So, another month gone by with no research done, and me feeling terrible for getting no work done, or even following up on some emails. The new year funk is hitting me really hard this year.
I am thinking of starting another blog to write about other topics. This would leave secrets devoted to its intended purpose, my original research, while providing an outlet for discussing books, movies, and other non-VG related subjects. Seems like a waste to crank out all this analytical juice with no place to pour it.
This month's banner was from Magical Pop'n, developed by the little known Polestar and published by Pack-In-Video for the Super Famicom in 1995. Although Japan-only, the game was translated into English in 2003 by the prolific romhacking group AGTP. The screenshots here are from the romhack.
Although Magical Pop'n has some of the exploration and power-up elements of a castleroid, it's really more of a traditional platformer, divided into six long stages with bosses and minibosses, and no passwords or method of saving.
The protagonist, identified only as 姫 (princess), is small and speedy and shares no small likeness to Link of Zelda fame. She has a variety of short-range sword moves from the beginning. Projectile attacks are in the form of spells which must be collected to bypass environmental obstacles. Magic use is limited by a shared magic supply, and spells can be cast in weak or strong forms, so there's a simple element of resource management.
The princess has some voice samples of good fidelity but poor delivery, and the soundtrack is forgettable. The graphics are cute and colorful but rather archetypal. Overall it's a decent game.
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=275692
New version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure being dumped.
Posted by: Jedpossum | 02/13/2012 at 09:38 AM
Cool. As I think I understand it, for CPS3 the actual game is contained on a ROM, while the CD is used for region settings and copy protection. So they must have gotten a new ROM cart.
I wonder what the version diffs are.
Posted by: dammit | 02/13/2012 at 11:41 PM
Actually, the CPS3 CDs has all the game data on it including the region. The copy protection was only the security cart which also has a checksum check to make sure you are using the right game with the right cart.
The CD versions were marketed as a cheaper alternative. Since, you could buy upgrade kits for a cheaper price too, these only included simm cards, CD, and a new security cart.
In the end, due to high maintenance of the cps3, poor marketing, not that many games, the no cd versions were still more popular for arcade operators, if they even bothered to get a CPS3 game.
Posted by: Jedpossum | 02/14/2012 at 08:27 AM
Nice combo vid that used your lua script.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdGbY6fKCIE
Posted by: Jedpossum | 02/14/2012 at 01:32 PM
That's mind blowing.
Love how three and a half minutes are just explaining the glitches, some of which we've never seen before, like getting Rapter in perma-DF. This will take some time to digest.
Looks like the 3:45 vsav CV preview is gone from TKO's channel though.
Posted by: dammit | 02/15/2012 at 06:36 PM