Rainbow Islands Extra (Genesis)

Rainbow Islands Extra
Also known as: Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 (Extra Version) (title screen) Developer: Aisystem Tokyo Publisher: Taito Platform: Genesis Released in JP: October 5, 1990 Released in US: October 27, 2022 (Sega Genesis Mini 2) Released in EU: October 27, 2022 (Sega Mega Drive Mini 2) This game has unused text.

To do: Investigate each of these. (Tracing this game is quite hard... see Talk page for information that I know).

A subtly modified Mega Drive port of the arcade Rainbow Islands Extra, which is Rainbow Islands featuring rearranged sets of enemies, and music. Your friends are dragons again, and clearly, the only way to save them is by use of rainbows.

Infinite Continues

Note: I haven't found a cheat code on the Internet for this, so I'm assuming I was the first to find this... If you have any information, please discuss it on this page's talk page. - Andlabs

If bit 6 of byte $FFE036 is set, the game will register infinite continues, indicated by CREDITS A on the title screen.

Currently, there is no known way to trigger this bit flip in the game itself.

(Source: Andlabs)

Unused Text

Two sets of seemingly unused strings are buried among the title/continue/configuration screens' text:

ROM:00004624                 dc.b   7
ROM:00004625                 dc.b   6
ROM:00004626 aSelectAndPushS:dc.b 'SELECT AND PUSH START BUTTON',0
ROM:00004643                 dc.b   0
ROM:00004644                 dc.b  $C
ROM:00004645                 dc.b   8
ROM:00004646 aContinue:      dc.b '     CONTINUE',0
ROM:00004654                 dc.b  $F
ROM:00004655                 dc.b   8
ROM:00004656 aStart:         dc.b '     START   ',0

ROM:0000466E                 dc.b  $C
ROM:0000466F                 dc.b   8
ROM:00004670                 dc.b '             ',0
ROM:0000467E                 dc.b  $F
ROM:0000467F                 dc.b   8
ROM:00004680                 dc.b '             ',0

The game reads the two bytes before the null-terminated string. The only string that separates these two is the string "CREDIT" used on the continue screen.

Regional Differences

Title Screen

Japan	US (Sega Genesis Mini 2)

Interestingly, aside from the Sega Enterprises license, the US version includes a copyright date of 1994, meaning a release in the US was planned for that year, but never came into fruition until 2022 for its debut on the Sega Genesis Mini 2.

Main Theme

In the US version, the main theme uses the altered version first heard in the NES port to avoid copyright infringement.

Japan	US (Sega Genesis Mini 2)