This was actually the subject of a chat I happened to be in recently. I'll quote the explanation given there because I don't think anyone would object to the knowledge being shared, but do note that this is one person giving an off-the-cuff paraphrase of someone else's explanation and isn't necessarily 100% accurate: I'm not an expert on the topic, so if you want gorier details than that, I suggest you ask on the PC Engine Software Bible forum. For the record, the image captions on that article are: 1. "Pause during the game and input the command below." 2. "Look, the screen's split into two. The left edge of it is cut off." 3. "An enlargement of one of the screens. You can barely make out the message." The main article is largely just saying the same things with more detail. The fact that there are two screens instead of four is obviously a discrepancy, but it's possible that this specific game is doing additional manipulations with HBlank interrupts to eliminate the lower screens. I have no familiarity with it, though, so I'm afraid all I can do is speculate.
So if both this and the scan are correct, then that means TurboNyma's attempt at rendering the display mode is the most accurate one then. Now I have to question why such a feature exists in some games when there really isn't any practical use for it.
I'm exhausted... Throughout the past three months following NEC Retro's revival I've been filling up the Hidden Content category with as much content as possible to bring it up to Sega Retro's standards, primarily for the PC Engine and CD-ROM² games. Lots of different cheats that come from a variety of sources, including GameFAQs, TCRF, Twitter user @yamada_arthur, and even PC Engine Fan magazine, where I found out about this particular gem from Zero4 Champ: Entering certain profane words as a name will cause the name to be censored in-game, complete with a censor bleep. The magazine stated that "SEX" will trigger this censorship, but I've tested that "FUCK" also works. From what I can tell, those are the only two English words that will do that - there may be some Japanese words that will also have this effect, at least based on what I can find in a hex editor: However, there are still a few other pieces of hidden content out there that have to be documented, and some I've been unable to do due to requiring more complicated hacking, or a better understanding of Japanese in order to get to it (the large majority of games are only in Japanese, so I've had to bash my head through the language barrier many times to be able to verify most of it), and I hope someone who can understand Japanese better than I can will one day get them sorted. Also, almost every CD-ROM² game that has a page as of this post now has a title screenshot! This was something I decided to cover with all those hidden content pages, along with another project I wanted to do when that was done: documenting what happens when Super/Arcade CD-ROM² games are booted with the wrong System Card. The overall structure of this is derived from the region coding pages on Sega Retro, and is similar in scope to how VGMuseum.com documents the error screens from these games, except our scope expands to every possible game that can be tested, because not every game has an error screen and may have other effects when the wrong System Card is used: 11 games will display a blank screen when booted with the wrong System Card. While most of the blank screens are black, Super Real Mahjong Special boots to a pink screen. 10 games will just loop back to the BIOS when attempting to start them, and at least two of them freeze it on the "JUST A MOMENT..." message. 4 games will still start up, but end up as horribly broken messes with garbled graphics and possible crashes. Strangely, 5 games will start up without any issues that I can see. They might need more testing to see how far they can go on the wrong System Card, which is a task for someone with more time. I couldn't get every one of them documented, however, and those are: Akiyama Jin no Suugaku Mystery: Hihou Indo no Honoo o Shisyu Seyo! (there doesn't seem to be any dumps of this game on the internet from where I've searched, and according to Redump it's considered "undumped". It's known to have an error screen, but I have idea how VGMuseum managed to get a screenshot) Godzilla (both Japanese and North American versions have scrolling marquees that fill up the whole screen and I don't know how to best display it - I might have to use GIFs like VGMuseum does, and it should be noted that I did a trial of that with Janshin Densetsu's error screen, so check it out) The Kick Boxing (I did get the screenshot uploaded, but didn't make the compatibility page for it. Why? Because the game page is pending a possible merge with André Panza Kick Boxing) That said, there's a few more things out there with their own error screens that don't have pages, such as the 3-in-1 CD that came with the TurboDuo (it has a hidden fourth game on it, and most databases call it "4 in 1 Super CD"), and Bomberman '94 Special Version (a demo version of Bomberman '94). Those should be done. Now I need to take a load off. (also Chou Aniki and Travellers Densetsu o Buttobase still have broken pages please fix them)
Because I guess I will forever have the mind of a twelve year old, I figured out the full list of no-no words for Zero4 Champ. As expected, most of them are Japanese words for sex acts and genitalia, but there's also a couple names of other game companies in there and a couple other weird things that I'm not sure what they refer to, but I gave my best guesses. The list is as follows: おまんこ (pussy) FUCK おめこ (pussy) みなよし ("Minayoshi"--possibly referring to Seitaro Minayoshi in the game's credits?) ぺにす (penis) くりとりす (clitoris) きんたま (balls) SEX せっくす (sex) せんずり (fapping) まんずり (schlicking) そうろう (premature ejaculation) ほうけい (phimosis) たんしょう ("short"? This can mean a few different things, but I guess it's referring to having a small dick?) ふぇらちお (fellatio) みかのへそ ("mikanoheso"... "heso" means bellybutton, so maybe it's "Mika no heso"? There is someone named Mika Nagiri in the credits. anyway, weird) なむこ (Namco) こなみ (Konami) えにっくす (Enix) ばんだい (Bandai) ひゅーまん (Human) ふぁみこん (Famicom) おなにー (masturbation) Some of these might be more commonly written in katakana, but the game doesn't care which you use, so I wrote them all down in hiragana.
Oooh, cheers for going through all these! I can go ahead and put all these up onto the hidden content page as a table and link back to your post as a reference. Also lol at Konami being censored.
