Under the microscope: Saturn Sakura Wars
Cheat codes for Sakura Taisen, Sakura Taisen 2, and Hanagumi Taisen Columns
The long running Sakura Taisen franchies has six Sega Saturn titles. In this article I’ll examine three of them: Sakura Taisen, Sakura Taisen 2, and the spin-off Hanagumi Taisen Columns.
Each of these games has some pretty obscure cheat codes. Either they were never published, or were only ever published in far-flung corners of the Internet. Let’s remedy that, shall we?
Sakura Taisen
This code was reported a user on a Japanese BBS in 2005. Thanks to TrekkiesUnite118 for pointing this to me; I thought I’d been the one to discover it!
First let the title screen time out. When the Sega logo appears, enter the following button sequence:
L, R, Up, Down, Left, Right, A, C, B, Start
You’ll hear a chime if you enter it correctly. Let the title screen come up, then press start to bring up the main menu. Enter the following button sequence:
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, L, R, L, R
The MODE SELECT screen will come up if you’ve entered it correctly. This lets you jump directly into the various minigames, access sound and movie test modes, alter character stats, and more.
Sakura Taisen 2
There’s a similar set of codes for Sakura Taisen 2. First, on the Thou Shalt Not Die screen, enter this sequence:
L, R, Right, Left, Up, X, B, Z
You have to do this very quickly, before the screen fades out to white! You’ll hear a chime if you got it right.
Next, on the title screen, enter this sequence. You’ll hear a chime if you get things right:
L, R, Down, Up, Right, Left, A, C, X
Lastly, enter this sequence (also on the title screen):
L, A, B, C, Down, X, Y, Z, Up, RYou’ll hear another chime. Start the game, and you’ll get a Macro Select screen that’s similar to the one for Sakura Taisen. This one has fewer features, however: the Lipsyncing Tool doesn’t seem to work, and you can only access the mini games by number.
Hanagumi Taisen Columns
This spin off game has a backup editor hidden behind two button codes.
Let the title screen time out (it takes a while), and while the Sega logo is up, enter:
Down, Up, Right, Left,
L, R, A, C, X, Start
You’ve really got to book it on the entry; if the Red logo came up, you were too slow. But if you heard a chime, you got it right.
Let the title screen time out again, and this time enter this sequence:
Up, Up, Down, Down,
Left, Right, Left, Right,
L, R, L, RYou need to get this one done before the Sega logo disappears, too.
Your reward is this screen, which lets you mark different parts of the game as clear:
Technical details
Each of these works the same way: a function listens for button presses that match the code sequences. If you get a press right, a counter increments. If you miss one, it resets to 0.
In Sakura Taisen, the button codes are located at 00204c70 and 00208c08. The function at 00204c98 reads the first one, and the one at 00208c44 reads the second one.
In Sakura Taisen 2, the button codes are at 0020a9b0, 002040e4, and 002040d0. The functions are at 0020b2f0 and 00204a20.
In Hanagumi Taisen Columns, the button codes are at 0600e6f0 and 0600e704. The function is at 06006a3c.
Outro
For more coverage of previously undocumented cheat codes, see:
There are more out there to be discovered, I’m sure!