Debug Island

Debug Island

A meta-location included in Shadow Hearts: Covenant that is not available during the normal gameplay and can be reached only by using a cheat device (there are two known methods/codes to accomplish this).

It's present only in versions the PAL and the Director's Cut versions. The area consists of a square floor floating in space and a save point.

By pressing the action button, the player can access an extensive menu system that allows for modifying game flags, warping to any location in the game, unlocking every item (including dummied out items), modifying party members data (their stats, names) etc. The menus are mostly in Japanese and many options cause the game to crash if not used correctly.

It can also be used to place Veronica Vera and Lenny Curtis into the party, the rest of the playable characters being from the regular versions, though their moves are sometimes, somewhat glitched.

Attempting to save the game while being in this location also crashes the game, however it's presence strongly suggests that it may be possible to force it as a current location by hacking the game save, which is further supported by the fact that Debug Island appears as a normal location both in the warp and World Map editing menu (it's not on the locations list though). Curiously, the game allows the player to add Sea of Woods to the main locations list, however its name shows up as garbage data and any attempt to enter it (including warping inside) makes the game crash.

The reason for this data existing could mean that, at one point the PAL version was being considered to have all the Director's Cut material as standard.This is not an unusual practice for PAL region games, having a much delayed release date to US and Japanese versions, allowing the developers to make modifications or additions that weren't in the original release.