Gaiares

Gaiares
Developer: Renovation Game Publishers: Telenet Japan (JP), Renovation Products (US) Platform: Genesis Released in JP: December 26, 1990 Released in US: 1990 This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

Gaiares is a great shoot-'em-up game that is notable for being one of the first 8Mb cartridge games on the Genesis.

"Command Enable"

At $304 is the text:

Created Time   :$A1F3618 By ABS
$FFFFE4 Bit1=1:COMMAND ENABLE  

The given creation time ($A1F3618) is actually stored as a 32-bit value in the ROM. The format is unknown; it is not Unix time.

Setting bit 1 of $FFFFE4 does indeed set special debug options. This bit can be set by going into the options menu (hold A + B + C on the title screen and press Start), selecting BGM 18, then quitting the menu while holding A on Controller 2.

The cheat is presently known to have two effects:

• A stage select is presented upon starting a game. There are two extra unmarked options at the end of this. The first is an alternate sound effect test (B plays incremental SFX). The second shows the current value of $FFFFE4; A or B toggle the highest bit (its purpose is currently unknown).
• Pausing and unpausing will cycle through the possible weapons and power levels. To do this, first pause, then hold Up. While holding Up, press either A + Start (cycle through weapons), C + Start (cycle through power levels), or A + C + Start (cycle through both). You can hold the face buttons and then press Start; however, you must have Up held before pressing anything else for the codes to work.

To do: Are there other effects? Is this an emulator bug or does the HUD not update at all after cycling until you die? Also need to find out about that other value.