Thunder & Lightning (NES)

Thunder & Lightning
Also known as: Family Block (JP) Developer: Visco Publishers: Romstar (US), Athena (JP) Platform: NES Released in JP: April 12, 1991 Released in US: December 1990 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has regional differences.

Just another one of those Breakout-type games, this time with co-op multiplayer!

Unused Graphics

Frames of the pyramid block cracking rather than dividing when hit as it does in the final.

A mahjong tile, which may have been intended as a type of obstacle.

A rounded block. May also be a mahjong tile (white dragon), since it is stored underneath the previous one.

Two frames for what appears to be a bubble.

A piece of glass or ice, another possible obstacle.

An egg-block, stored next to the turtle-shell blocks used in stage 3, 13, and 23.

What may have been an unused background pattern. The graphics are set up in order of appearance in the ROM.

Unused Music

The round/lives display screen has music, whose beginning is very similar to the title screen music, but you never get to hear the full song. If you did, you'd notice that it doesn't actually have the same melody, and that it's slightly different from the title screen music. Use the Game Genie code ZAKATAPA to listen to the full song at the title screen instead of the original melody.

There are some unused sound effects as well. Tracks 1, 5, 8, $B, $C, $D, $13, $14, $16, $17 in the SE pointer table are unused (the actual in-game index is $0A higher).

Ending

There is a total of 30 valid levels in both the US and Japanese versions of the game. Upon completing level 30, the game unceremoniously ends with a GAME OVER screen - kind of a slap in the face, considering how difficult the game is. For some reason, the Japanese version continues on to level 31, 32, etc. afterwards, which are nothing but garbage; the US version at least fixes this oversight.