Nightmare Circus has finally been beaten!! *Link inside*

[spider-man]

Hey guys,

Some of you may have heard and even played Nightmare circus (via Sega Channel, emulation, or the actual cart released only in South America). Nightmare Circus is known to be a notoriously hard/confusing game. The lack of any info online makes the game even harder. Well, finally a gamer with the patience of a saint has done the impossible! Check out RendMGaming's youtube channel. He has put up 5 videos where he not only goes through the entire game (I always thought the game was unfinished design-wise, lol), but provides tips as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RendMGaming

[Baloo]

Well, why didn't he just put in ZaddamZBazaar at the code screen?

This game was supposed to be the DKC killer? Frankly, it looks terrible.

[megasdkirby]

Too bad it's tool assisted.

[bombman]

Nice, I'm gonna watch this. The rumor going around was that the game was just unfinished and unbeatable.

[spider-man]

I had the same feeling when I was playing the game back in the day. When it was on the Sega Channel, I just figured it was still a work in progress (was the Sega Channel version the same as the official Brazil release? I could have sworn that they were the same version).

After one mystery has been solved, another pops up (the secret code menu), argh!

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Game looks interesting...wish it wasn't tool-assisted, but I guess that's the only way to beat it.

The secret code menu stuff seems like something that could be hex-edited. Has anyone tried searching?

[spider-man]

I tried inputting random words related to the game, but could come up with nothing (I wonder if it wants random letters, rather than words). I wonder if this secret menu is related to unlocking characters/stages in the two player battle mode (which I could never activate for some reason. It's strange that I could play that mode in the proto, but not in the final copy, lol). In the proto, you can choose any character in the game as your fighter, but in the final copy, you can only choose the main character.

[shaggy]

I've never heard of the game but it seems very interesting to me.

[vivaeljason]

Well, why didn't he just put in ZaddamZBazaar at the code screen?

This game was supposed to be the DKC killer? Frankly, it looks terrible.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it looks terrible. It looks like garbage compared to DKC, to be sure. But from what I've seen so far of the in-game graphics, they're not inherently awful (EDIT: I originally compared it to Comix Zone and the realized that I'd have to be high to even come close to that comparison).

Comparing it to DKC is a joke, though, so I'm not surprised it was pulled.

DOUBLE EDIT: The sound is hideous, by the way. And the game's controls seem impossibly complex.

[ReBirFh]

to me that password looks like

Saddams Bazaar

It must be some kind of riddle as the villain is the jester

[spider-man]

Hey folks,

Just wanted to give anyone interested the heads-up that the codes have been found for Nightmare Circus. A youtube user by the name of akajackfrost has found the codes while looking through the game's data. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=DiNd3F52i7g

Here are what some of the codes do:

BLOODTHIRSTY - Is a blood code where your main character spurts out blood when attacked (which has some nice animation)

THELASTLAUGH - Will allow the 'scene selection' option in the tweaker menu (pressing mode and start)

FASHIONSENSE - will cause the colours on screen to look weird

TOTALCONTROL - Will allow the 'operational control' selection in the tweaker menu. This allows you to edit how the enemies behave in the game, and other options. A and C buttons allow you to move through the data columns and MODE + C or MODE + A allows you to change the enemy.

[pseudonym]

Weird game. Even after watching the videos in the first link, I'm still wondering WTF is going on.

[Ed Oscuro]

Huh, I wonder who created it. The details in the fun rooms (in video part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=sHTfV6e_hXE&feature=related)) remind me of the way Shadow Dancer or Crack Down (arcade versions both) look, a bit.

I really can't shake the feeling this is somehow related to the KISS game Psycho Circus. Now that was a fun title. Guys looked like roadies in that one too...but this is far more insane.

I personally think the game looks cool as hell, but the controls are bafflingly complicated, even if they do let you do cool things. A lot of it doesn't really seem context sensitive as much as it could be. I'm not sure DKC is a better graphical comparison than Comix Zone; similarly awesome heroes wearing vests and who have an amazing assortment of moves aside, both are hand-drawn. Both other games have larger sprites than this one though.