The internet lies: cheat code edition

Bobblen · Jan 29, 2024

I had a look at Zool USA and the codes were at least stored in the rom in the usual format. I think all are already known (or at least the cheat sites acknowledge they exist) except maybe BADLAD? This is the limit of my rom hacking skillset, I can't follow a disassembly to figure out what they all do sadly.

EDIT - RADARBLUR activates if you die after inputting the code. 999 time and alot of health (no idea if it's infinite, I'd have to find the value in RAM as you say @Black Squirrel), I ran into a spike pit and turbo'd it in bizhawk. You do die in the end!

So the 'then press A+B+C' thing is a red herring. Basically restart in any way and your next game will have 999 time and a huge amount (but not infinite) of health

EDIT 2 - ED53 in ram is lives. It starts at 03 but 00 doesn't kill you, IE you can be hit 3 times then die on the 4th time.

RADARBLUR sets this to E0 after any kind of restart, which is 224 health points + 00 = 225 total.

BARRACUDA sets this to 06 so 7 total including 00

Bo102010 · Jan 29, 2024

I'm pretty sure this is actually hidden / unused and not unlockable or accessible with a cheat code... but putting it here in case anybody knows better:
https://xcancel.com/memory_fallen/status/1751243974734479379

The alternate school uniform and "Aloha" costumes for Honey/Candy were previous known, and can be accessed in the Japanese game. But this new "Pai" outfit Honey seems to be totally unknown.

Black Squirrel · Jan 29, 2024

This is exactly the sort of thing that slipped through the cracks - R.B.I. Baseball '94:

Basically what happened is that an animation viewer was found in one game, and I checked to see whether it existed in all the other RBIs. It does:
R.B.I. Baseball 3/Hidden content
R.B.I. Baseball 4/Hidden content
R.B.I. Baseball '93/Hidden content
R.B.I. Baseball '94/Hidden content
R.B.I. Baseball '95 (prototype)/Hidden content
RBI Baseball '95/Hidden content

But none of the other codes were checked, and in '94's case, there's a few:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586408-rbi-baseball-94/cheats
complete with dubious descriptions. I haven't checked everything but "SILLYSOUNDSA" is not a sound test, it literally replaces the sound effects with "silly sounds".

GameFAQs isn't missing anything for this game, but there is potentially another code, "BAD CODE ". There isn't the means to select special characters in-game - I don't suspect it does anything, but it would be nice to know if it was secretly valid.

BSonirachi · Jan 29, 2024

BSonirachi said:

Speaking of games unwinnable by bugs, I came across this claim regarding the Mega-CD version of Samurai Shodown on one of TV Tropes' Porting Disaster pages:

View attachment 8737

However, from what I'm seeing of longplays of the Mega-CD version on YouTube...the final battle with Amakusa still loads fine? If there's a claim that JVC issued a recall of broken copies then it's something to look into.
Click to expand...

Reviewing the Porting Disaster page on TV Tropes, there's another bug-related thing they got right:

The last enemy ninja that appears in the first-person bonus round in the Master System version of Shadow Dancer can't be killed, thus it's impossible to beat the bonus round in that version. Shadow Dancer/Bugs

They also have an entry regarding the Dreamcast version of Worms World Party, though we'll need someone who has access to DreamPi to be able to verify this:

Black Squirrel · Jan 29, 2024

All the RBI Baseball games have similar collections of codes, and all have at least one that doesn't seem to do anything. By the time of RBI Baseball 95 on the 32X... most of them don't seem to do anything:

BAD CODE ��
KILLMY32XNOW
THENEXTLEUEL
RBI9SFOREUER
AWESOMEBABEE
SUPERTWINKIE
AAAAAAAAAAAA <-- apparently resets all cheats
MOBAAAAAAAAA <-- animation viewer works
CHEATMODEOO7
FREEZESUCKER
PLAYDATFUNKY

KILLMY32XNOW does actually kill the 32X, in the sense that it crashes the game. Not sure if it's meant to.

The real gem is RBI Baseball 4 which has Bible verses:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586406-rbi-baseball-4/cheats

GameFAQs came *this* close to politics by suggesting "NOABORTINGAA" was one of them. But alas, it's just another mystery feature (and a holdover from RBI 3). Almost as mysterious as why they kept releasing the same damn game every year and expecting nobody to notice.

Galvatron · Jan 29, 2024

I managed to get a working PAL Samurai Shodown Mega CD rom and the same thing happens as in the USA version, you can't select Amakusa despite him being there on the character select screen. I couldn't find a PAL manual scan so if anyone here owns a copy, I'd be grateful if anyone could check if there is any mention of how to select Amakusa in it. The fact the back of the PAL box specfically mentions Amakusa is selectable (something not mentioned on the USA box) gives me some hope something was added to the PAL manual about it.

Rlan · Jan 29, 2024

On a older note, and I'm sure people have looked at it, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Sonic 1 on the Master System and Game Gear has no known Level Select code. It's one of the few Sonic games which doesn't have one.

But that seems kind of weird to me? Surely when developing the game in this era, you have some kind of debug ability to at least switch levels easily to check them out.

Is there definitely no level select, even something that can be hacked in? Not even a pause code to switch to the next zone?

Bobblen · Jan 29, 2024

Alas, between @Kroc 's disassembly [Master System] The Sonic 1 Disassembly | Sonic and Sega Retro Forums (sonicretro.org) and Maxim's level editor (View topic - STH1EDWV - Sonic the Hedgehog editor - Forums - SMS Power!) I think we can safely say there's no level select code. It is a bit of an odd one out, I think every other mainline game in the pre-dreamcast era has one, both console and handheld.

I just use the action replay code listed here. Enable it on the title screen then, then disable once you're ingame.
Sonic The Hedgehog - Cheats - SMS Power!

There we go, Zool has been updated with all the extra cheats. If there are any superfans out there, what does BADLAD do? :-)
Zool/Hidden content - Sega Retro

Black Squirrel · Jan 29, 2024

I'm aware I'm just dumping things in this topic and saying FIND THE THING but there's still some juicy stuff here:

RoboCop Versus The Terminator/Hidden content is mostly done but there's one code that may need expanding:

it's the "turn some men in to women" code. We're not entirely sure why this feature exists - Tips & Tricks, along with much of the internet, calls this an "MA-17" code - make a pleasingly violent game even more pleasingly violent.

Except I'm not entirely sure it actually makes the game more violent. I thought it just replaced this one character because shooting women is bad, but there is a second difference - "GAME OVER" becomes "GAME OVER MAN"... because hey, Aliens was a great film too. T&T also talks about "skeletons afire" but I'm not sure what that means - I'm going to guess there might be several subtle differences across the campaign, and while I am a big fan of this game, I don't know it well enough to be able to spot differences.

Black Squirrel · Jan 30, 2024

We were missing a bunch for Gargoyles:
Gargoyles/Hidden content

originally we copied from TCRF but turns out GameFAQs had more.

But there are three screens in the game that have multiple codes: two programmer messages and the credits. As in:

Dedication Screens (Alternate Codes)
Dedication Screen #1 (Balls)
-- B, A, Left, Left, B, A, Left, Left
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, A, Left, Left
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, A, B, A, Left
-- C, A, Left, Left, A, B, B, B, B
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, B, B, B, B
-- C, A, Left, Left, Left, Left, Left, Left
-- C, A, Left, Left, B, A, Left, Left

Dedication Screen #2 (''Gargoyles'')
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, A, C
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, A, R
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, A, A
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, C
-- C, A, Left, Left, A, A, A
-- C, A, Left, Left, A, C, C

Dedication Screen #3 (Credits)
-- A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C
-- C, A, Left, Left, C, A, B, A, C
-- C, A, Left, Left, A, B, B, B, C
Click to expand...

Why are there so many, and is there any difference between the variants? Is this all of them?

Bobblen · Jan 30, 2024

@Galvatron for what its worth, the binary hack for Amakusa described in the sega-16 thread I mentioned (and also mentioned by @Azathoth above) works in both single player and vs mode, but no unlock code even on ancient cheat sites that often have extra stuff if you're lucky. I feel like there must be one though, at least for vs mode otherwise why else would you go to the trouble of coding all his moves up?

@Black Squirrel that's got to be like the Sonic 1 debug menu code where the game is only checking for a few key values and doesn't care about the order they are received.

EDIT or like this one where there's a magic byte it compares button presses against after some bit shifting. There are thousands of ways of inputting this code.
Notes:Alien Storm (Genesis) - The Cutting Room Floor (tcrf.net)

Black Squirrel · Jan 30, 2024

Skitchin' is the original Super Mario 64... in that you can warp to places by jumping into billboards:

This isn't mentioned in the manual... but not much is mentioned in the manual. And it's not every billboard. And this video might not be listing all of them.

You apparently get a special "warp bonus" for finding these, but I don't know the game well enough to go into further details on this one.

Black Squirrel · Jan 30, 2024

Madden NFL 96/Hidden content
Most hidden teams in a sports game? There's 100 here. And I had to test every code because GameFAQs was wrong about some of them.

Why these historical teams are hidden in Madden 96 when they're not in both older and newer Madden games is a mystery, but I will give this iteration some credit:

Because it features teams from the dead "World League of American Football", an attempt in the 90s to make American Football not just American. Except when it started they had to pad it out with American teams. And "world" equated to a small handful of European countries, half of which had pulled out by the time the NFL gave up in 2007.

Bobblen · Jan 30, 2024

Good grief man, I'm amazed you had the patience for that! :-)

Black Squirrel · Jan 30, 2024

Micro Machines/Hidden content

Harder Difficulty
Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Down, Start, Down

Much Harder Difficulty
Left, Down, Up, Down, Right, Down, A, Down
Click to expand...

(you're meant to pause and input these cheats - some sources say they're for the title screen)

That first code seems to work - it makes a noise and everything, but the second... not so much, despite being plastered all over the internet.

I suspect this is a classic case of too many versions - Micro Machines was released on everything, and some ports do seem to have multiple difficulty codes. Does the Mega Drive?

Black Squirrel · Jan 30, 2024

Might and Magic: Gates to Another World or "where's the mute button"

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586323-might-and-magic-gates-to-another-world/cheats

This will float someone's boat - I think all the "cheats" listed here are actually bugs. I can confirm the "Extraordinary Weapons" "code" works but it feels like you're racing against the CPU - it can't load the correct data fast enough... so it loads any old thing:

First you get nothing...

... then as you keep pressing left, you start getting wacky stats. But if you stop pressing left quite as fast, all the regular party members will show up.

Fertile ground for speedrunners - I've spent a total of maybe 30 seconds with this and it already felt like it was about to fall apart.

Rlan · Jan 30, 2024

On a similar note of requests.

A while ago I was going through and doing a large list of fighting games that have CPU Vs. CPU modes:

https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/1318-fighting-games-with-a-cpu-vs-cpu-watch-mode/21

A lot of this is due to me making GIFs and videos of fighting games for SEGA City and PlayStation Park twitter / Tumblr blogs.

A lot of SEGA's games do have this, but still a bunch don't either. Games like Golden Axe: The Duel or TMNT: Tournament Fighters don't have one. It'd be nice to have the ability to have Vs Mode work with two CPU players somehow, via action replay codes, etc.

Black Squirrel · Jan 31, 2024

Mistakes have been made

NBA Hang Time/Hidden content

sort of. NBA Hang Time is another Midway sports game with "special codes" that you input before the game starts.

And great news: the manual is wrong. The numbers are manipulated with A, B and C, however like later games, I think you need to be holding a direction on the D-Pad for codes to activate.

The codes we have on Sega Retro were copied from GameFAQs, which didn't make the connection between "press the buttons" and "the number changes"
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586340-nba-hang-time/cheats

"ABA Ball: Hold Right and press A, B six times, and C"

aka the code is "right+161"

But GameFAQs also has a dedicated "PINs" section, listing numbers and apparent effects. Except it's missing d-pad directions. And none of them work(?).

Hang Time also has the NBA Jam-style "set a name and pin and you might get a secret character" mechanism, but for the Mega Drive version, we don't know any secret characters.

I mean it looks like there are Midway developers in here, but once again, the codes don't work.

This is what happens when you release a Mega Drive game in late 1996.

Bobblen · Jan 31, 2024

It's a funny one because it's not as simple as 'go through all the numbers', you can hold left and do 020 or 121 or 525 and it'll still activate the secret court. All it cares about is the second number being 2.

right + 161 also requires you to type in Ax1 then Bx6 then Cx1. If you do A and C first then B it doesn't work!

Makes it hard to test when the conditions are not clear.

EDIT - it's not even 161, you can enable ABA ball by doing hold right, ax1, bx1, cx1!

EDIT 2 - conclusion is that it's a cut down version of N64 (same developer). No secret characters (although as you say, some names are in the rom with all pins set to zero), no 3 digit codes.

Only the push button codes on the tonight screen which appear to be a separate thing to the three digit codes, even on N64. Plus the BARRACUDA court (again that same code like Zool & Sonic 3D!) which appears to be an MD exclusive. No big head mode either sadly.

Black Squirrel · Jan 31, 2024

This one might be a (poorly explained) bug

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586032-arrow-flash/cheats

A code for invincibility in Arrow Flash... probably isn't a code for invincibility (IGN explains it better). Basically, if you follow these instructions and press C to perform an arrow flash... it never resets. My theory is the gameplay demo messes with a setting and the game gets confused. Can we tell if it's intentional?

The internet lies: cheat code edition

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