In a surprising discovery, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future for the Dreamcast has hidden cheat features triggered by specific save file names. By reverse-engineering the encoding scheme, special names like GYUGYU and EXBBERX unlock immortality and debug options. Investigating further, the author analyzes memory snapshots using Ghidra and Python to reveal additional special names and effects. Through code replication and hashing, unique passwords like NNSET and ADEMVSSF are uncovered, each providing different cheat functionalities. Despite some duplicates, passwords like SOCCER+XXX and EXBBERX+XXX enhance gameplay with bonus stages, immortality mode, and debug display. A mysterious password, POPELY+XXX, remains unidentified but likely activates a Cheats Enabled message.
https://32bits.substack.com/p/under-the-microscope-ecco-the-dolphin