Anyone remember those Genesis cart removal cheats?

[Adrian M]

Remember back around 1990 when mags like Gamepro used to publish those cheats in their "ProTips" section that involved putting in a specific game cart into your Genesis, removing the cart while the power was still on, and inserting a different specific cart to access all sort of weird features, cheats, etc?

 

Of course, they always warned against removing carts with the system's power still on, but when done in moderation, it was quite interesting.

 

I vaguely remember one trick for GHOULS N' GHOSTS that brought up the original Japanese Title Screen. You'd put in Space Harrier II (or Golden Axe, I think) first, power up and then remove the game. Then, you'd insert GHOULS N' GHOSTS and hit reset. Sure enough, the Japanese Title Screen (and option screen) would appear!

Many more games offered this bizarre option, but oddly enough, they required SPECIFIC games to make them work. Mostly it was for extra lives, or stage select, etc...but with games like Ghouls N Ghosts and Revenge of Shinobi, you got the Japanese title screens which was far more cool as it appeared that the early Genesis games had both US and JPN versions on them, similar to how NEO GEO games are programmed.

 

How the hell did this work anyway? Was some residual code from the swapped game still in the Genesis RAM which in turn invoked these weird tricks whilst resetting the system with the new game? I've yet to see or read about this sort of "feature" in any other console.

[chrisbid]

these tricks only work in original model genesis units. any unit that displays the "Produced by or under license from Sega" will lockout these tricks

[Adrian M]

these tricks only work in original model genesis units.  any unit that displays the "Produced by or under license from Sega" will lockout these tricks

 

Yep, you're right!

That's why it pays to be an early adopter!

 

Anyway, how did these tricks work exactly?

[Susuwatari]

I'm not sure I understand why it works but I think it's because the RAM in Genesis were reset only when you powered off and not from reset. So when you play game X and then pull it out and plug in Game Y without powering off, the variables stored in RAM were still valid for Game X and not Game Y but because it was not reset and reloaded, game behaves erratically.

 

I used to do this with Altered Beast/Space Harrier II to get 99 lives. (it seems unlimited but it's not!)

[Zaxxon]

Does this work on any other systems?

[thx1138]

Hi,

 

I first learnt of this a couple of days ago. Was leafing through a great big cheats book, and it mentioned removing one cart and replacing with another. It was news to me!

 

I don't want to try it though, with my own hardware in case I bugger it up!

[Susuwatari]

Smart. Genesis carts (at least the early one) were killed easily by static electric. Inserting and removing while Genesis is on have killed the carts.

 

Since ALtered Beast isn't rare (pack in cart) and I have 2 copies of Space Harrier, it's no biggie.

[Adrian M]

My friends and I used to do these tricks and we never had any issues with the systems (or carts) frying...we all had the 1st generation Genesis systems too.

 

Also never had any issues with static electricity killing off our carts...the Genesis and its games were very durable.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Smart.  Genesis carts (at least the early one) were killed easily by static electric.  Inserting and removing while Genesis is on have killed the carts.

 

Since ALtered Beast isn't rare (pack in cart) and I have 2 copies of Space Harrier, it's no biggie.  

I got a stack of 17 bare Sonic 1 boards from a guy once and they were ALL bad.

[Tempest]

I used to do this all the time and I never had one cart die on me. My guess is that these specific carts load some data into certain memory locations that also happen to be used by other games. So Golden Axe may load some level data in a location that a game like Ghouls and Ghosts also uses but for a different purpose (such as storing the number of lives).

 

The Japanese title screen trick actually dates back to the original SMS. What you're basically doing is tricking the BIOS into thinking that it's playing a Japanese game and therefore loads the Japanese title screen. Lots of early games had the original Japanese title screens still inside the game code.

 

Tempest

[RMila75]

From what I remember, a whole lot of these tricks involved starting the system with Altered Beast and then pulling it out and replacing it with another game. Not sure what was so special about Altered Beast.

Wasn't that the first game ever made for the Genesis?

[JB]

From what I remember, a whole lot of these tricks involved starting the system with Altered Beast and then pulling it out and replacing it with another game. Not sure what was so special about Altered Beast.

Wasn't that the first game ever made for the Genesis?

It was the original pack-in game. Hence why it was so popular.

[Classic Pac]

It's like the Revenge of Shinobi / Super Shinobi trick . For that one to work you need first to find the cart were Godzilla has some skin. Even then you maybe out of luck. According to a close friend who actually looked in to this only a limited number the first 5 runs of carts shipped to the US will allow you to do this trick. How many carts that is roughly 50000 or so and no more.

[Rocko]

It's like the Revenge of Shinobi / Super Shinobi trick . For that one to work you need first to find the cart were Godzilla has some skin. Even then you maybe out of luck. According to a close friend who actually looked in to this only a limited number the first 5 runs of carts shipped to the US will allow you to do this trick. How many carts that is roughly 50000 or so and no more.

 

Godzilla? Skin? What are you talking about?