Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse (Genesis)

To do: Pre-release stuff found from other sources (Including GameHut) and add comparisons between the Travellers' Tales logos and title screens from the US/EU and Japanese versions.

Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse
Developer: Traveller's Tales Publishers: Sony Imagesoft (US/EU), Sega (JP) Platform: Genesis Released in JP: March 31, 1995 Released in US: October 1994 Released in EU: April 1, 1995 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

Mickey Mania is a platform game where you control Mickey Mouse through over 20 levels, based on seven Mickey cartoons from 1928-90, while throwing marbles at enemies and stuff.

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Prototype Info

Unused Graphics

SEGA Logo

The graphics bank for the SEGA logo was copied directly from Puggsy and contains a handful of leftover tiles, including the background stars, chain, and "LICENSED BY SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." text.

Level Select

Go to the Sound Test, set the music to CONTINUE, set the S.E. to APPEAR, set the voice to THINK..., then highlight EXIT and hold Left for five seconds. A short chime will play. Start the game as normal, and the level select screen will appear.

Unused Text

Time Warp

To do: It does have hidden warps like in the SNES version, such as jumping too high and too far in the dungeon for the Prince and the Pauper. (Confirmed by FB user Dalek Nic.)

Starting at offset $2038A in the US ROM is unused text for traveling backwards and forwards in time:

WOW!
MICKEY HAS MANAGED TO
FIND A TIME WARP!!!!
MICKEY GOES BACKWARD..

WOW!
MICKEY HAS MANAGED TO
FIND A TIME WARP!!!!
MICKEY GOES FORWARD..

These messages were intended to come up after a crash as a way of disguising bugs during Sega's testing.

Placeholder Text

Present at offset $20C73:

MICKEY MANIA!
OPTION AND TITLE SCREENS WILL GO HERE
PRESS A BUTTON TO PLAY

At offset $20DE2:

CONGRATULATIONS!
GAME COMPLETE BIT WILL
GO IN HERE...

Regional Differences

The Japanese version uses a newer Traveller's Tales logo, a different title screen, and Japanese message screens. The "number of tries" setting in the menu also uses numerals instead of words.

Besides these, it's identical to the international versions.

Japanese Lockout

If you load the Japanese version into a US or European system, the lockout screen will say "Developed for use only with NTSC Mega Drive Systems". If you use a mod switch or emulator to set the system region to Japan while this screen is displayed, the message will change to "Oh...This machine has some how become an NTSC Mega Drive System" and the game will start. This was added by Jon Burton in response to the growing piracy scene that allowed region switching. Due to the nature of this message, it wouldn't be documented until 2009 thanks to emulators.

Code that checks to see if the Mega Drive is not the Japan version:
  02:2218  41 F9  LEA     ($00A10001),A0          ; Load the address A10001 into A0 (the location of the IO Register that stores the Hardware Version).
  02:221E  10 10  MOVE.B  (A0),D0                 ; Copy byte (Hardware Version) to register D0.
  02:2220  02 00  ANDI.B  #$C0,D0                 ; Perform an AND logical on C0 and byte in register D0 (basically bits 6 to 0 will always become 0, while the bit 8 (Region) and bit 7 (Display) are kept the same)
  02:2224  0C 00  CMPI.B  #$00,D0                 ; Compare the byte in register D0.
  02:2228  66 08  BNE     #$DC [02:2232]          ; If bits 7 & 6 are NOT 00, then jump to offset 22232 (display lock-out text).

The offset to display the lock-out text:
  02:228A  41 F9  LEA     ($000223C6),A0          ; Offset to text:
                                                    DEVELOPED FOR USE ONLY WITH NTSC MEGA DRIVE SYSTEMS

Code that continues to checks to see if the Mega Drive is not the Japan version:
  02:22C4  41 F9  LEA     ($00A10001),A0          ; Load the address A10001 into A0 (the location of the IO Register that stores the Hardware Version).
  02:22CA  10 10  MOVE.B  (A0),D0                 ; Copy byte (Hardware Version) to register D0.                  
  02:22CC  02 00  ANDI.B  #$C0,D0                 ; Perform an AND logical on C0 and byte in register D0 (basically bits 6 to 0 will always become 0, while the bit 8 (Region) and bit 7 (Display) are kept the same)   
  02:22D0  0C 00  CMPI.B  #$00,D0                 ; Compare the byte in register D0.
  02:22D4  66 DC  BNE     #$DC [02:2232]          ; If bits 7 & 6 are NOT 00, then jump to
                                                    offset 22232 (loops code).

The offset to display the bypass text:
  02:22DA  41 F9  LEA     ($00022376),A0          ; Offset to text:
                                                    OH...THIS MACHINE HAS SOME HOW BECOME AN NTSC MEGA DRIVE SYSTEM

Before (US/EU)	After (JP)