Nemesis 2

The twelve stages built from their maps, the five bosses from their records, the ship with its weapons and the seven that can be captured, the way back through the planets, the three secret stages and what changes with the cartridge in the other slot. All drawn from the ROM.

Konami - (c) Konami 1987 - An RC-751 cartridge, a 128 KB MegaROM (Konami with SCC) - MSX - Dump 227113f9...

Not one capture here. Every picture is drawn from the bytes of the ROM with the cartridge's own tables: the title, the maps, the enemies, the items, the bosses, the ship, the power meter labels and the ending of the interior. The check against the openMSX VRAM is still to be done. The listing reassembles byte for byte with make.

The cartridge in numbers

100%of the binary explained
2,630routines and labels
43.4%of the listing commented
41,242bytes of code
89,830bytes of data
0bytes unidentified

What turned up when we took it apart

Three words in the pause, with Q*bert alongside

F1 stops the game and lets you type (p03:BD7C), but only if Q*bert is in the other slot (0xF0F5 bit 0). LARS18TH fills the power meter and the weapons with a shield and two options, NEMESIS skips to the next stage and METALION makes the ship untouchable for 30 times 32 frames.

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The other cartridge matters

At start-up the four slots are checked (p03:BCB1). With Maze of Galious alongside, the equipment is kept when the ship is lost and the BACK UP box gives it back (p02:8E7C, p01:7DD9). With Penguin Adventure the ship is a penguin.

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Three secret stages

Stages 3, 6 and 10 hide an entrance at a fixed column (p03:BF3A): the scroll stops for 64 frames and then runs at double speed into stages 9, 10 and 11.

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You have to go into the boss

Once beaten, its mouth stays open for 300 frames (p11:A93F): if the ship does not go in, it blows up and there is no interior and no captured weapon.

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The way back

The next stage goes up from 1 to 7 and then down from 6 to 0 (p01:7C59), with 0xE20A odd and more enemies. After the stage 7 boss comes DR.VENOM IS FAST APPROACHING NEMESIS, RETURN IMMEDIATELY! (p14:94D1).

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What the cartridge draws

Under each picture is where it comes from and what is on it.

The title, built as the cartridge does it (p01:615B, p01:61C1); on a Japanese MSX it reads GRADIUS.
The title, built as the cartridge does it (p01:615B, p01:61C1); on a Japanese MSX it reads GRADIUS.
Stage 1 in full, from its metablock map (p13:7900).
Stage 1 in full, from its metablock map (p13:7900).
Boss 3, built from its record (p09:BB01).
Boss 3, built from its record (p09:BB01).
The enemy types of stage 1 with the drawing from their record (p00:4F4C) and the stage's sprite patterns.
The enemy types of stage 1 with the drawing from their record (p00:4F4C) and the stage's sprite patterns.
The capsules: the power meter one, the one that destroys everything, the extra life, the point ones and the four specials (p00:5265, p08:9094).
The capsules: the power meter one, the one that destroys everything, the extra life, the point ones and the four specials (p00:5265, p08:9094).
The ship: normal, with the shield, the R.DRILL and the penguin (p03:A879).
The ship: normal, with the shield, the R.DRILL and the penguin (p03:A879).
The end of the interior with two captured weapons (p01:74A2).
The end of the interior with two captured weapons (p01:74A2).