Oni 2 (Angel Studios)/Running

Once you have an ISO of the developer build, the following instructions will allow you to see all the playable content on the disc.

Running the game

You will see issues like this with shadows unless you run PCSX2's renderer in Software mode.

Characters will often be "blacked out" due to an issue with the lighting code. This is normal.

The dev build is playable on a modded PS2 or in an emulator. The only mature PS2 emulator is PCSX2. Regular releases are made for Windows and Linux; support for macOS has been restored but is currently only available in the form of nightly builds (scroll down their Downloads page to find them).

To prevent glitched shadows when playing Oni 2 in PCSX2, you need to switch the GSdx plugin to Software mode; this will severely cut performance compared to rendering in Hardware mode. A separate issue with the lighting in this dev build will cause characters to become silhouettes in many settings; this cannot be corrected.

Playing the levels

Once Oni 2 is running, there is only one level available by choosing New Game. Fourteen additional levels, however, can be chosen from the Load Game menu. Beyond this, an additional 80 layouts can be made available by patching the game disc ISO with the tool HERE. "Layout" is the engine's term for what we would call a level or a room; some layouts are quite small, and others are large and complex. This makes a total of 95 layouts in the game (1 + 14 + 80). However, many of these (24, by one count) are nonfunctional. All the layouts are documented in their current functional or nonfunctional state on the Levels page. Levels can take a couple minutes to load, and some do not have loading screens, instead displaying a gray screen until they're done loading.

Debug features

Only one debug-related feature is known at the moment (discovered by Punk7890 of TCRF), which is a display at the top of the screen that can be enabled by placing a plain-text file called FE063258.pnach in the PCSX2 cheats directory which contains the following:

patch=1,EE,204D5D50,word,00000001 # debug readout

The display will show the following readouts in milliseconds: "host" delay, "VU/GS" delay (rendering time?), and the delay between frames, which always seems to be 16.67ms (meaning 60fps).

Launch arguments

Oni 2 accepts various launch arguments. To pass arguments to the game, you must use PCSX2 1.6.0 or later. Calling PCSX2 on the command line, pass it the argument --gameargs="-arg1 -arg2 -etc.", e.g.:

pcsx2.exe "C:\path\to\oni2dev_ps2.iso" --gameargs="-noui"

Note that the patch tool provided in the previous section will allow you to play any level without using launch arguments.

The syntax for arguments which require a parameter, such as "-layout", is "-argument=parameter". The descriptions given below are taken verbatim from the game, and the effects are based on our testing.

Argument	Description	Effect
-help	--	Lists all the following arguments.
-ui	use the frontend	No effect.
-noui	Bypass the frontend and go to game.	Game starts by loading first level.
-devui	use the dev frontend	No effect.
-fullui	use the full frontend	Same UI for main menu, but game crashes when choosing "Load Game".
-nogame	Never go into the game shell. Useful for testing frontend.	No effect.
-mission	The "mission" to load.	Seems to have no effect, though the format of the parameter supplied to this argument is not known.
-level	The level to load	Seems to have no effect, though the format of the parameter supplied to this argument is not known.
-players	The number of human players in game.	No effect from "-players=2".
-vsplit	Want vertical split for 2 player mode instead of default horizontal split.	No effect is to be expected unless multiplayer co-op mode is activated.
-sharevp	All players share the same viewport.	No effect is to be expected unless multiplayer co-op mode is activated.
-diff	Difficulty to use.	Enemies may deal more damage with "-diff=high" than "-diff=low".
-musicvol	Music volume to use for playback.	As there is no music in Oni 2, this has no effect.
-sfxvol	Sound FX volume to use for playback.	Seems to have no effect, though the format of the parameter supplied to this argument is not known.
-voicevol	Voiceover volume to use for playback.	As there are no voiceovers in Oni 2, this has no effect.
-nocutscenes	Disables in-game cinematics.	No effect.
-noattacking	Prevents AI from attacking player.	The AI will not use melee moves against you, only guarding; however, they will shoot normally at you.
-layout	Specify which level to load.	Game starts by loading the layout (level) that you name. Names of layouts are found on the Levels page. To add layouts to the Load Game menu so that you don't need to use the "-layout" argument, see the patch tool in the "Playing the levels" section above.
-testloadsave	Use test save file to run game.	There appears to be a test save file in RB.DAT which contains savepoint info for the "Initial Attack" level, but it does not seem to have any effect on that level.
-oldcam	Start with the old camera system in the game.	No effect.
-noactorreload	Don't reload actor XML files when doing the "quick" restart.	Do not know how to perform a "quick" restart.
-defaultcampack	Use the default camera package instead of the campack in the layout directory.	Removes specially-programmed camera behaviors from a level, like turning the camera to face an approaching attacker.
-nocamcollision	No camera collision.	Allows camera to pass through floor. When camera passes through wall, it will not relocate itself to remove the obstruction to your view, as it does normally.
-norumble	No pad rumbling.	Cannot have any effect in Oni 2, as there is normally no rumble effect anyway.
-noparticles	No particle effects.	No observed effect. Weapons fire looks normal.
-unbreakable	Player is unbreakable	Game launches with "Invincibility" in Options menu already turned on.
-polar	Use polar camera by default.	This argument starts the game in polar camera mode. The polar camera is normally the one accessed by pressing both thumbsticks at once. It stays closer to Konoko and does not turn with her when she changes direction. Switching to the normal camera mode results in a broken camera, but the free-flying developer camera still works.
-nohud	Don't draw the HUD.	The footring which shows Konoko's health and other information is disabled, and cannot be toggled as usual by pressing Select.
-recompile	Recompile all used scripts.	Scripts cannot be recompiled when running Oni 2 from an ISO, as this would require write access to the disc.
-noai	Disables NPC movement/actions.	Works as described.
-notemplates	Don't preload the actor templates.	No observed effect.
-nopausemenu	Do not show the pause menu when you press start, just freeze the frame.	Pressing "Start" button removes HUD and brightens the image when pausing the game.
-playerNN	(Where NN is 0->Max players) Sets the specified player's name.	Since player name is not normally displayed anywhere, there may be no effect unless multiplayer co-op mode is activated.
-modelNN	(Where NN is 0->Max players) Sets the specified player's model to use.	Seems to have no effect, though the format of the parameter supplied to this argument is not known. Argument may be ignored unless multiplayer co-op mode is activated.
-controlcfgNN	(Where NN is 0->Max players) Sets the specified player's control configuration.	Seems to have no effect, though the format of the parameter supplied to this argument is not known. Argument may be ignored unless multiplayer co-op mode is activated.
-controlmapNN	(Where NN is 0->Max players) Sets the specified player's control mapping (i.e. Player 1 is using controller in port 3).	Seems to have no effect, unless multiplayer co-op mode must be activated first.