Author Topic: Nice Code "Go Retro Portable" copyright restorations  (Read 1691 times)

forgotusername

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Nice Code "Go Retro Portable" copyright restorations
« on: September 10, 2023, 03:01:36 PM »
On several recent plug & plays featuring the Nice Code VT02 library, the original copyright notices for the games (Power Joy Ltd, Nature Color Game, etc.) are intact on the games' title screens; such notices are almost always blanked out on older consoles. In particular, this includes the Retro-Bit Go Retro Portable, as well as an uncommon My Arcade 220-in-1, which was seemingly only released on the European market.

The consoles with the copyrights intact have not yet been dumped; though since the differences in these ROMs effectively only amount to the copyright notices, I attempted to restore a large majority of them. Using preexisting copies of the games (with the copyrights erased), I restored the copyright notices based on screenshots of the title screens. In most cases, the blank space is directly coded to fit the specific copyright byline, indicating that these are fully accurate in coding - or at least very close to it. The secret Power Joy screens (accessed via the code Up, Down, Up, Left, Right, Left, B) are also retained when possible.

In total, 47 games have had their copyrights restored here, out of around 55 unique copyright variations seen on the new plug & plays. Games which already had an identical copyrighted version available in ProjectPnP (as well as a few NX-85 rips) have been skipped; though games with a tilde ("~") in the ProjectPnP filename, from what I recall, indicated an unverified copyright restoration, so the copyrights have been visually verified for those games. See the included .txt files for additional info; download attached below.

forgotusername

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Re: Nice Code "Go Retro Portable" copyright restorations
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2023, 09:15:12 PM »
The My Arcade 220-in-1 I mentioned here was just dumped, so I ripped a few additional copyright variations from it, including restoring their two-player modes (as the 220-in-1 removed them). I also compared my prior copyright restores with some of the games featured; the majority of them ended up being byte-for-byte identical, with a few oddball exceptions (namely, Contest 2004 had a single different byte that wasn't related to the copyright...) There are lots of other alternate Nice Code revisions on this console, though for now I just ripped the games I had already studied previously.

forgotusername

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Re: Nice Code "Go Retro Portable" copyright restorations
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2023, 03:32:35 PM »
Here are copyright restorations for two VT03 Nice Code games: Twin Fish and Speed Man. A few early Nice Code VT03 releases originally had copyright notices, though the majority of them never had copyright notation to begin with. However, finding VT03 ports with their copyrights intact is even less common than the VT02 versions, so only these two are present for now. Note that Speed Man's fine "Ppress Start Button" is SIC, and is currently based on a VT32 conversion, as I don't have the proper VT03 copy on hand.

forgotusername

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Re: Nice Code "Go Retro Portable" copyright restorations
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2024, 12:34:37 PM »
Here are restorations of some of the "Qi Sheng Long" variants of Nice Code games. These releases never had copyright notices originally; however, a few games in this library originally had two-player modes, which were removed in the currently dumped revisions. Additionally, two games had extended titles: "Indreak" was originally called "Indreak in the Conduit", and "The Worms" was originally called "The Training Camp of Worms". I'm not sure exactly why the titles were simplified, though data for the original logos still exist in the ROM.

In total, I have restored seven of the Qi Sheng Long games: including the aforementioned Indreak in the Conduit and The Training Camp of Worms, alongside Bear vs. Thief, Cool Baby, Doll, Fairy, and Monster Ball. "Bubbles Puzzle" also has a two player variant, though I was unable to restore that one. I used footage of the Japanese "FC Home 88" console as reference.

forgotusername

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Re: Nice Code "Go Retro Portable" copyright restorations
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2024, 03:26:33 PM »
In some Nice Code titles, the copyright byline is specially fit for one string to appear in that area. I found that two games, Bomberman 2002 and Jungly Guy, have their blanked-out areas fit to read "© Dongxin Soft" and "© Power Joy Ltd", respectively; the order the text appears in the CHR data also indicates this. Interestingly, all further variants of Bomberman 2002 have no logical space for a copyright notice whatsoever; as is the case for Tactful, another variant of Jungly Guy. Restorations of both games attached below.