Indeed the Sonic Advance prototype discussions are far from over folks. What we have here today is a little something I acquired from an ex-Sega dev awhile back which took awhile to sort out for technical reasons (I'll tell you all about it at some point). So here it is folks... For more detailed pictures of the cart including pictures of all the pieces that make up the cart, check out: Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, and Picture 5. Download the ROM which includes a copy of the save file from the prototype cart below: [Sonic Advance Prototype + Save File] Differences between the prototype and final: Game freezes in certain areas of the level (Secret Base, Casino Paradise) Spinning Tubes either don't function right or don't work at all (Secret Base, Casino Paradise, Egg Rocket, Cosmic Angel) Other interesting key notes about this prototype: The Tiny Chao Garden contains a semi raised Chao name Dooogy. The information on the header doesn't match what is shown in the USA, EUR, JAP final. The prototype cart has a complete save file (all emeralds acquired/all levels accessible for every character). Using Hex Workshop, the save file appears to be slightly different to one VisualBoyAdvance creates in way that's very amusing (you'll see what I mean). Now there may potentially be a lot more to this build than meets the eye. For starters, I've done a file comparison between the prototype and the final version (all three regions) using Hex Workshop and there are some differences. However, I don't know what that translate to. Perhaps someone can look further into it. I do have some example pictures of some of the stuff I found however, I want you folks to have a go at this to see what you can find and whether there is anything else I might have missed or didn't know was there. I've done several dumps of this to make sure there were no bad dumps. Made sure what I was using to dump the game was functioning correctly. Hopefully this ROM didn't fall victim to being uploaded into the cart incorrectly back in the day, bit rot, or anything else (like the cart being non-functional at first due to the hardware which I managed to fix) that might have left the ROM in this state. If not, this is the real deal then. There is also a very interesting story in regards this prototype which I'll be happy to share you with at some point. Hopefully I might have more to enlighten you with as well at some point. Enjoy!
Will the rom work on VBA-GX for the wii? I want to try this but due to a problem with my ExHDD atm I can't access my files.
Hexdump diff results: ('-' == prototype; '+' == US final) Code (Text): 000000a0 53 4f 4e 49 43 41 44 56 41 4e 43 45 41 53 4f 45 |SONICADVANCEASOE| -000000b0 38 50 96 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 33 00 00 |8P...........3..| +000000b0 37 38 96 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 4c 00 00 |78...........L..| === -00094000 11 40 09 08 3e 00 00 03 04 00 00 03 6c 00 00 03 |.@..>.......l...| +00094000 11 40 09 08 3e 00 00 03 3f 00 00 03 6c 00 00 03 |.@..>...?...l...| === -00094080 00 90 50 46 6c 30 00 78 18 41 01 21 08 40 00 28 |..PFl0.x.A.!.@.(| +00094080 08 90 50 46 6c 30 00 78 18 41 01 21 08 40 00 28 |..PFl0.x.A.!.@.(| === -00094480 00 1c 00 2b 05 d0 41 46 48 68 00 12 82 42 06 dd |...+..AFHh...B..| +00094480 0c 1c 00 2b 05 d0 41 46 48 68 00 12 82 42 06 dd |...+..AFHh...B..| === -0010a820 00 00 10 00 10 00 08 00 00 0c 01 00 10 00 10 00 |................| +0010a820 20 00 10 00 10 00 08 00 00 0c 01 00 10 00 10 00 | ...............| === -0010ae20 10 07 10 08 00 00 00 00 a8 07 10 08 00 00 00 00 |................| +0010ae20 90 07 10 08 00 00 00 00 a8 07 10 08 00 00 00 00 |................| === -0019d080 40 04 00 00 3c 43 04 00 c0 32 42 44 33 43 33 33 |@...<C...2BD3C33| +0019d080 44 04 00 00 3c 43 04 00 c0 32 42 44 33 43 33 33 |D...<C...2BD3C33| === -001d0090 00 c0 66 76 dd 0c 00 00 2c dc 00 00 bb cd 4c 00 |..fv....,.....L.| +001d0090 00 c0 66 76 dd 0c 00 00 bd dc 00 00 bb cd 4c 00 |..fv..........L.| === -001d80d0 d5 dd 4d dd 04 00 00 00 42 00 00 00 c3 43 00 00 |..M.....B....C..| +001d80d0 d5 dd 4d dd 04 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 c3 43 00 00 |..M.....C....C.. === -006ba620 00 43 67 67 67 67 0f 68 65 67 67 67 67 69 0f 68 |.Cgggg.heggggi.h| +006ba620 65 67 67 67 67 67 0f 68 65 67 67 67 67 69 0f 68 |eggggg.heggggi.h| Looks like mostly 1-byte differences in various portions of the ROM. Perhaps it was flashed incorrectly? The weirdest part is the header. The company code is 8P in the prototype (which is also used in the Wii Sonic games), but is switched to 78 in the final version. I'm not sure if that means it was eventually published by a different division at Sega or what. EDIT: Overlord says company code 78 is THQ, which makes sense, since they published Sonic Advance in the US and Europe. EDIT 2: The EU final version has company code 6W, and the JP final versions (both 1.0 and 1.1) have company code 8P. 8P is Sega; 6W is Infogrames. (6W confirmed by Tanks)
Nice work, Orenge, great to know this all came through and worked in the end, especially after the issues you had getting this thing to work =P
Nothing to see here guys. Just a few bytes changed. EDIT: Fucking Gerb Anyway, thanks for the dump Orenge. Brings up a few questions as to why this ROM is the way it is I guess. Bad flash may very well be the best answer...
Just to clarify things... Was the rom badly dumped or it was really flashed incorrectly as Gerbil mentioned?
THQ published all of the Sonic games on GBA, save for Sonic Pinball Party. At least in the US that is. Great find by the way.
ROM headers: Sonic Advance: Sonic Advance (Proto): SONICADVANCEASOE8P Sonic Advance (U): SONICADVANCEASOE78 Sonic Advance (E): SONIC ADVANCASOP6W Sonic Advance (J) (1.0): SONICADVANCEASOJ8P Sonic Advance (J) (1.1): SONICADVANCEASOJ8P Sonic Advance 2: Sonic Advance 2 (U): SONICADVANC2A2NE78 Sonic Advance 2 (E): SONIC ADVANCA2NP8P Sonic Advance 2 (J): SONICADVANC2A2NJ8P Sonic Advance 3: Sonic Advance 3 (E) (Proto): SONICADVANC3B3SP8P Sonic Advance 3 (E): SONIC ADVANCB3SP8P Sonic Advance 3 (U): SONICADVANC3B3SE78 Sonic Advance 3 (J): SONICADVANC3B3SJ8P
Region codes for Sonic Advance 1 & 2: SAdv Proto - 8P SAdv - US - 78 EU - 6W JP - 8P SAdv2 - US - 78 EU - 8P JP - 8P As far as we know, 8P = SEGA and 78 = THQ. Now I'm almost certain 6W = Infogrames... But Infogrames did SAdv2 EU... I'm going to check SAdv3 and see what that has to say.
SAdv3 US - 78 EU - 8P JP - 8P Son of a bitch. You know what's worse? THQ did the EU release this time around...
Note that the proto has a US code, so it changed from 8P (SEGA Japan) to 78 (THQ) some time between this ROM and the US final. (for what it's worth my company code list also has 6W down as Sega, just saiyan)
So are those 1-byte differences the only ones in the whole dump? Sounds like the contents were just accidentally corrupted, rather than it being an actual prototype.
No, the header pretty much proves it was a prototype, thoughan extremely late one... Check the wiki, we explain it there. I'd link, but I'm on my touchpad ATM. :P
In the Sonic Advance 2 prototype topic, I talked about how there seems to be at least three different variations of GBA cartridges (Variation 1, Variation 2, and Variation 3; not counting the standard retail one) which many companies would have used while developing their games for the GBA. If anyone by the way can translate what's been written on the Sonic Advance 1 prototype cart, that would be great. I'll have a look around to see anyone could or not. The switches on the cart: So a couple of people have asked "what do the switches on the development carts do"? From what I've gathered, the four switches seem to assign the ROM to a specific file size (2MB, 4MB, 8MB, 16MB and 32MB) regardless of whether it's that actual file size or not. It can also assign the ROM to say whether it has a Flash 512k (64KByte) save file option or not. I don't know if the switches could do anything else beyond what I've seen. It would make sense I suppose for the switches to be there so that it could auto-trim the ROM in case the file size wasn't as big as what the cart could hold. Otherwise you would end up with a 32MB file with the actual game data and the rest being generic padding (like the one that was dumped in the Sonic 2 Advance prototype topic). This [Picture] shows an example of how the switches can change the file size and so on. The picture also shows the tools I used (NDS Lite, R4, GBA Backup Tool) to dump the game. Again I made absolutely sure this was working correctly. Some example pictures: I have some pictures by the way which show you those differences I pointed out between the prototype and final (which were due to the odd bytes in the ROM). Also included are some other notable stuff from the prototype. The areas of the level where the game freezes: Examples of how spinning tubes were going wrong: Other notable stuff from the prototype:
Ok. I don't know why... But Doogy just... rings a bell... I can't even figure out why. Maybe I saw a proto screenshot of a chao named doogy, I have no idea. I'm probably just over thinking this, but who knows. Might as well run by xcult just to be sure...
