A Satellaview research blog.

Category: Soundlink

“Soundlink” is the term used by St. Giga for a unique combination of a “streamed” game and a “streamed” radio broadcast, playing simultaneously for a combined gameplay experience.

These programs, broadcast in the 7PM hour and -only playable during the broadcast-, were the Satellaview’s biggest selling point – nearly all of the Soundlink titles were exclusive, and have not been ported or rereleased before or since.

So, what’s up with the BS Dragon Quest ROM anyway?

EDITED: Now with some stuff I remembered from years ago which may or may not be relevant. Scroll down for more.

Sorry, folks, I have yet to be able to find a video of BS Dragon Quest Dai-4-wa proper, so I thought instead to try recording the one “BS Dragon Quest” ROM dump to see what that’s like….

and it’s a bit peculiar.

Starting from that menu, I can apparently choose which week I want to start in – I picked the 4th one, conveniently enough. In that one the player seems to merely go through the last castle and fight the Dracolord.

Question is – what’s up with that menu? Why are all four weeks easily playable in this single ROM file like that? The Satellaview game surely didn’t originally work like that – being able to play the episodes in any order would desync with the Soundlink audio quite easily.

Some folks would say it’s just a hacked ROM. However, most hacked Satellaview ROMs are hacked for emulator compatibility, while this one is not. Also, apparently it’s got a valid BS-X checksum, which is highly improbable of a ROM hack.

Unfortunately I can’t investigate it any further. My own assumption, though, is that it’s a leaked Debug ROM of some sort.

EDITED IN PART STARTS HERE (I also posted this at the BS Zelda forums)

Since it’s been a while since I was told this story anyhow, I guess I’ll put this up here:

I recall a long time ago, Pachuka (Pachuka is a rather… imfamous person in the Sonic the Hedgehog community and in internet emulation communities) told me a bit of a story about how he “stole” the first Satellaview ROMs from a guy who’s alias was apparently “ROMar” and leaked them across the internet, which would probably be the origin of the BS Zelda ROMs and whatnot. Trying to verify this thing myself, I tried digging around internet archive and whatnot, and found a few scattered references to Pachuka hosting a “BS-X Cult” in the late 1990s, with no listing of the contents.
Unfortunately, I have not gotten anyone else to confirm/deny this story, couldn’t track down this ROMar guy, and I couldn’t even get Pach to remember the specifics of any of the ROMs he “leaked” (He even got basic info on the nature of BS Zelda ROMs wrong. I felt like I was talking to a complete idiot.)

I do suspect the BS Dragon Quest ROM was among the leaked ones, but when I asked Pach about it he threw at me a “I don’t give two shits about JRPGs” response (in other words, he’s really not being any helpful.) I was hoping sometime to track this ROMar guy down, ask him which are the ROMs that can be traced back to him, and if the BS Dragon Quest ROM is among them, ask him for some info about the nature of that one. Until then…
*shrug*

Merry Christmas! Your present is some Harvest Mooning!

For Christmas, my extra-generous gift shall be a ROM release that people might actually have fun with. 🙂

I’ve upped some Gameplay of it on Youtube! Wanna see?

It’s Harvest Moon!
Well, to be more specific, the ROM Header identifies it as 牧場物語 第２話 (Bokujo Monogatari Dai-2-wa) .

My immediate searching on that lead to the listing of it’s premiere date in Kameb’s site;

1996/09/09
～
1996/09/13ＢＳ牧場物語
第２話　大地と心に溢れる実り！

So this is supposedly a Soundlink series based off the cult hit. So, what’s peculiar about it? Well, if you see the video you’ll spot a few of the things – You start with a slightly pre-formed set of farmland, and you can’t leave it. You’re in the summer season, with some pre-plowed land, a gold hammer, a gold axe, a watering can and a seemingly infinite supply of tomato and corn seeds…
… and pretty much all you can do is grow tomatos and corn, and destroy things around you. There is no livestock, no point to getting money, no plowing, no women-wooing…
… no timer? No game-locking up after an hour? Where’s some of the quirky ROM behaviors commonly associated with Soundlink ROMs? Sure, there’s no sound at all, still, but… huh…

The game even runs on my Super UFO ROM copier, and I’m betting a SNES Powerpak can run it fine as well henceforth.

That all being said, considering some the strange things that occurs if you keep playing long enough, I do -not- think the game is playing the way it’s meant to. But for the moment, let me start by posting some of the more normal pictures.


Yes, it does rain sometimes.


Of course, the corn grows A-OK..


As do tomatos. You can even sell them, although the money is seemingly pointless.

Now, here’s where things start to kinda fall apart… I tried playing all the way through the “Summer’s” end, and got into the fall seasons…


Well… what do I do now?
My endless seeds do not grow, and I quite literally can’t do anything more, except… keep skipping days!


Here’s your humbugging Christmas picture, guys! Yes, I went into winter, and it’s even mooreeee pointless.


Eventually you can skip into spring, and even go back into summer, and seemingly start the process over again. Does it loop endlessly? I don’t know, I didn’t play that far, because I already knew when I couldn’t do anything in the fall that I was going way beyond the point I was supposed to be playing.

I suspect a large chunk of data may be absent from this ROM dump – Perhaps data that controller most of the Satellaview-specific handling, like a timer, new sound code, or automation of gameplay. Unfortunately I can’t verify much of that, as besides Kameb’s site, I can’t find much information on this entry in the series. Also, it’s rather weird that the removal of such data keeps the game as playable as it is…

So, ROM downloading time! This one will boot in nearly anything, even real hardware, with seemingly identical results.

BS Bokujo Monogatari Dai-2-wa
ＢＳ牧場物語 第２話
ROM DOWNLOAD

DOUBLE ROM Release – Kouryaku Casino Bar Roulette + Game Tora no Ooana Special 2/24 (edited 12/4/09)

Horray! 2 releases in one Blog post!

Unfortunately, it’s not because I’m being generous. This release has some peculiarities.

To start off, “Kouryaku Casino Bar” might be a somewhat familiar name to someone who has a full ROM set of some sort..
You might’ve even seen this title screen before!

KCB Title screen

Now, this specific ROM dump, what’s so different about it? Well, it seems that all I can do with it is play the Roulette game.

Roulette surree is borring around heree

There’s also an option which returns you to the BIOs, and some… other option. I forget.

Anyway, yeah. Before I was able to do all that, I had to try to boot up the ROM. And there’s where I had my problems.

On SNES9X, this game will boot up without sound, and for some reason will not let you play the actual Roulette part (wtf?) so I tried booting the ROM up in BSNES… to no avail. Huh?

Callis told me he dumped it from a memory pack which also had “Game Tora no Ooana Special 2/24” on it. I requested he send me the “full” dump with both their data, and after I got it, I was able to have BSNES boot the data from both the games up successfully.

DOUBLE Huh?

No, I don’t know why. I don’t think it makes any sense, either. It just happens! Is there some grand mystery of the Satellaview only Byuu knows? Ah, but I can’t be speculating. ^^; Gotta keep moving.

Now, as for that “Special”… It’s possible you may have problems booting the individual ROM of this up automatically in BSNES, but now that there’s a manual load option, I don’t think that should be a problem. That being said, I didn’t test it. 😛

Aren't you excited now? :P

It’s a new magazine! No worries though, gamers, this one isn’t about music this time, I swear! It’s actually related to videogames, and seems to feature some Q&A, and a pretty long article on a Pro Yakyuu game which I can’t quite identify…

Actually, I was just too lazy to look it up. The 3 should be a giveaway.

You might recognize the name of the magazine as matching a radio program I showed on the blog before. :3

So, yeah, for this double release, the RAR file has both the original dump with the merged ROMs, and the split ROMs. I’d recommend running the merged ROM in BSNES if you actually want to play anything.

Kouryaku Caisno Bar Roulette + Game Tora no Ooana Special 2/24
攻略カジノバー ルーレット + ゲーム虎の大穴スペシャル 2/24
ROM DOWNLOAD
CLICK HERE

EDIT/UPDATE:
Madhatter has shown to me a bit of a revelation about the nature of the Kouryaku Casino Bar downloads! They’re apparently quite a bit more special than I initally anticipated!

“Also the Nichibutsu Casino has always fascinated me to just due to the BS Zelda connection. To quote from the September 19, 1995 News Wall:

☆発覚！ 秘密クラブ建設計画
“街”の中で鍵がかかって入れない、謎の民家。
１０月１日から、ここが秘密クラブとしてオープンする。
カジノバー（カジノ・ニチブツ）になるのだ。
ただし、ここに入れるのは秘密クラブ入館証を買った人か、「ＢＳゼルダの伝説」でトライフォースを８個手に入れた人だけだ。
ワクワクするね！

☆Secret Club construction plans revealed!
A previously locked house of mystery within the “City” opens as a secret club on October 1.
Casino Bar (Casino Nichibutsu).
However, the only people that may be admitted are those who have obtained eight pieces of Triforce and who gained the secret club entrance certificate from “BS The Legend of Zelda”.
How exciting!
(rough translation)”

… Man, have I been given a swerve! I have quite a few questions about how a “Secret Club” would be handled on the BS-X, but regardless, it seems I’ve just released a BS Zelda prize. O_O;

Satellaview Soundtracks – BS Zelda music, as from album sources.

Y’know, figuring this out was kinda what made me feel useful to the BS Zelda forums in the first place, isn’t it?
A few years ago they more or less had little idea if BS Zelda Map 1’s music was featured in any soundtracks, but I figured there had to have been something – particularly since certain songs were arranged from Kamigami no Triforce, and others “felt” old, if you catch my drift.

So, I went on a search to find Nintendo soundtracks. The bad news was that I didn’t find everything, and it’s sure as heck not in one soundtrack.
The good news, though? I found some of the more “creative” ones, so to speak. The ones that weren’t accounted for, I’ve attempted to try mixing with some interesting results

Read More…Read More…

ROM RELEASE: Sound Journal For Lovers Valentine’s Special Vol. 1

I’ve been given Matthew Callis’s blessing to release any of the ROMs he has handed me to check through. Since many of these ROMs are such that reveal new emulation issues, I feel I should prioritize releasing these first.

I’m gonna start with this Soundlink… Game? No, “game” does not accurately fit this description here…

Sound Journal for Lovers title screen

The “Sound Journal” series is, apparently, a set of text and images meant to smoothly accompany the music being played during that hour. Based on a similar-appearing “Sound Journal Since 1980” article in the SFC MANIA blog, these are all related and similar in style.

Girl

This ROM seems to choke when attempted to run through proper Satellaview emulation – my boot-up method was to switch to the “Old” ROM Loading method in SNES9Xpp XE. This was the only way I could run it (and thus, take these screencaps.)

This is what you'll see most of the game.

The majority of the contents are screens like this – an artist listing and lyrics scrolling upwards. The white Japanese text, thrown around frequently in the ROM, seems to be…. a placeholder graphic? The program might be trying to stream data into it even as it runs. O_O

I think it's turning Japanese, I really think so.

Among the little “interaction” you can have with the program is a toggle to change the lyrics from English to a Japanese translation…

What's this screen?

And pull out a screen like this, which likely shows artist info.

No lyrics

Some songs do not have a lyric listing for some reason – this appears instead. More blank spots!

Final Screen

When you reach the end of the program, you’ll know by spotting this screen.

For extra fun and lulz, I’ll list all the music/artists mentioned in the ROM. If any of these sound wrong, please note that this is directly pulled from the ROM and any errors must be attributed to St.GIGA;

– “Fallin’ in Love’ by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds
– “I Just Called to Say I Love You” By Stevie Wonder
– “Killing me Softly with his Song” by Roberta Flack
– “La-La Means I Love You” by The Delfonics
– “You Make me Feel Brand New” by the Stylistics
– “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon
– “Opposites Attract” By Paula Abdul
– “Me and Mrs. Jones” by Billy Paul
– “Oh Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison
– “So Much in Love” by Timothy Schmit
– “My Girl” by The Temptations
– “Our Day will Come” by Ruby and the Romantics
– “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers
– “Against all odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” by Phil Collins
– “Coming Around Again” by Carly Simon
– “How Deep Is Your Love” by The Bee Gees
– “(I’ve Had) The Time of my Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.
– “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers
– “Paradise” by Sade
– “Your Song” by Elton John

At the moment I will not stream these songs on the site. Don’t want the RIAA on my butt, after all.

The ROM, though? That should be A-OK!

Click somewhere around this area to start downloading!

Yo, Diggity! Micky Pockets n da hawze, dawg!…

When I went on my Satellaview research, I was kinda anticipating a couple of weird things.

BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 and BS Super Mario Collection had some strange picks of licensed music.
Radio Programs like the ones Hikaru Ijuin ran had some strange comedic skits.
Some of the playable games, like Dynamitracer and (assumedly this is referred to as playable) Sousa Sentai Wappers were the strange kind of thing you’d not normally see on a Super Famicom.

Kodomo Chousadan Mighty Pockets then decided to take all of the weirdness, put it in a single game, and crank it up to eleven.
The game itself seems to be a board game with a detective motif, a la Clue – that being said, the rules are different enough that I don’t really know what’s going on. Well, besides the fact that the guys are apparently rapping on top of Michael Jackson sound samples and remixes of 1950’s American Television.

Really, I’m not making that up. You can see below. This was uploaded on NicoNicoDouga seemingly last night – 22 minutes of gameplay of the third episode. No more has been uploaded yet. Will it be uploaded? Do I WANT it uploaded? I don’t know. This game just scares me now.

子供調査団Mighty Pockets 調査３（の初め）

Satellaview Emulation – SNES9Xpp XE is SWEET.

For a long, long time now, I’ve been wondering by the BS F-Zero ROMs have a notable emulation issue where you can’t clear a lap.

Well, I finally found an emulator where this doesn’t happen! Behold! Xpp XE. I don’t know much on it – it’s apparently Japanese in origin and based of the “SNES9XWXE” I may have mentioned before, but it’s newer (well, 2004, but still), and better!

To set it up, mark your “Save” directory and make a folder called “BIOS” there. Take the (headerless) “BS-X” ROM, name it to “bsxbios.bin” and put it in that directory. Now set up a “BSXPSRM” directory and leave it blank.

Then load the beauty. You’ll kick into the BIOs – showing the emulator obviously use a hack-ish method to load the ROMs. You have to load Soundlink games as though they were downloads!

Still. It’s worth it. Just for this. Watch me crash and die, folks!