Wing Commander (SNES)

Wing Commander
Developer: Mindscape Publishers: Mindscape (US/EU), ASCII (JP) Platform: SNES Released in JP: July 23, 1993 Released in US: November 1992 Released in EU: 1993 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused music. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences.

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Wing Commander is the SNES version of Origin's highly acclaimed space flight sim from 1990. It remained mostly faithful to the original, but with somewhat simplified flight and combat mechanics and a slight decrease in graphics quality. The first Secret Missions expansion was also ported as a standalone game.

Debug Menu

A simple debug menu can be reached from the main menu by pressing B, A, B, Y, B, Y, L, A, R, A and then Start.

Series selects a sector and Mission selects an individual mission within that sector. Invincible makes you impervious to damage, though your wingman can still be killed and it is still possible to lose the game through other means, such as losing the Tiger's Claw (or destroying it yourself.)

Song and Effect play various sounds and music, and Sound Group selects one of four music banks. Songs 00 through 03 are the same in each bank.

Debug Text

Text for a possible object/animation viewer begins at offset 0x017B12 in an unheadered US ROM. There are no apparent references to this text left in the code.

 TRG=       TAC=       OBJ=      EVENT=    
WARPING IN
NONE
WARPING OUT
VEER AWAY
DRIFT
FULL AHEAD
THINKING
RAM MISSILE
KICK STOP
TIGHT LOOP 
HARD BRAKE 
SIT N SPIN
TURN N SPIN
BURNOUT
WABBLE
ROLL OVER
HARD TURN
FISH HOOK
SPLIT LEFT
SIT N FIRE
KICKIT
TURN N KICK
OUTA HERE
DROP A MINE
SPLIT RIGHT
ZIG ZAG
GLOAT
TAIL FIRE
TARGET LASER
TARGET MSL 
STRAFE ENEMY
BEST STRAFE
STRAFE N ROLL
KILL MISSILE
SUICIDE RUN
ZIG ZAG PITCH
SAFE BRAKE 
TURN N FIRE
GET DISTANCE
CORKSCREW
INTERCEPT
TRY 2 TAIL
ZIP PAST
BUZZ DEBRIS
LINE UP DROP
CHILL
PICK OFFENSE
PICK DEFENSE

Unused Music

This short jingle appears at the end of sound bank 4. The only other music exclusive to this bank is the title screen music. It is possible that this was used to test the SNES version's music routine, as it is not present in the original PC version.

Regional Differences

US/Europe	Japan

The Japanese version of the game replaces the font on the ship's HUD and the map screen with a different one containing larger (but kind of awkward-looking) lowercase letters, and a few altered uppercase letters.