Wednesday, May 29, 2019

World's Rarest Games ~ Official Super Mario Bros 2 Lost Levels Variant ~ Blue Skies

Today is a great day to go outside and look at the blue skies or maybe not. Why not play Super Mario Bros 2 on an AV modded Famicom and Disk System? Let's break out some fun time!

Famicom Disk System games are notoriously common and usually are yellow. Several most popular Nintendo franchises started on the system including The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Kid Icarus. A handful of blue disks were released with metal shutters offering minor protection from spilled coffee and other hazards.

The Famicom Disk Writer was a kiosk that Nintendo set up in Japanese stores allowing customers to rewrite their disks at a fraction of the price than standard retail complete games. Usually a sticker was provided and slapped over the old game. Other offerings included an option flyer printout of the game's instructions which were very simplistic paper. Blue disks were not allowed and even prevented from being written by the kiosks itself as the shutters were a physical lockout mechanism. It is unclear why Nintendo disallowed store owners from rewriting the blue disks, but I'm sure a few slipped by the detectors, as I've seen a less than ten blue disks (Vink on Famicom World had a blue Kid Icarus disk in his store!).

Keep in mind that piracy was rampant and is one of the shortfalls of the console itself. From examining the rest of the blue disk games I own, the build quality seems like a legitimate disk. I could be wrong and that's entirely possible making this post a balls-grade curiosity at best.

Nintendo knew that people who resided out in the country were unable to access stores due to their locale but Nintendo cared and provided a service of mailing in their old disks and Nintendo mailed them back to their owners for a small fee. I guess it is possible that Nintendo relaxed their policy of not accepting blue disks over time and it was very late in the service's era (it ended in 2003!) but I do not believe this was the case as there are almost no blue disks with other games written to them from what I was able to research.

However, as I mentioned prior, a few blue disks slipped into the mix and eventually made their way into a Japanese retro gaming store that sold me my copy of a blue Super Mario Bros 2! Galaxian was also an unusual surprise on the flip side. Both games function flawlessly and the labels are not indented by way of fingernail handling or beavers nibbling at it. Unfortunately I do not know what game was overwritten and I am not peeling back the labels because that would inevitably, irreversibly lead to damage for such an exceedingly rare item that probably only exist in the margin of eight or less.















Goomba stomping sound effects (for good measure I'll toss in a coin or two!)









Aim! Steady! Fire! B-2-You sunk my spaceship!








An array of fighters have set their marks and this is your last chance to captivate them by surprise!











Famicom disks will eventually demagnetise or infest with mold over time, rendering them a cooler coaster than your old AOL CDs; especially prone to the latter if they are improperly stored. A cool, dry plastic bin sealed away from bugs, dust and other elements is ideal. Famicom Wiorld user retrospectives offered various personal experiences with Famicom Disk Writer kiosks and store clerks who rewrote his disk, and he is even an original contest winner for a gold punchout!

indicates that the best way to prevent your loss of games is to store them in a cool, dry area preferable sealed. The Famicom Disk System belt is poses a whole host of issues. Luckily I had my belt expertly installed so it should last a few more years of without stopping Dead Zone in it's tracks. Actually, since I own an FDSStick it should last way longer and I'm not limited to my game selection.

Sunday, May 26, 2019

YEEEEEeeeeeHaaaaaawwww!! Toy Story Unused music found in Sega Genesis Mega Drive

A while after discovering the unused music in the Super Nintendo version (actually waaaaay longer than it should have nd no real exscuse) I've found yet another gold nugget! This time it's Toy Story for the Sega Genesis / MegaDrive. Well, at least it's accessible now on real hardware using a Game Genie cheat device, after investing the time using a hex editor within minutes (these sort of things always came easy to me; it's a blessing and a curse! I learned 68000 in a lot less than a week a few years ago, actually so this was moot effort.)
 Sega reaches for the stars what Nintendon't!

For reference, I will link the two unused songs that are in the SNES version. Both are actually fairly interesting. According the the audio engineer Allister Brimble, the song "You've Got a Friend in Me" was never set up to play in this version because there were apparently licencing issues. He wasn't very specific because he didn't remember all that well. I may ask him again a later date.







Unused Song 1: Roller Bob















Unused Song 2: "You've Got a Friend in Me"









Toy Story (U) [!].bin
[CODE]
Options screen music modifier
01DB8C:00??
Play unused song at options screen
BXPT-CAEN
0C - Unused Song
[/CODE]
Toy Story (E) [!].bin
[CODE]
Options screen music modifier
01DCFC:70??
Play unused song at options screen
BXRA-DA96
0C - Unused Song
[/CODE]
Fiinally what everyone was waiting for forever. I'm surprised no one did this already. https://twitter.com/nensondubois_/st...6647971832627201 - Level 1: That Old Army Game (With Marching Soldiers)
02 - Level 2: Red Alert!
03 - Level 3: Ego Check
04 - Level 4: Nightmare Buzz
05 - Level 17: Light my Fire
06 - Level 6: Revenge of the Toys, Bonus & Characters
07 - Level 7: Run Rex, Run!
08 - Level 18: Rocket Man
09 - Level 9: Food and Drink
0A - Level 10: Inside the Claw Machine
0B - Level 11: Really Inside the Claw Machine
0C - Unused Song
0D - Level 13: Sid's Workbench
0E - Woody on Fire
0F - Level 14: Battle of the Mutant Toys
10 - Level 12: The Claw!
11 - Level 5 & 16: A Buzz Clip & Day-Toy-Na
12 - NULL
13 - Buzz Battle
14 - Game Over
15 - Level Complete
16 - Patrick Collins, Randy Newman, Andy Blythe, Marten Joustra and Allister Brimble - [Toy Story] Storyline (You've Got a Friend in Me)
17 - Continue Screen
The rest are sound effects and DAC/PCM samples.
The menu and credits songs are MOD files.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Musical glitches in NES Urban Champion!

TKO! No, this isn't punchout!
Kick, punch it's all in the might! (Except there's no actual kicking like a little girl)


I am surprised at the commission of Urban Champion from Gamecube Animal Crossing. I have a lot to talk about and cover in Gamecube Animal Crossing in the not-so distant future. I guess Nintendo didn't like it, they ran out of space to include it in the original N64 version, or they felt nineteen was a round number for collectible NES games. Perhaps Nintendo sisn't want a game about a city in Animal Crossing but that may not be true because they have items including an Office Wall and several types of paper showing cityscapes. Definite curious invoking.
Nintendo, however plastered the game onto five E-Reader cards which was quite nice. I'm still upset about the early discontinuation and support of the Game Boy Advance E-reader. I may elaborate why in a future article because I deem the criticism necessary. I am curious if the street brawlers will make an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.


Recently I found a musical glitch in Urban Champion. Nintendo's early sound driver fixed this is issue in other titles. I could go into great detail about how they work but that far outreaches the scope of this article. Another time. The music will glitch after looping 49 31h times.

Urban Champion (W) [!].nes
Round 3 music because it reminds me of Gary Coleman for some odd reason I can't explain. Does that sound weird? It is the thought this song my mind associates with so it is going to be known.












Disable title demo (also allows demo to continue until a victory. Victory animation does not progress.)
KESKXIVI

Music will glitch out after 2 loops (Round 2 music will cold stop without glitching; use with individual song selection codes.)
ZAXKPUYU

Title screen music modifier (The music will glitch after looping 49 31h times.)
Round 1
EENTAYZA

Round 2
EENTAYZA
ZVXKTVOO

Round 3
EENTAYZA
VKXKTVOP

Round intro
GENTAYZA

Next Round
AENTAYZE

Game Select
AONTAYZA

Round Start
AXNTAYZA

Victory
AKNTAYZA

Are you still punching and kicking like a little girl after reading this article? I know I am.

Friday, May 17, 2019

First new game pickups! 5-17-2019 (SFC Memory, Namco Museum Gamecube, Castlevania 3 NES, Just Breed Famicom

My first real entry covering videogame related pickups! I will be doing this most of the time but not always.

I also picked up a DVD complete trilogy of the Bourne Supremacy for only 2.00!















Castlevania 3 did cost 22 but I probably could have gotten it for 19.99 but I didn't offer that low. The other games were relatively lower but overall I believe it was a fair deal considering what I got for the price.

Namco Museum does have audio issues but the disc doesn't appear scratched which could cause errors with reading files but that would be a very slim chance of occuring. My Gamecube might be faulty.

Just Breed is a fairly obscure Japanese RPG developed by Square and it uses the MMC5 memory mapper for an additional set of two square waves and a PCM channel as well as twice the character and attribute display making it look reminiscent of an early SNES title.

The SFC Memory cartridge has Heisei Shin Onigashima written to it which is a very large game encompassing most of the flash memory.

All in all I hope to do more collection posts showcasing my newest arrivals.

Continuing ~ Super Mario Bros. World Class Track Meet Duck Hunt - Unused Mario 2 Lost Levels Tiles Graphics

Time for another Super Mario Bros. article where we take a look at Super Mario Bros. 2 assets that remain inside of the menu programming of the one of the most videogame cartridges ubiquitous. Seriously, everybody and their dog owned a copy. I still do along with the manual. It never came with an official box as it was bundled with the Action Set NES.





For aesthetic mental reference: The controller (left), NES (middle), cartridge (right)

  


Surprisingly Nintendo for some reason used the Japanese true Super Mario Bros. 2 and character tilemapping to form the basis of the menu; graphic tileset and relative assets. I guess they were porting the Famicom Disk System file system when writing the menu because it may have been quicker or it was just on their workstation at the time? Maybe they did this on purpose just to see if someone would undoubtably notice over time? I really don't know and we will probably never quite know exactly why this even exists on the cartridge at all.
What you are about to see may burn your eyes because it may look like a garbled mess, but actually it is clearly (well maybe not so clearly.) the graphics from Super Mario Bros. 2. The palettes are based on which game is selected in the menu so it is the most visually pleasing to look at the Super Mario Bros highlighted section for better visual analysis.






Long and behold the detail!












Title screen graphics of Super Mario Bros 2 for reference.







Here is the original information I found.
[CODE]
Super Mario Bros. + Duck Hunt + World Class Track Meet (U) (PRG0) [!].nes
Replace Super Mario Bros tiles with unused Super Mario Bros. 2 Lost levels tiles
IEXTGAZE
XEVTAZAV
ZPETALZA
Display unused Super Mario Bros. 2 Lost levels tiles at game select menu (I actually made this interesting discovery about a week ago. All of the CHR from the Lost Levels / Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually inside the Super Mario Bros. + Duck Hunt + World Class Track Meet game select bank! There are also unused tiles in Super Mario Bros. 2! https://twitter.com/nensondubois_/status/924508098907267072)
YPSTLGPA

Fixes Duck Hunt selection palette to match Super Mario Bros. / 2
TLXVYZPZ
YPUTAZTZ
YAUTPZIZ

Fixes World Class Track Meet selection palette to match Super Mario Bros. / 2
TLUTLZYL
YPUTGXZZ
YAUTIZPZ

Replaces Duck Hunt 'upper-left brick' tile with unused Super Mario Bros. 2 tile. The table starts is located at 0x01E556-1E8CA beginning with Super Mario Bros and ending with World Class Track Meet.
E665:??:AD

Replaces Duck Hunt 'upper-left brick' tile with unused Super Mario Bros. 2 star tile (there are other unused tiles but this is just an example)
OYVTIVSZ
[/CODE]

World's rarest Baseball videogame?

Swing! Batter! Batter! Swing! Heeeeaaaaarrrrrrr the crowd! The jeering fans! The crack of the baaat!

Previously I mentioned the ultra rare Famicom Box version of Super Mario Bros. I will briefly highlight the details.

The Famicom Box is the Japanese hotel pay-per-play offering a certain amount of time console each session. The cartridges were black sporting a yellowish Mario and the name of the game is written in Japanese. Ironically enough, the label says Nintendo Entertainment System even though it is incompatible with the console. and would only play on the Famicom Box unless you found a way to use a converter adapter allowing it to work with the Famicom.
It will work with an NES-to-Famicom adapter but will not work with the NES unless the CIC pin 4 leg is cut or lifted (I don't condone modding consoles for the).

This cartridge is the rarest Baseball videogame in existence (well, maybe not to the extreme, but it is still unheard of by most people). It will work with an NES-to-Famicom adapter but will not work with the NES unless the CIC pin 4 leg is cut or lifted. I don't condone modding consoles unless you.




















There isn't much else to say about this version of Baseball because it is exactly the same as retail as far as the game itself plays. If you are able to find a cartridge at a reasonable price then go for it! Chances are you won't and I got lucky and only paid 56 for mine.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Get ready for an all-time low-flying adventure! Unused Superman Theme Song from the movie found in a videogame!

Brace yourself and prepare to for a rough landing! Try not to hit a tree... or a parked car while playing this game.

The Game Boy and N64 versions of Superman is based off the well-known franchise. I think the game developers were hit in the head with a chunk of kryptonite by someone before they designed the games.
MAAAANY people are familiar with the universally famous original Superman theme song, but not many are well-versed with the fact that the Game Boy game actually has a fully composed version inside the game's code.
Original post:
Title screen music modifier unused Superman Theme
0CA-1AF-D52









 Elmar Krieger arranged this version and I don't know why he didn't use it as the title screen since it would have been a better fit. My guess is that this was intended for an ending but the game does not have a proper ending and instead shows a generic "Congratulations! message with the stage clear theme playing.Why was this not used? The world may never know, and you can't spin the world in reverse to turn back time and find out.
The surprise does not end here! There is additionally an unused jingle.
Title screen music modifier unused Superman Theme
0BA-1AF-D52









Editor's note: I have no plans to review this game because we all know how notoriously awfulness all of the Superman and Titus games. The only worthwhile portion of the games (at least by Elmar Krieger) are the music and the Super Game Boy borders; the other game is The Quest for Camelot with a border.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Shades of blue and a hidden, broken pixel that can be fixed in Soukoban Densetsu - Hikari to Yami no Kun

Let's push some boxes... err words around because it's time for another entry!
Soukoban in case you're unfamiliar, is a classic game where you walk behind boxes and shove them around a mostly enclosed area or a maze while avoiding the prospect of being trapped into unsolvable puzzles or situations forcing you to restart the area from the start.
The game was ported to numerous consoles including two Japanese versions for both the Japanese Super Nintendo / Famicom Sega Genesis / MegaDrive, and even made its way into Deadly Premonition (hahaha we will get to this game eventually!) as a sidequest for unlocking higher tier items in the general store.
First, let's start off with exploring a few unused graphical assets in this game for the sake of some box madness (ok, I should probably stop now.)
First is an unused palette for the Super Game Boy that matches the border palette. Normally it is a variation of black and white contrasts but the game's developers programmed a blue-red brownish setting but decided against using it in the game most likely because they felt it didn't show off the user's border palette creation properties as well as it was intended. This is the only game that offers a border that is centered around using system palette 0 allowing the user to set up the border to display a palette of their choosing. I guess they chose a black and white palette for the final because it makes your custom palettes stand out and they wanted focus on that feature? They could have given the option to switch between the two but that was probably more work than the developers wanted to invest, or it just wasn't a consideration at all.
Unfortunately there are a few issues with using the system palette 0 for this feature and the most notable issue is a developer oversight which I will explain and showcase later.
Load unused Super Game Boy palette
111-31B-6EE
001-3BB-6EA
Here's the lost matching border palette. There's also an oddly matching overlay appearing to fit anywhere. There is also a variation which removes the lowermost 8x8 tilemapping.












Overlaying the game screen with black attributes was not an appropriate choice for this game because the game has too varying a set of levels that would require a lot of time to compensate per puzzle and lots of space in the game's read only memory which was a premium at no less than 1mb for Game Boy Color games. Most interesting is the fact that the game's developers left in remnants from the SDK or library they using. I also found this in numerous other games including the mostly poorly ported Game Boy version Tetris Attack (it has some good music) and B-Daman Fighting Phoenix, a crossover of Bomberman and B-Daman. As you can see, the overlay looks as if it were made to show off either a platforming game or an ourside area where it is viewed from a bird's eye angle.
All that is currently known about the understanding of the SDK from my research is that it is totally unclear where the SDK originated; whether it was developed in house by Nintendo or by a different company altogether during the development of the Super Game Boy to showcase it's enhanced features such as but not limited to a library of built-in sound effects, custom music, and the ill-fated unfinished OBJ_TRN mode which would display 'scrollable' SNES objects on the screen in either 8x8 or 16x16 form overriding the static palette limitations. It is a very early SDK most likely developed in tandem with the Super Game Boy at the time, based on the fact that it has the OBJ_TRN command as C1, which in the final build of the Super Game Boy ends in a ret or return to subroutine so it wasn't implemented, but could still be accessed. I will write about the unfinished display mode at another time. 
 There are other hints that it was an official SDK designed to promote the Super Game Boy such as the "Nintendo" Super Game Boy 'SOUND' listing in the table as well as a default setting for the SNES NMI JUMP and DATA_SND definitions to perform various tasks the user could incorporate into their games on the SNES side allowing better graphics, sounds, music and a more robust interactive multiplayer mode.

The SDK appears in several games in varying revisions to suit the developer's project needs over time. It appears in a wide range of third party company developed games to name a few: Konami and Hudson.












Loads unused palette without modifying ATTR_BLK attributes (attributes black), sets a screen area overlay within specified dimensions.
001-3BB-6EA
What were they testing? This obviously looks like it could have been reserved for the title screen, story captions and cutscenes? There is also a variation which removes the lowermost 8x8 tilemapping.
Lastly, a developer oversight caused a single 8x8 pixel of the border to display an incorrect tilemapping. This renders the whole idea of allowing users to design the custom palette of the game's border. What a shame. Well, sure enough I took the liberty of fixing this issue in a matter of minutes. I fail to see how an important miniscule feature was hindered by a nefarious oversight.











Original post:
 https://twitter.com/nensondubois_/status/891869088988975105

Took 4 minutes. To fix the border, modify 0x01086D to 00 from 0C or via Game Genie code 008-6DB-D5A. The first skull is the only one that fully matches with your custom palette. So, maybe the border's ability to adapt with the player's palette was an afterthought? The skulls actually have an attribute to match the user's palette but it was never implemented.
I also made three more videos but they're lesser interesting as an afterthought. People really seem to love afterthoughts.