A Satellaview research blog.

The next Fire Emblem game to recreate the BS Fire Emblem chapters? (UPDATED with Official Site info)

Man, I skip going to SerenesForest for like 10 days and I miss -everything-, don’t I?

They’ve recently updated their site with this page!

Apparently info on the next DS entry for Fire Emblem is out. It is a remake of the first SNES Game entry, Monshou no Nazo. One of the motable changes, however, is the addition of the female mercenary from BS Fire Emblem, and the assurance that one of the “Extras” for the game is, in fact, the ability to play the BS Fire Emblem story!

This could be quite a bombshell if true – it’s the 15th Anniversary of the Satellaview’s release, and what better way to celebrate it than Nintendo finally acknowledging that the add-on existed!

I’m waiting for more info on this one! 😀

UPDATE:

Nintendo’s official webpage on the new game has updated with the BS Fire Emblem info.


NicoNicoDouga plays Koi ha Balance.

I put up a short video of Koi ha Balance before, but this series of videos played by people who can actually read the game’s dang text is probably much better than mine.
As per what was not my usual method of writing this up but probably should be, NicoNicoDouga links first, then hit “Click here for more” to watch my reuploads:

恋はバランス　たとえばＫ君の多忙な一日編
恋はバランス　たとえばＫ君の多忙な一日編 その1
恋はバランス　たとえばＫ君の多忙な一日編 その2
恋はバランス　たとえばＫ君の多忙な一日編 その3

Read More…Read More…

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*

Just how difficult is getting new stuff? A sorta-personal story.

To make up for the lack of updates on the latter half of May, I’ll tell a bit of a tale about it!

Y’see, on eBay there was this auction for a Satellaview 8M Pack – why, this one, in fact;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360253372584&ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:US:1123

I decided that, in the name of the research Callis and I do, I should try another 8M Pack purchase with my own money (Callis was bidding on other things at the time), and thus, you see, I snag the auction.
One thing that should be obvious but I’ll reiterate anyway, and one of the major problems with trying to snag Satellaview material – purchasing 8M Packs is a lot like gambling. Most of these carts are untested, and you literally have no idea if there’s any data in them at all until you either boot it in BS-X or ROM-dump the data inside. Of course, if by some chance the data IS identified, it probably wouldn’t even be selling on eBay – rather at YJA for a hefty pricetag.

So anyway, yeah, I order this pack

Of course, in typical “internet tragedy story” fashion, I spend the rest of the month waiting for it, because USPS pulled some BS on me (Pun entirely intentional) and had it sitting in their office for half a month without sending me a notice.
After a trip and a polite explaining to them of the going-ons, I get my memory pack, and put it in the BS-X set Callis gave me.
In typical “internet tragedy story” fashion yet again, it’s merely RPG Tsukuru 2 Data. Now, for reference, I currently have no research on how to tell a “Homemade” RPG Tsukuru 2 data from anything that was downloaded from St.GIGA’s servers, so it’s theoretically possible I still have something interesting. Theoretically.
It ain’t anything nearly as funky as a Kirby no Omachahako or Tamori no Picross, though, that’s for sure.
And so, there goes 60 bucks I could’ve spent on current-gen gaming instead. Aw, well!

In the meantime, other interesting things have happened – in particular, one memory pack on Yahoo Japan Auctions was listed as one with UNDAKE30 Same Game Daisakusen Mario Version, which solidifed something I all but confirmed before. Now, if only I could get archives of the UNDAKE30 Radio show…

Rom Release Rushing will continue at some point in this month, but I want to write some actual articles in the meantime, somehow.


Rom Release Rush Tsuu

Oh, after finding this one, that pun just could not be avoided…

“Puyo Puyo Tsuu BS Ban”.
When Callis first handed me this ROM, neither of us were sure how it was different from the standard game. As it turns out, it appears to be a demo – my gameplay and these translations provided by Sonic Retro forum member Insalubrious support the idea;


Puyo Puyo Tsuu Test Version
Choose how you want to play.
#1: Play alone (right side is computer)
#2: Play with two people

(Header) Please select the rules
(Bottom) Normal rules

(Bottom) Cannot play

(Bottom) Erase 6


Another thing of note is that Callis told me that, with this ROM header date and his info on the release of the cartridge version, that this was likely broadcast on the week of the download in 1995. After all, no sense in waiting a year to release a demo, eh?

Anyway, download time!


Puyo Puyo Tsuu BS Ban | ぷよぷよ通ＢＳ版
ROM Download

And now back to your regularly scheduled magazines…

Oh, yay! Is that some Famitsu I see there?
Dated 4/27, this Famitsu “Karara Ban” issue (whatsits?) covers such things as…


Tamagotchi!
And…

Game Boy Pockets…. I think. It could be Game Boy Light, but… yeah.


A lot of this is vaguely similar to the Famitsu listing that is on the SFC Mania Blog.



BS Famitsu Magazine Karara Ban 4/27 | BS ファミ通マガジン かわら版 4/27号
ROM Download

(PS. Excuse the Famitsu ROM’s name. Callis gave that one and I’m being a lazy bum right now.)

ROM Release Rush, featuring Tamori no Picross.

Hey folks. Today I plan to put out a few more ROMs than usual.

Most of these ROMs are apparently Magazines based on the Satellaview’s radio content, but I’ll start with one that’s a game rather than just a magazine..

Tamori no Picross is, from what I can understand, a long series of weekly installments of Picross puzzles. According to the Japanese Wikipedia, it was broadcast to coincide with a radio show called 『サバチーチカレッジ タモロス博士のサンデーゼミナール』 (“Sunday Seminar with Dr. Tamorosu Sabachichikarejji”).
The header has a specific broadcast date of June 13th in the title of the game, whereas the download was, IIRC, just a few days later.

As you can see, the one in this ROM has a lot of resemblance to “Mario no Super Picross”. However, it doesn’t look a thing like the one featured in the ads, which was much closer to the original/first season of the program. Did the game somehow “Change format” at some point? I may never know without finding a premire ROM, but… aw, well.

Tamori no Picross 6/13 | タモリのピクロス 6/13
ROM DL

The second ROM…

When I initially found this, I was hoping it’d be the elusive Soundlink game “Bakusho Mondai no Totsugeki! Star Pirates”. Instead, I seem to have obtained something else with their name tagged on it.

“Bakusho Mondai no Shirikon Chounaikai” is apparently a magazine meant to have articles based on the radio show of the same name which was also on the Satellaview…

Stuff like… Star Wars parodies. Very odd.

Bakusho Mondai apparently described the show themselves on their website.



Bakusho Mondai no Shirikon Chounaikai 6/22 | 爆笑問題のシリコン町内会 6/22
ROM DL

And last one for now…

Yuuki Nae no Ge-mu no Tsubo. Yuuki’s name is one I keep seeing repeatedly throughout the Satellaview’s history. This particular magazine seems to be about… I dunno. But it’s probably also related to her other stuff.

…. It’s got some REALLY FUCKED UP PICTURES.



Yuuki Nae no Ge-mu no Tsubo | 裕木奈江のGE-MUの壷
ROM DL

Expect some more soon!

Internals of a BS-X Cartridge.

Actually posting this because it seems the ZSNES forum is down and so I can’t track these down there. I believe posted there was also a picture of the Satellaview base’s internals, but I seemingly lost track of it. Blast!

BS-X Internals 1
BS-X Internals 2

I’m not nearly as technically knowledged on these kind of things as Callis, d4s, and many other 16-bit experts are, but I’d like to believe whatever info I supply on here is as good as their word anyhow. ^^;

Of note are two chips in the back, the “4M PSRAM” chip and the “256K SRAM” chip.
I forgot how much of this is speculation and how much of it is actually tested/verified, but the 4M PSRAM is believed to be the extra memory space the Satellaview uses, where many key “Portions” of Soundlink Game content disappeared to – including that BS Fire Emblem CG Art and BS Zelda: Inishie no Sekiban dungeon tiles. As far as I know, there are no PSRAM dumps going around.

The “256K SRAM”… I’m guessing this is the standard SRAM with more traditional “Game save” content. I do know that many BS-X Cartridges going around, even today, have save data about the world of BS-X inside them. This data has the ability to store things such as the last season the BS-X was played in as well as various seemingly-BS-X-related “items” you can use in the item menu.
I’ve wanted to see some of these SRAMs dumped so I could investigate this a bit more deeply, but there does not seem to be any BS-X SRAM dumping tools around. Rather unfortunate. 🙁

Since I can’t think of a good way to close this post, here’s a picture of the internals of an 8M Memory Pack which I wandered across on Google Image search.