Dragon Fighter (Natsume)

Dragon Fighter
Developer: Natsume Publishers: SOFEL (US), Towa Chiki (JP) Platform: NES Released in JP: August 10, 1990 Released in US: January 1992 This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select.

Level Select

Hold the A + B buttons on the first controller and press Reset, continue holding the A + B buttons on the title screen for the next 30 seconds. A sound will notify you that the cheat is enabled and you can release the buttons. Before the demo sequence starts, you can hold one of the following buttons on the second controller to select a desired level and then press Start on the first controller.

Button	Level
Right	2 Level
Down	3 Level
Up	4 Level
B	5 Level
A	6 Level

Sound Test Mode

At the title screen, when "PUSH START" appears, hold A + B then press Start. The "SOUND TEST MODE" screen will appear. Unlike most other sound tests of the era, this one refers to each track by its proper name. Press Up / Down to select a track, and A / B to start or stop playback, respectively.

Here is the complete music list:

" TITLE " " The Frozen Battle " " Don't Disturb " " In to the Depth " " Can you Chain Up " " Initive of a Ghost " " The Dragon Fighter " " BOSS 1 " " BOSS 2 " " STAGE CLEAR " " GAME OVER " " CONTINUE " " ENDING "

Object Test Mode

The Game Genie codes ZEVEUSLE (for the Japanese version) or ZAUANNLE (for the US version) replace the "SOUND TEST MODE" screen with the "OBJ TEST MODE" screen. Press Up / Down to change the displayed object, hold A then press Up / Down to change CHR data bank.

On the early development stage, there was another cheat handling routine. The level select enabling cheat was actually the global cheat enable trigger. In addition to the level select you were able to select "OBJ TEST MODE" by pressing B + Select + Start on the first controller, and "SOUND TEST MODE" by pressing A + Select + Start on the same controller. In the final release "OBJ TEST MODE" was disabled and "SOUND TEST MODE" was moved to a simplier cheat combination.

The old cheat routine still can be re-enabled in the Japanese version, since the code is still there, but can't be restored in the US version, where it was completely removed.

Other Debugging Functions

The Game Genie code XTKGETAV re-enables a few in-game debugging functions in both versions of the game. To activate them, you must first enter the stage select code, then choose any stage. The first thing you'll notice is a grey bar flickering across the screen, which represents the amount of CPU time spent processing game logic outside Vblank (the lower the bar, the more processing was done that frame). Your Dragon Energy will be maxed out, and will not decrease when in dragon form. You can also press Select to cycle through Dragon Orb powers (green, red, or blue) at any time. Finally, a stage skip feature was supposed to be available by pressing A on controller 2, but it appears that some pointers got moved during development and it no longer functions (the game will freeze).