In this edition:

• Yuna Remix has a sound/movie/image test mode that can be accessed with a special controller from Hudson.
• The game also has another hidden menu with some cool features. You can’t normally access it at all!
• I’ve made a patch that lets you enter either mode easily.

Get the patch from SegaXtreme !

Intro

Hudson released a special controller for the Saturn to go along with the Saturn Bomberman games — the SBom Joycard:

Its key feature is the “repeat” switches, which will automatically fire their associated button. A handful of Hudson games have special features that can be accessed by using these switches:

• Saturn Bomberman : Change the battle stages to their nighttime variants .
• Saturn Bomberman Fight!! : Access bonus stages .
• Willy Wombat : Access a cutscene viewer .

Add Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna Remix to that list: if you use the Start button switch on the Option screen, you’ll be taken to “Bonus mode.” This was not well-known on the English Internet, but it was sitting right there on the Japanese Wikipedia page for Yuna Remix .

Bonus Mode (Requires SBOM JOYCARD): Connect the SBOM JOYCARD to the 1P port. Upon booting the game, enter the Options menu. Toggle the JOYCARD’s SLOW switch to the Hu- position for at least one second, then flip it back to the NORMAL position for at least one second. A chime will signal that the “Bonus Mode” has been unlocked.

(Translated from the original )

Bonus mode lets you play the videos, sounds, and pictures associated with each section of the game.

Bonus mode isn’t the only hidden feature in the Yuna Remix : there’s also a graphical debug mode. This one isn’t normally accessible; you have to do some hacking to get into it. It goes beyond the text-based debug features that have been known for a while (see TCRF ):

From this menu you can jump to the different scenes of the game, play sounds, select battles, and more.

This article will have details on these extra modes and describe the process of making them accessible without special controllers or hacking.

For each section of the game, you can access a list of items:

Bonus mode

• CPK : Movies for the section
• SS1 : Images for the section
• ACM : Sound effects and voice clips for the section

Accessing it : Fortunately, the code that checks for the SBom Joycard controller in this game is almost identical to the code in Saturn Bomberman . The function at 06007bd4 does the checking, and its return value determines whether the 32-bit value at 06058d84 gets set to 1 .

The Option screen checks that value. If it’s set, it takes you into bonus mode. So all we have to do is replace that dynamic check with a static read of a 1 .

06010662 e001

Now whenever you open the Option screen, it takes you into Bonus Mode.

Debug mode

The high level options are:

• Event : Watch cutscenes.
• Course : Go to a specific section of the game.
• Music : Plays music clips.
• Battle : go to a specific battle.

I don’t read Japanese, but it wasn’t hard for me to figure out how to navigate by clicking around.

Accessing it : as far as I can tell, there’s nothing you can do in the game to unlock this. If the address at 0601074c has a value of 63 when you choose START at the title screen, then it’s enabled. But there’s no apparent way for that address to actually get set to that value.

This patch nullifies that check:

06010718 0009

Outro

For more Saturn hacks & cheats, see my archive here at SHIRO!. I’ll be back with more next week.

If you like retro game reverse engineering, you may also enjoy my Substack blog , where I cover Dreamcast, PlayStation, PS2, PSP, Nintendo 64, GameCube, and 3DO games as well.

	Bo Bayles
		Rings of Saturn: 32bits.substack.com