Cheat Code Discovered to Enable Shinobi Legions’ Debug Mode

Saturn hacker Bo Bayles is at it again — he’s found another previously unknown cheat code, this time for Shinobi Legions. It activates a debug mode, but you’ll want to limber up your thumbs for this one: The code requires a 40-button input sequence.

Bayles revealed his findings on social media Thursday. After prodding Shinobi’s code, he found the steps to enable debug mode are as follows:

• Go to the Options screen
• Navigate to Music and select Stage 2-3
• Navigate to S.E. and select 06
• Navigate to Audio and hold L while putting in this 40-button sequence:
  – A 10 times
  – X once
  – B three times
  – Y once
  – C six times
  – Z once
  – X 10 times
  – A once
  – Y three times
  – B once
  – Z six times
  – C once
• Exit the Options screen and start a new game

If done correctly, you’ll be able to press the R button during gameplay to bring up a menu with options to select any level, change your number of lives and continues, boost your life bar and more. You’ll also be able to hold L, R and Z to move the protagonist, Sho, freely without collision.

The cheat code’s unwieldiness may be a bit inconvenient, though, so Bayles uploaded a patch to SegaXtreme that’ll automatically activate debug mode. It comes with Xdelta patches for both the North American and PAL versions.

Bayles posted a video of the debug mode in action:

Bayles went into detail on how he found the code and what each debug mode function does in his blog, where he’s discussed the nitty-gritty of his many other Saturn secret discoveries over the last couple years.

During his investigation, Bayles found other cheat codes that had been known for decades — view all cutscenes (press C, X, B, Y, A, Z, Start), stage select (press A, B, A, B, C), 99 lives (press A, Z, B, Y, C, X Start), one-hit death (press A, B, C, B, A, Start) and 999 knives (press C, A, B). But the debug mode had remained unknown to the public until now. Not even Japanese fansites seem to be aware of it.

Known as Shinobi X in Europe and Shin Shinobi Den in Japan, the 1995 2D platformer attempted to update the series for the 32-bit generation by using digitized sprites and full-motion video cutscenes between levels to progress the story. Its soundtrack was famously replaced in the European version in favor of one newly created by Richard Jacques, who would go on to compose Sonic R’s soundtrack, among others.