The Immortal (NES)

The Immortal
Developer: Sandcastle Publishers: Electronic Arts (original), Piko Interactive (Nintendo Switch Online) Platform: NES Released in US: November 1990 Released in EU: July 15, 2020 (Nintendo Switch Online) Released in AU: July 15, 2020 (Nintendo Switch Online) Released in KR: July 15, 2020 (Nintendo Switch Online) This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material.

Contrary to the title, you are anything but immortal in this frustratingly cryptic and surprisingly violent Nintendo-approved game. The impressive graphics and creepy music are almost enough to distract you from how easy it is to die in this game, and the methods of which seem almost infinite.

Unused Graphics

Treasure Pile

An unused pile of treasure that's present in other versions of the game, but went unused here for some reason. If the other versions are anything to go by, it would have acted similar to the treasure chest, which is perhaps why it was ultimately cut.

Ulindor's Death

Similar to other versions, it looks like it was possible for Ulindor to be killed by a goblin at the start of Level 1 should the player not intervene quickly enough. These sprites and the death animation go unused here. It is still possible to see the animation in game via hacking, by starting at Level 1, walking into the room where Ulindor is fighting the goblin, walking carefully as not to trigger the goblin, and changing CPU memory address $06C7 from $A3 to $03, which implies that 10 hits from the goblin would be enough to kill him. Note that killing Ulindor in Level 1 prevents Level 2 from being completed, as he does not give you the key you need to open the chest containing the spores, gold and bait, all of which are required for beating later levels.

Unused Text

Some versions of The Immortal have a scene in the 2nd to last level where Ulindor tries to kill you for knowing too much. In the NES version, this was replaced with a regular goblin that says he was sent in by Mordamir. However, the monologue Ulindor gives in the other versions is still present inside the NES ROM:

You found Dunric, did you? 
What did he tell you? 
He told you about Mordamir, didn't he? 
Then I'll have to kill you.

CPU Register Debug Screen

It is possible to get this screen to appear by entering a valid password that gives invalid stats, such as 993syyyyyyyyy which should give you 15 hit-points, 255 power, everything in the inventory, 2550 gold and on level 15. The middle character, "X", no longer exists in the game's font and appears corrupt as a result.

Although the game waits for the player to press B to continue, the code seems to be broken, and the CPU will eventually hit invalid code and sometimes lock up after the button is pressed.