When you get hurt in 701, the stars disappear instead of falling off, except the one when you die. Strangely 701's header is —VOLT-- THE VOLTAGE. No clue what that has to do with Ristar.
701: If you press Start, B, and then hold A and press Start it takes you to the next level. Do the same thing except hold B and press Start, it resets the level.
0701: Debug mode. Press B while paused to enter debug mode. While in debug, A snaps to grid and the D-pad moves you around in the level. Holding a button while moving makes you move faster. Press A+Start to skip a level, B+Start to restart the current level and C+Start to enter a Stage Select. In it, use A and C to pick a level. An additional note: if you hit Start to return from Debug mode, the sound will remain muted. This is because you paused, but didn't unpause, which is what makes the music unmute. Just pause and unpause once more.
Judging by the rampant name-changing the Ristar team went though, we could assume that Volt was a name for Ristar at one point. Here's a timeline: Feel -> Volt -> Ristar -> Dexstar -> Ristar I could see why they would call him "Volt" at one point, due to his color-scheme. However, the "RISTAR IS NOT VOLT" text is very odd, and may just be a programmer joke. Although the possibility of Volt being a codename isn't too out of the question. :P And also, about "Dexstar," I spoke with djbrayster on the subject and he brought up the possibility of it being a US localization name at one point.
It seems there's a lot to be found in the Game Gear Ristar 09/09/94 proto, so I figured this was the best place for it. Quick list, and there's a lot more to be checked: - Sega logo is on plain blue background, and plays the same sound as when you pause as opposed to the little musical jingle. - A TON of layout changes - I barely know the original GG Ristar layouts so I won't even begin to tackle this one. - Debug is on: pause, and you can press 2+Start to skip to the next stage, Up+2+Start to get to level select, and 1+Start for "debug," where if you continue to hold 1 you can move Ristar around - when you release 1, you can play as normal again. - No after-level bonus screen - The big one here: all of the Mega Drive stages are listed in sound test (except Scorch). 2-1 & 2-2 are "Splash Down" and "Break Silence," and 5-1 and 5-2 are "Ring Rink" and "Ice Scream." However, the actual music isn't changed, as 2-1 & 2-2 still play Fanturn's stage music (as do 5-1 and 5-2, as a matter of fact). Also of note is that Timu's music, 4-1 & 4-2, is unnamed. There could be more to be found by going through each area in level select, so I'm planning on doing that next and seeing if there's anything left over. Also, most of this stuff is gone by the 10/19 proto - even the level layouts of Neer/Flora 1 and Fanturn 1 (the only ones I compared) seem to have become final.
Valid passwords for 0701: NOTONE - Onchi System Set Up! (Enables Onchi, an option in the Sound Test that distorts the music being played) NOTEKI - Ristar Was Invincible! (Ristar will pass through enemies) ILOVEU - RD.Select Active (Stage Select) MIEMIE - True Sight (Shows hidden items) FEEL - Hyper Mode ON (Gives the effects of NOTEKI, MIEMIE and ILOVEU) AAAAAA - Free Continue O.K.!! (Infinite Continues?) STAR - Star Star Mode (?) BSDEMO - Boss Battle Demonstration (?) AKUUYS - Real Staff (?) AGES - Copyright S E G A 1995 0718 has the same passwords as the final release, except for the MACCHA - The Miyake color!!! which was added at the 0812 proto but it appears that only got coded in the final release.
0701, you can walk around in the cutscene right after you defeat Greedy. Greedy himself and the bosses you fought in the previous level are not gold, but blue, when they latch onto Greedy as he escapes. In addition, you are the one who must grab the spinner to get out of Greedy's Castle; the CPU does not do it for you. EDIT: More. In the ending credits, Ristar doesn't do any other animation other than walk, whereas in the final he did basically all of his moves. Only Ristar is shown in the proto, whereas in the final some enemies appeared as well.
<!--quoteo(post=180670:date=Feb 24 2008, 05:16 PM:name=Durean)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Durean @ Feb 24 2008, 05:16 PM) The clouds seem to have been redone between 0909 and the final. When you ride the pollen thing up in 0909, you simply hang and it'll move horizontal to drop you on the ledge when it gets high enough. In the final, you swing back and forth on it to launch over to the ledge. Here's some pics of 0909 to illustrate what I'm talking about. The sound test in 0909 is also different than the final - it has the same title as the Genesis sound test and is lacking the little animated sprite. Some track names are misspelled. The stars in the background are also different colors. They altered second opening song name in the GG final - but it remains 'Pray!! Pray!! Play!!' in the Genesis final. Here's another side by side. In normal play, I managed to lodge our hero in the side of this island. Didn't take any damage, but I was stuck until I moved to the left. Ristar seems awfully happy about this predicament...
Only other thing I could find in the 0909 proto is that Rewope/Automaton 2 isn't in the game yet - choosing it in level select just resets the game, and otherwise the game automatically skips it and goes to the boss.
701: When you put in the AGES password, it says Copyright 1995, but on the title screen it says 1994. Is that anything of importance? EDIT: Also, if you go to the sound test and quickly alternate between "Lock-Up!!" and "Battle Entry Concentration", the little bird thing will keep moving past where it is normally.
I'm pretty sure they put the year it would be released into the password, and the year the build waas created in tittle screen. I'm not sure, but I think I have done this in final, too.
Here's the Ristar Cluster list of differences between the Japanese and US versions, from the internet archive: web.archive.org/web/20041102150911/ristar.sonic-cult.org/jap-vs-usa.htm
<!--quoteo(post=181348:date=Feb 26 2008, 11:54 AM:name=PAW)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PAW @ Feb 26 2008, 11:54 AM) shown below... this is why we had never seen them! They were removed. I am yet to notice other missing sprites but this solves one hang over we found in the final. Another thing noticed on 2-2... on the third room where the 2 orange seahorse enemies float around a figure of 8 room.. there is a odd three red dot enemy that dissapears alongside the boulders that lock you in when you enter the room! This is the main things that I remember from the other night.. other than the whole names in the level select etc. glad to see people are really interested in Ristar still! ^_^ *edit: typos (was late night sorry)
This is more a bump than a double post.. I had lots of quotes so editing the old post would had been a bit longer. I will actually go with Drx's comment on Ristar's shoes.. remember the FEEL proto pics? Feel was much more rounded and more like a fat freaky rabbit with red and white sonic shoes. The ristar final design is much more "sparky" and has the bolts on his shoes. It appears it did go Feel then was redesigned and turned to Volt and then became Ristar/Dexstar. It is possible the Volt origins is why Dexstar has the energized comment on the intro. to keep with the more sparky appearance of Ristar, while acknowledging he also looks and acts like a ambiDEXtrous STAR. The MACCHA code only effects one level as far as I could tell in the final.. and this was the Greedy boss arena! went from a bronze/orange to a gold/yellow colour. Have you checked that stage?
The maccha code is in the august protos but if you try to use the password, it will give a password error screen. Here are the areas in the roms where the passwords are: July, 01 July, 18 August, 12 August 16 Here also are the areas in the final roms: (UE) (J) In the japanese final, the MACCHA code works, but in the american/european the code doesn't work.
Wow that's really interesting... so they implemented the maccha code for only the jp final? wonder if this means that at one point the work on localisation was done alongside the final work on the jp version. This might explain why some codes are present in the text of the roms but not active.
I guess the whole concept was way too similar to PulseMan, including the uncontrollable route they follow when they're flying (they only let Ristar control his flight after a certain proto). For the record, one of the Spanish magazines where I scanned the Feel pics you all know, said Feel was a flame. I can only think the final "swinging poles" were something completely different back then.
