| [ Round 6 Hidden Areas ] |
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Round 6 was originally intended to be much larger and more ambitious; see what the development team planned and play the hidden areas yourself!
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Round 6 Hidden Areas Info
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Info 
Round 6 is one of the most innovative stages in Streets of Rage 3. Instead of moving from left to right beating up punks as in standard stages, you must move around the various floors and rooms of the Syndicate building to release the Chief of Police in time, with your actions deciding which route you follow for the final stages of the game.
Thanks to STCFan I was able to find a value (FF88E2:6048 in Gens or change 646B in your savestate to 48) that shows a hidden exit on the top floor of Round 6. Clearly this pointed to the idea at some point in development you had to rescue the Chief and/or escape to the rooftop (you can see stairs heading upwards to the next stage). This was confirmed by SolientGreen, who has managed to find values that can open the rest of Round 6 with some amazing results. Thanks to his work we can now see what Round 6 was originally intended to appear as, including entirely new rooms with unseen graphics! |
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Rooms 04 and 05 Corridor 
If you enter the codes before starting the level the game dumps you in this new corridor. Just as the final game features a corridor with Rooms 01, 02 & 03, it appears that the game was also meant to include this corridor with Rooms 04 and 05. Room 04 is a standard power up room, while Room 05 is another trap room...
Note: Make sure to deactivate any PAR codes here as they will cause bugs, such as doors pointing to the wrong locations and causing the game to think that you are inside a trap room (so your character will get electrocuted randomly!). |
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Room 05 / Round 6 Scene 2(C) 
This trap room is missing from normal gameplay, though it is accessible from the hidden level select, where it is referred to as Round 6 Scene 2(C). A laser beam will follow you from the ceiling and will electrocute the player if they are stationary. Once this room is completed you will return to the previous corridor.
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New Elevator 
Once the karate punks are disposed of you can move right onto an entirely new elevator on the right side on the building. This elevator can make the player disappear when using it and a code is required to force the game to restore the player into the game.
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Basement Scene 
If you head downwards you will emerge into this basement, which features graphics never seen in the final game areas. Defeating the robots allows you access to both elevators, showing that the basement was the connection between the final game areas and hidden areas. Using the normal elevator afterwards will not allow you to return to the basement.
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Exit Corridor 
Heading upwards once will bring you to a floor where you are unable to get out, forcing you to go up again... Finally at the top of the building is a long corridor which goes left before reaching the hidden exit. Moving into the exit ends the stage and places you into the rooftop boss scene as normal.
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Conclusions 
This map shows how Round 6 should look. White areas are accessible in the final game, dark grey areas are hidden. Light grey lines represent doorways between rooms and black lines are solid walls.
This map suggest several things about the original Round 6. It was probably possible to simply pass through the stage without bothering to rescue the Chief, or to exit the building when the gas started. Whether or not you ever led the Chief to safety is another matter; perhaps once he was rescued you simply made your way out of the building without the threat of gas. The addition of Rooms 04 and 05 is interesting; were these the original location for one of the switches needed to release the Chief? This seems a quite plausible idea as it would force you to search the whole building instead of just one side. Finally, what exactly are the machines in the backgroound of the basement area? Are these somehow related to Mr X's robot clones? |
| How to play the Hidden Stages |
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There are a number of ways to play the hidden areas:
Action Replay Codes: Before entering Round 6 apply these PAR codes in Gens (these are unlikely to work on a real PAR cart). For best results deactivate the codes once into the gam. The right-hand elevator may cause the player to disappear; to stop this briefly reactivate the first code. (1) FF88E0:0404 (2) FF88E2:6008 Savestate Hacking: By changing certain addresses in a hexeditor you can force the game to show the hidden areas. Go to SOR3 Hacking for more information. |