Description

This bug was discovered and documented by Novalia Spirit on the now-defunct Mnrogar's forums in the "100+ Bugs" thread. To quote them:

"As everybody knows, the first time you step foot into South Figaro, you normally see Shadow walk towards the Cafe. As expected, in the case you follow him into the building, he'll be there. It is once Vargas is killed that Shadow disappears from the Cafe. Now here's the bug: ignore South Figaro till you beat Vargas. Retrace your steps to South Figaro, and you will, here again, see Shadow walk towards the Cafe. BUT, he won't be in it. And there's even worse: if you ignore the scene until you play Locke's scenario, Shadow'll be stuck behind the guard and the M-TekArmor sprites by the town's entrance. Note that going into a building will destroy your chances of seeing the bug occur, so you MUST beat the HeavyArmor as you make your way to Shadow."

To fix this bug, an additional check is made in the South Figaro entrance event. If Vargas is beaten or if Shadow has been seen walking in town, the Shadow NPC is not created, and its movement queue is not executed.

Event code (SNES)

CA/EBA1: C0    If ($1E80($1B6) [$1EB6, bit 6] is set), branch to $CA5EB3 (simply returns)
CA/EBA7: C1    If ($1E80($00A) [$1E81, bit 2] is set or $1E80($010) [$1E82, bit 0] is set), branch to $CAEBC1
CA/ECAF: B2    Call subroutine $D1F9F8
CA/EBB3: 45    Refresh objects
CA/EBB4: 15    Begin action queue for character $15 (NPC $15), 11 bytes long
CA/EBB6: 8E        Move vehicle/entity down 4 tiles
CA/EBB7: 99        Move vehicle/entity right 7 tiles
CA/EBB8: A1        Move vehicle/entity right/down 1x1 tiles
CA/EBB9: A1        Move vehicle/entity right/down 1x1 tiles
CA/EBBA: 86        Move vehicle/entity down 2 tiles
CA/EBBB: 95        Move vehicle/entity right 6 tiles
CA/EBBC: 92        Move vehicle/entity down 5 tiles
CA/EBBD: 89        Move vehicle/entity right 3 tiles
CA/EBBE: 80        Move vehicle/entity up 1 tile
CA/EBBF: D1        Make vehicle/entity disappear
CA/EBC0: FF        End queue

D1/F9F8: D0    Set event bit $1E80($00A) [$1E81, bit 2]
D1/F9FA: 3D    Create object $15
D1/F9FC: 41    Show object $15
D1/F9FE: FE    Return

Offsets affected (SNES)

$CAEBA1 - $CAEBC0   Modified South Figaro entrance event code
$D1F9F8 - $D1F9FE   Modified South Figaro entrance event code

Offsets affected (GBA)

$7AEA53 - $7AEA72   Modified South Figaro entrance event code
$7FFBF2 - $7FfBF8   Modified South Figaro entrance event code