Dengeki Nurse

In Dengeki Nurse, a coward of a doctor and a failed assassin of a nurse come together to combat the dangers of petty middle management. Shenanigans ensue.

Unused Text#

Dengeki Combat#

メッセージ未作成

This string, which roughly translates to "message not yet created", was presumably a placeholder string meant to cover for missing lines of battle banter during development.

Scripts#

NS11_20.MES#

In this scene, Tanchi attempts to unnerve Guillotine Nurse so that Dengeki Nurse has an opening to disarm her. Once he figures out his angle of attack, selecting the Talk command twice will progress the story; However, some monologuing hiding behind an untriggered flag suggests that Tanchi would have had to observe her reaction to his first taunt before letting out a second.

NS13_08.MES#

When Tanchi learns that the character Johnny Nakamura is a third-generation Japanese American, or Sansei, his response to learning this information does not get to be shown, due to a previous line mistakenly duplicating the flag meant to clear this one from the queue.

SAVE.MES#

This bit of text would have appeared when selecting a slot to save current progress to, along with a reversed version of the No/Yes menu options used by the "End Game" prompt. The final game does not prompt you before saving over your previous save file.

Name Processes#

Throughout the game, character names and accompanying text colors are defined at the beginning of scripts. There are a handful of cases where characters are defined that do not appear in that script:

Most of these can be explained away as leftovers from previous scripts that weren't deleted; NS11_13.MES and NS11_14.MES actually assign the same set of names, but only use the ones required for their respective scenes.

Cheat Code#

In the game's developer free talk section, accessible after completing the game (TAIDAN.MES), the game's artist, Act Mao, alludes to a method of skipping battles:

Despite the joking nature in which it is revealed, this cheat code does in fact exist: When the "Select a command" text is shown in the text box, pressing the Power button after entering the Konami Code (treating the sides of the text box as the four directional buttons, highlighted below) ends the battle with Dengeki Nurse as the victor:

This cheat works in both versions of the game, although in the PC-98 version the code should be entered using right-clicks.

Version Differences#

The FM Towns port of Dengeki Nurse, released a few months after the PC-98 version was completed, contains some notable upgrades from the latter. Some of these were planned as early as June 1992³ and others as late as November⁴, just one month before release.

Opening#

Owing to the differing specs of each platform, a number of changes was made to the opening between versions:

• The animated Cocktail Soft logo in the PC-98 was changed to a static one on FM Towns.
• The studio recording of the theme song, previously included as a CD single with the PC-98 version, now plays over the game's opening sequence in the FM Towns version.
• The opening sequence was also expanded with new visuals and lyrics to accompany the interlude and third verse that was missing in the PC-98 version. Additional staff credits were taken from the game's ending to pad out the extended running length, along with a Special Thanks to NANAKO that does not appear elsewhere. Hironari Tadokoro, the game's producer, notes in his memoir⁵ that she provided the voice of Dengeki Nurse for the game's transformation sequence.

Supplementary Info#

In this section of the main menu, information specific to the PC-98 version (including a guide on installing the game to hard disk and a warning about a mouse-related bug) was removed, and an advertisement for the company's BBS, which underwent changes between the completion of the PC-98 and FM Towns versions, was also updated.

Omake Mode#

Much of the additional content is contained within the Staff Box. These include an expanded development diary, which now includes a section detailing the FM Towns porting process, the addition of a gallery containing graphics from the game's development, and a new short story presented in a parody of Showa-era picture books.

Script Differences#

The main game's script is functionally identical, with one notable difference. When Tanchi meets a pair of familiar-looking nurses in NS11_09.MES, he comments in the PC-98 version:

It would seem that Tanchi was successful, as in the FM Towns version the second line was changed:

The game that Tanchi was referring to is Hacchake Ayayo-san 4, which received coverage in PC game magazines beginning January 1993⁶, the month after the FM Towns version was released.

Ending#

PC-98	FM Towns

The credits were adjusted to reflect the more active involvement of Pepe Fujioka, the programmer responsible for porting the game to FM Towns.

PC-98	FM Towns

The IDES copyright text at the end was also split off into its own splash screen, with a new logo to accompany it.

References#