Pokémon Trading Card Game/Debugging Material

This is a sub-page of Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Start-Up Debug Menu

USA	Europe

A start-up debug menu, which can be accessed by using the following code:

Japanese	North American	European
5B0-25B-C45	610-31B-A2D	640-36B-7FF EF0-35B-917

Since the European versions are multi-language, you will have to either have a save game with the language set, or you will have to skip the menu the first time around, otherwise it will display kanji gibberish, as the game doesn't default to any language when confronted with an invalid language setting. It's notable that regardless of the version, all options of this menu have been translated.

Power On

This will boot the game as usual.

Duel Mode

This switches between the two duel modes, "normal duel" and "skip".

Continue from Diary

This option skips the title screen and directly puts you where you last saved. If there isn't saved game, it will start from the beginning.

CGB Test

This one is gone for good. It was stubbed-out, and now calls a single ret. Judging from its name, this option was likely there to test various color features.

SGB Frame

Loads a normally unseen border, which was likely used as either a test or a template. Selecting this option again will cycle through the game's various other SGB borders. In order, those are the test frame, the title frame, the in-game frame, the post-game frame, and then loops back to the test one.

Alternatively, Game Genie code 030-1FB-E6A can be used to load the unused border at startup.

Standard BG character

This will show BG tiles 0x8800–0x97F0 on the screen. If the "Credits" option was selected prior, then the Hall of Honor's tileset will also be displayed, as it is the last map to be loaded in that sequence. If the deck builder was used prior, then the various card graphics will be shown instead.

This option is exclusive to the US version, as it was replaced by "Language" in the European versions.

Language

Will show the standard language menu, either in English-German-French or English-Spanish-Italian, depending on the version of the game. This option is exclusive to the European versions, replacing "Standard BG character".

Look at Spr

This option will open a character sprite viewer.

Controls:

• A: Changes the direction faced by the currently displayed sprite.
• Left/Right: Scrolls forward/backward.
• Up/Down: Scrolls forward/backward by an increment of 10.
• Select: Exits the menu.

V Effect

This test is also gone, calling a single ret. Judging from the name, this option might have tested hdma effects or vertical windowing effects (as used in the credits).

Create Booster Pack

This menu allows one to generate random 10-card booster packs. This was likely done to check if the random seed tables were correct and correct sets of cards were generated. The numbers on the side window are, in parts, used to define what type the sole Energy Card of each set will be. For the "Energy" option, each number except the last one will produce two sets of 5 cards, each of a separate, given type.

	Colosseum	Evolution	Mystery	Laboratory	Energy
1	Random	Psychic	Random	None	Lightning Fire
2	Grass	Grass			Water Fighting
3	Fire	Fire			Grass Psychic
4	Water	Water			Random
5	Lightning	Fighting			/
6	Fighting	Psychic		/	/
7	Random	Psychic		/	/

Credits

This plays the credits. Simple as that.

Quit

This option will quit the menu. If the menu was called from the boot-up code, it will reboot the game and then display this menu again. Else, it works as expected.

In-Game Debug Menu

The "Debug" option visible in the pause menu.

Leftovers from a field debug menu that was accessed from the pause menu. While the menu at 04:43D2 was dummied-out before release—as evident by a single ret—at least the look of it can be recovered by using the following Game Genie codes:

	Japanese	North American	European
Text ID	35D-9BB-3BA	10D-9BB-D52	4EC-2CB-D5F
Size	10D-98B-D52	3ED-9EB-19E	10C-29B-D52
7 Items	07D-A1B-F72	067-7CB-F7E	07C-32B-F72
Cancel on Item 7	067-76B-F7E	07D-A4B-F72	067-7CB-F7E

Coordinates Debug Option

Function 1c003 is an option which isn't part of any debug menu found in the retail game. When selected, pressing A+B will print the player's current X/Y coordinates on-screen. These values will not update in real time, and only render in increments of 2.

This option also has code to load the test "Color Palette" screen by pressing A, though this doesn't seem to work. Presumably, it would have loaded the palettes dynamically in the top left corner of the screen.

(Source: Pokémon TCG Disassembly)

Tilemap Debug Option

Function 1c866 is another stray debug option, this one dealing with hSCX and hSCY, which are two registers that control the scrolling of the background tilemap. Here, using the d-pad would have adjusted these two registers, with the scrolling speed of the background being increased while holding down the B button. This was likely used to test out the ending credits sequence.

(Source: Pokémon TCG Disassembly)