Robo Warrior, known in Japan as Bomber King, is an action spin-off of the Bomberman series. This run uses a glitch to access the game's debug menu, skip to the final level and kill the final boss.
Game objectives
Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.9
Accesses debug menu to skip to final level
Heavy glitch abuse
Comments
I don't really have too much to say here. The run was inspired by a run of Bomber King on niconico, but the US version is shorter by 2 seconds due to being able to skip the title screen much quicker. It does have longer gameplay, however, due to a certain invinciblity glitch with the bombs no longer working. This doesn't matter however, since you have to wait for the background music to completed a full loop before the glitch can be triggered, so all you see is me waiting in the menu for less time. I think the final boss fight is done as fast as possible, so I don't think that this can be improved. I could be wrong, though.
Other Comments
The ROM Hash is incorrect because I started TASing on the (J) version, then switched over. Just ignore it (and fix if you want). Also, first new NES game for me! #TASMania
Noxxa: As has been noted in the discussion topic, the disassembly of the debug menu access method points to it being a deliberate code, and not a glitch. As such, rejecting for using a debug code.
Ok it' a great run, but is it a cheat code you used for skip directly to final level or not?
For me it's an quickly method for access to the debug mode in this game!
I don't vote for instant, i wait your answer for that.
It's not a cheat code, it is a glitch that allows you to access the debug menu. The following must occur for this to be the case
- be at full health
- have exactly 62 bombs in your inventory
- last enemy killed is the grey type (toughest regular enemy)
- facing downward
- background track has completed once
Then when you try to use an energy tank, you unlock the debug menu, which allows you to access the level select screen.
It's not a cheat code, it is a glitch that allows you to access the debug menu. The following must occur for this to be the case
- be at full health
- have exactly 62 bombs in your inventory
- last enemy killed is the grey type (toughest regular enemy)
- facing downward
- background track has completed once
Then when you try to use an energy tank, you unlock the debug menu, which allows you to access the level select screen.
Ok it's very good for a "game & glitch" categorie :)
When you have submit, I think you have forgotten to explain this major glitch for understand your run.
It's short but entertaining...Yes vote
This trick is well known because it is in a strategy guide of the game, which was published only a month after the release of the game.
I highly doubt that this trick is a glitch.
Hmm... The glitch was in Nintendo Power as well:
So, the question is, is it admissible? If a glitch is identified on official channels, does it now become a cheat code? Or does it stay a glitch?
Looks pretty explicit to me. Someone who knows the game better could look at the other RAM addresses that are checked (everything after an LDA) and see if they match the requirements for the "code." Also, poke $1ED to 1 and see if that alone enables the debug features, or whatever it is.
Edit: fixed a couple things I had inadvertently altered.
And I should've spared myself that minor hassle and read ruadath's post and found koitsu's much more useful analysis here: https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=179769&sid=cc28826b29a5d02bd6cd87e575b2c408#p179769
From that same post, I note that the game has an extremely obscure good ending. It would be interesting to see a run of that.
But yeah, this 62-bombs deal does appear to be a deliberate cheat code. I can totally imagine a first-time programmer putting in something like that, and it's clearly not a boundary condition or buffer overflow or other typical kinds of glitch.
From that same post, I note that the game has an extremely obscure good ending. It would be interesting to see a run of that.
That's a different game (the Berlin Wall)
Also, to those claiming that this is a "cheat code," I would argue that even if this an intentional method of accessing the debug menu by the developers, it is quite difficult to pull off such a feat in ~1.25 minutes of gameplay time, since actually getting up to 62 bombs from your starting amount of 20 (after the first screen) requires quite a bit of RNG manipulation, and even the movement required to progress through the level quickly enough to get to the pool is rather difficult to perform on console so quickly.
This distinguishes the game very clearly from one in which you simply enter a menu and type in a password to unlock the final stage of the game by quite a bit.
I was wondering if this game would ever be TASed.
Initially, I was going to say no to this due to the use of the Debug Code.
However, I did remember that DKC2 had something similar to it. A code to get 75 Kremcoins at the start of the game by performing specific actions. The current 102% run on the site uses this code. In fact, to quote the run summary of it.
This movie improves on its predecessor by 45.28 seconds, primarily by using a debug code to get 75 Kremkoins early, allowing for a faster route through the game.
So to really judge solely based on the use of that debug mode would be wrong, and saying no because of it makes me think we'd need to reevaluate the DKC2 102% run, and possibly others as well.. Overall, I only found the final boss part interesting, cause I didn't think that was a thing for this game, even though I know it was a thing for games back in the SNES era. The lead up to the boss isn't too interesting, but it is optimized as best as it can due to the restrictions to access the debug menu.
I'll give it a yes, but I see it as more Vault material than anything else. Now a full game run not using the debug code? I'd like to see that.
For me this is clearly cheating - so i voted "No". Though decisive word is work for a judge of course.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell)
Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
At this point we probably need someone to disassemble the game and check if the debug menu was intended to be possible to unlock or it is really a glitch.
Edit: I mean, Scumtron already comfirmed about the 62 bombs, but what about the other requirements?
The other requirements all appear intentional too if you look at the code: it first check the last enemy killed, then bg music loop, then health, then facing downward, and finally bombs, before enabling debug mode.
As someone who does non-TAS runs of this game, is that method of beating the boss (by seemingly quickly pausing and unpausing during a bomb explosion, I think?) viable for non-TAS runs? If so, that would dramatically change my route for the game.
EDIT: Never mind, it looks like it actually just blasts the final boss with infinite megaton bombs.
After reading all of comments on this run I think it's a cheat code, it's just made for helping the programors to check the game, but the gamers have find this and now it's become a cheat code.I'm sure the game genie have those modifications of ram addresses for obtain this result.
