My favorite Japanese cheat site has three codes listed for Langrisser IV, the tactical RPG from Career Soft: Sound Test: Enter A, Z, Y, X, A, Z, X, Y on the title screen to play music, sound effect…

You’ve heard of code reuse, but have you heard of cheat code reuse?

Starring Young Indiana Jones

Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire is a historical simulation title from Koei, the premier publisher for that sort of game in the ’90s. Wall of Fire was the first game in its series to …

Uncovering a 31 year old localization Easter egg

The cheat sites are wrong about the PS2 game Herdy Gerdy

Also FIFA 97: Gold Edition

If you put the disc for the Saturn game Heir of Zendor into your PC’s CD-ROM drive, you’ll see a file called 99README.TXT. It contains messages from the game’s development staff, including one from…

Always read the README

Out of the shadow... and into the fire.

The best use of Ghidra is reverse engineering 30 year old Japanese games

Blazing Dragons was an animated TV series created by Monty Python alum Terry Jones and entertainment industry wizard Gavin Scott. It ran for two seasons between 1996 and 1998. This article is about…

How many games have a thumb wrestling simulator?

Catch some Z’s to get an A

Some new cheats for a Dreamcast launch title on its anniversary

In a previous edition, I wrote about how some Saturn games censor their high score screens. If you try to put your initials in as XXX or SEX, they’ll replace your entry with something else. Puyo Pu…

A moderately complicated cheat code entry system

Cheat codes from 1994

Hidden “greets” to the Amiga demoscene in a 1996 PlayStation

The two Saturn NBA Jam games all have lots of “secret” stuff — cheat codes, bonus teams, extra players. Most of these things were documented in magazines and online in the 90s, but a few were misse…

Powerups, cartoon mummies, and unfinished cheat codes in the NBA Jam games

YouTube video by Sonic Weekly

Answering a 26 year old challenge from a PlayStation game

In this edition, we’re examining Bust-A-Move 3 (a.k.a. Puzzle Bobble 3), the puzzle game from Taito. While looking through this game’s data, some strings that seem to be part of an unused menu caug…

How debug symbols have sparked a wave of enthusiasm for an 18 year old PC game

Tracing bitwise operations in a 1993 game for Sega Genesis

The cheat codes for Croc that have been hiding since 1997

In this edition we’re examining Shadows of the Tusk, the 1998 deck-building game from Digital Media Lab and Hudson Soft. It was originally released in Japan, but these days you can play it in Engli…

This might be the most convoluted cheat code of the 1990s

Reverse engineering the cheat code entry system in a 26 year old PlayStation game

Unearthing a 31 year old Easter egg in Ecco the Dolphin