Category: History

This is LuigiBlood. One day after Did You Know Gaming’s video about the Satellaview, which I do recommend a watch (but also definitely read the corrections in the comments because there were a few things I was bothered with), we were offered the first dump of BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 Week 1!

We partnered with the people who made BS F-Zero Deluxe to ensure the legitimacy of the data as well as additional analysis, and of course, updating BS F-Zero Deluxe as well, and yes, this person who dumped it received the bounty prize money ($2500 per week found) that was offered a while back. Unfortunately, this data does not contain the Week 2 data, which means we only get Forest I and Forest II. Who knows what would be the undertaking for Forest III and Metal Fort I and II. The bounty prize for Week 2 ($2500) is still up for grabs, so if you find it, definitely go to us and we’ll talk (see at the bottom for more information).

I also would like to take this moment to talk about what BS F-Zero is truly about. It’s not just bringing F-Zero to Satellaview, and as you may possibly know, it was also a soundlink game, making the use of the radio audio broadcast as you play the game.

It was an attempt to provide competitive gameplay, particularly focused on time attack, while having live commentary, giving precise information on how to be even more efficient on the track within a limited time, with even a demo example of how to play the track right before training and then Grand Prix. The machines are also different from the original game, which were in BS F-Zero Grand Prix 1 already, with their own stats, differing from the original game.

Two months before BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2’s premiere broadcast, a Practice version was broadcasted to be played as much as you wanted, with the 4 new tracks from previously broadcasted BS F-Zero Grand Prix 1 in one place, alongside the brand new Mute City IV. This was dumped and redumped so many times. If you played F-Zero 99 not too long ago, those are the same tracks as the newly added Ace League in that game, and honestly a major thing that happened with Satellaview content officially from Nintendo, worldwide this time, which is insane. Here’s hoping for more in the future.

But as I said earlier, BS F-Zero Grand Prix is not really just about the new tracks and new machines. They had ghost data from the staff to run against, while live commenters give you tips and tricks on how to beat them as you play, and in this installment, one of the commenters is Barbie Suzuki, which we believe is actually Toshiaki Suzuki, the director of this game, but also many other Satellaview projects and more. In response to the first Grand Prix, they tried to make it easier for new players, with Forest I for example, where the track is very simple and easy to manuver in. The ghost data for this one is even played by Bucky Koba, one of the commenters, who wasn’t necessarily a good player.

It is more experimental than you think it is, and a stark contrast from games like BS Legend of Zelda which used the soundlink audio more to bring more of a story mood on top of the game. Excitebike Bun Bun Mario Battle tried a similar thing too, a focus on competitive time attack, but BS F-Zero is more about to learn how to play, maybe trying to give everyone sort of an even playing field. Who knows if Nintendo tried to do a huge eSports-like focus on this one, but the potential presence of actual game staff on this one would definitely elevate this a little bit further. Remember this is Satellaview, everyone is playing at the same time as everyone else on their own system.

Danyl gave the broadcasts list of BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2:

1997/08/10～1997/08/16（第１週, Week 1）、1997/08/17～1997/08/23（第２週, Week 2）
1997/10/12～1997/10/18（第１週, Week 1）、1997/10/19～1997/10/25（第２週, Week 2）

The fact that until now, all we had was all 4 weeks of BS F-Zero Grand Prix 1 and the Practice version of BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 is just kind of insane. The hopes were so lost that we got the amazing recreation based on the uploads from VHS footage in BS F-Zero Deluxe. This is not the first time this kind of work has been done, the work done to make BS Legend of Zelda Ancient Stone Tablets playable is a similar kind of deal, where data was simply missing and had to recreated from footage.

In fact, if you miss it, you can find another blog post that contains a comparison between the recreation and original data here, you would be impressed:

BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 Week 1 – Reconstructed VS Original Data comparison

So, here it is; first the regular Satellaview dump, then GuyPerfect also made a standalone mod, that can be played no matter the setting, so you can just fast forward however you like.

And of course, BS F-Zero Deluxe has been updated to make use of the data of the new dump!

BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 – Dai-1-shuu (8/10)
ROM Download

BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 – Dai-1-shuu (Standalone Mod Pre-patched)
ROM Download

BS F-Zero Grand Prix 1 & 2 – Standalone Mod Patch v1.0
Patch Download Page

BS F-Zero Deluxe v1.1
Patch Download Page

A huge thanks to the anonymous benefactor for providing this dump, as well as GuyPerfect, Porthor and PowerPanda from BS F-Zero Deluxe team to help make this release possible.

But I want to take this opportunity to also talk about Satellaview preservation: It is hard, and quite frankly and I want to stress this part: very expensive.
It is not necessarily fun to get through Memory Packs, especially since BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 would actually not be visible in menus.
This is the kind of stuff you would only know if you dump the memory of it and not really before. Then count the fact that we release them in the wild, which is almost like throwing money away. There is a possibility that we would never be able to preserve BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 Week 2. We dumped an not insignificant amount of Memory Packs to get this one, up to several hundreds. We got some nice stuff on the way to this one, but nothing that would necessarily bring as much attention as this one.

And, yes, I’ll repeat, the bounty prize ($2500) for Week 2 is still up for grabs! The person behind the dump for Week 1 has received the prize for that one. It’s real serious, if you needed some reassurance about that.
Just to really make sure: Finding BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 Week 2 requires dumping regardless, soundlink games do NOT show up on the menu normally. Those BS-X menu screenshots earlier are from a hacked version of BS-X that removes protection that prevents those from showing up, but the data is still in the Memory Pack as is.

(That all said, if you have other stuff to share, we can talk too.)