the cutting room mirror

Earthworm Jim 2 (NES, Ex-Sachen developers)

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This unlicensed NES port of Earthworm Jim 2 is also known as the "Shin-Shin" version, due to starting with a credits screen mentioning Taiwan Shin-Shin Electronics, Ka Sheng's agency in Beijing, China.

Unused Graphics#

Game Over#

This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.
Specifically: Is there any more content related to the game over screen?

Graphics of Jim looking disappointed, which would have been used in the game over screen like the official versions. However, selecting "no" on the Continue screen in this port will simply go to the title screen, with no game over screen. Oddly, it is stored as a background graphic along with the Options menu background graphics while Jim's other graphics are usually stored as sprites.

Alternate Title Screen#

A version of the title screen that looks similar to the Earthworm Jim 4 title screen, but with a 3 instead of a 4. This suggests that an "Earthworm Jim 3" version was planned to be released, with this title screen probably scrapped due to NT later publishing Earthworm Jim 3 (a port of the first EWJ game by Hummer Team).

Revisional Differences#

There were multiple versions of this game released, which is common in unlicensed NES software. The first revision is "Earthworm Jim 2 (Unl) [U] [!].nes".

Second Revision (Earthworm Jim 2 (Unl) [p1].nes)#

Lorenzen's Soil

This version fixes a bug where Lorenzen's Soil was replaced with a duplicate of Puppy Love, and also fixes another bug where some levels didn't have a title card or password (excluding Puppy Love and the Udderly Abducted sub-levels).

While Lorenzen's Soil is skipped after finishing Puppy Love, you can still enter it with the password F1658.

Third Revision (Earthworm Jim 2 (Kasing) [!].nes)#

Adds a title card and password to the rest of the levels, including Puppy Love and all Udderly Abducted levels.

Earthworm Jim 2+4 (included in "Super 3-in-1 (NT-934) [!].nes")#

This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

Based on the initial release/first revision. It is often found on multicarts, but standalone releases do exist. It contains these differences:

General#

  • The game inserts a 2-in-1 menu after the splash screen to let the player select the two "games".
  • Some music either doesn't play or is glitched out, likely cut out to fit in the multicart.
  • The copyright information has been displayed on the first screen,and the display time is longer than Earthworm Jim 2.
  • The demo mode has been deleted.
  • There's an extra password that displays a "金豹" (Gold Leopard) logo on the screen in a similar manner to Super Donkey Kong 2: XFILE for Earthworm Jim 2, and NBA96 for Earthworm Jim 4.

(Source: Cah4e3)

Earthworm Jim 2#

Replaces Granny Chair with Lorenzen's Soil. The other content is basically the same.

Earthworm Jim 4#

  • The title screen is the "Jim holding a sign" title card with the number "4" holding on it, and the background colour is yellow.
  • Title cards and password screens were removed.
  • Puppy Love's music only contains the noise channel.
  • The level order was changed:

:* Level 1: Lorenzen's Soil

:* Level 2: Puppy Love

:* Level 3: All Udderly Abducted levels

:* Level 4: Empty Level

Oddities#

  • Level 4 in Earthworm Jim 4 is an empty level with Udderly Abducted music playing. It's thought to be an unfinished port of "See Jim Run, Run Jim Run", but not much evidence supports it.
  • If you press Start for three seconds when you finish a level (after Jim poses), the game will not go to the next level. The "Level Complete" music will play forever and the screen will be frozen until you press Start again, because the game is paused.