Jul -- The Cutting Room Floor: ST II Turbo (weird Genesis SFII beta...)

LocalH
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Posted on 02-27-16 03:44:08 PM

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Ok, so the question is, what is the original ROM used for the hack? If it was an "upgrade", that means there was a base ROM.

koolaidman
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Posted on 02-27-16 06:35:47 PM

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A few things I noticed.

The "CAPCOM TEST DATA" string belongs in a referenced table for all the speeches every character makes when they win a match. For some reason, the table with all the pointers to each string has the pointer to the "CAPCOM TEST DATA" string repeated three times near the end of the table.

The "T.NagawaS.MizutaniY.UmakosiA.Watanabe" strings are technically used, but not really utilized by anything. The game loads this string at FFF300 but besides the function itself nothing else looks at that region in RAM (except for the main game loop, which simply clears it). The text itself seems to be loaded shortly before all the sound driver stuff, so maybe the two are related. As for the names themselves The function that loads the strings is located at B4E8 in the ROM. The function itself (afaik) is only called in two places.

The game mode array ($1800) has one unused pointer that isn't a duplicate located at 3F90. I tried everything to jump to this but the game doesn't seem to utilize anything. Anyone wanna have a look? The ID for the entry should $4 (the Sega screen is $0). The game mode id's are utilized at EE02 in RAM.

As far as the likely hood of this game being some Chinese/homebrew port, it doesn't look like it at all. The game doesn't seem to do a traditional checksum check, and yet it has a function for when the checksum check fails (that makes the screen red and loop endlessly). To me it seems more like a half assed pirate attempt on a legitimate proto (the glitched tm on the Sega logo is suspect). The header also has "腕相撲", which is Japanese for "Arm Wrestling". The title screen doesn't have any company copyright, which I think is standard policy for every licensed Sega game. I'll have to see if there might be some null'd out data for the title screen.

As far as this game being a modified version of the Special Champion Edition, or the likeliness of it being a prototype of that port - it seems that this is a completely different game altogether judging by some quick glimpses at both of the game's code. For instance, the Turbo port uses an ID that represents the placement of a particular game mode in a big jump table for every game screen. The Special Champion Edition does it completely different where it seems that the address of the game mode is moved to a place in RAM (BFEA or BFE8) and then jumps...or something to that effect.

Turbo:

ROM:000003E2 loc_3E2:                                ; CODE XREF: Reset+18Cj

ROM:000003E2                 andi    #$F8FF,sr       ; AND Immediate

ROM:000003E6                 move.w  (RAM_GameMode).w,d0 ; Move Data from Source to Destination

ROM:000003EA                 andi.l  #$7C,d0 ; '|'   ; AND Immediate

ROM:000003F0                 lea     (GM_Array).w,a1 ; Load Effective Address

ROM:000003F4                 movea.l (a1,d0.w),a1    ; Move Address

ROM:000003F8                 jsr     (a1)            ; Jump to Subroutine

ROM:000003FA                 bra.s   loc_3CA         ; Branch Always

ROM:000003FA ; End of function Reset

ROM:000003FA

Special Champion Edition:

ROM:0000826E loc_826E:                               ; CODE XREF: Reset+220j

ROM:0000826E                 move.w  d0,-(sp)

ROM:00008270                 move.w  sp,(word_FFFFBFEA).w

ROM:00008274                 move.w  a0,(word_FFFFBFE8).w

ROM:00008278                 move.b  #$10,(a0)

ROM:0000827C                 movea.l 4(a0),a1

ROM:00008280                 movea.l $C(a0),a4

ROM:00008284                 move    a4,usp

ROM:00008286                 andi    #$DFFF,sr

ROM:0000828A                 jmp     (a1)

ROM:0000828A ; End of function Reset

I don't even think the sound driver in the two games are the same either. It really does look like one version was developed by a completely different group than the other. The Turbo edition does game mode changes like traditional Sega games do (like Sonic 1, SoR1, Castle of Illusion, etc) whereas the other version does things very differently. Also, look at where the "Reset" function appears in both ROMS. In Turbo, the "Reset" function immediately follows the ErrorTrap functions which follows the header, like every other Sega developed Megadrive game. In Champion, The Reset function appears about $8000 bytes after the header, and actually PRECEDES the ErrorTrap functions. Very different.

I played through the majority of Turbo with Exodus and managed to hit almost everything besides some small details in movesets and such. You can download the .idc file here for use in Ida Pro to see for yourself:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/m955t6dmappaasu/sf2_turbo_beta.idc

Oddly enough, it looks like the majority of the rom's data is uncompressed. I don't know if the Champion Edition compresses any of it's data, but I'd assume so.

rabidabid
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Posted on 02-27-16 09:01:11 PM

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For what it's worth, the Ninja Gaiden prototype floating around also has the same "ARM WRESTLING" ROM header.

einstein95
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Posted on 02-28-16 01:16:27 AM

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Originally posted by koolaidman
I don't even think the sound driver in the two games are the same either. It really does look like one version was developed by a completely different group than the other.

This is true, the sound drivers are different, yet the Turbo version has the Capcom logo jingle that goes unused. The jingle sounds different to other Capcom Genesis games like Mega Man.

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koolaidman
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Posted on 03-01-16 07:19:12 PM (last edited by koolaidman at 03-01-16 07:46:07 PM)

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Hmm, here's another official promo video that features a different version of the prototype without the name "Turbo". Now it's called "Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition" (not "special champion edition" like the final).

https://youtu.be/70lftKow39s

Notice the copyright is now on the title screen but without the "TEST VER." string. So all of it was most likely removed by pirates. The HUD is different in comparison to the prototype we have, but the music and some of the graphics are exactly the same. Unfortunately the stupid time code is covering the whole thing in this video.

So this confirms that this definitely NOT a bootleg/homebrew game, but at least based on an actual prototype. Still don't know who was behind this version, though. But I guess the title screen copyright could hint that it was Capcom? Also don't know if the "Turbo" part is itself part of the hack, but maybe not? If it was, the pirates would've had to have removed the code that loads and animates the "CHAMPION EDITION" text and stuff. But afaik they didn't hack in an early ret in the title screen code to avoid this from loading (in fact, no "CHAMPION EDITION" tiles are even loaded in VRAM). I suppose if they could remove the copyright information, they could mess with the uncompressed tiles of the logo on the title screen. Pretty strange.

Reverend Crush
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Posted on 11-16-17 04:06:43 PM

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[Threadcromance]

I was referred to this video the other week, by chance mind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkaR8ZaObO0

This isn't hard confirmation (hell, I think this exact thread was shown briefly), but it opens up a somewhat sound theory that Minakuchi Engineering may have been the developer behind this.

Sorry if this was brought up elsewhere and/or if this is old news...

GoldS
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Posted on 11-16-17 11:23:40 PM

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Originally posted by Reverend Crush
Minakuchi Engineering

Hmm...

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Reverend Crush
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Posted on 11-20-17 06:23:13 PM (last edited by Reverend Crush at 11-20-17 06:23:34 PM)

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Hmm...

Huh. If I didn't know better, it seems Minakuchi REALLY wanted to port SF2 to anything that Capcom would allow.

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