Side Arms Hyper Dyne (Arcade)

An advancement on the jetpack shoot'em up Section Z, Side Arms Hyper Dyne adds different weapons, a new "Fusion" system to upgrade the player's craft, and a cooperative two-player mode.

What makes this game's Dyne hyper is anyone's guess.

Debug Functions#

There are a number of debugging functions left in the game. All functions require that the Test Mode dip switch be turned on after the copyright screen appears.

Stage Select#

Set the Slot A / Slot B credit settings to the appropriate values to start on a different stage.

Slot A Coins/Credit	Slot B Coins/Credit	Area
1 / 3 Credits	1 / 1 Credit	Area 2
1 / 4 Credits	1 / 1 Credit	Area 3
1 / 6 Credits	1 / 1 Credit	Area 4
2 / 1 Credit	1 / 1 Credit	Area 5
3 / 1 Credit	1 / 1 Credit	Area 6
4 / 1 Credit	1 / 1 Credit	Area 7
1 / 1 Credit	1 / 2 Credits	Area 8
1 / 2 Credits	1 / 2 Credits	Area 9
1 / 3 Credits	1 / 2 Credits	Area 10

Gameplay Debugging#

Debug coordinate display
During gameplay, various features will be enabled based on the current difficulty dip switch values.

Bit 01 / Dip switch A1: Players are invulnerable to enemies and enemy projectiles.
Bit 02 / Dip switch A2: Camera coordinates are displayed on the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Bit 04 / Dip switch A3: Slow-down function. Game operates at half speed.

If dip switch A4 (the starting life dip switch) is set, the game will operate at double speed. This overrides dip switch A3. Due to processing issues, the game will not always be running at double speed.

Additionally, if Dip switch A5 is set (Bonus life settings 100,000 / 100,000 and 200,000 / 200,000), both players will receive every weapon in the game.

Unused Graphics#

	There's no high score screen, so Rb / Ed characters aren't needed. The other characters just don't come up.
	HUD graphics for the Alpha and Beta transformations. These would go in the same spot as the weapon markers.
	An unused bonus item. Like the other bonuses, this is a reference to a previous game: in this case, Sonson.
	A rapidly changing robot that would float around the screen, as enemies in shoot 'em ups are wont to do.
	Two large cannons that would fire lasers. These are the only cannon enemies that would shoot horizontally.
	A humanoid robot that would be hard to take down; it has a shield and a laser gun. Capcom must have liked this design, because it was later used for the final stage of Forgotten Worlds! However, the crouching frame is exclusive to this game.
	An Asshimar mobile suit from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. It starts out like a flying saucer, then turns into an armed robot that shoots left and right.

Unused Music#

ID	Track	Notes
20		While this track plays in the intro for 11 seconds, the full song lasts about 25 seconds before looping.
38		Twinkle twinkle little moon / Here's a driver testing tune Comprehensive by design / Changing instruments each line (YM2203 / OPN)

Build Date?#

Japan	World	US
`86115 SideArms J ====== J A P A N ===================`	`86115 SideArms N ====== Non J A P A N ==============`	`86115 SideArms A ====== USA ROMSTAR ================`

A build date can be found in memory starting at A8F in each version. Similar strings are also present in Savage Bees and Gun.Smoke.

Regional Differences#

Will you tell me how?
This banner only appears on the Japanese version's title screen, right before the demo starts. The Kanji and romanized text could translate as "Absolute fusion!"

(Translation: RahanAkero)

(Source: Original TCRF research)