Buster Brothers (Game Boy)

Disabled Multiplayer


Odd enough, the Game Boy version of this game is the only version without two-player support. This game doesn't support the Game Boy link cable and you can play it only in single player mode. Surprisingly, it wasn't because they didn't code it, as they DID implement it! The mostly complete and working link cable support, as well as two-player layouts of the screens, are still present in the game ROM. But, it seems that this code wasn't finished. There is neither code to detect the link status nor a special menu item to select the two-player mode. Serial interrupt routines are present in code, but there is no vector to it. Also, if you enable serial mode and return back the interrupt routine, you still couldn't play it. This is because of some bugs in code preventing the correct synchronization. ;)

Anyway, with a little debugging and patch magic, the two-player mode can be enabled and become fully functional. Here are the patches: 000000: C5 CD 34 17 C1 C9 000010: C5 CD 50 17 C1 C9 000020: 3E 53 E0 01 3E 81 E0 02 CD 7A 17 CD 7A 17 3E 81 000030: E0 02 CD 7A 17 CD 7A 17 C9 000058: FB C3 85 2C 000F52: 0E 11 CD 6C 0F 3E 11 E0 01 3E 81 E0 02 C9 00182C: 53 001841: CD 20 00 00 00 001BCF: 10 00 001BEF: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 001C25: 10 00 001C45: 00 00

Note, you can only play two-player game mode on the patched version. The link code starts when one of the players presses A on the title screen. This player will be master and should select stages and press any buttons on the splash screens, the second player can only control in-game character. If you try to run it without link cable connected, the game will freeze.

Disabled Message


The serial link code has some asserts if link is lost. The game checks for some unusual behavior and then just resets back to the title screen. But originally, there wasn't just a reset. The game would display a nasty message on the screen, "OH FUCK IM DEAD", and then went into an infinite loop. On top of the previous patches, use the code and you can see this message if a link error occurred.