Animaniacs (Genesis)

Animaniacs
Developer: Konami Publishers: Konami, Tec Toy (BR) Platform: Genesis Released in US: May 14, 1994 Released in EU: 1994 Released in AU: 1995 Released in BR: 1995 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has regional differences. This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page

One of the several Konami games for the Sega Genesis that strangely wasn't released in Japan.

Sub-Pages

Prerelease Info

Notes

Debug Menus

(Addresses in this section correspond to the USA version.)

To do: Is there a better/proper way to access this?

Located at offset $017B60-018715 is debugging programming, followed by a debug font at $018716-018995. Use one of the following experimental Pro Action Replay code sets to access the debug features:

• 000488:7B60 + 00048A:4E71 for 1st debug (Unknown Debug)
• 000488:7BB2 + 00048A:4E71 for 2nd debug (Debug 1-4 sections below)

Unknown Debug

Unknown effect. The programming is located at offset $017B60-017BB0. Toggles #$0001 in RAM address $FFB092 when Start is pressed on controller 2 (note the second controller is not used for normal gameplay). See the Notes page for more info (someone more familiar with Genesis may be able to figure it out just from looking at the trace log (especially the moving #$8701 or #$8700 into $00C00004 part).

Debug 1 - VRAM Viewer

• On controller 2 hold D-Pad Up and press Start to open a VRAM viewer. Press D-Pad Up/Down on controller 2 to change pages, or Left/Right to change the palette set.

Debug 2 - Palette Viewer

• On controller 2 hold D-Pad Down and press Start to open a palette viewer. Use the controller 2 D-Pad to move the cursor to one of the 64 colors in the grid to view its RGB values.

This debug menu uses a font not seen in regular gameplay:

Debug 3 - Tile Viewer

• On controller 2 hold D-Pad Down and press Start to open a tile viewer. Use the controller 2 D-Pad to view individual tiles.

Debug 4 - Unknown

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

• On controller 2 hold D-Pad Right and press Start.

The game freezes due to an unknown reason, may have something to do with the above Pro Action Replay code not hooked into the correct spot. The programming is present, however, and this may be some kind of layer toggle, scroll layers/map viewer type feature.

(Source: PacManfan64 (debug font discovery), JLukas (debug menu codes))

Sound Test

To do: Are there any unused songs or sound effects?

Programming for a sound test is buried in the options menu, located between the control setup and sound mode options. It can be restored with a patch, or by using the below game enhancer codes and changing the Stereo/Mono setting to activate it.

Region	Pro Action Replay	Game Genie
USA	03DF3E:E07C	SXST-GB38
EUR	03E524:E666	N5WT-GP3E

The controls are as follows:

• D-Pad Left or Right - decrease or increase value by 1
• A button - play sound/music
• B button - index + 0x10
• C button - index - 0x10

(Source: Dustin O'Dell (discovery and patch))

Unused Text

0014DE Block

• Index 00, $01, $02: A second set of the START, PASSWORD and OPTIONS text for the title screen, but placed further up:

• Index 03: ANIMANIACS Appears to be unused.
• Index 04: KONAMI 1994 It's not the same as the license screen (1994 KONAMI) or ending. Possibly for an earlier title screen along with the above ANIMANIACS string.
• Index 05: GAME Some programming exists for this, but it's not yet clear how to activate it properly (see programming around $000A66).
• Index 06: DEMO Possibly related to the above string.
• Index 07: TITLE This appears in the upper-left corner of the screen.
• Index 0E: VERY HARD Text for an unused fourth difficulty in the Options menu. No evidence has been found for this difficulty level being programmed into the game. Trying to activate it (e.g., Pro Action Replay code FFFB32:0003) produces glitches. The time allowed in stages is much higher than the values used for easier difficulties; the game is probably reading out-of-bounds data when forcing the 4th setting.

03EE3C

SCENE

No programming has been found that points to this text. It's located near the programming for the studio select screen. Possibly just a label, or perhaps a leftover from the possible stage select shown in an earlier build. It's not the same SCENE string that gets loaded when starting a level.

Regional Differences

Language Select

USA	EUR

The European game has a language setting in Options for English, German and French.

Ending

Even though it's missing from the Options screen, the USA version still has partial programming for the language select. In the ending cast roll, using Pro Action Replay code FFFB54:0002 to set the language to French will rename Pinky and The Brain to Minus and Kortex, instead of Minus and Cortex as used in the European game.

To do: Are there more script differences for other languages buried in the USA version?