The longest fuse
Unlocking hidden features in prototype demos of Saturn Bomberman
In this edition:
A new (old) prototype version of Saturn Bomberman can now be explored.
Remarkably, it has different characters from the final version.
It has a unique debug menu that you can activate.
You can play it with a patch!
…and there a more prerelease builds to examine.
Saturn Bombermam is a beloved 32-bit game, most notable for its 10 player Battle mode. It was published in Japan in 1996, and in other regions in 1997. Pre-release press coverage (and the Japanese cover art) called it Bomberman SS.
A preview of Bomberman SS appeared on the Flash Sega Saturn: Coming Soon Volume1 demo disc, which was bundled with Saturn consoles for a time. It featured a single round of Battle mode, followed by a “Coming in Summer 1996” screen.
It’s been noted that this demo is built on a prototype version of the game: the Hudson logo and title screen don’t match the released version. But that’s all that can be seen, given the limited nature of the preview
…or is it?
It turns out that this demo disc has a build of the entire game on it! With some hacking, all three game modes - Normal, Battle, and Master - can be unlocked.
The single player modes look pretty similar to the final build. However, Battle mode has something really cool: two different playable characters. Ziria from Far East of Eden and Pretty Bomber.2 They replace Honey and Kotetsu.
Also, there’s a hidden TEST OPTION menu. It lets you play movie and sound files, manipulate save game data, and more:
A good indication that there’s more to this demo than meets the eye is the file system. Compare its Bomberman SS resources to the ones in the final game:
Two things stand out:
The only extra things the final game has are movie and sound files
The two
.BINfiles are exactly the same size.
So there can’t be that much missing in the demo. Indeed, when you look at the code, you can see that most of the functions that nerf the demo have corresponding “full game” variants present.
To explore the demo, we’ll need to enable the mode select screen. The demo version’s title screen takes you straight into Battle mode when you press start. We can change one function call to fix that:
06033e58 06030e78
We’ll also need to prevent crashes due to the missing media files. I started with the final game’s disc image and replaced the .BIN files with the one from the demo.
The demo doesn’t let you see the Battle mode setup screen by default. It also tries to go back to the Flash Sega Saturn screen after the battle finishes. We can fix that with these patches:
06017458 060383fa
060174e2 0009
060174e6 0009
060174f8 432b(There’s not quite enough space to fully hook up the trophy and bonus screens. I may revisit this in the future…)
The TEST OPTION screen, which is hidden behind a flag at 060c1464, can be enabled with this patch:
06031d40 e001
06031e06 e001Now we can watch the movies (CPK PLAYER), listen to the music (AIF PLAYER) and sound effects (SE TEST), see the ending movie (ENDING), and manipulate the game’s save file (BACKUP DATA).3
But wait, there’s more: there are two other prerelease build of Saturn Bomberman. Flash Sega Saturn Vol. 7 and Flash Sega Saturn Vol. 8 both include one too. They let you play one round of Battle mode in one of the normal stages or in the “Wide” stage.
These builds are closer to the final game: they’ve got the newer Hudson logo and title screen, and don’t have Ziria or Pretty Bomber. I haven’t analyzed them deeply yet, but I think the most interesting thing about them is that the debug menu doesn’t really render - you can navigate, but its text is invisible.
Something else that exists: the Saturn Bomberman Sample Disc. Its files predate the final build’s, but you’d be hard pressed to tell a difference between the two. Am I missing something, or is this a very generous demo? You can’t save your game, but you can play all the modes. I’m told it may have been for retail kiosks.
There are probably more unique things about these prototype builds! If you spot differences that I haven’t mentioned here, do let me know. You have my permission and encouragement to use the information and screenshots on this page to update, say, Hidden Palace and The Cutting Room Floor.
Send me your suggestions for Saturn games and demos to look into!
It’s usually called Flash Sega Saturn: Ochikadzuki-hen. My friend Michael Stearns helped me with a better translation.
This was first noted by Bomberman specialist Random Hoo Haas, who beat me to the punch on the identification! Well done. Check out his excellent Saturn Bomerman page.
The final game has a similar debug menu, but it doesn’t have the BACKUP DATA option. I’ll write about this another time!