Download Shinobi III Enhancement Hack ROM Hack

                                Shinobi III
                              Enhancement Hack




 History
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111009 Initial release




 Overview
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This is a patch for the American release of Shinobi III for the Sega Genesis.
It makes numerous enhancements to the game.

The genesis of this project began while playing Shadow Dancer in my preferred
no-shuriken mode. I asked myself, "What would Shinobi III be like if it had
a similar mode to disable shuriken throwing?" We're about to find out...

This project also gave me the opportunity to fix a few minor annoyances in
an otherwise nearly perfect game, including the nonstandard spellings of
such Japanese words as 'ninjutsu' and 'shuriken'. (Those examples are spelled
correctly; note the single quotes.)

A handful of interesting features were added as well.




 Applying the Patch
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Hopefully included with this document is a patch file in the IPS format.
You can use any program that fully supports that file format to apply this
translation patch to your ROM file.

Make sure you are patching the American version of the game.




 Playing the Game
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Once you've patched the ROM file, simply load it up in your favorite
Genesis / Mega Drive emulator, console copier, or flash cartridge.

To temporarily disable shuriken throwing, press Start to pause the game and
then press Up. A red slash will appear over the shuriken icon to indicate
that shuriken throwing has been locked. Simply press Down while in the pause
menu to resume the standard attack mode.

To change the number of shuriken thrown during a somersault, press B or C
in the pause menu to reveal the default settings of 8:8. These numbers
represent the maximum number of shuriken that can be thrown in the first
and subsequent throws during a somersault (subject to limits). Press Up or
Down while holding B or C to change the values. B corresponds to the first
number, and C the second. Reducing the first number will have the most
noticeable effect.

To quadruple the maximum number of shuriken allowed in-play simultaneously,
enter the infinite-shuriken code (set S.E. to "SHURIKEN" then set shuriken
stock to 00 and wait) but hold down C while waiting.


Character Editor:

To start the Character Editor, hold down buttons A, B, and C as you press
Start. This won't work in some situations, such as the pause menu and during
a ninjutsu sequence. To exit the Character Editor, press Start with no
other buttons depressed. (For compatibility, B + Start will also work.)

A side-effect of the buttons used is that you will probably activate your
ninjutsu if you try to run the Character Editor during gameplay. This was
a trade-off between accessibility and safety, since it is possible to
accidentally reset your game (see below) in the editor, which is merely
a novelty rather than a useful feature anyway. One way to avoid this is
to throw a shuriken or do some other move which temporarily blocks ninjutsu.

Within the Character Editor, pressing Start while A, B, and C are held down
will reset the game. In effect, this means you can do a soft reset of the
game if you hold down all three buttons and then press Start twice.

Note that the above behavior is different from how the editor used to work.


Six-Button Mode:

To activate six-button mode, insert a suitable controller into the first port
and then press the Mode button anywhere in the options screen. Press it again
to return to the standard input configuration.

The control scheme for six-button mode changes as follows:

Ninjutsu -> Guard
Attack   -> Slash
Jump     -> Jump

The above control changes are depicted in the options screen when
in six-button mode. Those buttons can be reconfigured as normal.

The additional buttons cannot be configured and are always as follows:

Mode Button: Switch ninjutsu
Button X:    Use ninjutsu
Button Y:    Throw shuriken
Button Z:    Throw shuriken




 Q & A
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Q: This patch doesn't work! What do I do?

A: Make sure that your ROM file is not in an interleaved format. It's also
   possible that there is more than one version of the game, or that your
   copy is corrupt.

   Some emulators may also fail to run the program. Please make sure you try
   several of the most up-to-date emulators available.

   Also be sure you are patching a pristine copy of the American version.


Q: It doesn't work with my copier / flash cartridge! Why not?

   This was tested on a real Genesis so you shouldn't have any problems in
   that respect. The most likely reason is that something went wrong during
   the patching process. See the previous question and try it in an emulator
   to see if that works.


Q: I put in a six-button controller but it isn't working as expected.

A: You have to activate six-button mode first. Press the Mode button at any
   time while in the options screen to toggle modes. The current mode will
   be visible beneath the control type option.

   If you're using an emulator, make sure it is configured properly and is
   a recent version. Make sure you try mapping the Genesis controller to your
   keyboard, as that is the most reliable method.

   Input multiplexers are not supported. Make sure you detach any special
   devices if you are having problems.

   If you're still having problems, it could be due to a software or hardware
   issue of some sort. Try running a game that has a built-in input test,
   such as Contra Hard Corps, and make sure the Mode button is working.

   If you're certain you've discovered a compatibility problem, go ahead and
   report it, but be sure to include as much relevant information as you can.

   For what it's worth, I tested this with four six-button controllers,
   comprising two different Sega models and one third-party model.


Q: I activated six-button mode then left the options mode and put in
   a three-button controller. Why isn't it working correctly now?

A: While it is possible to safely switch controllers in the options mode,
   I didn't put in safeguards for every possible situation.

   If you really want to do something so stupid, you'll need to return to the
   options mode where it will automatically revert to three-button mode if it
   cannot confirm that a six-button controller is present in the first port.


Q: Is this a retranslation?

A: Not really. Part of the ending text was reworded slightly, based on
   the Japanese version, in order to remove ambiguity, but that's it.
   The original translation seems fine.


Q: Why are some of the words of Japanese origin spelled differently?

A: The original game used some old and unconventional romanizations, some of
   which, like "shuriKIN", may simply have been a conscious submission to the
   realities of English pronunciation.


Q: Why does it say "shuriken" instead of "shurikens"?

A: 'Shuriken', being a Japanese word, is properly written unchanged when used
   in the plural form. There is actually a sound effect called "SHURIKENS",
   but that was left unchanged to distinguish it from the "SHURIKEN" one.


Q: What about "Ikadzuchi" instead of "Ikazuchi"?

A: It's an older, classier way to write the same thing. The 'd' is silent.

   The homophone pair 'phantasm' and 'fantasm' is a good example of this
   same phenomenon in English.


Q: What is the name of the move where you throw shuriken while somersaulting?

A: It seemed like every source I checked had different names for every move.
   The most reliable English references I could find called it Shuriken Burst
   or Shuriken Rain. The Japanese name seems to be Hassou Shuriken, which is
   pretty generic, Hassou being used for other moves as well. (Apparently it
   is the name of a particular fighting style.)


Q: What's the deal with this Character Editor thingy?

A: It's a fairly powerful(*) developer tool. It was probably quite beneficial
   during the game's development, but these days it is little more than a
   curiosity. It was put back in for completeness more than anything else.

   I have made no attempt to document it beyond how to get out of it.

   (*) Some features seem to have been removed, perhaps for space reasons.


Q: Is it possible to get the Perfect bonus in Round 5?

A: I don't believe so. There is an out-of-the-way box near the end that must
   be destroyed before you can advance. You can break it open with either
   thrown shuriken or offensive ninjutsu, but you forfeit the Perfect bonus
   that way. I've been able to cut open the box, but it's probably impossible
   to make it back to safety.

   I considered forgiving one shuriken throw in Round 5, but decided to just
   leave things as they are. Maybe this situation was an oversight (after all,
   it is extremely difficult to earn the Perfect bonus in later stages) but
   perhaps the designers were aware of the consequences: there is an extra
   ninjutsu pick-up in the same area (albeit well hidden) which could be used
   to preserve your Shinobi bonus.

   So perfection is unattainable, at least in Round 5. C'est la vie.


Q: How come I never get the Shinobi bonus no matter how well I do?

A: You're doing it wrong. See below.




 Scoring System
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Extra lives are awarded at regular intervals depending on the difficulty:

Easy:   50,000
Normal: 50,000
Hard:   70,000
Expert: 90,000 (suppressed)


The bonuses awarded at the end of each round are as follows:

Shinobi Bonus:
  Points:       30,000
  Criterion:    No shuriken thrown during this round

Ninjutsu Bonus:
  Points:       5,000 x ninjutsu uses remaining
  Criterion:    No ninjutsu used during this round

Technical Bonus:
  Points:       500 x health remaining (8,000 max)
  Criteria:     None

Special Bonus:
  Points:       10,000
  Criterion:    Finish the round with full health

Perfect Bonus:
  Points:       50,000
  Criteria:     No shuriken thrown during this round
                No ninjutsu used during this round
                Finish the round with full health   (redundant; see below)
                Never injured during this round *
                Unknown criterion (probably not used) **

 * Note that harmless collisions and instant death don't count as injuries.
** I've never seen this flag set and I can't find any code that sets it.

With the exception of the two health-related criteria, none of the flags are
reset upon death, even if you use a continue. They are only cleared when you
start a new round.

So basically, to get the little-known Perfect bonus, you need to earn all
the other bonuses and finish the entire round without ever getting injured.

It's unfair, but you can necessarily get more points from the Technical bonus
when playing in normal/easy mode, since your life bar is longer.

An easy way to get the Special bonus and max out the Technical bonus is to
kill the boss using Mijin, albeit at the cost of one life and forfeiture of
the Ninjutsu bonus -- probably a net loss unless you're playing for score.

Note that the "No Ninjutsu" bonus was renamed as simply "Ninjutsu" to get all
the bonus text aligned more easily. Apologies if this causes any confusion.




 Other Methods
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In the event you wish to sample the no-shuriken-mode experience without
having to apply this patch (e.g. on a real Genesis sans special equipment),
I can suggest two methods. You will need certain accessories in both cases.

First of all, please understand that simply setting your shuriken stock to
zero in the options mode (and thereafter avoiding any shuriken pick-ups) will
not work -- the game awards you extra shuriken after each round (the amount
given will be the round number multiplied by ten.) Even without that it would
still be a hassle to have to check each item before deciding whether or not
to pick it up.

True, you could simply never throw a shuriken, but that is very difficult to
do consistently with the default control scheme; the reason Shadow Dancer's
no-shuriken mode is so admirable is that it makes your attacks uniform
without requiring an extreme level of skill. Furthermore, I don't believe
it is possible to guard without throwing a shuriken (in three-button mode),
which makes it even more difficult.


Method 1: Enter the following code on a cheating device and set your initial
shuriken count to zero. You will never gain any shuriken.

035FAE:4E75 (address:data)
  RZST-G6ZR (Game Genie)


Method 2: Attach a six-button controller to the first port and either kind
of controller to the second port, then perform the steps listed below.

At the main menu, move the cursor to "OPTIONS" but do not press Start yet.
Hold down the Mode button on pad 1 and Up & C on pad 2.
While still holding the other buttons, press Start on the first controller.

If you did this correctly, the 'S' will be missing from the word OPTIONS
after the screen changes to the options mode.

This code enables six-button mode, which has separate buttons for slashing,
guarding, and switching ninjutsu, in addition to the usual functions.
Note that you can reconfigure the first three buttons in the options mode,
but most of the labels will be incorrect.

(Be aware that the above only applies to an unpatched cartridge -- my patch
makes six-button mode easier to activate and corrects the configuration.)

In six-button mode, it is trivial to avoid throwing shuriken: simply refrain
from pressing Y or Z. (The full list of controls is in an earlier section.)

It should be obvious from the difficulty of activating it that six-button
mode was never officially supported by Sega; I only discovered it by chance
while analyzing the game. This may be the first time this code was published.
(Note that the previous statement was written way back in October of 2011.)




 Technical Notes
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One of the new features of the pause mode is the ability to adjust the number
of shuriken thrown in the first and subsequent bursts. This allows you to
customize a little-known feature of the game: the ability to throw multiple
shuriken several times in a single somersault. Normally you will never
be able to take advantage of this ability since the game limits the number
of in-play shuriken to eight: the same number you throw. Unless you're using
powered-up shuriken, your missiles will probably all persist until after you
are no longer eligible to perform Hassou Shuriken anymore.

The ability to change the shuriken burst numbers introduces numerous
possibilities, the most obvious one being conserving shuriken. The default
bursts are 8:8 (first and subsequent respectively), which is the same as the
original game (technically, it was 8:9 -- a bug). Unless you've used the
code to raise the on-screen limit, you'll probably never actually be able
to throw that many, however.

The original Hassou Shuriken move would always fire eight shuriken regardless
of the actual number remaining. This was clearly intentional from the code,
but it has been "fixed" anyway. No more freebies. Interestingly, this did not
apply to subsequent throws, but those were always limited by the number of
shuriken in play anyway.

Making full use of the shuriken-limit-increase code will induce slow-down
and occasionally cause or exacerbate sprite masking. It actually seems to
be possible to go higher than that, but the effects get more pronounced
and I have no easy way to validate how safe any of this is. Note that you
can turn off infinite-shuriken mode after inputting the code, but this is
not recommended for practical reasons. To get rid of the effect, do the
infinite shuriken code again, but don't hold down C.


The Character Editor is buggy in the release version of the game (not a big
deal since it is not accessible without modifying the program anyway.)
Pressing Start is supposed to switch to a second mode, but causes the game
to reboot instead. (Yeah, that's not actually a convenience feature.)

After a half-hearted attempt to get it working, I disabled the buggy mode
switch entirely and replaced it with a real software reset, since that was
ultimately a useful, if unintentional, feature. While it might not seem
any different from a user's perspective, it is cleaner that way -- the buggy
way of resetting the game would corrupt persistent RAM (which is what lead me
to investigate this in the first place.)


I rarely bother with this sort of thing, but since there was only one change
to the European version that really mattered, and since the intro runs into
problems without it, I added a fix for when the game is run on a PAL system.
It won't work if you switch modes while running. This change, combined with
the region-free fix, should completely obviate the need for a European
edition of this patch.


        (Shh! 680x0 programmers only!)

I happened to notice a nice bit of logic in this game:

        LEA     $FFxxxx,A0
        MOVE.W  A0,D1
        NOT.W   D1              ; ($10000 - xxxx) - 1
        [DBF loop omitted]

I don't know how it compares speed-wise to an immediate MOVE.W,
but it sure is a clever use of one's complement to get a free decrement.




 List of Changes (not exhaustive)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Region lockout disabled
Resetting the game no longer disrupts the display
Sega logo can now be skipped by pressing Start
Minor textual changes, ambiguities removed, nonstandard spellings corrected
Shuriken lock option added to pause window (press up/down)
Shuriken burst now respects the actual number of shuriken remaining
Shuriken burst now configurable
Ninjutsu selection no longer blocked when out of ninjutsu
A couple of sound effects were put back into the options mode
Character Editor reinstated, albeit with a different activation mechanism
A _real_ soft-reset feature was added to the Character Editor
Six-button controller support enabled
Added a code to raise the amount of shuriken allowed in-play simultaneously
A fix was added to emulate the European version when in PAL mode




 Final Thoughts
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Playing through the game without shuriken provides new challenges and adds
quite a bit of eustress, particularly in Round 6. I found the self-imposed
limitation provided deeper insight to the game's mechanics and made me a more
proficient player.

The one questionable aspect of this patch is that it makes the Shinobi bonus,
and therefore the Perfect bonus, easier to obtain. I defend this on the
grounds that you can accomplish the same thing by using the unofficial
six-button mode even on an unpatched cartridge. (The riposte to this would
be, obviously, the fact that Sega never officially supported six-button mode
for some reason.) Furthermore, Shadow Dancer awarded you the Shinobi bonus
even in no-shuriken mode; you would necessarily get it simply for completing
any non-boss stage in that case.

I hope this release stirs up some renewed interest in this fantastic game.
I discovered many interesting things while working on this project, not all
of which are presented herein. Be sure to read this entire document -- lots
of interesting tidbits are scattered throughout.

Please don't plagiarize any part of this.