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General Questions and Information Thread

Discussion in 'General Sega Discussion' started by Andlabs, Aug 25, 2011.

  1. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Earthworm Jim/Hidden content
    ding ding ding

    Though I don't know if it's Kega Fusion getting a bit jumpy or my keyboard misbehaving, but again, a good chunk of the codes on GameFAQs don't seem to work. There also seems to be multiple codes that do the same thing - it's beyond my pay grade.


    I'm only going to be dipping in and out of this subject - I haven't the patience to go through a bazillion Mortal Kombats and screenshot all the fatalities, but it's totally worth doing and someone should totally do that. We need volunteers!


    And to prove these sorts of crusades can be done, we have almost a definitive list of how Mega Drive games behave across console regions. Nobody does these things better than we do.
     
  2. biggestsonicfan

    biggestsonicfan

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    Well, if we follow the AM2 formula, here's how the character select table works in hex:

    Code (Text):
    1.  
    2. [Array of the list of characters] - [Size of the array]
    3. (Fighting Vipers) 01 04 06 03 07 00 02 05 08 0A  - 07
    4. (Sonic the Fighters) 00 01 04 0A 05 07 02 06  - 07
    5.  
    In all 3 of these games, they have 8 characters in the character select list. If the value of the character select list is increased to 9 (hex 0x08), you will be able to select Mahler in Fighting Vipers and Eggman (mechless). Both of these characters have the value of 08, so if you can somehow increment the size of the character select table by 1 through a cheat or otherwise, you will get this bonus character.

    Based on this formula I would say it's safe to assume that character slot 08 is always reserved for an intended selectable boss from the character select. Fighting Vipers expanded on this by introducing B. Mahler as the boss when playing as Mahler, which could be where this cheat's origin stems from. See an archive of my old Sonic the Fighters Eggman article for further explanation.
     
  3. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    If you live in North America, you weren't allowed to play Donald in Maui Mallard because Nintendo swallowed up all the rights to Donald Duck games for a bit. It's only available on the SNES.

    ... where all references of "Donald Duck" are stripped out and we pretend that "Maui Mallard" is a totally original character do not steal.


    You can't even import a European copy - it's region locked. But it turns out you can import a Brazillian copy instead:

    Donald in Maui Mallard/Region coding

    Tectoy released a version of this game that doesn't care what type of system you run it on. And it's in English... so it's basically the game you were meant to get in 1995, but didn't because of politics. Apparently it has different passwords too - not sure if there's other changes under the hood, but yeah, that's where your game is hiding.


    Incidentally Maui Mallard is not a bad game - it's the closest you'll ever get to a "QuackShot 2".
     
  4. Pirate Dragon

    Pirate Dragon

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    Yes, Brazil was the same region as US (60Hz / English), so all Brazilian games work on US hardware (and vice versa). Maui Mallard was released in the US as a Sega Channel exclusive.
     
  5. GoldS

    GoldS

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    That January 1989 Beep! article that has the pictures of the Floppy Disk Drive, Keyboard, etc. has been translated here on Mega Drive Shock. Looks like the initial plan was to have the FDD release in Spring 1989, with the CD-ROM drive released afterwards in the summer.

    There's another article translation here, taken from the November 1988 issue, that mentions a superimposition system and a printer (unrelated to the Sega Mega Anser printer).
     
  6. jbr

    jbr

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    My favourite part of that article has to be this...

    [​IMG]

    Does anyone know if any games actually implemented such as option? It looks a bit ridiculous to me!
     
  7. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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    According to this Twitter post V-V / Grind Stormer supports it...
     
  8. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    I've seen wacky bootlegs come with upside down Mega Drive controllers, but I've never seen it as an official control scheme.

    But if it's supported in games I totally want to see a list.




    There are 2-player Game Gear games where someone takes the D-Pad and the other person takes the buttons - I know that for sure (Codemasters were big fans of that scheme).
     
  9. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    For the record I've had a look through a chunk of the ROMs I've amassed over the years, and while I can confirm Grind Stormer supports "left-handed mode", I couldn't find anything else that did.

    There's a code in Mega Turrican that can reverse left and right so you can almost simulate it there, but even the oldest Mega Drive titles don't support it.


    Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle has a "reverse" option which swaps A/C and B around, in case you don't want A to jump.

    It's a two button game so you could just move your thumb across, but hey, it's there!
     
  10. Rudie Radio Waves

    Rudie Radio Waves

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    I apologize if this is the wrong thread to ask this, but:

    Is there a reason why Jet Set Radio Future hasn't been rereleased on Steam, PSN, etc...?
     
  11. Gryson

    Gryson

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    It's just speculation, but my thoughts are that it was possibly a misunderstanding of the options in Super Thunder Blade, which list "Normal" and "Reverse" controls. At the meeting where those pictures were taken, they were showing off STB, and I think it's likely that Sato or the reporter misunderstood these control options (which, in fact, just reverse the y-axis).

    Otherwise, it's pretty strange to introduce this as a planned feature but not have either of the first two games support it!

    But it's certainly an interesting idea, so I'm glad there's at least one game that went with it.
     
  12. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Seaman

    Dreamcast


    [​IMG]


    Yeah that seems about right.
     
  13. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    [​IMG]

    VULTURE ON DESERT



    Fun fact: There are more third-party light guns for the Sega Saturn then there are games that support them. And that's even if you're playing two-player and each person has a different gun.
     
  14. Blast Brothers

    Blast Brothers

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    Looking at this has made me realize two things:

    1. This thread is mostly pictures with little to no context.
    2. Sonic Gear exists, and is mostly pictures with little to no context.

    Should we care? It seems like a waste to ignore it... unless you aren't and I haven't noticed.
     
  15. JaxTH

    JaxTH

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    Sega Retro is a thing. You have information? Share it.

    We have no info on this light gun so it's just a picture on a list on our wiki.
     
  16. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Almost everything I post is wiki related. This is to inspire others to get involved.



    Incidentally one goal for Sonic Retro is to absorb Sonic Gear in its entirity, providing context on merchandise as well as higher resolution photographs and scans. This is how far we've got on that - both Sonic and Sega Retro are completely reliant on volunteers.
     
  17. JaxTH

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    Persona 5 Art Prints:

    https://www.candb.com/en/artgallery/2186/persona-5-fine-art-print-collection.html
     
  18. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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  19. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Well, that's interesting to see even if this game doesn't have completely different sets of graphics for the less colorful versions (since they're all just copy-pasted on the arcade's).

    Is there a technical explanation to why the Tandy graphics are exactly the same as in EGA mode, but with the backgrounds (and only the backgrounds) featuring vertical dithering instead?
     
  20. So, I need a couple questions if anyone can point me in the right direction. I'm trying to date all the different builds of DOA and I've fallen down a well of different versions: https://i.imgur.com/oYESIff.png
    • How do Dreamcast demo discs work? I've been able to determine the ODCM May 2000 disc has a build date of 2000-02-16 from the track01.bin but how can I determine the build date of a specific demo within? DOA2DC.BIN is the executable but it doesn't seem to have a build or compile date listed anywhere so I'm not sure what other avenues to try. This demo's build date is 2001-01-07, per the date modified on the executable, putting it a full two months earlier than the final 2000-03-06. The demo build is unique and is an in-progress arcade port despite the final having already released in Feb/March: The attract screen is unique being almost identical to the original Rev A arcade release (camera flythrough of stages) but adds different characters' lines each time you get to the title screen (the other arcade and home versions had a single line uttered by Kasumi) and it also adds the auto-demo from the other arcade versions but not the intro that was already present in Rev B or Millennium. There's also missing sound effects and one minor texture change on a stage. The end-boss stage is actually playable in both the auto-demo and for the player! This level was not playable for normal characters (outside story mode battles set there) until the F2P 2008 Chinese-only PC release. The DC version added fixed texture character portraits at the character select screen in order to speed up loading so each characters' costume didn't preview like in the arcade build, this change is not yet present in this demo build (you can switch the character previews on like the arcade version in the final build however).
    • Like, there's also another Dreamcast kiosk-exclusive demo of a slightly different build that I personally recall playing back at EB in 2000 that doesn't appear to be dumped in any form.
    • How about Naomi and Model 2? I'm also trying to date the arcade versions of DOA1 and 2 but I'd love to be able to rip the data out of there and look inside but I don't have a clue how to split those ROMs.
    • The 1998 PSX port of DOA1 has character portrait names viewable in plain text and you can plainly see three blank spots. I haven't been able to find where this same data would be stored in the original 1996 arcade version or Saturn port but if there was any chance of leftover character data it would be in earlier iterations. I'm surprised that was present in the PSX version and I suspect that the two added characters in the PSX port may have taken up old slots. I'm speculating but I'd like to look at the earlier versions so I can made a definitive determination. I've just translated a bunch of concept art with cut characters and suddenly so many internal filename references make so much sense now: a majority of characters even in 2 and 3 refer to characters by their prototype names (Kelly>Zack, Lugh/Loo>Jann Lee, Kamui>Hayabusa, Fan-Fu>Gen-Fu, Gatsby>Bayman) and there's still some proto refs/names I don't yet understand (Ein is KT? Helena is HI?) so I still have digging to do.
    • Where can I best document these things? "Sega" Retro would only apply to the versions running on Sega hardware so what I can post there is limited, although I will, and the FSD wiki is absolute garbage. There doesn't seem to be a community or wiki for documenting this level of detail for games outside of Sonic and Sega (look at what you people did to me). TCRF is close but they're specifically only interested in proto stuff and while I'll get to the proto stuff eventually but right now I'm just trying to establish an accurate database of all the different available versions. Then I can start better documenting actual differences. It got to the point where I was going to run my own MediaWiki server off a v2 Rasp Pi until I found something. But the power cord's loose and got bumped during "apt-get upgrade" and now a majority of my drivers broke and I can't even navigate with a mouse. fml
    • Like, I think there might be a bunch of leftover unused character samples in the arcade build but I don't know how to best document that.
    • I don't know how to document any of the things I'm finding... halp
    • holy shit this DOA2 demo has unique song mixes - they don't match the arcadeor consoleversions: Edit: youtube playlist: https://t.co/bm1x65Wz5S
    • also has a bunch of dialogue differences - ran a script to extract it and compared to the final build and the proto on Hidden-Palace. edit: added them to the wiki https://segaretro.org/Dead_or_Alive_2#Beta_Subtitles

    Code (Text):
    1. Helena---------------------------
    2. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG006f.ADX Size: 9471630 bytes (9 MB) CRC32: 3C728FE2
    3. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG006f.ADX Size: 9471630 bytes (9 MB) CRC32: 3C728FE2
    4.  
    5.  
    6. Ayane---------------------------
    7. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG006e.ADX Size: 8451782 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: E2ABE85E
    8. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG006e.ADX Size: 8451782 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: E2ABE85E
    9.  
    10.  
    11. Kasumi---------------------------
    12. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG0070.ADX Size: 9111734 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: 843AEB12
    13. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG0071.ADX Size: 9111734 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: 843AEB12
    14.  
    15. Ein---------------------------
    16. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG0071.ADX Size: 9147270 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: C084C786
    17. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG0072.ADX Size: 9045138 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: 6D5AC1DE
    18.  
    19.  
    20. Leifang---------------------------
    21. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG0072.ADX Size: 8493082 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: 7246C826
    22. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG0073.ADX Size: 8493082 bytes (8 MB) CRC32: 7246C826
    23.  
    24.  
    25. Jann Lee---------------------------
    26. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG0073.ADX Size: 7840510 bytes (7 MB) CRC32: E98C605D
    27. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG0074.ADX Size: 7843538 bytes (7 MB) CRC32: 3D22091F
    28.  
    29.  
    30. Character Select
    31. ---------------------------
    32. DEMO  Name: OPN_SNG0075.ADX Size: 1866930 bytes (1 MB) CRC32: C8A001AF
    33. FINAL Name: OPN_SNG0076.ADX Size: 1992482 bytes (1 MB) CRC32: 63515181