A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol

A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol
Also known as: Desert Fighter (EU), Desert Fighter: Suna no Arashi Sakusen (JP) Developer: Opus Publishers: Seta (JP, US), System 3 (EU) Platform: SNES Released in JP: April 29, 1994 Released in US: January 1995 Released in EU: 1995 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select.

An isometric building bombing game with planes flown by venomous Egyptian cobras. Or people. Can't remember, really. Also well-known for the fact that some emulators, not to mention the Super NES Jr., cannot properly draw shadows underneath the craft.

Unused Settings

To do: Is there a more legit way (aside from the debug menu) to access these? Cheat code, maybe?

Using the Pro Action Replay code 7E00A204 adds an unused "Mania" difficulty and "Cockpit C" control scheme to the game setup screen. The Cockpit C scheme is called "Heli" by the debug menu.

Debug Menu

To do: More detail about the different options from someone who knows more about the game.

Hold down L+R+Select on controller 2 at the beginning of a sortie to access the debug menu, which lets you customize the various parameters of the current mission.

The full list of options are:

• Mission number (0 to 8)
• Play area (1 to 10)
• Game level (0 to 4)
• Palette select (day/night)
• SE mode select (on/off)
• Final flight (on/off)
• Player aircraft (F-15 or A-10)
• Missile ("GROUND1", "GROUND2", or "AIR")
• Missile count (0 to 99)
• Gun level (0 to 4)
• Player life (1 to 32)
• Fuel consume (0 to 3)
• MiG level (0 to 4)
• MiG count (0 to 5)
• Scud formation (0 to 3)
• Scud count (0 to 8)
• Pad control (Normal, Cockpit A, Cockpit B, Heli)
• Button type (Y+B, B+Y, B+A, A+B)
• Scenario (new game, continue)

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Development Text

Build String

At the very start of the ROM is a build date and copyright information:

Japanese Version	Tue Aug 10 15:10:08 1993 DESERT SWORD MCMXCIII (C) SETA CO,LTD (C) OPUS CORP.
European Version (1)	Sat Nov 09 17:00:00 1993 DESERT FIGHTER (US/UK) MCMXCIII (C) SETA CO,LTD (C) OPUS CORP.
European Version (2)	Tue Dec 07 19:50:43 1993 DESERT FIGHTER A.S.P. (US/UK) MCMXCIII (C) SETA CO,LTD (C) OPUS CORP.
US Version	Mon Jan 24 15:20:32 1994 DESERT FIGHTER A.S.P. (US/UK) MCMXCIII (C) SETA CO,LTD (C) OPUS CORP.

Shortly after that, in every version of the game, is the string: DESERT SWORD SYSTEM (C) 1992 OPUS CORP.