Differences between revisions/sets/region?

[nitz]

I've been updating/organizing my mame rom collection lately and just trying to pare it down as much as I can by getting rid of mahjong/gambling/triva, etc.

I'm starting to wonder if I should also discard clones that are just alternate revisions/sets/regions. But OTOH, I don't want to feel like I'm missing anything. So which ones are worth keeping? If this has been discussed before or if there is a list somewhere, point me to it, otherwise, let's make a list in this thread!

Let's not bother mentioning stuff that is obviously different from the parent, say like Ms. Pacman with speed up hack, or 2 player versions of 4 player games. Also, let's not bother with games where the only difference is language of the text either - frankly I feel I can just discard anything that's not in English when that's the only difference. But let's include anything which has a significant gameplay or feature difference. Here is the list so far:

1) alpham2p - Alpha Mission II / ASO II - Last Guardian (prototype): "Work in progress" version, different than final version

2) blastero - Blaster (location test): More waves than released game

3) dkongo - Donkey Kong (US set 2): Different barrel behavior, easier than US set 1.

4) joustr - Joust (Solid Red label): Pterodactyl scoring bug

5) maniacsp - Maniac Square (prototype): Significantly different from released version.

6) mustangb - US AAF Mustang (bootleg): Has better sound (sound is not properly emulated in parent)

7) nbajamt2 - NBA Jam TE (rev 2.0 01/28/94): Contains hidden characters not available in later revisions.

8 ) plottinga - Plotting (World set 2, protected): Uses smaller tileset

9) shinfz - Shinobi / FZ-2006 (Korean System 16 bootleg) (ISG Selection Master Type 2006): Rare System 16 version of Fantasy Zone 2 (less noteworthy after Mame 0.146u2 added the original release)

10) tomahawk1 - Tomahawk 777 (rev 1): Different from parent.

11) trogpa6 - Trog (prototype, rev PA6-PAC 09/09/90): Significantly different from released version.

+ Japanese versions of most games (See Haze's post)
+ Black Label versions of Cave games (See brad808's post)
+ Any bootlegs that you may remember and prefer to the original

[Nbk_Orchid]

I always play the Japanese version of X-men om my arcade.  On the Japanese version you will fight pink sentinels every so often that will either drop a heal or extra mutant power.

Also when playing the  Japanese version, the game will use your mutant power stock first when you press the special attack button.  When you have no more mutant power stock left the game will use a portion of your health when you use a special attack.  The American system of mutant powers is completely messed up.  The game will deplete your health even if you have mutant power stock and will only use the mutant power stock if you do not have enough health for the game to take any more away. 

Me and my friends find playing the Japanese version with a set amount of quarters (3 usually) much more enjoyable than the American version.  I guess if your using infinite coins it doesnt really matter though.  Anyway, if you like the x-men arcade game be sure to give the japanese version a try.     

[lettuce]

This is a good topic, i myself can add anything to the database but will be interesting to see what the differences in roms are

[brad808]

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?11442-Mame-Clones-worth-playing-a-complete-(hopefully)-list&highlight=clones
There is a bit of information there about some differences in clones with new characters etc from the parent

If your into shmups at all pretty much every "black label" cave game is significantly different from its original.

[shponglefan]

5) Street Fighter II (all versions?): Japanese versions have different AI.

I hadn't heard this before.  What is the difference exactly?  Are the Japanese versions more challenging?

[brad808]

5) Street Fighter II (all versions?): Japanese versions have different AI.

I hadn't heard this before.  What is the difference exactly?  Are the Japanese versions more challenging?

Japanese version of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo is easier AI then US version. If you play the two of them for a few rounds each you will see it right away. The US version is hard to the point of not being fun at all, just feels "cheap".

[Haze]

99% of the time for Japanese developed games the Japanese versions are by far the most complete / best to play.

The US/World etc. releases often have bastardized (cheap!) AI, cutscenes ripped out, important gameplay elements missing all and are generally more 'quarter suckers', and don't really play how the games were really designed to play, but were modified to what the non-japanese arcade ops wanted to see (shorter playtime, bigger profits)

[nitz]

Thanks Guys! I've updated the list.

99% of the time for Japanese developed games the Japanese versions are by far the most complete / best to play.

The US/World etc. releases often have bastardized (cheap!) AI, cutscenes ripped out, important gameplay elements missing all and are generally more 'quarter suckers', and don't really play how the games were really designed to play, but were modified to what the non-japanese arcade ops wanted to see (shorter playtime, bigger profits)

That's really helpful, thanks! I just added "Japanese versions of most games " to the list. Had no idea that those quarter suckers were actually made that way specifically for us. Think I'll be playing the Japanese versions from now on.

I wonder how many of the bootlegs are necessary to keep. I know in some cases the game is changed, but I think in a lot of cases the changes were mainly cosmetic, such as a different title screen. What are some of the notable bootlegs?

[Haze]

Konami are probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to 'cheap' US / Euro versions; their Japanese versions are often a LOT fairer.

Anyway as for bootlegs, the majority of bootlegs aren't THAT interesting from a user point of view, they're usually more interesting to study for devs (if they've been modified to use different hardware, had the protections patched out etc.)  Some are really dull and simply have copyright changes.

There are a couple of cases still where the bootlegs give a better experience due to emulation issues (Mustang comes to mind, the sound on the original isn't properly emulated, the bootleg has sound ripped from Raiden instead, but at least you get music!)

Of course a lot of people like all the wacky Street Fighter (and other fighter) Plus hacks etc. (to the point where there are builds FULL of user made hacks like that, which never hit the arcades)  Where these hacks did end up on arcade boards MAME does support them, and they're not limited to just fighters either, you've got things like "1945 Part-2 (Chinese hack of Battle Garegga)" which as the title would suggest is based on Battle Garegga, but makes the game significantly easier / unbalanced by giving you a much more powered up ship.  I wouldn't really suggest playing said versions, but there are times when they can satisfy a 'what if' type curiosity.

Then you've got the more advanced hacks / bootlegs where significant parts of the game have been reworked, and/or redesigned graphically, although MAME usually treats these as individual releases, not clones.  Things like 'Donkey Kong II' and 'Beach Festival World Championship 1997' (which is really a heavily reworked and disguised bootleg of Power Spikes)

There is also a further category of games, where they seem like bootlegs, but opposite of the above case have actually been rewritten from scratch.  'Crazy Kong' and 'Kong (Brazil)' would fall in to this category, as would the Zig Zag bootleg of Dig Dug running on Galaxian hardware.  MAME doesn't typically treat these as clones either tho, which is why they show up as parent sets (much to the confusion of some users)

Translated bootlegs are another category; one famous example is "Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Galaxy Electronics English bootleg)" which presents you with a (rather badly) translated English version of the game.  The actual game was apparently never released in English, although has featured in the news lately because the Wii virtual console version was created from a fully complete English version which WAS ready for distribution back in the day but seemingly never left the factory.

Some bootlegs are designed to work with alternative control systems, for example there are "Ikari Warriors" bootlegs designed to work with a regular joystick instead of the rotary one, obviously because it was cheaper / easier to convert a generic cab to use such versions.  The game was never really designed to be played that way tho, so feels very broken in places.

There are also times when the bootleggers couldn't bootleg the original version of a game so chose to bootleg a console one instead 'Super Street Fighter II - The New Challengers (bootleg of Japanese MegaDrive version)' is a typical example; the security on the original CPS2 SSF2 was effective enough to prevent bootleggers from copying the game so they copied the home version instead and sold that (I'd argue they were lazy mind you, they'd defeated more complex ones earlier!)  Again MAME doesn't really consider these to be clones tho, because technically they're clones / bootlegs of the HOME version, which isn't supported in MAME, not the arcade version.  There are a couple (Aladdin, Final Fight 2) where the games didn't actually have arcade releases, but ended up as arcade games anyway thanks to the bootleggers, although often in a broken / unbalanced form in order to make them 'cheap' enough to be arcades (console games were typically easier)

Finally there are some odd multi-game collections, "Puzzle King (includes bootleg of Snow Bros.)" contains 3 'new' games as well as a bootleg of Snow Bros, while "Shinobi / FZ-2006 (Korean System 16 bootleg)" contains Shinobi and the rare System 16 version of Fantasy Zone 2 which Sega released in 2008 (although the original release is supported as of 0.146u2 so the bootleg becomes less noteworthy)  Again tho, in these cases we don't class them as clones, because they don't have a natural parent.  Combining the previous 2 points, NES based multi-game bootlegs were just as popular in arcades as they were in those cheap 'TV Game' units, especially in Korea.

Of course if you dig deeper into the games in general you'll find a lot of games use borrowed / stolen code but present a VERY different game.  Things like Woodpecker and Sega's 'original' Alibaba allegedly use large parts of the Pacman code!  You're unlikely to know this as a user tho, because again MAME shows them as unique games.

Some people like certain bootlegs because they're the ones they grew up with "Bobble Bobble" is a typical example, it appears to have been produced in larger numbers than the original Bubble Bobble and has it's own set of quirks / brokenness due to the way in which the bootleggers attempted to work around the protection.  If you grew up playing a certain version, and are used to patterns / enemy behavior on a certain version then you'll be naturally drawn to it.  The 'Bubble Bobble (bootleg with 68705)' is another good example, instead of hacking the program code the bootleggers here clearly realised there were deep defenses against doing such in the code and instead replaced the protection chip with their own implementation of it, designed to simulate the behavior of the original.  For a long time MAME / MAMEdev actually thought this WAS the original, until it was found that real Bubble Bobbles don't have a 68705 at all, but a different type of protection chip entirely.  Upon more detailed study (once the original chip WAS dumped) it has again been determined that there are various AI / event handling differences between the actual original and the bootleg.  To confuse matters further several re-releases of the game were based on the behavior from the bootlegs leading to a decent number of people preferring the subtle behavior differences the bootlegs offer.

The above scenario is actually quite common for Taito games, mainly due to the wacky protection schemes Taito employed.  Operation Wolf has the 'Operation Bear' bootleg (and it is argued that the protection simulation for the original in MAME is wrong too; the original chip has not been dumped)   Get Star (bootleg set 1) / Get Star (bootleg set 2) are broken in various ways due to checks the bootleggers missed, Rainbow Islands was bootlegged as 'Jumping' which again has various glitches due to things the bootleggers missed.  KiKi KaiKai ended up as Knight Boy, again with a 68705 chip replacing the original protection (chances are it was done by the same people who made that Bubble Bobble bootleg)  Again it suffers from some AI / player-enemy interactions not being quite the same as an original.

As a casual player you're probably not going to care about such things tho :-)

Moving beyond the regular 'game' style arcades, you've got the various bootlegs / hacks of Fruit Machines, often adding extra game modes, rigged payouts, or even backdoor mechanisms used in organized crime to 'empty' machines (get all the cash out of them by entering a secret code) but again beyond studying them and seeing what was done, and it acting as a warning to anybody thinking of buying upgrades from unscrupulous dealers they're not going to be that interesting to a casual MAME user.

[lettuce]

Great post, very informative! 

[nitz]

Indeed. Great post Haze.  Way more than I expected to get when I asked about notable bootlegs.

So looks like bootlegs aren't really worth bothering with then except in a few cases or if you happen to prefer the bootleg because it's the game you grew up with.

[BadMouth]

Along the same lines....

Any prototypes worth bothering with as far as replay value?

[Haze]

Along the same lines....

Any prototypes worth bothering with as far as replay value?

Depends how finished they were, how much changed between development and release, and if a finished version of them actually exists.

The classic example of a game which was released but where a prototype IS still worth playing would be Trog

The prototype versions of the game were effectively a puzzle game, you placed bones at intersections to control the direction your character walked in.
The final version of Trog turned it into a simple 'Pacman' style dot eater, not by chance is the internal code of that version 'Trog 2', the development teams must have considered it a different game to the early design.

Another similar example of a similar situation would be Moon War, MAME doesn't treat these as having a parent-clone relationship due them being on completely different hardware and reprogrammed from scratch however
"Moon War (prototype on Frenzy hardware)" is actually a fun little game, with speech like Berzerk / Frenzy etc.  It was programmed more as a proof of concept, maybe only one or two were produced, but luckily we managed to find all the parts of it (half way across the world from each other!)
"Moonwar", like Trog is often known as Moon War 2.  It borrows a few ideas from the initial prototype, but really you probably wouldn't even know it was related without being told.

The third well known example of a game which changed massively (at least in terms of presentation) between prototype and release would be Gaelco's Maniac Square

Then there are games which were essentially finished, but failed location tests; there are a huge number of these (Atari produced a lot of them) and arguably some some of the better games in MAME fall into this category, most of these simply didn't perform well enough on location (take in enough money / gather enough player interest) rather than actually being incomplete.  Some of these ended up being bootlegged, or were eventually sourced due to the prototypes not being returned to manufacturer after the location tests.  There are actually probably more games in this category than MAME even has tagged because it isn't always clear if something was just very rare, or never actually released.

I mentioned Atari, so naturally you've got things like 'Beathead', 'Sparkz' etc. but companies like Gottlieb / Mylstar also had more than their fair share with Argus (Gottlieb, prototype) and Wiz Warz (prototype)  The problem with most of these games is just that they were misunderstood, not really well suited to arcade play (too slow paced, too complex) or sometimes had minor bugs found during location tests which ended up causing them to miss their shipping date and were deemed too far behind the curve by the time they'd been fixed.  Taito weren't immune to this, Recalhorn is one of the more interesting games on F3 hardware by virtue of being the only scrolling platform game, Riot by NMK is likely a prototype too (no official documentation lists it as released and the end credits are missing)

You've also got the infamous Tattoo Assassins which was also a failed location test / prototype, but in reality it's not actually as bad as plenty of games which were released!

The NeoGeo prototypes are also rather famous, with many of them being similar 'failed location tests'  Unfortunately trying to buy many of them is near impossible, people just like waving screenshots of them around.  Luckily a number of them have come to surface recently, either from bootlegs turning up, or because SNK / Playmore actually offered the *entire* library to developers for the Wii Virtual Console and the like, so rights were acquired to some of them.  Ghostlop would probably be my favourite of the bunch here.

So yeah, in that sense, don't be afraid to run something just because it's tagged as a 'prototype', especially if there is no other version of it.

At the opposite end of the scale you have things "unknown fighting game 'BB' (prototype)" which really isn't much of a game at all (you see garbage most of the time, and if you're lucky get to move a character about with no actual combat moveset)  It seems to be some ROMs from an early development board which was an attempt to make some kind of bootleg of Martial Champion along the same way as the Fit of Fighting bootleg on similar hardware.  Things like "The Last Starfighter (prototype)" are equally unfinished tech demos (in that case we know there should be a version with at least the HUD graphics finished, but the resources we were sent didn't contain them)

Sitting somewhere in the middle you've got games which were in the middle of development, where the prototypes might satisfy an interest in seeing how the games developed "Alpha Mission II / ASO II - Last Guardian (prototype)" is one such example, it's a short (cuts off after a few levels) demonstration of how the game was developing, and if you're familiar with the final game you'll quickly notice various changes in both gameplay and art direction.  Going back to Atari you've got an entire series of Agent X (Cloak and Dagger) prototypes which act as snapshots of the game being developed with new levels being added / refined over the course of them, probably not something you'd really want to play tho.

Things like 'Blaster (location test)' fit in here somewhere as well.  While not a radical departure from the released game, the location test version actually has *more* waves (levels) to it, the game was refined somewhat for the actual release, but that in many senses makes the prototype a more enjoyable experience.  I guess this was just a typical case of the game being tuned based on earning projections and the like.

In summary, prototype just means it (to our knowledge) didn't get an official release, it can really be anything from the first 'Hello World!' build of a game to one which probably could have, and should have shipped.

Of course prototypes aren't the only time games changed massively, even between released sets of a game the manufacturers sometimes made significant changes.
Plotting (World set 1) has a single player mode with larger graphics and no ability for P2 to join midgame when compared with the two other World sets which use the smaller less detailed tileset at all times

The two revisions of 'Tomahawk 777' are more of less different games entirely

I'm sure there are countless other examples too ;-)

[brad808]

Haze I feel like just going back and looking at all your posts just to read...

Sent from my Desire HD

[Vigo]

Along the same lines....

Any prototypes worth bothering with as far as replay value?

Depends how finished they were, how much changed between development and release, and if a finished version of them actually exists.

The classic example of a game which was released but where a prototype IS still worth playing would be Trog

The prototype versions of the game were effectively a puzzle game, you placed bones at intersections to control the direction your character walked in.
The final version of Trog turned it into a simple 'Pacman' style dot eater, not by chance is the internal code of that version 'Trog 2', the development teams must have considered it a different game to the early design.

I am glad you mentioned this one, Haze.  I am one of the resident Trog fans here, so I was gonna bring it up if you didn't. The Trog dev team that they actually labeled 'Trog 2' as PAC TROG as the revision labeled the PCB. So I do agree the team saw the revision as a pacman style game. It is really fun 4 player pacman game though.

The original concept of Trog as a puzzle game bombed completely. Partly because it took effort to learn how to play, another because it was not action packed enough to determine the need for a 4 player game. I don't know if it is hearsay or verified, but I heard that Bally/Midway had a hard time accepting that the main function of the game was that you were using a hand to 'lay a bone', and their viewpoint was proven when someone graffiti'ed the control panel "bone" buttons by putting the letter R's on the end.

[Haze]

Along the same lines....

Any prototypes worth bothering with as far as replay value?

Depends how finished they were, how much changed between development and release, and if a finished version of them actually exists.

The classic example of a game which was released but where a prototype IS still worth playing would be Trog

The prototype versions of the game were effectively a puzzle game, you placed bones at intersections to control the direction your character walked in.
The final version of Trog turned it into a simple 'Pacman' style dot eater, not by chance is the internal code of that version 'Trog 2', the development teams must have considered it a different game to the early design.

I am glad you mentioned this one, Haze.  I am one of the resident Trog fans here, so I was gonna bring it up if you didn't. The Trog dev team that they actually labeled 'Trog 2' as PAC TROG as the revision labeled the PCB. So I do agree the team saw the revision as a pacman style game. It is really fun 4 player pacman game though.

The original concept of Trog as a puzzle game bombed completely. Partly because it took effort to learn how to play, another because it was not action packed enough to determine the need for a 4 player game. I don't know if it is hearsay or verified, but I heard that Bally/Midway had a hard time accepting that the main function of the game was that you were using a hand to 'lay a bone', and their viewpoint was proven when someone graffiti'ed the control panel "bone" buttons by putting the letter R's on the end.

Ah yeah, maybe it was 'PAC TROG', not 'Trog 2', lot of things to keep track of.

Anyway, yes, classic example of a game which wasn't really that bad, just not suited to arcade style of play, I reckon it would have done fairly well on a home system tho.

[Vigo]

Actually you were right as well, It said both PAC Trog and Trog II depending on where you looked. 

[Mat]

Hey Haze, is there anywhere you can read about how different boards were located and ripped?  Seems like there might be some interesting stories behind how some of the more rare games came to be included in MAME.

[Haze]

There isn't really any collection of such information no, usually the people who have worked on specific drivers will know a few things, but even then a fair number probably won't care at all, most of them really don't have interesting stories behind them ;-)

[MaxVolume]

There isn't really any collection of such information no, usually the people who have worked on specific drivers will know a few things, but even then a fair number probably won't care at all, most of them really don't have interesting stories behind them ;-)

Um, and the more "interesting" the story, the less likely anyone wants to talk about it, right?

[nitz]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed, and Haze especially, your contribution to this thread is invaluable.

I've updated the list again.

[Haze]

There isn't really any collection of such information no, usually the people who have worked on specific drivers will know a few things, but even then a fair number probably won't care at all, most of them really don't have interesting stories behind them ;-)

Um, and the more "interesting" the story, the less likely anyone wants to talk about it, right?

Most of the stories aren't that interesting, we're not breaking into random buildings and tradeshows after hours to dump things without people noticing or anything like that, although it probably is the only way you'll ever see Marble Madness 2 in MAME ;-)

Stuff like the Moon War prototype story are somewhat interesting if only for the fact that the sound board + roms turned up first, and we could pair them with Moon War by virtue of the samples that were in there, but at the same time knew it was a Berzerk / Frenzy sound board, and Moon War definitely didn't use one, and the whole thing was in pretty rough condition.  Just happened that the rest of it, sans sound board(!) turned up in Austria of all places many years later by complete chance.

But most of the work is mundane, some of the rarest boards have actually just turned up in piles of junk, or warehouse clearouts, or been sitting under the owners noses without them even having a clue of what they've actually got until they dump it (as is the case for many clone sets..)

We're actually still missing some significant clones, such as the newest revisions of the first 2 Street Fighter 3 games, you would have expected CDs for those to turn up readily, but they don't.  I'm sure plenty of members here have revisions of games that are undumped, and they simple haven't checked.

[jennifer]

Random tradshows, after hours?..... Jennifer looks for her black ski mask.

[Haze]

Well it is how a lot of early bootlegs came about, quick to dump, lax on security.

That's one reason all the defender bootlegs are based on the 'white label' prototype code

[jennifer]

I have mountains of boards, and like the Haze says, no clue as to what they are. I have been looking into rom dumping....But its not really a
glorified subject, so until Jen can figger it out......