Toxic Crusaders (NES)

Toxic Crusaders
Developer: TOSE Publisher: Bandai Platform: NES Released in US: April 1992 This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select.

Toxic Crusaders is an NES game based on an animated children's cartoon based on Troma's gory R-rated Toxic Avenger film series.

Needless to say, 1991 was a strange time.

Debug Mode

Game Genie code EESNEYAA enables a fairly in-depth debug mode, which can be accessed by powering on or resetting the game.

Debug Menu

Press Up or Down to select an option, and Start to activate it. The blank options don't seem to do anything.

TO TITLE

Takes you to the copyright screen as if you had turned on the console normally.

OBJ TEST

This mode allows you to view the game's sprites and their animations.

D-Pad: Moves the sprite around. Select: Returns to the main menu. Start: Flips the sprite horizontally. A + D-Pad: Selects a value to modify. B + Left/Right: Decrease/increase the selected value by one. B + Up/Down: Decrease/increase the selected value by ten.

The options in this mode are:

• BNK: Selects which sprite CHR banks are currently loaded. You'll need to play around with these values in order to properly view most of the sprites.
• PAL: Controls the four NES sprite palettes. The first entry in each of the four sets is transparent and not actually displayed on-screen.
• CHR: Controls various sprite parameters. The first value is the current sprite, the second and third values are the sprite's X/Y position, and the fourth value is the sprite's orientation (00 = left, 40 = right).
• OPT: Sprite viewer options. The first value ranges from 00-0B, and seems to control which data set to load the current sprite from; some sprites can only be viewed by changing this value. The second value changes the background color on the lower half of the screen. The third value ranges from 00-07, and controls how many consecutive animation frames to automatically cycle through. The last value ranges from 00-43, and doesn't seem to be used anywhere.

CHR TEST

This mode allows you to view the game's CHR banks. The display is split into two CHR banks; press Up or Down to select a bank, and Left or Right to decrease or increase the selected bank. The background is filled with whatever character is in the top-left corner of the first bank.

Press Select to return to the main menu.

MESSAGE

Lets you view all text and dialogue, starting from "OK?" Hold A to fast-forward through messages. Press A after each message to move on to the next one. Press Select to return to the main menu.

DEMO

A cutscene viewer. Press Left or Right to choose a cutscene ID, and Start to play it. Once the cutscene is finished, you'll be taken to your chosen level.

STAGE

A stage select. Choose from any of the six levels.

In-game Debugging Functions

During the game, on controller 2, hold A and press one of the following buttons:

• B: Cycle weapon power from 0 to 3 and back to 0.
• Down: Skip current level.
• Left: Switch invulnerability on or off for current level. This flag is reset at the start of a new level.

(Source: CaH4e3)

Unused Passwords

Each level uses one of four static passwords, selected randomly. Despite never being shown to the player, levels 1 and 6 both have password sets, though two in each set are set to invalid values ($AB), rendering them unusable. The full list of valid passwords is as follows:

• Level 1: 7969, 1061
• Level 2: 7871, 3276, 9562, 2258
• Level 3: 4092, 5401, 7525, 0263
• Level 4: 6971, 5080, 8956, 3815
• Level 5: 7011, 4843, 8698, 8248
• Level 6: 6154, 9182

Given the fact that there are four possible passwords for each level, and there are four possible weapon power states, it seems likely that the passwords were originally meant to save your weapon power as well. In the final game, your weapon is always reset to its lowest level after using a password.

Unused Graphics

What appears to be a mutant girl's head can be found amongst the title screen graphics.

Easter Egg

In Level 2, before the full moon rises, press Up + A + B on controller 2 to turn the moon red.