Doraemon (NES)

Doraemon
Developer: Hudson Soft Publisher: Hudson Soft Platform: NES Released in JP: December 12, 1986 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select.

One of various games based on the Doraemon franchise. In true early Hudson Soft fashion, the game shows no mercy with its difficulty.

Unused Graphics

The ghost that appears frequently in World 3 to steal items was supposed to flap his arms up and down, but only the first frame with his arms up is ever shown during gameplay. The animation would have looked something like this had the second frame been used (blue background added to show the white parts of the sprite)

Hidden Text

The following text is found in the ROM at 0x1028D.

DORAEMON WORLD3 
WRITTEN BY KIKU 
VER1.9 86/10/31 

Hidden developer credit for Masaaki Kikuta, referred to by the pseudonym "KiKu". Masaaki Kikuta has done stuff like this before in other Hudson Soft games, such as Nuts & Milk, Raid on Bungeling Bay, Binary Land and Challenger, to name a few.

  H      H      
  H      H      
  HHHHHHHH      
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  H      H      
                
  U      U      
  U      U      
  U      U      
  U      U      
   UUUUUU       
                
  DDDD          
  D   DD        
  D     D       
  D     D       
  D   DD        
  DDDD          
                
   SSSS         
  S             
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       S        
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   SSSS         
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  N    N        
  NN   N        
  N N  N        
  N  N N        
  N   NN        
                
   SSSS         
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  S             
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       S        
  S    S        
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   SSSS         
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  FFFFFF        
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 TTTTTTT        
    T           
    T           
    T           
    T           
                
                
                
                
                
    XANADU      
  COMING SOON   

Immediately after the text for the staff roll, this ASCII art spelling out "HUDSON SOFT" and some text saying "XANADU COMING SOON" can be found at 0x1ED4E. The latter most likely refers to Faxanadu, another Hudson Soft game which released less than a year after this one.

Level Select

At the title screen, press Select on controller 1 a number of times corresponding to the desired world (1 time - World 2, 2 times - World 3), then hold A + B and press Start. If you do not press Select and just hold A + B before Start, The game will load World 1 without showing the Time Machine cutscene.

Debug Mode and Easter Egg

This only works for World 3. Before the World number screen appears hold A + B + Select + Up + Left on controller 1 and A + B + Down + Right on controller 2 at the same time. This will enable the debug flag. Now during the game, you can use the D-Pad buttons on controller 2 to jump to the next room in the corresponding direction. Pressing A + B on controller 2 brings up this Easter egg screen featuring Dorami and the word "KiKu" (which is a reference to Masaaki Kikuta, the game's programmer). After this screen is displayed, the game will return to the title screen.

The World warp cheats can also be used to quickly access World 3. Instead of A + B at the title screen, press the complete combination of buttons mentioned above.