I'm an idiot

I found my watch.  It had fallen onto the floor between my computer and my desk.

The entire rest of this post is unrelated.

So I was actually testing Tales of the Abyss off of the hard drive with Mode 1 and MDMA0 set, but I've now found a battle that freezes the game on encounter and another right next to it that freezes after the fight is over.  It's such a shame because the world map load times are still reduced even with the HDD speed slowed down.

The battle in question is on the Tartarus, when it's being attacked by Griffons and Ligers, and you see the cutscene with Largo.  It's right next to the ladder that leads way up that Jade tells you to use to get to the bridge.  I could easily run past the enemies, but a) I liek experience, and b) I don't know when it would be safe to start fighting again, and testing each encounter one by one would be tedious.

I can try the other compatibility modes, but I don't really have high expectations.

So fuck it.  We'll just have to cope with the load times.