Alright, I got to post on my birthday!
So, for this ROM release… I wanted it to be something special. HOWEVER… I needed to do a lot of research first.
So let me build up to what I am aware of.
According to God-Bird.net, a magazine called “Ranking Magazine” ran from June 29, 1996 up until a undetermined (but likely 1998) ending date.
ランキングマガジン
放送期間 （遅くとも）1996年6月29日～
解説 詳細不明
—
Ranking Magazine
Broadcast period (latest info) 1996/6/29 –
Explanation Details unknown
。
Although it says this, there are other sections on the site which seem to have references to other ranking magazines.
4ステージをクリアすると成績がパスワードで表示され、それをハガキで送ることで応募できる。番組「マリオの森～ランキングマガジン」内で順位が発表され、上位には賞品も出された。ランキングイベント第一弾は5月19日、第二弾は7月20日から行われた。
—
After clearing the four stages, your score will be displayed with a password, and you can apply by sending it by postcard. The rankings were announced on the program “Mario no Mori ~ Ranking Magazine”, and prizes were awarded to the top players. The first ranking event was held on May 19th, and the second on July 20th.
Hmm, come to think of it, I think I saw that on kukun kun’s videos!
Yes… um… It was about an hour and 22 minutes into this video.
This doesn’t seem to match up exactly with the info supplied by God-Bird but it is nevertheless the evidence of regularly-distributed ranking magazines for various Satellaview Events.
Notably, this mentions not just Wario, but also WaiWai De Q and Panel De Pon. Something about BS Zelda as well.
Man, this is difficult to dig through with the hours of archival video kukun kun has, but nevertheless! It looks like these were regularly distributed.
With that established, let’s move forward!
Be sure to have the sound ON when watching this!
One of these has been recovered, and… this particular one is a real doozy!
Even compared to what kukun kun caught on video, it feels SPECIAL.
A few things to go over, but the most important thing is… the synthesized voice audio! Yes, I mean, I didn’t even know that was even possible on a Super Famicom before this point! Absolutely mind-blowing! Every person who ranked in BS Super Mario Collection got the honor of having a voiced shoutout long before the days when people paid Twitch streamers for basically the same thing!
Ah, yes, I did say this was for BS Super Mario Collection, right?
Besides the winner announcements, there’s also articles with art from the game that is higher-res than what would come from dumping the actual game ROMs!
This is also one of the first magazines we got which has many user-submitted fanart pieces!
…. WHY IS CARBUNCLE FROM PUYO PUYO THERE?
Besides BS Super Mario Collection, there are also sections for Satella-Q and Zenkoku baken ōja kettei-sen 2 (To newbies: Satella-Q was the regular quiz game series. The latter thing was a Soundlink Derby Stallion 96 event which a ROM dump for one episode was obtained of way back.)
Adding to the distinctness of this program are these idle animations for the bottom box, with Satebo and Parabo!
Do note that since this was recovered from a 8M with deleted data, the ROM may not be pure. There are no obvious bugs.
ランマガ３月号
らんきんぐ まがじん ３月号
Ranking Magazine – 3 Tsuki-gou
Ranking Magazine – March Issue
ROM download
The reason I tried to get all this research down on this before releasing is because I had some concerns about the theoretical privacy risk of a computerized voice shouting the aliases of names.
That said, my policy so far – and I intend to stick by it – has been “If it was broadcast publicly, it’s fair game.”
There’s no signs that this was a personalized copy (And I doubt the owner would have deleted the ROM like it was trash if there was a strong connection there!)
Therefore, as soon as I cross-checked and verified that similar types of magazines were on kukun kun’s videoes, I decided to post it here.
I hope you all enjoy the findings!
I’d LOVE to see the voice generation reverse-engineered and used in homebrew games!
