Be careful, on real hardware PS1 3D Lemmings has a nasty tendency to shart all over your previous saves. Not sure if Saturn has the same issue. https://codiekitty.com/LEM/Oddities/index.htm
Problem solved - this cheat is for Black Fire, not Black Dawn. There sure were a lot of helicopter games in the 1990s.
The other helicopter game for the Saturn (and more wars in Ukraine): Soviet Strike. This uses passwords for cheats, but they're not stored in plain text so I don't know if the online lists are definitive. Other strings are readible, however, and they hint at something interesting: A few suggest a test map once existed. Looking at the files on-disc, I have my doubts there's much left of it in the final build... but there might be hope - we have a prototype from the end of August 1996, dated two months before the PS1 ship date, but six months before the Saturn release. Unlike Jungle or Urban Strike which would have built on pre-existing technology, Soviet Strike was the series' first release in 3D, so would have been built from the ground up. Also the FMVs are pretty decent quality on the Saturn. This adds nothing to the discussion, but it makes a nice change from the super-compressed Cinepak files everyone else seemed to use.
I took a quick look at Soviet Strike. The passwords are mapped to A=01, B=02, C=03, etc. Then they are scrambled and compared to the valid ones. The algorithm looked pretty impenetrable, alas. Also a bummer: the prototype doesn't have the test map files!
The FMV is amazing, EA own codec was just so good, they also had some of the best FMV on the Mega-CD full screen and amazing quality. I do love the Saturn version of Strike and found it much better than the PS version. You can also alter the translucency of the Hud in the game which was a nice touch. Tiburon was such an awesome Saturn developer.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/561057-the-king-of-fighters-2000/cheats The King of Fighters 2000 - these codes are either badly explained or don't work. Most KoF games apparently don't have special codes, which is why this one stood out.
Today on "questionable uses of my time" https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SegaMagazin_DE_26.pdf&page=30 An earlier prototype. It's certainly a... unique 3D model.
OK, I finish the analysis of Three Dirty Dwarves. Its password system is much deeper than I expected! The level select password has long been known: MOSHOLU However, the game also accepts: ZEREGA* (A through O for the last character) GUNHILL NORWOOD PELHAM. FORDHAM DYREAV. TREMONT FREEMAN NEREID All of these are streets in Bronx, NY. Only GUNHILL actually does something - it enables SUPERHERO MODE. In Superhero Mode, you don't have to revive your party members if they take a hit. And you can always perform special moves. It's very useful! Amazingly, we have source code for one build of 3DD, which suggests that the ZEREGA* passwords were probably meant to be used for level select. However, it doesn't shed any light on what the other passwords might have done. The passwords are pretty thoroughly scrambled on the disc, I guess to keep prying eyes from finding them? I cracked the scheme, which is different from what's in the prototype build. Here's my full writeup: https://32bits.substack.com/p/under-the-microscope-three-dirty
Great research! That one has a segasoft pc version as well, not in my pile of discs as its US only but I'll have to track it down and see if there's any differences.
Games with passwords: Norse by Norsewest has a bunch that are known to the Internet and seem to be correct. They're in plaintext in the game data - see below. The special ones are: CR3D CH3T W4RP GHST Stage codes: Code (Text): 1: NTR0 2: 1STS 3: 2NDS 4: TRSH 5: SW1M 6: W0LF 7: BR4T 8: K4RN 9: B0MB 10: WZRD 11: BLKS 12: TLPT 13: GYSR 14: B3SV 15: R3T0 16: DRNK 17: Y0VR 18: 0V4L 19: T1N3 20: D4RK 21: H4RD 22: HRDR 23: L0ST 24: 0B0Y 25: H0M3 26: SHCK 27: TNNL 28: H3LL 29: 4RGH 30: B4DD 31: D4DY
The Lost Vikings 2: Norse by Norsewest/Hidden content - we already had CH3T and GHST, CR3D shows the ending (or "credits"). W4RP is described on the internet as "start at highest level previously reached" and I'm... not overly sure what this means. Every level has its own password, and if you die, you're always presented with the option to restart.
Was doing a little experiment to see where the gaps are: Actua Golf Actua Soccer Club Edition Batman Forever (arcade) Battle Stations Casper Dragonheart: Fire & Steel In the Hunt Riven: The Sequel to Myst Shockwave Assault Swagman WWF In Your House Whizz The PlayStation versions of all these games have codes listed on GameFAQs. Their Saturn counterparts don't. Do they exist??
For Swagman, no - I've got an in depth research article about it in the works, and i couldn't find a level select. It would have been helpful!
Blam! Machinehead/Hidden content When I originally did my rounds, I saw a load of seemingly random letters on GameFAQs for Blam! Machinehead and assumed the game generated passwords on the fly: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/saturn/197816-machine-head/cheats ... but "--GHOSTMODEON--" doesn't seem very random, and hey look, it's a cheat password. Those other (non-level) passwords are stored in plain text too, along with messages: Code (Text): ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO RDS-KKSGDBGD-SR HMEHMHSD9DMDQFX HMEHMHSDVD-ONMR KDUDK9RDKDBSHNM --GHOSTMODEON-- INFINITE-W----- INFINITE-W----- ALL CHEAT MODES DEACTIVATED ALL CHEAT MODES DEACTIVATED ALL CHEAT MODES ACTIVATED ALL CHEAT MODES ACTIVATED INFINITE ENERGY ACTIVATED INFINITE ENERGY DEACTIVATED INFINITE WEAPONRY ACTIVATED INFINITE WEAPONRY DEACTIVATED LEVEL SELECTION ACTIVATED LEVEL SELECTION DEACTIVATED GHOST MODE ACTIVATED GHOST MODE DEACTIVATED CHEAT MODE 7 ACTIVATED CHEAT MODE 7 DEACTIVATED CHEAT MODE 8 ACTIVATED CHEAT MODE 8 DEACTIVATED Not explained online is "INFINITE-W-----", which is listed twice and is accepted by the game: ... no idea what it does. There's also text for "cheat mode 7" and "cheat mode 8". I should point out at this point that I'm not very familiar with this game. So what about those weird four codes then? Well if you shift the letters by one according to the characters available (i.e. 9 becomes -, - becomes A): Code (Text): RDS-KKSGDBGD-SR -> SETALLTHECHEATS HMEHMHSD9DMDQFX -> INFINITE-ENERGY HMEHMHSDVD-ONMR -> INFINITEWEAPONS KDUDK9RDKDBSHNM -> LEVEL-SELECTION Wow it's like I'm Scooby Doo.
In The Hunt: the stage select code is there, but it's hidden behind a flag that's always off (I think). And it doesn't really work; you can't switch stages. This game does what a lot of multi-platform games do: they translate the Saturn button mappings into their own. But their compiler is really bad, so it doesn't really generate sensible code - I think that's what prevents it from working. My guess is that they turned it off rather than figuring out how to fix it. Street Racer has passwords on GameFAQS. I confirmed that they're the only ones the game cares about
I had Mega Drive Street Racer (the only one that wasn't even a little bit 3d) when I was a kid. I remember there was a secret track set in space if you won all the cups. Not really hidden content as we don't count unlockables but still seemed pretty cool at the time!
I had a look at (Saturn) Street Racer before and I think the game gives out those codes legitimately. Though someone might want to double check. And while you're there, you can marvel at one of the few genuine wins for the Saturn when put up against the PlayStation version:
OK, G Vector: there's a well known code for 9 credits: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, C. But there are two others: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A+B+C And: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left+A, Right+B, Down+C, Up+Y, Left+X, Right+Z (kind of hold those multi-button ones for a moment) The game makes a sound, but I can't tell what these do! There's an "extra options" menu, but these don't unlock it.
