Bootleg Games Central Forum
Pirate Discussion => Famicom/NES => Famicom/NES dumps => Topic started by: Yahweasel on September 18, 2019, 10:31:39 PM
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I've come into possession of a CopyNES (Mini), and I have a pile of weird bootleg games. I'm dumping them all, one by one. Most of the time, they're the same as the publicly-available ROM, but that knowledge may be valuable for verification. In the cases where it's not the same, I'm posting the dump.
Carts I have and their status ("verified" means my dump is the same as the commonly-available one):
- Aladdin II: The CopyNES MMC3 plugin reported vertical mirroring for my cart, whereas the commonly-available ROM has horizontal mirroring set in the header. Otherwise verified.
- Alien vs Predator (NJ074 — 异形 — Yìxíng): My dump reports vertical mirroring, while the public ROM reports horizontal, otherwise verified. With box and manual.
- Diablo (NJ037 — 暗黑破坏神 — Ànhēi Pòhuài Shén): My dump is different than the commonly-available one, but I believe it's mine that's the oddball. See https://archive.org/details/nj037-diablo-repro .
- Flirting Scholar (NJ069 — 唐伯虎点秋香 — Tángbóhǔ Diǎn Qiūxiāng): The only publicly-available ROM I've found of this uses mapper 241, which is wrong. https://archive.org/details/nj069-flirting-scholar .
- Harvest Moon (NJ011 — 牧场物语 — Mùchǎng Wùyǔ): The commonly-available dump has dumper graffiti. Otherwise mine is verified. https://archive.org/details/nj011-harvest-moon .
- Legend of the Holy Flame (圣火列传 — Shènghuǒ Lièzhuàn): Verified. For those keeping score, I have two different boxes of this, one of which has Star Wars art on the box cover and Lord of the Rings art on the cart. That one is probably not an original run ;)
- The Mummy (ES-1109 — 神鬼传奇 — Shén Guǐ Chuánqí): Verified. For what it's worth, the weird mapper (162) is distinct from mapper 163, but interestingly, they're similar enough that the same CopyNES plugin can be used for both. With box and manual.
- Once Upon a Time in China (NJ061 — 黄飞鸿 — Huáng Fēihóng): New. The publicly-available dump was adulterated to be more emulator-friendly. I assume someone, somewhere had an unadulterated dump, but mine appears to be the first readily-available one. See https://archive.org/details/nj061-once-upon-a-time-in-china .
- Pokémon IV (宠物小精灵 IV): A Coolboy rebadge/title screen hack of https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Kou_Dai_Jing_Ling_-_Fei_Cui . NewRisingSun was kind enough to provide a link to an existing dump of this game, and mine is the same, so verified.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Just one of the many Somari-based Sonicalikes. Verified.
- Sword Dancer (剑舞者 — Jiàn Wǔ Zhě): Title screen hack of ES-1058 by Fuzhou Coolboy. This mod seems otherwise undumped, so here it is: https://archive.org/details/sword-dancer-famicom-dump
- Titanic 1912: Mine might be the first available unadulterated dump of this game: https://archive.org/details/famicom-titanic-1912-dump .
- Tomb Raider (NJ066 — 古墓丽影 — Gǔ Mù Lì Yǐng): Vertical mirroring in my dump, horizontal in public one. Otherwise verified.
- World of Warcraft (NJ097 — 魔兽世界-恶魔猎人 — Móshòu Shìjiè-èmó Lièrén): Verified.
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Thank-you for the redumps.
As for mirroring bit differences, if a game has mapper-controlled mirroring, then the mirroring bit in the NES header is meaningless, and should be set to "0" (which happens to mean Horizontal mirroring.)
The Nanjing mapper 163, which uses a chipset also used by Waixing and Mars Productions, has never been reverse-engineered fully, so it's actually unknown whether it has mapper-controlled mirroring or not, and the precise function of the "unlock register" at $5300. I have written some notes (https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18000) based on debugging the various games that use this chipset (mappers 162, 163 and 164).
"Diablo (NJ037 — 暗黑破坏神 — Ànhēi Pòhuài Shén)" has sufficient amoungs of NOPs compared to the public dump to justify calling it a hack.
Does "The Mummy" use the Waixing FS304 circuit board? According to my notes, it should.
"Sword Dancer (剑舞者 — Jiàn Wǔ Zhě)" It's probably a Coolboy release of another Waixing game. I should be able to say once it is dumped.
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Re mirroring: Ahhh; I never really got mirroring, and still don't really, but that's enough information for me to drop any concerns about that one-bit difference.
Re 163: Yeah, it's really a strange'n. I have seen these notes. I suspect that a lot of its behavior is intended to make it general in ways that nobody ever uses, which makes it difficult to fully disentangle what it does. At least it's not difficult to dump :)
Re Diablo: Well yeah, of course this is a hack, that's what I said X-D. It's merely a curiosity.
Re Mummy: I don't like popping open the carts with these whenever possible, because they're so cheaply manufactured that it's easy to irreparably break them. But, I'll open this some time this evening to satisfy curiosity.
Re Sword Dancer: Yeah, I'll make a dump of it this evening too.
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Re Mummy: I don't like popping open the carts with these whenever possible, because they're so cheaply manufactured that it's easy to irreparably break them. But, I'll open this some time this evening to satisfy curiosity.
In that case, don't, since it would be more about confirming something that I already know, albeit with less than 100% certainty, rather than something completely new.
I might ask you again about other mappers though for which I have no source for a name at all.
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Sword Dancer ROM: https://archive.org/details/sword-dancer-famicom-dump
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Thanks to some extensive help from NewRisingSun, Titanic 1912 is dumped: https://archive.org/details/famicom-titanic-1912-dump
As far as I know this is the first available dump that hasn't been mapper modded.