A Satellaview research blog.

“Check” it Out: For July 4th, The Real American Wai to Release a ROM… “English, mutha*****, we speak it!”

EDIT: Correction on something near the bottom of the page. “Pro Mahjong Kiwame” was listed as a redump. It turns out, the 8M pack version was not dumped before. It matches retail. The original text has not been changed since re-formatting the article to accomodate this info would be a bit a pain.

For America’s Independence Day, we are celebrating by releasing new ROM dumps alongside their already-complete English translations!
This ROM release comes with a writeup by NewsFedora.
(Preface by Cabbusses)

Today we bring you something that is both new but still familiar: two more dumps of WaiWai Check and another installment of Tamori no Picross.

If you’ve not played WaiWai Check before, these are simple minigames that were broadcast pretty regularly early in the Satellaview’s life. Essentially they’re “spot the difference” games, with each week’s broadcast featuring two different stages to choose from.

We’ve had a few of these dumped in the past and while you don’t NEED to know Japanese to play these, rom hacker Krokodyl has released English translation patches of the three previously dumped WaWai games for added convenience:
WaiWai Kids (https://krokodyl.github.io/post/2023/07/waiwai-kids/),
WaiWai Check 11/15 (https://krokodyl.github.io/post/2023/07/waiwai-check-11-15/) and
WaiWai Check 03/21 (https://krokodyl.github.io/post/2023/07/waiwai-check-3-21/)

Today’s release features two more installments of WaiWai Check and perhaps in a first, we are also simultaneously releasing English translation patches, courtesy Krokodyl!

(Video embed by Cabbusses)

The first dump, WaiWai Check 8/26, also features a 9/6 broadcast of Tamori no Picross.

Wait. Actually, if I may just take a brief detour from the WaiWai Check talk, this dump of Tamori no Picross is also quite notable: while it’s a rebroadcast, it appears to be of a previously unknown and undumped episode that dates to 5/10. If that’s accurate, then that means it was first broadcast only a few weeks after Satellaview’s launch of April 23, 1995! We know there’s at least one more still-undumped episode of Picross, which was part of that April 23 launch-day lineup. But still, finding another episode that’s nearly as old — even if it’s a rebroadcast — gives me hope we can one day find that very first Picross installment.

Ok, now back to WaiWai Check. I believe this is also the oldest WaiWai Check dump we’ve found so far, and features a different title screen compared to later WaiWai Checks.

The first stage features Satellaview mascots Satebo and Parabo. You get a special message if you clear 10 rounds.


The second stage is for an RPG-ish looking level called Blunder Town, which we’ve seen previously in the WaiWai Check 11/15 episode. Krokodyl notes over on his translation github that there are some differences between this episode of WaiWai Check compared to others, as well as secret button combinations needed to access different rounds of Blunder Town.
[As of present, the nature of why these secret codes are needed to progress through this version’s Blunder Town is a mystery, and may need Soundlink audio archival from an earlier date than anything that has been uploaded prior for the context. In the meantime, the codes are on Krokodyle’s site. ~ Cabbusses]

The next dump and translation we have for you today is WaiWai Check 11/22, and it features the title screen seen in the previously dumped 11/15 and 03/21 weeks.
[This dump is credited to danyl. ~ Cabbusses]

The first stage is… Blunder Town. Again.

But on the plus side, the second is a new stage, this time called “Taisho Roman”.

One more noteworthy thing about WaiWai Check 11/22 is that a version of this broadcast has already been dumped and been in circulation for years… but nobody ever noticed it!

This game was present in No-Intro’s “Undake 30 Same Game Daisakusen – Mario Version (Japan)” but had been deleted. It was fully recoverable however, and now with this new dump we can verify that it is identical, with just the name and date being different. As a bonus and for completionist’s sake, we’re including that original No-Intro rom along with its recovered 11/22 WaiWai Check for you all.

Thanks so much to anon for dumping Tamori no Picross 9/6 and WaiWai Check 8/26, Danyl for dumping WaWai Check 11/22, and Krokodyl for translating both WaiWai Checks. Be sure to check out Kroko’s github for the patches as well as more information about playing these games.


タモリのピクロス 9/6 + ワイワイチェック 8/26
Tamori no Picross (9/6) + WaiWai Check (8/26)
Download (contains original 8M dump and split ROMs)

ワイワイチェック 11/22

WaiWai Check 11/22 Saihousou (11/24) from Undake30 dump

WaiWai Check 11/22 (danyl’s redump)

(Kroko’s translation patch links:
https://krokodyl.github.io/post/2024/03/waiwai-check-8-26/ and
https://krokodyl.github.io/post/2024/03/waiwai-check-11-22/)

We’ve got much, much more on the horizon, so stick around, it’s about to get busy up in here.

BONUS: I’m putting up some assorted redumps.
Most of these are probably not important to anyone outside people wanting dumps to be double-verified, but they may still be useful for research of dates of broadcast.

BS Fire Emblem Dai-3-wa 10/18
BS Marvelous Time Athletic Dai-4-shuu
Cock-A-Doodle-Doo 8/10
BS-X Shooting 7/26
Zooto Mahjong
Sutte Hakkun Event Version 4/10
Nintama Rantarou 2 3/22
Pro Mahjong Kiwame
MARIA – Part 1 1/25
Zelda no Densetsu : Kamigami no Triforce