The internet lies: cheat code edition

Cosmic Smash/Hidden content

So it's less likely to go missing:
https://pomegd.hatenablog.com/entry/2023/01/06/204130

I came across this blog post suggesting there are two extra codes to swap out the player model (and remnants of a stage select), but they don't work. The suggestion seems to be that the rest of the codes work in the NAOMI version too - I'm not in a position to test that.


...although it does seem very likely, given this is a feature on the Dreamcast.

 

Not really a "cheat" but it's something to look out for:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586456-shove-it-the-warehouse-game/cheats
(what a list this is - out of order and they switch from "level" to "stage")

Something we hadn't listed on our Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game page is that the original Japanese version... has a lot more levels. The US has 16 stages (with 10 "rooms" each), whereas Japan got 25 stages... which means a bunch of these passwords don't work in the US version. It's a classic case of ROM sizes - the US version shipped on a 128kB ROM, while the Japanese one went for 256kB.

Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game/Passwords

I'm going to guess DreamWorks knew a game about pushing boxes around wouldn't sell in high numbers, so went for cheaper cartridges. Then again it's apparently taken 34 years for anyone to notice so I guess they were right.

 

I made another list

This time it's "cheats" on SMS Power that we don't have mirrored on Sega Retro. Or their coverage is better. Or they have a list of passwords, which we don't consider "hidden content", but are missing all the same.

We've actually marked hundreds of games as "having passwords", but in most cases, have yet to actually list what those passwords are:
Sega Retro:Todo/Passwords

SMS Power will almost certainly continue to have the edge when it comes games that generate passwords on the fly... though to be fair, I don't really have the time or patience to reverse engineer 4239804238403 games to work out what makes these features tick.


(I've been a bit lazy with the copy-pasting so the names might be wrong)

 

From what I understand, all console versions of S.S. Lucifer: Man Overboard! (neé Sink or Swim) have 100 levels. They also share the same sets of 6-character passwords, so your Mega Drive codes will work on the Super Nintendo, and vice versa.

The Game Gear version only has a subset of passwords though. After the first six levels, apparently you only get codes every five levels (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36 etc.):

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gamegear/940015-man-overboard/cheats

I was just verifying if this was true and uh... well it is, but it almost isn't:

Here's where the passwords are stored. Lots of 0s in there though - what gives?

Well it turns out the Game Gear also has 100 passwords, but rather than remove the redundant ones, the first characters were changed to "0", which is unavailable on the password screen. If the password screen let you enter numbers, would these work?

 

Quest for the Shaven Yak Starring Ren Hoëk & Stimpy/Hidden content

"???LOG" is an accepted password in this game. What does it do?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gameg...the-shaven-yak-starring-ren-and-stimpy/cheats

"MORE LOGS"



oh god yes i love logs give me more


aka I have no idea what this means, and apparently neither does the internet at large. More logs.

 

Caught out by this noise:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586025-animaniacs/cheats
Animaniacs/Passwords

Animaniacs on the Mega Drive has three difficulty modes, so three sets of passwords, right? Yes... but you can play levels in any order you want, with the password system keeping track of your progress. It means rather than 15 passwords as I was led to believe, there's actually... 42? And I'd have to play the game a dozen times to see them all?

Damn you Konami for being slightly more clever than usual.

 

Jammit is a game I can't be bothered to understand:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586253-jammit/cheats

GameFAQs lists passwords, and yeah... seems fine. But there's more in the ROM:

Some of these codes are listed online for the 3DO version, but they seem to work on the Mega Drive too.

 

3D Lemmings is mildly interesting:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/saturn/574032-3d-lemmings/cheats

GameFAQs and others doesn't list any Saturn cheats at all, only bog-standard level passwords. But it turns out those PlayStation codes for viewing the FMVs (SPACEXXX, EGYPTXXX, ARMYXXXX and MAZEXXXX) do actually work on Saturn. So that's a thing.

But there are three other codes that are accepted and... I don't know the game well enough to tell you what they do:

KRAUTROK
TOECHEEZ
PASSWORD

I like the last one - the screen says "enter password", and if you do as it says and enter "password", the code is accepted. Still no idea if it does anything.


There's also a redundant password for level 1: "FUNSTART". That might be new to the internet.

 

Black Dawn/Hidden content
The internet lists a weirdly elaborate level select code for this one, which involves holding down buttons and releasing them in a certain order - it doesn't seem to work? Also there's a "no collision detection" code for the PlayStation version listed without a Saturn counterpart - does one secretly exist?

Two passwords are accepted by the game but once again, no idea what they do:
5360
0666

Well okay that's a lie - 5360 crashes the game when the mission starts. A PlayStation leftover?