Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III

Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III
Developer: Taito Publisher: Taito Platform: Arcade (Taito Darius II hardware) Released in JP: May 1992 This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select.

The Japan-exclusive Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III is the third part of Rastan's shaggy dog story. It's a strange take on the beat 'em up genre in that you're expected to beat up your enemies, but you're not really obligated to; if you have enough skill, you can run right past 'em and straight to the boss.

Round Select

This game uses the Taito Code:

• While the game boots up, hold the Service Coin button until the "SERVICE SWITCH ERROR" message pops up on the screen.
• Then, press 1P Start (x3), Service Coin, 1P Start. The stage select menu should then appear.

Use 1P Joystick to select a round and 1P Start to start the game. Unlike most Taito games, entering this code won't give the player any credits or other assistance (Max lives, health, etc.) "Round" is also a bit misleading; this is actually a scene selector. For instance, Round 35 goes to the ending, and Round 36 goes to the Game Over screen.

High Score Names

There are two groups of names that the game filters out of high score lists. The first group is made up of profane terms:

Original	Changed	Notes
SEX_____	H NE!	This one's just calling the player a perv...
_SEX____	SUKEBEI	...and in this one, a lech.
__SEX___	DARIUS97	Either the developers had precognitive abilities or they meant Darius87.
___SEX__	NIGHT	The replacement names reference the game Night Striker.
____SEX_	STRIKER
_____SEX	CAMELTRY	Another reference to a Taito game: Cameltry.
FUCK YOU	FROGRACE	The two filtered names, when combined, are a likely reference to The Terminator. "Frog Race" and "Curry" are both mini-games in Taito's Yuuyu no Quiz de GO! GO!
ASS HOLE	CURRY

The second group consists of other video game companies and a rogue Taito reference:

Original	Changed	Reference
SEGA	█UT RU█	Sega's seminal 1986 driving game OutRun.
NAMCO	BER█B█O!	Namco's 1988 action platformer Bravoman, with ベラボー romanized as BERABOO.
KONAMI	GR█D█US	Konami's Gradius series.
CAPCOM	CH█N L█	Chun-Li of Street Fighter II fame. Trying to fit "Street Fighter" in 8 letters is a bit much.
JALECO	R█D L█ND	Jaleco's 1990 platformer Rod Land.
DECO	PINBALL	A general reference to Data East's pinball games.
UPL	N█NJA█UN	UPL's 1984 action game Ninja-Kun - Majou no Bouken. Published by Taito.
TOAPLAN	T█TS█J█N	Toaplan's Tatsujin a.k.a Trutxon, a vertical shooter published by Taito in Europe and Japan.
IREM	█.TYPE	Irem's R-Type series.
SNK	N█OG█O	SNK'S Neo Geo system(s).
YUUYU	GO! GO!	Another reference to Yuuyu no Quiz de GO! GO!

There's a special case for names made up of a single character ("AAAAAAAA", "11111111", etc.) including a completely blank name. They're replaced by a randomly selected name from the following list:

BONZ ADV	CHAMPION	WRESTLER	SONIC	BLASTMAN	PAPARA	A.H.O	BAKA
MANUKE	NANASHI	GONBEI	YHOHOI	UKKY!!!	DORORON	DARADARA	MONKY

Bonze Adventure, Champion Wrestler, and Sonic Blast Man are all Taito games.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Region Flag

The region flag at 0x0FFFFE is usually only set to a single value, 0x01, as the game was never released outside of Japan. The game has partial support for three other regions; putting the following code in MAME's warriorb.xml cheat file will allow the user to swap between them:

  <cheat desc="Region Flag">
    <parameter>
      <item value="0x0002">USA</item>
      <item value="0x0003">World</item>
    </parameter>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.mw@FFFFE=param</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.mw@FFFFE=0x0001</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

• If the flag is set to USA, the export warning is adjusted accordingly. "World" has no export warning screen.

It also includes a "Winners Don't Use Drugs" screen with the same "Drags" typo as the one in Sagaia.

INT	USA
1 Coin / 1 Credit	1 Coin / 1 Credit
1 Coin / 2 Credits	2 Coins / 1 Credit
2 Coins / 1 Credit	3 Coins / 1 Credit
3 Coins / 1 Credit	4 Coins / 1 Credit

• When set to USA, the standard Taito coinage changes apply.

JP	INT

• The Japanese version adds a subtitle underneath the area name, something obviously not needed in other regions.

JP
INT

• Cutscenes always feature English text. If set to Japan, the English text appears in full on the top of the screen, while the Japanese equivalent is slowly printed on the bottom of the screen.

In all other regions, the English text is slowly printed on the bottom of the screen, while the top of the screen is empty.

JP
INT

• The Game Over screen is the only instance of exclusively Japanese text. In set to anything other than Japan, the text is removed.

INT
NA

• The southeast section's final area is usually called the Palace of the Black Demon Religion, but it's the Palace of the Black Evil Religion if the region flag is set to USA.

However, the text on the world map will always say "Demon" regardless of the region flag.

(Source: Original TCRF research)