 bit Unsigned Integer)

Value	Range
Gold	2C0 - 2C3
Special Coins	2C4 - 2C7
Magic Coins	2C8 - 2CB

Inventory Items (8 bit Unsigned Integer)

The area of the save that contains the Inventory appears to be AB0 - DDF. I would recommend not setting any of the values above 99 / 0x63 since selling items when you have over 99 can cause the game to crash. I also recommend not setting the book and egg quantity to anything other than 0 or 1 since it is not possible to obtain more than one of each egg or book in the game.

Consumables

Item	Offset
Miracle Elixir	B2D
Hero's Elixir	B2E
Mystic Potion	B19
Indigo Potion	B4B
Golden Potion	B41
Panacea	B30

Weapons

Item	Offset
Granasaber	BE1
Holy Ghost Staff	BFF
Black Angel Bow	C1D
Brave Dirk	C3B
Soul Eater	C3F
Phoenix Ring	C59
Leo Rex Battleaxe	C77

Armor

Item	Offset
Holy Sword Armor	CA9
Hero's Cuirass	CBD
Valcyre Dress	CC7
Priestess Robe	CD1
Sun Robe	CDB

Headgear

Item	Offset
God of War Helm	CEF
Holy Crown	D03
Illusion Bandanna	D17
Sages Hat	D2B

Footwear

Item	Offset
Lion Boots	D3F
Glass Slippers	D53
Ogre Shoes	D5D

Accessories

Item	Offset
Demon Necklace	D7C
Energy Charm	D7E
Soul of Asura	D80
Dragon Scales	D88
Meteor Earrings	D8C
Jet Black Cape	D98
King's Pride	D84
Mana Crystals	D7B
Angel's Ring	D82
Mystic Veil	DAD
Heracles Belt	DC1
Shoguns Brace	DC5
Sonic Belt	DCA

Valuables

Item	Offset
Debug HP/MP/SC +	AB5
Debug Stats +	AB6
Seed of Life	AF1
Seed of Spells	AF2
Seed of Moves	AF3
Seed of Power	AF4
Seed of Defense	AF5
Seed of Swift	AF6
Seed of Running	AF7
Seed of Magic	AF8
Seed of Psyche	AF9
All-Around Seed	AFA
Omnipotent Seed	AFB
Lore of Moves	AFC
Lore of Magic	AFD
Miracle Scales	B05
Soul of a Hero	B06
Astral Miracle	B07
Ethereal Miracle	B08

Books

Item	Offset
Adventure Book	AE7
Book of Wizards	AE8
Book of Warriors	AE9
Book of Priests	AEA
Book of Gales	AEB
Book of Swords	AEC
Book of War	AED
Book of Sages	AEE
Book of Learning	AEF

Eggs

Item	Offset
Holy Egg	D71
Chaos Egg	D72
Mist Egg	D73
Gravity Egg	D74
Soul Egg	D75
Star Egg	D76
Tutor Egg	D77
Change Egg	D78
Fairy Egg	D79
Dragon Egg	D7A

Character Experience (Little Endian 32 bit Unsigned Integer)

Character	Current Exp	Remaining Exp
Ryudo	31C - 31F	320 - 323
Elena	388 - 38B	38C - 38F
Millenia	3F4 - 3F7	3F8 - 3FB
Roan	460 - 463	464 - 467
Mareg	538 - 53B	53C - 53F
Tio	3CC - 4CF	4D0 - 4D3

Savegame Metadata

Item	Range	Data Type
Play Time	290 - 293	Little Endian 32 bit Unsigned Integer
Save Point Name	294 - 2B3	Array of ASCII

Finding new data offsets

Method 1, binary diff

To use this method you need two save games, before and after a change. In this example I want to find the offset for the 'Mystic Potion', to do this I first find a save that has at least 1 of the item, then I use / sell one of the item and save in another slot. In theory the only difference between the two save games is having one less of the potion, the increase in gold because of selling it, and the files play time.

Once you have two save files press ctrl-k in HxD to start a compare and select the two save files, this will open the two files in two windows, you can now press F6 which jumps to the next difference in the save file until you find the change you want, in this example I had 6 mystic potions and I sold 1 to give me 5 so I press F6 until I find a change in the data that matches which will be the offset for the item.

Method 2, find value with HxD

In some cases it is simply searching the file is good enough to find what you want, this works best with large numbers since there are way more unique two or four byte integers than one byte ones.

In this example I know the value for the party's gold in game is 35507 so I open up the save file in HxD and press ctrl-f to search. The data type we want is an integer number, this means that it it will search the integer values that the hex represents rather than the hex itself. Make it is searching Little Endian values since it is the format used in Grandia II saves, If you know bitwidth of the data you are searching for set it, otherwise set it to any. Finally enter the integer value and search.

[Pigeon]

In case anyone needs, there is a ton of hex dump, or at least a ton of locations in
text -> strings.txt

mapid_D840=MIRUMU VILLAGE CHIEF'S HOUSE
mapid_D850=MIRUMU, SANDRA'S HOUSE
mapid_D8A0=MIRUMU, HOUSE 1
mapid_D8B0=MIRUMU, HOUSE 2
mapid_D8C0=MIRUMU, HOUSE 3
mapid_D8F0=----
mapid_E010=RYUDO'S TENT

[Crawlerbasher]

This is hard to wrap my head around, but if I can learn this for this game, then in practise I could do this for all over save states on all games.

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

dont bother with all this bullshit, just download a cheat engine table and call it a day. last i checked there was one with a script to add every item in the game to storage, edit individual party memebers every single recorded stat even invisible ones, and change party setup, on top of generic godmode style cheats.

[Léon Scarlet]

Hi, could it work for grandia 1 ?
It have the same hex folder but i really dont understand what the value means

I want to modifie the amounts of exp per battle

[Eternauta]

I'm still interested to know whether the save records the number of enemies defeated. Let me know in case, I don't understand anything about these things unfortunately.

[FOR REAL]

ac0 - Poff Nut (If you give these nuts to a squirrel-like creature in the cave, the squirrel will follow you.)

[TheCountofTuscany]

Awesome guide, my first hex editing went smooth as hell. Learned a lot actually with these sites and HxD app. Just a small typo I'm sure most people would figure out, but Tio's experience location starts at 4CC not 3CC for current experience total.

[travjfran]

Can this be used to choose who's in your party no matter where you're at in the game? Whether it's swapping out individual party members (eg. Ryudo, Millenia, Pre-king Roan, and Tio) or using party compositions set by the game?

[Eternauta]

I'm trying to figure out if the save records the number of enemies defeated, does anyone have any idea how to do that?

[tuliofreitas_]

Cool!