Flash Point (Arcade)

Flash Point
Developer: Sega Publisher: Sega Platform: Arcade (Sega System 16B) Released in JP: July 1989 This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused music.

Flash Point is a Tetris variant released only in Japan as a sequel to Sega's Japanese arcade version. Unlike Tetris, which is usually a pure survival, your goal is to eliminate all golden blocks from the field. Strangely, this game names its only game play as "Ojama Mode" (ojama meaning nuisance), but there's a reason for it...

Normal Mode

Add the following cheat in your MAME to enable mode select screen (works with both fpoint and fpoint1):

 <cheat desc="Unlock Mode Select Screen">
   <script state="run">
     <action>maincpu.ow@0045BE=4E71</action>
     <action>maincpu.ow@0045C0=4E71</action>
   </script>
 </cheat>

Alternatively, you can skip to Normal Mode without using the mode select screen:

 <cheat desc="Normal Mode">
   <script state="run">
     <action>maincpu.ob@0045B4=60</action>
   </script>
 </cheat>

Unlike "Ojama Mode", you start with an empty field. Like Sega's Tetris, the goal is to survive as long as possible.

Mode Select Screen

The unused music (#90) plays here. The default cursor position is Ojama Mode.

Japanese	Translation
ノーマルモード	Normal Mode
おじゃまモード	Ojama (Nuisance) Mode
旧作	Old Game
新作	New Game

Differences From "Ojama Mode"

• Delayed Auto Shift (DAS) is much longer than Ojama Mode.
• No DAS for soft dropping the piece. The piece starts to fall as soon as you move the lever down.
• You can earn points from clearing lines. The line scoring is the same as Sega's Tetris:
  • Single: 100 * ((Level / 2) + 1)
  • Double: 400 * ((Level / 2) + 1)
  • Triple: 900 * ((Level / 2) + 1)
  • Tetris: 2000 * ((Level / 2) + 1)
• The instruction demo map from Sega's Tetris is used for the "How To Play" screen. However, there are no separate input data for it, so the demo player will end up dying.

Ojama Mode	Normal Mode

High-Score List

Normal Mode uses a different high-score list than Ojama Mode, and can partially be restored by the following cheat:

 <cheat desc="Force Normal Mode Ranking">
   <script state="run">
     <action>maincpu.ow@00990E=EC0A</action>
     <action>maincpu.mw@009D76=9D94</action>
   </script>
 </cheat>

This cheat forces the Ojama Mode ranking screen to load Normal Mode's high scores instead.

To do: Is it possible to restore Normal Mode ranking completely? The ranking data starts from FFEC0A in RAM. The ranking loader code starts from 98E8, but it loads Ojama Ranking at the same time and doesn't seem to contain rendering codes.

The default high scores for Normal Mode are as follows:

Rank	Name	Score	Lines
1	STU	10000	32
2	FF.	9000	30
3	YON	8000	28
4	EZA	7000	26
5	WA.	6000	24
6	MIN	5000	20
7	ODA	4000	18
8	SAI	3000	16
9	TO.	2000	12
10	END	1000	8

Putting the high score names together, it reveals some partial staff credits: STAFF: YONEZAWA. MINODA and SAITO.

The word "Stuff" was most likely meant to say "Staff", and was mistranslated from the fact that both words have the same exact spelling in katakana, "Sutaffu" (スタッフ).

Unused Music

Sound #90, the default music in the sound test, is not used during normal gameplay. It is used in the disabled Mode Select screen, though, as well as the title screen of the cancelled Genesis port.