I'm really doubting it's another pirate mostly based on how no other copies have turned up. Usually when piraters re-pirate something it will look a bit different, but all seven copies I've seen so far look exactly the same. That's my logic anyway =p[/quote]Not to sit here and pontificate, but if your unlicensed 16-bit game doesn't have a copy protection routine, then it's counterfeit. Or a "pirated pirate", the equivalent of buying a pirate of Tengen's Tetris.
Not even taking into consideration using other's IP's without permission, these companies were in this to make a profit. They were all based in areas where pirates were more accessible than original carts. They wanted to make sure that when they put out a game from their plant, every Tom, Dick, and Harry wasn't playing it on their copiers instead of buying one of their carts. And they
really didn't want a real counterfeit outfit churning out their game left and right.
Look at MD pirate market today for unlicensed stuff. There's literally about two dozen titles that are always the same ones circulating and these same titles weren't manufactured 15 years ago, they were manufactured like last month. They're always loose carts and have label art taken from new sources. Why is the Mario Bros. Squirrel King hack all over the place, yet Super Mario World 64 is like hen's teeth? Because it hasn't been cracked and posted in Chinese-based forums where these modern-day counterfeit plants get their ROMs from. Top Fighter was some exotic thing that wouldn't even work on emulators and went for hundreds of dollars several years ago. Then the [f1] version popped up and made its rounds; now you can buy Top Fighter carts all day long with no end in sight.
There's a few exceptions to this rule. Most of the Russian hacks don't have any protection, but most of them were just simple hacks made for their portable Mega Drive system (MDP) and eventually put on carts also. I don't think those outfits could even program copy protection like that if they had it. Most of the original stuff using the Tomsoft SDK (Iraq War, Death Caliber, etc) just has TMSS issues because they were designed with clone hardware in mind due to the market.
Why is the SNES/SFC market so small and the ROMs not over the place? Hell, until D4S cracked those handful a year or so ago that copy protection hadn't been broken by anyone anywhere for over 15 years! The pirates just didn't have anything to pirate! What didn't have protection is either all over (Sonic 4 anyone?) or has been dumped for years but just not pirated due to lack of customer interest (Street Fighter II:CE, Street Fighter V).
I dunno, at least for me I'm not totally convinced it's a pirate of a pirate we've got here, but I can't completely dismiss the possibility. I don't think there's any way to know 100%, especially since the game did have a form of protection, however small and fast it was cracked. The important thing is it's dumped so meh.
I was taking a look in VRAM and noticed that there's more text that's unused in the intro. The story cuts off at "comes out to fight with Prince of Darkness for justice to rescue" with no period or anything after "rescue." Here's what's in VRAM.
(http://oi53.tinypic.com/24b413r.jpg)
It possibly was meant to say "rescue his disappeared friends.." There's also the text "A journey," who knows what that line was supposed to be.
Edit: On second it looks like the text would have been "A journey in Imaginable Island begins.."
Probably "rescue all his disappeared friends", given the stray "ll" in there.
I'm guessing there's probably an entire fourth screen of text that got chopped out, since each story screen is four lines. Still curious what "Hwevbat Dkssalloudsl" is supposed to be. "However" something "Darkness"...
- Barver
- Jul 27 2011, 11:12:02 PM
I dunno, at least for me I'm not totally convinced it's a pirate of a pirate we've got here, but I can't completely dismiss the possibility.[/quote]Oh no, I'm in agreement with you that it's a first-run original and not a pirated pirate. The PCB could probably tell a lot, but it it doesn't have screws in it so there's a good chance the case would be damaged if it was pried open. I don't think I'd risk that. I guess I could have avoided writing a thesis paper and just said that if the game has a copy protection routine, you can almost 100% bet it's original. Most of these even have additional hardware on the PCB just for the copy protection routine, and you know cheap pirates aren't going to fool with reproducing that!
Ah, good to know we're on the same side old friend :P Sounded like you thought it wasn't an original too.
I've noticed some more things. I pointed out before how the back of the box shows mock-up shots of the game, but take a look at this shot:
(http://oi55.tinypic.com/2112sjn.jpg)
Compare with this in-game and you'll notice that it shows more level graphics on the box up there than appears in the game:
(http://oi54.tinypic.com/2j1261s.jpg)
There's a ceiling(which are the same graphics as the floor admittedly), but also some blocks holding the ceiling that aren't in game. You can also see smaller blocks which appear to be a platform off to the right. It looks like this was planned to be a regular stage at one point but just dropped. Looking in VRAM I can't tell exactly if there's any unused graphics here or not, maybe someone can help me out.
(http://oi54.tinypic.com/2h70809.jpg)
I chose the palette that's also for the background since that better resembles the what you see on the cover, to me anyway. I'm still waiting for my friend to give me a scan of the cover so maybe things will be clearer then.
It definitely looks like there's an unused sprite for the smaller bricks attached to the ceiling. (Second row of sprites, around 1/3 of the way to the right.) It's noticeable because the big bricks are literally pixel-doubled, while the smaller brick isn't.
More unused stuff keeps showing up :D
Thanks to andlabs yet again, we've now got a sound test for the game...
http://idisk.mac.com/pietro10-Public/tta3sndtest.bin (http://idisk.mac.com/pietro10-Public/tta3sndtest.bin)
...and it's full of unused music! BTW you have go back to 0, so fast forward your emu and hold left. Most of the unused stuff sounds like earlier versions of used tracks, but a couple who knows for sure.
Track 01 - Title screen, usually don't get to hear it in its entirety.
Track 02 - Level 3
Track 03 - Level 4
Track 04 - Level 1
Track 05 - unused, sounds like an early version of Level 2
Track 06 - unused
Track 07 - unused, another early level 2?
Track 08 - Level 2
Track 09 - Level 5
Track 0A - unused, early version of final level possible. The percussion again is like that of level 2, so could be yet another early level 2 track.
Track 0B - unused, variant of theme when you lose a life
Track 0C - and another
Track 0D - and yet another
Track 0E - and here's the regular theme for when you lose a life
Track 0F - ..and a variant of that!
After that it's just sound effects, possibly even some unused stuff there but I'm not good at remembering all the sound effects to know if there's anything unused.
Anyway, pretty cool stuff.
Ending @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ_4KS_h_Uk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ_4KS_h_Uk)
It was really easy to get :shock:
Well, I was gonna make VGM rips of the music but I'm just realizing some of these unused songs get horribly out of sync. I have no idea wtf is going on but it's kind of impossible to choose a proper loop point :x
I played this just there and it's pretty strange to say the least. Is that purple bunny supposed to be Buster? If so, why is he purple? :huh: Although, I kept falling to my death when trying to jump onto the moving platform. How embarrassing, but I'm not sure if the programming is to blame for this because I don't want to be making the same mistake when I do a video of this.
Also, LOL at the ending SpaceNinja posted :lol:
- BrydoRX
- Aug 7 2011, 09:22:21 AM
I played this just there and it's pretty strange to say the least. Is that purple bunny supposed to be Buster? If so, why is he purple? :huh: Although, I kept falling to my death when trying to jump onto the moving platform. How embarrassing, but I'm not sure if the programming is to blame for this because I don't want to be making the same mistake when I do a video of this.
Also, LOL at the ending SpaceNinja posted :lol:[/quote]Yeah, it's supposed to be. Then again, they made Chip look like a pimp in Squirrel King. :rolleyes: The programming is kinda to blame with the jumping, because like in Hummer's DKC4, you sometimes keep moving forward even after letting go of the D-Pad. It's not that bad, fortunately, but still kinda annoying.
And that ending brought me BOUNS of joy. :D
- Barver
- Aug 7 2011, 08:50:42 AM
Well, I was gonna make VGM rips of the music but I'm just realizing some of these unused songs get horribly out of sync. I have no idea wtf is going on but it's kind of impossible to choose a proper loop point :x[/quote]I was even noticing a bit of this in some of the tunes that
are used-- the melody and accompaniment lines slowly start to get out of sync.
This is... strangely common in games associated with the Gamtec team. (No doubt the same sound programmer...) The summer theme in Crazy Richman 2 does the same thing, as does the town theme in Digimon Ru[rb]y for GBA.
I wonder if the 'real' version of the game that doesn't have "GAMTEC" hacked out of its header actually has an ending? I didn't notice any credits buried in the character ROM or anything, so yeah, I doubt it...
- codeman38
- Aug 7 2011, 12:12:57 PM
I wonder if the 'real' version of the game that doesn't have "GAMTEC" hacked out of its header actually has an ending? I didn't notice any credits buried in the character ROM or anything, so yeah, I doubt it...[/quote]That's assuming there's another version of this game. Like a couple of people pointed out earlier, I'm probably wrong on this being a copyright-hacked version. >_<
GODDAMNIT then, why did I even bother. :lol:
- SpaceNinja
- Aug 7 2011, 04:15:14 PM
GODDAMNIT then, why did I even bother. :lol:[/quote]Because you're mad enough to? Then again, that goes for several others including myself. ;D
- codeman38
- Aug 7 2011, 12:12:57 PM
- Barver
- Aug 7 2011, 08:50:42 AM
Well, I was gonna make VGM rips of the music but I'm just realizing some of these unused songs get horribly out of sync. I have no idea wtf is going on but it's kind of impossible to choose a proper loop point :x[/quote]I was even noticing a bit of this in some of the tunes that
are used-- the melody and accompaniment lines slowly start to get out of sync.
This is... strangely common in games associated with the Gamtec team. (No doubt the same sound programmer...) The summer theme in Crazy Richman 2 does the same thing, as does the town theme in Digimon Ru[rb]y for GBA.
I wonder if the 'real' version of the game that doesn't have "GAMTEC" hacked out of its header actually has an ending? I didn't notice any credits buried in the character ROM or anything, so yeah, I doubt it...[/quote]I think I might have noticed that too, specifically the instrument in the very background of level 4. Doesn't really match the song at all. I never noticed it in Squirrel King like was pointed out though.
- Barver
- Aug 7 2011, 09:09:51 PM
I think I might have noticed that too, specifically the instrument in the very background of level 4. Doesn't really match the song at all. I never noticed it in Squirrel King like was pointed out though.[/quote]It even happens in level 1!
And yeah, I'd never noticed it in Squirrel King either. Though to be fair, that one uses a different sound driver.
Oops, my mistake, thought someone said it happens in Squirrel King but now I see no such post..
- Cheetahmen
- Aug 7 2011, 04:20:08 PM
- SpaceNinja
- Aug 7 2011, 04:15:14 PM
GODDAMNIT then, why did I even bother. :lol:[/quote]Because you're mad enough to?[/quote]Yesh! Yesh! :clap:
- Barver
- Aug 8 2011, 02:24:08 AM
Oops, my mistake, thought someone said it happens in Squirrel King but now I see no such post..[/quote]I'm pretty sure Squirrel King doesn't have that problem, at least not with the tracks that are actually used.
Just wasted over an hour trying to find a level select cheat, and got one. Besides possibly showing what order they made the levels(or not), I can't find anything unused :(
Anyone curious, ram position FF000F is where the level value is stored. Numbers 0-24 are all the levels(5 levels, each with four screens and a boss, 5x5=25). FF0037 also controls jump height.
Wish I found something more useful >_< There could be a way to display the missing text on the fourth screen of the intro story, but I'm not exactly sure how to get a code for that..
"What's up, Doc"?
I was just thinking about something last night... TTA3 seems quite poorly developed for the build date of 4 March 1996 shown in the ROM header. It's incredibly buggy; the background music gets out of sync, the music is generally of lower quality than Gamtec's usual, the gameplay is much clumsier than Squirrel King, and so on.
And meanwhile, Chuanpu-- known to share programmers with Gamtec-- released some games in the same year or earlier which were far better in quality. Barver Battle Saga has a hidden copyright notice of 1995, and Yase Chuanshuo is specifically shown on its title screen to be from 1995.
Even Gamtec 'proper' had long gotten rid of the Shikinjoh sound engine by that point, too. Their older games used it, yes, but they had switched to the Wonderboy sound engine before 1996-- many of the games in the GM-95 series, which were released in 1995, used the Wonderboy engine. Only one of the GM-95 games (Super Magican/Elf Wor) still used the Shikinjoh engine.
It's like this game was developed by the dregs of Gamtec's staff while everyone else had moved on to the Chuanpu team. Or something.
1996? I thought this was one of Gamtec's first games. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the graphics seem to be similar in style and quality to their other Mega Drive games (albeit some of them being stolen if I remember correctly) but there's no question that the gameplay and sound is inferior to their other games. I'm guessing that their staff were leaving the company for whatever reason so Gamtec had to hire some inexperienced programmers to make it, much like those "ex-Hummer Team" games.
Maybe it was developed by a small group of people who split off from Gamtec? That'd explain the "XXXXXX Ltd", they might have started it at Gamtec and removed the name after they left.
There's another game with something similar going on, Link Dragon, credited to Songtly & Jumbo Team - it's also kind of buggy and low quality, one of the levels is shaped like Gamtec's Chinese name but two others spell out "OIC" and "TEC". I always thought it'd make more sense for the "OIC" level to say "GAM", maybe it originally did but it was changed? I can't tell what sound engine it uses because the sound doesn't work in emulators (I'm assuming it *has* sound here because Hanmin Liao is credited with it, but you never know), but another Jumbo Team game, Ghost Hunter, uses the Shikinjoh one.
But strangely the credits in Link Dragon, apart from Liao, are mostly people who worked on AV Artisan/Realtec's games (and I'm still no closer to figuring out how those companies fit into all this, lol) and the credits in Ghost Hunter are completely different.
- Cheetahmen
- Aug 9 2011, 12:30:12 PM
1996? I thought this was one of Gamtec's first games. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the graphics seem to be similar in style and quality to their other Mega Drive games (albeit some of them being stolen if I remember correctly) but there's no question that the gameplay and sound is inferior to their other games. I'm guessing that their staff were leaving the company for whatever reason so Gamtec had to hire some inexperienced programmers to make it, much like those "ex-Hummer Team" games.[/quote]Yeah, I was thinking it was one of Gamtec's first games, too! But the ROM header specifically says: "Date:03/04/1996"
Maybe it was a later build of a game from '93 or so? <_< But even Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan kept its hidden 1996 copyright date in the ROM, even when the title screen was changed...
- taizou
- Aug 9 2011, 12:33:09 PM
There's another game with something similar going on, Link Dragon, credited to Songtly & Jumbo Team - it's also kind of buggy and low quality, one of the levels is shaped like Gamtec's Chinese name but two others spell out "OIC" and "TEC". I always thought it'd make more sense for the "OIC" level to say "GAM", maybe it originally did but it was changed? I can't tell what sound engine it uses because the sound doesn't work in emulators (I'm assuming it *has* sound here because Hanmin Liao is credited with it, but you never know), but another Jumbo Team game, Ghost Hunter, uses the Shikinjoh one.
But strangely the credits in Link Dragon, apart from Liao, are mostly people who worked on AV Artisan/Realtec's games (and I'm still no closer to figuring out how those companies fit into all this, lol) and the credits in Ghost Hunter are completely different.[/quote]Are you sure it wasn't supposed to say "Realtec" originally? I'm sure they could've fit that into a snake game.
- codeman38
-
Yeah, I was thinking it was one of Gamtec's first games, too! But the ROM header specifically says: "Date:03/04/1996"
Maybe it was a later build of a game from '93 or so? <_< But even Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan kept its hidden 1996 copyright date in the ROM, even when the title screen was changed...[/quote]I think it's more probable that Gamtec hired some inexperienced programmers. I'm guessing that if it was from the early 90's, they'd have left the date as it was.
Well, this game came before Squirrel King and Lion King II evidently, and before it Gamtec made Bomboy and Thunderbolt II I think, games that didn't exactly look amazing either. Seems about right, especially since it's their first platformer so they were still getting into things I suppose.
Yeah, but if I remember correctly those games were generally better as well. I'd check, but I can't find the ROMs of either of them. :\
Neither is dumped. I've got Bomboy now but supposedly someone else dumped it but just isn't sharing. Still gotta message him to see if it's true. Thunderbolt II has copy protection or something and can't be dumped, and this is from TmEE who's a wiz at all things MD so I trust it must be pretty difficult protection.
I still say the quality is due to it being their first platformer :P
- Barver
- Aug 10 2011, 06:58:18 AM
I still say the quality is due to it being their first platformer :P [/quote]Well considering that Somari was Hummer Team's first platformer, that kind of makes sense I guess. Then again, I don't think Gamtec were porting anything.
- Cheetahmen
- Aug 10 2011, 03:51:46 AM
Yeah, but if I remember correctly those games were generally better as well. I'd check, but I can't find the ROMs of either of them. :\[/quote]And both of them had music that actually
stays in sync.
No ROMs, as mentioned previously, but here are YouTube clips, where you can hear how much better they sound:
Bomboy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jaQBO8AXp8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jaQBO8AXp8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmuBKbfOv8Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmuBKbfOv8Y)
Thunderbolt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkCmjcqzLtA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkCmjcqzLtA)
Bomboy is perhaps the best-sounding game of theirs that uses the Shikinjoh sound engine (there are instruments in there that aren't even used in TTA3!), while Thunderbolt had already switched to the Wonderboy sound engine.
I just noticed something, TTA3 doesn't even use the PC Paint fonts that appear in Gamtec's other games. :huh: (Well, not unless they used some different ones that I don't remember)
- Cheetahmen
- Aug 10 2011, 12:17:17 PM
I just noticed something, TTA3 doesn't even use the PC Paint fonts that appear in Gamtec's other games. :huh: (Well, not unless they used some different ones that I don't remember)[/quote]The font used in the intro and on the score screen is from PC Paint - it's just not the "Special" font.
(In fact, it's the same font from my user icon over there...heh...)
Edit: Also, during the demo, "DEMO" is written in the "Special" font.
I don't get why they bothered using those fonts in the first place, seeing as the games are illegal to begin with. They might as well have stolen the font from Super Mario World or something.
Well PC Paint was just the graphics program they were using. why bother stealing a font from some other game when there's already one right there? (And besides not *all* their games were illegal. Most of their earlier pre-96-ish ones were more or less original. Well except the sound engines. and mostly stolen concepts. but still)
Someone on youtube pointed out the chests in the game are stolen from Ristar. I don't know for certain, they look similar but the ones in Ristar are sort of sideways and not straight looking at you. I guess they possibly based the design off of Ristar's.
I have a feeling that it's kinda unfinished. Chests ALWAYS contain hearts. I think they should have contained more stuff.
- Barver
- Aug 13 2011, 08:31:50 PM
Someone on youtube pointed out the chests in the game are stolen from Ristar. I don't know for certain, they look similar but the ones in Ristar are sort of sideways and not straight looking at you. I guess they possibly based the design off of Ristar's.[/quote]Heh, I figured those were stolen from somewhere, couldn't remember where though. What's sort of confusing though was that Ristar was released in 1995, which means that it couldn't have been one of their earlier titles. Then again, I'm not entirely convinced that they're actually stolen to begin with. It looks completely 2D for one thing, and the design on the front is somewhat different.
I still wish I could figure out what the heart sprite is taken from-- I *know* I've seen it in another game, and cannot remember which for the life of me.
I dunno, it looks so badly drawn it might as well be original. :P
Hi! When I reboot later I can grab and post some random memory addresses that do special things =P
I'm surprised about Thunderbolt II being "difficult to dump;" all the other "GM-95" games (http://fuji.drillspirits.net/gm95/) use very similar forms of copy protection in which the game just reads a bunch of raw registers :/ Someone should still at least try to dump it, if they have it =P
I thought I had more to say here but I forgot :/
sorry for bumping this very old thread, but has anyone got the original dump without protection patched out?
I'd like to emulate the protection in MESS...
I do somewhere, if nobody has responded by this afternoon I'll post a link.
did you have any luck with finding it in your HD?
Yep, found it. This is the untouched version from Barver's cart.
LINK (https://www.box.com/s/3pa32xilomqzwesbzrj9)
Added to MESS software list with credits, and emulated the protection (which seems identical to the one in Squirrel King)
Thanks a lot