How to play as Amakusa in Samurai Showdown for Sega CD?

[Azathoth]

I had a discussion over at the Sega-16 forums with Tony Hedstrom about finding a hack to play as Amakusa in the single player mode of Samurai Shodown for Sega CD. Somewhat like the cartridge port, Amakusa has a proper icon at the player select screen but his icon is greyed out and not selectable.

Tony was nice enough to find the hex address values that needed to be changed to make him selectable. He plays fine through the entire thing with no glitches. Where his ending isn't programmed in, once you finish the game it shows a partial ending cinematic then resets to the title screen.

In messing around with this port I noticed something I had been mistaken about: Amakusa actually isn't selectable in the 2p versus mode. His portrait is greyed out just like in the arcade mode. All these years I had just assumed it was like the cart version and you could pick him by default in the 2p mode, in hindsight I realized I had never played this port with another person to actually verify that.

Apparently every other review or discussion about the port online also assumed that too. I've double checked the manual and there's nothing in there, nor has there ever been a code mentioned in print mags or anywhere online. Does anyone have any idea what is the legitimate way is to unlock him for versus mode?

 

[sirlynxalot]

Was the port handled by Takara? I know they did the port of Fatal Fury Special to SNES and they kept in the unlockable Ryo character, which I think is unlocked if you don't lose any fights or something along those lines. Maybe its similar to that?

The AOF2 port to SNES keeps young Geese as the true last boss, but I don't think there's any legitimate way to unlock/select him in the game... might just be like that, too.

 

[Azathoth]

Was the port handled by Takara?

It was Funcom, a Norwegian developer that also ported the CD version of Fatal Fury Special. That port had Ryo on the character select screen and available from the start.

but I don't think there's any legitimate way to unlock/select him in the game... might just be like that, too.

I don't think that's the case here, being that they put forth the effort to create a portait and put him on character select screen. His moveset and everything is also programmed in correctly.

 

[mhell06]

That is weird. I would suggest checking the Japanese manual as well, but seeing it was ported by a western developer it seems unlikely it would be more detailed...

 

[sirlynxalot]

Have you tried the typical ways to unlock stuff from other fighting games - such as beating the game at least on a medium level of difficulty or higher, and/or beating the game with no continues, or without losing a round? There's also beating the game with every single character, but that seems like a lot... Does the game have the ability to save to the segacd internal memory/cartridge memory? I suppose it wouldn't be unheard of to require unlocking a character in a game that doesn't save... but it would be hugely annoying

 

[NeoSneth]

try some of the old retired cheat pages on archive.org.
gamewinners, etc

 

[Azathoth]

Game was only released in the US, no PAL or JP Mega CD release, so no alternate manuals or documentation to check. There's no save file on the internal memory to backup anything.

User reviews over the years often mention the fact that Earthquake is missing, but that Amakusa has replaced him in versus mode to make up for the 12th character. Apparently nobody else bothered to try the versus mode either.

On an unrelated note, there's also a rumor printed as fact on several websites that the game has a game breaking freeze prior to the Amakusa fight, which locks the system up. There's no actual citation or proof of this, just different wiki articles referring back to a single online review as proof.

 

[Atro]

Game was only released in the US, no PAL or JP Mega CD release, so no alternate manuals or documentation to check. There's no save file on the internal memory to backup anything.

User reviews over the years often mention the fact that Earthquake is missing, but that Amakusa has replaced him in versus mode to make up for the 12th character. Apparently nobody else bothered to try the versus mode either.

On an unrelated note, there's also a rumor printed as fact on several websites that the game has a game breaking freeze prior to the Amakusa fight, which locks the system up. There's no actual citation or proof of this, just different wiki articles referring back to a single online review as proof.

Samsho had a MegaCD PAL release.

 

[kiku]

I had a discussion over at the Sega-16 forums with Tony Hedstrom about finding a hack to play as Amakusa in the single player mode of Samurai Shodown for Sega CD. Somewhat like the cartridge port, Amakusa has a proper icon at the player select screen but his icon is greyed out and not selectable.

Tony was nice enough to find the hex address values that needed to be changed to make him selectable. He plays fine through the entire thing with no glitches. Where his ending isn't programmed in, once you finish the game it shows a partial ending cinematic then resets to the title screen.

In messing around with this port I noticed something I had been mistaken about: Amakusa actually isn't selectable in the 2p versus mode. His portrait is greyed out just like in the arcade mode. All these years I had just assumed it was like the cart version and you could pick him by default in the 2p mode, in hindsight I realized I had never played this port with another person to actually verify that.

Apparently every other review or discussion about the port online also assumed that too. I've double checked the manual and there's nothing in there, nor has there ever been a code mentioned in print mags or anywhere online. Does anyone have any idea what is the legitimate way is to unlock him for versus mode?

Would pls to tell how to change the hex address values to make Amakusa selectable?

 

[famicommander]

Would pls to tell how to change the hex address values to make Amakusa selectable?

Press B

 

[Azathoth]

Would pls to tell how to change the hex address values to make Amakusa selectable?

With a hex editor, open your ISO/BIN and change 342D80E4 to 740C4E71. There should only be one instance of it to change.