Under the microscope: Death Crimson OX and friends (Dreamcast)

Why "OX?"

In this edition:

• Death Crimson OX has a cheat code that enables some cool debug features.

• That code seems to have come from its predecessor, Death Crimson 2.

• The debug features also got copied into the other Dreamcast games from Ecole: Musapey’s Choco Marker, Blue-Sky-Blue, and Utau Tumbling Dice.

The debug menus in the Death Crimson games give you access to sound and movie tests, a free camera mode, and more. Details are below!

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Death Crimson OX

The TCRF page for the PlayStation 2 game Guncom 2, a.k.a. Death Crimson OX+, describes a debug menu cheat. Does it exist in the Dreamcast original, Death Crimson OX?

Answer: yes! At the title screen, press and hold Up+Right+B+Y+R and press Start. The main menu will get a new Extra option:

This provides a level select menu, plus access to two System menus:

The first system menu has these options:

The items are:

• 0-1 Ending: Starts the staff roll.

• 0-2 Title Screen: Exits to the title screen.

• 0-3 Targeting Setup: Seems to require a light gun.

• 0-4 Sound Test: Doesn’t work.

• 0-5 Shooting Demo: Doesn’t work.

• 0-6 Movie Demo: Plays a cut scene.

• 0-7 Mission Mode: Launches mission mode.

The second system menu has these items:

In English, they are:

• BGM: Background music test

• SE: Sound effect test

• Dream Passport: Doesn’t work

• Sofdec Movie Display: Doesn’t work

• Listen to Voice/Audio: Loops back to this menu

After entering the Extras code, you can get the debug menu described on TCRF by pressing L+R+A during gameplay:

The Nindows item is the Dreamcast debug system that’s in several games:

The カメラ·キャラ配置 item (character and camera adjustment) is the coolest thing; it allows you to move through the immediate area and see information about each object:

Technical details: the function at 8c011b92 (NTSC-U version) listens for input at the mode selection screen. If the right buttons are held, the flag at 8c08db90 is set. This unlocks the Extras menu, and causes the function at 8c054d80 to start listening for input during gameplay.

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Death Crimson 2

Wait a minute, doesn’t the background of the debug menu above say Death Crimson 2 instead of Death Crimson OX? Hmm, I wonder if the previous game has a similar set of debug features…?

Yes, it does! At the title screen:

• Hold the face buttons A, B, and Y

• Also hold the analog triggers L and R

• Also hold the D-pad Down

• Also hold the analog stick Northeast

• Finally press Start

I had to use my nose to hit that last button. The reward was another Extra menu:

The top level menu looks like this (machine translation on the right):

Items 1 through 5 are scene selection menus. Item 0 is a system menu:

The last item is another system menu, and it matches the one above from Death Crimson OX.

During gameplay you can press L+R+Up+Right+Y and press A to bring up the debug menu:

Once again it’s the third item — the free camera — that’s coolest to play with.

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Musapey’s Choco Marker

Now I know you’re wondering, “when will he get to Musapey’s Choco Marker?” Be patient! This is an arcade puzzle game that was also developed by Ecole. It’s got the debug menu, too.

Hold Up+Right+B+Y+R and press Start at the title screen. You won’t see any indication that it worked, but once you begin a game you can hold L+R and press A.

The Nindows interface works, but most of the other ones don’t— I think they’re tied to features in Death Crimson OX.

You can press Down+Start to skip to the next stage during gameplay. Left+Start and Right+Start switch modes in some difficult to understand way.

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Blue-Sky-Blue: Sora o Mau Tsubasa

In for a penny, in for a pound — how about Ecole’s visual novel Blue-Sky-Blue? The debug activation code works here, too. Hold Up+Right+B+Y+R and press Start at the title screen.

After you begin the story, Left+Start and Right+Start will switch modes like in Musapey’s Choco Marker. Holding L will increase the speed dramatically. Setting 8c1d7290 to 00 manually allows the L+R+A menu to show up, but nothing really works but Nindows:

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Utau: Tumbling Dice

One more Ecole game to check. Utau: Tumbling Dice works just like Blue-Sky-Blue. Changing address 8c19476c to 00 manually allows the L+R+A menu to show up in this game:

TCRF reports that this even made it into the PlayStation 2 port, but presumably the Sega Ninja / Nindows features don’t work there.

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Outro

The Death Crimson 2 debug system cast a long shadow: Arcana Heart, a 2007 game for PlayStation 2, also seems to have remnants of it.

I asked Derek, who did a translation patch for Death Crimson 2, about these debug features. He said that he had to use some of the space for them for his modifications, so they might not all work. I checked, and a few strings are overwritten, but the menus are otherwise functional.

For previous adventures in cheat code mining, see my archive.

Logo by Ashlyn Anstee