Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

From The Cutting Room Floor

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

Developer: Sony Music Entertainment
Publisher: Activision
System(s): Playstation
Released in JP: February 26, 1998
Released in US: September 1998
Released in EU: October 1998

This game has unused enemies.
This game has debugging material.
This game has regional differences.
This game has anti-piracy features.

The 1998 ninja stealth action game. Well-received and infamous for its hilariously bad voice acting.

Debug Mode

Tenchu comes with a rather comprehensive debug mode, which among other things allows you to modify NPC paths and even set up a pseudo-2 player game.

To activate it, pause the game, then press and hold L1 and R2 simultaneously. While holding L1 and R2, press Up, Triangle, Down, X, Left, Square, Right, Circle. Release L1 and R2 and press L1, R1, L2, R2. The 'PAUSED' should disappear and you'll hear a noise. Unpause the game and simultaneously press L2 and R2 to open the menu.

You will have to re-enter the code if you change levels. This code works in the U.S. and Shinobi-Gaisen versions only. For more information, see this FAQ.

Layout Enemy

Effect when selecting a target for path placement

Allows you to place an enemy where you're standing, among other options. You can configure its AI to various specifications, establish pathfinding nodes or control it with the first or second slot controller.

Add: The first set of option chooses which enemy will be placed. The second specifies which AI package it uses for wandering around when idle, including an option for player control. The third option is for what the NPC does when seeing the player (basically, approach to confirm or stand around staring), the fourth is behavior during combat, and the last is behavior when the player retreats.
Remove deletes the nearest enemy.
Reset places the enemy at his start position at a default state (100% health and brain-dead). They will not move or defend themselves.
Go activates enemy AI, otherwise they will stand around not responding to stimuli indefinitely.
Clear all enemies does exactly what it sounds like
Report just displays a screen saying how many actors are placed, including the player.
Select camera owner gives you a list of every placed actor (by number only), the player is 0 by default.
Path settings Three options. Select specifies the nearest NPC to be programmed (a fiery explosion effect will be displayed on the selected actor), Add places a pathfinding node and Reset does ???.

Layout Item

Similar to the above, but with items. The only options are to place them one at a time or remove all of them.

File

Save and Load allow you to save/load data to from the disk (does not work) and memory card (works perfectly, has an icon and everything).
Reload stock images: ???
Load stock layout resets the stage layout (enemy and item) to the default.
Toggle debug print displays a bunch of cool numbers. Press select to expand them.

(un)Interestingly, the Japanese Shinobi-Gaisen version uses a colored font for some of its text while the U.S. version is all white.

Play stage music plays the music for the current stage form the beginning of the track
Test music is a music test, including cutscene voiceovers.
Stop music yup.
Event update does something but from the player's perspective it's only restarting the stage music.
Animation update does ???, something to do with cutscenes.
Animation test plays a cutscene and skips the player to the part of the level where it occurs. Since the cutscenes are activated when entering the area they play in, this results in the scene playing twice unless it has already played (e.g. stage intro scenes will have already played).

Charge Item

Give yourself 10, 100 or Full (infinite) of every item in the game (except Ninja Armor, as it can't be held in your inventory), and a few that aren't really items.

List of items:

Shuriken
Smoke (Smoke Bomb)
Makabisi (Caltrops)
Fire (Grenade)
Jirai (Mine)
Kusuri (Healing Potion)
Kaginawa (Grappling Hook)
Gun (Gun, used by Echigoya)
Yumi (Arrow projectile fired by generic archer enemies)
Kaen (Not an item. This lights you on fire, it's the effect you get when walking on a torch)
Dokudango (Poison Rice)
Rikimarukochan (Shadow Decoy)
Gosikimai (Colored Rice)
Happou (Super Shuriken)
Ninken (Dog Bone)
Nemurigusuri (Sleeping Gas)
Kaengeki (Fire-Eater Scroll)
Kawarimi (Resurrection Leaf)
Goshinfuda (Protection Amulet)
Manebue (Decoy Whistle)
Hensin (Chameleon Spell)
Shinsoku (Lightfoot Scroll)
Lightning Bolt (Used by the final boss)
The World (Teleportation spell)

This is the icon used for all the items you cannot normally get in your inventory: Gun, Yumi, Kaen, Lightning Bolt, and The World.

Player

Reset position places you back at the starting point for the stage.
Jump position gives you some XYZ coordinates (controlled with Dpad and L1/L2, enter with start) but doesn't actually seem to do anything.

Restart event restarts the entire stage over.
Raise dead fills up the player's health including resurrection if dead.

Stage

Change, reload, or instantly clear the stage. Also displays information about layout and score. You can supposedly choose between English, French, Italian and (in Shinobi-Gaisen) Japanese, but it makes no difference.

This is what the information option does. The other choices are pretty obvious and straightforward.

Unused Enemies

Note: Adding any enemy that does not exist in the current stage layout will cause cause the music to stop playing for some reason.

Rat

This guy shows up in the enemies list for stages 1 and 5.

Tuzi KatanaL

On the enemies list for stage 2. Some invisible guy who shows up as a floating purple sword and a flat, black polygon. He has 80 or 120 hp depending on difficulty.

Kuma

Not unused, but misplaced, suggesting the stage might have had a boss at some point. The bear enemy you have to fight in stage 3 is listed twice in the enemies list for stage 8. They are identical and displayed with incorrect textures.

Rikimaru & Ayame

The NPC versions of Rikimaru and Ayame rescued in stage 3 are on the enemies list for stage 0.

Anti-Piracy Message

There is no known way to get this to appear in-game.

Region Differences

There were two version of Tenchu released in Japan. The initial version, which is missing many features from the U.S. release, and a deluxe re-release which the U.S. version more closely resembles. Some of the more superficial differences:

Japanese	U.S.

Japanese	U.S.

Japanese	U.S.

Japanese	U.S.

Japanese	U.S.

Japanese	U.S.

In the Japanese version, the messenger from stage 2 is sitting in the training room to give you a lecture.

In the U.S. and later releases, you instead get a streamed video of the same speech...

...and the training room is left barren.

However, he can still be added in the U.S. version with the debug menu, under the name Ryoujyu Katana. His textures were replaced with... something else, making him nearly unrecognizable.

In the U.S. release, After killing Hanbe, Echigoya runs away during the cutscene and hides somewhere else in the stage.

But in the original, you fight and kill them both at the same time.

The stage select uses the stage intro background instead of the U.S. version's map and arrow. More significantly, it is completely missing stages 4 and 5.

Other changes which are not documented in screenshots:

The 180 degree somersault move was not present in the initial release
There was only one stage layout in the original compared to the U.S./Shinobi Gaisen's 3.
The draw distance in the initial version was noticeably shorter
The hud was a little less fancy. The ki meter was still present, but it floated off to the right of the HP bar rather than having its own spot.
Enemy HP bars were in blue rather than red

Tenchu: Shinobi-Gaisen

The second version to be released in Japan incorporates all of the changes made for the U.S. release, and then some.

There's a new intro movie featuring ninjas punching and slicing in the air.

A completely new menu option is present which includes special stages and a level editor.

The special stages were all made with the level editor. Getting detected is an instant game over.

The level editor in action:

Other Changes:

Some of the camera angles in cutscenes were changed for more cinematic presentation.
When playing in English language mode, the Shuriken is called the Crimson Blade.

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

From The Cutting Room Floor

Contents