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[1].............Introduction
[2].........Known Hex Values
[2.1]....Using Hex Addresses
[2.2]..Known Bugs and Issues
[3]......Version Information
[4]..................Credits
Welcome to my Gauntlet Hex Editing guide! This classic gem stole the
sanity of many, many gamers back in the mid-1980s both in the arcades
and at home on the NES. It's a simple hack-and-slash adventure with
a few puzzle elements to it. I personally toiled on it endlessly
when I was a kid, my favorite to play with being Merlin (and at other
times Questor). For most, the NES version is an exceptionally
difficult challenge. Some say that you can't beat the game solo with
the Warrior! Well, all that changes today - I'm gonna make the game
so easy for you that all you do is just walk on in and take back the
Sacred Orb in record time!
The following are hex values I've discovered that are meaningful to
gameplay. There's quite a few of them here and they're pretty
straight-forward. Since it's a two-player game, all the hexes except
for Time have two addresses. The first will always be Player 1 and
the second will always be Player 2. I'd also like to note that there
are ways to simply ease the challenge as opposed to simply steam-
rolling it like my other guides. You can steamroll Gauntlet with
just the Health, Power-Ups, and Keys hexes, but you will still have
to play from beginning to end in order to get the code for Room 100.
A bummer in the truest sense, but it shouldn't make a difference.
If you want to just enjoy a slightly less difficult experience, I've
provided the hexes for the Invisibility, Repulsiveness, and
Invulnerability timers so you can just pick them up and enjoy the
benefits for the rest of the level you're on (or as long as you keep
the value frozen). Treasure Value addresses don't have much purpose
if you're playing with the Health address frozen anyway, so use that
to make it easy to max out your health (in a solo game, you can max
out your health on the first room no problem). For the record, your
passwords will fail to work after you reach a score of 2000, but you
do get an additional health upgrade at 3200.
There is also one other note I must make before going onto the hex
addresses, and that is the discovery of a dummied-out upgrade when
using the Upgrades address. It appears to the right of the Shot
Power upgrade on the pause screen and looks like the Extra Speed
Potion's symbol from Gauntlet II. Though I've tested it a bit, I
still can't figure out exactly what it does, if anything, so if
anyone can crack the game's code and see if it's tied to anything,
I'd be grateful and would credit you for the information. There's
likely a sprite for such an upgrade potion in the game's code, but I
don't have the tools to go looking into that.
0013 - 0014: Invisibility Timer
-This sets the duration of the Invisibility power-up. It's normally
set to 0B when you pick it up, but you can set it to anything you'd
like. In order for it to take effect, however, you must first pick
up the Invisibility power-up itself.
0015 - 0016: Repulsiveness Timer
-This sets the duration of the Repulsiveness power-up. It's normally
set to 0B when you pick it up, but you can set it to anything you'd
like. In order for it to take effect, however, you must first pick
up the Repulsiveness power-up itself.
0017 - 0018: Invulnerability Timer
-This sets the duration of the Invulnerability power-up. It's
normally set to 3C when you pick it up, but you can set it to
anything you'd like. In order for it to take effect, however, you
must first pick up the Invulnerability power-up itself.
00A6 - 00A7: Character
-Changes your current character. When modifying this address, you
will enter a red pause screen like the one you see when you reach a
Health increase threshold. When you come out of the screen, you'll
be the character tied to the hex value you put in. Values: 00 -
Warrior, 01 - Valkyrie, 02 - Wizard, 03 - Elf.
-Will enter red pause screen before changing to the desired character
-C0 - DF: Return to Title, E0 - FF: Game Over screen
-Causes exits to become warps based on how long you allow the sound
to loop, but only while the code is active
00AA - 00AB: Power-Ups
-This identifies which power-ups you currently have active. It and
the subsequent Upgrades address are unique in that they use a system
of sums to determine what the actual value is. Overflowing the
natural limit simply restarts the process from square one. This also
seems to ignore the actual hex system, instead using the traditional
decimal system, so simply add the values of what you want together
and plug them in to get what you're looking for. Values: 01 -
Invisibility, 02 - Repulsiveness, 04 - Reflective Shots, 10 - Super
Shots, 20 - Invulnerability
00AC - 00AD: Upgrades
-This determines what upgrades you've obtained. Normally there are
only five upgrades you can get throughout your adventure, but I've
discovered a sixth one that doesn't seem to have an effect. I
mentioned this in the opening paragraphs, so I'm not going to be
repetitious. As with Power-Ups, this value is additive, so you have
to add together the values that you want. Unlike Power-Ups, however,
this does utilize the actual hexidecimal system due to the fact that
you can get additive results beyond ten separate digits. 3E will get
you all the normal upgrades and 3F will throw in that extra mystery
upgrade. Values: 01 - Mystery Upgrade, 02 Shot Power, 04 - Extra
Speed, 08 - Bomb Power, 10 - Fight Power, 20 - Extra Armor
00AE - 00AF: Keys
-This is where the number of keys you have is stored. 0A is the
highest natural value, but you can put in whatever values you'd like.
00B0 - 00B1: Bombs
-This is where the number of bombs you have is stored. 01 is the
highest natural value, but you can put in whatever values you'd like.
00B2 - 00B3: Health
-This is where your health values are stored. FF will keep your
health maxed for the most part, but after some health upgrades you'll
need to collect a food or two for it to display your true maximum.
00B6 - 00B7: Treasure Value
-This determines the value of treasure you collect. It'll also give
you free treasure if you have a lower score than the value you put
in. The highest score you can naturally obtain is 5999, but if you
have the value set to FF you can get up to 6143. There is no real
difference because you'd need to reach 6400 before you could possibly
get another health upgrade.
00C0: Time
-This sets the amount of time you have left in Treasure and Clue
Rooms. Freezing the value gives you infinite time. 63 is the
highest natural value, but it will still display correctly up to 6D
(because the system has a "10" display for the keys and bombs, so it
uses that when you reach "100" on the timer).
----------------------------
====Known Bugs and Issues===
----------------------------
[2.2]
I did a fair amount of bug testing on these hexes, but some of them
really didn't have much to show. A few are strange, others just kill
your game. I didn't really find any crippling ones, but I also
wasn't 100% comprehensive - I never am because I'd get too bored and
wouldn't have the time or energy to do a guide for you guys. If you
find any yourself through such rigorous testing, feel free to send me
the results and I'll give you credit for finding them.
0013 - 0014: Invisibility Timer
-No real bugs since this is just a countdown timer. If you
deactivate it, it will count down from whatever you set it to.
0015 - 0016: Repulsiveness Timer
-No real bugs since this is just a countdown timer. If you
deactivate it, it will count down from whatever you set it to.
0017 - 0018: Invulnerability Timer
-No real bugs since this is just a countdown timer. If you
deactivate it, it will count down from whatever you set it to.
00A6 - 00A7: Character
-Going beyond value 03 will bring a whide variety of strange results.
For most values, it will keep track of the counting order and return
a sprite with the appearance of whatever character was in that
position in the main line-up (04 would be the Warrior, for example,
and 05 would be the Valkyrie, 06 the Wizard, 07 the Elf, and so on).
Using the C0 - DF values returns you to the title screen and E0 - FF
causes an immediate Game Over screen, then takes you back to the
title screen.
-Leaving this on as you exit a room will cause a very strange loop in
which you will hear the exit sound continuously until you deactivate
the hex, after which you'll find that you've been warped quite a few
rooms ahead. This can be useful if you can learn to control it, but
can ultimately screw you too since you need to enter the Clue Rooms
in order to finish the game properly.
00AA - 00AB: Power-Ups
-The only real bug I found was that Invisibility and Repulsiveness
don't work together. Some enemies will be repelled, others won't
move, and the rest will attack you as normal. It's best to pick one
or the other and either one will do.
00AC - 00AD: Upgrades
-With the exception of the Mystery Upgrade, there seem to be no bugs
associated with these addresses.
00AE - 00AF: Keys
-Graphical glitches are displayed when you put in a value greater
than 0A.
00B0 - 00B1: Bombs
-Graphical glitches are displayed when you put in a value greater
than 0A.
00B2 - 00B3: Health
-It's not so much buggy as it is just weird. The only plausible
"bug" is that it doesn't always display your maximum Health when set
to FF, but that's only limited until you either get some food or exit
a Treasure Room.
00B6 - 00B7: Treasure Value
-No bugs here. Just pumps your score up to ridiculous values.
00C0: Time
-Graphical glitches when set past value 6D, but that's all. It's
another countdown timer.
Version 1.00 - Initial release version; contains all necessary
information; updates will generally be used for clarification and
grammatical corrections, but information found to be missing or
incorrect may be updated to reflect more accurate information.
This guide is (c)opyright 2012 by Louis Boiko (a.k.a "MASTERNO" on
GameFAQs and Neoseeker). Feel free to redistribute this guide any
way you would like, so long as credit is given to me and no money is
involved in the receipt of this guide. For further inquiries,
comments, or suggestions, please email me at heroman.x.zero.protoman
( A T ) gmail.com or send a message to my GameFAQs or Neoseeker
accounts as listed above.
I'd like to thank the various FAQ writers that have used this format
in the past. I think there are many of them, and I don't really
remember who they are or what they wrote FAQs for, but this writing
format is my favorite and preferred. Credit goes to them, whoever
they may be, for this style of FAQ formatting. Contact me for creds
if you know who they are or what games they wrote for.
A big thank you to GameFAQs for hosting a website where knowledge
such as this can be freely shared by gamers everywhere.
Also a big thank you to Nintendo and Atari Games for the creation of
the NES and the development and production of this immensly addictive
hack-and-slash adventure, respectively.
