Vandal Hearts (PlayStation)

Vandal Hearts
Also known as: Vandal Hearts: Ushinawareta Kodai Bunmei (JP) Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Publisher: Konami Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: October 25, 1996 Released in US: March 27, 1997 Released in EU: June 1, 1997 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has debugging material.

Debug Menu

JP	US/EU

Use the following codes to display a debug menu for the corresponding region:

JP	US	EU
8003649C 01C8 8003649E 0801 800364A0 0000 800364A2 0000	80034538 F9F9 8003453A 0800 8003453C 0000 8003453E 0000 8003E8B0 A24D 8003E8B2 0C02	80034704 FA6C 80034706 0800 80034708 0000 8003470A 0000 8003EA7C A302 8003EA7E 0C02

The JP version patches-in a jump to the menu display function (instruction j 0x80040720). The US and EU versions, besides patching-in their corresponding jumps (j 0x8003e7e4 and j 0x8003e9b0), also require an existing menu label rendering function call to be overriden (jal 0x800a8934 and jal 0x800a8c08). This is due to a bug in the original instruction that calls the rendering function used for Shift-JIS text, which doesn't render ASCII characters besides the newline.

JP Text	JP Translation	US/EU Text	JP Notes
戦闘マップ	Battle Map	BATTLE	Select battle map.
フォントOFF	Font OFF	FONT OFF	Doesn't work.
デバッグモード	Debug Mode	DEBUG MODE	Toggle ON/OFF.
イベントマップ	Event Map	IVENT MAP	Select event map.
ゲームスタート	Game Start	GAME START	Crash the game.
ユニット種類選択	Select Unit Type	UNIT SELECT	Select from number.
セレクトB	Select B	SELECT B	Unknown.

In the US/EU versions, only the BATTLE entry is functional. The other entries seem to have been stripped out, since the menu display function lacks any references to sub-menu texts used by these same entries in the JP version.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Check if there's any dead code for other menu handlers in US/EU versions.

Battle Map Text

The BATTLE entry opens a paginated sub-menu (use arrow keys for navigation), containing the following Shift-JIS text (present in SLUS_004.47 at 0x353C):

テスト
１
２
３
４
５
６
７
８

９
１０
１１
１２
１３
１４
１５
１６
１７
１８

１９
２０
２１
２２
２３
２４
２５
２６
２７
２８

２９
３０
３１
３２
３３
３４
１
２
３
４

５
６
デモ

(Source: Mezmorize (Classic Videogame Hacking))