So yea, as the title says, yesterday evening an online friend of mine sent me what he believed to be a Beta of Gunstar Heroes. I was initially skeptical, but upon playing it, I'm actually believing it's authentic: Enjoy, you all! Now if this is old, I apologize for all the excitement, but this was unknown to Me, Tweaker, and Super, so I'm guessing this isn't very widespread. GENERAL INFORMATION (please read before posting questions/findings). Now, don't take my word for this (I'm not confident in making these types of assumptions), but I'm going to say it's about 70% complete. The game is quite playable, up until the end of Stage 5 (Where Yellow is kidnapped and Smash Daisaku is boss), whereupon defeating Smash, you'll be stuck. You can get past this inconvenience using methods detailed below. As for differences, there's literally a myriad of them that await you. Some are small graphical oddities, others are added gameplay elements, and still more are probably remains of debug features. Gameplay works much the the same as the final, Red is still free shot style (though he can fire downwards in Green's stage), and Blue is still fixed shot. However, I will detail the various aforementioned debugging features present in this build. Stage Select As you'd guess, pressing Start or C on the highlighted icon will take you to the appropriate level. However, hitting A will take you to different levels, depending on what's highlighted. Below is what each icon corresponds to, with the destination listed in italics: Pink = Stage 5 (Rescue Yellow) Green = Stage 6 (Spaceship stage) Orange = Stage 7 (Final level where all the Empire members attack you) Black = Stage 7 (again) This was likely done by developers to have all the levels immediately accessible. In-game debugging Granted, this isn't as much as I'd hoped for, but it's kinda useful in the incomplete levels (Stage 7 especially). Basically, when you're paused in mid-game, you press the following buttons to trigger different effects: A is used for changing which guns you currently have, you press it in conjunction with either Left for your left weapon, or Right for your right weapon. It cycles through Blank, Force, Lightning, Chaser, Fire, then back to Blank, in that order. Bear in mind that it may take a couple of tries to make this work. B unlocks the screen most boss fights. This is especially useful for Stages 5 and 7. Use it during your fight with Smash in Stage 5, and run as far right as you can. When you win, Smash will shout a terrible Engrish line, and the ship will actually blast off, allowing you to proceed to the next level. In Satge 7, use during the battle with the Duck Battalion to move through the level (though it's completely empty minus the first battle). Remember to do it each time you come to a would-be arena. C makes oddly colored lines fly about. If anyone finds a real purpose for this, please post it here. Hit C again to get rid of them. Hit A and B at the same time, the unpause, and you'll instantly get 9999 health. You can do this as much as you like. =D Hitting A, B, and C all at once takes you back to the Sega and Treasure logos. If anyone else finds any more of these, I'd love to hear about them. SCREENSHOTS To prevent the otherwise inevitable shouts of "LOL FAKE!!!!11!!!11": Free points! =D GREEN WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO YOUR FACE?! Most of the text is either Engrish or not even translated at all. Heaven?!?! O_O Sadly though, the doors broken. ;_; So yea, have at it. If you love this game to death, you'll have a ball with this prototype! There's hundreds of cool differences waiting inside, from music changes, to scrapped gameplay elements. That ROM link again in case you missed it: LUNATIC GUNSTAR Remember, if you find anything noteworthy not mentioned in this thread, I wanna hear about it. Don't be shy! If enough people care, I eventually wanna try to create a website detailing every single difference, kinda like this site here.
Robjoe's Gunstar Heroes beta? The New RJGHB? Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well as S2B or the long past SWS2B, but hey. Also - ROM fails for not having any scrapped levels that are near completion. =P Otherwise, I had to lol a lot at the English Text. "BOSS TIME COMING SOON."
This has actually been floating around for a while, although it still might not be that well known - on one of the Sega Ages packs in Japan, this was actually included as an unlockable. Those colored lines that are brought up with C during pause? They show processor usage. If I remember correctly, the more 68k time that is taken up by the engine, the further down the screen the lines appear.
I think I might still have the cover scan, from when this "Gunstar Heroes Sample" was released. The guy who released it also had a "Dynamite Headdy Sample", if I remember correctly. No idea if he's ever dumped it, though.
Yes, there's a Dynamite Headdy proto. This has been around for a while now, as people have said. It's unfortunate that not everything is complete. (I'd like to see Golden Silver and see if there are any differences, but if I recall correctly I don't think he exists at all in this proto!)
Can somebody point me towards the Dynamite Headdy proto? I already found the music in this proto (took me 15 seconds <3), so I figure I could do the same for this one. Yay for SMPS!
It's in Goodgen so it's not that hard to find. This Sample is not that rare, it pops up on Yahoo Japan quite often, a cart with a black label with some japanese writings on it. I've seen it on ebay too.
Well Tweaker, the guy who gave me this also said something about having a Dynamite Headdy proto as well, so I could try to get ahold of it too if you like. Wha...? They released a commercial version of the game in this shape? Did they do often? Sounds like kind of an odd thing to do, in my opinion. I mean, wouldn't they at least make it stop after a few levels, like a demo? You're right, he isn't. The best you can do is advance the screen over to his arena, although it never loads any boss besides the Duck Battalion. Sucks, I was looking forward to fighting him with the cool song he has in this proto. It'd be nice to see it ported to the final.
Hah. "Bear you long time" LOL Man, I am really glad that they changed the way the ship controls in the final. Anyway, has the music itself been changed in any way? It all sounds the same as before (I mean, I already know that the playlist has changed, like in the final battle and all). Oh, yeah. RJGHB sounds like some sort of date rape drug combination.
Well, if you listen closely, you'll notice some instrument and tempo changes in most of the songs. Song 94 (Golden Silver battle) is quite a bit different, though (I personally like it better that way), and song 9A is totally bizzare. Tweaker suggested that it's an instrument test of sorts. Also, there's a shit load of unidentifiable sound effects in the sound test, too. Interesting side note, the spaceship actually controls like in the final if you're playing as Blue. =P
No, see, they referred to it as a prototype - it was an hidden extra (not unlockable as I stated, but it wasn't out in the open either), the full game was on the disc too. Specifically, it was Sega Ages Vol 25 - Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box. As far as I know, the build included in the treasure box was the same build floating around the Internet - hell, that's probably where they got it from, to be all honest.
I dunno, I thought that the fixed-shot controls froze the location of the ship and let you move your aim around. But I nearly always use the free shot anyway, so what do I know? EDIT: Maybe you're right. In that case, they switched the way that Blue and Red control in the final during the shooting stage. All I know is that I prefer having my weapon frozen in place.
