Well, I was in a memory-dumping mood, and tried to see if I could decode the Sonic Mega Collection Plus roms this way. But it looks as if the data is scrambled even in memory - I can find the rom header no problem, but it's mixed in among some other text unrelated to the rom. Not sure if this is the same in the console versions.
Can somebody please post all the ROMs inside Smash Pack 1 & 2, for comparison? We should be keeping track of which are different and which are the same we already have, before everybody forgets about this and some of the alternate versions are left aside. I wonder if Sonic 2 is a clean dump of Version 2.
I did memory dumps for all the games in both Smash Packs but I was in a rush at the time to get somewhere, and I'm currently at a friend's overnight so I can't exactly access my stuff atm. :-( Maybe tomorrow. Well confused by SMCP though - I'm pretty sure people boasted in the past of having successfull ripped decoded roms out of its memory in the past. Possibly SGC as well.
Holy shit is this true? I had the Sega PC version of Comix Zone and never played the actual genesis version, and it has none of those button mappings. Not even with the keyboard! Wow, I gotta track down a Genesis version ASAP.
To be fair (and no offense intended with this following statement), if you're not being paid to do that which you're doing, you are, by definition, an amateur. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that - technically, so is everyone else here (at least, insofar as Sonic games go).
Actually, this is perfectly true: an amateur is, by definition, someone who does something because he likes/loves it and, by extention, enjoys doing it; a professional is, by definition, someone who does something because he makes money from doing/is paid to do it, regardless of whether he likes it/enjoys doing it or not. Technically, one could be both a professional and an amateur at the same time (logically speaking,) as many people are -- artists come to mind in particular. And sometimes amateurs do the things they like so well that they do them at a professional level, as though they were being paid to do it, without actually getting paid for doing it.
Apologies, man. I've been juggling between that and other things in life too, but as well as that I've been trying to rip roms from other Sega packs also. I'm getting round to it.
I got the Sonic 2 ROM out of Smash Pack 2, and GoodGen identified it as Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (W) (REV01) [!]. In other words, nothing we don't already have. I'll go through all the games from both Smash Packs, and then upload a zip of anything that GoodGen doesn't recognize, hopefully by tomorrow.
I have a feeling SP2 will be a lot less interesting in its results, to be honest. The software in that collection just felt a lot more robust to me.
This zip contains everything in both Smash Packs that GoodGen didn't recognize. I didn't bother packing the stuff that GoodGen was able to identify. The Shinobi rom is the one that GerbilSoft already uploaded, I stuck it in here for completeness. All of these have been tested in Fusion (not extensively), and seem to work just fine. What's different in Smash Pack 1 Golden Axe Outrun Super Shinobi Vectorman What's different in Smash Pack 2 Comix Zone Super Hang-On I don't know if it's significant or not, but Fusion whined about the Checksum in Comix Zone. I double and triple checked it, so I'm sure I extracted it correctly, the bad checksum is SEGA's fault. edit: In case anybody's interested, here's a more complete pack with ALL the games, both what GoodGen did AND didn't recognize.
Out of curiosity I checked the Dreamcast Smash Pack V1, and everything in it was in GoodGen already. Code (Text): Altered Beast (REV 02) (JU) [!] Columns (REV 01) (JU) [!] Golden Axe (REV 01) (JU) [!] Phantasy Star 2 (REV 02) (UE) [!] Revenge of Shinobi, The (REV 03) (JUE) Shining Force (U) [!] Sonic the Hedgehog (JUE) [!] Streets of Rage 2 (U) [!] Vectorman (F) [!] Wrestle War (J) [c][!]
Was there ever an official PAL release of the DC Smash Pack? I'm asking since it (probably) can run at 50Hz and at least SoR2 isn't PAL-compatible, so it might have different ROMs inside. EDIT: The change in Vectorman is just some data (garbage?) added inside the header. Code (Text): A39597917D9398919E9E959C How strange.
I know there were Japanese releases of both Packs, but they rebranded them under the title "セガアーカイブス フロム ＵＳＡ". <a href="http://sega.jp/pc/archvus1/" target="_blank">http://sega.jp/pc/archvus1/</a> <a href="http://sega.jp/pc/archvus2/" target="_blank">http://sega.jp/pc/archvus2/</a> <a href="http://sega.jp/pc/archvus3/" target="_blank">http://sega.jp/pc/archvus3/</a> So yeah, I doubt there would be anything new here.
Volume 2 might be worth checking out at least, it seems to have different games. I love how the webpage mentions The Revenge of Shinobi, even though the ROM included has the Japanese name.
And particularly interesting that they use the U.S. roms still (judging by the screenshots), hence presumably the reasoning behind the compilation's title. Oh, and thanks to Covarr for providing what I dismally failed to provide myself all those months ago. Damn time and real life issues. >.< Or if you're going by No-Intro's bible: Code (Text): Altered Beast (USA, Europe) Columns (World) (v1.1) Golden Axe (World) (v1.1) Phantasy Star II (USA, Europe) (v1.2) Revenge of Shinobi, The (USA, Europe) (Rev B) Shining Force (USA) Sonic the Hedgehog (USA, Europe) Streets of Rage 2 (USA) Vectorman (USA, Europe) Wrestle War (Japan, Europe)
Actually, I don't know what version of GoodGen Polygon Jim is using, but these are seemingly the actual rom names (for some of the games) in v3.00... Code (Text): Altered Beast (UE) (REV02) [!] Columns (W) (REV01) [!] Golden Axe (W) (REV01) [!] Phantasy Star II (UE) (REV02) [!] Revenge of Shinobi, The (W) (REV03) [!] Sonic The Hedgehog (W) (REV00) [!] Vectorman (UE) [!] Wrestle War (JE) [c][!]
