Author Topic: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)  (Read 8202 times)

NewRisingSun

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2022, 03:30:29 AM »
It's a VT32 console, and the bit-swapping applies only to NES graphics, not to VT32 graphics. Guess I have to add another submapper for this to NintendulatorNRS' mapper 296.

Tygerbug

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #16 on: September 12, 2022, 03:56:05 AM »
   How do I load these in Nintendulator?

NewRisingSun

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2022, 09:25:08 AM »
Attached find the full ROM, with additional necessary swapping of the higher address lines and a NES 2.0 header. You must use an updated NintendulatorNRS build to run it. I have not tried every individual game; if anybody does, please note down any glitches and post them to let owners of the real hardware verify that they are not dump or emulation problems.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 09:29:41 AM by NewRisingSun »

Tygerbug

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #18 on: September 12, 2022, 03:58:01 PM »
 Very nice, it works fine.

  What are the rarer/undumped titles here?

forgotusername

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #19 on: September 12, 2022, 04:54:45 PM »
I'm unsure if this is needed given it's properly emulated now, but here are most of the undumped (as far as I can tell) games decoded. Games of particular note include Howling Killer (variant of The Lion King 3/5), the "Walt Disney's Crash" Jungle Book hack, and amorous wolf Story Box. I'm unsure how to rip "TV Baseball" though (#61 in SPG section), and it might be worth checking the Waixing games towards the end of the AVG section; I'm not very familiar with those so I didn't check them.

In regards to emulation glitches and whatnot...oddly enough, it seems to be the other way around; as in, Nintendulator plays games correctly that don't work on the real hardware. That bizarre Alice Cooper SMB1 hack works fine in Nintendulator for instance, but on the console it freezes instantly. The emulation seems basically perfect though, I don't see any issues or anything.

(minor addendum: it seems like the end of "tennis ball" chr glitched out or something. they were blank bytes in the dumped "tennis" revision so i guess that threw something off?)
« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 05:23:35 PM by forgotusername »

Tygerbug

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #20 on: September 12, 2022, 05:20:05 PM »
  Thank you, very good work. It looks like they had access to alternate versions of some Nice Code / Waixing bootlegs which weren't public previous to this. It's not uncommon for Nice Code to do graphics swaps and I hadn't seen these.

  The last few CHRs in "Tennis Ball" have the pin-swap problem, or pin-swap in reverse. Maybe they're from another game and not used. Maybe they were pin swapped and didn't need to be. Should look at that code again.

   "Dringle" has misaligned graphics (!) and some broken code.

   "Spider-Man 3" is the Nice Code game with "Spider-Man" on the title screen, which was not undumped but a little hard to find outside of this forum. Their "Spider-Man" (1) is not present.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 09:12:32 PM by Tygerbug »

NewRisingSun

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #21 on: September 12, 2022, 06:31:29 PM »
ETC Game (524-in-1)'s game #456 "Dringle" has corrupt graphics in emulation, please check on real hardware.

SPG Game (171-in-1)'s game #43 "Rad Racer 2" has incorrect mirroring in emulation, please check on real hardware.

The menu stores the position of the last-selected game in WRAM ($6000-$7FFF). If a game uses WRAM itself, or otherwise messes with the data there, the menu will not return to its previous position after a soft reset.


blootooth

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #22 on: September 12, 2022, 06:35:00 PM »
speaking of nice code, game 248 on the ETC section that claims to be bomberman 2 is actually a rare version of their bomberman clone. has 3 selectable characters, a map screen and bossfights (in which you fight the same boss 3 times)
elf legend enthusiast

forgotusername

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #23 on: September 12, 2022, 07:30:02 PM »
Oh wow I didn't catch that Bomberman... I've never seen that at all, decode attached.

I checked the Tennis Ball data again, and it seems that the glitched area is... unscrambled CHR from another game?? Not sure if it's unused data or part of an actual game in the menu; I attached the raw .bin of the unmodified area just in case.

I can confirm Dringle and Rad Racer 2 are like that on real hardware, exactly the same way it looks in Nintendulator.

Tygerbug

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« Last Edit: September 13, 2022, 07:50:57 PM by Tygerbug »

NewRisingSun

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #25 on: September 13, 2022, 09:12:11 AM »
I should add that there is a version of Gardman that is omits the cutscenes and is therefore just 128k/128k in size on the XB805 72-in-1 multicart. Comparing the various offsets in the fixed bank, it seems to be recompiled from source code rather than a simple binary hack of Nanjing's release. I have attached it.

I would assign the various hacks to the different publishers:
  • Gardman for Shenzhen Nanjing Technology, part of a whole series of old Dragon Co. games receiving similar story-panel treatment;
  • Wonder Rabbit and Diveman for Trump Grand Manufacturing, a.k.a. Power Joy;
  • Monster Brother and Five Kids for Fuzhou Waixing Computer Science & Technology.
I would also highlight the fact that Wonder Rabbit+Diveman, and Monster Brother+Five Kids,, having a complementing set of two levels each, should be considered as pairs, not unlike how another Dragon Co./Nice Code Software game, Tom&Jerry 3, was split up into "Primitive Man" and "Primitive Woman".

There is a later title screen hack of Monster Brother that adds a Chinese copyright office registration number to the bottom of the screen, stealing tiles that had been previously used to spell "Monster", so it just says "Brother 2007SR02108".

Finally, I wonder whether the "5" of "Pikachu5" is not merely a result of this particular PnP console having another "Pikachu" based on Tetris, and so not truly part of the game's name.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2022, 09:36:26 AM by NewRisingSun »

forgotusername

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #26 on: September 13, 2022, 04:56:41 PM »
Interestingly there's a Nature Color Game copyright in that XB805 version... the CHR for it is blacked out, but filling it with letter tiles spells it out automatically. I'm inclined to say that this version still postdates the Nanjing release; as it has the updated tutorial screen text seen in Wonder Rabbit, while the Nanjing version doesn't (note the tutorial only displays in the multicart for some reason, not the extracted rom)

I'm unsure whether to consider Pikachu5 the "official" name or not; I write it that way mainly to avoid confusion with similar games. It would make sense as a title I feel, since the "5" presumably relates to there being five characters. I put a redirect on tcrf for "Pikachu (Nice Code)" toward the Pikachu5 article, so it is still categorized by both names.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2022, 05:03:37 PM by forgotusername »

Tygerbug

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #27 on: September 13, 2022, 06:14:45 PM »
   Well, the dump we have of it is from a console which called it "Pikachu5."

   I think that's a useful name, for the same reasons mentioned. There are five playable characters and it differentiates it from other games called "Pikachu," such as the Tetris knockoff.

   The music is a problem in these Nice Code games ... very repetitive.

  Other thread about the Retro Station Generally.
http://bootleg.games/BGC_Forum/index.php?topic=3084.msg22119
« Last Edit: September 13, 2022, 09:13:52 PM by Tygerbug »

ggdjr

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #28 on: September 13, 2022, 10:51:45 PM »
Attached find the full ROM, with additional necessary swapping of the higher address lines and a NES 2.0 header. You must use an updated NintendulatorNRS build to run it. I have not tried every individual game; if anybody does, please note down any glitches and post them to let owners of the real hardware verify that they are not dump or emulation problems.
Act Game's 93: Kafeku Kun and one game like this (i forgot the game name.) can't run.

Tygerbug

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Re: "Pikachu5" (Pikachu Wonder Rabbit?)
« Reply #29 on: September 14, 2022, 12:32:54 AM »
This version of ACTION 93: Kakefu-kun no Jump Tengoku: Speed Jigoku works for me fine in NintendulatorNRS.

It's also not a rare game if you need to seek out other NES or Famicom dumps of it.

https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/Kid_Kool_and_the_Quest_for_the_Seven_Wonder_Herbs?TheOrder=1

I note that some of these games have had minor hacks done to them -- the Bugs Bunny games both become "Tiny Toons" here on the title screen -- but most are untouched.

Howling Killer features an infamous suicide ending upon Game Over.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2022, 12:38:54 AM by Tygerbug »