Zen Nihon Pro Wres Featuring Virtua is was produced by Sega and Scarab. As the name suggests, it’s a Japanese pro wrestling game that features two Virtua Fighter characters. The two are Wolf Hawkfield and Jeffry McWild.
I previously reported on some debug features hiding out in the game’s code. But I missed something when I went through it the first time: a long-hidden cheat code! Below are details on what it does and how it works.
Shinbun mode
Enter this sequence at the title screen:
A, B, C, Left, Right, Down, B, C, Left, B
You’ll hear a sound effect if you got it right. And when you press Start, you’ll be able to select Shinbun from the main menu:
“Shinbun” (新聞) means “newspaper.” This is a feature you can unlock without a cheat code by creating your own wrestler and finishing his career (ref).
The mode has several newspaper pages featuring Japanese pro wrestlers that you can flip through:
Here are a couple that show off Jeffry and Wolf from Virtua Fighter:
The pages take a while to load, so be patient when viewing them.
Technical details
The cheat code modifies data for the mode select screen. It initially looks like this:
06049ac8 00 # 1P mode
06049ac9 01 # VS mode (enabled)
06049aca 02 # Featuring mode
06049acb 04 # Training mode
06049acd FF # Shinbun(disabled)
06049ace FF # Debug (disabled)
The FF values indicate disabled items — normally Shinbun and Debug are disabled.
The function at 06049950 checks your input against the cheat code, which is represented by sequence of button patterns:
06049aa0 0400 # A
06049aa2 0100 # B
06049aa4 0200 # C
06049aa6 4000 # Left
06049aa8 8000 # Right
06049aaa 2000 # Down
06049abc 0100 # B
06049abe 0200 # C
06049ab0 4000 # Left
06049ab2 0100 # B
This is a standard mapping used in many Saturn games.
When you get an entry right, the counter at 06049ad0 increments.After the last button is pressed, the mode select screen data is updated. The address 06049acc is given the value 05, which enables the Shinbun item.
You can enable the Debug menu item by setting 06049ace to 06.
Outro
Many thanks to Malenko (previously seen assisting on this article) for testing this code out on hardware.
See the Hacks & Cheats category here at SHIRO! for more articles like this one. And for more retro game reverse engineering, see my Rings of Saturn blog — this week it features the Dreamcast Death Crimson sequels.
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