disassemblies・digital archaeology・data preservation
The end of 2025 is upon us! Let’s see if we can squeak in one last quickie article before the end of the year. Let’s take a brief look at the disabled debug tools inside Rockman 2: The Power Fighters (or Megaman 2, I suppose, if you’re the kind of person who pronounces NES as “ness”).
We have something a bit special today: a prototype of a Mega CD game! (crowd cheers) Unfortunately, it’s one of, if not the worst game for the system: Heavy Nova. (crowd boos) But it does have something pretty interesting within it’s data which redeems its value a bit. (crowd cheers cautiously)
Let’s take a look.
First of all, the game was posted on archive.org here.
Let’s see what’s on the disc compared to the final version:
We’re back on our CPS2 jam, and we’re looking at Alien vs Predator this time. Buried in its code are a bunch of debugging tools and an alternate staff roll. Compared to the mess that was Progear no Arashi, things were pretty straightforward this time, but there’s still a fair bit of technical complexity we need to cover, so let’s get into it.