GAME TRANSLATE · SNES GUIDE
Rejoice
Secrets & Cut Content
A hidden debug menu, a radio studio with real 1995 celebrities, a room nobody can enter and the exact odds behind every gamble. Found while translating the game and reading its data.
Translating Rejoice meant reading all of its script and a good part of its code and data. Some of it never shows up in a normal game. Each section says how sure we are: Verified means we saw it in the emulator; Script means it is in the game’s events and text; Unconfirmed means we found traces but did not play it.
A hidden debug menu
Verified
The developers left a debug menu in the pause screen, and it can be opened in a normal game:
- Get Mr. Invincible 1 from Poppin in Ishu Town (Ch. 2). Receiving it sets the flag that unlocks the menu.
- Press START on the field to pause.
- On controller 2, press ↑ ↓ ← → Y B.
The menu lists four unused NOTUSE rows, MAPSET (warp to a map number), SYSFLAG, PASS SW and LEVELSET. Controller 1 moves (↑↓ row, ←→ value), A applies and SELECT leaves. A second code on controller 2, ↓ ↑ → ← B Y, opens another screen with ten counters (DP MG SP PE OG MR CO MS MO TO) whose meaning we haven’t worked out.
Tested: without Poppin’s gift nothing happens, and the code does nothing on controller 1. MAPSET skips the story: use it on a copy of your save. We only tested MAPSET; SYSFLAG, PASS SW and LEVELSET were not tried.
The room nobody can enter
Verified
Map 137 (hex 89) holds two rooms with stained-glass windows, much like the Chapel of Mischief Castle. It has no doors, no exits, no events and no chests, and nothing in the game leads there. The only way in is the debug menu’s MAPSET set to 137.
A Studio in Akasaka
Script
After you win the Premium Armor in Will’s House (Neve Town), the inner doorway sometimes (21.09%) sends you to A Studio in Akasaka instead. Two people wait there:
- Manami Komori, a real radio DJ of the 1990s in a cameo, thanks you for finding the spot, plugs her radio shows RADIcal Communication and POP’N Pajama and her column in Monthly OUT. On later visits she gives a hint: “At [?F] of Clockwork Castle… there’s no leaving the castle. So don’t forget your shopping!” The floor number is hidden in the original Japanese too; it’s 10F.
- Minky Yasu, “Aretha Kingdom Anime Reporter”.
The exit takes you back to Neve Town. See the studio map.
The junk pile in the Mushroom Forest
Script
In the fourth forest screen (08, tile 29,22) a pile of junk hides an item, but which item is decided somewhere else: an invisible row of sensors across the path in the eighth screen (0C, row 11). The game remembers the first sensor column you ever stepped on, for good:
| Column | Prize |
|---|---|
| 23 | Force Inferno (Treno’s strongest Force stone) |
| 24 | Premium Armor |
| 25 | Mixdown Tect |
| 26 | Lisa Lisa |
| 27–28 | Mr. Invincible 2 (found nowhere else) |
Search the pile as Treno: Doll only finds “just junk”. Since the sensor row comes after the pile, you have to walk back four screens, and the boss in the last screen ends your chance.
Will’s house inside a house
Verified
Will’s house in Neve Town contains another house. To win the Premium Armor: step on the inner doorway, talk to Ail, step again, talk to Oil, step again and talk to Will. Each step keeps your progress only 35.94% of the time, and Will gives the armor 26.17% of the time; otherwise everything resets. On average it takes about 25 talks. Once you have the armor, the doorway starts sending you to the Akasaka studio.
Santa’s gifts
Verified
Talk to Chihiro in Neve Town after Galt’s House and before you take the boat: she says she talked to Santa Claus. The next time you step on the snow at the river (Ch. 11), Santa Claus appears (“Merry Christmaaas!!”) instead of the bird. His first gift is random (Machovitan A to D, Poison Killer, Para-B-Gone, Confu-Laundry or Seirozon); if you already own the rolled gift, he moves down a chain of items (Refresh Arrow, Lisa Lisa, Mega Flash A–C, P-Up, Macchon EX, Holds, Unclose, L-Up, Power Time Bomb, Remote Bomb) until “I’m all out of presents!”. Odds in Party & Systems.
Go, Go, Oink-Oink!
Verified
Bookie Bazel in Fairy Forest runs a pig race. Stand on two of the numbered floor tiles in front of him to pick a pair, then talk to him with at least 1,000 Pera. Patty warns you: “Don’t deal with Bazel! He’s famous for cheating.” The odds say otherwise: every pair makes money on average, pair 1-4 wins most often (21.1%) and earns about +14,177 Pera per race. Bazel’s comments about favourites and long shots are just talk. Wins stop at the 650,000-Pera money cap.
Free Machovitan A in Clockwork Castle
Script
Once you have the Red and Blue Gears, the gear guardians’ events on 2F hand out a Machovitan A instead. We read this in the script but didn’t farm it.
The honey pot puzzle
Verified
In the Honey Factory (49) five honey pots can be pushed onto five mats. With all five in place the game says “All the honey pots… perfect!”. It gives no item. In the emulator, five pots on the mats made the game request the event and four (or one tile off) did not; we didn’t watch the scene itself play. A second push puzzle of the same kind is how you move Auntie Ketch’s pier in Neve Town.
A “Rejoice Strategy Guide”
Script
Search the bookshelves in Mischief Castle’s libraries with Doll leading: about half the time she finds “a ‘Rejoice Strategy Guide’? What kind of book is that?”. The script also has lines for Chris at the same shelves, but Chris is never in the castle.
“PC2-OFF” and other leftovers
Script
- Turning off 2-player mode at a story point with no partner prints the developer label
PC2-OFF. - Every scenario has an error event that jumps to one screen: “What did you do? The data’s gone haywire! Reset and start over!”
- A chapter-skip event warps to the Mushroom Forest with the statue flags set and 10,000 Pera. No script calls it; one engine path might, but we didn’t test it.
- A second copy of the ending command sits in the opening scenario; the real ending is elsewhere.
- Map 00 is an empty slot, maps 61–64 are the sinking-ship cutscene and map 70 the lava turtle ride.
Empty chest records and items with no source
Verified
The chest list has 162 entries: 136 real chests and 26 empty records (no item) on Mischief Castle, Hot Spring, Honey Factory, Cascal Sea, Kitten and Pirate Ship maps; the maps in the walkthrough show them in grey. Two items exist in the item list but can’t be found anywhere: Acorn Shot and Aretha.
The dungeon map (patch feature)
Verified
The English patch adds a map screen the original never had. Press SELECT on the field in a dungeon: you see the area with its name, your position, the exits and the chests you haven’t opened. It is drawn from the game’s own data, so opened chests disappear from it. We tested it on 22 areas in the emulator and checked that the screen comes back exactly as it was.