All of the mainline Ecco the Dolphin games have some sort of debug functionality hidden behind cheat codes. Codes for the Genesis games have been known for decades, and the codes for the PC and Dreamcast games were discovered more recently.
But what about Ecco Jr., the 1995 Genesis game aimed at younger kids that was published under the Sega Club label? Does it have a debug cheat?
Yes – I’ve rescued it from the tides of time. Details on how it works are below!
In this edition:
Did Maegawa misremember which game the code was in? Or did Dynamite Headdy inherit the code from an early version of McDonald’s Treasureland Adventure? Read on to find out.
Stormlord was originally published for the ZX Spectrum and other 8-bit PCs by Hewson Consultants in 1989. A Genesis version, produced by RazorSoft and Punk Development, followed in 1991.
The console version of Stormlord is noticeably different from its PC counterparts in one striking way: there’s no nudity. In the game, you play as the Viking hero StormLord, rescuing fairy princesses from a dastardly antagonist. StormLord doesn’t wear much clothing, but the fairy princesses are entirely naked in the original artwork. In the Genesis edition, they’re covered up (albeit minimally).
In an excellent interview from 2019 in Gaming Alexandria, Genesis version programmer Kevin Seghetti said this about the game:
[We] did put a cheat code system in the game, so that we could release codes after the game came out (a method to keep getting your game mentioned in the magazines of the time). One of the codes removes the clothes from the fairies, revealing the original artwork. Razorsoft specified this as well. I vaguely recall we may have removed that particular cheat code before we shipped.
Did they actually remove this cheat code? No – it remained in the retail cartridge. I found it in the game data, along with another cheat code that managed to stay secret for the last 35 years. Details on these new codes and how they work are below!
I found a previously-unpublished cheat code for this game. You can use it to speed Shaq’s progress through the Second World and get him back to the First World in time to play in the big charity game. Details are below!
What is Instruments of Chaos Starring Young Indiana Jones, a single-player game, doing checking for input from Controller 2? That’s what I wondered when I saw this code, which runs after you make a selection on the map screen…
We talk sometimes about how cheat sites like GameFAQs have quality control issues. Lots of games have bogus codes listed. Some are incorrectly transcribed, some are actually for other games, and some are totally made up.
Some of the codes for the Genesis version of FIFA Soccer 96 are bogus. Neither of these work, for example:
EA Dream Team: Press A(2), B(2), C(2), B, C(2), A(2) at the options screen.
Super Power: Press B, A, B(2), C, B, A, C, B(4) at the options screen.
What species of bogus are they? It turns out they’re incorrectly transcribed. As we’ll see below, they’re close to right – but not quite.
While I was looking into this, I found several other cheat codes for this game that I don’t think have been documented before. Furthermore, I found nearly identical codes for FIFA 97: Gold Edition. Read on for details!
Shadow of the Beast II was published for Amiga in 1990. A Genesis adaptation was released in 1992, and an enhanced Sega CD version appeared in 1994. In this edition, the two Sega ports go under the microscope.
In this edition, The Simpsons: Bart’s Nightmare, the 1992 game from Sculptured Software and Acclaim, goes under the microscope. The cheat sites tend to have a “level select” code listed for this game. Here’s how it’s rendered on GameFAQs, for example:
In this edition, we’re examining Beavis and Butt-head, the 1994 adaptation of the MTV series for Genesis by Radical Entertainment.
Data miners have looked through this game and found various unused elements – text, animations, music. They’ve compared the visuals in prerelease screenshots to the final game. They’ve noted the title’s unusual use of the Genesis sound hardware. But I think they missed something – a hidden cheat code.
Details are below…
My perception in the 90s was that the Sega Genesis was supposed to be your older brother’s console. It didn’t matter whether you had an older brother, or were an older brother; Sega’s marketing always implied that Genesis was just slightly cooler than you were.
Sega did try to appeal to younger siblings, however. The company’s Sega Club imprint published several titles for little kids, some of which purported to be at least slightly educational.
Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus: Space Exploration Game was one of these Sega Club games. It’s a collection of mini-games focused on space, and is inspired by the 1990 book The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System.
Why examine a 30 year old edutainment game? It caught my eye because (a) I had the original The Magic School Bus space book when I was a kid, and my parents would never read it to me because it was too long; and (b) it was developed by Novotrade, and I’ve found interesting things in a few Novotrade games in recent years.
Below are details on how this game’s password system works, and notes on how to use a previously-unpublished cheat code to bypass it altogether.
Some game cartridges from the 16-bit era shipped with backup chips. These allowed players save their progress. But they were expensive relative to a software-only alternative, session passwords.
In addition to being cheaper, session passwords could be shared. Players eagerly subscribed to game magazines that printed them. And in the 90s, having a notebook full of Sega Genesis codes was a good way to increase your status on the playground.