Thanks, Sik. I should have thought about it harder, I never used to swap out my 6-button controllers for any reason, so of course MODE worked. They're by far my favourite controller ever; practically touch-sensitive D-pads on all four of mine. Yeah, four. I don't want to ever end up with a bad controller during multitap Mega Bomberman sessions.
The manuals for the 6 button controllers (and the Nomad) mentioned which games wouldn't work with them. Off the top of my head, I can remember Forgotten Worlds, Arch Rivals and Ms. Pac-Man. EDIT: Oh yeah, and Golden Axe II was also mentioned.
Penguin Land on SMS won't work with the 6 Button and maybe not even the 3 button. Love the game though.
I think the way Hivebrain made Template:Releases was done specifically for some functionality that we have set up now that could possibly be used for this, but I can't remember the name, it's a three-letter acronym starting with D
After Burner 32X uses it to fire the gatling gun. I forget if AB2 has 6-button controller support at all. I think Star Wars 32X also uses it to change camera but I'll have to look it up.
No, it was released way before the 6-pad was made (actually before even Street Fighter II, which is what the 6-pad was made for). That said, it does support the analog joystick.
Aerobiz Supersonic uses the mode button ingame for showing a map or something ( I can't quite remember what it did, but I remember it did use it as a regular button)
Out of curiosity, does the 6-button arcade power stick have analog features? I don't have one to test, and have next to no idea which controllers have analog support and which don't.
Analog stick? I thought it was an analog controller, specifically called the XE-1AP and made by Dempa.
You know what I mean =P Technically the only times I've seen it referred officially is as "analog joystick". And I'm starting to think it's actually several third party joysticks that happen to share the same protocol.
Playing with my Everdrive tonight and messing with the MODE button, I stumbled into a game that uses it. Batman: Forever. Hold the mode button while moving to moonwalk backwards, and hitting punch / kick while doing this gives you backwards-style punches and kicks!
Here's how Forgotten Worlds reads its controllers: Code (Text): ROM:000183BE ; =============== S U B R O U T I N E ======================================= ROM:000183BE ROM:000183BE ROM:000183BE sub_183BE: ; CODE XREF: ROM:00000654p ROM:000183BE clr.w d6 ROM:000183C0 bsr.w sub_183E8 ROM:000183C4 cmpi.b #$D,d0 ROM:000183C8 bne.w loc_183D0 ROM:000183CC ori.w #1,d6 ROM:000183D0 ROM:000183D0 loc_183D0: ; CODE XREF: sub_183BE+Aj ROM:000183D0 bsr.w sub_183F2 ROM:000183D4 cmpi.b #$D,d0 ROM:000183D8 bne.w loc_183E0 ROM:000183DC ori.w #2,d6 ROM:000183E0 ROM:000183E0 loc_183E0: ; CODE XREF: sub_183BE+1Aj ROM:000183E0 move.b d6,($FF0626).l ROM:000183E6 rts ROM:000183E6 ; End of function sub_183BE ROM:000183E6 ROM:000183E8 ROM:000183E8 ; =============== S U B R O U T I N E ======================================= ROM:000183E8 ROM:000183E8 ROM:000183E8 sub_183E8: ; CODE XREF: sub_183BE+2p ROM:000183E8 lea ($A10003).l,a6 ROM:000183EE bra.w sub_183F8 ROM:000183EE ; End of function sub_183E8 ROM:000183EE ROM:000183F2 ROM:000183F2 ; =============== S U B R O U T I N E ======================================= ROM:000183F2 ROM:000183F2 ROM:000183F2 sub_183F2: ; CODE XREF: sub_183BE:loc_183D0p ROM:000183F2 lea ($A10005).l,a6 ROM:000183F2 ; End of function sub_183F2 ROM:000183F2 ROM:000183F8 ROM:000183F8 ; =============== S U B R O U T I N E ======================================= ROM:000183F8 ROM:000183F8 ROM:000183F8 sub_183F8: ; CODE XREF: sub_183E8+6j ROM:000183F8 lea unk_18414,a5 ROM:000183FC move.b (a5),6(a6) ROM:00018400 moveq #0,d0 ROM:00018402 moveq #8,d1 ROM:00018404 ROM:00018404 loc_18404: ; CODE XREF: sub_183F8+18j ROM:00018404 move.b (a5)+,(a6) ROM:00018406 move.b (a6),d2 ROM:00018408 and.b (a5)+,d2 ROM:0001840A beq.s loc_1840E ROM:0001840C or.b d1,d0 ROM:0001840E ROM:0001840E loc_1840E: ; CODE XREF: sub_183F8+12j ROM:0001840E lsr.b #1,d1 ROM:00018410 bne.s loc_18404 ROM:00018412 rts ROM:00018412 ; End of function sub_183F8 ROM:00018412 ROM:00018412 ; --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ROM:00018414 unk_18414: dc.b $40 ; @ ; DATA XREF: sub_183F8o ROM:00018415 dc.b $C ROM:00018416 dc.b $40 ; @ ROM:00018417 dc.b 3 ROM:00018418 dc.b 0 ROM:00018419 dc.b $C ROM:0001841A dc.b 0 ROM:0001841B dc.b 3 maybe someone can figure out what Sega did wrong here?
It isn't doing any wait between the write to the DATA port and reading back from it. It isn't giving time to the joypad to react. Guess the 3-pad is much faster than Sega thought, but the 6-pad isn't anywhere that fast...
I know that in Beyond Oasis/Story of Thor, if you hold MODE and press B, you switch between your last selected weapon and the dagger. It's also used for a recently discovered cheat code.
...and today was the day I learnt that Mode can be used in game and wasnt just something you held while turning the Mega Drive on. AFTER ALMOST 20 YEARS.
