Battle Rush: Build Up Robot Tournament

Battle Rush is notable for being the only game released for Bandai's ill-fated Datach peripheral that wasn't based on any licensed property. It's also infamous for being among the rarest and most monstrously expensive games on the Famicom. Hope you've got a spare million yen kicking about.

Debug Menu#

This is, oddly, the only game in the entire Datach series to retain a debug menu. Game Genie LAOXGAPP will let you access it by selecting "FACTORY" from the title menu.

The debug screen includes a sound test, accessed by pressing Select. You can also build your custom Robot and exit back to the title screen.

Password Screen#

The Game Genie code IPOXGAPO will replace the "FACTORY" menu option with one that will take you to this screen. The password needed for this screen contains the complete data set for a robot, including the counters of rounds it won on the different difficulty levels. This password screen is completely unused and inaccessible without hacking.

However, there is a secret Easter Egg in this game. If you scan the product code from the game's box (4938182860036 or 4938182860050), you'll see the picture above. The 15-digit number shown appears to be exactly that password for an unused password screen.

Possible Scrapped Password Feature#

While other 5 Datach games support standard EAN-8 and EAN-13 barcodes, and the Crayon Shinchan game does not scan barcodes at all, this game does support barcodes--sort of. Other than the code from the game's own box, it doesn't recognize other standard barcodes, only some of the cards that were packaged with the game. This feature is only used in the "1P VS COM" function where you can fight against some pre-built robots.

Each of those cards contain two barcodes, which can be used in a specified order to input the data of the robot on the card. However, these barcodes are not in a standard format.

Judging from the behavior of other Datach games, this game may have planned to use a password system to save robot data, so that one can play with their friends (like what happened in the second Dragon Ball Z game). However, in the final game, the save feature is handled by the EEPROM chips in the cartridge and the Datach device. This may also explain why this game lacks an "examine" feature seen in other Datach games, whose function is to check the outcome of scanning any barcode from other goods.