Buster Brothers (Game Boy)

Buster Brothers
Also known as: Pang (EU) Developer: Ocean Publisher: Hudson Soft Platform: Game Boy Released in US: October 1993 Released in EU: 1993 This game has unused code. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

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Prototype Info

Disabled Multiplayer

While the Game Boy version is the only one without a two-player mode, there is mostly-complete and working Link Cable support, as well as two-player layouts of the screens, in the ROM. That said, it seems 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 the interrupt routine, you still can't play it due to some bugs in code preventing the correct synchronization.

With a little debugging and patch magic, the two-player mode can be enabled and become fully functional:

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

It should be noted that you can only play the two-player 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, while the second player can only control their character. If you try to run it without the Link Cable connected, the game will freeze.

Disabled Message

The serial link code has some asserts if the link is lost: while the game checks for some unusual behavior and then resets back to the title screen, code in the ROM indicates that the game was to display the message "OH FUCK IM DEAD" before going into an infinite loop.

On top of the previous patches, use the code 0003EA:39 and you can see this message if a link error occurs.

Regional Differences

US	Europe

The series is known as Pang in Europe.