#i made the posts because i love ristar and also i keep forgetting the password which. inconvieniences me greatly

[transmorolians]

Ristar JPN-exclusive passwords

In Ristar, you can enter “passwords” (AKA cheat codes) in the options menu. There are a total of 17 passwords, 8 of which are exclusive to the Japanese version of the game. You can actually find out these passwords in-game if you complete the bonus stages, but those are hard-to-find and pretty challenging sometimes, so...

This is Part 1 of a post (though they don't necessarily have to be viewed in order). Part 2 is here!

AAAAAA

This password you can activate completely by accident---Trust me, I have. But despite being so easy to find, this cheat code is actually pretty useful: It gives you infinite continues, so in the case you keep losing all of your lives you are never sent back to the title screen unless you let the game do so.

STAR

A shooting star, well, shoots across the background. That’s it. This password does nothing else. Go home.

MACCHA [まっちゃ]

Y’all want the final boss’s area to be the colour of green tea powder? Because that is all this password does. It effects literally no other stage, no other boss. In my opinion, it makes the Big Bad stand out against the background better. So if you have troubles with the final boss because he’s hard to see for some reason, it might be worth it to give this password a try.

MASTER

It mentions the next game, which, unfortunately for me, the one person who has been thinking about Ristar ever since I got my hands on the rom, hasn’t actually happened. Bummer. “Please wait for next story, thank you...” SEGA please it’s been 26 years---

HETAP

During demos, it shows the lowest score you’ve had upon beating the game or getting a game-over, instead of your highest score.

CANDY

This password makes you invincible... Hold on a minute. Invincible... Candy... Hmm. Well, it makes you nearly invincible. The attacks of some bosses still do damage, but since you’ll pretty much never die in any other circumstance, this cheat is worth using. But if you feel fancy...

FEEL

“Feel” is the name of one of Ristar’s earliest designs, so this password is a cute little nod to that. And this passwords is special: It is actually many passwords combined! Since you can’t have multiple passwords active at the same time, this password is a blessing for those who aim to grind for the highest score---or just want to chill whilst playing the game and not have to deal with dying, finding that one secret treasure, or getting through multiple stages to get to their favourite level.

This password combines the effects of “CANDY”, “MIEMIE”, and “ILOVEU”, making you (nearly) invincible, marking secret treasure spots with blue stars, and allowing you to select which stage you want to start your run on.

VALDI

Gives you a bird-eye view of the Valdi solar system, which (dare I say) is gorgeous, despite the 16-bit graphics of the Mega Drive. You can zoom in and rotate your view, but the sprites don’t get bigger or smaller the “closer” you get, and they’ll disappear completely if you get too close. You can also have a little fun guessing which planets are which.