Youkai Douchuki (Arcade)

Youkai Douchuki
Developer: Namco Publisher: Namco Platform: Arcade (Namco System 1) Released in JP: April 1987 This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has revisional differences.

Once upon a time, there was a naughty, mischievous, no good, very bad boy named Tarosuke. One night, while he was sleeping, God sent him to the entrance of Hell. God ordered him to travel through the five areas of Hell to receive judgement from the Great King Enma; if he is worthy, he will able to return to the human world. Will he succeed? You decide in Youkai Douchuki!

Debug Functions

Dip Switch Debug

Place the following cheat in MAME's shadowld.xml cheat file.

  <cheat desc="Enable Debug Dip Switches">
    <script state="run">
      <action>user1.md@3FE142=7E88E5BD</action>
      <action>user1.mw@3FE146=1BE1</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>user1.md@3FE142=2C1BE17E</action>
      <action>user1.mw@3FE146=2C20</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

Dip switch 2 has to be switched on for any of these to work. Other dip switches will enable additional debug functions.

Default

On the starting screen, press 1P Up / Down to change the starting stage. Dip Switch 5, 6, or 7 has to be flipped on to display the Skip text, but the actual stage select function will still work without them.

Press 2P Left / Right to move Layer 3 (Used for the HUD in normal gameplay and the stage maps in the intro screens) right / left respectively.

Hold 2P Button 2 to change the priority of the background layers. What this actually does is increase the priority byte of all background layers by one, and once that byte reaches 07, it resets to 00. The layers default to 04, 03, 02, 05, 07, 01, in that order. Since layer 4 (The font layer) starts out at 07, it will actually keep increasing and end up behind the other layers, even after every other layer loops back to its initial positions.

Dip Switch 5

A RAM editor/viewer. The first number is the address to be written to (xx), the second number is the value to write to (58xx), and the third number is the value to write to (59xx).

This is the RAM space that the game uses for the second text layer, which is normally only used for the highlighted text in the game's service mode. That space isn't used in the game proper, so it's unclear what this is supposed to be testing. Plus, it doesn't work properly in normal gameplay, as the addresses it uses to control the digits are used elswhere: As a result, Tarosuke is slowed down to a crawl and the second and third digits cannot be manipulated by the player.

Controls:

• 1P Right: Increases the second digit.
• 1P Down: Increases the third digit.
• 1P Button 1: Increases the first digit.

Dip Switch 6 (Alternate Sound Effects)

This is a basic object palette editor. The first digit is the current object palette, the second digit is color index in that palette, and the last three digits are the RGB values in that index.

Controls:

• 1P Left/Right: Moves RGB cursor.
• 1P Up/Down: Changes the currently selected R/G/B value.
• 1P/2P Start: Changes the currently selected object palette.
• 1P Button 1 / Button 2: Changes the currently selected object color index.

Dip Switch 7 (Freeze)
Since this dip switch also freezes the game (natch), you'll need to put this code in shadowld.xml to get this debug function to do anything:

  <cheat desc="Disable Game Freeze">
    <script state="run">
      <action>user1.mb@3F604B=00</action>
      <action>user1.mb@3FE131=00</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>user1.mb@3F604B=4C</action>
      <action>user1.mb@3FE131=10</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

This is another RAM debugger which will both view / write to three RAM addresses at once: The first starts at 6000, the second starts at 6800, and the third starts at 7000. The first digit is the larger offset 0X00, the second digit is the smaller offset 00XX, and the third through fifth digits are the values to write to those offsets.

Controls:

• 1P Left/Right: Moves the cursor.
• 1P Up/Down: Changes the currently selected digit's value.
• 1P/2P Start: Changes the value of the first digit.
• 1P Button 1/Button 2: Changes the value of the second digit.

Demo Recorder

Put this code in shadowld.xml to enable a demo recorder function:

  <cheat desc="Demo Recorder">
    <script state="run">
      <action>user1.mb@3F98EF=8A</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>user1.mb@3F98EF=70</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

What this is supposed to do is enable full control during the demo and write the player's input to 6026-66E1 if Dip Switch 3 is set, but it doesn't actually save the player's input. There's an additional function at 99AB in the main CPU that would hang the CPU if Dip Switch 3 was set; this would presumably let the user save the demo input while it was still in memory.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Graphics

Please note that for objects that are entirely unused, the palettes used here are best guesses. The correct palettes may not even be in the ROM anymore.

Two graphics for a tsuukou tegata, the larger one for the shop and the smaller one for the HUD. Both this and the following two items only exist as graphics and were never coded, so what they would actually do is up for speculation.

The next unused item is a pair of circling fireballs. This is either some sort of shield or an alternate projectile.

The third is this phoenix pet, which would presumably follow the player around like Toraji the cat and Gonta the dog. That's a strange flying animation there.

Two unused prices. The cheapest item in the game is 2000, and the idea of a mystery price never pops up.

An angry expression for the dice tosser from Round 1, which likely would have been used when the player won a bet. In the final game, he's pretty chill about losing money. Not a big deal at all.

A strange masked rower in a barrel, complete with an animation of the barrel breaking apart and the rower sinking into the water. Given the size of this sprite, this probably would have been in the background of one of the stages as flavor and not a for-real enemy.

It's an old man. He's looking around. Big forehead on that guy.

A little monkey! The color palette gives this little fella away as a Japanese macaque; it might have appeared in one of the game's hot springs.

Used	Alt

The small club-wielding oni at the end of Rounds 1 & 2 have an alternate animation where they swing their clubs all the way around instead of just shaking it at the player.

Used	Full

The large blue oni in Round 3 has four frames of animation, but only the first two are used in-game.

There are three underwater objects that are completely unused: A conch filled with snakes, a crab with transparent eyes, and an amorous octopus. You're in the wrong game, honey.

Used	Full

There are sprites for a flowing hagoromo in the object graphics ROM - this would connect to the yellow parts of Otohime's kimono. Never pops up, though.

The Sanzu River oni has an animation of looking back that probably should have been used after Tarosuke crosses the river, but she keeps doing her standard foot stomping animation instead.

A boatman, a rowing boatman, and a boat. Could have appeared on the Sanzu River, maybe?

He would have also caught on fire, apparently.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Other Unused Code

Multiple Food Items

The HUD subroutine has code to handle multiple copies of a single item; the game will stack copies of that item on top of each other. For most items this is only a visual effect, since most item subroutines only check if the player has that item at all when applying its effect, and usually just zeroes out that item slot when using that item. The only exception is the Food item's subroutine, which can properly handle multiple copies by decrementing from that slot instead of clearing it. However, it's impossible to have multiple copies of any item in the final game, since the code that checks whether to put an item in the shop only checks to see if the player has any of that item, any if they do, the item is unavailable.

Put the following MAME code in shadowld.xml (Or any of the Youkai Douchuki sets) and activate it to get four Food:

  <cheat desc="Get Four Food Now">
    <script state="on">
      <action>maincpu.pb@5031=04</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

Ending Limiter

There are five different endings in the game, depending on how many enemies the player killed and how much money they collected in the last round. They are, in descending order; Heaven, Human World, Beast World, Demon World, and Hell. There's an additional check at 0x9F7B (EN Set) that would automatically set the ending to Beast World even if the player had earned the Heaven or Human World endings...but it checks if the player's health is 0. The problem with this is that the ending can't trigger at all if the player has 0 health, since the Game Over subroutine takes priority over it.

It's not clear if this check was coded like this to effectively disable it, if this was an oversight, or if it was supposed to check some other variable instead.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Version Differences

Title Screen

JP Old	JP New

The newer Japanese set adds Tarosuke walking around inside the logo. This change was retained in in the English set.

Just before the demo starts, Tarosuke jumps out of the logo.

Shop Sign

Youkai Douchuki	Shadowland

The 商い中 (Open for business) sign was translated. This is the only graphic that was changed - The title logo and stage names are still in Japanese.

Credits

The English-language set skips the game's credits, going straight to the title screen after playing any of the game's endings.

Original	Translation
キャラクター デザイン	Character Design
ナナチャン大石 どぅぇぇぇぇす	Nana-chan Oishi Doueeeesu
ローニン木元	Ronin Kimoto
セ 小 ム 森 ツ 谷	Semushi Komoriya
サラバジャ南	Sarabaja Minami
ホルスタイン安斎	Holstein Anzai
カータン榊原	Katan Sakakibara
…ミュージック… …こんぽーざー…	…Music… …Composer…
ヒロくん	Hiro-kun
…プログラマー…	…Programmer…
デビル中村	Devil Nakamura
…ゲーム… …デザイン…	…Game… …Design…
かずぅ水野	Kazuu Mizuno
…おしまい…	…End…

(Source: Original TCRF research)